Playing for Keeps Read online

  There were loud whoops of appreciation from the audience, but the members of Amigas Inc. just looked blankly at one another. None of them were familiar with Patsy Cline.

  “As the great Lyle Lovett would say,” Saniyah continued, “Patsy Cline is not from Texas, but we love her anyway.”

  She began to sing, her voice rich and sweet. She might have had a multioctave range, as Gaz had said, but that night, she stuck to her deepest register, belting out the songs with the force of someone who knew about heartbreak. When she was done, even Alicia had to join the room in giving her a standing ovation, no matter how much it killed her.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Saniyah said. “Now, enough of my squawking. This here’s a karaoke joint, and we’ve got a whole jukebox of Texas favorites waiting for you to put your stamp on them.”

  Alicia jumped to her feet. “I’ll sing!” she shouted. The urge to outshine Saniyah wouldn’t let up, no matter how much Gaz had tried to reassure her.

  Gaz, Carmen, and Jamie looked horrified.

  Valeria watched Alicia bound up to the stage. “What fun!”

  Carmen whispered, “Not for us.”

  Valeria looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  “We don’t let Lici sing,” Jamie answered for her, “because, well, she’s really bad at it.”

  Ignoring her friends’ not-so-hushed whispers, Alicia walked across the stage, her stilettos clicking loudly against the wooden floor.

  “Y’all hear that?” Saniyah asked the crowd. “It’s a city slicker in pursuit.”

  Everyone laughed, and Alicia blushed. Saniyah adjusted the mike and introduced Alicia. “Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Alicia Cruz.”

  The crowd clapped, and Saniyah asked, “What are you going to sing?”

  “The guy you mentioned before, Lionel Loving,” Alicia mumbled.

  The audience snickered disapprovingly.

  “Do you mean Lyle Lovett?” Saniyah asked.

  Alicia nodded.

  “Okay, what song?” Saniyah handed her a playlist.

  Alicia studied it blankly.

  “This really isn’t going to be good, is it?” Valeria asked Gaz, suddenly nervous for her new friend.

  “Oh, no, not at all,” Gaz said.

  Alicia handed the book back to Saniyah. “‘Long Tall Texan.’”

  Saniyah gave Alicia a bemused look, “Okay, Miami, let’s see what you got.” She gave Alicia the stool and exited the stage.

  The music began to play, and every one of her friends waited for the first off-key note. But then she surprised them. Instead of trying to compete with Saniyah musically, Alicia turned her song into a spoken-word piece. It was a hilarious song about a Texas man and his love of his hat, his horse, and the simple pleasures of living in the Lone Star State. Rather than embarrassing Alicia, it made the audience see how much fun she was having being in Austin. When she finished the song, the room broke into thunderous applause.

  Saniyah came back and joined her on center stage. “You ought to take it on the road.”

  “I might just do that,” Alicia beamed.

  “Hey, somebody, get that Miami girl a hat,” the owner of the club called out.

  Someone from the audience threw a white cowboy hat onto the stage and yelled, “She’s not from Texas, but Texas loves her anyway.”

  Alicia picked up the hat and put it on her head. Speaking into the mike, she said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a Miami girl born and bred, but tonight, I’m feeling some love for the Lone Star State of Texas.”

  THE NEXT DAY, as planned, Gaz met up with Saniyah at the conference convention center. T-Bone Burnett, the famous songwriter and movie composer, was speaking that morning in the big lecture hall on the process of composing for film. With fellow songwriter Ryan Bingham, Burnett had won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for their country-and-western hit “The Weary Kind,” featured in the movie Crazy Heart. The auditorium was packed. Saniyah greeted Gaz with a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, G., we better get in. There’s a guy saving our seats, but they won’t last for long. It’s a madhouse in there.”

  Gaz was startled anew by the same guilt he felt every time Saniyah kissed him hello. She said it was a Southern thing and a music industry thing, and that much seemed to be true. Everywhere he looked, people were hugging and kissing hello. In the plaza of the conference center, he’d seen John Mayer hugging it out with the guys from Entourage. America Ferrera was exchanging besitos with Selena Gomez—Saniyah said they were going to be playing sisters in an upcoming film. And just to the right of the lecture hall door, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and T-Bone were having a massive group hug.

