The Feria (13 page)

Abril’s birthday party was a grand event, with brand new patio furniture, a finely manicured lawn, and flags from each of the states hanging across the yard as decorations, representation that she could go anywhere and do anything she put her mind to. The party was topped off with a receiving table overflowing with gifts, and a cake, pink with three tiers and as beautiful as any exuberant wedding cake Soledad had ever seen.

Aside from celebrating Abril’s birthday, her father put a graduation-party spin on things, and over-invited anyone from the neighboring community, to the men who operated his well-oiled machine of a business, to the city’s dignitaries, including the mayor, who occupied a private party in the dining room. There was room for all, and all in every guest-ready room, the yard, and the pool. The gift table and the floor surrounding were cluttered in finely wrapped gifts of all sizes and shapes. A good contribution to the gifts were the numerous that Emmanuel had ordered from each state. A gold locket from New York, cowboy boots from Texas, Hershey’s Chocolate from Pennsylvania, and on and on.

Soledad was ready and willing to start cooking days ahead for a full-course Mexican meal, but Emmanuel seemed less than intrigued by this. Not only did he say his wife would do nothing but enjoy this event, he also decried their Mexican roots, saying that Mexican food would be tasteless for an event of this magnitude. While Soledad was offended, she cared less for the things that dwelled in his mind. If her husband was no longer Mexican, then even better for the Mexicans, she supposed.

In place of traditional, home-cooked
enchiladas, beans, rice, chicken, mole, gorditas, and tacos,
a team of cooks was hired.

Guests were dazzled with an open mesquite fire-pit in the center of the backyard, where the smell of sirloin seasoned with salt, pepper, chili powder, and sugar danced through the air. The steaks were served with baked potatoes that, before baking, were rolled in butter and salt, and served smothered in sour cream, butter, bacon pieces, and green onion. The shrimp cocktail boasted plump and succulent shrimp, dunked boldly in tomato juice, cilantro, onions, avocado, and fresh
Pico de Gallo
, and finally, if they had room, guests indulged in green chili, mixed with shredded cheese and shredded chicken on
tostadas.

The house was not used to the laughter and loudness that came with young people, nor the chatter of fattened and satisfied partygoers, but everyone and everything held up fine.

It wasn’t until Soledad was at the kitchen counter refilling a chip bowl that she finally got to truly have a few words with her daughter. She had slinked in right behind her mother, a young man in tow.

“Mom?” Abril sounded bashful, unsure.

Soledad turned around to see the most striking young man she had ever seen, other than Xavier. He was absolutely darling. She had to stop herself from flinching. This boy peculiarly brought back too many memories that she quickly cast aside. But she could see why her beautiful daughter found him captivating. For once, Emmanuel had done something good.

“This is Alejandro, but he likes Alex,” Abril said with a smile.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Alex.”

“Likewise,
Señora
Nevarez.”

They shook hands, and Soledad could not fight the familiarity of him. She actually chastised herself. What was her problem? She must be crazy to think that he reminded her of a young man she once knew, but there was something about his mannerisms, his looks. She instantly put up a wall against Alex, and prayed Abril would grow tired of him. But she did have to admit, Abril and Alex were beautiful together. Soledad, for one brief second, imagined what her grandchildren might look like with such good genes on both sides of the family.

Lost in her thoughts, Soledad realized she had been staring at the boy for far too long, and the kids were uncomfortable. Abril gave her a warning glance.

“I’m sorry your parents couldn’t be here tonight, Alex.”

“They would have enjoyed it very much. The party is wonderful,
Señora.”

“Well, we pray traveling mercies for your father, and send my best to your mother.” She handed her daughter the chip bowl. “Go enjoy, you two!” Soledad said brightly, too brightly. “Nice to meet you again.” Exhausted from the memories this boy had trudged up even all these years later, she went off to her room to sulk.

