Chapter 19
For the next two weeks I didn’t say more than a few words to Lilly. We’d go to work at the hotel, eat dinner at the same table, watch TV on the same couch and all the while I’d pretend not to see her.
“Mariana, want to go into Old San Juan? We can sightsee, go to El Morro,” Lilly would suggest.
“Nope,” I’d reply curtly.
“Want to go out to dinner tonight? I can take you to some of the cool local places.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Maybe we could go to the beach? I have a friend who can get us into The Ritz-Carlton’s beach.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
Every time I rejected her plans, she was forced to stay home. It was clear from the glaring looks of her mother that Lilly was not allowed to go out without me. And I had to hand it to the girl, she was trying her hardest to persuade me to leave the house. She must have suggested everything from a road trip to the El Yunque Rain Forest to bingo at the local church to get my butt in gear. But I had no intention of appeasing her. I was perfectly content to stay home and read a book from the library or sit at the Internet café chatting with my girlfriends. Lilly, however, was not so content, and I loved watching her squirm as her mother forced Quinceañera plans down her throat.
Last night, they actually spent an hour sifting through photos of what looked like Barbie dolls dressed in Quinceañera dresses. Apparently the doll was to be presented during the reception to symbolize the perfection of the day, which would have been sweet if the entire concept didn’t make Lilly want to poke needles in her eyes. The party was in less than a week, and unbeknownst to Lilly, I spent almost every afternoon lately poring over party details in the kitchen with her mom while Lilly was stripping beds at the hotel.
Angelica had taken quite a liking to me and was pulling me out of work as much as Uncle Miguel would permit. We got along great with the exception of our significantly dense language barrier and our drastically different tastes in fashion. I was never into clothes or makeup, but I didn’t live in a bubble. I knew what was in style. I just preferred my baggy clothes and undyed hair, but that didn’t mean my jeans weren’t expensive and that my shampoo wasn’t from a salon. Angelica, however, was a “more is more” kind of woman. Her hair was bleached blond and shellacked into a low ponytail that looked almost painful. Her faced was covered in countless layers of colorful makeup that implied electric blue eyeliner was still all the rage in Utuado. Her tops were tight and all her pants were at least two inches too short.
So when it came to selecting matching jewelry for Lilly’s Quinceañera dress, we crashed heads immediately. She actually wanted Lilly to wear yellow gold. It was as if the woman was trapped in a time warp. No one’s worn yellow gold in at least a decade unless it was intentionally kitschy. Just the thought of clashing yellow gold against a pale pink dress would have given Madison night sweats. Of course, I couldn’t actually say any of this. I couldn’t really say much of anything in Spanish, except for “no, no, no.”
I knew Angelica couldn’t afford any high-priced bling (she was sewing Lilly’s dress herself), but that didn’t mean we had to sacrifice good taste. With enough care I was able to point her toward some delicate pieces that would complement the dress and not look cheap.When we finally settled on the white gold locket, I thought I was going to tear with joy.
The only Quinceañera aspect I didn’t touch was the menu. My Aunt Carmen seemed to have that taken care of. She was actually going to cook for all one hundred and twenty-two guests herself, with no catering staff. I didn’t even think that was humanly possible. And from the way she was frantically running around the house these past few days, I was wondering if it really was.
None of this changed the fact that I was still mad at Lilly for talking behind my back. I wasn’t doing any of this for her. I was doing it for Madison. If I couldn’t partake in her Sweet Sixteen planning extravaganza, I could at least commiserate by sharing party details of my own. Madison loved hearing all about the tiaras and the “court.” Lilly had fourteen friends participating in her celebration, which was apparently typical for Quinceañeras, but I still found it a little excessive (even for a bridal party). Angelica assured me that the number was supposed to be symbolic with Lilly being the “fifteenth” member of the court. But still, I wouldn’t want a bunch of acquaintance-friends to share in my day just to bulk up the numbers.
Regardless, neither Vince nor Lilly knew I was doing any of this. I told them I was “helping around the house” every time I left work, not that Vince would have noticed.
He quickly made his own way in the world as “Vicente,” with no need for me or Lilly. He was going out every night (with no effect on Lilly’s homebound status), hanging mostly with Lilly’s dad, Juan, our cousin Alonzo, and their friends. He’d slug beers and pretend he understood what they were saying (he was Vicente, after all). For a kid with only two years of Spanish under his belt, he was learning the language rather quickly. At the hotel the other day, I heard him give a guest directions to a local restaurant. His grammar wasn’t perfect, but he got his point across. I found it annoying.
