Feliz Navidad. Cinco de Mayo. Día de Los Muertos. The morning feels like a bundling together of excitement from all the holidays of the year. Luz buries her face in her pillow, hearing movement in the kitchen, not wanting to get up and face this special day.
The phone rings. She can hear her mother’s muffled voice speaking in the living room. Her father is walking back and forth down the hallway from the kitchen to their bedroom, checking with her mother. Is this the right shirt? The right tie? Where are my black socks? Did you get my suit from the cleaners? I was supposed to! ¡Híjole! Are they open on Sunday?
Her eight-year-old brother opens the door and gropes in front of him with one hand holding his pajama bottoms tight. “One more door,” she tells him. With eyes still shut, he stumbles out, one hand outstretched in front of him, and she hears him opening the bathroom door.
Her sister burrows deeper into her bed, but soon the smell of fresh tortillas and barbacoa rouses her to lift her head from the pillow. “Why is everybody up?” She squints in her sister’s direction. “Oh yeah. Your day.” She drops back onto her pillow.
Luz smiles. Her day. The day she has been looking forward to for two weeks now. The day she thought would never get here. Now that it has, she isn’t so sure she is glad. The day she will compete. Compete and win. Or compete and lose. Her stomach twists. She grips the sheet and the spasm passes.
She and her family drove by the auditorium. The place looked huge. Bigger than she had thought. Her stomach twists again.
She doesn’t want to think about how one of her friends, Ana, almost ruined her chances of going. Her stomach cramps and she runs for the bathroom. She holds herself over the toilet bowl as a flood of mess erupts from her.
Hearing the commotion, her mother rushes in and rubs her back. After her daughter is done, she wipes Luz’s face with a wet cloth. “Nervous stomach?”
Luz shakes her head, noticing that her mother has already fixed her brown eyes with make-up and her black hair is pulled back with a handpainted, wooden hair comb.
Mrs. Ríos smiles as she sits on the edge of the tub. “I remember one time when…”
“Mamá, please, no when-I-was-your-age stories ahorita.”
Rosaura Ríos notes the bit of green in her daughter’s usually milk chocolate complexion and decides the story isn’t that important anyway. She hugs her daughter, feeling the smallness of Luz’s fourteen-year-old body with her arm, the throbbing of Luz’s heart under her hand, and strokes her sleep-mussed black hair.
Luz leans against her mother, feeling secure for the moment, and asks, “Do I have to go?”
Rosaura smiles into her daughter’s hair. “No.”
Luz pulls back and looks at her mother. “Very funny. Ha, ha.” She crosses her eyes.
“Your father went out early this morning and got you your favorite breakfast.”
At the mention of food, Luz leans over the toilet again. But everything remains where it belongs.
“Brush your teeth and come into the kitchen. I’ll wake your sleepy sister.”
In the kitchen, a stack of hot corn tortillas towers beside a foil-covered dish full of barbacoa which sits in the middle of the table. Luz plops herself in her usual place. Her father exchanges knock-knock jokes with her brother, and her mother feeds the baby. Her abuelita hustles from one end of the kitchen to the other, preparing food for the big party after the competition. Her sister, Justina, stares at her plate with eyebrows arched high, attempting to keep her eyelids open.
There is a knock on the back door. Tía Gloria, her mother’s sister-in-law, hobbles in. She takes the chair Rosaura offers and hands her the crutches. “Gracias, Rosaura.” Grey-streaked hair, Tía Gloria lost one leg from below the knee to diabetes. “You must be anxious to get to the competition already, Luz?”
Luz covers her mouth with her hand.
All morning long, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends of Luz’s father at work, friends of her mother and artists her mother knows come by to wish Luz luck. The competition is at three that afternoon and everyone promises to be there. Luz thinks, maybe it’s a good thing that the auditorium is so big.
Luz approaches her abuelita while the rest of the family is fighting over the bathroom. “Abuelita, have you thought about it?” She has convinced herself that if she can wear her grandmother’s hat, the contest will go her way.
Aura’s long braid hangs down her back from underneath a black felt reservation hat with a beaded hatband. Her face sorts into a questioning gaze, the thousands of wrinkles crossing each other in a maze pattern. She is covering dishes with foil as she looks down at her granddaughter. “Thought about what?” The dream catcher attached to the hatband swings with the movement.
“Can I wear your hat at the competition? I know it will bring me luck.”
“Ay, mija, I’ve told you, luck you don’t need. You have it all here.” She taps the side of the girl’s head with a finger then places a hand over her heart. “The winning or the losing is not important.”
