Point Me to Tomorrow (11 page)

“But how…?” she asked her mother and friends as she sat in the high chair and Sonja began to blow out her hair.

“You never had a
quince
,” Carmen explained.

“And you, of all people, certainly deserve one,” Jamie added. “Carmen and I were sitting and counting and we realized that Amigas Inc. had planned twenty-four
quinces
over the last two years. So we thought maybe we could make your party number twenty-five. We called your parents and they came up with the whole cloak-and-dagger routine.”

“Well, we know how much you love James Bond movies,” Alicia's mother explained.

Her father had joined the group, and the smile on his face was a mile wide. “I can't believe you never got it. ‘Julia Centavo' is almost a literal translation of ‘Jane Moneypenny,' the secretary to M, Bond's boss, the head of the British Secret Service! And you're a girl who got a nearly perfect score on her SATs,” he teased.

Alicia was still feeling surprised. “So, who's on the guest list?” she asked as Myra expertly applied the most natural-looking makeup.

“Well, it wouldn't be a surprise if we told you, would it?” her mother asked, squeezing her hand. “Are you ready to meet your public?”

Alicia nodded, and then, hand in hand with her mother as if she were a little girl, Alicia went back upstairs to the restaurant.

The first people she saw were Carolina and Patricia Reinoso, who were dressed alike in simple black shifts. “Hey, you never dress alike!” Alicia noted.

Carolina smiled, “We learned from the master. It's in the
quince
planning playbook. Never steal a
quince
's thunder.”

The room was packed, and the red, white, and blue tablecloths and the big jugs of sunflowers that had filled the room before were nowhere to be found. Each table was covered with a white tablecloth and a square black vase filled with hot pink roses and lilies.

Mr. Stevens was holding court at one table with all of Alicia's new friends from her Surfing the New Economy course. Alicia spotted her friends from Austin, Valeria and her parents. Carmen's family were at one table. Jamie's, including her extended family from New York, occupied another. Gaz's mother was sitting at a table with Alicia's
Abuelo
and
Abuela
Cruz and Mrs. Cruz's parents, Nana and Papi Velasquez.

Alicia was walking around half in a daze, hugging and greeting people, when her mother said, “Lici, your court is waiting for you.”

Mrs. Cruz led her to the courtyard, where a small formal court awaited her. The
damas
were Carmen, Jamie, Sarita—the very first girl whose
quince
Alicia had planned—and Binky Mortimer. They were all dressed in beautiful hot pink dresses. Carmen said, “And you said there was no sewing for this
quince
! A fat lot you knew!”

The
chambelanes
were in black tie, led by her ever dapper, unbelievably handsome boyfriend, Gaz. She kissed him quickly and shyly.

“You knew?” she whispered.

He laughed, “Oh, Alicia,
everyone
knew but you.”

The other
chambelanes
were Dash, Maxo, and Alicia's brother, Alex.

She gave her brother a huge hug. “Wait a second; you came all the way from Montreal for this?” she asked.

“Of course,” her brother replied. “Well, it's not every day that your sister has a
quinceañera
, especially one that's years behind schedule.”

Flustered, Alicia looked over to Carmen and Jamie. “What do I do? We never rehearsed anything!” She had supervised the entrance of many courts. Now it was her turn, and she could barely put one foot in front of another.

The
damas
and
chambelanes
lined up single file, with Alicia in the very back. Then, as Gaz began to sing a sweet a cappella version of “Do You Know Where You're Going To?” they walked slowly into the restaurant.

When they were all inside, Jamie addressed the crowd: “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Alicia Cruz.”

Alicia stepped forward. “I don't have any prepared remarks,” she said. “As you all know, this whole thing is a bit of a surprise. But because I believe in fate, I wanted to read you my college application essay, which I wrote today, when I thought that tonight we would be celebrating someone else entirely. I just need to run and get my bag in the kitchen. I'll be right back.”

As quickly as she could in three-inch heels, she sprinted into the kitchen, soon returning with the printout. She felt nerves churning her stomach as she began reading, but after the first few sentences, she was able to calm down and focus on the words. As she spoke, she looked around the room at all of the people who had done so much to plan this night: her parents, Gaz, the
amigas
. She felt like the luckiest
chica
in the world.

