Las Biuty Queens Read online

  “Where’s the bride? Gone on her honeymoon already?” I ask, noticing Sabrina isn’t there. Everyone stops laughing.

  “She’s sitting over there,” Cassandra says, looking toward the water’s edge.

  As I walk over to Sabrina, I hear someone behind me saying her fiancé never arrived. It sounds like Candy’s voice. Sabrina’s sitting in the sand. I sit down beside her.

  “He didn’t come.”

  And in the style of a Mexican telenovela, she tilts up a bottle of tequila and says with irony, “It’s Patrón, of course. If we’re getting drunk, it better not be on just anything.”

  “Give me a sip.”

  “What about I give you a bump instead?”

  “Girl, please. What kind of question is that? You offend me.”

  She gives me a bump. She does one, too. We look out at the blue ocean. Sabrina is dressed all in white.

  “Oye, that dress is spectacular.”

  “You think so? They sent it from México.”

  “Let’s see, stand up. I want a better look.”

  I help her up. The dress is incredible.

  “It’s hand-sewn,” she says, twirling and twirling.

  “It looks expensive.”

  “Obviously. How dare you, Monalisa. Do another bump and take another tequila shot.”

  “Okay, but this is it. I want to be in my right mind so I can really enjoy this place.”

  “You’re right, vieja.”

  “Vieja your grandmother.”

  We start to laugh again as we do the last bump and drink the last sip of tequila. In silence, I assume my role of legendary loca or, should I say, vintage queen. I lean in, give her a tight squeeze, and tell her this is just one of life’s many challenges, that a woman who carries her fan wide open sometimes has to pay the price. And not to get too down, because when it comes to men, there’s more where that came from.

  It must be after eight, evening time. The breeze is still warm and the light from the sun turns yellowy, orange.

  “Listen up!” Cassandra shouts out of nowhere.

  Someone’s playing a song on their iPhone. We start to listen to “Como la flor,” sung by Selena. We go back over to Pamela, Cassandra, Candy, and Diana, and we start to dance. “Just like a f lower was all the love …”

  “Where’s the veil?” I ask, realizing it’s missing.

  “Gone with the wind,” says Sabrina, somewhere between relaxed and smiling.

  We laugh and we dance until the sun goes down. From a distance, we must look like a coven of multicolored witches.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Iván Monalisa Ojeda was born in the late ’60s in southern Chile and grew up on the shores of Lake Llanquihue. He/she studied theater at the University of Chile, in Santiago, and when he/she got his/her degree, Iván Monalisa settled in New York, where he/she currently lives. He/she published an essay collection, La misma nota, forever (Sangria Publishers, 2014), and has written articles for magazines and plays. In addition to being a writer, he/she is a performer and is at work on a novel. He/she lives in Washington Heights, New York.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Hannah Kauders is a writer, translator, and musician from Boston. She holds a BA in Spanish and Latin American cultures from Barnard College and an MFA in fiction from Columbia University, where she taught undergraduate writing. Her writing and translations have appeared in Fiction International and Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation. She was a finalist for the 2020 Iowa Review Award in Fiction.