“Will you be needing a taxi tonight, Doc?” Ralph asked their father as he did every time the family came out all dressed up. Usually, Papi said, “No, thank you, Ralph,” and the family turned the corner and took a bus. Tonight, though, to Sandi’s surprise, her father splurged. “Yes, please, Ralph, a Checker for all my girls.” Sandi could not get over how happy her father seemed. She slipped her hand into his, and he gave it a squeeze before he released it. He was not a man to show public affection on foreign soil.
As the taxi sped along, Mami had to repeat the address for the driver because the man could not understand Papi’s accent. Sandi realized with a pang one of the things that had been missing in the last few months. It was precisely this kind of special attention paid to them. At home there had always been a chauffeur opening a car door or a gardener tipping his hat and a half dozen maids and nursemaids acting as if the health and well-being of the de la Torre-García children were of wide public concern. Of course, it was usually the de la Torre boys, not the girls, who came in for special consideration. Still, as bearers of the de la Torre name, the girls were made to feel important.
The restaurant had a white awning with its name EL FLAMENCO in brilliant red letters. A doorman, dressed up as a dignitary with a flaming red band across his white ruffled shirt, opened the car door for them. A carpet on the sidewalk led into the reception foyer, from which they could see into a large room of tables dressed up with white tablecloths and napkins folded to look like bishops’ hats. Silverware and glasses gleamed like ornaments. Around the occupied tables handsome waiters gathered, their black hair slicked back into bull-fighters’ little ponytails. They wore cummerbunds and white shirts with ruffles on the chest—beautiful men like the one Sandi would someday marry. Best of all were the rich, familiar smells of garlic and onion and the lilting cadence of Spanish spoken by the dark-eyed waiters, who reminded Sandi of her uncles.
At the entrance to the dining room, the maître d’ explained that Mrs. Fanning had called to say she and her husband were on their way, to go ahead and sit down and order some drinks. He led them, a procession of six, to a table right next to a platform. He pulled out all their chairs, handed them each an opened menu, then bowed and backed away. Three waiters descended on the table, filling water glasses, adjusting silverware and plates. Sandi sat very still and watched their beautiful long fingers fast at work.
“Something to drink, señor?” one of them said, addressing Papi.
“Can I have a Coke?” Fifi piped up, but then backed down when her mother and her sisters eyed her. “I’ll have chocolate milk.”
Their father laughed good-naturedly, aware of the waiting waiter. “I don’t think they have chocolate milk. Cokes is fine for tonight. Right, Mami?”
Mami rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. She was too beautiful tonight to be their mother and to impose the old rules. “Have you noticed,” she whispered to Papi when the waiter had left with the drink orders. The girls drew in to hear. Mami was the leader now that they lived in the States. She had gone to school in the States. She spoke English without a heavy accent. “Look at the menu. Notice how there aren’t any prices? I bet a Coke here is a couple of dollars.”
Sandi’s mouth dropped open. “A couple of dollars!”
Her mother hushed her with an angry look. “Don’t embarrass us, please, Sandi!” she said, and then laughed when Papi reminded her that Spanish was not a secret language in this place.
“Ay, Mami.” He covered her hand briefly with his. “This is a special night. I want us to have a good time. We need a celebration.”
“I suppose,” Mami said, sighing. “And the Fannings are paying.”
Papi’s face tightened.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Mami reminded him. “When they were our guests back home, we treated them like royalty.”
That was true. Sandi remembered when the famous Doctor Fanning and his wife had come down to instruct the country’s leading doctors on new procedures for heart surgery. The tall, slender man and his goofy wife had been guests in the family compound. There had been many barbecues with the driveway lined with cars and a troop of chauffeurs under the palm trees exchanging news and gossip.
