A Formal Affair (9 page)

He kissed her on the forehead. “I like sequels, too. And you know
Empire Strikes Back
is a much better movie than
Star Wars
.”

“Meaning?” Carmen asked.

“Sometimes the sequel is better than the original,” Domingo explained, looking handsome and earnest.

“I'll keep that in mind,” Carmen said, running her hand along the back of his neck.

He turned to leave, and she walked him to the front door.

“'Bye, Domingo,” she called out, as she watched him walk away. And for the first time, she was able to admit that she
would
miss him. She
had
missed him. But now she was just happy for him—and for herself.

When she stepped back into the kitchen, she was surprised to see that while they had been alone a moment ago, the room was now full. Her mother was making huevos rancheros. Christian was making lemonade. Tino was pouring potato chips into a bowl, because he was a teenage boy who ate like a pig. Una was on the phone, and Lindsay and the twins were drinking yogurt smoothies in the breakfast nook. The sight of her entire family, appearing out of nowhere, was startling.

“Carmen! Astronaut suits!” Lula called out.

“Where did you all come from?” she asked.

“Mom made us all go out to the garden so you and lover boy could have privacy,” Tino teased.

“Yeah,” Una added, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance. “Way to inconvenience the
entire
household.”

Carmen walked over to her mother and gave her a big hug. “
Gracias, Mamacita
,” she said.

“Good talk?” her mother asked as she cracked an egg.

“Great talk,” Carmen answered. She pulled up a chair next to her mother and was just about to tell her all about it when the twins ran over with their completely naked Barbie dolls.

“Car-men!” they cried out in unison. “Astronaut suits by dinner! You promised.”

“I can do that,” Carmen replied, breaking into a wide grin. “If I put my mind to it, I can do just about anything.”

CARMEN'S
realization that she could do anything couldn't have come at a better time, because there was still plenty left to do when it came to the double
quinceañera
. One afternoon, the week after the Domingo run-in, Jamie entered the school gym. A few leftover Halloween decorations still dotted the walls of the gym, where the girls' basketball team was finishing up practice with an intersquad game. Taking a seat in the bleachers, she watched the action.

Patricia wasn't the tallest or the biggest girl on the team, but she was definitely the fastest. In the final minute of play, Patricia—her hair pulled back into a messy bun—stole the ball from a girl twice her size, dribbled quickly all the way down the court, and scored on a three-point jumper.

Even Jamie, who knew little about sports, knew that she had just witnessed something extraordinary.

She leapt to her feet and burst into applause. Patricia, hearing the sound, looked up into the bleachers and gave Jamie a thumbs-up.

After Patricia took what she assured Jamie was a much-needed shower, the two girls headed downtown to Joy Cards, the
amigas'
favorite stationery shop. It had been decided that various tasks would be handled by each
quince
separately, so that more could get done in a shorter amount of time. They just had to make sure that whatever they chose—whether stationery or dishes—would go with the theme and be appealing to both girls.

From the moment they arrived at Joy Cards and pushed the doors open to the tiny art studio, they felt as if they had been transported from their modern tropical city to an elegant little studio in London or Paris.

Joy Chen, who owned the shop, was a beautiful Cuban Chinese woman, who regularly topped the
amigas'
list of Who I Want to Be When I Grow Up. Today she was dressed in a crisp white shirt, a vintage silk silver mini, and bright red heels. She looked stunning.

“
Hola, Jamie, ¿qué tal?
” she said, kissing her favorite client on both cheeks.

Jamie introduced Patricia to Joy. Then the two girls followed Joy back through the rows of cards, candles, and other girlie gift items to an antique wooden table in the back room bedecked with a bowl of hot pink peonies. Joy offered each of the girls a cup of green tea, and as they held the delicate blue porcelain cups in their hands, Patricia giggled nervously. “This is so not me. I feel like a bull in a china shop. But I love it! Please don't make me leave.”

Jamie smiled. “That's what we say every time we come here.”

It was time to get down to work. Joy lay out binders of her custom-made card designs, all of which were unique and beautiful. But three cups of green tea later, while Patricia had seen lots of things she liked, there was nothing that she loved or that she thought Carolina would be okay with, too. Jamie was beginning to worry; everybody usually loved Joy's work.

