Play Me by Laura Ruby

Author:Laura Ruby
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins

Dinner is some sort of amazing pork loin with fried plantains, beans, and rice I eat in massive and embarrassing quantities. All around me, the Spanish is flying and it’s too hard to keep up. But I’m smart enough to compliment the chef, who claps me on the back so hard I nearly go flying face-first into my plate.

“¡Gracias, hombre!” he says, which I get.

And Lucinda’s dad does talk, in English, asking me more about what I’d like to do.

“Make movies.”

“Movies?” the random uncles say together. They laugh.

Lucinda’s thigh presses hard against mine. “Eddy already makes movies. Short films. They’re on the internet.”

I had no idea she’d even seen Riot Grrl 16. “I have a production company. We do one show a week.” I see the blank faces all around the table and make a mental note to do an episode about Riot Grrl meeting her boyfriend’s crazy family.

“I hear there’s money in commercials. Maybe you should direct commercials,” says one uncle.

“That’s a possibility,” I say.

Lucinda’s dad says, “We rented a good movie the other day. Called Pan’s Labyrinth. Complex interweaving of two separate tales, one historical, one fantastical. It was directed by a man named Guillermo…Guillermo something.”

“Del Toro,” I say. “That film got a lot of attention.”

“Yes, right,” Lucinda’s dad says. “You know it?”

“Yeah. I thought it was really good. I saw in an interview that he took both storylines equally seriously so that you never felt that the fantasy was a fairy tale.”

“Huh,” says Lucinda’s father. “Has he made any other movies?”

We keep talking. I relax for the first time that night. Lucinda seems to relax too. I feel her thigh pressing against mine under the table. I press back. She presses harder, and we have a leg war while trying to remain perfectly stationary above the waist. I like it that she’s so strong. Fierce, her brother said. How could that be a problem?

After dinner there’s more iced tea and coffee and brandy and an obscene amount of custard called flan. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move again when Mrs. Dulko claps and says, “Let’s dance.”

Before I know what’s happening, someone has turned up the music. Mr. and Mrs. Dulko get up from the table and twirl their way back into the family room. The rest of us follow to watch. Mrs. Dulko is tiny and light on her feet. Mr. Dulko is a lot taller and doughier, but he moves nearly as fast, spinning his wife till you’d think she would puke (but she doesn’t). The dogs cavort around them, barking.

Lucinda whispers in my ear, “That’s where they met. My mom’s a Latin dance instructor. My dad was her student, if you can believe that. He’s pretty good for a chemist, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.”

Aunt Carmen grips my arm. “Come on, cute boy,” she says. “Danza conmigo.”

I must have looked terrified at the prospect of danzaing with Aunt Carmen because Lucinda says, “I don’t think he can handle you, Aunt Carmen. I’m more his speed.

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