Cuba 15 Read online

The four adults headed for the back porch, Abuelo stopping to pull two cigars from the fridge. Mark pushed up from the table and ran.

  I had just finished my workbook assignment for Spanish class when Dad knocked his brisk domino knock on my door and walked in.

  I put down my pencil. “What happened to you?”

  “Kicked out of the game for cheating,” he said, with a hint of a grin. “No, I’m working the early shift tomorrow, and I want to get some reading done. So I thought I’d say good night.” He sat down on my bed and crossed his legs in their burnt-orange polyester slacks, with no intention of leaving. Sometimes when Dad wants to talk, you have to worm it out of him.

  I took the bait. “What is it you’re reading?”

  “¡Ay, caramba! Your abuela thinks I should read up on this quinceañero business. And since I’ll be paying for it . . . I thought I should see if there’s a financial section. A big party is a big expense, and . . .”

  I narrowed my eyes. Dad was never this talkative about money. “You’ll have lots of help paying for it,” I said. “Dad, how come you act like you don’t know about the quinces? You must’ve gone to some, growing up in the old neighborhood, or when you lived in Miami.”

  He gave me the same goofy smile he’d used on his friend Rudi earlier. “I wouldn’t do it,” he admitted. “Some of the kids I ran around with thought it was—afeminado—to be in a court. To have to dress up in a monkey suit, and learn all those silly dances . . . we just wanted to be Americans, to drive around in cars and be cool.”

  “And you still can’t dance to this day.”

  He threw me a look of mock hurt. “I can dance the macarena!”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him how uncool the macarena was.

  “But your friend Rudi—he did go to the parties, didn’t he?”

  Dad ducked his head. “Well, yes, apparently so.”

  Aha!

  “And you’re jealous of your old pal for knowing more about your own daughter’s quince than you do!”

  Dad’s face sort of melted then, his features becoming fluid in a way that signaled my cross-examination had worked. I thought about what I had just said. “That’s okay, Dad,” I soothed him. “I’d never even heard about this quince thing before Abuela brought it up. I don’t know any more than you do, other than what I’ve read in this book.” I patted the copy of Quinceañero for the Gringo Dummy on my desk.

  “Er, that’s what I’ve come to ask you, Violet. Can I borrow that book for a day or two?”

  Oh no you don’t, I thought. The book was the only thing that stood between me and complete chaos. “Why don’t you just ask Abuela if you have questions?”

  He stood to leave and growled, “She’s the one who told me to go read the book! Said if I wasn’t paying attention to the world around me when I was growing up, well, it wasn’t her fault.”

  We both gave fractured smiles.

  “So can I borrow it, please?” Dad asked. “I’ll make it worth your while.” He pulled a cassette tape from the pocket of his shirt and tossed it on the bed. It was his favorite Women in Blues compilation tape, the one with Koko Taylor singing “Hound Dog” on it. I’d been begging him to make me a copy of it forever.

  I handed over the book. “Deal.”

  10

  The quince bible was making the rounds. “Listen, listen. Get this,” Leda said to Janell and me a few days later. She sprawled on my bed in jeans and a tank top that said HERBIVORE on it, paging through the manual. “After the opening dance number by the court comes the presentation—when the quince-babe makes her entrance. That’s you, Violet,” she reminded me, as if I needed it. “Followed directly by the waltz with the father.”

  I grimaced.

  She quoted from the book: “ ‘The presentation shows the passage from the girl onto a woman.’ ”

  Janell hooted. “Sounds suggestive.”

  “It says that different countries have different customs. In Puerto Rico and Mexico the quince-chick makes her entrance and sits on a throne, where one of her parents changes her shoes from flats to heels. You don’t even own a pair of heels, do you?”

  “Dad says they’re bad for your feet.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Janell. “So are toe shoes.” She sat on my floor in tan leggings and an orange T-shirt, stretching. “What’s wrong with dressing up every once in a while?”

  My face colored. “Sometimes you just have to make your own style,” I said. Thank God for Mom’s common-sense approach to fashion.

