by Jan Baross

Mamá scrapes her worn slippers to my bed and pulls back the quilt. She stares down at me because I am wide awake, fully dressed in my new red skirt and smiling up at her.

"Good morning, my lovely Mamá," I whisper.

She rubs the sleep out of her eyes. "Have I got the wrong bed?"

I slide off the sheets without an argument and slip my feet into my best sandals, though they are not best for running. In the morning's dim light I hear the echo of Gabito's words that came in my dream last night.

"Tortugina, you are my diving partner. We will marry underwater and all our children will swim like fish."

Ten more minutes to the tortilleria, and I will be able to tell Gabito that I held four hundred breaths. How can he say no in the face of such an accomplishment?

"Tortugina," whispers Mamá. "Why are you smiling? Did you get your blood?"

Her hand reaches for my skirt. I slip around the bed and pull my best knitted wool shawl from the closet. Holding the short shawl out like wings, I dance silently through the bedroom door and beat Mamá's quick steps to the kitchen. I flip the empty tortilla basket, catch it, and twirl to the door.

"Tortugina, what has happened to you?"

I run silently down the stairs so as not to wake the rest of the family, and do not slam the front door. After all, divers are considerate of others.

Gabito races ahead of me as always, and for the last time, I let him beat me. He is waiting, as always, in front of the tortilleria.

I walk toward him like the tavern women, holding onto my little shawl, and swing my hips as far left and right as they will go. As I come closer, Gabito's eyes fill with a sense of our new game. His silky lips swell and he steps close to me. The aroma of limes rises from his hands.

Gabito cocks his head left and right as though shaking water out of his ears.

"Tortugina," he says, "you are different today."

My heart beats faster. I lower my eyes then look up at him with my lashes batting hard. The heat under my skirt will burn my underwear to ash.

Gabito's smile leaves a gentle kiss on my cheek. His hand reaches around my neck and gently tugs on my braid. I lose my practiced words. All I can smell is the sea. I want to be Gabito as much as I love Gabito.

Now I cannot think how to tell him he must make my dream come true.

Gabito coughs and takes polite steps backwards until he slides through the door of Señora Porcion's tortilleria.

I move into line with Gabito, hot elbow to hot elbow. El Fuerte, the loud metal tortilla maker, chugs and shudders to a stop. Señora Porcion raises her wrench and smashes it against El Fuerte until the gears grind to life again.

The heat and the low ceiling, the generator and gasoline, make the room feel like the inside of an old ship putting out to sea.

Children crowd through the door with their baskets and lean against my thighs for comfort like a litter of puppies. Their warmth makes me drowsy. I want to climb back into bed and pull a quilt over Gabito and me.

I poke two fingers under my shawl making pointy breasts where I have none. The children giggle.

Gabito leans on the blue tile counter and turns to see my nipple-fingers pointed at him. He turns red.

"Whatever you are doing, Tortugina, stop it," says Señora Porcion.

She spins on her peg leg and lurches for the counter. Gabito smiles at her. It is a smile that keeps the women of El Pulpo eager for his octopus.

He turns his voice a notch deeper and leans closer to Señora Porcion.

"A big basket today, Señora. My uncle arrived last night."

Señora drops a pile of hot corn tortillas into Gabito's basket.

"Gabito, bring your uncle next time. Is he married?"

"Forever," says Gabito.

Señora Porcion laughs and grips the counter with one hand so she can receive Gabito's coins with the other.

Many holidays ago, after too many glasses of wine, Señora Porcion hacked off her own leg when she decided to machete her sugar cane by the light of the moon.

"Careful," says Señora Porcion. The steaming stack of tortillas falls against Gabito's fingers.

"Oh, they will keep me warm Señora!" says Gabito.

Señora Porcion's lips crease at the edges. "You do not need to get any hotter, Gabito."

Gabito blushes and I laugh at him. I cannot stop my own snorts. The smaller children giggle at me.

"Tortugina, you sound like a horse," Gabito teases.

The children laugh harder.

"Tortugina is more like a wild monkey," says Señora Porcion.

I put the tortilla basket in front of my face and shut my eyes. I am used to teasing, even humiliation, but today was supposed to be different.

I let the basket drop to the counter and blast louder than El Fuerte.

"Gabito," I say, "I can hold four hundred breaths. I could be as good a diver as you!"

Gabito's face turns a terrible shade of purple. He steps away from me. If I measured the distance between us in heartbeats, he would be miles away.

"Tortugina, why can't you just be a girl?" he says.