“That’s what you think.” With arms back, elbows on the counter, Luz slumps, stretching her legs in front of her.
“You will win because you show up. The courage to do the thing is what makes you a winner.”
Luz digs the floor with the toe of her slipper. “You don’t have to show your face at school on Monday.”
Aura strokes her granddaughter’s cheek. “Your face is the face I love to look at on any day.”
There is a knock at the back door. Luz opens it. Rosaura’s best friend, Mrs. Helen Mendoza and her daughter, Sally Jane, enter, arms laden with platters of food. Mrs. Mendoza dons an apron over her white suit and immediately begins to help Aura in the kitchen. Her hair is pulled back into a bun, her face smooth, her smile huge, her eyes soft and pretty with light make-up. Sally Jane quickly slips out to join her friends before her mother can lasso her into a kitchen job.
About noon, Mrs. Manela Cuellar bursts into the house, wearing a purple coat-dress that fits tightly on all the parts that Luz’s mother won’t let her show. Mrs. Marieta Ortiz trails right behind her in a sleeveless, red-and-yellow-flowered dress with a gathered skirt. Both have gigantic totebags hanging off their shoulders. Their daughters, Sofia and Diana, sneak off with Sally Jane to Justina’s bedroom. Luz hears laughter and loud voices in the kitchen as she combs her hair in the bathroom. Laughter and loud voices are a part of being around Mrs. Cuellar and Mrs. Ortíz.
Luz slowly lowers her comb when through the mirror she sees her mother and her mother’s best friends fill the doorway.
Long, red fingernails point at Luz. “Ay, mira, que chula. Rosaura, you can’t expect your daughter to go in front of all those people looking like that?” Mrs. Cuellar waves her hands in front of the other people’s faces in the congested doorway. She has a mask of make-up that is New York model perfect, her smooth skin smoother, her eyes dazzling, her arched brows darker, her full lips mauve. “She’s a beautiful girl. You have to let me expose her inner beauty.”
Mrs. Ortíz nods in agreement. “Rosaura, you want those other girls showing your daughter up?” Her brown eyes are lined and highlighted; her lips are also mauve.
Rosaura sighs, knowing it’s impossible to fight these two when they get an idea into their heads. “I’ll let you do her hair, but no make-up.”
The two women grin.
Rosaura Ríos cocks her head at her best friend. “Manela?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Cuellar sticks her hand up in the air in a solemn pledge.
“Marieta?”
“Wouldn’t hear of it.” Mrs. Ortíz raises her hand too.
Luz sits in front of the mirror Mrs. Ortíz has hauled in from Luz’s mother’s bedroom and that Mrs. Cuellar has propped up on Luz’s desk. Justina, Sofia, Sally Jane and Diana hover in the background, spying on the craft. Luz watches Mrs. Cuellar brush her hair into high fashion curls on top of her head. Rosaura sticks her head in the doorway. “Ay, Manela, she’s only fourteen.”
“Okay, okay.” Mrs. Cuellar lets the hair drop, hitting Luz’s shoulder, curling under. “But I’m just going to pull it off her face a little.”
Rosaura opens her mouth.
“Just enough to show her beautiful face.”
Rosaura shakes her head and retreats to her own bedroom with Helen.
Mrs. Cuellar and Mrs. Ortíz grin at each other. “Now.”
Marieta dumps the big bag she has been carrying onto the top of the desk. What looks like a thousand different colors of lipsticks, fifteen cases of eye shadow in rainbow colors, six eyeliner pencils, five tubes of mascara, four different colors of base, three compacts, two powder puffs, a bag of cotton puffs, and tweezers scatter across the desk. Marieta takes from her bag a hair blower, a curling iron, pink foam rollers, two packages of bobby-pins, one brown, the other black, and three cans of hair spray. She points and says, “Órale, you guys sit on the bed.” The four young girls sit in a row. Marieta smirks. A rare time when orders don’t have to be repeated.
With quick strokes and tongue-pinched-between-lips concentration, Marieta powders, lines, and colors the girls’ faces. She bends and her black hair falls across one cheek, the other side combed behind the ear. “You’re young girls so you don’t need much. But it never hurts to start learning about these things,” says Marieta as she shapes Sofia’s eyebrows with a tiny brow-brush.
Manela smiles in the mirror while she duplicates the effort on Luz. “Of course, it’s always good to help nature. Do you think I wake up looking this beautiful?” She pats her black hair, piled on top of her head with curls falling around her face.
