Woman of Light (11)
Nearly a hundred people had gathered to celebrate David. The space was swampy with their heat. Bushels of roses and white orchids covered dozens of round tables. Cedar wreaths extended from the walls. On an elevated stage, old men played mandolin and guitar, a bobbing accordion, the room exhaling with music and laughter.
“Coats, please.” Papa Tikas had approached them, placing his palms over Luz’s shoulders. He smelled of licorice and paper, something vaguely leather. In a forest-colored suit, he bowed to kiss Luz’s and Lizette’s hands. Lips warm and wet. He greeted Diego and Alfonso with steady embraces. Lizette slid out of her disintegrating fur jacket, passing it over on a hooked hand. Papa Tikas hugged the pelt with one arm, reaching for Luz’s wool jacket with the other. He studied the girls’ red satin dresses. Lizette had made them herself, no pattern or sewing machine needed. “Tonight, we get twins,” he said.
They followed as he weaved through aisles, embracing family and friends, kissing the cheeks of gorgeous women and their ancient grandmothers, parting the thicket of elbows and shoulders, until, finally, they arrived at a lengthy table stretched regal with caviar, eggplant, grape leaves, racks of lamb, fried potatoes, veal sausages, pastries. The scent was overwhelming, fats and yeasts, the citrus of flowers. Luz nudged Lizette, as if to say Impossible.
“Papa Tikas,” said Lizette, in a babyish voice. “Are you really Papa No?l?”
“Kouklitsa,” he said, before stepping away.
During dinner, the glowing chandeliers dimmed and one of David’s cousins announced it was time for the Kalamatiano. The dance floor bloomed, Orthodox girls, newly married couples, children running, scampering over wooden floors. They linked arms in a wide, meandering circle, footwork beating back and forth. The floor thumped with movement.
Luz stayed in her seat, picked at her plate and worried over who’d eventually ask her to dance. She was seventeen years old, eighteen in a few months, and Luz worried something was broken about her. She had never had a true suitor, and waiting for love felt like searching the horizon for a figure in the distance, walking toward her from darkened clouds.
Across the table, Diego twirled a small meaty bone between his fingers. Lizette pretended to poke Alfonso with an asparagus spear, and he bent down, disappearing under the table for a moment before revealing a metal flask. The party was abundant with red wine, but Papa Tikas didn’t want any fighting at his parties, so he rarely allowed hard liquor. Alfonso handed the flask to Lizette, who drank before passing it to Luz. The liquor tasted cheap and stale and went warmly down her throat.
“Why you always have that hillbilly shit?” Diego asked.
“Made it myself, hombre. I’ll bring the good stuff next time.” Alfonso laughed. He yeehawed and slapped his knee. He was good for Lizette, Luz thought. A balance. They’d met at Saint Cajetan’s Memorial Day barbecue. In the green plaza, Alfonso stepped to their table in the springtime weather, the air full with apple blossoms and drifting cottonwood saplings. “Se?orita,” he said, tipping his ten-gallon hat, “the name’s Al.” He thought he was a real cowboy, always dressing in boots and hats and sterling buckles. He’d come to Colorado from the Philippines, a place Luz had never heard of before she’d met him. There were several men on the boat. It smelled faintly of vomit and was filled with young and old alike—there was a gambler named Miguel who’d lost an eye and spent the entire voyage squinting without depth at the horizon. They arrived in San Francisco, but Alfonso wanted the mountains, the desert, a place with no oceans anywhere in sight. “On all the maps, Colorado looked wild,” he once said, “though no one mentioned it’d be so hard to breathe.”
They were halfway drunk now—everyone, that is, except for Diego. Lizette had rushed with Alfonso to the dance floor, her shapely hips knocking couples out of her way like a strong tide. Diego remained at the table with Luz. He slumped in his chair, rolled his shirtsleeves to reveal the small snake tattoo on his left arm, just above his elbow. As the booze worked through Luz’s veins, she felt cradled by the room. She asked Diego if he was all right, but either he didn’t hear her, or he didn’t care. Sometimes men were like that, treating a girl’s voice as if it had slipped from her mouth and fallen directly into a pit.
Lizette sashayed back to the table then and bumped Diego with the back of her hand. “You’re being a real party pooper,” she said. “Al’s going in search of more hooch. Want any?”
Diego sipped his water. He told her no, thank you.
“You know,” said Lizette, “I was reading a book on—”
“You,” Diego said, “were reading a book?”
Lizette sat down. “I’m just all beauty and no brains. That’s what my family thinks of me, right?”
“No, not in the slightest,” Luz shook her head. “It’s all hips and no brains.”
Lizette shot her cousin a dirty look. She smoothed the lap of her dress, keeping her eyes on her palms as if she were reading a fortune. “This book said there will be no drinking water by the year 1955. Too many Anglos coming to the Southwest region. It’ll be like a war over water.”
Diego frowned, as though he were considering something very serious. He said, “Don’t worry about it, prima. You can keep drinking what Al mixes in the bathtub.”
“My goodness,” said a high hoarse voice. “My little feetsies are killing me.”