In minutes we had iced the cake to our satisfaction. Crumbs were mixed into the icing, giving the cake a nice fuzzy look. We licked our fingers clean. From the pantry Ivan produced a Keds box full of things we’d collected to decorate our cake. The idea was that each square of cake, when cut, would feature a party favor. Onto the icing went two green army guys, one kneeling with a bazooka, one tossing a grenade. A sparkler left over from the Fourth of July. A 1943 steel penny from my blue coin folder. A couple plastic rosebuds. A bracelet of smudgy pink pop beads. Some Cracker Jack prizes: an airplane and a tiny working jackknife the size of a paper clip. A silver Monopoly piece dog. A shark tooth I had found at the bay. A wishbone. A piece of fool’s gold from Rock Creek. A Harmon Killebrew baseball card that we didn’t care about because Killebrew had failed to become Rookie of the Year. A Japanese cat’s-eye marble that we didn’t care about because it was Japanese. Last, we scattered M&M’s and sticky pink and white Good & Plenty candies between the prizes. The cake looked grand and enticing.
“I hope Elena gets the penny,” I said. I was already regretting donating it to the cause but knew she’d give it back.
“I hope General de Haan bites the fool’s gold and breaks his yellow Nazi teeth,” Max said. “I wish we could put dog-doo inside his piece.” This cracked us up, as anything about doo-doo always did.
Ivan said sternly, “Remember, the Fiesta is to make everybody be nicer to everybody. And we want to get in that pool.”
“Okay, it’ll be nicer if he breaks his teeth,” Max said, and we laughed some more.
We were deciding whether to clean up or leave the mess for Maria, who we knew would think we did a poor job, when we heard feet on the stairs. We froze. In another moment, in a cloud of smoke, Elena whooshed in. Startled, she yelped, “Boys! What are you doing in here?” She laughed, seeming as glad to see us as we were to see her. But I noticed her face, still discolored, and the dark shadows under her eyes. I don’t think I’d ever seen her without makeup.
“We meant to surprise you, not scare you!” Ivan said.
Then Elena saw the cake and exclaimed, “My goodness! It’s spectacular!” She gathered us all into a hug and said, “Let me make a drink and we’ll go outside. It’s too hot in here.”
On the porch she took her place on the swing. “I’ve missed my precious boys. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy. Did Ivan tell you I banged myself against the swing the other night? I was trying to get Rudo off me.” I couldn’t help but remember the sound of Josef’s loud slap, but we didn’t have to answer her lie because she quickly went on. “But I’ll fix myself up by Fiesta time. You’ll hardly notice. Is everything ready?” She let Max light her Vogue—coral—while she drew one of the green bottles from her kimono sleeve and took two Miltowns, gulping them down with her Cuba libre.
“Almost,” Max said optimistically. “All we have to do now is mix up the Special Tropical Punch, set up a couple of tables, hang Beatriz’s decorations, and that’s it!”
“That’s great! Oh, John, is that war paint on your face? Very dramatic.” Elena always said just the right thing. Handing her cigarette to me, she took a swig of her Cuba libre and then offered the drink to Ivan. “You worked so hard today! You deserve a puff and a sip!” We passed our rewards around. Then Elena’s smile dimmed. “I must tell you boys that I won’t be able to stay at the Fabulous Family Fiesta for very long,” she said.
This was devastating news. “Why can’t you stay?” I whined, already dizzy.
“Something’s come up,” she said sadly. “A prior engagement I’d forgotten about. I am so sorry, darlings.” She smiled slightly and did look genuinely sorry.
“You mean you have a date,” Max said accusingly, and burped.
“Yes,” she said. “A date.”
“Who is it?” I asked. A hot breeze came up and she looked off into a sudden flurry of falling oak leaves and rattling acorns.
Elena returned her attention to us, saying, “Oh, it’s an old friend who’s in town. I didn’t expect him to be here so soon. He’s an artist and a baseball player from Cuba.”
I said, “But Cuba is bad.”
Ivan looked crushed. “But you are coming to the Fiesta, right?”
“Of course I am! I just can’t stay.” She reached out for Ivan and hugged him, but he just went floppy in her arms. “And boys, Cuba is not bad. They’re trying to help poor people there. Don’t believe everything you hear.” She sighed, rising from the swing.
Max, frustrated, let loose one of his long, loud raspberries, which brought back Elena’s smile, though then she winced and gently rubbed her jaw. “Don’t I hear Tim? I know you boys could use a cold treat.”
Tim pulled up, grinning his usual lovesick grin, and Elena came down to the street with us, holding Ivan’s hand. Tim took one look at her and the smile disappeared. “What the hell happened? Are you okay?”
Avoiding his look, she said, “Rudo made me bump my head. I’m fine.” We got plain old Popsicles, but Elena didn’t want anything. “I’ve got my treat of choice.” She offered her Cuba libre to Tim, who sipped some.
Elena went back to the house, calling, “You boys get busy! You’ve still got a lot to do!” Tim watched her, looking concerned, and said, “I’m going to finish my route, and then I’ll be back with Popsicles for your Fiesta. You guys stay cool.” The dreamy truck rolled slowly away, chiming its alluring pied-piper tune. I wanted to run up to the porch and sniff the cushion of the swing, knowing that it was faded in the places where, like a Chevy Chase Shroud of Turin, Elena’s reclining hip, elbow, knee, and one heavy breast had worn the striped canvas down and smelled faintly of her. I didn’t, but I had before.
It was now about three-thirty. There wasn’t time to worry about Elena, or be mad about her date. Our next chore was mixing the Kool-Aid at my house. Crossing the lane, we jumped in unison when Foggy, the Andersens’ dog, lunged, barking furiously, as if he hadn’t seen us every single day of his vicious asshole life. “Go to hell, Foggy!” I yelled, using the strongest language I could get away with if anybody heard me. Foggy stuck his black maw through the fence, teeth bared.
“Yeah, Foggy, you moron,” Max taunted. “Mr. Shreve said if you ever got loose again he was going to shoot the crap out of you.” The time Foggy ate the Shreves’ cat, Beau had called him a nigger, and Estelle had heard it and there was big trouble. “Unreconstructed hooligans,” my grandfather had called the Shreve boys, and Beau’d had to come to our house and apologize to Estelle.
“Yeah, Ngagi,” I said to Foggy. “Think about a bullet in your heart!” He tilted his head, considering this. Then he scratched his neck where there was a disgusting cluster of ticks that looked like a spoonful of lentils.
In our basement I grabbed Estelle’s big five-gallon bucket, tossing the string mop aside. In the yard we squirted it with the hose and filled it up. From the kitchen I retrieved the pile of Kool-Aid packets Dimma had put out—all the flavors we’d asked for. We dumped the blueberry in first, turning the water the color of Windex, then the cherry and orange and an entire sack of sugar. I grabbed a rake leaning against a crape myrtle and stirred the punch with it.
“It’s brown,” Ivan said. “You said it would be a really cool color, Max, like Elena’s Tropical Punch fingernail polish.” He frowned.
“We can fix it,” Max said. “Have you got any food coloring?” We didn’t, but we did have some 7 Up and some orange TruAde in the fridge and we dumped those in. That made the punch a different brown but brighter, with bubbles. “Now it will taste more tropical because of the orange.”