On the fifteenth day of my Lilly boycott, Angelica was busy finishing “the dress.” The party was in two days and Lilly was refusing to be fitted. She told her mom to just sew it and put it on a hanger. She’d put it on the day-of. She didn’t care. This clearly sent her mother into a panic-stricken frenzy and left me stuck behind the hotel’s front desk for the day.We had only four guests, and they were all out. So I snatched my dust rag and swept it over the desk for the tenth time. I refused to skip out of work early, even though I knew that’s what Lilly and Vince wanted. Despite all the effort I was putting into her party, I still hadn’t forgiven her for saying I was “uptight” and ruining her summer. At the very least, she should apologize.
“You know, there’s a theater in San Juan that plays movies that aren’t dubbed in Spanish. Wanna go? There’s a listing in the paper. I could go get it if you want.”
Vince, who was sitting on his usual stool watching Spanish soaps, quickly turned toward me, his eyebrows raised. My glance shot between the two of them. I blew a puff of air from my cheeks and tilted my head.
“I don’t like movies,” I snipped.
Vince immediately jumped from his stool, charged toward me and grabbed my arm. He dragged me by my arm from the lobby into the bar, and pushed me toward a wooden stool.
“Sit!” he ordered.
“What’s with you?” I asked, rubbing my arm as I perched my butt on the ripped leather cushion.
“What’s with me? What’s with you?” Vince tossed his hands in the air.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” I defended, still rubbing my arm and refusing to look up at him.
“You are? Then why won’t you hang out with Lilly?”
“Maybe I don’t want to.” I looked up and cocked my head to the side.
“Mariana, you’re acting like a three-year-old.This isn’t like you. What the heck do you have against Lilly? She’s trying to be nice to you.”
“Yeah, sure she is. And exactly how nice is she behind my back?” I asked, shaking my head and tossing my auburn hair over my shoulder.
“What are you talking about?” Vince took a few steps back.
“Vince, I heard you guys come home the night of that party. I heard you talking outside the door about how I’m ‘uptight’ and ‘stubborn’ and how she has to be friends with me because her parents are forcing her. She’s not being nice, she just doesn’t want to be grounded.” I spat out the words.
“She is nice and you would know that if you hung out with her. Maybe if you started acting like yourself, like a normal person, you guys could actually be friends.”
“How can I be friends with someone who would trash me behind my back, to my own brother, after knowing me for less than a day?”
“I wasn’t trashing you,” Lilly stated as she walked into the bar.
Her voice was calm and her posture perfect as she glided over. Her ease shocked me. Here she was, walking into an argument, an argument about her, and she seemed completely unfazed. She even looked confident.
She stopped a few feet in front of me and sucked in a long breath.
“When my parents found out you guys were coming, of course they wanted me to be friends with you both. It makes sense, we all live in the same house, we’re all close to the same age.”
“Lilly, I heard you. This nice routine of yours is just an act so you don’t end up grounded like you said.”
“Well, maybe if you loosened up, maybe if for once you actually tried to have fun, you’d find out that Puerto Rico, Utuado, the place I live, doesn’t suck all that much.”
“I never said it sucked,” I mumbled.
And it was true, I hadn’t—but I had thought it. It suddenly struck me how offended I’d be if some stranger visited me and criticized Spring Mills after just a few days.
“You didn’t have to,” Lilly shot back, running her hand through her auburn hair. “It’s all over your face every time you look around our house or talk about your friends from home. So my family’s not rich, and my Quinceañera isn’t going to be this big blow-out like the Sweet Sixteen you’re missing ‘back in Spring Mills.’ But that doesn’t mean we’re losers.”
“I don’t think that. I don’t.”
I looked at Lilly for several moments, saying nothing.
“So, whatever, can we, like, end this? All be friends now?” Vince asked.
What a typical guy. Everything was so simple to him. Guys fought, made up, moved on. Sometimes I envied the simplicity in which they lived.
Lilly and I stood in silence.
“So, can we get out of here? Go to the beach or something ?” Vince asked, looking at me with hope in his eyes.
“Fine,” I said, nodding. “But I want to stop at the Internet café first.”
“Mariana!” Vince cried.
“What? I want to check my e-mail. Madison’s party is tomorrow. I’m sorry, but it’s her birthday and it’s important to me.”
“Errr,” he growled, rolling his eyes.
“Whatever, it’s fine,” Lilly stated.
I followed them out of the hotel moments later, my laptop bag on my shoulder. We weren’t exactly the three musketeers, but it was the first time the three of us had ever left work together. The first time we’d ever done anything together.