*Non-Fiction — December 1, 2022
Pink Bomba Dress
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Nerida Lopez grabbed my Oshkosh jumper strap, her face so close to mine, the salmon-colored apple of her cheeks staining my vision. “You a rich girl? These are expensive,” she asked. I flinched, shyness crippled me, my large brown eyes searched through my glasses for Miss Munoz, our teacher, for rescue.
Six years to my five, Nerida was the rubia, blue-eyed star in our kindergarten universe. Ivory skin, translucent with blue undertones. Flaxen long blond hair. Nerida’s uniform was taffeta dresses, pink and red concoctions of frills with white tights, scuffed white patent leather Mary Janes. She was the centerpiece on Santa Rubia Boricua altars; it was her benefit of the doubt, a footnote in everything she did.
Nerida pulled at my shrimp shaped mini hoop earrings. “These are gold. My ears ain’t pierced. Your mom let you pierce your ears?” Nerida was a mini-Barbara Walters, she demanded information at will. The unspoken mantra of Papa and Mami, Don’t Let nobody touch you, ran a loop in my five-year-old mind. I shoved Nerida off my ear. Nerida hissed at me. “Don’t be stuck up.” Her outrage of entitlement rose like the fur on a cat. She flicked my earrings again and spun off, the tip-taps of her heels a relief song in my ears.
I fought back tears, their salty fumes blurring my red glasses, mini for my small heart-shaped face. My face was a marriage between the best and worst of my parents. Papà’s eyes fought Mamí’s cupid shaped mouth; Papà’s large forehead and even larger head competed with Mamí’s long, wavy brown hair. My footnotes said, Weird-looking kid.
“She must have gotten left back. Who gets left back in kindergarten? Who is that dumb?” Mamí cackled. Mamí had softened with pregnancy, her belly filled with life. Her patches of rage surfaced at bullies and injustice, even if the offender was a child. Her language of love, protecting me when outsiders attacked. The edges of her anger were like burnt toast, hardening the root of the mouth before the buttery gooey center was felt.
Nerida decided I was her new target. She circled me when we played dolls, grabbing the dolls I wanted. She plunged into me during tag. In our reading circles, she sat next to me, taking every moment to fling her hair around, a weapon of yellow pelo. I found blond hairs on the sleeves of my sweaters, her bullets.
“That girl is going to get lice,” Mamí grumbled to herself as she picked the blond hairs off my clothes. Lice were one of Mamí’s obsessions, cosas malas, that could happen. Wishing lice on Nerida was her spell, a prophecy that came true when Nerida got lice during winter break.
Nothing earned Nerida’s ire more than my wardrobe. The sight of my bony limbs, jutting out of my Healthtex sweaters, offended her. “You are Bones, Four Eyes!” Nerida taunted me, my morning greeting call. Mamí, a lifelong clothes horse, made me her living muñèca, dressing me in her version of preppy, Oshkosh denim skirt jumpers and overalls. Mamí did not trust me to keep my legs crossed. She bought me tights in all colors and fabrics. I wore jeans, Jordache and Sassoon, tucked into red cowboy boots. I had picked out the boots myself. “Leslie dresses like a boy!” Nerida shrieked when I wore jeans. The girls in our class all wore dresses. I stood out amongst the kids in my classes, many who were old school Puerto Ricans. Little girls don’t wear pants, their mantra.
Nerida was cast as the princess in all the school shows. She was Snow White, Mary, Mama de Jesùs. I was Grumpy the dwarf, one of Joseph’s shepherds. At night when I sat between Mamí’s legs, our nightly ritual, she oiled my scalp, setting my waist length hair free before braiding it into two loose plaits for sleep. She set a large mirror in front of us, so she could make sure she parted my hair evenly. In the mirror, a wild-haired prettier version of me was reflected, my square forehead softened by the brown curtain of hair. The girl in the mirror could be Snow White. My pipe dream. Mamí never let my hair free for school.
For weeks, Nerida refused to play with me, until I got my new Raggedy Ann. “Can I play with her?” Nerida slithered over, sweet as hot chocolate they served us during our story time break on Fridays. I handed my doll over grudgingly. I was sick of being an outcast.
Nerida played with my doll the whole day. She let me sit with her at lunch, shared her cookies with me. At the end of the day, I approached Nerida at her cubby. “My doll, Nerida.”
“Can I take her home? Just for tonight,” she asked, packing the doll in her bag. She was sure the doll was going home with her.
Mamí would kill me if I came home without my doll. She guarded them like a security guard. “My mother doesn’t let me lend my dolls out.” I reached for my doll, but Nerida held her over her head.