Later that night, after convincing Emmanuel that her absence was due to the onset of a migraine, Emmanuel informed Soledad that the children were getting along very well, and he had suggested to the boy that the families should meet.

“Isn’t that rather premature?” She felt her hand tighten around her hairbrush.

“No, no, they are getting along perfectly.” He kicked off his shoes and began to undress.

Soledad shook her head, then muttered under her breath, “Fine, fine. Whatever you want.” As always. Why was she behaving like this? Abril was clearly on board. She truly seemed to like this boy. It was very clear by the way she looked at him all night. So why should her daughter suffer just because her mother couldn’t get over the fact Alex looked like Xavier?

Soledad spent the days leading up to the meeting trying to calm Abril’s nerves. Her daughter was a mess.

“What if his parents don’t like me, Mom?”

“They’d be stupid not to.” She dragged a brush through Abril’s long locks.

“You have to say that. You’re my mother,” she teased, grinning at her mother through the reflection in the mirror.

“That’s how I know.” She knocked her playfully in the head with the back of the brush.

Soledad took her time in stroking her daughter’s silky, deep-brown hair. Not only did it soothe her, but she wanted to give her daughter confidence with a gorgeous updo.

Suddenly, noise filled the foyer. They were here.

Soledad watched the color drain from her daughter’s face. She placed two gentle hands along her daughter’s cheeks. “You’re fine, my girl. Run along.” She patted her daughter’s bottom. “I’ll be right there.” She hadn’t had time to even drag a comb through her hair.

Soledad glanced into the mirror and smoothed her hair back. She took a small drop of perfume and put it on her wrist, then straightened out her dress and smoothed down the fabric. This would have to do.

As she entered the foyer, the boy and his mother stood in the sitting area. The men were outside smoking cigars. She hated when Emmanuel smoked cigars, but it was his way of showing off.

“
Buenos Dias
,” she greeted the beautiful woman, who flashed a gleaming smile. The peach summer dress accentuated her body, and flowed to the ground to polished and sandaled toes. Her son looked just like her with matching complexions and dark eyes. The smiles were identical, too. “Soledad Nevarez,” she added, extending her hand.

“Ah,
Buenos dias
.” The soft-spoken woman shook Soledad’s hand. Her smile really was dazzling, captivating. “Ramona Mendoza.” The fine lines on her hands, eyes and mouth were just visible, only threatening to call out her age, but her poise maintained sharp vigilance over youthfulness. Soledad, who hadn’t realized how the weight of life had made her hunch over, felt herself inspired to straighten her posture.

“Hello,
Mijo
, nice to see you again.” Soledad let go of Alex’s mother’s hand to shake his. She was ashamed to admit to herself that he was striking in his slacks and collared polo shirt. She clearly did not have a desire for him, but she always felt inclined to stare at him. He reminded her too much of Xavier, and it was really beginning to bother her.

They were able to converse for a good ten, uninterrupted minutes as the men’s muffled laughs and words could be heard through the door. Soledad relaxed as she realized Alex’s mother had only kind words for Abril. They spoke calmly to each other, all the while, Alex stood guard by Abril’s side as if ready to interrupt should his mother go down embarrassing territory. The men’s voices grew louder as they turned to come inside.

Emmanuel led the way inside, Alex’s father hidden behind his frame. The two men continued talking as they entered.

Soledad gasped and felt the blood leave her face. Was the room suddenly spinning? Her eyes began to blink back threatening tears. Abril slid her hand into her mother’s, whispering into her ear, but her words fell on deaf ears. There was something else ringing in Soledad’s ears. The voice. The voice. Her ears strained to recognize it, as her eyes could only make out silent moving mouths and smiles. And then she was sure. Even after two decades, unless she was going crazy, or unless her subconscious, sick of being subdued, rekindled by Alex’s resemblance, now rang out clearly, she knew that voice belonged to one man and one only.

The rush of young love slapped her face as the man appeared from behind Emmanuel. There was no mistaking who he was. His eyes were the same as her daughter’s.