By the time she was finished reading, Carmen and Jamie were sniffling, and Alicia's parents and grandparents were all weeping.

“Hey, everybody, can I have your attention?” Jamie called out. “In lieu of the traditional father-daughter
vals
, I want to show you a short film I've been working on. Please join me in the garden, and bring your tissues, because I can almost guarantee there will be more crying.”

Projected on a large screen, where “Julia Centavo” had requested that they show
Breakfast at Tiffany's
after dinner, there was a photo that Alicia remembered from preschool days. It showed her, dressed in an orange T-shirt and pink tutu, teaching her father how to dance ballet as he, dressed in a suit and tie, gamely tried to do a plié. This was followed by a series of cherished home videos and pictures that the Cruz family had accumulated over the years. All of a sudden, Alicia realized why her mother had taken all those videos of her and her father rehearsing the father-daughter
vals
. She had captured every laugh, every side glance, every silly moment, as well as their rendition of the Drunken Monkey. Jamie had edited the film together beautifully and set it to Stevie Wonder's “Isn't She Lovely?” This was the song her father had been singing to her ever since she was a baby, just home from the hospital.

As the movie was playing, Alicia happened to catch a glimpse of Mr. Stevens. He extended his arms, as if he were riding a big wave. She mimicked his gesture. He liked to say that in surfing, as in business, and as in life, it didn't matter how many times you fell—it mattered only how often you were willing to stand up. She looked around the restaurant garden, at the room filled with people whom she loved and who loved her in return. She did not know what exactly was ahead. It was almost certain that she would experience her share of wipeouts, as all the best surfers did. But it didn't matter, because tonight, she was most definitely standing up.

FIVE MONTHS LATER
, the
amigas
met up at the Lucky Strike Lanes and Lounge once again. Alicia, Jamie, and Carmen sat on one side of a leather banquette, Patricia and Carolina on the other. Gaz and Dash were battling furiously in the lanes as Maxo looked on from the sidelines, amused.

Gaz, handsome in a white linen shirt and khakis, lifted his bowling ball in an elaborate, show-offy pose, then proceeded to bowl his fifth strike in a row. “See, Dash,” he crowed,
“¡Así, se hace!”

Dash pretended to look crestfallen. “I just don't get it. How can I tear it up on the golf course and fail so miserably at a nonsport like bowling?”

But Gaz was far from through with him. “That's your problem, hombre. Your elitism is hanging you up. You gotta humble yourself for the game, 'cause this ‘nonsport' is kicking your booty!”

Maxo nodded in agreement. “I think my man here has a point.”

In the lounge area behind the lanes, the
chicas
weren't paying attention to the boys or their rivalry. A waitress delivered plates of nachos and smoothies to the candlelit table, and the girls dived in.

“I can't believe it's already May,” Alicia exclaimed, incredulous that their senior year was almost over. She was rocking a very cute pale pink T-shirt dress that looked kind of fabulous with her funky tan bowling shoes.

“Totally. I mean, it seems like just yesterday that we had you entirely believing that we were planning a
quinceañera
for the ambassador to Mexico's daughter,” Jamie teased. She was wearing a crisp white shirt, one of Dash's ties, and a fitted navy blazer and navy shorts.

Carmen gave her best friend a hug. “Little did you know that we had a much more important, much more fabulous client—namely, you!”

Alicia sat up straight. “And I love you all for lying to me, deceiving me, and giving me the most memorable
quince
ever. Speaking of which, as of September, Carolina and Patricia will officially take over as codirectors of Amigas Inc. And in honor of their—
ahem
—ascension, we have a little present.”

Alicia reached into her bag and pulled out two custom-made tiaras. The words
Amigas Inc.
were written in silver script atop a feathery pink base. She handed a crown to each of the Reinoso girls.

“Love it!” Carolina cried, immediately putting on her crown.

True to her edgier style, Patricia first mussed up her hair, then put her crown on, so that it tilted to one side like a fedora. “I think that I might dye the feathers black,” she mused, “so it's much more downtown. Then I think I will wear it everywhere.
Gracias,
chicas.
”

“So, how many
quinces
have we lined up for the summer?” Jamie asked Alicia.

