Lisa Wixon - Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban

My father muses that in a Japanese garden it’s nearly impossible to know where nature ends and art begins. As we walk slowly through the grounds, José Antonio takes the hands of the women he loves, and we admire the delicate structure of each plant and tree and flower, and its place in the landscape. It’s then I feel my mother’s presence, and her warmth on my bare shoulder. This touch is less powerful, less sad, and I feel instinctively she’s saying good-bye.

Leaving me in good hands.

Acknowledgments

Alison Callahan believed in this book before a syllable of it was written. Once those were arranged, her philosophic pen cast a magical spell over my story, and all improvements are in her name, and any mistakes mine alone. Graciasalso to René Alegria, who had a vision not only for this novel but for Rayo and for an America whose bookshelves hum with Latino stories.

Stéphanie Abou has all the attributes a girl could dream of in a great friend: loyalty, perseverance, humor, genius—and a fabulous fashion sense. Lucky for me, she’s also my agent, and for her prodding and pulling and cheerleading I give this Parisian import a big hooray.

For honeyed encouragement and smarty-pants facts, applause goes to: Karen Croft, Anne Kostick, Marc Serges, Christine Debusschere, Whitney Woodward, Peter Watrous, David Sesser, Jackie Weiss, Joel “Bishop” O’Brien, Jeanette Perez, and the staff at HarperCollins. Kenneth P. Norwick and Jay Berg wowed with their legal vetting. For the space and love to write, I’m obliged to Oscar and Mike & Nancy in New York, and to María & Cristóbal and Azie in Spain.

Late night Havana gossip sessions were an indulgence on par with café con lecheand pastelitos.Lena, Christine, Esther, and Beth kept me saturated with the latest whisperings and watched my back all those crazy 3 A.M.’s in Cuba.

Thanks to my family—my heroes!—for immeasurable support and for having the courage to follow their path. The arrival has been so sweet.

Besitosto my rock, Pablo Vilar, for being there. Always.

Finally, the heaviest debt is owed to my amigos íntimosin Cuba, none of whom would benefit from having their names printed here. I arrived in Havana with a corazón rotoand a cleft stick; they gave me a compass and a map.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Wixon’s Ten Things to Do in Havana

ABOUT THE BOOK

A Conversation with Lisa Wixon

Questions for Reading Group Discussion

READ ON

Stories

Guides

Music

Films

LISA WIXONwas born in the United States and grew up in a newspaper family near Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

She has lived in Europe and Latin America, and has racked up passport stamps from more than forty countries. In 2001 she made a stop in Havana, Cuba. Intending to visit for a week, Lisa became captivated by life in Cuba and stayed for nearly a year. She felt compelled to tell the stories of jineterasand jineteros, the young and attractive Cubans—including those with M.D.s and Ph. D.s—who prostitute themselves to tourists. Her observations and experiences are detailed in the novel Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban,released in May 2005.

Lisa now makes her home in New York City, where she’s at work on her second book.

LISA WIXON’S TEN THINGS TO DO IN HAVANA

1.Drink a mojito(the national panacea) best mixed in the courtyard kiosk at the Hotel Nacional. There, smoke a torpedo while listening to the live son—Cuban folk music—and lounge dreamily in wicker settees while gazing at El Morro castle across the bay. Drive the staff crazy by asking to see the room where Meyer Lansky called a 1946 huddle with American Mafia heads to decide the fate of Las Vegas casino founder Bugsy Siegel.

2.Hire a local to whisk you to the delicate and haunting Finca Vigía, the countryside estate of Ernest Hemingway and his home of twenty-one years. Here the author celebrated word of his Pulitzer Prize with friends, newshounds, and fishermen. In the pool, Ava Gardner reputedly swam naked, and, nearby, Papa’s beloved boat Pilarrots under an austere sun. After the tour, head over to Cojímar, the village where Hemingway’s fictional fisherman in Old Man and the Sealaunched his boat. Settle into a table at La Terraza, the restaurant where he’d dine with his boat captain Gregorio Fuentes, on whom the novel was based. Order shrimp in red sauce and flan.

3.Pay about $12 and see the world-class National Ballet perform at the García Lorca Theater.

4.Plan your trip around the International Jazz or the Latin American Film festivals. The events tend to be disorganized and somewhat chaotic, but are wholly unpretentious. Hop between Art Deco movie houses for a few pesos a film, or slip into a dark makeshift bar. Under flickering fluorescent lights, witness some of the best Latin jazz improvisation of your life. If you can’t make the festivals, a night at La Zorra y El Cuevo in Vedado will do the trick.

5.Take a private rumba lesson (or two) with a Tropicana dancer.

6.Stay at a Cuban’s house. Befriend the family. Eat fried eggs at their breakfast table. At night, climb the crumbling staircase to La Guarida, a private restaurant and favorite haunt of American celebrities. If you can’t get a reservation, head to El Aljibe and sample chicken à l’orange while watching jineterasdine in stony silence with their charges. Afterward, stop at the Havana Café next to the Hotel Meliá Cohiba. If Los Van Van or Charanga Forever is in the house, grab a ticket.

7.Make an octogenarian’s year. Head to Parque Central and look for the viejosentrenched in a heated argument and toss a Yankees cap on the head of the loudest. In this corner, known as esquina caliente, Cubans have been hollering about baseball for decades, typically debating an iffy umpire call made thirty years ago. From the park, stroll to Alameda del Prado and Calle Neptuno—the precise spot where the cha-cha-cháwas invented—and do a shuffle. Journey up Neptuno, the most interesting street in Havana, and chat with the locals hanging from their doorways selling four-cent espresso, fixing watches, filling lighters, and hawking mariposas. Hail a 1950 Studebaker Starlight or a 1953 Chevy Bel Air and squish in with the locals for a ride up to the Coppelia, a UFO-shaped ice creamery that spans a city block. Prepare for a giggle if you’re male and order a scoop of strawberry, a treat slyly suggestive of homosexual undertones.

8.Hear some of the world’s most unadulterated pop orchestral dance music. Without a marketing machine to dilute and distort, Cuba’s top talents are some of the best in the world, and their appreciative audience responds with complex footwork and sensuously athletic movements. On hot and mercilessly bright afternoons, Cubans head to the matinee in the darkened and cooled Casa de la Música in Miramar to dance rumba, timba, and guaguanco. Prepare to buy cans of beer and refrescosfor the Cubans at your communal tables. Make friends. Dance, even if you’re awful.

9. Meander through Habana Vieja, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Get lost in the skinny side streets and colonial plazas, stopping at cafés where live music beckons. Forever remember the sun setting over colonial marvels at El Mirador de Bahía. Experience the booming capitalism on Calle Opispo, with its $90 Nikes, the white cloth stained black from the longing touches of locals living on $12 a month. In the evening, after the Canadian cruise trippers have emptied, slip into the quiet grandeur of El Floridita, once on the list of the world’s great watering holes. Order a Hemingway daiquiri from a mixologist in a tuxedo, and practice your language skills with the staff—many of whom speak five or six.

10.Stroll along the seawall, El Malecón, at dusk. From a vendor, buy peanuts tucked in a newspaper cone. Be serenaded by a guitarist. Watch a scarlet sun dip into the sea. Get kissed. ABOUT THE BOOK