While his blue gaze sharpened on her face, she instantly knew what was happening. Only Xavier could raise such a fine, remarkable, hard-working young man, who would be charming enough to win a smart girl’s heart on their first meeting. She glanced over at the kids, even though her eyes begged her to stay on Xavier. The children were chatting over framed photographs. Abril, who’d been reluctant to leave her mother’s side, now stared nervously over at her, but was quick to return her attention to Alex. Their attraction and fascination with each other was as strong as magnets. She forced herself to steady and pay attention when her husband began the introductions. Another fear now gripped her. How long would it be before her husband realized who this man was? Didn’t the name sound any alarms? How well had Emmanuel seen Xavier so many years ago when he caught a glimpse of them together in Mexico? Where her face had gone cold, now it burned.

Suddenly, she realized her heart was screaming. She instinctively backed away. Xavier, now here in flesh and bone, was the very thing she had been hiding and protecting herself from for twenty years.

Calm down. Dios, ayuda me.
If she didn’t handle this properly, what she had spent years and years building and protecting could at this very minute, collapse. She had to get her wits about her. She was suddenly the center of attention and realized that Xavier was holding out his hand. She had missed Emmanuel say Xavier’s name, but she didn’t need to hear it. She knew, and she knew that he, Xavier, knew that she was his Soledad from long ago. She knew this because of the way he eagerly stared at her. And then their eyes held each other’s. Electricity.

“
Buenos Dias
,” she managed, fighting for control over each word.

“Señora.”
He nodded at her, his gaze never leaving her face. The tension mounted, and Soledad felt the color that had just returned drain yet again from her face. Everyone was staring at them. But she couldn’t help it.

The mere sight of him killed her all over again. Her fists clenched at her sides, and as her nails stabbed her inner hands, she fought a great battle to rein her emotions back in and remain in control of the situation. She had to focus on a bigger problem at hand. Her daughter was hopelessly and unknowingly in love with her half-brother.

“Tonight is going to be a late night.”

Soledad nodded at her husband’s comment. She lay emotionless on the sofa in the sitting room. What Emmanuel did not realize was that every night had been a late night for her for the last two decades. “That’s fine. We’re spending the night with my mother. Abril organized a sleepover.” She loved the spontaneity of her daughter. Plus, there was now a cloud over this home, and she needed a break from it.

Emmanuel stood over her, studying her as if he noted she was lost. He kissed her quickly as he walked out of the house. “See you tomorrow.”

There were no “I love you’s,” no regret that they would be apart for the night. She felt a sudden flash of hatred for the woman, the stranger, who now held Xavier’s heart. Soledad knew the young man that Xavier had been, so she knew all that he was capable of being as a husband and father. It killed her that Xavier had shaken Abril’s hand and was only steps away from his flesh-and-blood daughter, and she could not scream out: “Look! Look at the beautiful daughter we made together! Look at her beautiful eyes!” She also wanted to scream: “Take your family and get away from here!” The contradiction weighed heavy on her.

Soledad knew this woman, Xavier’s wife, was the happiest woman in the world. There was undoubtedly handholding, and she was sure their fingers intertwined. Soledad’s fingers had never danced with anyone else’s since him. She knew there were tender moments between him and his wife. He was probably even with her as their son was born, eager to meet him and sure to let his wife know how beautiful she was, holding their son. She had the life that Soledad was supposed to have.

A phone call later in the day dashed any hopes of escape. Flor had to run some errands for the boys. They were struggling, trying to take the reins of their father’s business. Their mother was killing herself trying to support the boys, and Emmanuel was growing tired of watching the circus unfold. It wouldn’t be long before he stepped in to put an end to it all.

Soledad considered going to see a movie with Abril, but she was off doing God knew what with God knew who, and hopefully it wasn’t with her brother. The thought repulsed her. She simply waited her day out in the house, wishing for the night to come. She was unsure when Abril would be back, and she knew that Emmanuel would be home later than usual. Knowing she was alone, with the exception of the maids, who stayed on a completely secluded side of the house, she allowed the depression to take over her. She had fought this enemy for too long. It covered her like the tan thick blanket she pulled over her head. And then, she slept. She slept and she slept.

