Flowers in the Sky Read online

  Dedication

  For Jared Scott, who keeps me laughing,

  and for Brandt Scott, who makes it all real.

  I am thrilled to be your mother.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  JUST ABOUT EVERYONE FROM my country, República Dominicana, dreams of moving to New York City, except for me. I did not want to leave my seaside home in Samana on the north coast where the humpback whales come every winter and fill Samana Bay with miracles and tourists.

  But Mami kept insisting.

  “Neuva York is better for you, mi amor,” she said matter-of-factly as she rearranged items on the shelves of our little grocery store.

  I knew that to Mami, better meant richer. The people of Samana were always talking about the rich gringos and gringas who lived in Neuva York. I listened to the men sitting and playing dominoes under the leafy mango tree next to our store. As I brought them Presidente beer or bags of peanuts, I heard them talking and sounding angry as they pounded the domino table and let loose about how our country’s leaders steal the money from the people to build big houses and buy fancy Jeeps.

  Now, everyone was also talking about our brand-new president. They say he will bring better teachers, computers, and, most of all, regular electricity. We had spent too many years in darkness because the electricity was always shutting off and stopping our clocks, our refrigerators, and in some cases, our dreams.

  “He’s going to open our little airport and we’ll have lots of tourists,” they say.

  “He’s going to finish that ridiculous bridge we have to nowhere,” say others, pointing across the bay to our unfinished arched bridge that connects nothing.

  But always the conversation came back to the rich relatives they had in Neuva York, who would send them money by Western Union or MoneyGram.

  As I sat on a stool and watched Mami walk up and down the two narrow aisles of our tiny store, rearranging cans on the shelf, plumping up bread, writing down how many Pepsi-Colas we needed to order from Puerto Plata, I asked her again, “But why should I go to Neuva York?”

  Mami wiped the beads of perspiration running down her face although the fan was on full blast. She looked over at me and shook her head. I knew that look. She was thinking I was strange because I didn’t want to go where anyone who wants to can be rich and happy. That’s what Mami had been saying for years.

  And of course, Darrio was there. My brother, Darrio, whom I hardly knew because he left when I was six years old. I had only spoken to him on the telephone since then.

  Now that I was fifteen, Darrio was twenty-eight and could take care of me. At least that’s what Mami said. “I told you, chica, you will lead a better life there. Good schools, mucho opportunities.” She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together—the universal sign for making money. She walked over to me and lifted my chin with her dusty hand. “You will meet a handsome prince, mi amor, a rich baseball player who will marry you and take care of your mami as she gets old and can’t bend down to reach the cans on the bottom shelves.”

  I laughed. “No, Mami, I hate baseball.” And probably baseball players, too, I thought.

  Mami let out a big sigh. “I know. But as pretty as you are, one will marry you right away, and you will be a millionaire and come back to build your mami a solid concrete house.”

  A concrete house was Mami’s dream. With two levels and a yard. Me, I liked our small, pink, wooden house with my garden of roses and a view of the sea. Every morning from January to March, I would peek through the flowers and shrubs to catch a glimpse of the whales frolicking in Samana Bay. If I saw any, I knew it would be a great day, because the tourists would be happy for spotting the whales and they would buy many flowers from me.

  While Mami had her grocery store, I had my flowers. It started with the garden Darrio and I planted when I could barely walk. I don’t know how the seeds talk to me, but I hear them. My flowers grew bigger and brighter than anyone else’s in Samana. Even my roses flourished and they were difficult to grow on a tropical island. I grew roses of every color—pink, red, yellow and even a deep purple. I planted hibiscus that produced three different shades of pink flowers. Everyone in Samana called me the “flower girl.” And I did not mind one bit because that was who I was, Nina Perez—the flower girl.

  IF I KNEW ANYTHING about New York City, it was that I could not be the flower girl there. Darrio said he lived in a big building on a busy street, and there were no gardens anywhere. But there were other things that I would miss about my life in Samana, too. Like Sundays on the malecón with Mami.

  The malecón is the long sidewalk that borders the edge of Samana Bay. I loved to walk with Mami, holding her big, rough hand, feeling the cool sea breeze slide over my skin, and eating empanadas and quipes from the mobile vendor. Afterward, we would drink sweet, pink sodas that matched the frills on my Sunday dress.

  On Sundays, Mami and I painted bright colors on our toes and slid on sandals with small heels for our stroll on the malecón. First, we took a motoconcho there just so we wouldn’t arrive hot and sweaty. The motoconcho in Samana is a motorcycle that has a carriage attached to the back of it for customers to ride in. The carriages are painted in all kinds of island scenes like a cool, blue ocean, or a hot, steamy jungle, or a beautiful, starry night.