Señora quickly piles hot tortillas into Mamá's straw basket and shoves them at me.

"Take this to your mother, Tortugina, and we will not tell her how badly you behaved."

Gabito's smile slowly returns. "For you to be as good as me, you would have to be a witch."

"Bruja! Bruja! Bruja!" howl the children.

"Are you a witch, Tortugina?" asks Gabito.

Gabito moves so close that I am overwhelmed by the scent of lime, the sweat on his clothes, and the wild wind that clings to the hair of boys. I will faint if he comes any closer.

The children shout, "Bruja! Bruja! Bruja!"

Their screaming gives me a headache. I grab my steaming basket and run into the chill of the street.

If my dream kills Gabito's love, then what have we been carrying in our hearts all our lives?

Gabito's heavy sandals pound the cobblestones behind me. I am tempted to slow down, to let him catch me. But not today.

I let my true speed unwind. It carries me down the narrow streets, past Señor Aves and his roasting chickens and the eye-watering chilies of Señora Grosera. My feet are wings sailing across the plaza, faster than the street dogs, faster than the grackles launching skyward.

I leap over the buckets of Señora Flora's dried flower bouquets, race past Señor Afilado's knife-sharpening bicycle. The spinning file makes bright metal sparks that jump after my heels.

Ahead, Papá's black door marks the sanctuary of home. I cross Calle del Mer and slap the door to mark my victory. I have outrun Gabito, but what have I won?

Behind me, the sound of his heavy leather sandals. Though he stops on the opposite side of the street, there is no distance between us.

I tuck the basket of tortillas tightly in my shawl and bend to pick up the bundle of firewood Señor Hachete and his white burro left outside our door. I want Gabito to see the shape of my bottom pushing against my new red skirt.

I feel his eyes stroking my hips. The muscles in the small of my back tingle. As I stand and turn to him, my body hides again under the folds.

Gabito crosses the street. The heat between us thickens the crotch of his white pants. The mystery in Gabito's pants is something I am told happens to boys and men in the vicinity of women, wine, and some domesticated animals.

This is the first time I have seen Gabito like this. I do not ask how he does it.

When his body is so close that I feel his warmth, I drop the bundle of firewood. He raises his hand and pushes his dark curls off his neck to show me something small and green behind his ear.

I lean closer. It is a tattoo of a tiny turtle with the name "Tortugina" at the bottom of the shell.

Until now, no one has ever shown me a picture of love. A turtle cut into human flesh, blood hot below the ink with my name that can never be washed away.

We both tremble as I run my finger over the tattoo. He lets his hair fall back into place, hiding our secret.

His brown face is so close I could lick his dark arched eyebrows. Through his sweet lips, the words come very hard, with long pauses between them.

"Tortugina, I know you want to be a diver," says Gabito. "But—"

And here is the longest pause of all.

"—you must be content to be the wife of a diver."

Heat prickles my face, and my heart beats faster than I could ever run.

"You are asking me to be your wife?"

Gabito nods.

Yesterday I would have searched for a handkerchief to dab tears of gratitude. But today I feel like I will die if I do not speak the truth. It is hard to find breath for the words.

"Gabito, I love you. I want to marry you more than anything in the world," I say. "But I must also be a diver. Do you love me that much?"

Gabito slowly turns as white as the chalky houses of El Pulpo. He walks away from me down the cobblestone street, then runs like a sea-bird skimming the tops of the waves.

Inside the heavy black door of home is another kind of heat, the heat of family.

I pound up the dark stairs to Mamá's kitchen and throw the bundled firewood into the kindling box.

"Tortugina, you are as loud as a man," says Mamá.

She stirs the coals in the wood stove and throws kindling on top of the embers. The sticks burst into flames, feathering Mamá's round face with an orange glow.

She seems to expand from the heat to fill the kitchen. There is never enough space when Mamá is in the room.

"Well?" she says. "What new disgrace this morning?"

I am Mamá's entertainment, her partner in the cockfight of her kitchen.

"Gabito asked me to marry him."

"Tortugina," says Mamá. "Do you think a boy like Gabito would give you anything but a bad cold?"

I sling the basket of corn tortillas onto the flowered oilcloth. It ricochets off the stucco wall and spills tortillas on the floor.

"You only believe the bad about me!" I shout.

I push open the blue wooden shutters and climb onto the window ledge, then onto the slate tiles of the roof. Cold wind shoots up my dress. I kick a tile that slides off the roof and smashes on the street below.

"Tortugina!" yells Mamá. "Get back in here!"

