When We Left Cuba(44)
Of course.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re making far too much of a casual flirtation.”
“Your flirtations have a way of causing trouble for the rest of us.”
“So is that what this is about, then? You aren’t worried about me; you’re worried about your reputation.”
“So what if I am?”
“Let me guess. Your precious boyfriend doesn’t want to be associated with a scandal.”
“He’s a senator, Beatriz. What did you think would happen? His fiancée is a debutante. Do what you want, but you are sorely mistaken if you think you can carry on an affair with an American politician and not feel the ramifications of it. That we won’t all feel the ramifications of your behavior.”
“And your own behavior is entirely above reproach? Does your boyfriend know about the fiancé you left back in Cuba? How many men are you going to get engaged to?”
Isabel reddens.
“Will you both please be quiet?” Maria shouts. “I’m trying to watch the election.”
“Oh, who cares about the election?” Isabel snaps as she rises from the couch in a huff. I’ve crossed an invisible line by mentioning the fiancé she left back home. Our family is filled with secrets and lies, truths we’re neither willing to face nor speak of.
Isabel leaves the room without a backward glance, and there’s a moment where I consider going after her, only to be stopped by the expression on Maria’s face.
“I hate the fighting,” she says.
Something tightens in my chest. “I know. But sometimes you fight the most with the people you love. It doesn’t mean you don’t love them. It just means you don’t always agree.”
“It would be easier if we all could agree.”
I laugh. “But much more boring. There’s nothing wrong with having different opinions as long as at the end of the day we always remember we’re on the same side. We’re Perezes first and foremost.”
“Do you think Isabel will get married and leave like Elisa?” Maria asks, the same fear and uncertainty in her voice that I’ve been ashamed to confront.
“Maybe.”
“Are you going to get married and leave like Elisa?”
“Never.”
* * *
? ? ?
I wake on the ugly floral couch in the living room to the sensation of Maria shaking me. I peer up into her excited eyes, my head foggy from sleep. I blink, my vision adjusting to the low light in the room, as I attempt to process what time of day it is.
“It’s over.”
The election.
My heart pounds.
“Who won?”
“Kennedy,” she announces triumphantly.
So Nick’s friend is to be this nation’s thirty-fifth president, and the American people are to transition from a Republican leadership to a Democratic one.
“That’s good,” I murmur, my eyelids growing heavy once more.
“He won, too,” Maria whispers.
Two thoughts go through my head right before sleep claims me—
One, even my youngest sister has heard the rumors about Nick Preston and me, and two, even though Isabel was right, and any hope I have of resuming things with Nick would likely be much easier if he wasn’t reelected, I am immeasurably glad for him that he has won reelection.
chapter sixteen
Now that the election is over, everyone has turned their eyes to Palm Beach and what the press has dubbed the “Winter White House.” Everyone wants a chance to rub elbows with a Kennedy, to catch the president-elect’s ear.
There’s a new cachet surrounding the venerable Kennedy compound, a certain pride in the way the yearly residents speak of the family. The Kennedys have been a fixture in Palm Beach for decades, and now it’s official: the Kennedys are American royalty, and Palm Beach is eager to celebrate their coronation. A massive crowd was at the airport in West Palm to greet Kennedy when he arrived in town last month after the election, the images showing people clamoring for a chance to shake his hand, to see the man who has brought so much hope to the country.
Maria begged our parents to let us attend, but after the revolution, my mother has become quite wary of crowds. Perhaps we’ll see the new president-elect up close at one of the many events this winter, even if the circles he and his family travel in are a bit more rarified than the ones we inhabit. Everywhere he goes, there are people eager to meet him, and if he seeks solace here in the sand and the sun, I fear he won’t receive much of a respite. They’re predicting it will be the best season in a decade.
In the mornings, I wake early and walk along the beach. Now that Elisa has moved to Miami, I’m left to my own devices far more often. Maria is in school, Isabel off being Isabel, and Eduardo is once again on a “business” trip. Our friendship is such that we don’t keep tabs on each other’s whereabouts, but I miss him more and more as the days go on. I’ve not really made any friends here in Palm Beach, have social acquaintances more than anything else. I miss the companionship of being around people with whom I can be myself.
I continue attending the meetings with the group in Hialeah, but I’ve come to realize they are little more than a social club, idealizing men like Castro and Khrushchev, delighting in reading the works of Lenin and Marx, rallying against the American president and capitalism. On the one hand, I have found the dialogue I craved when I argued for my parents to send me to university, but it comes at the expense of being unable to express my true opinions, unable to indulge the overwhelming desire to disagree when they cite communist rhetoric as gospel.