It was a fascinating word for Nora. Yunk, yook, boox, box Nora said in a whisper, as she hastily applied Maybelline lipstick on her lips and cheeks. Mahogany magnificence the label read. She had already run her fingers over the golden letters so many times, the gold had begun to fade.
Tata was buying the Hawaiian punch, and a little bit of rum to go with it. She could picture him, beer-belly to the sun, jiggling in excitement for the night’s pachanga.
Nana was trying to haggle for another pollo. Kaiser had ran away with the raw chicken in his mouth earlier, Nana wobbled behind him with the big knife. It was all a spectacle. Kaiser was the showman of the house, rolling on his back for a quesadilla, whining for pets, and wagging his tail for a spot in the bed. That dog was more spoiled than a girl on her quinceañera.
“¿Que quiere el niño?” she heard herself coo, to the mutt sniffing her leftover knockoff perfume. His whiskers wiggled as he looked for something else to steal.
She wiped the lipstick from her teeth with her tongue.
When the war had started, Kaiser watched residual flames, yards away. His head tilts parting the window blinds. The four of them huddled in bed. Tata’s overgrown nails biting into her toes. Como un vals, the sirens would go off once curfew began, and Nora would count their shrill rhythm, one, two, until she fell asleep in Nana’s arms.
She watched Russian ice skaters in the mornings, as Nana made a paper bracelet for her, held together by string and tape in an awkward entwining. “Nora Flores,” “Edad: 14” “Colonia Santa Cecilia.” One night, she heard Nana tell Tata, la Niña Ena had found her granddaughter’s blown up wrist at the daycare, still with the evil eye bracelet she had sewn for her.
“It looks pretty, very bougie!” Nana had said, as she forced the bulky identifier on Nora’s wrist the next morning.
Nora began to turn off the television anytime a black-haired girl in fatigues, carrying a gun and wearing a mask appeared. She preferred the ice skaters in the snow.
The truth was that every masked girl looked the same after a while. They all had dark eyes. They all stood in front of ruined buildings. They all spoke too fast. Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they smiled in a way that seemed even worse.
She began to see Nana crumple the newspaper and throw it away immediately after reading it. When a neighbor visited, and said things like “Did you hear that Don Hernan’s son died in the blast yesterday?” Tata had sent her to buy a gaseosa at the corner store so she wouldn’t hear the stories.
Since the age of eight, Nana and Tata had promised her, once the peace accord talks began, a birthday would be celebrated, even if they had to wait until her quince.
Today, was her mil primaveras, and the newspaper preached “Peace talks!” Peace. That was the word that sent everyone on a whirlwind. Si hay paz, hay fiesta.
La Niña Tere had brought morning glories in a SOLO cup. “Para la festejada,” she said, heavy breaths between the click clack of her chanclas. Niña Tere was the metiche of the town, always listening through the holes in the wall, stopping to hear the lover’s quarrel, so she didn’t get invited to parties too much. But today she was a friend, just another friend Nora said.
Her prima Yanis had brought her old quinceañera dress, Yanis was a little more gordita, but they had spent the night with safety pins until the dress, light pink, and looking like a tulip drawn in a notebook, fit just right.
The hair spray left a lingering scent of plastic and coconut, Kaiser sneezed. Nora shook the bottle, it was completely empty. “Mierda.” She whispered, in case Nana was back. She was not allowed to curse.
“Las señoritas solo dicen palabras bonitas,” Nana said while her elbows were deep in soap and lard, scrubbing, scrubbing all day.
Norah walked to the living room, carried the mop and the bucket of fizzy fabuloso sloshing in anticipation. The jukebox, out of everything happening, was the most exciting thing tonight.
Don Alfaro, was bringing it from the tavern. She could hear all the songs down the street, “Billie Jean” made her tap her foot under the covers, “Staying alive” even if Tata laughed when her voice hit the high notes and cracked. She tied the garbage bag, careful to balance the garbage juice and not let it trickle to the floor.
Fat flies danced around the dumpster. They moved in lazy circles, frenzied as they heard her approach. Beer cans and cigarette butts rolled in the breeze, making tiny glass clashes. They added zzzz notes to Nora’s hummed version of “Material girl.”