When the drinks arrived, Papi made a funny toast, in Spanish and loud enough for the waiters’ benefit, but they were all too professional, and if they did overhear, no one chuckled. Just as they all lifted their glasses, Mami leaned into the table. “They’re here.” Sandi turned to see the maître d’ heading in their direction with a tall, dressed-up woman, and behind her, a towering, preoccupied-looking man. It took a moment to register that these were the same human beings who had loitered around the pool back on the Island, looking silly in sunglasses and sunhats, noses smeared with suntan cream, and speaking a grossly inadequate Spanish to the maids.
A flutter of hellos and apologies ensued. Papi stood up, and Sandi, not knowing what manners were called for, stood up too, and was eyed by her mother to sit back down. The doctor and his wife lingered over each girl, “trying to get them straight,” and remembering how each one had been only this tall when last they had seen them. “What little beauties!” Dr. Fanning teased. “Carlos, you’ve got quite a harem here!” The four girls watched their father’s naughty smile tilt on his face.
For the first few minutes the adults exchanged news. Dr. Fanning told how he had spoken with a friend who was the manager of an important hotel that needed a house doctor. The job was a piece of cake, Dr. Fanning explained, mostly keeping rich widows in Valium, but heck, the pay was good. Sandi’s father looked down at his plate, grateful, but also embarrassed to be in such straits and to be so beholden.
The Fannings’ drinks arrived. Mrs. Fanning drank hers down in several greedy swallows, then ordered another. She had been quiet during the flurry of arrival, but now she gushed questions, raising her eyebrows and pulling long faces when Mrs. García explained that they had not been able to get any news from the family ever since the news blackout two weeks back.
Sandi studied the woman carefully. Why had Dr. Fanning, who was tall and somewhat handsome, married this plain, bucktoothed woman? Maybe she came from a good family, which back home was the reason men married plain, bucktoothed women. Maybe Mrs. Fanning came with all the jewelry she had on, and Dr. Fanning had been attracted by its glittering the way little fishes are if you wrap tinfoil on a string and dangle it in the shallows.
Dr. Fanning opened his menu. “What would everyone like? Girls?” This was the moment they had been so carefully prepared for. Mami would order for them—they were not to be so rude or forward as to volunteer a special like or dislike. Besides, as Sandi tried reading the menu, with the help of her index finger, sounding out syllables, she did not recognize the names of dishes listed.
Her mother explained to Dr. Fanning that she would order two pastelones for the girls to share.
“Oh, but the seafood here is so good,” the doctor pleaded, looking at her from above his glasses, which had slipped down on his nose like a schoolteacher’s. “How about some paella, girls, or camarones a la vinagretal?”
“They don’t eat shrimp,” their mother said, and Sandi was grateful to her for defending them from this dreaded, wormy food. On the other hand, Sandi would have been glad to order something different and all to herself. But she remembered her mother’s warnings.
“Mami,” Fifi whispered, “what’s pastolone?”
“Pastelón, Cuca.” Mami explained it was a casserole like Chucha used to make back home with rice and ground beef. “It’s very good. I know you girls will like it.” Then she gave them a pointed look they understood to mean, they must like it.
“Yes,” they said nicely when Dr. Fanning asked if pastelon was indeed what they wanted.
“Yes, what?” Mami coached.
“Yes, thank you,” they chorused. The doctor laughed, then winked knowingly at them.
Their orders in and fresh drinks on the table, the grownups fell into the steady drone of a
dult conversation. Now and again the changed cadence of a story coming through made Sandi lean forward and listen. Otherwise, she sat quietly, playing with sugar packets until her mother made her stop. She watched the different tables around theirs. All the other guests were white and spoke in low, unexcited voices. Americans, for sure. They could have eaten anywhere, Sandi thought, and yet they had come to a Spanish place for dinner. La Bruja was wrong. Spanish was something other people paid to be around.
Her eye fell on a young waiter whose job seemed to be to pour water into the goblets at each table when they ran low. Every time she caught his eye, she would glance away embarrassed, but with boredom she grew bolder. She commenced a little flirtation; he smiled, and each time she smiled back, he approached with his silver pitcher to refill her water glass. Her mother noticed and said in coded scolding, “Their well is going to run dry.”