Luz nods.
From behind, Manela hugs her around the shoulders. “Such a child. I have so much to teach you.”
Marieta grins. “Just don’t tell your mother.”
“Ay, I remember that mother of yours,” Manela shakes her head as she wraps a strand of Luz’s hair around the curling iron. “She was a wild one, that’s for sure.”
Justina and Luz swap looks of curiosity. “Like how?” asks Luz.
“She was so popular. Her phone never stopped ringing.”
Marieta adds, “The boys would come up to us but all they wanted was to talk about your mother. Would we introduce them to her? What kind of flowers did she like? What could they do to win her heart?”
“And if one of them was rejected by her or they saw her out with another guy,” Manela nods at Marieta, “which was all the time—they would come running to us. They would cry on our shoulders. Talk about her for hours. Some even threaten to kill themselves if she didn’t go out with them.”
Justina leans forward on the edge of the bed. Marieta gently puts her hand under the girl’s chin and closes her mouth.
Marieta pouts. “We were very depressed. Boys never took us out to be with us. They only took us out because they thought it would get them closer to your mother.”
“If they did take us out, all they did was ask us questions about your mother. We were very lonely.” Manela flourishes the heated curling iron like a sword. Luz ducks.
Marieta lowers her voice. The girls perched on the edge of the bed arch toward her. “I remember at the Senior Prom, my date insisted that we go to all the same places that Rosaura and her date went. It was so embarrassing.” She puts a hand to her heart. “He never even kissed me good night when he dropped me off. He was in too much of a hurry to get back to the car so the other guy wouldn’t be alone with your mother.”
“That’s the truth, because me and my date were following behind them in his car. And I got home late and got into big-time trouble because of your mother.” Manela shakes her head.
Luz turns her head and gapes at Manela. She coughs as she is hit in the face with a shot from the hair-spray. “What did she do?”
Manela twists the girl’s head back facing forward and speaks to her in the mirror. “When her date walked her to her front door, my date parked his car in such a way that his headlights were shining on them. Jump the curb he did. Then he put on the high beams. Your mom and her date were in a spotlight. Like on American Bandstand.”
Justina gulps. “Did she go in the house?”
Marieta laughs. “Nothing stopped your mother. You just wouldn’t believe what she did.”
Through the mirror, Luz shifts her eyes off Manela and pins them on Marieta. “Did she kiss the boy?”
“Nope.”
“Nah. Nothing so simple.” Manela checks the mirror for any lose strands of hair attempting to escape her.
Luz and Justina look at each other. “Then what?” They ask together.
Manela and Marieta grin at each other. “Well, maybe we’ve said too much already.”
“No, no. We won’t tell my mother. I promise.” Luz crosses her heart. Justina does the same.
Manela looks at Marieta. “What do you think?”
“We’ve told them this much. It’s our duty to tell them the rest. They should know the whole story about their mother.”
“All right.” Manela packs her totebag. “Your mother and her boyfriend…”
“Standing right in the spotlight…” stresses Marieta while she loads everything into her totebag.
“Of my boyfriend’s high beams…” Manela taps her chest with the hairbrush.
“Started dancing.”
“Started dancing, and dancing. She danced with her date until my boyfriend’s car battery ran out. I couldn’t get home on time and that’s how your mother got me in trouble on our prom night.”
Marieta checks the final product in the mirror. “We better go get your mother for her approval.”
The two women walk out the bedroom door and stop just on the other side in the hallway.
Justina’s friends start giggling. Luz looks at Justina. “Our mom got phone calls from guys?”
“And candy,” adds Sally Jane.
“Our mom had guys after her?”
“Lots of guys,” stresses Diana.
Together they say, “Our mother danced with a guy?”
“Until dawn,” finishes Sofia.
With wide grins on their faces, Manela and Marieta slap a high five and continue down the hallway.
Luz spins in her full-length slip in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by everyone, while her mother inspects Manela’s handiwork.
“Well, I guess it’s okay. You don’t think she has on too much rouge?”
“Rosaura, she’ll be on stage with all those lights shining on her. You don’t want her looking sickly. Or worse yet, looking too pale.”
The four young girls are giggling and staring at Rosaura.
She ignores them. “Turn around. I want to see the back of your head.”
While twisting around, Luz fastens her eyes on her mother.
“Turn around, mija.”
Sally Jane is whispering into her mother’s ear.
Helen laughs out loud, then unsuccessfully smothers it with a hand.