  “Listen, listen,” Leda interrupted, and read aloud: “ ‘Cuban quinceañeros lies somewhere in between the myth and the legend. Girls has been presented in giant silver teacups, in swings lowered from the ceiling, and on an Egyptian litter carried by bearers in costume.’ ” She turned her blue eyes pleadingly on me. “Dude . . . can we?”

  “I’m not that much of a ham. Besides, the theme’s not Egyptian.”

  “ ‘All the World’s a Stage,’ ” said Janell. “I like it. So, the presentation has to be dramatic.”

  “Hey! I know. You could descend from a spiral staircase in one of those vamp outfits,” suggested Leda.

  The thought made me squeamish. “That’ll all be taken care of.” I waved a hand to dismiss the subject. “We’re going to a party planner who will design the whole event. We’ll have rehearsals and everything. There are supposed to be some dances. I’ll let you guys know when the parts have been figured out.”

  “But we’ll definitely perform, right?” asked Leda. “One of the big production numbers or something?” She was that big of a ham.

  “This isn’t a Broadway show,” I said.

  Janell looked at me like lightning had just struck. “But it could be. It could be,” she said excitedly. “We could give performances instead of going through those old-fashioned routines. I could give my poetry interpretation and do one of the jazz numbers from last year’s recital. Then Leda could do”— she gazed at our friend quizzically—“whatever it is that Leda is doing, and you could be the star attraction.”

  Leda leaned forward, intrigued.

  “It sounds like fun, but there are these traditions—”

  Leda jabbed a finger at the book. “But it says right here that you can throw tradition in the toilet and flush hard, if you want.”

  Janell nodded. “Yeah, why should you follow a tradition that doesn’t reflect who you are? You’ve already decided on an all-girl court. Why can’t you take that a step farther?”

  I shook my head. “All-girl courts have been done. You don’t understand, Abuela has already made the appointment with Señora Flora. Party planner to the ehstars.”

  “Party planner to the stars?” crowed Leda.

  I wasn’t sure I believed this anymore, but I said, “It’ll be easier this way. Less decisions. Less arguments.”

  They looked at me. “Between them, not us,” Janell concluded.

  It appeared that I was going to have to please everybody. “Look,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, you guys are the most important ones in this production. Well, besides my dad. And me.”

  “Yeah, and you,” echoed Leda with a note of jealousy.

  “Honest. I’ll take any suggestions that you have and refer them to the committee. You guys are my damas. They’ll have to listen to you.” I folded my arms.

  This seemed to satisfy them for the time being. Janell turned to a stack of poetry books she’d brought with her, and Leda and I quizzed each other on Spanish vocabulary for a while. We seemed to do more harm than good.

  “Window?” Leda asked.

  “Ventana,” I answered.

  “No, that’s French. The español is fenêtre. ”

  “No, it’s not,” I argued. “Fenêtre is French.”

  She looked at me, confused. “What is it again?”

  By the time we’d both made it through the list, I knew we were doomed. The test was tomorrow.

  Janell got fed up with our bickering. “Why don’t you just ask
your dad to coach you?” she asked me.

  This hadn’t even occurred to me. “We don’t . . . speak Spanish together,” I said. “Mom says she can’t help because she learned by ear. And Abuela tried to teach me and Mark one time, but it didn’t work out.”

  “So what happened?” asked Janell.

  “Not much. Before Abuela and Abuelo moved back to Miami, Abuela brought some Spanish workbooks over. She tried to hold a little class. ‘Es una lástima,’ she said, ‘que no hablan el español.’ Mark and I didn’t pay much attention. It was the weekend, and we wanted to be playing.” I sighed. “I guess I’ll just have to study some more tonight.”

  Leda stuck her notebook back in her rainbow-colored backpack. “Aren’t we gonna look at Janell’s stuff?”

  “Sure. What’ve you got so far?” I said, moving over to Janell’s spot on the floor. Leda joined us.

  “Well, I’ve got it narrowed down to Maya Angelou and Alice Walker, but I need one more poet. And a theme. I’m supposed to pick several poems that demonstrate one concept.”

  “Who’s your coach?” Leda asked.

  “I’ve got Ms. Joyner.”

  “I’ve got that new guy, Mr. Soloman,” I put in. “Who’s your coach, Leed?”