But Joy wasn't fazed.

“I think the problem is that with a double
quince
, it's really hard to assert your individuality,” Joy explained. “You need every element of this celebration to be specific to you, not generic. But you also want it to speak to your cousin's sensibilities as well. That is a lot to take on. But I think we can fix it. I'll be right back.”

Joy returned with a portfolio of vintage magazine covers. “I use these for inspiration,” she said, flipping the pages quickly, “and ever since you walked in, you have reminded me of one picture in particular.”

She stopped on a page with a photo of Selena Gomez in the middle. The young actress's long dark hair was teased into a high ponytail and her eyes were fringed with fake lashes that were so thick they looked like birds' feathers, but other than the dramatic eyes, her makeup was soft, with just the sheerest hint of pink on her lips.

“Oh, my goodness, she's beautiful,” Patricia said. “But I'm not sure I see the connection to my invitations.”

“My thought is that we turn your invitation into a little pullout magazine, with covers of you and your cousin, the event details as the table of contents, and maybe some fun trivia pages about your lives written like magazine articles,” Joy suggested.

Patricia grinned. “It's genius.”

Joy took a seat beside the
quince
at the long wooden table. “Well, it wouldn't be cheap. We can do the photo shoot here at the studio. I have a friend who is a photographer. And I know Carmen and Jamie can handle the wardrobe and accessories. But we definitely need professional hair and makeup, because if the look isn't done exactly right, it'll be clownish. Plus, the interiors will have to be in color to make the minimagazine, and if you want two hundred invites, it'll be expensive. I'll have to send you an estimate, Jamie, when I really price things out.”

Jamie nodded, then turned to Patricia. “I have an idea. Since this will run on the high end, why don't we make the invitation into your main party favor—a preparty favor sort of. We can do something really inexpensive for the real favor, maybe skipping bags altogether and juggling the budget in other little ways. But you should talk to Carolina to make sure she is cool with it, and then both of you should talk to your parents.”

As the girls talked, Joy picked up the samples and stepped into the back room. She returned a few minutes later. “I made color copies for you and your cousin and for the Amigas team,” she said, handing both Jamie and Patricia a small stack of papers. “Hopefully, it will help when you are filling your cousin and family in.”

As they walked back toward the front door, Patricia turned to shake Joy's hand. “Really, really nice to meet you!” she said, brightly.

“You, too!” Joy said, cheerfully. “But I have to warn you, if you and your cousin don't go for my invite, I'll have to use this design for someone else. It's too good to waste!”

“I don't think that will happen,” Patricia said gravely. “Trust me.”

On the way to the bus stop, Patricia and Jamie passed Sweet and Tart, one of the city's hopping new cupcake shops. It was full of couples holding hands, cute boys drinking the store's already-famous chocolate espresso shots, and fashionable women in high heels and designer dresses who looked as if they might just as well have been sitting on a yacht as in a bakery. Jamie and Patricia peered in at the window.

“I know we just had three cups of tea,” Jamie said, slowing down, “but I'm a sucker for this place's cucumber lemonade.”

“And I'm a sucker for their butterscotch-caramel cupcakes; so we've got to stop in,” Patricia agreed.

The girls found a table right by the window, a prime spot for people-watching. As the tanned and fashionable inhabitants of the neighborhood strolled in and out of the store, the two girls started in on their treats.

Halfway through her cupcake, Patricia paused in the middle of a bite. “Jamie,” she said, her voice soft, “can you keep a secret?”

Jamie was intrigued. “
Claro que sí.
”

The other girl looked around the room, as though making sure no one was listening or watching. “I have a crush,” she finally said shyly. At Jamie's raised eyebrow, she added, “And you totally would never guess who the guy is.”

Jamie was now doubly intrigued. While Carolina had had plenty of boyfriends and was usually romantically linked to someone if only by the rumor mill, Patricia tended to be focused on sports and her friends. Hearing that she had a crush was sort of surprising. “You
have
to tell me, because I'll never guess.”

Patricia took a deep breath. “Jeff Giles.”

Jamie nodded. “Captain of the football team. He's a jock, you're a jock. Why is that so odd?”

