When Elena, two years older, married a tax collector transplanted from the capital of San Juan, Valentina was determined that she would be the romantic heroine in her own adventure—just like the mademoiselles in the French novelas Dalia passed on to her when she was finished. No dull tax collector for her. She dreamed of being a fine lady with many servants in a place far away from Puerto Rico. Un país where everyone was rich and had plenty to eat, and where there wouldn’t be barefoot mendigos with their knapsacks hooked on branches slung over their shoulders, and barrigones, small children with the bellies of pregnant women. Or where she’d never have to witness again the horror of a man or woman with grotesquely swollen legs or ankles, limping down the street.
The evening that Valentina jeopardized her family’s honor, her father, with his usual hesitation, entered his daughter’s virginal chamber to hurry her along. It was their first attendance at a society wedding—and they’d been invited because of Valentina’s schoolgirl friendship with Dalia. Papá found Valentina dressed only in her corset and frilly pantaloons. His words of reprimand about her tardiness caught in his throat. His daughter, who only a few years before had resembled a ten-year-old boy, now possessed breasts, the likes of which he’d seen in the French postcards that arrived wrapped in discreet brown paper at his job at the pharmacy. He had first discovered the postcards of naked women in his brother-in-law’s account book, and he had since ordered them whenever he managed to save the money. He kept the postcards locked away in his own private drawer. When his brother-in-law left for the evening and Papá had secured the door after the last customer, he’d fan out his favorites on the medicine counter. But it was one thing to lust after the breasts of a mademoiselle in a French postcard, and quite another to be exposed to your daughter’s bosom.
“Prudencia, is that really necessary?” He pulled at his collar.
“It’s practically required.” His wife adjusted their daughter’s corset.
“Mujer, what are you doing?” He waved in the general direction of Valentina.
Prudencia dabbed Valentina’s breasts with white powder, so that they took on a translucent quality like a string of pearls.
“Don’t you remember? I bought it at the pharmacy.” Prudencia inspected the puff of feathers tinged with powder. “It’s French. To make Valentina’s breasts very white.”
“And smell like strawberries,” Valentina said. “Can’t you smell the strawberries, Papá?”
Prudencia brought the feathers to her nose. “It does smell like strawberries! But the box said roses.”
Teodoro tugged at his collar with both hands. “Strawberries! Roses! I should hope that no man would get close enough to your—your womanly attributes—to smell them!”
“Let me be in charge of our daughter’s bosom.”
Teodoro removed his collar. “Why is it necessary for Valentina to flaunt herself?”
“How else is she to catch a husband?” Prudencia said. “Go away, Teodoro.”
“No te preocupes, Papá.” Valentina embraced her father, the pillowy softness of her bosom pressed against his chest.
He brushed the white powder from his suit and fled his daughter’s bedroom.
Mamá returned to preparing her daughter for exhibition. Valentina and her mother had labored over her gown for weeks. They had sewn the dress on the English sewing machine with the hand crank, a hand-me-down from the wife of Mamá’s brother, the pharmacist. They embroidered the white cloth with silver thread; when Mamá’s fingers tired, Valentina took over. Mamá proclaimed that none of Dalia’s Parisian frocks could be more beautiful.
After she helped Valentina step into her gown, Mamá attended to the various accouterments of her daughter’s dress; she brushed scented oil through Valentina’s glossy black hair and pinned Elena’s lace mantilla in the style of a Spanish señorita with the ivory combs borrowed from the pharmacy’s display counter. Valentina had lapsed into one of her favorite daydreams, that of two dashing caballeros fighting a duel for the pleasure of carrying her off to Madrid or, better yet, Paris.
When you flaunt your bosom, smile like a little girl, because otherwise Juan Moscoso will think you a flirt; worse, so will his mother, it’s important to have his mother’s good opinion because Juan Moscoso wants to marry you; don’t frown, you’ll get those deep ridges between your eyes that will never go away, trust me, they won’t; think of your father’s sister, the spinster, your Tía Evangelina la solterona. Do you want to be like Tía Evangelina la solterona? No husband, no children, no home of her own, ridges between her eyes? There is nothing else for a woman, not in Puerto Rico, not en España, not even in your precious Paris. I’m sure nowhere in the world, so don’t be too full of yourself, Valentina. Tía Evangelina la solterona was once pretty like you, but now she is a middle-aged lady still in the home of her parents, and any day now los ancianos will die, and where will she go? We might have to take her in or else she’ll have to roam the streets like a mendiga, hand outstretched like any beggar; if you don’t want to die a solterona, be sure to smile at Juan Moscoso, but don’t show all your teeth or he will think you a tonta; take care around the mother of Juan Moscoso because it is always much worse for the man’s mother to think you a fool than for the man. Drop your handkerchief just so in front of Juan Moscoso, watch . . . watch . . . bend like this, the lace must slip from the fingertips just so. It must be done exactly this way because you are a proper señorita; bend a little more—now, you do it, yes, like that, exactly; you must do as I instructed so that Juan Moscoso can want your breasts like a thirsty man wants oranges; why do you think that the good Lord gave you such beauties, we can get a peona to nurse your babies, you’re not a jíbara; no, Juan Moscoso isn’t too old; he is forty, fifty years old, you are seventeen, you are perfect for each other, he will be like your second father; he is not handsome, it is true, but Juan Moscoso comes from a family with money, what girl in your circumstances could ask for more; we sent you to the nuns to learn that which is most necessary for a wife, to obey her husband; you will never read French novelas again once you are married because you will be too occupied with your new husband and his mother; take heart, Juan Moscoso may not bother you too much since he is of a certain age, especially once you give him a son; when you are married, let Juan Moscoso do what he pleases whenever he likes, it is a wife’s duty, it doesn’t matter if you don’t like it, because God said so; ask the priest if you’re so doubtful, he gets his instructions directly from the Son of God; remember that you are only a girl, your soul will be snatched away by the devil if you disobey the Son of God; by now you should know that one is born lucky or one isn’t, the moment you are born your destiny is written in the stars, and yours didn’t say Paris; go ask the curandera to make up a spell to change your destiny, if you want to get mixed up en brujería y cosas malas; happy, what do you mean you won’t be happy? Who is happy?
Valentina had been obligated to dance the first dances, a waltz and a polka, with the decrepit Juan Moscoso. Twice, Juan Moscoso spun Valentina into the other dancers. Valentina stared up at the Baccarat crystal chandelier festooned with orchids for the occasion. The few times she’d been invited to Dalia’s home, she had been awed that such a beautiful thing had come from that magical place, France. She doubted that she would ever see the chandelier again. When Rudolfo Vargas (Dalia’s cousin, whom Valentina had known all her life) requested a dance, she flew into his arms like a freed bird.