Delia’s Crossing (25 page)

“I haven’t used it yet. The first time was supposed to be with you-know-who, but he wasn’t as interested in me as he was in you.” Thinking about Bradley brought the rage back into her face. She put her diaphragm away, slamming the drawer closed, and fell back on her bed.

“I’ve got a headache,” she said. “I ate too much.” She leaned on her elbow and looked at me. “Don’t you eat too much ever?”

“
Sí,
” I said. “When
mi abuela
Anabela makes her chocolate
mole
chicken. She makes the best guacamole and the best burritos. I work with her in the kitchen. She has taught me many things her mother taught her.”

It looked as if hearing about my good family memories made her angry, so I stopped.

“You obviously miss her. Why did you leave her if you miss her so much?”

“She wanted me to come here. She is ninety years old and was afraid for me.”

“If she was afraid for you, she shouldn’t have sent you here,” Sophia said, lying back again. “Look at what’s happened to you so far. I bet you haven’t told her anything. I bet if she knew, she would just die.”

I did not reply. She closed her eyes and mumbled something under her breath. I sat there thinking and looking at her, waiting for her to say something else, but she didn’t. When I stood up, I saw she had fallen asleep. Quietly, I went to the door, opened it, looked back at her, and left to go to my own bedroom and think about all she had said. She had thrown my mind into a whirlpool of terrible thoughts.

Could I be pregnant? Would Tía Isabela send me back to Mexico like that, and would that break Abuela Anabela’s heart? What should I do about seeing Edward naked on the bed? Should I tell Tía Isabela? Would Sophia tell her, and then would she know I had seen it, too, and not said anything?

I was in such turmoil I didn’t think I would fall asleep, but somehow I did. I woke during the night and thought someone was in my room, standing by my door. It turned out to be just a shadow, but it put another shiver in my heart. I had a nightmare about it in which the ghost of Señor Dallas came to see me. He was very upset about both of his children but especially Sophia. He wanted me to help her, but he also warned me to be wary of her.

She did not come to breakfast as she had said she would. In fact, I did not see her until nearly one o’clock. Apparently, Jesse had stayed the night with Edward. In the morning after breakfast, he took Edward for a walk. I was afraid to speak to either of them and just watched them from a window in the living room as they strolled about the grounds. Edward still had his eyes bandaged. Jesse held Edward’s arm and guided him. They looked inseparable but also a little sad to me.

After I had some lunch, I went to my room to think about my preparations for the fiesta. Sophia came in, apologizing for not getting up earlier.

“I had a terrible headache this morning,” she said, rubbing her forehead to illustrate. “I didn’t think I’d ever get up. Did you take in the dress I gave you? Is it ready? The dress, the dress,” she repeated when I didn’t respond quickly enough.

“Sí, bueno.”

“Good. I can’t wait to see it on you. What time is Ignacio coming for you?”

“He comes at three.”

“Three! There’s not much time. Come on to my room. I’ll work on your hair at my vanity table, and we’ll experiment with some makeup, eye shadow, and lipstick. You can take a shower in my room first, if you want. Well?” she said when I didn’t move.

I started to get up.

“Don’t forget the dress,” she said, “and the shoes and the earrings.”

I gathered it all and followed her to her room, not without trepidation. This would be the first fiesta I had gone to outside my little village in Mexico. I wondered if the people there would be so much different from my people back home that I would feel as if I was with strangers, like a foreigner. Wearing Sophia’s beautiful and expensive dress, putting on makeup, and wearing expensive jewels would perhaps make me look alien, too different. And yet I had nothing good enough from my own wardrobe.

I did not like the way Sophia wanted my makeup, but if I made the smallest complaint or questioned anything, she went into a rage, telling me I was ungrateful and that she was just trying to help me look beautiful.

“You have to look American beautiful,” she said, “not Mexican. You’re my cousin.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I put on the eye shadow, lashes, rouge, and thick red lipstick. We brushed out my hair and had it lie differently from any style I had worn before. Afterward, she was dissatisfied with the way the dress fit me and made me wear one of her older bras, something she said raised my breasts and made my cleavage deeper. It was nearly three by the time we were finished. She said that because I looked so beautiful, she wanted to lend me a shawl for the night hours, when it would be cooler.

Then she and I went downstairs to wait for Ignacio. He called from the box at the gate, and Señora Flores pressed the button to open it for him. She came out to tell us Ignacio had arrived to pick me up. He was right on time. Sophia went with me to the front entrance, and we watched him drive up in his father’s pickup truck. There were still some pieces of lawn machinery in the back. Sophia laughed at the sight of it, but when Ignacio stepped out, dressed in his traditional fiesta outfit, she stopped laughing. He did look very handsome.

He wore a gold-embroidered black jacket with gold running down the sides of his pants, a white shirt with a red sash, shiny black boots, and an embroidered sombrero. His shoulders looked fuller and wider.

“He’s good-looking,” Sophia said. “Go have a good time.” She pushed me out, closing the door quickly as if she didn’t want him to see her.

I hurried out to greet him. I could see that the makeup, my changed hairstyle, and the expensive dress took him by surprise. He quickly smiled.

“
Muy bonita,
” he said, nodding at me.

“
Gracias. Y usted, muy hermoso,
Ignacio.”

He gazed at the front door. “
Su tía
? I should say hello, no?”

“She’s not home.
No está aquí,
” I said.

He nodded, looking a little relieved, and then moved quickly to the truck and opened the door for me. I glanced back at the house and thought I saw Jesse looking out of Edward’s bedroom window. The curtain closed quickly.

“I cleaned the seat,” Ignacio said, thinking that was why I was hesitating.

