CHAPTER NINETEEN

You may not always have a comfortable life, and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once, but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

—MICHELLE OBAMA

I make it all the way back to our room before I remember that Maribel has the key card. Figures.

I slide down the wall and onto the floor. The carpet in the hallway is cranberry-colored, and the walls are drab beige. It’s hard to believe I’m still on the same planet, let alone in the same building, as the purple explosion upstairs in the banquet hall.

Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing. When we fly home tomorrow, Mom and I will still be living in Nana’s house. Dad will still be living someplace else. His truck will still be stuck at the mechanic’s. But maybe Maribel will be on her way to college again. She’s probably giving her speech right now. Unstoppable as always.

But she isn’t giving her speech. She’s on her way down the hall. I’d recognize her quick, sure footsteps anywhere.

“Oh, Geez.” She drops her satchel and slides down next to me. “That was some speech.”

“How did yours go?”

“Oh, they ate it up.”

“Good.”

“Or, at least, they would have if I’d given it. It was a pretty good speech, you know.”

“Mari!” I look up from the carpet to face her. “You didn’t give your speech?”

“I wasn’t going to just let you run off by yourself. I would have been up here sooner if Mary Ellen hadn’t kept me down there to explain what in the world you were talking about.”

“So I ruined it for both of us. Great.”

“Five thousand dollars would have been nice, but I didn’t really want to be the fresh new face of Alma Cosmetics. I mean, did you?”

“No. But now you won’t be able to move out and go to college.”

“I’ll go. Maybe not as soon as I wanted, but I’ll go.”

To anyone else listening, her voice might seem only a little bit quiet, just barely sad. To me, it sounds like something about to crumble. Like a crack spreading across fine porcelain.

But her face is a cool, half-smiling mask.

“So,” she continues. “We’re going to need to do something about Mom’s old curtains. I think I’ve seen enough purple over the past two days to last the rest of my life.”

She pulls her lanyard with her name badge over her head and then takes mine, too.

“Maribel, stop.”

I check my watch.

“You should go back down there. The brunch isn’t over yet. I’m sure Mary Ellen would still let you give your speech. You could still win.”

“Better idea.” She stands up, unlocks the door, and nudges it open with her hip. “Get your coat.”

The elevator doors open up onto the lobby with a friendly ding. Maribel strides out and heads straight for the concierge.

He flashes a smile as cheerful as a field of sunflowers. He’d make a great Alma Cosmetics salesman. “Good morning, ladies. Can I help you arrange a tour? Or maybe you’d like a recommendation for lunch?”

Except for that nibble of blueberry muffin, I haven’t eaten all morning. “Actually, food sounds—”

“No, thanks,” Maribel says. “We already have plans. I just need a couple of these.”

She scans the maps on his desk, grabs two, and spins around toward the hotel’s revolving door.

“But, Maribel, where are we going?”

She doesn’t stop.

I blink as we pass from the soft hotel light out into the bright late-morning glare. The first deep breath of cold air makes me cough, but the breeze against my cheeks is a refreshing change from the stale warmth inside. I flip the collar of my new wool coat up so it covers my neck.

Maribel is already halfway down the block. I see the purple scarf still tied to her bag. I jog after her.

“Maribel, slow down!”

“Walk faster,” she says. “It’s freezing.”

I catch up with her at the corner. While we wait for the signal to change, Maribel unfolds one of the maps, then looks up at the street sign. A double-decker tour bus lumbers past. I pull my hands back into the sleeves of my coat and shiver. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

She folds up the map and tucks it into her makeup bag.

“That’s because it’s a surprise.”

We come to a long carpet of grass stretching left and right in front of us and finally stop for a break. The lawn is yellow and patchy in places, damaged by the winter cold. The trees are still bare, but soon new green leaves will unfurl on their branches. Maribel dodges a soccer ball that comes flying toward us while we wait for our order at a hot dog cart.

At one end of the lawn, the dome of the Capitol Building looms stark white against the blue sky. So far away, it still looks like a picture on a postcard or in one of my schoolbooks. I remember what Mrs. Ramos-McCaffrey said about how our history books are filled with the stories of ordinary people, and I think about how different my story is from what I expected.

After we finish eating, Maribel leads us toward the towering Washington Monument at the other end of the National Mall. Tourists crowd around its base, aiming their cameras up, up, up.

“Is this where you’re taking us?”

We still don’t stop. Maribel walks a little farther down a paved walkway and across a busy street.

“Now can you tell me where we’re going?”

“Geez, you don’t give up, do you? Relax. We’re almost there.”

Finally, she stops. We are near the edge of what appears to be a lake. Maribel looks around. She scrunches up her nose and takes a pamphlet out of her bag.

She glances down at the pamphlet, then out at the dirt.

“It should be right here.”

“What should be right here?”

“Something called the Floral Library.”

I look harder and can just make out the edges of flower beds.

“There’s supposed to be ‘ten thousand tulip bulbs to fill the library’s ninety-three beds,’” Maribel reads. “I saw the brochure when we were waiting for the keys to our hotel room. I thought, if we had time, you would want to see it, but…”

“But tulips don’t bloom until spring!” I burst into laughter. “This pile of dirt? That’s the big surprise?”