  While Gaz told himself that a kiss on the cheek from Saniyah was no big deal, he knew that if Alicia had seen it, she would find it to be quite a big deal, even if the previous night a friendship had started to build between the two girls.

  “Let’s go in,” Saniyah said again, pulling him by the arm.

  “You go ahead. I’ll find you,” Gaz said. “Just have to make a quick phone call. To, uh, the band back home.”

  He wouldn’t tell Saniyah, but the call was most definitely not to the band. He was supposed to make some calls for Valeria’s quince. Alicia had put him in charge of special effects and tuxedo duty, in addition to the music. That meant he needed to find a smoke machine, black lights, and glow-in-the-dark paint that could easily be painted over for the walkway to Valeria’s house. He’d done very little on the quinceañera front, and he had to remind himself, if it hadn’t been for Valeria’s mom, he wouldn’t even be at South by Southwest. He just needed to grab half an hour and make the calls.

  “There’s no time, chico,” Saniyah said, looking exasperated. “It’s South by Southwest. You come prepared. You come focused. One hundred and ten percent. Game on. Do you want a record deal, or do you want to be playing quinces your entire life?”

  The words stung, on more than one level. He didn’t want to be playing quinceañeras his whole life. And yet, for Alicia, the parties and the business were everything. He didn’t want to have to choose between making Alicia happy and fulfilling his own dreams. But more and more of late, he was feeling pushed to make that choice.

  Gaz mumbled, “Record deal.”

  “Good,” Saniyah said with a sharp nod. “Then I have three words for you: T. Bone. Burnett. And three more: Oscar. Winning. Composer. And, oh, yeah, three more: King. Of. Nashville. And a final three: Move your butt.”

  Gaz sighed and followed Saniyah into the lecture hall. Alicia would understand. It was only a smoke machine. How hard would it be to get one? He’d start making calls as soon as T-Bone’s lecture was over.

  • • •

  Back at the Castillo Ranch, the girls huddled around the kitchen table sipping café con leche sprinkled with milk chocolate shavings from supersize mugs.

  “Valeria, you’ve got to invite Omarion to your party today,” insisted Alicia. “It’s now or never, girl.”

  “I’ll dial,” offered Jamie. “All you need to do is talk. I’d volunteer to do the talking, too, but I’m afraid my Texas twang would sound way too Bronx.”

  Valeria gulped, but she nodded.

  If nothing else, Alicia mused, the girl was definitely getting bolder.

  Picking up her cell, Valeria started to walk out of the kitchen. “Wish me luck,” she said over her shoulder. “Or, better yet, wish me the skills to actually carry on a conversation.”

  A few minutes later she returned with a big grin on her face.

  “So, what’d he say?” Alicia asked.

  “I’m more curious about what you said,” Jamie said, looking at Valeria.

  “I said, we’re having this crazy party next week. Latin tradition. Old-school rules. Boys escort girls, did he want to come?” Valeria said, as though she hadn’t, just a few minutes ago, been panicked at even the thought of dialing.

  Alicia shrugged. “I guess that about sums it up.”

  “And he said y
es?” Carmen nudged.

  “And he said yes,” Valeria repeated, glowing.

  There was a moment of silence, and then everyone started jumping up and down screaming. They shrieked and hugged and giggled like ten-year-old girls at a Jonas Brothers concert; Valeria was the loudest of all.

  After that, as if by some Texas magic, all of the elements of the Valeria at Twilight quinceañera began to come together smoothly. Jamie, ever the realist, argued that it had nothing to do with magic. She claimed that Valeria’s getting the skater boy of her dreams to be her chambelán had been the result of supermotivation—plain and simple.

  Whatever the reason, that afternoon, Amigas Inc. went into high gear. With Valeria’s help, Alicia finished up the seating plan, placed an order with the florist for black orchid corsages for Valeria’s damas, and commissioned fifty ceramic centerpiece vases decorated with photos of Texas longhorn cattle. Each one was to be filled with a mixed array of Texas wildflowers, reflecting the colors of the state flag—bluebonnets, red prairie paintbrush, and white baby’s breath.