  Once we got to the malecón, Mami and I had a system. We began walking at Alfredo’s Gas Station, and we stopped outside King’s Department Store to buy our empanadas or quipes. Then we would walk and eat the meat pies. Finally, when we reached the supermercado, we would buy our sodas to sip on as we strolled slowly back down the malecón.

  Mami and I sang along to romantic bachatas blaring from the stereo speakers of the tricked-out cars parked along the way. Young men with their sparkling dark eyes and quick smiles leaned on the cars, waiting for Mami to look away so they could wink at me. I smiled at them but looked down at the sidewalk quickly so that Mami would not see me and accuse me of flirting.

  Sunday was also the day to see our friends strolling along with their families. We waved hola, exchanged kisses on each other’s cheeks, and stopped to listen to the stories of the week.

  Someone usually had a fantastic tale to tell about a trip to the capital or a cousin who won the lottery. One story spun into another until the sky began changing to purple velvet, and Mami said it was time to go home. Sundays were definitely the best—like standing at the edge of the sea on a hot day and closing your eyes knowing how cool and fresh the sea would feel when it kissed your feet.

  If Sunday was the cool, blue sea, then Saturday was the hot, white sand that you wished you could fly over. On Saturday mornings, I went with Mami to the Western Union office to pick up money from Darrio. Mami would stand at the window, tapping her fingers nervously on the counter until she had the pesos in her hand. Then she would swiftly count the bills, her mouth moving silently in time to her hands. As the money flew through her fingers, a smile would grow on her face. I always felt uncomfortable watching her, as if she were doing something wrong but I didn’t know what.

  After Mami finished counting the money, she would make the sign of the cross as if she were in church and kiss her fingers to the sky. “Gracias, gracias,” she said to the clouds as if the money had fallen straight from heaven to the Samana Western Union, instead of coming from my hardworking brother’s pocket.

  People walking by would say, “I wish I had a smart, rich son in Neuva York to send me money, too. You are very lucky, Señora Perez.”

  Mami would smile and say, “Sí, sí.”

  And she would start spending right away. Items for the grocery store, rum from the rum shop, and then we would both go to the beauty salon and sit under hot dryers to get our curly, dark hair straight, smooth, and silky. Finally, when all of that was done, it was my night to cook dinner. I boiled rice and stewed red beans, fried up some plátanos and crispy chicken for Mami and her friends while they played bingo for money and drank rum and cokes.

  I fetched fresh drinks and plates of food, collected dirty glasses, and washed the dishes all before ten o’clock. Then, while Mami and her friends argued over what bingo number had been called, I stepped outside to listen to DJ Ronny play a mix of new merengues and salsa on the radio. This was finally my time alone. I danced between the rosebushes pretending I was dancing with the rich, handsome young man who Mami said would marry me one day.
I didn’t have a face pictured yet, but I knew he would make Mami happy. I only hoped that I would fall in love with him and that he would love me back just like in the books I got from the hotels when I dropped off my flowers for the guests. Reading in English was slow but it was good practice, and sometimes I would read all night to get to the part where the heroine finally kisses her true love. Mami said true love was nonsense and that I should focus on “real” love instead.

  During the week, I tended my garden early. Even though I could see the road from my garden, I always felt sheltered inside a cocoon of blossoms and thick foliage. I had started growing a new kind of sunflower that I hoped would win a prize at our Dia de Santa Bárbara festival. I wished I could sit all day and watch my sunflowers turn their gold-and-black faces to the sun, following it like sun worshippers. But I couldn’t stay long because I had to race down the hill to school.

  SCHOOL WAS PROBABLY THE only thing I wouldn’t miss if I had to go to Neuva York. My best friends, Mirabel and Eva, didn’t go to school with me anymore, so I had to walk by myself no matter what the weather was like—rainy or sunny, hazy or humid. I did not have them to laugh with, or tease about which boys Eva liked, or whisper about the magical paintings by the foreign artists who came to Samana to paint the bay and the whales and our town.

  I had read almost every single book in our tiny school library, and I couldn’t bring my books from the hotels to school. So I had nothing to read while the teacher explained the same thing over and over. I looked out the window and wished for something magical to happen. Maybe a strange new boy might walk in and sit next to me, smiling a slow, sweet smile. There was no boy in town I liked as yet. But all of the boys seemed to be smiling at me these days and Mami said it was because I now had the “scent of a woman,” whatever that meant. She called all of the boys “tigueritos,” which meant they were bad boys! How did she know that?

  The best part of school was walking home in the afternoons, when I could stop and watch the artists on the malecón. They were from France and Germany, Canada and Italy, from so many different countries, but many spoke Spanish and would talk to me. We had a lot of paintings by Dominican and Haitian artists for sale in the souvenir shops, but I never saw any of them painting outside. These foreign artists wore smocks splashed with colors and had paintbrushes twisted into their hair or stuck behind their ears. They looked so happy that I wondered if maybe I would like to be a painter, too.

