Bodega Dreams by Ernesto Quinonez

Author:Ernesto Quinonez [Quinonez, Ernesto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Urban, Fiction, N.Y.
ISBN: 9780375705892
Amazon: 0375705899
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2000-03-13T11:00:00+00:00

ROUND 4

A Diamond as Big as the Palladium

BLANCA’S aunt Vera seemed born to money. Her gestures, her voice, her social graces had been so well studied and cultivated that she could have fooled anyone who wasn’t familiar with her past. With her light skin, semiblond hair, pale seagull blue eyes, she could easily pass herself off as something other than a woman born and raised in East Harlem. She spoke as if she had spent her formative years in some boarding school, walking around with a big-lettered sweater tied around her shoulders.

Actually, Vera had barely graduated from Norman Thomas High School and hadn’t set foot in a building of higher education since. Yet she had successfully sold the notion to her circle in Miami that she was a Barnard girl. Although she had told her Florida friends she was coming to New York City because she had done the “trendy” thing of donating money to an inner-city school, she really didn’t know how the donation had been made. She assumed that her accountant must have done it to get her a tax break. What did she care? But she had to come alone, otherwise her friends would discover her true origins.

She was returning to her old neighborhood to gloat, to show her family what she had made of herself. Yes, Vera had reinvented herself. But unlike William Carlos Irizarry, now Willie Bodega, Veronica Linda Saldivia didn’t want to be considered Puerto Rican. Hence the name Vera.

The rich Cuban family Vera had married into still kept the pink slips of their nationalized lands in Cuba, along with high hopes of reclaiming them once Castro was ousted or finally, finally died. Vera was no longer a Saldivia but a Vidal, and with that misleading last name she could fool anyone into thinking she was some middle-aged Anglo woman who had a taste for shopping on Fifth Avenue, threw dinner parties, and loved expensive jewelry.

I’m not a person who likes to judge why people fall madly in love with some types of people because I don’t believe such things can be explained. It’s like chemistry, some elements are attracted to each other and it doesn’t matter that they can explode. It’s just the way it works.

•

SO THAT day, I did as Bodega pleaded. I walked over to Vera, who was outside talking with some teacher. Her posture was ramrod straight; her back at a perfect right angle with the ground. When she talked, it was in the prim and proper voice of someone who understands flower shows and country homes. And when she’d say something she thought clever, she would laugh this phony laugh like she was doing you a favor.

“Julio?” Nazario said, surprised to see me. He appeared out of nowhere and stopped me just as I was about to introduce myself to Vera. He saved me the bother.

“This is Julio Mercado. He’s in college now and I’m hoping he will continue on to law school,” Nazario informed Vera. Closer, I could see that Vera’s face had the resonance of a former highly prized beauty.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.