“
Gracias,
” I said, smiled, and got in quickly.

“To live in such a big house,” he said, looking at my aunt’s
hacienda
and shaking his head. “I’d get lost, I’m sure,” he said in Spanish.

I nodded.

I am lost in there, I thought, but I said nothing more about it. I was thinking about the fiesta now. I had not been here long, but all that had happened left me so insecure that I wasn’t confident about anything I was doing. I so longed for the warmth of family, for the love that Ignacio enjoyed. I wanted to be a part of this, because I knew it would be like going home. I only hoped that I would be accepted.

We went off the main highway onto a side road and then to his parents’ home. It was not hard to see that a fiesta was about to take place. The outside was decorated with streamers of red, green, and white, the colors of the Mexican flag, and balloons were tied to every place possible on the front of the small but well-kept house. Because his father owned a gardening and landscape company, there were especially pretty, well-trimmed hedges, bougainvillea along the walls and fences, a rich green lawn, and a yard filled with grapefruit, orange, and lemon trees.

Both sides of the street were already lined with the cars of their guests. Families were parking and walking to the front entrance when we pulled into the driveway. Everyone was dressed in traditional Mexican style, except me, of course. I was afraid to get out of the truck now that I saw the women and the young girls approaching the house. There were women in white cotton and lace
campesinas,
or peasant farmer dresses, dresses with embroidered flowers, and simple white shifts with loose tops we called
huipiles.
Everything looking hand-made. Both women and men wore sombreros. Most of the men wore pleated shirts with red or green scarfs and dark pants or red and green sashes.

I realized that the simple clothes Abuela Anabela had packed in my old suitcase would have been more appropriate. Dressed as I was, I was sure I looked like a Mexican girl trying to put on airs. What was I thinking? Why did I let Sophia send me off like this? Was it more important to please her or to please Ignacio’s family and friends, people with whom I shared so much more? I wished this was my aunt’s home instead of the palace in which she lived and where we were all in different ways trapped.

“C’mon,” Ignacio urged.

“I feel foolish,” I said. “I am not dressed correctly.”

“Nonsense. You look beautiful,” he insisted. I sensed that if I had worn a sack, he would have said the same thing.

He stepped out of the truck, came around to open the door for me, and held out his hand. Reluctantly now, I took it and joined him. We entered the house, but the fiesta was set up in the backyard with the tables decorated. At the center of the yard, hanging from the branch of a tree, was a large, multicolored
piñata
shaped like a
burro.
Before the fiesta ended, all of the children would be blindfolded one at a time, spun around two or three times, and given a stick with which to strike the
piñata
. When it finally broke, the children would scramble for the toys that fell out.

Before I had even met any of Ignacio’s family, just the sight of these people prepared to enjoy the birthday fiesta and the music coming from five mariachis who played guitars, trumpets, and the accordion immediately made me feel at home. Ignacio told me the lead guitarist was none other than Mata’s father. They were playing and singing “
Las Mañanitas,
” a folk song traditionally sung on a birthday. No matter how many times I had heard it before, it had never sounded so beautiful.

Ignacio’s father, who was only an inch or so taller than he was but wider in the shoulders, stood at the entrance to the yard, handing out small clay pots to the men and women to wear around their necks. Into them was poured tequila. I could see Ignacio got his strong, manly good looks from his father, who had a full, coal-black mustache and striking black eyes, with firm lips and high cheekbones. His eyes narrowed when he saw us. The women who had already gathered looked our way as well. I was sure that I was the one attracting the attention, because I was the only one who didn’t look as if I belonged.

Ignacio introduced me to his father.

“Welcome,” he told me, and asked me the name of my village. He said he knew it and had even been there once when he was a young boy traveling with his father. He said he thought we had one of the prettiest and best-kept squares he had seen. Talking about it brought tears to my eyes.

As we headed toward Ignacio’s mother and the other women, he whispered, “Don’t forget, when I introduce you to my grandmother, if she asks you what is your spiritual double…”

“I remember. A margay.”

“
Sí,
” he said, smiling.

Like any mother, whether Mexican or not, I’m sure, Ignacio’s mother was very interested in the girl who interested her son. Her gaze on me was intense. She was a pretty woman with brown eyes that had specks of green in them. Ignacio had told her why I had come to America, so she was very sympathetic, but underlying that sympathy was a stream of concern. I was, in her eyes, a young woman without family just when I needed guidance the most. Would I go astray? Had I already?

We talked a little about how I was adjusting to life here, and then she had to tend to the fiesta.

It was then that Ignacio introduced me to his grandmother, who reminded me of Señora Porres, because her eyes, eyes that had surely seen so many sad and tragic things, were filled with trepidation. It was as if she saw ghosts hovering in every corner. Since I was the only real stranger, she looked for signs of trouble in me and finally did ask what animal shared my fate. I glanced at Ignacio and told her the margay. It seemed to relieve her a little, but I could feel her eyes following me constantly.

We went to a table Ignacio said was reserved for us and his friends, who were not there yet. Every table already had traditional garnishes at the center. They included red and green salsas, a mixture of chopped onions and cilantro, and lime wedges. There were juices made from mangos and tangerines. Ignacio gave me a glass of the traditional
horchata,
a milky rice drink flavored with cinnamon.

Ignacio’s sister Rosalind had ten of her friends at her long table. All of them were dressed in traditional costumes. Ignacio’s mother had prepared a kids’
sangria
for them consisting of cranberry juice, oranges and lemons mixed with 7UP. His uncle Thomas, a tall, thin man who could easily be a circus clown, organized their games and had them play Benito Juarez, which was a form of Simon Says, and then had them pin the tail on the
burro.
He did a great job of entertaining them.