Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (15 page)

During the first class, she gave us a list of supplies, and I had to convince Mami the expense was necessary, that makeup was a real course in which I'd be graded. She frowned at the brushes and pencils, sponges, puffs, powders, and creams that cost more than what she put on her face. But she never said I couldn't have it.

Mrs. Bank moved us quickly through the rudiments of stage makeup. We began with techniques to enhance our natural features. Boys as well as girls were taught to apply foundation, lip liner, cheek color, and mascara. We were encouraged to study our faces, to learn their contours, to examine the shapes that made up our appearance, to look at ourselves not as who we were, but as who we could become.

To this end, we were taught to alter our features. Through skillful use of highlights and shadows, we learned to narrow a
broad nose and to flatten a pointy one. Eyes could be made larger, lips fuller, flat cheekbones rounded, high foreheads lowered.

I loved the class because I could apply as much makeup as I wanted and Mami couldn't complain, since I told her it was my homework to practice. I spent hours in front of the mirror making myself up to look innocent, sultry, elegant, Chinese. One of the assignments was to bring in a picture of an animal and to recreate the animal's features on our own face. At home, I made myself up as a tiger, a camel, an orangutan, then chased my sisters and brothers around the apartment, making the appropriate animal sounds, until Mami or Tata put an end to my grunts and their screams.

One of the last assignments of the semester was to make ourselves up as old people.

“Follow the natural contours of your face,” Mrs. Bank instructed. “Darken the creases from your nostrils to your lips. Highlight along the edges to deepen them.”

Most of us were fifteen or sixteen years old, and finding wrinkles on our faces was difficult, not because they weren't there but because we didn't want them to be.

“If you pucker your lips like this, then draw lines where the puckers are, you'll get some interesting wrinkles.”

We followed her instructions, giggling as our faces aged under puffs and brushes.

“Most people have lines around their eyes,” she pointed out. “Don't forget your neck and hands, they age too.”

We drew liver spots on the backs of our hands. We powdered our hair to make it white. Jay applied a wart to his cheek. Elaine practiced a quiver in her voice to go with her frail, old-lady face.

At the end of the class, when Mrs. Bank asked us to evaluate the work we'd done, I looked closely at my wrinkled cheeks, at the curious eyes inside deep circles, and burst into tears.

“What's the matter?” Mrs. Bank, asked, alarmed.

“I'm an old lady,” I whined in what I thought was a playful manner, to cover up my embarrassment.

Mrs. Bank smiled. “Not quite, not yet. Lucky for you, it disappears with Albolene cream.”

“That's good,” I giggled listlessly, “I'm too young to be old.”

She moved on. I faced the mirror again and saw my grandmother, Abuela, whom I hadn't seen in three years. But if I turned to the left, there was Tata, the grandmother I lived with. It was frightening to see them both stare at me from my own face. Abuela's sad eyes, Tata's sensual mouth, Abuela's small nose, Tata's intelligent gaze. But I wouldn't admit that to Mrs. Bank or to the other students who laughed at my fear of growing old. Let them think what they will. They will never know, they can't ever understand, who I really am.

I had a secret life, one not shared with my sister, with whom I shared a bed. Or with my classmates, with whom I shared dreams of fame and fortune. Not with my mother, whose dreams were on hold since Francisco's death. My secret life was in my head, lived at night before I fell asleep, when I became someone else.

In my secret life I wasn't Esmeralda Santiago, not Negi, not a scared Puerto Rican girl, but a confident, powerful woman whose name changed as I tried to form the perfect me. Esme, I was once. Emmé, another time. Emeraude, my French class name. I tried Shirley, Sheila, Lenore, but names not based on my own didn't sound quite right. So I was Emma, Ralda, or just plain E.

In these dreams I had no family—no mother or father, no sisters or brothers, no grandmothers, no wrestling cousins, no drunk uncles, no deaf mutes. I was alone, sprung from an unnameable darkness, with no attachments, no loyalties, no responsibilities. I was educated, successful, professional. Whatever I did, I did well, with no false steps, no errors, no embarrassing mistakes that caused others to judge or to laugh at me.

I was the pilot of my own plane and flew around the world,
and everywhere I went people were happy to see me and no one asked where I was from. I was a movie star, and my character never died. I was a scientist, surrounded by test tubes and beakers, bunsen burners hissing blue flames as I received the Nobel Prize.

In my secret life I drove a convertible, and my house at the end of a long, sinuous driveway overlooked miles of green, rolling hills where it never snowed. I lived alone in my hilltop house, surrounded by books that I didn't have to return to the library. And every room was tidy, though I never cleaned.

In my secret life I wasn't Puerto Rican. I wasn't American. I wasn't anything. I spoke every language in the world, so I was never confused about what people said and could be understood by everyone. My skin was no particular color, so I didn't stand out as black, white, or brown.

I lived this secret life every night as I dozed into sleep, and every morning I resisted opening my eyes to the narrow bed in the narrow room I shared with Delsa, my chest tight with surprise and disappointment that it was all a dream.

“Eee, eee, eee, eee.” I enunciated the vowels as Dr. Dycke, the head of the drama department, instructed. “Ay, ay, ay, ay. Eee, eee, eee, eee.”