Manela scowls at Sally Jane. Marieta hushes Helen. The four girls giggle louder.
“Would anybody care to clue me in on what’s happening?” Rosaura searches the faces of everyone in the room.
All the females try to sober their expressions and fail miserably.
Luz touches her mother’s hand. “Is it true that Mrs. Cuellar got into trouble on y’all’s prom night because of you?”
Rosaura shoots Manela a look of remembered mischief. “Girlfriend, what have you been telling the girls?”
With hands up in the air, Manela pleads, “Not me. Marieta told them.”
Rosaura twists around and spears Marieta with a look. “Give it up.”
Marieta shakes her head and can’t speak because she’s laughing so hard.
The young girls watch their elders with disbelief.
Holding her sides, Helen tells her, “Remember the trouble on prom night?”
“Yeah, I was grounded for a month. What of it?”
“So it’s true. You got my mom and their moms in trouble.” Sally Jane is bouncing on one foot she is so excited.
“I got them into trouble.” Rosaura wheels on Manela. “You got me in trouble that night and lots of other nights.” Getting no response, she turns to her daughter, “What did they tell you?”
Luz clicks her mouth shut, then answers. “They said all the boys were after you.”
Justina jumps in. “They said all the boys liked you better.”
Sofia adds, “They told us how all the boys talked just about you.”
Not to be left out, Diana says, “Like how all the boys threatened to kill themselves if you didn’t go out with them.”
Rosaura stares at her girlfriends then breaks out laughing.
Sally Jane, still bouncing, inserts, “How the guys were fighting with each other to be with you.”
Smiling, Rosaura puts her hand on the back of her head and the other on her hip, striking a movie star pose. “Well, that part’s true.”
Helen grins. “Your father is the only guy your mother has ever…”
There is a knock on the door.
Looking away from Helen, Rosaura orders, “Luz, run and get a bathrobe on.”
By the time Luz reenters the kitchen, there is silence. Her mother, Mrs. Cuellar, and Mrs. Ortíz lean against the kitchen counter. Mrs. Mendoza is standing next to the phone. The baby sits on the floor, playing with a rubber hammer. Justina, Sofia, Sally Jane, and Diana cluster together at one end of the table. On the other side of the table, Mrs. Fuentes and Mrs. Tijerina stand beside their granddaughters, Olga and Ana. Luz steps closer to her mother and Rosaura puts her arm on her daughter’s shoulder.
Mrs. Fuentes, who only reaches the height of her granddaughter’s shoulders, says, “We come to tell you something.”
Mrs. Tijerina has her rosary in her hand and every time she moves, it jangles.
Ana clears her throat. “We came to wish you lots of luck.”
Olga stays behind Ana. “We really want you to win today.”
Ana nods. “We really do.”
Manela leans against the kitchen counter. “If you really…”
Rosaura doesn’t even look at her. “Manela, leave it alone. It’s theirs to deal with.”
No one says a word.
Rubén Ríos, Luz’s father, steps into the kitchen. “Hey, is this party ever going to…” He takes in everyone’s expression, does an about-face and flees the room.
Nudged by her grandmother, Olga steps forward. “Luz, I didn’t want you to get hurt. I was afraid of what would happen if you won.”
Manela snorts.
“I’ve talked to my grandmother and she took me to the priest and I talked about it to him. I guess I wanted to win the contest at South San just as much as you did. I just didn’t have the guts you did to go for it. I guess I was too scared to want more. Something like that.”
Aura, Luz’s grandmother, walks into the kitchen. “Amparo. Consuelo. Hasn’t anyone offered you a chair? You would think they were raised with no manners.”
“No, gracias. We only come for a few minutes.” Mrs. Tijerina taps Ana on her arm. “We go now. Let them have the happy time.”
Rosaura reaches out. “Mrs. Tijerina, Mrs. Fuentes, can I offer you something to drink? Some food?”
“No te molestes. Ya nos vamos.”
“Can my husband take you home?”
“Está bien. Ana drive the car de la hermana. Vente Hija.” The two old women turn, heads high and backs proud.
Olga stops at the door and turns back to face them. “Be careful Luz. Those white girls don’t like it.”
Manela can’t restrain herself. “Why should she watch out for them when she got friends like you?”
Luz steps forward. “If they do come after me, I expect you to be covering my back.”
Olga hangs her head. “Thanks. I’ll try.”
Luz says, “No. You will.”
Olga shrugs. “There’s so many of them.”
“You will.”