Taking another bite of her cupcake, Patricia shook her head. “That's not the way these things go. Guy athletes hardly ever date girl athletes. At least, not at C. G. High. They only date the four
P
's: pretty, perfect, petite, preppy girls, like Carolina. That's why I decided to run for winter formal queen. I know it is totally insane, but I want—no, I
need
—for Jeff to see me as more than just another jock.”

Jamie smiled. For a long time, she had believed that you could only date people who were similar to you, but after she met Dash, that opinion had changed. She could sympathize. “I get it,” she said, nodding. “And since the queen gets to pick her king…” It was a winter formal tradition that a king wasn't chosen in the same way a queen was. In a sort of Sadie Hawkins twist, the queen picked her own king that night.

“…What better, more magical time to let him know how I feel?” Patricia finished with a sigh. “I swear, it's all I think about.”

Jamie held up a hand. “But Carolina and Jeff are friends, aren't they? I mean, I've seen them having lunch together and talking in the halls.”

Patricia nodded.

“She's your cousin, your
prima hermana
,” Jamie added. “So why don't you tell her the truth? That
Jeff
is the reason you're running for queen. She needs to know that you're not doing all of this just to steal her thunder.”

Patricia shook her head. “That's the thing, though. The minute I mentioned wanting to run for winter formal queen, Carolina
completamente
lost it. She never even gave me a chance to explain. If she doesn't trust me enough to listen to me for five minutes about what being queen means to me, how am I supposed to trust
her
to tell her what's so deep in my heart?”

She had a point, Jamie thought. Growing up in the South Bronx, developing a style and having experiences that were worlds away from Alicia's and Carmen's, it had taken her a long time to trust her friends completely. But they had been there for her when she met Dash and had to work through the issues that came with dating a successful golf player who happened to be the son of one of the wealthiest industrialists in Miami. Alicia and Carmen had supported her—even when she flipped out on them. She was sure that Carolina would do the same if Patricia gave her the chance. But judging by the stubborn tilt of her chin, Patricia wasn't about to try. Not yet, anyway.

“Well,” she said to Patricia, “I still think it would go a long way to tell her, but in the meantime, I can't stand in the way of a great crush. So you're just going to have to be elected queen. And I'm going to do my best to help without overstepping my Amigas boundaries.”

Jamie got to work right away. She knew from her own painful past experiences that she had to be careful not to do anything that might jeopardize the harmony among the partners in Amigas Inc. or reflect badly upon their business. But still…she was competitive and liked a good challenge. She told herself that Carmen must be feeling the exact same way. After taking care of some more
quinceañera
business, she worked until after midnight on a new series of winter formal queen election posters. And early the next morning, she and Patricia met at school to hang them all up before the other students arrived.

The first bell of the morning rang just as the two girls finished. They were walking down the hallway, tired, but proud of the work they had done, when they were confronted by Carolina and Carmen, who were both irate.

“Nice work, Patricia,” her cousin hissed. “You win the awards for most ginormous posters. Did you design them to match the size of your mouth?”

Patricia looked as if she'd been slapped. “What are you talking about, Caro?”

Carolina tried to speak, but she was so angry that she couldn't get the words out.

Carmen explained: “Eleven by seventeen is the size limit for all campaign posters. Attached to the wall by tape or tacks. What are your posters? Twenty-three by forty-five? I don't want to be a tattletale, but I will report you to the planning committee if necessary.”

Jamie had been nervous about this happening. While she wanted to help Patricia on a personal level, as a friend,
both
of the girls were clients. They couldn't be fighting this much. It put everything in jeopardy.

“Look, this is my fault. I got inspired last night, and I went to town on the posters,” said Jamie. “I had no idea there were size regulations. I'll make smaller posters tonight.”

“Thanks, Jamie,” Carmen said, sounding actually grateful, even though Carolina still looked livid. It was obvious she had been thinking the same thing and needed
everyone
calm…even if she was now sort of friends with Carolina.

Without another word, the two pairs turned in opposite directions and headed down the hall, toward their first classes.

By the next day, despite the temporary truce they had seemed to reach, both Patricia and Carolina had brand-new posters hanging in the halls.

Carolina's, which featured a red and hot pink fleur-de-lis pattern and gold stenciled letters, read: