“Thanks!” I said, smiling.
I looked over and saw Lilly bouncing between partners. Evan, Chad, Scott, and two other guys were taking turns spinning her across the floor, their eyes locked on her chest. Madison and Emily rocked next to her, dancing with whomever wasn't winning Lilly's attention. Currently, Lilly was spinning under Scott's arm, Emily under Chad's, and Madison under Evan's. For two people who claimed not to like each other, Evan and Madison were dancing rather close. All grievances must have melted away when their hips pressed tight. It was the power of salsa.
I motioned toward my friends.
“They look like they're having fun!” I yelled.
“Whah?” Bobby asked.
I shook my head, signaling it wasn't important enough to repeat.
We kept dancing as the lead singer crooned in Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying. Song lyrics were always harder to understand, because the words slurred together too rapidly to catch. But he did keep repeating
“Baila, Baila, Baila!,
” which I knew meant we should keep on dancing. And we did, all except for my parents, who were still willfully seated at their table with my aunts and uncles. They looked like kids stuck in âtime out,' they were pouting so much. Technically my mom and dad were hosting this party, so their perfect etiquette should dictate that they at least take one whirl around the dance floor.
I looked up at Bobby. “I'm gonna go talk to my parents!”
“Whah?”
“My parents!” I screamed, pointing toward their table.
Bobby nodded and grabbed my hand, offering to come along. I smiled as I looked down at his fingers laced in mine. Then I quickly glanced at Emily, who was sweaty and busy dancing with Chad.
Together we made our way to my parents' table. They barely looked up.
“All right, what's up with this?” I asked, glaring at my mother. “The hosts of the party can't be spoilsports.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as if she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Would it kill you to have a little fun? I know you both can dance.”
“We're letting the kids have their fun. We don't want to intrude,” said my mom.
“Who says you're intruding? There are adults out there!”
My Uncle Diego grumbled, then shot a look toward my Aunt Joan. She squinted her eyes knowingly.
“Oh, don't tell me this is about Teresa!” I yelled, wrinkling my brow. “What, because she's dancing means that you can't? Do I have to draw a line down the center of the tent?”
“Mariana ...” my father warned sternly.
“Don't even think of calling me dramatic,” I interrupted. “Because if there
are
any drama queens at this party, they're sitting at this table.”
“Is that how you let your daughter talk to you?” my Uncle Diego barked.
“Don't talk to me about my parenting.”
“Well, maybe someone should.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you hadn't sent your teenage kids off without a chaperone this summer, none of this would have happened. Like you didn't know she lived there.”
My father's dark eyes heated as the vein in his forehead began to thump. My hands immediately slimed with sweat, and I released Bobby's palm. He took a few steps back, removing himself from the impending altercation. Thankfully, that gave me one less thing to worry about.
“Actually, I wouldn't know where she lived.
You
made sure of that,” my father hissed.
“Oh, please. You want me to apologize for protecting you? Yeah, I'm such a horrible brother.”
My Uncle Diego rose to his feet and instantly so did my father.
I looked around the table; everyone was motionless. Even my Uncle Roberto sat mute. Four grown adults refused to step in and stop this. All my mother did was hold her breath, her hands in prayer formation in front her mouth.
“Well, excuse me for not instantly hating this woman like you do,” my father ranted.
“How could you not?”
“Because she's done nothing wrong!”
“Tell that to her
mother
!
”
my uncle shouted.
“Her mother's not here!”
“No, she sent her
dirty bastard daughter
here instead!”
Everyone took a collective inhale, his words ringing in our heads. I turned to gauge exactly how low class Bobby thought my dueling family was, but instead I was smacked with the sight of Teresa. She was standing just a few feet behind me, next to Bobby, with tears collecting in her eyes and a present in her hand.
“I, I, wanted to give a gift ... to Mariana. From, uh, Alex,” she said through a smothered sob, her devastated eyes glancing at me, then at my uncles. “I, I should go.”
She spun around and ran toward the tent's exit. This time, I didn't follow her.
Chapter 30
“I
can't believe I missed all that!” Lilly cried, leaning back on my bed's fluffy pillows. “You know what? Don't worry about your family right now. Your party was awesome.”
“Yeah, it was,” Madison added as she crossed her legs on my floor, her pink and orange plaid pajamas hiking up her shins. (Only Madison would have pj's to match my party's color scheme.) “Who knew salsa would be such a hit?”
“I knew,” Lilly stated with a smug smile.
“The dancing was cool,” I said, then looked at Madison. “And you guys kicked butt. I told you ballet was all the training you'd need.”
“Totally. It was a piece of cake.”
“Hey, don't forget who taught you your moves,” Lilly said, tauntingly. “Maybe I should take ballet. I could be a natural at this dancing thing.”
“You can't
start
ballet at sixteen,” Madison quipped.
“I'm fifteen. And why not? I started tennis.”
“Yeah, and how's that working out for you?”
“Exactly. I can't be any worse at ballet than I am at tennis.”
I pulled my knees into my chest as I rubbed Tootsie's head. He was finally liberated from the basement now that all the guests had left. A poor, barely-out-of-high-school waiter looked exhausted as he handed me the leash. I was guessing that my giant poodle wasn't easy to keep quiet amidst the hectic festivities. Tootsie was now dozing quietly at the foot of my bed as my mind drifted back to Teresaâtears hugging the corners of her eyes. I couldn't shake the image from my head. She had looked like she had been punched in the gut, and the vision of her crumbling face still made me wince.