Norah opened the garbage bin flap and saw an arm. It was under a concrete slab, bloodied and dangling, jutted bones sticking out of mucus-like mass. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Kaiser stood on hind legs and scratched at the flesh. Whimpering. She caught sight of a flap full of hair.
Norah screamed and shut the lid. The smell of iron filled her nose. She opened the flap again and saw a black wedged shoe. Still smelling of sweat and leather. The lid slammed shut.
“Hola? Holis?” a muffled voice sounded inside.
“Hola” Norah answered at a loss at what else to do. Uno siempre saluda she had been told.
“Can you please open the lid again, my eye is against a bag of dog shit, I would like to see something else.”
Norah opened the lid immediately, convinced she would see the horror and throw up.
“Are you alive?” She asked, unable to think of anything else.
She saw an undulated, jagged line where the face once was. Now there was only a button nose and a pair of chapped lips.
“Me? Oh no, I just want to look at the sun again. I never could when I was alive, you know. It burns your corneas or something.” The voice sounded familiar. Maybe like the girls at the pupuseria, their arm flaps hanging, coquette accessories, while they slapped the masa.
Or like the girls who answered the electric company’s phone “halooooo?” Like her friends who squeezed in the bus, making eyes at the scrawny boys who walked by, the sleeves of their uniforms, brushing against her arm.
“¡Juela! Looking at the sun still burns.”
“¿Que te paso?” Nora asked, tasting tears falling down her face.
“No se. One day I was decorating my brother’s grave, the next I was here. He died as a….well you know. Maybe they thought I was one too.”
Norah reached for the broom, and holding back screams, moved a flesh piece with an eye.
It was a light brown eye. Ojos sarcos they would have called it. The kind of eye that got compliments everywhere.
The eye rolled up and down, scanning Nora in hungry curiosity. “Ohhhh a crown, some lipstick? Are you a pageant queen?”
“It’s my quince.”
“Ayyy felicidades!” Her voice sounded upbeat.
The silence was held together by Kaiser scratching at the bin, and Norah crying.
“I don’t want it…” Nora knew she might be cursed for saying this, or at least hate herself forever. This moment in the alley, would be what would keep her up at night. “I don’t want it to ruin my birthday…” She had to take some breaths in between. “This thing. You. I don’t want it.”
“Ayy no claro que no. I had a perfect quinceanera, I wouldn’t want it to be ruined for anyone else.” The voice still sounded like the girl you chatted up during the lunch line, complaining about being served cold beans for the third day in a row.
“The shit they serve us, is always cold, like the belly of a muerto.” her friends would say sometimes at school, picking at the congealed, brown mess with their forks.
Tears were flooding now, pooling on the blood, and the flies on top. “It IS gonna be the best party. I have a dress, Don Alfaro is bringing a jukebox…” She stopped, suddenly feeling sorry for the girl chunks in the dumpster, unable to join the party
“What was your quinceañera like?” Nora felt like small talk was the best gift she could offer at the moment. A chicken clucked nearby, running from Kaiser.
“Well it didn’t have a jukebox, that’s a fancy city thing!” When she laughed, Nora noticed the tooth was chipped. “But my brother,” Nora saw some blood wiggling from her nose, a wide, friendly nose, then gushing “he got his friends together and sang me las mañanitas. My dollar store mariachis.” Her voice turned a little wistful.
Nora’s chest hurt. “I will let them know. Your friends, or your family…I mean. I promise. But after…”
“Of course, after the music dies down. No one needs to know a girl got chopped up like a chicken inside your dumpster!” She laughed again. The way a girl laughs when a heel breaks off during the cha-cha-cha.
“Enjoy your birthday, okay?”
Nora nodded, bile rising in her throat as she moved her face. “You can see me dance through the crack,” she said. “I am not a really good dancer, but you can see my dress…” She prayed the girl would take the chance to attend her party. A last party.
The girl stopped answering. Nora stared at the arms, legs, teeth in a cruel, lopsided puzzle.
Don Alfaro arrived at the house. He plugged in the jukebox, the music wafting all the way outside. A stringent but familiar voice sang “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” as Norah went back into the house to reapply her lipstick before the guests arrived.