Mamá's fearful eye twitch is my revenge.

"The one who shames you?" I say.

I look beyond my house to the sea, the safety of fluids. Someday I'll abandon these cliffs and build a home on yellow foam.

"Tortugina?" says Mamá. "Little turtle?"

There is concession in her tone.

"Come pick the cat hairs off the tortillas before Papá sees them."

I have softened her eyes with fear.

I crawl back inside. Her pillow arms hug the warmth back into my body.

"My little turtle," Mamá says. "I should kill you before puberty."

Her gentle chide. She lets me go with a small smack on my bottom.

As I step back, my sandals crunch soft bones, the daily offering of our spotted cat Gato. I bend quickly to grab a rat's shredded tail and toss the carcass out the window. Mamá shudders.

"Wash your hands, Tortugina!"

I wash in the icy rainwater then brush each tortilla free of cat hair. Without being ordered, I re-stack the tortillas in their basket and put them on the table wrapped in a colorful towel.

I wipe the tablecloth with a damp sea sponge and set our places with Mamá's mamá's mamá's old cracked plates painted with red and green flowers. I fill a pot with rainwater from the cistern pipe, put the water pot on the stove for coffee, and shove a fry pan of last night's refried beans onto the heat.

"Tortugina," says Mamá. "I will iron your favorite dress since you are behaving."

I pull my green dress out of the folded laundry. What Mamá irons, I wear. But if she irons something I do not like, I wear something wrinkled. The ways to disgrace her are endless.

Mamá lifts the hot iron off the stove and spreads my green dress on a thin towel. She presses the heat into its wrinkled front, and I feel the warmth on my chest. Starch fuses with the weave.

For a single moment, I am in love with Mamá.

A loud crash echoes down the hall. Papá curses from his bedroom.

"Hector, the children!" Mamá shakes her head.

Papá limps barefoot into the kitchen in the brown shirt, brown jacket, and brown pants that he wears every day. His moustache trembles.

"You moved the box of canned beef! Look what you did to my foot, Celia!"

All Papá's wounds are Mamá's fault. Having sired only girls, Papá considers that he is entitled to constant nursing. He sits down and spreads a pair of socks on the kitchen table.

"My socks don't match either!"

Mamá spits a mouthful of rainwater on my dress and shoves the heavy iron over the damp folds of the skirt. Her voice is gentle but firm.

"Who cares about the color of your socks, Hector?"

Papá and I both look at her.

"Who would want to peek up your leg?" she says.

"Celia!" says Papá. "I buy the same color, brown! There is no question that I will match! Now, I find one brown and one light brown! Are you using bleach on my socks?"

Mamá sighs and retrieves another balled pair of brown socks from her laundry basket.

"Beware, Tortugina," she says. "All love comes down to socks."

She tosses the pair to Papá as gently as she would toss a toy to a puppy. But he is never content.

"My poor feet, Tortugina," says Papá. "My onions, bunions, carrots and tomatoes. Would you like to play in my vegetable garden?"

Papá holds out his foot to me. What choice do I have? With his bony heel in my lap, I massage the icy pads of bunions, bloodless carrot toes, and one tomato-red hammertoe crossed over the big toe.

Because of Papá's feet, I cannot eat the sun-warmed vegetables from Mamá's garden.

My eldest sister, Véronica, stands at attention like a stick soldier in the doorway, as though she needed orders to enter.

"Good morning, Mother. Good morning, Father." Never "Good morning, Tortugina."

At seventeen, Véronica could be the most attractive of us three girls. She has a small waist and two perfect porcelain teacup breasts, and below her woman's mound are two long, shapely legs. But she wears too-big dresses so thick with starch that she sounds like paper crushing when she moves. And her hair is pulled in such a tight bun that her skin and eyes look stretched.

Sweet Amanda shuffles into the kitchen rubbing her eyes, and yawns hello. Ten months younger than Véronica, Amanda smiles at each of us, her brown eyes dancing at the pleasure of family. She kisses Mamá then Papá then me.

Amanda is so round and soft that other children, animals, and old men like to rub against her. A pale cotton dress balloons over her mushroom belly, and her dimpled chins tuck on years beyond her sixteen.

I gladly give up my place to Véronica and Amanda, who kneel in front of Papá as though he were the Pope. Véronica closes her eyes and moves her thumbs in precise circles over his calluses. Sweet Amanda lays her red cheek on top of one foot and brushes his instep with her soft fist while she sings a little song she made up:

Onions, bunions, carrots and tomatoes—
We play in Papá's garden.
Red, white, pink, and brown—
We dig our fingers in his ground.