  Since the timing had always been tight, Carmen had gone ahead and ordered the fabric and patterns for the dresses Valeria would wear; she would fit it perfectly once the material arrived. But that still left the court. In a decision based on limited timing, Carmen was going to purchase the court dresses. After visiting six designer boutiques to do a “preshop,” Carmen settled on Enrico’s, a store she felt had dresses that were stylish, well cut, and distinctive enough to complement Valeria’s gown.

  Jamie, meanwhile, found a craft store that could special-order a stamp listing all the invitation details. Her plan was to use the stamp with glow-in-the-dark ink that could be seen only with a special black-light flashlight pen that would be included in each custom-made envelope.

  She ordered the stamp on Tuesday, it arrived on Thursday, and the ranch drivers hand-delivered invitations to a hundred of Valeria’s and her parents’ nearest and dearest friends and relatives that Friday morning—another item on the to-do list, done.

  By Friday at lunch, the Castillos’ phone was ringing off the hook. And most of the calls weren’t of the friendly variety. It seemed Valeria was causing quite a stir. Her cousins Loretta, Laura, and Lourdes were incensed that she was bringing her “Keep Austin Weird” motto into the sacredness of the quinceañera.

  “Of course, one might argue that the mechanical bull Loretta rode at her quince sullied the tradition, too,” Valeria pointed out after Loretta’s mom had called—for the fifth time. “But who am I to say?”

  Amigas Inc. had never seen such family dramatics. They had gone ahead and cleared it with Valeria’s priest to do a small church ceremony the morning of her birthday, in order to keep the late-night-party theme but retain the traditional elements. However, the Castillos’ extended family were far more difficult to appease than the Catholic Church.

  By five thirty that afternoon, the kitchen was filled to capacity with a gaggle of Valeria’s angry aunts, Amigas Incorporated’s members, Alicia’s mother, and Valeria and her mother.

  “Mija,” said Ranya’s sister-in-law Doña Tania. “What were you thinking sending out Day-Glo invitations that you can only see with some ridiculous special pen? Is this a party to celebrate a quince, or the opening of one of those rave clubs? This is what you get when you hire teenage amateurs to do a professional’s job.”

  “Did you read the Miami Herald article about Amigas Inc.?” Ranya asked, not taking the bait. She passed out colored photocopies to each of the three aunts. “These girls are experts at creating a refreshing mix of the old and the new,” she read. “That’s why I invited them here to Austin. And that’s why I trust them.”

  Doña Giselle, the oldest of the sisters, looked like a Latina Mrs. Claus. “We have quinceañera planners here in Texas,” she said in a raspy drawl. “You had to bring these young party-minded girls from Miami? I couldn’t even read my invitation without a flashlight. I don’t like it. It’s not tradition.”

  Doña Griselda, the mother of the quince who had worn the Texas flag panties, wasn’t going to be left out. “And look at Valeria’s hair. It’s very radical. She looks like something out of a music video. It’s immoral. I do not like it.”

  Carmen had to restrain herself from making a biting retort. Had the woman looked in the mirror lately?

  She was dressed like an Italian widow in a black lace dress, complete with veil and little black gloves. (“This, despite the fact that my uncle is very much alive,” Valeria had whispered to them when the older woman had first arrived.)

  “And who ever heard of a quince starting at ten P.M.?” added Doña Tania, now looking at her sisters and not at Valeria or her mother. “Valeria at Twilight? I don’t like it.”

  The aunts sat around the kitchen table, not touching the cups of coffee that Ranya had poured for them and glaring at Valeria and her new friends. Mrs. Cruz stood next to Ranya, arms folded, ready to jump in if necessary. But Valeria’s mother had it covered.

