Kirstin Valdez Quade - Night at the Fiestas - Stories

“Would you just stop fidgeting for one minute?” Andrea snapped.

“What is with you?” Matty asked. “You’re fucked up, you know? You’re fucking obsessed.”

Andrea turned on Matty. “Do you even know how much all this is worth?” Oh, yes, Andrea had Googled the land appraisal — she knew.

Matty gave her one long disgusted look, then headed for the beer. Andrea nearly ran after him — but to what? Grab his hand, beg him to support her? She winced sourly.

In the spring, in that lull after midterms and before finals, Andrea had finally run into Parker at a party at one of the co-ops. Andrea had arrived with some dormmates, who, once they’d all swigged their punch, had gone off in search of weed, leaving Andrea swaying at the periphery of the party. It had just stopped raining, and in the backyard several people were naked and dancing a formless hippy dance in the mud, ruining the lawn, which is what Andrea was watching — arms crossed critically as she envied their lack of self-consciousness — when Parker Lowell came up behind her and circled a thin arm around her neck.

“Andrea!” Parker cried and thrust her friend forward. Parker was drunk, eyes damp and unfocused. “Meet Andrea! Andrea, this is Chantal. Oh my gosh, Andrea and I have known each other our entire lives. Our dads work together.”

Chantal had glitter on her cheekbones and smeared black eyeliner. But it was Parker Andrea was staring at. “Imagine,” her mother had told her just days before, “that entire family, ruined.” But Parker didn’t look like someone whose world had fallen apart. She looked breathless and happy. She was leaner, gorgeous hipbones poking out the top of impossibly well-fitting thrift-store corduroys. She wore a boy’s AYSO soccer shirt, through which her braless nipples showed. Her bare face shone from dancing, and at her temples Andrea could see veins blue through her nearly translucent skin. Andrea wanted to speak privately to Parker, to tell her how sorry she was, how shocked they’d all been. She’d touch that lovely arm, speak sincerely, and they’d understand each other.

Instead, Andrea gestured at the mud dancers. “Insane, right? You couldn’t pay me to do that. Not in a million years.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Parker. “It seems kind of fun.”

Feeling drab to her core, Andrea searched for something else to say but came up with nothing. Couldn’t she even stand like a normal person? Parker and Chantal stood close with their arms looped around each other’s waists, and their intimacy looked so natural that Andrea felt a pang. “I just meant they’re probably getting mud in their cracks.”

Chantal laughed, but Parker fixed Andrea with sincere attention. “What are your summer plans? Heading home?”

“I’m not sure. Probably I’ll find an internship.” Andrea was heartsick at the thought of the months that lay between her and the start of the next school year: the chilly, buzzing shifts at Safeway, the hot Stockton nights. Most internships were unpaid, she’d learned, and she didn’t know how to go about finding them anyway. “You?”

Parker laughed. “I’m totally embarrassed, but I’m just going to hang out.” Her eyes flicked away; she was, it seemed, genuinely embarrassed. “Travel some, maybe. Mostly hang around home.” She laughed nervously. “I figure I’ll have to work the rest of my life.”

Hope glinted in Andrea’s chest. Maybe they’d get together this summer; maybe, with nothing else to do, with her college and boarding-school friends away on their European tours, Parker would reach out. Already Andrea knew that wouldn’t happen.

Chantal was looking at Andrea. “What does your dad do again?” she asked Parker.

“He’s a farmer.” And Parker’s voice was so easy, so unselfconscious, that Andrea knew she believed it.

A fierce rage rose from nowhere and spotted Andrea’s vision. A farmer! As if her dad was Old MacDonald milking his cow. As if the Lowells were all out weeding in their overalls. William Lowell had a law degree, for God’s sake.

Later, she would kick herself for not calling Parker on her shit, would cycle through the things she might have said: “Parker’s dad owns farmers.” Instead, she’d smiled hard and bright until the terrible conversation wound down and Parker and Chantal melted into the crowd arm in arm.

So, yes, this was Parker’s crime: thinking her dad was a farmer. Now, while a three-piece mariachi band struck up at the edge of the clearing, Andrea watched with loathing as Parker greeted her guests. Where did this anger come from? Andrea wasn’t one of these strident activists, with eagle eyes sharp on the lookout for injustice, leading grape boycotts and bus trips to Arizona. She wanted to become a lawyer, and not a civil rights or immigration lawyer, either. She wanted to be a lawyer in a slimming wool suit riding the elevator to the top of a New York skyscraper.

Yet if anyone mentioned the Lowells, people who’d only been kind to her family — it was, after all, a nice thing , hiring her father’s taco truck — suddenly she was outraged. Andrea didn’t blame the Lowells, not really — they couldn’t help being who they were, having what they had. They weren’t even snobby. And technically Mr. Lowell sort of was a farmer. Except of course, she did blame them, and it didn’t matter that she knew it was unfair. Why did she want to embarrass Parker, dig into that rich guilt that was so ripe and close to the surface? Andrea flexed her fingers, imagined sinking them into flesh that would give as easily as the skin of a browning peach.

“WINE?” OFFERED THE WAITER at her elbow. “This is a Sauvignon Blanc from the Pink Leaf Winery in Lake County.”

“Oh,” said Andrea. “Okay.” She drank it quickly, then exchanged the glass when the next waiter came by.

She was hungry, and the smell from the taco truck was delicious. But she felt stuck here on the edge, without another person to walk with. Under a swinging piñata, Matty was chatting with an older couple, not caring, apparently, that in his t-shirt and work boots he looked like an employee. He should be right here beside her, laughing at what she said. That had been the whole point of bringing him.

Waiters supplied her with wine, elaborately speared vegetables, savory little puffs. And a beribboned bucket. She was warm, and the wine made her tight-faced and loose-limbed and tipsy. She didn’t know if the bucket was to keep, but she’d just decided she’d keep it anyway when she felt a nail scrape gently at her neck.

“Tag’s out, honey.” It was the widow.

Andrea clapped a hand on the nape of her neck.

“You’re a friend of Parker’s? From school? Bill pointed you out.”

“I must have forgotten to cut it off.” She felt the miserable heat rise in her face.

“Don’t look so worried, honey.” The widow gave her a friendly scratch on the back and winked. “I won’t tell. We’ve all done it. It’s a nice dress.”

Andrea smiled, and it felt so good that she realized it was the first genuine smile she’d smiled all day. “Thanks.” The widow’s hair was coarse and thick, a raccoon’s pelt. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t as pretty as Elizabeth Lowell. “My dad’s the taco guy,” she confessed.

“Lovely man. He must be so proud of you.”

“Oh, well,” said Andrea modestly, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Lots of kids get in.”

“I’m glad Parker has a friend here.” The widow sighed, sipped her wine. “I guess the situation can’t be anything but awkward.”

“Oh, I know ,” said Andrea. “The power dynamics—”

“Between you and me, I don’t actually know what I’m doing playing hostess. I don’t even know most of these people.” The widow withdrew a tube of lipstick from her pocket and smeared it on thin, tense lips.