Two weeks had passed since fate had decided to deal a cruel blow. She had felt half dead, barely wandering through her days and ignoring her need to sleep at night.

In what had become, in the last few days, a habit as strong as smoking, Soledad went out to the backyard, turning off any possible light, indoor and out, and lay on the ground by the pool, looking up at the night sky. It reminded her of the first time she really learned to appreciate its beauty, that amazing night on the Ferris wheel, but she had always mechanically pushed the more intimate details of that night out of her always rebellious mind. For years, she had deprived herself of dwelling on her most precious memories, but the danger of allowing herself to do that was now gone. Aside from the greatest fears motherhood and its complexity had instilled in her, her next greatest fear, having to marry someone else, had already come true. The greatest fear after that, never seeing Xavier again, was now gone, and now pointless. Life had taken them to very different paths. She had thought of this day only in her dreams, where she had no will or control over what entered her mind. But in her dreams, things had always turned out so differently.

Soledad heard slow, careful steps approaching behind her.

“Momma?” Abril said, sounding unsure.

“
Aqui, mi reyna
. Be careful where you step.” Soledad got up to guide her daughter over. The backyard, especially in the dark, was now second nature to her. They sat together on the lawn, both silently staring at the sky. Their hands naturally found each other.

“Wow.” Only the one word escaped Abril’s mouth.

Amid the gloom, Soledad’s lips turned upward. She’d gotten her movie date with her daughter after all. “It’s like a theater, no? We’ve got the big screen, we’ve got the stars, what else are we missing?”

Abril laughed, her teeth flashing white in the darkness. “Popcorn.”

Soledad joined in her daughter’s laughter.

“Everything okay?” Soledad asked after several minutes of silence.

Finally Abril spoke, her voice tentative. “I wanted to ask you that, actually.”

“I’m great,” she replied, the lie pirouetting all over her words.

“Mom, I’m worried about you. You haven’t been the same the last few weeks. You always look like, like you’re somewhere else. Aren’t you happy anymore?” Her daughter’s grip became stronger.

“I’m very happy. I have you here with me.” She pulled her hand away and wrapped her arms around Abril.

Abril shifted closer to her. “Mom. What’s your greatest fear?”

“I’m a mother and motherhood makes you crazy, so I would have to say that it would be anything happening to you.” A nervous laugh escaped her lips.

“Does whatever’s going on with you have something to do with Alex?” There was now teasing in her voice. “Is your baby growing up?”

Soledad felt sick at the way her daughter naïvely mentioned her brother, with any sense of a possible future romantic relationship. She silently willed herself not to throw up and took several deep, silent, calming breaths.

“Mom! I was kidding, really, calm down!”

Soledad had thought hers was an internal struggle, but apparently, her daughter could sense the battle. Now it was Abril who wrapped her arms around her mother.

“Mom, no matter what happens, no matter what I do or where I go, you and Dad are everything to me. This is just the next step in life. Then the dust settles.”

If this conversation had been about any other boy, Soledad would be so proud of her daughter’s ability to speak these words of wisdom.

“I have a chance to be in love, Mom. Be excited for me. Please!” Her daughter sounded so hopeful, so excited. A wave of hopelessness washed over Soledad. What was she going to do?

“I don’t mean any offense to you and Dad, but I have never felt sparks between you guys. I mean you don’t fight, but Mom, you don’t fight! There is no passion, no heated arguments to make up over, no gentle, secret touches. Is it because you guys are old? Or am I missing something? Don’t you want all that love has to offer for me?” She cradled her mother’s face in two warm hands. They made contact with moonlit eyes. “I think of you often, Mom, and I don’t want to spend my life always looking like I wished I were somewhere else.”

