Mamá turns to me and asks, Do you want to stay here and end up with a good-for-nothing, pigeon-toed, backward man like El Guardia, who can’t even feed his own child? Or do you want to go to New York with a respectable, hardworking man so you can make something out of yourself and help your family?
At least El Guardia loves me, Teresa shouts back, loud enough to cut through the music blasting from the car.
Ay, love, love, love. You children don’t know anything about love or survival. You live in the clouds.
I can’t look at either of them, so I stare at Yohnny, who’s tying a goat to a tree. If he lets her loose she’ll run. She looks at me with longing. I want to pet her.
Teresa’s feet cut the ground, her nostrils flare, prepared to hold Mamá back so I can make a run for it.
I bite the inside of my cheek and breathe in the fresh-mown grass, the scent of lilacs and manure, of decayed mangoes fallen from the tree. I listen beyond the arguing and music for the hummingbirds that flap flap flap their wings, for the gravel under Lenny’s feet, for Gabriel’s breath in my ear. At least I kissed him when I had the chance.
El Guardia honks again. He knows not to step out of his car when Mamá’s home. When she first caught his devil eyes on Teresa, she warned El Guardia, if he stuck it into her daughter she would chop off his dick. Everyone knows Mamá can carve a chicken blind.
C’mon, Ana, stand up for yourself.
Teresa pushes, although she knows my marriage agreement was sealed with hard liquor.
Leave her alone! Yohnny calls out to Teresa.
Bully me, and I transform into an ant. I’m not like Mamá and Teresa, who fight for every inch of land and man.
Yeah, leave her alone, Lenny says, and stands in front of me with his arms crossed high on his chest, knowing full well Teresa can flick him away with her pinkie.
Don’t worry, I say. We’ll all be together in New York one day. You’ll see.
And we’ll ride the subways? Yohnny chimes in.
And spickee inglis, Lenny says.
Over there you’ll have no one, Teresa says. No family. No one to protect you. She presses her forehead against mine, our sweat gluing us to each other.
Yohnny karate-kicks the air and splits us apart.
I’ll protect you, he says. I’ll fly there and kick whoever’s ass.
A man’s heart in a child’s body, that’s Yohnny.
I hold back from laughing, to not upset Mamá. She counts on me to follow through on this.
Stop it, Teresa. I don’t want to go to the beach, okay!
Teresa rolls her eyes and hugs me as if it’s the last time I’ll ever see her.
Mamá’s so proud of me. Finally I’ve accepted what she knows is the only answer for me.
Enough already. Mamá waves them away. Leave now. I’d rather Juan not see you hooligans being such a bad influence on Ana, Mamá says.
Lenny and Yohnny whoop and holler their way back to El Guardia’s car. They slide into the backseat through the open window and stick their arms out, waving good-bye.
You’re just like Papá, Teresa says, who lets Mamá boss him around.
But even she knows this marriage is bigger than me. Juan is the ticket for all of us to eventually go to America.
The sun bites hard into one side of my face. I try to think of the beach, of the way the waves crash against the rocks, the fun to be had. Of Gabriel and the keys he carries in his pocket. The way he traced my body, his eyes like fingers. I had memorized the ends of his tight curls, his skin an orange-brown glow, as if someone had lit a candle inside of him.
All morning, my father rocks on his chair and smokes his pipe. My mother pokes her head out the kitchen window checking on me, smiling and waving. All her hopes and dreams tie into me. And as if to show me my good fortune—to sit, do nothing in my new dress—she bosses Juanita and Betty to fetch some yucca and batata out back, to wash the sheets, to feed the chickens, and to mop the floors, muddied from yesterday’s thundershower.
You so lucky, they say. Unlike them, I’ve never fantasized about going to New York. They track every dollar bill mentioned in passing conversation and gossip about every American hair clip, pair of shoes, or dresses worn by girls in the area who tease men like Juan in exchange for gifts and opportunity. They all hope for a proper proposal to get to a place where even country girls like us become glamorous and rich.
If there was time Papá would’ve killed a goat and invited everyone in the area to celebrate my departure. Mamá would’ve piled the plátanos and chayote on one serving tray, yucca covered in red onions on another. Yohnny would’ve shared his brew of mamajuana to get everyone loose. The house would’ve been full with neighbors and family. One sip of mamajuana, and I’d be digging my feet into the dirt in my backyard to the beats of the drum and the scraping of the güira. And Gabriel would’ve tried to keep his distance out of respect for Juan. But Teresa would’ve made him dance with me.
What could a kid like Gabriel ever do for me?
And yet we would spin and spin around as if we could turn back time. Stop it somehow.
Oh, I want to be grateful for my fortune. But I don’t want to leave our house in Los Guayacanes painted the color of buttercups by my late grandfather, the only house for miles that has survived all the hurricanes. Our house, the one I share with my parents, Yohnny, Lenny, Teresa, Juanita, and Betty, where there is everything I know and can imagine, for all of my life.
When Juan arrives my dress is wrinkled. My hair a mess. All the makeup gone. I have dozed off in a sitting position, waiting because any minute now he’s to arrive. I wish Teresa would’ve stayed with me and not gone away with El Guardia. That she would’ve given me, at the very least, her blessing.
Juan drives his car over the grass, close to the entrance of our house. A film of dust covers it.
He’s here, he’s here, Mamá squawks, worse than the chickens.
In the daylight, Juan looks even more pale than I remember him. Mamá says that’s better for the children’s sake. Dark children suffer too much. She gives me a paper bag containing a botella for me and Juan to drink every morning so the babies come fast. A man can’t call himself a man if he doesn’t have children.
Juan is in a hurry to leave because he borrowed a car to fetch me.
My brother reserved a room for us, he says, in El Hotel Embajador for the honeymoon.
Is that so? Mamá lights up with every word about my future life.
The nicest hotel in the country, Juan continues.
The last time I was alone with a boy it was with Gabriel. Juan is a man. A head taller, twice as wide. Gray hairs around his ears, thinning around his forehead. Soft, pillowy hands and cheeks. Inevitably, we’ll be alone. My throat locks up, an emptiness fills my stomach.
To distract myself I run through the list my mother gave me before Juan’s arrival. Go to America. Clean his house, cook him dinner, clip his nails. Send Mamá money, learn from Juan, learn from the brothers. Study hard in school and become a professional. Learn English. Send for Mamá and Yohnny first, so they can work. Send for Lenny so he can enroll in school, and then for Papá and for Teresa and the baby if she is ever willing to leave El Guardia behind. I’ll demand what I need from Juan, for myself and my family. I will make myself indispensible.