  “Mr. Axelrod,” she said casually.

  “No way!” said Janell, catching my eye. How did Leda do it? I shrugged.

  Leda tucked stray strands of her long white-gold hair behind her ears. “Yeah, well, Rick doesn’t usually coach Oratory, but he said he had an opening for a sophomore.”

  Rick? This was too much. “I’m going to tell him that you’re only fourteen!” I threatened. “That you’re a sophomore in name only. You should still be buying elevator passes and paying cafeteria tolls with the freshmen.”

  Leda stuck her tongue out at me. “I got here fair and square,” she sassed. “I can’t help it if I’m gifted.”

  “We’ll see how gifted you are when the competition starts,” Janell said, stuffing her books in her dance bag. “I’m going to go get in some horn practice before dinner.” She got up. “You guys have been a real big help. Looks like I’ve got some more reading to do before I can pick my routine.” She looked at us sympathetically. “I’m glad I don’t have to write it.”

  “Hey, are you coming over this weekend?” I asked. It was party time at the Paz house. Abuela and Abuelo had invited all their old friends over for a domino marathon. Dad was moving the extra back-porch furniture out to the garage to make way for more playing tables, and Mom was already cooking. People would come and go all weekend, and the domino matches would never end.

  “Can’t,” said Janell. “We’re visiting my cousins in Kankakee.”

  “I’ll be there for some of it,” said Leda. “I can practice my Spanish on your relatives. But on both days we’re collecting donations for a homeless shelter. Beth signed us up for six suburbs. I’ll probably still be out there Sunday night, canvassing in one of those coal miner’s hats with a flashlight on it, trying to make quota!”

  “Jeez,” I said. “I thought they were going to lay off.”

  She shuddered. “Speech team can’t start soon enough for me.”

  “First tournament’s in three weeks,” I said. “Hang in there.”

  11

  Señora Wong impaled us with the vocab test. She made us fill in the blanks in a paragraph with nouns we were supposed to know, and write out complete sentences using forms of suddenly unfamiliar verbs. Howls of anguish erupted when kids saw that memorizing the word list wasn’t going to cut it.

  “We are supposed to be learning to ehspeak el español ,” said the ruthless Señora Doble-U, who claimed to have learned the language as an exchange student in Mexico. “Do you expect el presidente de España to fax you the vocabulary for your interview when you are big reporteros for the Tribune?” This class was beginning to sound like my house.

  Afterward, a solemn Leda low-fived me on the way out the door, wishing me a bueno jour.

  Things improved later in the day in Ms. Joyner’s class, as usual, when we got to watch a video of Richard Nixon’s famous televised “Checkers” speech. Checkers was this cocker spaniel that some dude in Texas sent Nixon, and Nixon’s kids fell in love with the dog. In answer to rumors of a campaign slush fund and in the interest of full disclosure, “Tricky Dicky” informed the American people that, concerning Checkers, “regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.”

  I sort of liked the guy for that, until he came to the end of his speech. He said that no matter what people said about him, he was going to keep fighting, “until we drive the crooks and Communists . . . out of Washington.” Like he should talk.

  I knew that Cuba had been forced into Communist rule when Fidel Castro took over. Now, it seemed, there was Communism where, before, there had been people. I couldn’t connect the two. To me, Communism was this mean junkyard dog I’d never had any personal quarrel with but that had bitten others one too many times. It was the reason I’d never seen the town in Cuba where my dad was born; that was the only bone I had to pick with it. Say the word at home, though, and I’d get an earful about socialismo in Spanish or the Russian occupation of Poland in English, depending on which parent was around. Mom and Dad seemed to share Nixon’s view: all Commies are bad.

  But maybe not all of them believed in the government. Probably only some did, and the rest just had to pretend. I bet that’s hard.

  The unstable horizontal hold on the video chopped Nixon’s fuzzy outline into a dozen pieces. “Can you believe how crappy TV reception was back then?” Janell whispered.

  I nodded soberly, as though I’d been tracking it since. “I don’t think cable would’ve saved him, though.”