“Oh. Geez!” Maribel shouts. A man in an olive National Park Service uniform turns around and looks at us. She lowers her voice. “I don’t mean you, Geez. I mean, geez, I didn’t think anything else could possibly go wrong today.”

I cannot stop giggling. “You thought there would be tulips? In February?”

She’s shaking her head, but she has started laughing, too. She socks me playfully on the shoulder.

“Quit laughing. You’re the garden expert, not me.”

“No kidding.” I snatch the brochure from her hand. “Let me see that.”

The Floral Library—also known as the Tulip Library—was created in 1969 as part of Lady Bird Johnson’s Capital Beautification Project. Each fall, National Park Service gardeners plant 10,000 tulip bulbs to fill the library’s 93 beds.

Under the words is a picture of Lady Bird Johnson. She has one foot on the ground and one resting on top of the blade of a shovel, about to plunge it into the dirt. She isn’t wearing her yellow ballgown, but work clothes. Gardening clothes: a cowboy hat and checkered shirt, the kind Nana wears all the time.

I fold the brochure and put it in my coat pocket. It’s more than just a pile of dirt. So much more. The beds in front of us only look empty because the flowers are still hidden underground. I can imagine them blooming, pink and yellow and orange and red. Already, the green tips of a few eager shoots are sprouting up from the soil. Ten thousand bulbs. Year after year, someone has to kneel down on the ground, dig into the dirt, and replant them, trusting that after every winter, the flowers will come back. Not exactly the way they were before, but still beautiful.

“I’m so sorry, Griselda.”

I like the sound of my name when she says it. A fighter.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad we came.”

There is a mirror hanging in the hotel lobby, and I catch our reflection as we walk past on our way to the elevators. We definitely don’t look like the fresh new faces of anything. Maribel is carrying her shoes after kicking them off the second we stepped through the revolving doors. My shoes are damp and even grayer than they were this morning. Our cheeks are pink and our hair is frizzy.

I remember the mirrors in Tía Carla’s salon. How if you stand in just the right spot, you can see a dozen different versions of yourself staring back. But what version will I see the next time I’m there?

The version of me who lived in my old house is gone. And so is the version who couldn’t do anything on her own—not even let herself out of a bathroom stall.

But the version who can plant beautiful things and make them grow is still here.

When we get to our hotel room, we find a gift basket wrapped in cellophane and topped with a satin bow. Taped to the front is a little envelope with my name on it.

“Who’s it from?” Maribel asks.

“Don’t know.”

Inside the envelope is a notecard with a bouquet of violets printed on the front and in gold letters along the bottom, The Soul of Beauty.

I open the card and read it aloud.

Dear Miss Griselda Zaragoza,

We truly appreciate the talent, hard work, and dedication you put into Alma’s Fresh New Face Challenge. Although you were not selected as the Fresh New Face of Alma Cosmetics, we are proud of your accomplishments and you should be, too. We hope you will consider opportunities with Alma as you continue to pursue your goals.

Please accept this gift as a token of our friendship.

At the bottom of the card, in curling handwritten letters, is written Wishing you a beautiful future. Yours sincerely, Mary Ellen Bloomer.

“I guess that makes it official. I lost.” I lift up the basket to take it to my bed. Underneath is an envelope for Maribel.

“Hey, they left something for you, too.”

“But no gift basket. I guess you had to actually give your speech to get one of those.”

“Don’t you want to see what it says?”

“Why not?” She tears open the envelope. I watch her face as she reads.

Eyebrows wrinkle. Eyes widen. A gasp.

She flips over the letter to see if there’s anything on the back. The other side is blank, so she flips it back over and reads again.

“Oh, my gosh.”

“What is it?”

“Is this for real?”

“Maribel. Tell me.”

She reads: “‘Dear Miss Maribel Zaragoza,’ blah, blah, blah, you didn’t win the contest, fresh new face, etcetera. Okay. Here’s the good part: ‘We at Alma Cosmetics believe that opportunity is the seed of success. Based on your tenacity and entrepreneurial spirit, we are pleased to offer you an academic scholarship, renewable annually for as long as you are a full-time student in good standing at an institution of higher education.’”

It’s not the grand prize, but I know what a scholarship means: maybe a new way for Maribel.

“Is it enough? Does this mean you get to go?”

“With what I’ve saved so far? I’m a lot closer than I was before.”

I make her read it again. The words sound like magic. They sparkle. They sound like Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After all swirled together.

“You should call Mom. And Dad.”

“In a minute. Hey, Geez?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” She holds the letter over her heart. Her eyes glisten, and I think she might cry. But she’s still Maribel. She blinks once and it’s gone. “Now, are you going to open that basket or what? Seriously, you’re worse than Nana.”

I untie the ribbon and peel apart the cellophane.

The basket holds dozens of Alma samples: moisturizer, lipstick, eye shadow, blush. It reminds me of a piñata from the birthday parties we used to have in our old backyard—and even more so when Maribel turns the basket upside down and dumps it out onto her bed.

She picks out a moss-green eye shadow. “Ah,” she says. “Close your eyes, and in no time, Alma will have you looking as wicked as a witch.” She pops open the little container. I scoot over to let her brush the makeup over my eyelids.

“I feel more wicked already.” I flutter my eyes. Then I dig through the pile of samples and pull out a shimmery bronzer. “Your turn.” Maribel leans in. “Just a little bit of this, and you’ll be as dazzling as a disco ball.”