Alicia threw her hands up in the air. “I swear, being so good at our jobs is a blessing and a curse.”

“Meaning…?” Jamie pressed.

“Meaning that we've got six
quinces
on the books between now and August fifth, when we've got to leave for freshman orientation,” Alicia explained.

“I'm kind of bummed about being a freshman all over again,” Jamie complained. “Once we got through the madness of SATs, college applications, and planning Lici's
quince
, being a senior kind of rocked.”

Dash, Gaz, and Maxo joined the group, and Dash said, “Being a freshman is not so bad. Especially since you'll be at Stanford in sunny California with your boyfriend, who'll be a sophomore transfer student.”

Alicia and Carmen were still in shock that their Jamie—South Bronx Jamie, boogie-down Jamie, graffiti-art-and-Jackson-Pollock-loving Jamie—was dating a champion golf player and was planning on majoring in East Asian studies and attending Stanford. But if there was one thing that planning twenty-five
quinceañeras
had taught the partners of Amigas Inc., it was this: it really was a girl's prerogative to change her mind.

Carmen, in contrast, was the definition of tried-and-true. Since she'd first seen an episode of
Project Runway
in junior high, she'd wanted to go to New York to study fashion design. And now, here she was, on her way to Parsons School of Design, and none of the others in the original Amigas Inc.—Alicia, Jamie, or Gaz—nor either of the new
amigas
—Patricia or Carolina—had any doubt that they would someday be able to walk into a store and buy the latest Carmen Ramirez-Ruben design.

Alicia was headed for Harvard, ready to follow in her parents' footsteps academically, but also ready to blaze her own trail as an entrepreneur. She'd had coffee several times with Serena Shih, the Harvard rep who'd initially gotten her interested in the joint BA/MBA program, and she was excited at the thought of spending her freshman year developing what she thought might be her first big project: an Amigas Inc.
quince
planning kit that could be sold nationwide.

Gaz sat next to her, whispering flirtatious things in her ear. She vacillated between wanting him to continue and fearing that she was blushing so hard everyone could tell what he was saying to her. Gaz had received and accepted a full scholarship to MIT, just a T train ride away from Alicia's campus at Harvard.

Alicia could hardly believe how many adventures she and her friends had experienced since they'd first decided to do a good deed and help a new girl in town plan her
quince
. It seemed fitting that they were all meeting up at a place called Lucky Strike, because it had indeed been lucky that they had all met, that they had become friends, that they had started a business together that had just kept growing. None of the original Amigas Inc. members were fifteen-year-olds anymore, but a
quinceañera
was about so much more than the number of candles on the cake. A
quince
was about becoming a woman. And in that definition of the term, Jamie, Alicia, and Carmen were all still very much in the midst of the party. And as Alicia looked at her friends, she could only hope that the growing up, and all the fun that went with it, would go on and on.

When I first came up with the idea for the
Amigas
series, I thought about the many Latina women who, like Alicia, Jamie, and Carmen, had started out as entrepreneurial teenagers. Who, through hard work, imagination, and dedication, were able to take their passions and talents and become role models and successful adults. For me, Jennifer Lopez is such a woman. She has incredible drive and an amazing work ethic, qualities she shares with the girls in
Amigas
. They, too, needed an equal amount of determination to turn their
quince
-party-planning business into a huge success.

So, to get a better sense of this connection, I sat down with Jennifer, and we talked about
quinces
and what it was like for her as a Latina girl growing up in New York City. Here are some more of her answers….

—J. Startz

1.When you were a senior in high school, did you have a clear sense of what you wanted to pursue as a career in the future?

I didn't know exactly what I was going to pursue, but I did know that I loved to dance and to perform in front of an audience, as I had already done a couple of musical plays at the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club and at my high school in the Bronx.

2.What extracurricular activity did you participate in that helped you zero in on what interested you the most?

I took up dancing and starred in a couple of plays in high school and at the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, a local community organization for kids that had a performing arts program in New York
.

3.What would you say to teenagers who develop a passion for a particular career interest at an early age? Through your own personal experience, what advice would you offer them as to how to nourish and excel in their passion?

My advice would be to study hard and try to become the best at what you want to do.