Next Year in Havana(109)
What parallels do you see between life in modern Cuba and life in pre-revolutionary Cuba? What differences?
Pablo tells Elisa that everything is political. Do you agree with him?
Despite coming from very different backgrounds, Marisol and Luis share many similarities that bring them together as a couple. What are some examples of this? Why do you think they get along so well? Do you think they are a good influence on each other?
Pablo believes that the best way to change his country is from within. Others like Elisa’s family choose to leave Cuba because they can no longer support the regime. Which approach do you identify with? What are the differences between the Cubans who remained in Cuba and those who live in exile? What are the similarities?
KEEP READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM CHANEL CLEETON’S NEXT NOVEL, FEATURING BEATRIZ PEREZ.
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Beatriz
JANUARY 1960
The thing about collecting marriage proposals is they’re much like cultivating eccentricities. One is an absolute must for being admired in polite—or slightly less-than-polite—society. Two ensure you’re a sought-after guest at parties. Three add a soup?on of mystery, four are a scandal, and five, well, five make you a legend.
I peer down at the man on bended knee in front of me—what is his name?—his body tipping precariously from an overabundance of champagne, and mentally catalogue his appeal. He’s a second cousin to the venerable Preston clan, related by marriage to a former vice president, and cousin to a sitting U.S. senator. His tuxedo is understated elegance, his fortune modest, if not optimistic, for the largesse of a bequest from a deceased aunt or an unexpected inheritance landing on his doorstep. His chin is weak from one too many Prestons marrying Prestons, his last name likely to be followed by Roman numerals.
Andrew. Maybe Albert. Adam?
We’ve met a handful of times at parties like this in Palm Beach, ones I once would have ruled over in Havana but now must bow and scrape in order to gain admittance. I could do worse than a second cousin to American royalty; after all, beggars can’t be choosers, and exiles even less so. The prudent thing would be to accept his proposal—my auspicious fifth—and to follow my sister Elisa into the sacrament of holy matrimony.
But where’s the fun in that?
Whispers brush against my gown. I feel the weight of curious gazes on my back, some more malevolent than others, and the words clawing their way up my skirt, snatching the faux jewels from my neck and casting them to the ground.
Look at her.
Haughty. The whole family is. Someone should tell them this isn’t Cuba.
Those hips. That dress.
Didn’t they lose everything? Fidel Castro nationalized all those sugar fields her father used to own.
Has she no shame?
Perhaps it would be different if we were men, if we weren’t threats to the marital prospects of their friends, nieces, or daughters. If we slid seamlessly into the social fabric they’ve created here.
But we aren’t men, and our sex too often has a particular affinity for hitting where it hurts. With a look, we are dismissed, some indescribable quality identifying us as different, as separate from the society we’ve fled to. We’re treated as cuckoos in a nest, as though our presence here will only serve to snatch up the limited marital resources and steal some of the spotlight that is apparently in meager supply in Palm Beach. The truth is, they can keep their prospective husbands; I’ve little use for men these days.
My smile widens, brightening, flashier than the fake jewels at my neck and just as sincere. I lift my chin an inch and scan the crowd, sweeping past Alexander on his knees, looking like a man who hasn’t quite acquired his sea legs, past the Palm Beach guard shooting daggers my way. My gaze rests on my sisters Isabel and Elisa, standing in the corner, deep in conversation, flutes of champagne in hand. Elisa’s husband hovers nearby in that protective way of his. She might no longer be a Perez in name, but the sight of them, the reminder to bow to nothing and no one . . .
I turn back to Alistair.
“Thank you, but I fear I must decline.”
I keep my tone light, as though the whole thing is a giant jest, which I hope it is. People don’t go falling in love and proposing in one fell swoop, do they? Surely that’s . . . inconvenient. I’ve seen the havoc love has wrought on my sisters’ lives, and I’m more than a little glad to have escaped a similar fate.
For a moment, poor Arthur looks stunned by my answer. Perhaps this wasn’t a joke after all. Slowly, he recovers, and the same easy smile on his face that lingered moments before he fell to his knees returns with a vengeance, restoring his countenance to what is likely its natural state: perpetually pleased with himself and the world he inhabits. He grasps my outstretched hand, his palm clammy against mine, and pulls himself up with an unsteady sway. A soft grunt escapes his lips.
His eyes narrow a bit once we’re level—nearly level, at least, given the extra inch my sister’s borrowed heels provide. It truly is a tragic thing when God doesn’t give you the height you deserve. I would like to be an Amazon, preternaturally tall, stalwart and fierce, towering over my foes, rather than a curvy slip of a woman bent by the winds of revolution.
The glint in Alec’s eyes reminds me of a child whose favorite toy has been taken away and will make you pay for it later by throwing a spectacularly effective tantrum. I think I prefer the honesty of it compared to the smile.