Chapter 3
Chapter 3
"We all know who the lucky one is," Jamira said childishly, sitting at the desk before me, flipping through a fashion magazine covered in colorful, bright sticky notes. She was currently obsessively planning and choosing outfits for the upcoming festival.
"Tell us again what it was like, Dove?" Lucia whined, sitting beside her sister, generously helping herself to my quenepas. The tiny, tangy fruit quickly disappeared as she lazily fanned her face and sat back in her chair.
Jamira and Lucia were identical twins, sharing the same pretty faces and dark curly hair. We were all in the same grade, having been born months apart. I was the oldest.
Like most times, I paid no mind to their dramatics, brushing off their questions for the hundredth time. Instead, I relished my delicious meal of fresh salt fish, boiled dumplings, sweet plantains, and fresh slices of avocado.
It was lunchtime at St. Cecilia's of the Sacred Heart, a private high school founded when it was still a Spanish colony. St. Cecilia's was where Salamanca's wealthy families sent their children for a "premier" high school catholic education.
It used to be a convent for a group of Carmelite nuns. Its arched brick walls, built with local coral stone, are full of history and still stand even with all the modern-day renovations.
St. Cecilia's design was reminiscent of and accurate to the architectural style of the lasting Spaniard influence on my island's culture. The campus was moderately large, with four buildings, each mandated to separate age groups, and the student population was strictly divided by gender.
Boys on the left side and girls on the right.
I looked outside through the large paneled windows in the classroom, listening to the lunchtime commotion outside. Loud shouts of students mingling in the grassy common area behind the cafeteria, under the breezy shades of the giant palm trees.
Lunch was the only time at school where boys and girls could mingle freely, outside of pep rallies or daily morning mass. "You guys make me sick," Samara said disgustedly, taking out her earbuds to address the twins and lifting her face from her latest graphic novel.
"Oh, please, Samara, spare us your feminist moaning today," Jamira complained. "Even you have to admit, the man was impressive," Lucia teased while blowing on her freshly painted nails.
"I'll admit to that when you realize how naive and clueless you are about the world."
Samara brushed Lucia off, flipping through her novel and stuffing her face with coconut candy, her favorite.
I grinned at her feet, lazily raised carefree on the desk, not caring that her basketball shorts were showing underneath the dark blue uniform skirt. Her white collared school shirt was untucked and wrinkled, dirty sneakers in the air, and colorful beaded bracelets dangled from her wrist. Her waist-length, single braids piled on her head in a dark, tangled disarray.
Disregarding the school's policy for clean black Mary Janes like the ones on my feet.
Abbess Clarice always stressed the importance of cleanliness and godliness, which was one of the responsibilities of a student of the Sacred Heart.
I'd lost count of how many times Samara and the Abbess had argued over the past two years, their rivalry beginning the first day of our freshman year.
Most of the sisters dreaded having her in their class.
Samara always spoke her mind, no matter how much trouble it got her into.She caused a frenzy after editing her thoughts into the unauthorized printing of the school's student newspaper. She was only allowed to return to school after a sizable donation from her grandfather. Tio Franco all but bribed Abess Clarice.
Abbess Clarice called a silent truce and turned a blind eye to Samara's disregard for authority.
And I couldn't love her more for it.
"There's nothing much more to say about it, Jamira. He was the perfect gentleman, respectful and curious about Salamanca," I answered, shrugging my shoulders and hiding my lie.
Instead, I focused on the newest sketch in my notebook, one of many research notes and drawings on various flowers and plants.
I ignored Lucia's prying questions, coloring in the lemon balm's wrinkled, green, heart-shaped fuzzy leaves from memory. Melissa Officinalis , locally known as lemon balm, is a part of the mint family. My mother introduced me to my love for herbology and the magic of the healing powers in herbs. Mami taught me the sacred language of flowers, the secrets of the herbs, how to taste the flavor, and how to understand where they worked in the body and how they could heal the mind and spirit. I have loved to make a game of memorizing the scientific botanical names of plants and flowers since I was a girl to challenge myself.
I could smell the mint lemon perfuming the spring air growing abundantly in the student gardens below. A soothing aromatic, gentle enough to use in teas for the elderly, salves for patients with joint pain, and included in the many love formulas my mother gave to her female clients.
Lemon Balm was an herb for those looking for love.
Samara snorted loudly, pulling me away from my drawing. "No, Dove, he was curious about you ," she emphasized. "Those were not the eyes of any caballero I know," raising her eyebrows.
"Well, he was," I insisted, giving Samara a look, telling her to drop the subject in front of the twins for now. They were better at spreading gossip than all our aunts combined.
"He was nice, nothing more," I said plainly, wanting to change the conversation.
But I was lying.
There was nothing to describe that secret moment of magnetizing pull between us.
Nice was not a word to describe Meroveo De Los Santos.
I didn't want my mother to hear anything more about that night. Her absolute command to stay away from him and the terrified look in her eyes still scared me.