Papá has his only laugh of the day and hums along. When he has had enough, he pulls on his brown socks and boots.

Lowering her heaviest iron skillet onto the stove, Mamá flips a thick wad of lard into the center. She unwraps the soft green plantain leaves that hold the pulpo. Garlic, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and finally the octopus sizzle in lard.

When the octopus is fried, Mamá cracks a dozen of Señor Aves's eggs over the top and stirs quickly. Véronica serves the red and green plates overflowing with curled octopus legs poking out of yellow egg mounds.

We sit in our accustomed seats and bow our heads in prayer.

"Dear God," Papá says. "Thank you for the blessings of food, hard work, and a fine wife. May you find husbands for my three daughters, the sooner the better. Amen."

Papá's lips form words as he eats. He is already rehearsing for his customers, counting his inventory, berating his cans of beets for not selling as well as his cans of Spam.

Véronica keeps track of the family temperature, shifting her eyes right and left. Amanda rolls pulpo and eggs on her tongue to savor the taste. I spread refried beans on my warm tortilla and wash it down with the grainy coffee.

Papá, the fastest eater, sucks the last pulpo leg into his mouth.

"Time for work," he says.

None of us ever gets to finish eating. Véronica, Amanda, and Mamá stand to clear the table. While they wash the greasy plates, I dig out a rough cotton towel to dry.

"Véronica," says Papá.

"Yes, Papá," says Véronica.

She brushes Papá's brown woven coat and dark brown pants free of crumbs with a small whisk broom and plucks a brown bowtie off the shelf. With a few swift adjustments, she centers the tie on the collar of Papá's brown shirt as though she were awarding a medal.

In perfect uniform, Papá opens the door to the downstairs store and passes into his day with Véronica and Amanda matching his determined steps.

Draping the blue bathrobe off her shoulders, Mamá washes the grit of sleep from her face and her underarms and the smell of Papá from her woman's parts.

I cover my nose with my ironed green dress and inhale the rose starch smell.

"Tortugina," says Mamá.

Her voice that I know so well speaks in a tone I do not know at all.

"Your Papá and I have discussed your future."

The future is something we have never discussed. Mamá pulls the green dress down over my head and fastens the buttons.

"Women in our family begin our blood at twelve," says Mamá. "You are fifteen. Perhaps Papá has been praying too hard that you might turn into a son."

"Mamá, I'm a woman," I say. "I am the fastest woman in this village!"

Her face turns red. "I am grooming you for a husband, not a racetrack! For all the years you have lived, you still act like a child."

Mamá slips into her polka-dot working dress.

"Today you will begin your duties at Papá's store like the rest of us. Papá said, and I say so too."

This is the day I have dreaded beyond all others. The slow death march down to the coffin counters of Papá's store.

"Mamá," I say, "I am in training to be a diver! I must be free to practice!"

I cannot explain to her that if I am not on the cliffs with Gabito, where I am forbidden to be, he could die without my prayers.

"What do you mean practice?" says Mamá.

"Watch me hold my breath!"

I run to the tin sink and stick my head in the bucket of rainwater up to my neck. The water tickles the inside of my ears. Silently I count. "One, two, three . . ."

Mamá pulls my head out of the water and rubs my hair with a towel hard enough to hurt. If there is a good time to argue with Mamá, I have not found it.

"As a woman," Mamá says, "I follow your Papá to the store because I must accept my husband's life. It is what keeps this family together!"

The wrinkles around her eyes deepen. For a brief moment Mamá lets me see the full weight of her life, the family balanced on her sturdy shoulders.

"Today," says Mamá, "you will watch how I treat the customers. Some of them, I would rather crush their entrails in a vice, but I smile because they buy from your Papá."

I have seen all the dull brown faces of the village in Papá's dull brown store and Mamá serving them with her tired smile.

"I will die if I have to be you, Mamá," I say.

"Tortugina, you are too old to say whatever is on your mind."

"I am a diver!"

Mamá slaps me so hard that my head snaps back and I stumble against the wall. I cover my head, waiting for another blow, but it does not come.

"In your dreams you are a diver," says Mamá. "In the real world you are a clerk in Papá's store."

Mamá tosses her purple shawl over her shoulders as though she were headed for the stage instead of the village store. She guides me ahead of her toward the stairs. Her hand is firm on my shoulder, but she squeezes gently.

What does she want? Forgiveness?

I shut my heart against Mamá and the darkness ahead.

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