Lisa Wixon - Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban

But he never fully recovered from Camila’s supernatural touch.

When the burlesque subsides, an emcee announces a Christian Dior fashion show. Knowing haute couture isn’t even sold in Cuba, I snicker under my breath and excuse myself to go to the restroom. Reinaldo politely stands when I leave, but lack of eye contact confirms his boredom with me.

Taking a deep breath, and following Camila’s sagacity, I whisper a tremendous compliment in his ear. Reinaldo smiles and steps back, as if seeing me for the first time. A whopper ego-boost is effective merely once, and best applied at the first meeting. Camila says no man, regardless of his accomplishments, is impervious to that kind of talk.

The compliment has to be preceded—or followed—by The Look. On Camila, The Look is dead-on, lower lip down, and shot through the barrel from over the shoulder. It’s a half-turn to the right, left hand on the hip, shoulder forward maneuver that flatters the body.

When delivered by Camila, The Look is long and lusty and deepfreezes the air molecules floating between shooter and mark. The Look is the first lance thrown. The target, taken by surprise, is more than happy to be wounded.

A follow-up stare, he’ll soon discover, is a few seconds away, after Camila first feigns brief disinterest. Returning her attentions, she’ll hold her gaze for three beats, perhaps four, and then deliver the deadliest blow.

Target immured.

Antlers above the grill.

At Camila’s insistence, I’ve been practicing my own version of The Look, but I’m certain I come off like a cross second-grade teacher instead of a voluptuous siren. Nonetheless, tonight, with Reinaldo in my scope, I squeeze the trigger. The bullet seems to ricochet a few times and then hit somewhere near Reinaldo’s heart. Camila sends me an approving glance, but I know it’s just beginner’s luck.

Reinaldo doesn’t take his eyes off me the entire night. Except once.

Modesta.

THE WOMEN’S BATHROOM at the Tropicana is flooded. In desperation, I slip into the dancers’ dressing room and seek a toilet. Pasties are peeling off, and the lanky, slender ballerinas—the loveliest with café con lecheskin and eyes the color of lime—are chattering excitedly about the clothes they’ll model.

Jean-Paul Gaultier perfume—vanilla, orchid, and amber in a bottle sculptured like a woman’s corseted torso—is the favored scent of a jinetera.It’s impossible to purchase anywhere in Cuba, and its power lies in the intimidation, as its wearer broadcasts a past success with a returning, gift-bearing yuma.In this dressing room, the sexual wattage is overwhelming. When I find a toilet, I leave the door open a crack, to facilitate eavesdropping.

“Wish they’d just wear flags over their head,” says one dancer.

“It’d be so much easier,” agrees another.

“Swiss are the best.”

“ Ay,no!” argues a dancer. “Norwegians and Swedes are the best.”

“She’s right. Once you’re in, the country totally takes care of you. Health care, education, housing, the works.”

“Same in Canada.”

“ Mira,but Canadians are so cheap! I had one for two years and he barely took me out. Said my mom’s cooking was so good there was no reason to leave the house. Tacañojust hoarding his fula.” The other girls laugh.

“Mexicans,” says one. “Absolute worst. Escorias.” There’s a wave of agreement.

“Y mala mala hoja!”says another.

“All saliva and sweat. Ick.”

“There’s only one or two norteamericanosat the festival this year,” says a glum dancer. “That’s what management is saying.”

“Ay,”says another dancer, flicking her wrist to snap fingers. “Just because a few journalists got arrested last week and thrown in prison for no reason!”

The room is silent. Rarely do Cubans so openly express their political sentiments. A wind of quiet nervousness fills the room. I fasten my golden-yellow dress, the favored color of Oshún, and peek through the door.

Finally someone speaks. “Bunch of Yankee cowards. We need real men anyway!”

Everyone bursts into laughter. Exhaling, I slip through the room and find myself back under the falling stars, only to run into Rafael.

“So let me get this straight,” he says.

His tan is darker than usual, and his breath smells of mint and mojito. Rafael puts an arm on the wall, where my back is firmly planted, and leans close. If I were a more talented jinetera,I’d shoot him The Look, but as the equilibrium drains from my body, it’s all I can do to keep upright. I again think briefly of my mother, and how she felt whenever José Antonio was near. Anemic.

“ ¿Qué pasa?You only date foreigners?” Rafael asks. “Every time I see you, it’s with another extranjero.Going to take all the work away from the jineteras.Imagine if it gets out you do their job for free.”

Ducking under his arm, I chortle nervously and try to walk away, surprised and grateful he hasn’t heard about my part-time occupation, and knowing it can’t stay a secret much longer. His hand stops me.

“ Oye,Alysia. La malcriada.” The spoiled brat. “You haven’t returned any of my calls. Don’t you know you’re not Cuban until you’ve been witha Cuban?”

“Really.”

“Seguro.”

“Speaking of your work,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be out looking for your next victim?”

“Shouldn’t you be out looking for your father?”

“That’s not going so well.”

“ Oye m’ija,I know half the city. Perhaps if you’d let me help—”

She slithers up to Rafael like a cat on a tightrope. Her lips are Chanel red, and her thick, straight black hair is waist-length and swings over an impossibly hourglass body. A Christian Dior fringed black dress fits snugly atop a round stomach, tiny frame, and wide hips. The model looks at me like I’m a jutía,the tree-dwelling rodent of Cuba. I know her as the invidious Modesta, perhaps the most beautiful jineterain all of La Habana. She places a protective arm on Rafael.

“Zip me, baby,” she coos, arching her back and tossing a glance to her own behind. Her eyebrows are drawn like van Gogh’s birds on a distant horizon, and hover over slanted, almond eyes. Eyes that register severe irritation at my presence.

Rafael maneuvers the apparatus on her dress with one hand, and without taking his eyes off me.

Then, in rapid-fire Spanish, the woman tugs at Rafael’s shirt and asks: “Is she cubanaor extranjera?” Cuban or foreigner?

“She,” says Rafael, “has not quite decided.”

THE CHRISTIAN DIOR show begins to a track by the Orishas, Cuban hip-hoppers who’ve defected to Paris, and one of the country’s most famous exports. It’s a Santería-themed bash, and the music quickly gives way to live Afro-Cuban rumba. Dancers and percussionists deliver a wild performance, one with roots in slaves’ communication through the beating of drums.

Dancers in fiery Changó costumes perform a trancelike ritual with jerky, and then fluid, body movements. Models strut the makeshift runway in French designer gowns and necklaces of doves’ feet and colored beads. On the floor, cigar girls work the room, and tobacco connoisseurs send puffs of smoke up to Alpha Centauri.

A tall, elegant man sits at the table next to us, cuddling with a crush of Cuban beauties. Without subtlety, he dips the fiery end of his Cohiba in a tin of llello.Considering the number of military honchos at nearby tables, I’m surprised by his brashness. Then I recognize him.

“Camila,” I say excitedly, pointing toward the table.

“Who’s that?”

“You don’t know? He’s a superfamous and supermarried NBA basketball player!”

“NBA basketball?” she asks, as if I’m nuts.

“You know, the game,” I say. “That guy’s Mr. Clean, has a reputation for being a role model.”