La Bikina: Through The Years

1914: unparalleled

"And a cake. A tiered cake, with yellow fondant and pink piping and blue buttercream roses. All pastel colors, of course."

Ugh. Pastels. Imelda stabbed the cloth with her needle, embroidering a bright orange flower petal.

"And we'll invite the alcalde, of course, and Señor Lagos, and Señora Rodriguez," her mamá continued. Her papá just nodded along. And Imelda embroidered, physically sitting at the table but mentaly somewhere far, far away from her mamá's discussions about Imelda's upcoming quinceañera.

The orange flower petal slowly turned into a blooming flower, bright and joyous. She loved to embroider, but she couldn't help but wish she could actually do something with it. Sure, it looked pretty, but the only significant purpose it had was simple decoration. And yet she liked the feel of the needle in her hand, liked weaving the thread through the cloth. The stitches, decorative and useless as they may be, at least kept her mind focused and her fingers from being idle. She despised not having anything to do, despised spending her days dreaming away by the windowsill. Imelda was much more practical than that. Which was why she didn't want such a lavish quinceañera. But her parents, like always, didn't listen.

"Can I invite Laura?" She piped up.

Her mamá narrowed her eyes. "Laura who?"

"Laura Alarcón, my friend from school."

Her mamá's eyes lit up. "Alarcón? Is her father Felipe Alarcón?"

"I don't know," Imelda replied, tugging her needle through the cloth. How would she know?

"I'll find out. If her father is Felipe, then of course she can come! The Alarcóns own the railway, they're rolling in money. Oh, and invite Mariana Pérez, too. Her mother is descended from the Allende family."

Imelda just nodded. She didn't particularly like Mariana, or even Laura all that much, but at least her quince would be more tolerable with them there.

So the next day when she went to school, she invited both of them, and they squealed and jumped up and down.

"I need a dress!" Mariana exclaimed.

"Oh, I'm going to wear my red dress!" Laura said excitedly. "What color are you going to wear, Imelda?"

"I don't know," she replied, but she was distracted by the new boy, who kept on casting glances at the three of them.

Technically he wasn't new anymore, but she still called him that in her head since they hadn't talked very much at all. After those first few days, he had made friends, and now he was with them all the time, making jokes in the middle of class and playing pranks on them at lunch. Imelda wasn't interested in clowns like that.

But in that moment the new boy came over, interrupting Laura gushing about her dress.

"Did you say you were going to have a quinceañera?" He said, and his eyes were filled with what seemed like hope.

"Yes," Imelda replied.

An awkward silence followed. And then Imelda did something completely uncharacteristic. Maybe it was the fact that her quince already seemed unbelievably boring, or maybe she wanted to irk her parents, just a bit. But whatever the reason was, Imelda opened her mouth and asked Hector if he wanted to come.

His face lit up and he said he would definitely be there.

And that's when Imelda's mind filled with images of him trashing the party, of him playing pranks on her parents, of him telling bawdy jokes in the presence of the mayor.

And that's when Imelda realized she had made a mistake.

But Hector had already left, that huge smile on his face unparalleled.