I shake my head.

“We visited when I was little. We went to the breakfast where the costume characters go and I ate pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse. Baby stuff. But there are a lot of cool things to do, too.”

I wonder, What’s it like to fly in an airplane and get served ice cream and watch movies above the clouds, like Delia said they do? My feet have never left Guam (except for Cocos Island). What would it be like to be Mary Kelly, flying off every couple of years to other lands?

“Hey,” Mary Kelly says, “there’s Michael Jackson.”

I smile and wonder if the girl sharing french fries with Mary Kelly today would remind Roman of the girl he spoke about on the full-moon night.

Fiesta Queen

“You would make a beautiful fiesta queen,” Auntie Bernadette declares, again, after mass on Saturday.

I shake my head. “Olivia wants to be fiesta queen. Not me.”

“Olivia’s day will come. Right now is your turn.”

I don’t want to wear a tiara and banner and smile at everyone as though winning a pageant were the happiest moment of my life.

“I could make a dress, a red dress or maybe blue like your mother wore.” Auntie Bernadette looks up at the ceiling and I know she’s already stitching the dress in her mind.

I stare at her like she’s kaduka. “Auntie, I don’t want to be queen of the fiesta.”

She doesn’t hear me. Her eyes gaze the length of my body, sizing up my waist and hips.

“We’re running out of time,” she says. “Sophia’s granddaughter has been taking ticket orders for weeks. Although that’s illegal.”

“Illegal? You mean there are fiesta queen pageant laws?”

“You know what I mean. Tricky, sneaky. Yes, that’s it, sneaky. Anyway, you register your name and I’ll sell tickets at the bingo games. I’ll sell a ton there.” She sighs. “Isabel, the dress should be blue. It would be a lucky sign since your mother won twice in blue.”

My head pounds. “Auntie!”

“What?”

“I’m not running for fiesta queen, I’m not going to be a suruhana, and I’m not making the golai hagun sune!”

Auntie Bernadette seems hurt. “Isabel, you don’t have to yell.”

“I do. You don’t listen. I have to yell so you’ll hear me.”

Auntie Bernadette stares at a Japanese soap opera on TV. Even though Uncle Fernando doesn’t understand Japanese, he’s usually glued to the soaps, watching the pretty girls. But right now he’s asleep, snoring on the couch.

“Isabel,” Auntie says, “I haven’t mentioned the golai hagun sune for weeks.”

I don’t say anything for a while. She’s right. It’s me who keeps thinking about it, thinking if I could just remember the recipe, maybe I could remember my mother’s face.

After taking a deep breath, I say, “I’m sorry, Auntie Bernadette, but I don’t want to be in the pageant.” I rush home to the cabana and wait for my father to return with his catch. There are many things I may never do, but one thing is for sure, I’ll always clean fish.