Cuento de Mi Id

“Balcony Scene”

It was Saturday night at the local movie theatre and Cinnamon Rivers was dancing across the silver screen with Alfredo Aster while dozens of pure-bread couples looked on in envy.

In the audience, Rubia Keeler looked up at Cinnamon and tried to imagine herself in the same role. Just suppose I was a dancer, she thought. Just suppose I was a movie star and all those people in the audience were staring up at me.

Stop having such silly dreams, her conscience told her. Be grateful that you were lucky enough to get that job at the shop around the corner. Mr. Matuschek may not the best of bosses but he's sure better than that factory foreman who tried to peer down your dress or that guy at the warehouse who was always trying to get you to climb a ladder just so that he could try to look up your skirt.

But I don’t want to work in that shop, she thought. I get tired of having to be nice to all the angry customers and the lecherous co-workers. And I just know the new salesgirl is dating the owner’s assistant. No wonder she gets so many privileges.

If only I could be a star, she thought. Then I could rise above all that and I wouldn’t have to worry about where to go or what to do or how I was going to pay my rent. At long last I could just be me.

Just then the lights came up. Rubia realized that the movie was over. She took care to sneak out the side door so that no one would see her in the lobby, praying against hope that no one she actually knew would see her.

She had just gotten to the street outside when she heard someone call out, “Hey, Rube!”

She turned. Coming down the street was Marta, one of her cousins from across town. She seemed to be smiling and beneath the radiance of the nearby street lamp, her bronze cheekbones made her look like one of those Mexican movie stars that her late father used to like. She appeared to be in a good mood but you could never really tell with Marta.

“What’s the matter, Rube?” she said. “You too good to sit with us in the balcony tonight?”

“Er, I didn’t realize you’d be going to see this particular movie,” she said. “Besides, I -- er -- just didn’t feel like sitting in the balcony tonight.” She started edging her way down the street.

Marta grinned. “It must be nice to have a choice about that, Rube. I wasn’t aware that it was possible for a girl like you to have a choice. But then I guess that’s why you don’t hang out with me and my sisters like you used to. So you could have a choice.”

“Oh, please, Marta. Not here.“

“Why? You think those people up the street actually care what we say? That our opinions matter to them? What type of booze have you been drinking?“

“I just wanted to sit on the ground floor for a change,” said Rubia. “I get tired of always having to sit in the balcony whenever I go to the movies.”

Marta frowned. “I get tired of sitting up there, too. How come you didn’t think to invite me to sit with you? Or to invite my sisters and my mom to sit with you? Is there something you’re trying to tell us, Rube?“

“Er, you know why,” Rubia said.

“Yes, I do,” said Marta. Her smile was no longer so beautiful and the nearby street lamp no longer seemed so bright. “I know why. I know exactly why.”

Marta walked off into the darkness.

If only I was a star, Rubia thought, that wouldn’t happen to me. I wouldn’t have to worry about what section of the movie section I had to sit in or what restaurant I could go eat at. Even Marta and her snotty sisters would have to look up to me then. If only.

Rubia walked off in a different direction than Marta, hurrying past the signs that said “No Mexicans allowed” and past the department store where her mother had said a young Mexican woman had been once forced to stand in a store window with a sign around her neck that said “Shoplifter.”

That will never be me, she thought as she remembered that. I do not intend to end up that way. I am an honest person.

And she kept telling herself that all the way home.