Gabi, a Girl in Pieces. Isabel Quintero
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The pueblo got wind of Bertha the Demon Possessed Wonder and her wicked doings. (This is where the story gets kind of sad.) When she would walk in the street, she was sprinkled with holy water. People crossed themselves and took their children to the other side of the road and instructed them not to look at her. No one but her family would speak with her. She was twenty-three and turning old maid (in her time). Men were afraid. The fear of being coerced by means of brujeria into marriage stopped them from talking to my poor old tía Bertha. Tía Mari says she became bitter and less social. She spent evenings in a church burning candles for the Virgen, putting that saint of desperate lovers—according to Mexican superstition—San Antonio de Padua on his head, and, eventually, resorting to married men. Tía Bertha reached a low point. But one day everything changed. She met a man from out of state—big lips and long hair. She bewitched him into marriage (so her ex-husband, ex-tío Luis, says). “I didn’t know what I was doing!” he claims. But you can’t blame stupidity on magic. He’s still constantly on the lookout for mysterious powders, sacrificed cats or any indication of brujeria. He never found anything and eventually he left her for a non-witch.
At least that’s what I heard.
What is true is that tía Bertha lost her Catholic faith along the way. No one knows how it happened. I asked her about it once and all she said was, “Mija, never trust a seminarian. They don’t keep promises. Not even to God.” I have thought about what could have happened. Most likely, tía Bertha had a passionate love affair with a handsome seminarian and somehow it went wrong. Whatever it was, from that day on tía Bertha hated Catholics. As for the brujeria, I don’t know. Witchcraft is a touchy subject in our house (for various reasons). So far, there has been no evidence to suggest that tía Bertha is a witch. And, except for that birria she turned into maggots one New Year’s Eve, I haven’t seen anything.
Speaking of birria, I think that’s what we’re having for dinner. Yay! Spicy little goat, here I come!
Today was a pretty good day. I think I am finally over Joshua Moore. Sandra can have him all she wants because I now have a huge crush on Eric Ramirez who also happens to be in my Algebra II class. He is soooooo hot! He is light-skinned (not as white as me, but close), has longish brown hair, dresses like a skater and has beautiful brown eyes. He does have one big flaw though—he smokes a little too much weed. I don’t know how I feel about smoking. I mean, I know how I feel about it. I think it’s just a weed, so whatever. But since my dad is an addict, I don’t do any of that stuff. It would kill my mom. Kill her. And I probably wouldn’t be able to sit for months. Even if I will be eighteen in six months, she has made it clear that it doesn’t matter how old I am, she is still my mother. Besides the whole weed thing, he’s pretty awesome. The best part is that Cindy and Sebastian think that he likes me too! Eek!
I don’t know though. I don’t want to get too excited because I am always afraid that boys will only pretend to like me as a joke. Because, really, who would like the fat girl? Sebastian said I was crazy for thinking that. And Cindy said that was the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. She said, “Gabi, you’re not fat. Seriously, you’re average…okay, maybe a little chubby. I’m not gonna lie and say you’re super skinny, but you’re not fat!” That’s pretty much what they say all the time, but it’s hard for me to believe when my own mother is constantly pointing out that I need to lose weight. But maybe they’re right. I need to be more positive this year so I wrote a poem about it in my poetry class. We were supposed to write a list poem and so I did it about my goals for this year.
I SWEAR
To make this year better than last
To be positive
To lose weight
To get a kiss
To make out
To get straight A’s
To wear a smaller size by the beginning of summer so I can wear that really cute polka dot bikini that I saw at the mall with Cindy who tried it on and of course it fit perfectly but made me look like an overstuffed piñata that had all the candy whacked out and all that was left was colorful tissue paper and cardboard.
I SWEAR
To learn how to put eyeliner on
To be happy in my skin (whatever that means, but it is being said by all those skinny women on TV who don’t have much skin to begin with, and so they don’t have to worry about how much happiness to fit into their skin, but us fat girls have so much more skin we have to claw and scratch happiness from anywhere we can get it so that we can stuff it into our skin)
I SWEAR
To read more
To write a lot of poems
To not be mad at Sandra anymore
I SWEAR
To not make promises that I can’t keep.
I hope Ms. Abernard doesn’t get mad because I wrote “make out” and “get a kiss.” And I hope she doesn’t make us read them out loud or put them up on the wall. That would suck big hairy toes.
Cindy and I went to the mall today after school. Sebastian couldn’t go because he went on a date with Pedro, the cute Bolivian boy from his Spanish class. I am both happy and worried about that situation. What if they hold hands and people harass them? What if they get beat up? Why do I have to worry about these things just because they’re two boys? I hope they’re careful. Not that I’m a date expert, but I have been on a couple. My first date was to the skating rink with a guy named José. (An incident I wish to forget.) Ugh. I hate José. In any case, I hope their date went okay.
Well, anyway Cindy and I went to the mall to pick out some matching shirts to take pictures in. It was a little awkward. I guess I didn’t realize how much weight Cindy’d gained. I see her everyday so I hadn’t noticed the sudden addition of a little pouch. She’s almost four months pregnant.
Wow.
Four months pregnant—in her second trimester. That’s something I always hear older women say. The words sound too grown up to belong to us. But they do now. I tried to make her laugh because I don’t want her to feel sad. I know it’s rough at home with her mom. She told us that her dad won’t even speak to