Olga shrugs and nods at the same time, then turns and leaves.
Rosaura hugs her daughter.
Rubén walks in. “Apurense. Look at the time. You women yaking away, visiting, when we got a deadline to meet.”
Marieta grins. “Just because you’re the man, that makes you the official timekeeper?”
Manela spins him around by the shoulders and nudges him toward the door. “Go, go. Watch your football game or whatever other violent thing is on TV. Let the women handle the important things.”
Rubén swings back around. “That’s why I’m concerned about the time. You women have never been on time for anything in your lives.”
“We’ll show you.” There’s a mad exodus out of the kitchen into the bedrooms with yelling and hollering. “Where’s my dress?” Did anyone see my shoes?” “Who’s been in my bag?”
Rubén winks at his mother-in-law. “Works every time.”
As a family, Rubén, Rosaura, Ramón, Manela, Vicente, Marieta, Helen, Luz, Justina, Sofia, Diana, Sally Jane, Tía Gloria and Aura swarm into the backstage waiting room of the auditorium. Manela grabs the arm of a young man walking by in a dark suit with a name tag. “Who is the person in charge?”
He points to a woman with blonde hair cut short, wearing a pink suit. They shift course. As she spots them, she navigates in their direction with a smile on her face. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you. Your being here early makes it convenient for everyone.”
Rosaura whirls and faces her husband. “You said we were late.”
Rubén grins, holding up his hands. “It worked. We’re on time for once.”
Manela slugs him on his shoulder. “Cabrón.”
The lady in the pink suit searches the faces of the young girls. “Which one is Luz?”
Luz is propelled in front of the family.
Sticking out her hand, the lady says, “Hi. My name is Mrs. Thompson. I’m so glad to meet you. I’m absolutely thrilled that you could be here today. It’s a great honor to be representing your district. I’m sure you will do an outstanding job. You’ll make your school and your family,” she looks up and implies everyone present, “very proud today.”
Mrs. Thompson faces the band of family supporters. “Luz will be fine here. All of you are welcome to go into the auditorium and find your seats. There has been a section reserved for you. If you have any trouble, please notify me and I’ll do whatever I can.”
Rosaura leans forward to kiss her daughter good-bye.
“Mamá, please, not in front of everyone.”
Rosaura pulls back. “Just a peck?”
Luz sighs and nods.
Rosaura hugs her daughter tightly, kisses Luz on the cheek, and wipes her eyes with a lace-edged hanky. Then everyone else in the group comes forward and kisses her. “Slaughter ’em out there,” from Manela. “Remember. You’re a winner,” from Marieta. “No matter what happens, we love you,” from her father. “Turd Face,” from her sister.
Luz is relieved when the last of her family is escorted through the door by the patient Mrs. Thompson. She looks for a seat to wait out the time and she spots her grandmother, standing by herself near the entrance. Luz goes to her. “Abuelita, do you want me to walk you out where the others are?”
Aura swings her gaze back onto her granddaughter. “Everyone here,” she waves her hand at all the contestants in the room, “not one looks as smart as you.”
Luz smiles.
Aura sits down and pulls her granddaughter by the hand to the seat next to her. She studies Luz’s eyes and takes off the black, felt reservation hat. She sets it on her lap.
Luz holds her breath. Maybe her abuelita has changed her mind and is going to let her wear the hat after all.
Aura fiddles with the dome of the hat then reaches toward Luz. Luz looks down and watches as her abuelita pins the dream catcher onto the front of her dress. “All you need is here.” She taps the dream catcher which lays over her heart.
Luz hugs her grandmother. Mrs. Thompson clears her throat. “I’m sorry. No relatives are allowed backstage. May I escort you to your seat?”
Abuelita lets the pretty, pale lady lead her to join her family.
After the introductions, Luz takes her place in front of a microphone among those lined up along the edge of the stage. She scans the audience and her family waves. Manela holds up her hands clenched together over her head in triumph. The commentator asks for silence and begins the competition.
“Miss Ríos, will you please spell ‘fuchsia?’”
Luz looks somberly out into the audience. Her father takes her mother’s hand and grips it tight. Tía Gloria leans over so Sofia can whisper the word the woman couldn’t hear. Aura lowers the black, felt reservation hat over her eyes. Marieta squeezes her handbag. Helen stares at Luz trying to send her the answer telepathically. Manela shimmies to the edge of the seat ready to jump up and protest. Luz looks at her sister and winks. Then she breaks out in the biggest grin ever on a young girl’s face.