~Emmanuela~ has added a photo to the pool:
grande . large
Hurray! Today we are Cinderella because our feet fit exactly and we laugh at Rachels one foot with a girls grey sock and a ladys high heel. Do you like these shoes? But the truth is it is scary to look down at your foot that is no longer yours and see attached a long long leg.
Everybody wants to trade. The lemon shoes for the red shoes the red for the pair that were once white but are now pale blue the pale blue for the lemon and take them off and put them back on and keep on like this a long time until we are tired.
Then Lucy screams to take our socks off and yes its true. We have legs. Skinny and spotted with satin scars where scabs were picked but legs all our own good to look at and long.
Its Rachel who learns to walk the best all strutted in those magic high heels. She teaches us to cross and uncross our legs and to run like a double-dutch rope and how to walk down to the corner so that the shoes talk back to you with every step. Lucy Rachel me tee-tottering like so. Down to the corner where the men cant take their eyes off us. We must be Christmas.
Mr. Benny at the corner grocery puts down his important cigar: Your mother know you got shoes like that? Who give you those?
Nobody.
Them are dangerous he says. You girls too young to be wearing shoes like that. Take them shoes off before I call the cops but we just run.
On the avenue a boy on a homemade bicycle calls out: Ladies lead me to heaven.
But there is nobody around but us.
Do you like these shoes? Rachel says yes and Lucy says yes and yes I say these are the best shoes. We will never go back to wearing the other kind again. Do you like these shoes?
In front of the laundromat six girls with the same fat face pretend we are invisible. They are the cousins Lucy says and always jealous. We just keep strutting.
Across the street in front of the tavern a bum man on the stoop.
Do you like these shoes?
Bum man says Yes little girl. Your little lemon shoes are so beautiful. But come closer. I cant see very well. Come closer. Please.
You are a pretty girl bum man continues. Whats your name pretty girl?
And Rachel says Rachel just like that.
Now you know to talk to drunks is crazy and to tell them your name is worse but who can blame her. She is young and dizzy to hear so many sweet things in one day even if it is a bum mans whiskey words saying them.
Rachel you are prettier than a yellow taxicab. You know that?
But we dont like it. We got to go Lucy says.
If I give you a dollar will you kiss me? How about a dollar. I give you a dollar and he looks in his pocket for wrinkled money.
We have to go right now Lucy says taking Rachels hand because she looks like shes thinking about that dollar.
Bum man is yelling something to the air but by now we are running fast and far away our high heel shoes taking us all the way down the avenue and around the block past the ugly cousins past Mr. Bennys up Mango Street the back way just in case.
We are tired of being beautiful. Lucy hides the lemon shoes and the red shoes and the shoes that used to be white but are now pale blue under a powerful bushel basket on the back porch until one Tuesday her mother who is very clean throws them away. But no one complains.
HIPS
I like coffee I like tea.
I like the boys and the boys like me.
Yes no maybe so. Yes no maybe so . . .
One day you wake up and they are there. Ready and waiting like a new Buick with the keys in the ignition. Ready to take you where?
Theyre good for holding a baby when youre cooking Rachel says turning the jump rope a little quicker. She has no imagination.
You need them to dance says Lucy.
If you dont get them you may turn into a man. Nenny says this and she believes it. She is this way because of her age.
Thats right I add before Lucy or Rachel can make fun of her. She is stupid alright but she is my sister.
But most important hips are scientific I say repeating what Alicia already told me. Its the bones that let you know which skeleton was a mans when it was a man and which a womans.
They bloom like roses I continue because its obvious Im the only one who can speak with any authority; I have science on my side. The bones just one day open. Just like that. One day you might decide to have kids and then where are you going to put them? Got to have room. Bones got to give.
But dont have too many or your behind will spread. Thats how it is says Rachel whose mama is as wide as a boat. And we just laugh.
Sandra Cisneros from The House on Mango Street
Modelo: Altaira
Stumble It!
