The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel - By Hector Tobar Page 0,14
still in business, though no longer under the control or guidance of the people gathering this afternoon in the Torres-Thompson backyard.
“So, it’s a Roman theme, huh, Scott?” Avakian said. “A kid army of centurions—and their parents, the Huns!”
“There’s always a theme. The party cannot be themeless.”
“You had the wizard thing going on the last time I was here. And the astronaut thing a while back. My favorite was the safari theme, the explorer bit. That was a couple of years ago, right?”
“Right,” Maureen interjected. She said this without looking at her guest—she was holding the baby Samantha over her shoulder, trying to get her to take her afternoon nap, and was at the same time keeping an eye on the still-empty swimming pool and the inflated castle, where two small centurions were trying to hit each other with their swords in between trampoline jumps.
“How do you find the time to do these things, Maureen?” the wife of the Big Man said. “With three kids?”
“Araceli,” Maureen said, turning to look back at her guests. “She’s a godsend.”
Maureen watched Araceli walk toward her guests with a tray of drinks, and not for the first time felt comfort in her employee’s dependability. True, Guadalupe would be laughing and chatting up the guests in bad English if she were here, not scowling at them. But Maureen never needed to tell Araceli what to do more than once.
Araceli’s tray contained a collection of blue glass tumblers filled with a sangria concoction that Maureen made for summer parties. Each drink was chilled with ice cubes Araceli had pried from a dozen trays, because Maureen wanted moon-crescent ice in her tumblers. Araceli watched each guest take a glass with the soon-t o-melt crescents and went back to the kitchen with the empty drink tray to retrieve more hors d’oeuvres. When she returned to serve the guests she refused to acknowledge those few who were courteous enough to say thank you, and gave a sidelong glare to Mrs. Tyler Smith when she dared to say “Gracias.” I speak English, Araceli wanted to say. Not much, but “Thank you” has been in my vocabulary since the fourth grade. On one of these trips she crossed paths with la señora Maureen, who was walking back into the yard with a baby monitor in hand. Araceli began to lose track of the number of trips she had made with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Finally came the culinary climax, her sopes, which were a California variation on a recipe of her aunt’s. The sopes had begun their existence as balls of corn masa in Araceli’s palms last night. Each was fried and garnished with Haas avocados, shredded cilantro, vine-ripened tomatoes, and white Oaxaca cheese, so that as she walked into the crowd of partiers she was presenting the colors of the Mexican flag. I could eat five of these all by myself, Araceli thought. Maybe if I go through here quickly enough I can keep them from getting all the sopes.
The Big Man began to gather an audience around him, regaling the group with tales from his new “mercenary” work as a consultant/lobbyist. He came to Scott and Maureen’s parties because he respected them for their work ethic and loyalty, qualities he did not possess in large quantities himself, and once he was in their home his “gift” to them was to keep their guests amused and entertained. “So there I am, all of a sudden, shuffled into the mayor’s office. The mayor of Los Angeles. He’s saying goodbye to some people in Spanish. That guy, let me tell you, he’s got a thankless job. Because there’s a whole city filled with Mexicans who elected him to office—they think their day has come. And that’s going to be a problem: because he can’t keep them all happy. There’s too many Mexicans. It’s mathematically impossible.”
The Big Man lived in Los Angeles, on its Westside, but to the rest of the partygoers that city and its overpopulated unpleasantness were far away, and the reference to the ethnic divisions in Los Angeles led to a moment of awkward silence filled by the laughs and squeals of children inside the inflated castle. In the circle of Maureen and Scott’s friends, discussing any topic related to ethnicity was on the fringe of what was considered polite. Many now had interracial children, and all believed themselves to be cultural sophisticates, and had given their progeny names like Anazazi, Coltrane, and Miró that reflected their worldly curiosity. They avoided