In fact, Sandi had drunk so much water that, she explained quietly to Mami, she was going to have to go to the toilet. Her mother cast her another of her angry looks. They had been cautioned against making any demands tonight during dinner. Sandi squirmed at her seat, unwilling to go, unless she could be granted a smiling permission.
Papi offered to accompany her. “I could use the men’s room myself.” Mrs. Fanning also stood up and said she could stand to leave behind a little something. Dr. Fanning gave her a warning look, not too different from the one Sandi’s mother had given her.
The three of them trooped to the back of the restaurant where the maitred’ had directed, and down a narrow flight of stairs, lit gloomily by little lamps hung in archways. In the poorly lit basement Mrs. Fanning squinted at the writing on the two doors. “Damas?. Caballeros?.” Sandi checked an impulse to correct the American lady’s pronunciation. “Hey there, Carlos, you’re going to have to translate for me so I don’t end up in the wrong room with you!” Mrs. Fanning rolled her hips in a droll way like someone trying to keep up a Hula-Hoop.
Papi looked down at his feet. Sandi had noticed before that around American women he was not himself. He rounded his shoulders and was stiffly well-mannered, like a servant. “Sandi will show you,” he said, putting his daughter between himself and Mrs. Fanning, who laughed at his discomfort. “Go ahead then, sugar pie.” Sandi held open the door marked DAMAS for the American lady. As Mrs. Fanning turned to follow, she leaned towards Sandi’s father and brushed her lips on his.
Sandi didn’t know whether to stand there foolishly or dash in and let the door fall on this uncomfortable moment. Like her father, she looked down at her feet, and waited for the giggling lady to sweep by her. Even in the dimly lit room, Sandi could see her father’s face darken with color.
Sandi and Mrs. Fanning found themselves in a pretty little parlor with a couch and lamps and a stack of perfumed towels. Sandi spied the stalls in an adjoining room and hurried into one, releasing her bladder. Relieved, she now felt the full and shocking weight of what she had just witnessed. A married American woman kissing her father!
As she let herself out of her stall, she heard Mrs. Fanning still active in hers. Quickly, she finished hitching up her silly tights, then swished her hands under the faucet, beginning to dry them on her dress, but remembering after an initial swipe, the towels. She took one from the stack, wiped her hands and tapped at her face as she had seen Mami do with the powder puff. Looking at herself in the mirror, she was surprised to find a pretty girl looking back at her. It was a girl who could pass as American, with soft blue eyes and fair skin, looks that were traced back to a great-great grandmother from Sweden at every family gathering. She lifted her bangs—her face was delicate like a ballerina’s. It struck her impersonally as if it were a judgment someone else was delivering, someone American and important, like Dr. Fanning: she was pretty. She had heard it said before, of course, but the compliment was always a group compliment to all the sisters, so Sandi thought this was a politeness friends of her parents said about daughters just as they tended to say “They’re so big” or “They’re so smart” about sons. Being pretty, she would not have to go back to where she came from. Pretty spoke both languages. Pretty belonged in this country to spite La Bruja. As she studied herself, the stall door behind her opened in the mirror. Sandi let her bangs fall and rushed out of the room.
Her father was waiting in the anteroom, pacing nervously, his hands worrying the change in his pocket. “Where is she?” he whispered.
Sandi pointed back in the room with her chin.
“That woman is drunk,” he whispered, crouching down beside Sandi. “But I can’t insult her, imagine, our one chance in this country.” He spoke in the serious, hushed voice he had used with Mami those last few days in the old country. “Por favor, Sandi, you’re a big girl now. Not a word of this to your mother. You know how she is these days.”
Sandi eyed him. This was the first time her father had ever asked her to do something sneaky. Before she had time to respond, the bathroom door swung open. Her father stood up. Mrs. Fanning called out, “Why, here you are, sugar!”
“Yes, here we are!” her father said in a too cheerful voice. “And we must better get back to the table before they send the marines!” He smiled archly, as if he had just thought up this quip he had been making for weeks.