  One young woman painted the same thing over and over—groves of swaying coconut trees that looked like policemen with green-feathered caps guarding the beach. Her brush flew over the canvas mixing dark greens and light olives together. From the expression on her face, I could tell she wasn’t happy with her painting, but I thought it was beautiful and I told her so.

  She shook her head fiercely. “No, it isn’t. I have to get it just right.”

  I didn’t tell her, but I thought that only God could get it just right. Hers would just be a copy. But I kept my mouth shut because maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was something about art that I didn’t understand. The same way I didn’t understand Mami and her desire for money and a concrete house. The look on the artist’s face was the same look Mami got sometimes. Not desperate, but straining—like an animal on a leash trying to reach something far away.

  Once in a while, I’d see a painting that made my heart flutter wildly. I’d sit on the low stone ledge staring at it, which Mami said was pure foolishness. But I’d get lost in the colors and light and feel like I was being pulled right into the canvas. It was almost as if the paintings had a secret to reveal, and I had to figure it out. When that happened, the artist, whoever it was, would leave the painting right there for me to enjoy, and sometimes he or she would ask me, “What do you see?”

  And once, just once, I was able to reply, “I see everything.”

  So, that was my life in Samana. The life Mami wanted me to leave behind to go to the big, glittering city of Neuva York. Mami could not understand that I already had plenty of glitter right at my feet in Samana. And although she harped on New York, Mami never did anything about it, until the day she saw me sitting too close to a man. It was then that everything changed.

  MIRABEL, EVA, AND I were the same age and had grown up knowing we would be friends for life. We built a fort in the mango tree in Eva’s backyard when we were eight years old and hid there during a hurricane until our parents found us and smacked us for being so foolish. We went to school together, sewed Sunday dresses, painted our faces at carnaval, and danced merengue and salsa, teaching each other new moves and spins.

  Then, we turned twelve. It was Eva’s body that changed first. She grew breasts that made men stop and stare and whistle at her. Then Mirabel’s body sprang right up like a sleek mermaid. Last of all, when I was finally fourteen, my body caught up with theirs, and I had breasts and a waist and hips so that Mami said I must never, no matter what, ever be alone with a boy. I had to take Mami or Eva or Mirabel with me just to go to the colmado to buy bread because Javier was at the counter and he waited to flirt with girls like me, Mami said.

  Another big change happened at fourteen. Eva and Mirabel stopped going to school with me. They had decided to start their own business. At least until they found young men to marry and have babies with, they said. Every day, on my way to school, Eva and Mirabel waved to me as they set up a table under a mango tree to sell their toe rings and dreams. That’s what the sign said. Mirabel with her long, black hair and quick smile was in charge of getting customers, and it was she who waved people over to the “shop.” Eva was heavier with a sweet smile and the prettiest face in Samana. She could pick out the perfect ring for anyone. Together, they were a hit with the tourists, and I thought they were exciting for leaving school and working all day.

  But as time went by, people began talking about Mirabel and Eva, saying they were flirting too much with the German tourists and that the dreams they were selling were sex. I never saw anything unusual, but I heard stories about my friends eating in fancy restaurants with men late at night.

  “Putas,” people said, and shook their heads sadly. I ignored them because I knew how Dominicans liked to gossip. But then it happened. Without any warning, my perfect world disappeared. Mami mistook me for a puta.

  I was walking home from school one day, and Mirabel and Eva called me over.

  “Nina,” they shouted, “come sit with us.”

  I was supposed to change my clothes and go straightaway to help Mami in the grocery store. But the sun was shining through the mango tree leaves, and Mirabel was twirling Eva to my favorite merengue playing on their CD player, and they were laughing and singing, so I stopped. I wanted some of that magic, too.

  I walked over to them and sat in one of their chairs at the table full of silver toe rings and coral anklets.

  “Try one on,” said Mirabel, pulling off my shoe and putting my foot on her lap.

  I giggled. “No, Mami would kill me if I wore a toe ring.”

  Eva handed Mirabel a silver ring with a tiny pink flower on top. “Perfect,” laughed Mirabel, and she slipped it on my toe. “There, Nina, a present from us.”

  I looked down at my plain brown legs and feet, and that tiny, perfect flower on my toe was like a flag of womanhood staring me in my face. It was the true essence of me. For the first time ever, I felt a shiver of excitement about what was coming in life. It was not all about books and selling flowers and taking walks and eating pies. Something exciting would happen in my life, and that flower was the beginning.

  A few moments later, two blond German men walked over, talking and laughing and calling Mirabel and Eva by name. I stood up to leave, but Mirabel pulled me back down.