When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [63]
On Christmas Eve the bar was closed, and neighbors came out of their houses dragging tables, which were lined up along one end of our yard and then laden with food made by women
I’d never seen, who came in and out as if they were long-lost relatives, stroking our hair, smiling at me and my sisters and brothers as if we were the most wonderful creatures on earth. A group of men showed up with a cuatro, a guitar, maracas, and güiros. The middle of the yard was cleared and swept for a dance floor. We all sang aguinaldos, and for the rest of the night people danced and sang and ate and drank and celebrated as if we were all friends and had only needed an excuse to get together.
“Tomorrow I’m taking you to visit your cousins,” Mami said some weeks later.
“What cousins?”
“Gladys and Angie. They’re really my cousins, but they’re your age. You’re spending a few days with them.”
They lived in a cement house with a blue and white porch next to Lalo’s Cafetin, a landmark in the area known as La Parada 22. Mami had grown up on this street, and Tio Lalo had built his fortune here, in a store that specialized in homemade sweets and Puerto Rican fast food—codfish fritters, fried plantain balls, and his famous stuffed potatoes.
We were greeted by his wife, Angelina, and their two daughters. On the way to their house Mami had told me to be especially nice to Gladys and when I met her, I understood why. She was tall and gaunt, with huge black watery eyes and a timid manner that told me she would remain jamona the rest of her life. Her sister, Angie, was pretty, lively, with a quick sense of humor and the air and manner of someone who was used to getting her way. I liked Gladys better, but I could see that Angie was more fun.
“Girls, take Negi and show her your rooms,” Angelina said. Angie bounded off behind a curtain, and I followed Gladys, who walked at a leisurely pace, as if counting seconds.
“This is where we will sleep,” Gladys said, stepping into a narrow room by a neatly made bed that took up most of the floor space. A small Miami window looked out on a cement yard and the wall of the next house. There was a small rug in front of the bed, and a long bare dresser across from it, near a door to another room patched with pictures of singers and movie stars.
“Those are her pictures,” Gladys muttered in a voice that reminded me of the sound from a comb harmonica.
“You can come in now,” Angie sang and opened the door a crack. “Not you!” she said to her sister. Gladys backed away and lay on her bed, hands on her chest, her huge eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Angie’s room was pink and ruffled, carpeted, and decorated with stuffed animals, dolls, and pictures of American movie stars. She had her own pink record player and a collection of albums. Books and magazines were stacked in a basket near her bed. The dresser held a matched comb and brush set, a mirror tray with tiny perfume bottles shaped like kittens and bunnies. On the night table a ballerina held aloft a lamp shade, and a soft pink light bathed her porcelain tutu, accentuating the curves of her strong legs.
“Wow!” I couldn’t help myself. Even Jenny’s room wasn’t this nice.
“You can’t come in here unless I ask you,” Angie said, and I backed away, afraid that if I touched anything I would stain, or break, or somehow contaminate the feminine air of this fragrant room. Angie closed the door. I retreated to the edge of Gladys’s bed and stared at the curtain leading to the room where Mami and Angelina murmured in soft cadences.
“She’s so mean,” Gladys muttered. “Mamita and Papito spoil her just because she’s the youngest.” It seemed strange that Gladys should call her parents by the diminutive, which was usually reserved for small children. “They insist we call them