“God, ya know, my uncle, he was awful tonight,” I murmured.
“I'm sorry,” Lilly whispered.
“At least no one saw,” Madison offered optimistically.
“Bobby saw.”
After Teresa stormed out, the night felt over for me. Guests stayed for another hour, but I didn't go back onto the dance floor. I was no longer in a salsa mood. My aunts and uncles grabbed their coats and took off moments after the confrontation. My Uncle Diego snarled like someone owed
him
an apology. Never mind that he had tried his hardest to ruin his sixteen-year-old niece's birthday party (such a picture of adulthood). My mother busied herself with cleanup instructions for the caterer, with the help of Madison and Emily's moms, who politely pretended not to have heard the screaming fit that spread across the tent. My dad conveniently joined the men at the bar and drowned himself in bourbon without a single word of explanation.
If my friends and I attacked each other like that at one of my parents' parties, you could bet that my father would never let me hear the end of it. He would lecture until there wasn't a breath in his lungs. I'd watched him do it numerous times with Vince. But no, because they were adults, they seemed to have a free pass to scream and curse no matter what humiliation they caused. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Given their age, shouldn't they be even more mortified by their actions?
“Hey, Bobby couldn't have been any cooler,” Lilly counseled. “When I got over to you guys, he really looked concerned. He didn't seem weirded out at all.”
“How would you know what Bobby looks like weirded out?” Madison asked.
I turned toward Emily, who was quietly seated on the floor, her back resting on my closet door. She had spent most of the night dancing with guys she barely knew, and didn't like, the day before. I thought she was having a good time, despite her tiff with her mother, but now she seemed back to the sullen state she'd exhibited since I'd come back from Puerto Rico.
“I don't need to know
Bobby,
I know
guys,
” Lilly said, wagging her head.
“Yeah, you sure proved that all right.” Madison smiled condescendingly. “Exactly how many guys did you
know
back in Puerto Rico?”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means you sure got popular here pretty darn quick.”
“Maybe that's because I'm not a stuck-up snob,” Lilly muttered.
“Yeah, I'm sure
that's
what the guys are attracted to.” Madison glared at my cousin's chest, which was bulging from her tank top. Lilly instantly pulled at her neckline.
I swiftly sat up and flung my hands toward both of them. “Stop it! I really don't need any more crap tonight.”
Lilly and Madison nodded begrudgingly.
“Sorry,” Lilly grumbled.
“Me too,” said Madison.
“So, what the heck am I supposed to do now? Just pretend like my family's not falling to pieces?”
“Do you have a choice?” Emily piped up, her voice faint.
We all turned to her, so surprised she had joined the conversation that we expected her to continue with something deep and meaningful. She simply stared back.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I could confront my father. I could reach out to Teresa. I could make my parents talk some sense into my uncles... .”
“Mariana, it's not your place to fix your parents' problems,” Emily reasoned.
“Gee thanks, Dr. Phil.”
She rolled her eyes and slumped back onto the wall.
“Hey, so what did Alex get you anyway?” Lilly asked, changing the subject.
I chuckled. “A stuffed coqui frog and an âEveryone Loves Puerto Rican Girls' T-shirt.”
“Classy,” Madison mocked.
“Very Alex,” Lilly stated.
And truthfully, I loved the gifts. I'd never had a boy buy me a present before, and just the fact that he'd remembered and planned far enough in advance to get the gift to me on time, made me feel special.
Just then my cell phone rang. It was hooked into its charger on top of my desk. I wasn't expecting any calls after midnight.
“Who the heck?” I said, strolling over. “Vince.”
I flipped open the phone and walked into my bathroom for privacy.
“Hey,” I said.
“Happy birthday, Birthday Girl!” Vince cheered.
“You're a little late. It's after midnight.”
“Well, it's the thought that counts. Plus I didn't want to disrupt your party. How'd it go?”
“Fine until Mom and Dad started a royal rumble.”
“Oh, God. What now? Teresa?”
“Yup. Aunt Joan did her best to mortify the woman... .”
“Let me guessâTeresa sucks and â
David's in a new marching band!
' ” he said, mocking my aunt's tone.
“You guessed it. Anyway, they're all freakin' lunatics. Uncle Diego called Teresa a âdirty bastard child' loud enough for the entire party to hear.”
“Dude, he's losing it,” Vince groaned. “But seriously, let it go.”
“How can I?”
“Because, think about it. If we found out Dad had an affair and some other kid hidden away, I think we'd hold a grudge too.”
“I know, I know. But it sucks. And it's embarrassing.”
“Please, wearing last year's shoes is embarrassing in Spring Mills. Why don't you get out of there? Come visit during initiation.. . .”
“Yeah, I got your e-mails.”
“I'm telling you, this place is awesome,” he said with a burp.
“Are you drinking right now?”
“Dude, it's Saturday night. I'm wasted. We had this monster kegger at the frat and afterward we all went up to the house's towers and chucked things off. I seriously launched a desk three stories. It shattered like sawdust.”
“You better not fail out.”
“I won't.” He sighed, burping even louder. “Anyway, initiation's next weekend. There's a party, and you can bring your friends. Tons of people'll be there: relatives, alumni, the works.”
I paused, considering the offer.
“Mom and Dad probably feel really guilty right now. They'll go for it,” Vince added. “And you can tell them that you're coming for a âcampus visit.' ”
After a quick minute, I hung up the phone and charged back into my bedroom. My friends were still in the same positions they were when I left. Their eyes flicked toward me as soon as I entered the room.
“Girls, we're going on a road trip.”