Raymond peeked around the door jamb. “What you doin'?”

“Practicing. Eee, ay, eee, ay, eee.”

“Why?”

“So I can learn to speak English without an accent.”

“Oh.” He went away.

“Eee, eee, ay, ay, eee, eee, ay, ay.”

A few minutes later Edna appeared at the door. “What you doin'?”

“Practicing. Eee. Eee. Eee.”

“Practicing what?”

“Ask Raymond!” I closed the door on her face. “Ay. Ay. Ay.
Oo. Oo. Oo.” The door opened. “Gettata here!” I screamed, then, “Oh, it's you.”

“I have to find something,” Delsa pointed at the dresser.

I backed up to let her through. “Eeu. Oo. Eeu. Oo. Ay.”

“What
are
you doing?” She pulled a clean shirt from the drawer.

“That's it,” I pushed her into the front room. “Everybody here!” I shouted. “Hector! Norma! Mami! Tata!”

“What do you want?” Norma called from the back of the apartment.

Mami appeared from the kitchen. “What's all the yelling?”

“I want everyone here, so I can say this once.”

“Say what?” Raymond asked.

“Norma! Hector! Alicia! Get over here!”

“Quiet,” Mami snapped. “Franky's sleeping.”

“Hold on. I'm not as fast as I used to be.” Tata shuffled toward the front room.

As everyone settled on the beds, the floor, the sofa, I began. “I have a class called voice and diction where I'm learning to talk without an accent.”

“Why? Don't you want to sound Puerto Rican?” Hector smirked.

“Let her speak,” Tata said.

“It's part of my schoolwork,” I pierced Hector with a look.

“It sounded like you were imitating animals,” Edna scoffed, and everyone laughed.

“Ha, ha, very funny.” Unsmiling, I waited for them to settle. “I have to practice, and I can't have you interrupt me every five seconds to ask what I'm doing. So if you hear any weird sounds coming from the room, I'm doing my homework. Okay?”

“Is this what the yelling was about?” Mami asked.

“Yes. The kids were bothering me.” I glared at Edna, Raymond, and Delsa. They looked at Mami, who stared at me hard. For a minute, she seemed about to scold me for making a big fuss out of nothing. But she turned to the kids.

“Let your sister be when she's doing her homework,” she warned.

“It sounds like a zoo in there,” Norma protested.

“Go to the other side of the apartment when she's practicing.”

I backed into the bedroom, followed by Norma's “But it's not fair.”

It wasn't. Since I'd started Performing Arts High School, Mami favored me. If I was reading and complained that the television was too loud, she made the kids turn it down. If I wanted to go to bed early, everyone was moved to the kitchen, where they could make a racket and I wouldn't hear. If I brought home a list of school supplies, Mami didn't say we had no money. She gave me enough to buy them or she'd get them for me without complaints about the cost. I knew how hard she worked to support us, so I didn't abuse her. But I felt guilty that so much of what little we had was spent on me. And I dreaded the price.

“I live for my children,” Mami asserted. I was certain that no matter how hard I worked, I'd never be able to repay all she'd given up so that I could have what I needed.

Mami had dropped out of elementary school and didn't let us forget what a mistake she had made by not pursuing an education. While she never complained that we were a burden, her voice quivered when she told us it was hard to be both mother and father to eight children. Although she never talked about them, she must have had dreams once, but I was born, and every year after that, when one of my sisters or brothers was born, those dreams ebbed further and further as she focused on making sure we had dreams of our own.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she'd ask.

“A doctor,” Delsa answered. She had high marks in school, better than mine, especially in math and science. And it was more likely that she'd be a doctor than that I'd ever be a good actress.

“A race car driver,” Hector announced, his eyes bright, his hands around an invisible steering wheel. At eleven years old, Hector already worked at the pizzeria next door. Every few days
he brought home a couple of pizzas with plenty of sausages and pepperoni that Gino, the owner, gave him for us.

“Your son is a good worker,” Gino told Mami, “You raised him right.” Mami beamed at the compliment, and Hector worked harder, and at the end of the week he gave Mami most of what he'd earned.

“And you, Raymond,” Mami urged, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A policeman,” responded Raymond. “And I'll give you a ticket if you drive fast on my street,” he warned Hector. Raymond's foot, after three years of treatments, had healed, his limp gone. It was easy to imagine him in uniform, strutting down a street, looking for bad guys.

“I'll have my own beauty parlor,” Alicia declared. At nine, Alicia already knew how to form her thick, black, wavy hair into many styles by skillful use of brush, comb, and bobby pins. “And I'll give you a permanent for free!”

Edna, who spent hours drawing curvaceous women in bizarre outfits added, “I'm going to have a dress store. And you can get all the clothes you want. For free!”

“Wow! I'm going to be a rich old woman,” Mami laughed, and we giggled at the image of Mami being old. It was impossible to imagine she'd ever look any different than she looked then, her black hair tousled, the curls hugging her freckled cheeks.

When we talked like this, Don Julio and Tata watched with bemused expressions, as if they could see into the future and knew what our lives would really be like. They, unlike Mami, were old, and even through the haze of cigarettes that surrounded them and the slurred speech after too much beer or wine, they seemed wise in a way Mami didn't.