Words failed her. Her daughter had noticed the things she’d tried desperately to hide from her.

“
Mija
, it’s different for some couples, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t love each other.”

“But Mom, there is a difference between loving each other and
being in
love with each other.”

Abril was right. There
was
a difference, a big one.

What a mess everything was. Everything she had tried desperately to protect was unraveling quickly. What could she possibly do to stop it?

Soledad heard a car pulling around front.

“Daddy’s home.”

“I’m sure he’ll be surprised and glad to see you.”

“He should be surprised and glad to see you, too. Mom, when my husband gets home from work after being gone all day and night, I want us to be so in love that he can hardly get the key into the door and I can hardly make it to that door fast enough so we can kiss each other.” Her eyes were pleading. “Please, Mom, please tell me this exists.”

She couldn’t lie to her daughter. “It does,
mija
, but it comes with great risks and uncertainty. Sometimes it’s worth the risk, but you have to also be willing to go on living if it doesn’t work out.”

“Oh my God. You have been in love.” Her surprise dissipated, and another realization hit her even faster. “And it wasn’t with Dad.”

“It was a very, very long time ago, and it still hurts to talk about it.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her daughter put her hand over her mother’s.

Soledad could not believe what was happening. There in the pitch-black night, she had suddenly found a confidant in her young daughter. How ironic that the living blood of Xavier, her true love, would now listen to how she’d loved and lost him. She wished her daughter’s soul could be one with her father, and he could hear everything she said.

She told her daughter, who stayed perfectly quiet and perfectly still throughout, everything from the beginning to the bitter end. She did, of course, do her very best to protect the integrities of Abril’s grandfather and Emmanuel.

“Mom, that belongs in a novel. That was the most beautiful love story I’ve ever heard.” She was eager now, sitting up onto her knees. Her youth evident, hope in her voice. “Mom, I love my daddy, really I do, but where on earth do you think your first love could be right now?”

She only had one word for her daughter. “Happy.” She was now certain of that.

“If he feels about you the way you feel about him, I promise you he’s not happy. The world has two people in it, on perhaps opposite ends, equally sad and sulky. I’ve yet to see you alive, Mom.”

She took her daughter’s hand and squeezed. “You make me alive. You gave me a whole new reason to live.”

“Thank you, Mommy.”

The conversation was over. For now. They dusted themselves off and headed toward the darkened house. Soledad shot one last look at the magnificent sky, then she and Abril entered the house holding hands.

She turned the kitchen light on and froze in shock. She felt her daughter’s hand go limp, and she stumbled back. Words escaped her. Abril began to cry, loud, noisy sobs, then ran out the back door. Soledad stood, mouth wide open, staring at the unimaginable.

There, on her kitchen table, a maid named Norma lay with her dress hiked up and her legs spread wide. And there, there on top of her, in between her legs, was a sweaty and faint-looking Emmanuel, pants on the floor, unmoving with his hands still on Norma’s breasts. Realization slammed into Soledad. Emmanuel didn’t expect her to be home. He had no way of knowing they were no longer spending the night with Flor. The maids had no way of knowing she was home because she’d slept all day. It all made perfect sense.

Soledad struggled to find the words she wanted to speak to her husband. Instead, she kept her gaze lowered as she backed away, then turned and went after her daughter. She needed to find her daughter. A traumatic event such as this would surely push Abril to do something drastic. She might decide on impulse to run away with this boy. She had to find her. Now. As she ran to the side of the house, the breeze brushed at her face. It felt good. While distraught for her daughter, she suddenly felt a smile crack her face. Understanding hit her all at once. She was free. Her father was dead, and nothing more could hurt or worry him. She was free to let go. If her family’s cherry empire fell, they could all work at something else. Status was no longer an issue. She and Abril would go live with Flor, and she would throw herself full-time into helping her brothers. She continued to run into the night, searching for her daughter, and enjoying the freedom that whipped around her with the fresh night air.