Re: [AyB. Cris y Mari]
She knew she looked something like her hermana. Mami had told her this many times. Whenever Mami had said this, it was with sadness in her eyes, but Mami always looked sad. Mari did not remember a day when the smiles that touched her mother's lips were true smiles. Her eyes held no mirth. Even when Mami sang along to Luis Miguel on Sunday mornings, as she vacuumed the living room and made the entire house smell of the vinegar she used on the bayeta to clean the floors, she was shrouded in a perpetual type of sadness. Papi was in the one in the family who laughed and smiled.
"I have not bothered trying to get good coffee here," she asserted. "Ven," she said, but she waited for the kiss to her cheeks before she straightened. She returned these kisses, of course, because this was how it was done with their people. Greetings were always like this, though she was out of practice; no one kissed the cheeks of the local iyalawo, but he had no cause to know this is what she was. He was not raised in Miami, and he was not born in Cuba. Perhaps he did not know the ways.
This short journey gave her time to consider what she had seen thus far. For a man his age, he was handsome, but she already knew he had been considered guapo when he was young, and he had grown from that to handsome. She expected his smile opened many doors for him and parted many thighs, and she had known her share of charming Latino men. For her part, she was not charming. She walked with her shoulders straight, hips canted forward and no sway to her body. "Dime," she said as she walked ahead of him, assuming he followed, "why did you come here now?" The question sounded like a test, a taunt, perhaps a tease offered with a hint of entertained smile at the asking.