Mrs. Fanning threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, Carlos!”
Her father joined the American lady’s phony laughter, then stopped abruptly when he noticed Sandi’s eyes on him. “What are you waiting for?” He spoke in a stern voice, nodding towards the stairs. Sandi glanced away, hurt. Mrs. Fanning laughed again and led the way up the narrow winding stairs. It was like coming up out of a dungeon, Sandi decided. She would tell her sisters this and make them wish they had gone to the bathroom as well, though truly, Sandi wished she had herself never strayed from the table. She wouldn’t have seen what she could not now hope to forget.
At the table, the young waiter tucked the chair in for her. He was still lovely, his skin so smooth and of a rich olive color, his hands long and slender like those of angels in illustrations, holding their choir books. But this man could very well lean forward just as Mrs. Fanning had done downstairs. He could try to kiss her, Sandi, on the lips. She did not let her glance fall in his direction again.
Instead, she studied the Fannings intently for clues as to their mysterious behavior. One thing she noticed was that Mrs. Fanning drank a lot of wine, and each time she nodded to the waiter to fill her glass, Dr. Fanning said something to her out of the corner of his mouth. At one point when the waiter leaned toward her empty glass, Dr. Fanning covered it with his hand. “That’s enough,” he snapped, and quickly the waiter leaned away again.
“What a party fart,” Mrs. Fanning observed, loud enough for the table to hear, though “fart” was not a word the girls recognized. Mami instantly began to fuss at Sandi and her sisters, pretending that the exchange of angry whispering between the Fannings was not taking place. But little Fifi could not be distracted from the scene at the end of the table: she stared wide-eyed at the bickering Fannings, and then over at Mami with a serious look of oncoming tears. Mami winked at her, and smiled a high-watt smile to reassure the little girl that these Americans need not be taken seriously.
Blessedly, their platters of food appeared, borne by a cortege of waiters, directed by the busybody maître d’. The tension dispelled as the two couples took small, pensive bites of their different servings. Compliments and evaluations erupted all around the table. Sandi found most of the things on her plate inedible. But there was a generous decorative lettuce leaf under which much of the goopy meat and greasy rice could be tucked away.
Tonight she felt beyond either of her parents: she could tell that they were small people compared to these Fannings. She had herself witnessed a scene whose disclosure could cause trouble. What did she care if her parents demanded that she eat all of her pastelón. She would say, just as an American girl might, “I don’t wanna. You can’t make me. This is a free country.”
“Sandi, l
ook!” It was her father, trying to befriend her. He was pointing towards the stage where the lights were dimming. Six señoritas in long, fitted dresses with flaring skirts and castanets in their hands flounced onto the stage. The guitarist came on and strummed a summoning tune. Beautiful men in toreador outfits joined their ladies. They stamped their feet for hello, and the ladies stamped back, Hello! Six and six, damas and caballeros, they went through a complicated series of steps, the women’s castanets clacking a teasing beat, the men echoing their partners’ moves with sultry struts, and foot stomps. These were not the dainty and chaste twirls and curtseys of the ballerinas at Lincoln Center. These women looked, well—Sandi knew no other way to put it—they looked as if they wanted to take their clothes off in front of the men.
Yoyo and Fifi were closest to the stage, but Mami let Carla and Sandi pull their chairs around in a cluster and join their sisters. The dancers clapped and strutted, tossing their heads boldly like horses. Sandi’s heart soared. This wild and beautiful dance came from people like her, Spanish people, who danced the strange, disquieting joy that sometimes made Sandi squeeze Fifi’s hand hard until she cried or bullfight Yoyo with a towel until both girls fell in a giggling, exhausted heap on the floor that made La Bruja beat her ceiling with a broom handle.
“The girls are having such fun,” she heard her mother confide to Mrs. Fanning.
“Me too,” the American lady observed. “These guys are something else. Hey, Lori, watch that one’s tight tights.”