Kirstin Valdez Quade - Night at the Fiestas - Stories

“I think you’re doing a great job,” Andrea said.

“Both kids are angry, of course. It’s worse for Parker, though, being the youngest.” Parker and her father were standing arm in arm, entertaining a laughing crowd, and the widow watched them as she talked. When she splashed wine on her shirt she swiped at it without looking. “She keeps calling her parents to scream at them. She accuses her mother of being — of sleeping around. She doesn’t think much of me, either, told her father he was pitiful and desperate.” She laughed once, sharply. “She got both of us with that one.”

It was impossible to imagine Parker raging about anything. She certainly didn’t look angry with her father. She was smiling rosily. Mr. Lowell kissed the silky top of her head. It was like a Ralph Lauren ad. That’s what this party was missing: a camera crew. Briefly, Andrea wondered if Parker’s mother had taken the Paris picture when she moved out, or if it was still in that gleaming kitchen facing the widow as she made her mayonnaise casseroles.

Andrea was startled and flattered and uncomfortable to be let into the widow’s confidence, and her heart went out to her. “It must be so hard for you.”

“Do you know, he says he’s not sure he’ll even divorce her. Doesn’t want to leave her in the lurch, he says.” The widow’s laugh was brittle, slightly unhinged. It occurred to Andrea that she was drunk. “He’s too good, that man. Parker scared him to death with that little pill stunt. I told him that was the point. I was young once, too.” The widow smiled brilliantly with magenta lips and played with the tails of her scarf.

That pill stunt. “Yes,” said Andrea.

“I told him she should have a summer job, keep busy. My kids have always had summer jobs. I bet you have one, don’t you?”

Andrea’s head was cottony and the buzz of the wine drained, leaving a heavy, hot remorse. “Parker and I aren’t actually that close. I didn’t actually know about the pills.”

“You get selfish if you don’t work, I told him. If you never have to think about anyone else. It’s not her fault , but that’s what happens.”

“Is she really so unhappy?”

The widow tipped her head and looked at Andrea as if for the first time. Her lipstick was thick, waxy and dry. “She’s quite a performer, your friend.”

“No,” Andrea said with sudden savage energy that took her by surprise. “She’s not a performer.” Who did this widow think she was, spreading the Lowell gossip at their own party? She was an ugly, hateful woman. “For the record,” she said with indignation, “the Lowells were the most beautiful family I have ever seen.”

“Ah. I see,” the widow said lightly. “I hope you’ll be more discreet than I was. Do tell your dad how much I enjoyed his tacos. Excuse me.” She gave Andrea’s back another little scratch and moved unsteadily off.

AT THE BUFFET, Parker and Matty were laughing over a bowl of guacamole. Matty leaned forward in a way that meant he had designs on her. Of course he did. But Andrea didn’t care about Matty just now.

Andrea was swollen with shame, her upper lip damp as though the shame were actually oozing out of her. And yet, at the edges of the remorse and sorrow, she was obscurely jealous, too, as if with those pills Parker had established once again her supremacy over Andrea. But Andrea would rise above that, be the gracious, expansive person she’d always hoped she’d become. She hurried toward them.

“Parker,” she said, generous, repentant. She composed her face into a semblance of sobriety, because what she had to say was important.

“Oh, what now?” asked Matty.

“Listen — I just met your stepmother.”

“She’s not my stepmother,” Parker said warily.

Andrea laid a hand on Parker’s bare arm. She could feel the tiny golden hairs, the heat of her skin, and affection welled in her. “She told me that you tried to kill yourself. And I just wanted to say I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” Why couldn’t she get the tone right? She really was sorry.

Parker flushed so deeply that her eyelids pinkened, too, and Andrea wondered with a bleak horror if the girl was going to cry, here in front of everyone. “Why are you even here? You think I don’t notice you hate me?”

Andrea tightened her hold on Parker’s arm. That’s not true, she wanted to say.

Matty grabbed the edge of Andrea’s sleeve. “I think we should leave.”

“Parker, I’m just trying to be nice.”

“Let’s go, Andrea.” Matty put his arm around her, just as she’d always hoped he would, but she shook him off.

And then, on the other side of the party, the door of the taco truck swung open and her father descended the steps, wiping his hands on a towel. He looked around, smiling absently, before his gaze snagged on Andrea. Suddenly a dreadful thought occurred to her. If Parker chose, she could have her father fired, all because Andrea came here today. Her blood became very still and very cold.

He came toward them, smiling quizzically, head tilted. Andrea grinned, bright and tense, waved. She held the grin, looking, no doubt, maniacal, but she didn’t know what else to do. “I’m really sorry,” she told Parker. “This had nothing to do with my dad. He didn’t even know I was coming.”

Parker looked slapped. “Fuck you, Andrea. I like your dad.”

“I only wanted—”

“Just shut up.” Matty’s tone was urgent, and it was this urgency, and the look of embarrassment on his face, that made her understand how far she’d gone.

Andrea turned on him. “Where do you get off? You said Parker looked easy.”

Parker’s expression was gratifyingly bruised. “What?”

Her father sped up. He gripped Matty by the shoulder. “Is he bothering you?” he asked Parker.

Matty widened his soft eyes in surprise.

“God, no,” said Parker.

Salvador searched Andrea’s face. “Is everything okay, mija?”

Andrea averted her eyes from her father in time to see Parker and Matty exchange a look. She saw them decide to protect her.

Parker smiled resolutely. “Everything’s fine, Salvador. Your tacos are amazing.”

Her father wouldn’t be so easily reassured, Andrea knew, though he also wouldn’t argue with Parker. Still, Andrea didn’t stay to find out.

She turned and ran into the trees. She slowed only when the mariachi music was faint at her back, then walked deeper down the rows. The branches were covered in tight green nectarines, hard and fierce. She ripped one off and threw it at the trunk, but it landed dully in the mulch.

God, how she’d wanted to get together with Parker for that lunch last summer. How she’d wanted to sit in that kitchen, eating vanilla ice cream topped with blueberries from those fragile green bowls. Feet swinging from the bar stools, she and Parker would marvel at how much they had in common. Astonishing that they hadn’t been closer all these years!

The real astonishment, when the invitation never came, was how surprised Andrea had been — though of course she should have known. She imagined how it went: William Lowell suggesting lunch and Parker dismissing the suggestion, horrified by the prospect of starting the school year saddled with Andrea.

“You are the leaders of tomorrow,” the university president had told them in September at their freshman convocation. Even then Andrea had known that he hadn’t meant her. “Look around. Look at yourself. Every one of you has the unique talents that this world is waiting for.” Probably he even believed it. But Andrea knew that whatever she was granted in life would be granted as a result of her wheedling. She’d forever be checking ethnicity boxes, emphasizing her parents’ work: farm laborer, housekeeper. Trying to prove that she was smart enough, committed enough, pleasant enough, to be granted a trial period in their world. Sure, she’d make a success of herself, more or less, but her entire life would be spent gushing about gratitude and indebtedness and writing thank-you notes to alumni and rich benefactors and to the Lowells.