The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (31)

“No one asked you, Jefita,” Isabela interrupted. Dressed in an elegant blush pink gown, she looked like the whisper of a goddess, if a bit gaunt from her poor health.

Jefita bowed her head, her artfully coiled braids were threaded with gold and carnations. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Buenasuerte. We were just playing around. We promise to behave tonight.”

Isabela looked past her head of house, and at her daughter. Orquídea was a vision in blue, her hourglass shape accentuated by the stars.

“What are you wearing?” Isabela asked.

“You don’t like it?”

Isabela shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You look like ripe fruit for men to snatch up. Is that what you want? Is it?”

“I—”

“Do you want to embarrass your father and me?”

“He’s not my father.”

Orquídea felt the hot sting of her mother’s hand. It didn’t stop until Orquídea was crying, setting off Ana Cruz’s wailing. Jefita stood exactly where she’d been the whole time, staring at the floor.

“Ungrateful girl. Where would we be if Wilhelm hadn’t been good to us? I’ve tried so hard, Orquídea, but you’re a reminder of the mistake I made all those years ago.”

Isabela was the first to gasp at her own words. Deep down, she didn’t believe she’d meant it, but the words were spoken and could not be taken back.

“Perhaps it’s best if you stay here and watch Ana Cruz until you calm down and put on something decent.”

But Orquídea didn’t change out of her dress. She didn’t look cheap or easy. She looked and felt like a jewel, even if that might have been a diamond in the rough. She did not attend the party but watched from the top of the banister as the beautiful, wealthy families danced and laughed. Men with thick mustaches and growing bellies orated toasts in the Buenasuerte name. Every man in the room formed a line to dance with Mila and Marie in their chiffon and tulle dresses that made Orquídea think of butterfly wings. Those were her dances, and her charming smiles. All she’d wanted was one day, but no matter how hard she worked, how well she behaved, how much she tried, it wasn’t enough. She didn’t belong there.

That night, while the guests were being serenaded by Julio Jaramillo, the Nightingale of America himself, she snuck out and went to visit the river. She lived so close and yet she’d been severed from it, the only place that had claimed her.

“Please,” she begged. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to the river monster, or some distant god, or the stars.

And then, beneath the lapping crush of the river, the cacophony of the Buenasuerte house, and the distant fireworks, she heard it—a murmur. The pulse of the sky. An earnest reply.

Find me.

“Who are you?” Orquídea asked, turning in place. There was no one near her. Further along the row of shanty houses, kids kicked a soccer ball in the dark. Others lingered outside the Buenasuerte house waiting for the scraps the servants threw out.

Find me, the voice repeated.

Orquídea felt a pull. A sense of certainty. In that moment Orquídea realized that some people stay in certain places forever, even when they’re miserable, and that is neither bad nor good. It’s survival. She had learned that lesson too early because one day she’d grow comfortable in thinking the worst was behind her.

But in that moment, she walked toward the voice.

Find me.

It wasn’t safe for girls to walk in the dark dressed in satin, her dress so blue it was like a soft bruise. Isn’t that what her mother had called her? Ripe, bruised, spoiled fruit. But Orquídea felt protected. No, possessed. It was like the night had laid out a path for her to follow, and anyone who laid eyes on her could see that she was spoken for by fate.

Hours later, when the moon was swollen and tinted red, Orquídea came upon a lot where a carnival had been erected. A great white tent pierced the starless sky. Even though the sound of the voice was gone, she knew she was in the right place. Her feet hurt, but she crossed the parking lot, strewn in hay, and stopped in front of a woman draped in red velveteen and smoking a cigarette from a silver holder.

“Hello. Do you have work?” she asked.

The woman smiled with the burden of someone who knows too much. “My dear, you are just the thing we were looking for.”





10

THE HUNGER OF THE LIVING




Marimar pressed the photograph against her chest. Was this sylph of light clutching Pena Montoya the father Marimar had never known? Her mouth could barely form the word. She usually went out of her way to avoid saying it out loud after over a decade of having to explain herself at school. Teachers were always either sympathetic or judgmental about her situation. One year, Marimar wasn’t allowed to be exempt from the Father’s Day card art project and resentfully glued some macaroni into the shape of a hand flipping the middle finger. She’d seen her tía Parcha do it all the time. When her mother had to be called into the school to pick her up for being rude and disrespectful, Marimar asked, for the hundredth time, where her father was.

Pena Montoya had a smile that stopped traffic, and it often did when she took long walks into town. But on that day, she didn’t smile. She raked her long waves back and gnawed on her bottom lip. She looked up at the sky and Marimar swore that her mom was asking it for help.