She narrowed her eyes at me, her lips pursed, like she had eaten a Lemonhead. “You are so ugly, four-eyed monkey. All your toys and clothes and you ugly.” She threw the doll at my feet and stomped off. I picked up my doll, dusted her off, put her back in my Peanuts book bag. I swore I would never bring dolls to school again.
At dismissal, our parents lined up to pick us up. Nerida’s Abuela usually picked her up. Nerida’s Abuela had smooth mocha skin, salted ebony hair, swept in tight buns at the nape of her neck. Her sweet disposition radiated off of her, she sent azúcar-coated Holas niños out to all the kids. She wore white always, long bomba-style skirts, beads like the ones Grandma wove around her Santos adorned her neck. Nerida was an angel around her Abuela, the meanness melted off her.
On some days, Nerida’s mother came to pick her up. She always wore a shrunken leather jacket, black with a nipped in waist, low-cut tops that showed her breasts, a heart-shaped tattoo on her right, dipping into her black lace bra, even if the temperature was 20 degrees outside. With her dark ebony hair, short in a pixie cut, her dark roasted coffee brown eyes, her risqué clothes, she and Nerida were a contrast. They were two different characters in two different films. Nerida cut her eyes at me as she walked up to her mother. “Hi Mom,” she greeted her mother, her voice flat. The meanness marinated in Nerida the days her mother picked her up.
Papá had gotten me a fur coat, real rabbit fur, dark beige with dark brown tones. “This guy came with a bunch of them, Rose,” he told Mamí. He held up a miniature one. “Les, look at this one. Para niñas.” Papá laughed as he handed me the coat to try on. America’s extravagance had bewitched him early. His lessons at the knees of the Italian Mafia had bred glamor in him. Occasionally he shared it with Mamí and me.
Papá had gotten me a fur coat, real rabbit fur, dark beige with dark brown tones. “This guy came with a bunch of them, Rose,” he told Mamí. He held up a miniature one. “Les, look at this one. Para niñas.” Papá laughed as he handed me the coat to try on. America’s extravagance had bewitched him early. His lessons at the knees of the Italian Mafia had bred glamor in him. Occasionally he shared it with Mamí and me.
“You look bella, Les.” Papá looked delighted, a rare occurrence in my direction. He grabbed his polaroid camera, taking several pics of me, posing in the fur coat. “We can be twins, Les.” He had several furs, and when he wore them, he looked like the King he imagined himself to be, the animal skin cape of royalty, an exclamation point when he entered the room.
It was freezing that first day I wore my fur, with a dark blue rainbow-accented turtleneck, a navy corduroy Oshkosh jumper, thick navy cable fisherman tights. My red cowboy boots flapped against the sidewalk. I sashayed across the January ice-coated streets; the sky was a permanent shade of ash gray with streaks of sunlight. I was the sun that day. In my bright colors and my fur, an image of 1980s extravagance. My fur coat had fallen off a truck, the glamor goddess’s bounty.
As soon as Nerida spotted me, she cornered me at my cubby. “Who got you this fur? Only pretty girls wear fur. You are too ugly to wear the clothes you have.” Her heart-shaped lips spit those words out. Horror movie Stepford child, spurting blood venom out at me. The joy and pride I felt began to seep out, and fury took its place. I wanted to smash her blue eyes to pulp. Shame coated my belly. Maybe she was right. Ugly girls did not wear fur coats.
Papá’s elation at the sight of me gave me courage. Turning my back on Nerida, I busied myself in my cubby, not taking off the coat. I kept it on every extra second in the clear eyeshot of Nerida. “You look like a wet dog,” Nerida hissed when I arrived at my cubby, daily. The words fell on deaf ears. Papá had put the polaroid of me attired in the coat in his car.
In the spring, Miss Munoz announced we would be learning Bomba and would perform the dance at the end of the year talent show. Twice a week, we practiced to Cuá, Maraca, Buleador and Subidor drums. Miss Munoz was our Laina, her calls our cue to lift our skirts. The drums were my language; I upstaged Nerida’s princess looks, her lack of rhythm was my advantage. I won one of the dancing leads. Mamí was ecstatic, she spent hours designing and sewing my dress. It was pink eyelet material, the material used in Puerto Rico, she told me. The final product, my pink Bomba dress, was one-shouldered, Disco-meets-Bomba, a metaphor of my Nuyorican-ness.
On the day of the recital, Nerida was in the backup chorus. I got dressed backstage. Mamí let me wear my hair down, pinned a hibiscus flower and placed it over my left ear. Liberal blue eye shadow speckled on my eyes, Grandma’s candy apple red lipstick. As I swished my skirt to Miss Munoz’s calls to our ancestors, I spotted Papá in the audience, next to a beaming Mamí, his polaroid in hand, snapping photos.
Originally published in No Tokens Issue No. 10. View full issue & more.