  “Okay, I’ve had enough,” Ranya said, leaning across the kitchen table and staring the aunts down. “Let me be perfectly clear. It doesn’t matter what you like. It’s not your quinceañera, it’s Valeria’s, and I think the amigas are doing an amazing job. The invitations are meant to evoke a nightclub feeling. These are teenagers. They go out at night, sometimes to clubs. If you had read your invitations rather than just criticized them, you would have seen that we are having the religious service during the day. Our church okayed the late party start. Who are you to overrule the church? The quince is starting at ten P.M. because it’s a dessert party.”

  Valeria piped up, “And I’m a vegetarian—a fact none of you remembered to take into account when you planned your daughters’ quinces, and I was forced to survive on wilted lettuce leaves and salad plates full of white rice.”

  Valeria’s aunts began muttering among themselves, but Ranya was far from done. “Listen closely,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this. I love Valeria’s haircut. It’s the first time in a long time that I can look into my beautiful daughter’s eyes. In a few days, my daughter will be turning fifteen. We sincerely hope that you will be there. But right now we’ve still got a lot of work to do, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave and let us do our job.”

  Alicia lifted her hands to clap, but her mother grabbed and stilled them in the nick of time. The Doñas were done for. It would have added insult to injury for the Miami crew to throw in their applause.

  Doña Giselle looked at her watch. “I have an appointment with my facialist,” she said.

  Doña Griselda added, “I have to go pick up my daughter from cheerleading practice.”

  Doña Tania did not make excuses. She simply went up to Valeria, hugged her, and said, “I’ll pray for you, child.”

  Then all three aunts left the room. Only then, finally, did Alicia offer a small round of applause. After all, Ranya, and Valeria, deserved it.

  Things were coming together—minus some unhappy aunts—but that didn’t mean the team could slack off. Which was why, that Saturday at breakfast, Valeria shocked them by announcing that she had to go to school. When the other girls raised their eyebrows, Valeria explained that every Saturday, she and a bunch of her friends from the Ann Richards School met with seventh grade girls from poorer neighborhoods in Austin for three hours of tutoring. Then they all went out for barbecue. Valeria said that not only was it incredibly fun, but the girls had all improved more than forty percent on their reading and math scores since the program had started.

  Though Alicia, Carmen, and Jamie still looked uncertain—and Alicia also looked panicked at the idea of losing a half day of quince planning—Valeria invited them to come along and do a presentation about quinceañera culture. “It would be the perfect thing for these girls to hear. How the quinceañera gives young Latina women a chance to step up in their communities, and how Amigas Inc. has made you guys into leaders.”

  It was hard to argue with that logic. Smiling
, Alicia nodded. “Let’s go meet ourselves some future customers—or business partners!” she announced.

  Once at the school, the girls got to see another side of Valeria—a side that was coming out more and more as the day of her quinceañera approached. She might have started out on the reserved side, but it was clear that in this environment she was no shrinking violet.

  This was doubly true when it came to her mentee, twelve-year-old StarKeisha. “StarKeisha really wants to go to the Ann Richards School in the ninth grade,” Valeria explained, “but she has a long way to go in terms of getting her grades up. If I can help her, well, then I’ve done my job.”

  After settling the Amigas group in, Valeria rounded up the students and mentors and brought them into the school auditorium for the featured presentation. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, and with the help of a laptop and a projector screen, the girls were able not only to tell the Tejanos about quinces in Miami, they were able to show them as well. It was, without a doubt, a huge hit. After fielding at least two dozen questions, the presentation finally came to a close, and Alicia, Carmen, and Jamie were able to sit back and just observe. It was amazing to watch the younger girls light up, even when being challenged to push their intellectual limits or move out of their comfort zone.

  And the mentors were impressive as well. They put up with the occasional attitudes and eye rolls and went with the flow, just eager to make a difference in these girls’ lives.

  As Alicia watched, her mind started racing; an idea was forming. An idea that had some great potential. Finally, she couldn’t keep it bottled up any longer. Since everything in Texas was bigger and better, why not double the traditional number of girls in Valeria’s court and turn the seven mentees into a court of junior damas, who would play a special role in Valeria’s quinceañera? When she suggested it, Valeria flipped.

  Of course, that meant juggling things and more planning. But, Alicia thought, that is what we do best.