Me and my little cousins and my little sister and some friends she met at the McDonald's across the street, all of us in the hot tub at the Best Western; me wearing my new peach bikini and listening to them sing Mariah. Evie all happy cause she got the spot with the jet, bouncing Yollie on her knee, with Constanza and all her friends across from me, braiding hair, rubbing feet. It smells like chlorine and BubbleYum and too much mama-perfume (probably sneaked from a suitcase by small scabby hands, chipped pink nail-polish popping out against the clear milk-glass bottle). My boyfriend and me went to visit my family for a week, driving way out in steamy Arizona. The night outside the tub is so hot and muggy, and it crouches around us, making me feel like we're a bunch of fraidy-cat babies too scared to leave Mama's warm, perfumey womb. Even so, the heat is relaxing and I sink down, thigh brushing against Roger's, and breathe in....mmmm...violets and vanilla. The sky is a dark black-blue, with a spittle of stars squinting down at us as though we're the ones who are bright and shiny.
I hear all the girls chatting and giggling and listen as Constanza lets out a soft, high laugh; I look over to see Roger grinning at her, she's smiling back. Instinctively, I straighten up and put my hand on Roger's shoulder. He doesn't seem to notice, because he's chatting it up with Tanzy, my little brown Tanzy in her mango-orange one-piece with the pineapples and palm trees all over it. Tanzy, with her thick black ponytail and woven friendship anklet, Tanzy who still wears a training bra under her too-big tank-tops and whose skinny Daddy-long-legs bristle with soft peach-fuzz hairs.
I swing my legs across Roger's and smile alluringly at him, run my fingers through his hair, massage his shoulders and stroke his chin, but all he does is grunt his approval and toss a distracted smile my way. I grab for it with claw-like fingers and cradle it against my body until it squirms like a puppy from my grasp, and then I gobble it down, choking only slightly on the sour scratch my desperate Fire-Engine nails left on his dimple. I could grow fat off that smile. But I miss his low smooth voice, and cannot help but feel angry as I watch Tanzy, jump-roping girl-scout Tanzy, enjoying his words like shoplifted chewing gum, like Thin Mint cookies. My bikini was just a shade or two too pale, I guess, peachy fabric not orange enough for him, my tropic man hungering for papaya and blood and Tequila tulips.

All the girls and me, peeling off still-hot bathing suits in the changing room, skittering into showers and trying not to look. I strip off my bikini and soap up, knowing that the little girls will stare, letting my hands linger as I scrub my hips, my breasts, my butt, the dark shy skin stretched across my most brazen parts being outed by that over-confiscating, bright pink soap.
But once the girls have had their fill of Latino dreams and curvy-craving, it is my turn to peek. I watch as Tanzy, so oblivious, so young, combs her hair with her fingers, makes sure her shower water is just-right warm, wrings out her bathing suit and lets the water bleed from the beaten pineapples onto her toes. How skinny she is! Like the cane my Poppa used to beat me with, like the lines my mama's lips used to become when he did! Flat as a brand new road, unspoiled and smooth, with not one hair between her legs, her skin like one of those expensive coffee-flavored Popsicles. But as she struggles with the stubborn shower handles and shivers her way into the daisy-patterened pajamas she had rolled up in her towel, I can't be mad at her. She's just a little girl--in what, fourth, fifth grade? She needs to be cared for. She needs someone to anchor her down.
Tugging on my jeans with finger-like claws, pulling a wife-beater over my D-cups, I compare my body to that stringy little Tanzy. I can't help but feel so big. I'm an onion joggling about in a green bean soup. I feel like a sunburnt moon against all those teeny-tiny stars, a charred sunflower who lazily let her blackened tumor take over her happy yellow petals, surrounded by itsy-bitsy buds. I guess I've grown fat from all those quick, caloric grins Roger throws my way, precious treats. But didn't Roger say he liked my curves? Didn't he pretend to bite me and say that curvy is the way he likes it? I suppose that was before a gangly bucktoothed girl with hands like a rich woman and long thin legs like a teenage boy's cheek.
I rub my tummy and smile to myself. I can make Roger love my curves.
'Esperanza, baby, hurry it up!'� He pops his head into the almost-vacant locker rooms.
I toss my mock-Prada over my shoulder and kick on my flip-flips. As I hurry to his side, he spots Tanzy tying up her Keds. 'See ya, sweetheart,'� he calls to her, and she blushes, letting her hair stumble in front of her face, a flustered momma chicken, before she bashfully lifts a hand to wave.
We walk in silence to our room and I feel a rush of joy when he slides his arm around my waist, his fanned-out fingers just skimming my cocoa-butter-bump of tummy. I place my own hand over his, and my red, ninety-nine-cent nails stretch just long enough to kiss my bellybutton with hot aggressive lips. They'll probably leave a scratch and I don't mind at all.
Roger loves me and my curves, he must, he will. I'll make sure of it. He does, after all, have a fondness for those who need to be cared for, those who need the protection of my own sultry Arizona, those sweet-smelling sweethearts with the round pluto-eyes and browned nylon skin.
Mmmm.....such a lovely night, for all of us, even those whose hot dusky skies pulse without the glimmer of zillions and zillions of stars.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...