* * *
Not long after, Papa moved to Havana. In the beginning, he came home every weekend, then every other weekend. Mamá doesn’t speak of it, but we all know he’s gone to work for Batista. His brown military jacket gives him away. He makes a performance of removing it, hanging it on a hanger, front facing forward so the pressed lapels and polished buttons decorating the shoulders can be seen. He brushes it down with the flat of his hand, adjusts it just so and then hooks it on the wall by the door like a painting to be admired. It is a putrid brown and in no way goes with our blue-and-white tiled entryway. Neither do his boots, which he places under his jacket, the laces looped and tucked into the tops, the brown leather hard and shiny, boots and coat waiting at attention.
I figure, now that Papa is working, we’ll have our servants back, at the very least Farah, but nothing changes other than Mamá telling us over dinner one night that she is going to work as a seamstress for the rich ladies in town. “As a wealthy young girl, I was at least taught to sew, if not cook.” She forces a smile.
We would all prefer the latter. Since Oneila has taken up the cooking, every meal consists of beans, picadillo and boiled yucca. I am sorry I hated Aayla so much. I’d take a hand-slapping from her any day for a slice of her coconut cake.
I don’t like Mamá going to work. It’s bad enough losing my soft-footed, gentle Farah and having to be bossed by Oneila—the authority on all things since her newfound adultness—but Mamá’s absence makes me ache with missing. Every morning I stand on the front step and watch her stride away in her best dress, hips swaying, her wide-brimmed hat tilted at a daring angle. When I ask why she wears her finest clothes to work she says, “To show these women I know what fashion is,” but I know she’s too proud to dress in anything less. How they are still rich and we are poor I will never understand.
Home is torture without her. Oneila makes us sit at the table until midday doing arithmetic and grammar. Even worse is the afternoon when she releases my brothers to the outdoors and lets them romp under a canopy of leafy trees, while Danita and I are forced to embroider and crochet in the dark kitchen. Whenever Oneila is out of the room, I sneak under the table and play paper dolls with Mercedes. Danita threatens to tell, but she never does. My brothers come to supper bright-eyed, with scratches on their arms and red soil under their fingernails. Danita and I only have neat stitches to show for our time, and there is never a speck under our nails; Oneila makes sure of that.
All day I wait for Mamá, pouncing on her the moment she walks through the door and dragging her to the wireless where Rita de Cuba comes on at six o’clock sharp. Danita and I press our hands to our hearts and shimmy around the room singing “El Manisero” at the top of our lungs. Mamá gives us her full attention, sitting on the edge of her seat with her head tilted in concentration. Oneila’s bland dinner, the boys’ impatient appetites, Mercedes’s whining...all wait while we sing.
* * *
Now, three years after the rebellion, I’ve had my first public appearance in a nightclub, and next week I will sing on Radio Havana Cuba.
Holding tight to Mamá’s hand as we hurry through the streets, my shoes grating away at my heels, I ask, “Why didn’t Danita sing with me tonight?”
“You both auditioned, and they chose you.” Mamá pulls me down a narrow street where a sky-blue car waits to take us home.
“Will she sing with me at the radio station?”
“No.”
I am sorry about this but not very sorry. “When do I get to go to America?”
“What makes you think you get to go to America?”
“You said when I grew.”
“I said I would consider it.” Mamá nods to the driver as he opens the door for us. “Gracias, Señor.” She climbs into the back and adjusts her skirt over her knees.
I slide in next to her. My skirt bunches beneath me, and the leather seat sticks to the backs of my legs, but I am too tired to adjust anything. I lay my head on Mamá’s shoulder. She slips the ribbon from my hair and shakes out my ponytail, running her fingers over the sore spot on my scalp where the hair has been pulled tight. The car bumps down the road, the engine like the steady moan of a large animal. Slowly the city lights fade, and a fat moon appears over the dense, lush fields.
I sleep all thirty-six miles from Havana to Guanajay. Mamá shakes me awake as the car stops in front of our house, leaning over to open the door and scooting me out with her hip. I stand sleepily in the dirt street as she pays the driver. The air is rich with the scent of night-blooming jasmine.
The driver pulls away, and Mamá snaps the remainder of her money back into her purse. “What little money you made tonight isn’t enough to cover half the ride. You are a lucky girl. Don’t forget that.”
I don’t feel lucky. Mosquitoes bite my arms, and my heels hurt so much I want to throw my pretty new shoes into the road.
“Let’s get you to bed.” Mamá guides me toward the house. The front balcony sags like an overstuffed belly, and the blue trim crumbles around the tall, narrow windows. The windows are all dark. Oneila has put everyone to bed. I hope Danita isn’t too sorry I went without her.
“When, Mamá?” I ask.
She shakes her head, turning the key in the lock. “You are a spoiled child,” she sighs. “Fifteen. We will go to America when you are fifteen.”
In her voice, I hear that she decided this long ago.
Chapter Three
* * *
Los Angeles, 1958
Boxed Up
Mother,
For most of my childhood, I know little of your life in Cuba. It belongs to a time of siblings, a father, war and poverty. You and I are of a different time.
I am as American as towheaded, pasty-faced Sandy Plummer who lives next door. I eat hamburgers from Whistle ’n’ Pig, watch The Ed Sullivan Show and wear Mary Janes with white bibbed plaid dresses. You wear chiffon and lipstick, are on your third husband and sing and dance on Hollywood’s big screen. There are no siblings or father for me, just Grandmother Maria who bosses us both and your new husband who I don’t like and will never call Dad.
* * *
In August there is a drought. The ground beneath our feet cracks and splits with thirst. The wind blows hot and tumbleweeds roll. Dirt crumbles down the Hollywood Hills, turning roads and once-shiny cars the color of sand. Convertible tops remain closed, and windshield wipers battle dust instead of rain.
Sucked dry, the city holds its breath.
I hold mine, too, but for different reasons. Winter rain and boarding school are a package deal. I’d take the heat and dry air in Los Angeles forever if it meant summer wouldn’t end and I didn’t have to go back to Villa Cabrini Academy.