Tio Franco was livid with her, and Mami was just as furious with him.
Both of their tempers were legendary in our household. My uncle was a bull of a man who expected his every command to be followed without question as the head of the family.
My mother, Demetria Solomon, had mastered her independence in a family that coveted tradition and prestige. She could hold her own just as firmly against Tio while continuing to be a lady in her tactics.
The two had not spoken a word to each other since that night of the wedding.
Mami hadn't spoken about it with me either, refusing to answer any questions I had, instead giving me a new curfew, wanting me home early from school, confining me to my family's private acres.
It had been exactly two weeks since that night. It frightened me that I could still feel his hand on my hip, the invasive memory still vivid and fresh in my mind.
I secretly replayed our encounter countless times, like a melody I couldn't stop listening to. Daydreaming in class or late at night right before I fell asleep, admitting to only myself how ashamed I was of how often I did.
At mass, I recited an extra Hail Mary, one for the alarming tingle I felt in my spine when I thought of him. Another to forget him completely, to end the silliness of a schoolgirl crush.
Meroveo was worlds ahead of me in every way. He was older and self-possessed, with a dark mystery underneath the quiet charm of his caballero's smile.
Mami always told me to trust my intuition. She said it was a gift given to the women in my family, passed down in our bloodline. She urged me to always use it to guide my decisions. And for one of the first times in my life, I heard it pull loud and clear, alarm clawing at my chest, the whisper of danger pointing to the shadows I couldn't see.
I swallowed the memory of his gaze, shamed at how I gravitated towards him. He wanted something that went beyond my body.
"If you don't want him, Dove, you can pass him along to me. I don't mind being the daughter-in-law of Satres De Los Santos." Jamira stood dreamily, opening her silk fan playfully under her eyes.
The surname De Los Santos was easily recognizable in any Caribbean country. De Los Santos— Of The Saints —translated into English. A name synonymous with power and prestige, they were one of the original families that industrialized the Spanish Caribbean generations ago.
Satres De Los Santos was a modern-day myth. His name was whispered in certain circles.Their lineage could be traced back to when murderous pirates controlled the Caribbean Sea.
It was public knowledge that he was suffering from an unknown illness and recently stepped down, leaving his empire to his three sons. The oldest was Meroveo.
I was thankful when the first bell rang suddenly, signaling the end of lunch and the start of afternoon classes.
Moments later, the classroom door opened, and the students began plopping into desks one by one, chatting and giggling, continuing the conversations from lunchtime. It reminded me of the nymphs I would read about in books, gathered in the spring, spreading the day's news.
Nydia Destine walked into the room, smiling brightly with her three-headed posse behind her.
Nydia was a stunning specimen of a human, the only daughter of Prime Minister Destine, holding the honorary title of being the first daughter of Salamanca.
The first daughter and easily the most beautiful girl on the island, she was still the reigning Miss Teen Queen of the yearly agricultural fair.
Her fiery red hair stood strikingly against her golden olive skin and bright green eyes, a unique tribute to her multicultural background.
Salamanca was a tropical cauldron with a heavily flawed and rich complex history. The people of Salamanca come in all shades of color, from the darkest to the warmest brown, golden tan, and pale white. I was a testament to the tropical melting pot of the vast Caribbean islands. My dark brown skin stood out against the olive-tan warmth of my mother and nearly all of my family members.
The exact origins of my father's roots were a mystery to me. I had never met him, and Mami disliked talking about him. The only thing she ever told me about him was that he gave me my name.
No one in my family ever dared to bring my father up. It was a taboo subject.
"Aristeo was looking for you at lunch, Dove," Nydia called out as she took her seat in the center row of the classroom. There was never a moment where she could not be the center of attention.
"It begins," Samara murmured under her breath, flipping a new page of her book.
"I'll see him this afternoon at rehearsals," I answered, meeting her cat-like eyes as she nodded in pleasure with a taunting smile.
Nydia had been acting strangely since the wedding. She had never cared about me having lunch with her brother before.
People who usually ignored me at school started whispering about me in the halls. I learned to stick to the classroom during lunch and in the garden during free periods.
"You know how my father is. That's why he will be the best choice for prime minister again next year," she said proudly, standing up to get everyone's attention.
"It's never too early to start canvassing," Samara drawled lazily, her face never leaving her book, as she continued to stuff herself carelessly with sweets.
Nydia glared briefly before acting completely unbothered, ignoring Samara's passive hostility.
"He wants to bring in a new industry for the island, open a new mall, with luxury stores and new condos on the beach, like the ones in Antilla," she boasted proudly.
"You mean, make the rich richer," Samara corrected sarcastically.
"Meroveo De Los Santos is coming to my house for dinner." She beamed proudly, ignoring Samara, her green eyes blazing in mockery. At the mention of his name, the classroom erupted in nymphish gasps and girlish laughs.
I felt the surprising bitter sting of jealousy rising in my throat.