LITMIR.BIZ

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25

      My mom called my tía Bertha, my dad’s oldest sister, to come see if she could do something about her brother. I really don’t know why she called her. It’s not like they get along. She always has something to say about everything. “Gabi, don’t eat another taco. You’ll never find a boy like that.” “Beto, your hair is too long, mijo. From behind, you look like a skinny girl. You should cut it.” “Cuñada, why do you still have that Virgen de Guadalupe up? You’re not still believing in that superstitious nonsense, are you?” It’s a good thing Sebastian moved into his tía Agi’s house instead of staying here, otherwise tía Bertha would have had a heart attack—she is totally not down with boy-on-boy action. One of her comments did change things though. Beto took her advice and cut his hair—into a Mohawk. HA! The look on tía Bertha’s face was PRICELESS when he walked in the door. My mom wasn’t too happy about it either, but at the moment there are bigger fish to fry. Good thing Beto didn’t tell Mom that I was the one that cut it or else I would have been in deep shit. But since it’s him, no one says anything. Beto is always getting away with stuff like that. Always.

      I think he’s my mom’s favorite. Wait, no, I KNOW he’s my mom’s favorite. It’s probably because he’s the youngest and a boy. It really pisses me off. But now that tía Bertha is here, Beto and I have an unspoken truce because at the moment we only have each other. To top it off, tía Bertha is super religious. She’s not even Catholic, like my crazy tía Lucha who never went anywhere without a rosary, but some other religion that says that women can’t wear pants or lipstick or listen to worldly music (live without The Lumineers? I don’t think so, sorry God). I couldn’t do it.

      But my tía Bertha wants to save us all (especially my dad). Calls herself a healer (we call her crazy), a salvationist, (says) she speaks in tongues but mostly those tongues just criticize our wicked Catholic ways, our worshipping idols like la Virgen and los santos. She likens us to pagans but—bless her heart—she never gives up on us. She says that with one touch of her hand anyone is cured! Cured! She says she has seen the holy ghost! That she has been touched by God! Given the gift of sanación! And we do not argue with God! Or question her authority. But I heard rumors. Family stories. The “truths” behind the myth. And I don’t know how a bruja, a witch, like her can save our souls.

      Last year when we went to Mexico for the summer, my tía Mari told us a story and it went something like this:

      She said my tía Bertha resurrected her dead cat, El Negro, when she was seventeen. My tía Mari claims she saw Bertha’s head go completely around when she was making tortillas, and then she heard a big THUD y ahí estaba on the floor, foaming at the mouth and her head gone backwards. The priest (I guess someone had called a priest), as was expected, was scared and ran out. Days later my grandmother, convinced it was a seizure, tried to put all the rumors to rest. “No era el Diablo. It was a seizure.” It was her daughter. What could anyone expect? After that little incident, they say, tía Bertha bought books on hypnotism, hid family portraits in potted plants, buried and resurrected more dead cats (and maybe even a dog!), tied el lazo de matrimonio de mis abuelitos with black ribbon and buried it in the old outdoor kitchen—the one with the black walls like shiny shoe polish from the smoke that came from the wooden stove. When they found my grandparents marriage lasso tied with a black ribbon (I guess it was a sort of spell), it was the last straw.

      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!

       September 29

      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

      

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