  Afterward, Ms. Joyner launched into a soliloquy about the power of persuasive speech that was quite convincing in itself. She persuaded me that maybe I could somehow persuade Señora Wong to let me take the vocabulary test over again. I might invite her to the domino party this weekend, let her win a few dimes. Let her take Chucho home, like some Cuban “Checkers” bribe.

  But there were pitfalls to persuasion. “Look what happened to Socrates,” Ms. Joyner pointed out. Socrates was forced to drink a cup of poison hemlock when his speeches threatened to put his fellow philosophers out of business.

  Hmmm. Perhaps I would leave Señora Wong alone and my Spanish grade up to fate.

  Later that day, after classes, I headed for the speech office in C building to keep my appointment with Mr. Soloman. I felt sorry for kids who had lockers in this wing; they were always having to run to class. They hung around leisurely now after the last bell, savoring the moment, chattering and shouting and slamming metal doors. My eyes brushed over them like a minesweeper, searching for The Ax so he couldn’t sneak up on me. But neither he nor Mr. Soloman was at large in the halls or the speech office, which was empty, the door invitingly ajar.

  I walked in. The only chair-desks had been pushed down the corridor, so I sat at Mr. Axelrod’s desk and let my pack slide to the floor at my feet. I also let my guard down a hair.

  The Ax kept a tidy desk, everything arranged carefully on one of those big square blotter things for writing. He could’ve made it through the express lane at the supermarket with eight items or less: one half-empty plastic bottle of springwater, capped; stack of permission slips for some speech-related trip, signed; felt pen, capped; magnetic paper-clip holder, full; stapler, probably ditto; calendar set made of plastic cubes you had to turn to the right date, today showing; and a five-by-seven photograph of a dark-haired, alabaster-skinned woman, laughing, in a simple, chrome-plate frame: the mysterious Mrs. Ax, killed, so they say, in a car accident the night after their wedding.

  She looked so alive in the photo.

  The bottom desk drawer was open a crack, so I pushed it closed, then, curious, opened it again. A stack of yellowed Variety newspapers. A beat-up Our Town script. I pushed these aside and spied an envelope marked LETTERS in a strong, gruff hand.

&nbs
p; Letters? From his wife?

  Then a strong, gruff voice shook me. “Ms. Paz!”

  I froze in horror—The Ax himself loomed over me, dressed for a funeral.

  He gazed from my stunned face to the open drawer, dark eyes full of thunder and lightning. “How dare you go through my personal things! Do I need to call security?”

  I shook my head mutely.

  He frowned, hands on hips. “I don’t want to see you in this office alone again.” When I didn’t respond, he whispered with finality, “Go on! Get out of my sight!”

  I slunk to the floor, grabbed my pack, and oozed out the door, the lowest slime on the face of the earth.

  “Violet!” Mr. Soloman hurried down the hall, recognizing me despite my ectoplasmic state. “Sorry I’m late. Musical classrooms. Let’s see if Room 206 is free.”

  My life—from tragedy to comedy, like the Janus masks. Was there nothing in between?

  There was. Mr. Soloman showed me a videotape of some very unfunny original comedy, several losing routines from a few years back.

  “The performers shall remain nameless,” he announced with tact, settling into the student desk next to me. “I just want you to learn from their mistakes. Now, forget about the delivery and concentrate on how the sketches are written.”

  Onscreen, a tall boy in a suit and tie droned on about a marine expedition to find the elusive “sea ostrich.” I giggled once, when he first gave an odd rooster-sounding call to summon the bird, but by the fifteenth bellow I felt nauseated.

  “Pretty awful, huh?” said Mr. Soloman, nodding. He stopped the tape with the remote. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

  We both agreed that the repetitive crowing overshadowed anything that might have been funny about the piece.

  “Which parts do you think could have been funny?” he pressed.

  “Well, maybe if he had used the characters’ own words, instead of just narrating, telling us blah blah blah, here’s how we caught the sea ostrich. Who cares?”

  Mr. Soloman threw me a grin and said, “Exactly! You have just asked the fundamental question of all great writing: Who cares?” He plugged in another video. “That is your job—to make the audience care. Once they care, you’ve got them in the palm of your hand. You can make them laugh, cry, or wet themselves.”