“Eva” by Emily Burton

I used to love everything about my little island. I loved watching the hibiscus flowers turn their faces up to the sun, mimicking the tourists littering the beach. I loved the swaying palm trees and the shouts and whistles echoing from the market every day except Sunday, when families stay in to talk and laugh and eat.

It’s Sunday evening now, but Mama and I are not laughing, and there is nothing to eat. Instead we stare out the cracked window as the sun dips beneath the sea, preparing herself for a secret rendezvous with her ocean lover. When the sun drops, the whole island changes. Pebbles in the sand glitter like amethysts and the trees seem to dance the flamenco in the darkness. I used to love this part of the island too, but not now. Now I am nearly seventeen and the island has chosen my fate for me. I must become a puta, or condemn my mother to starvation.

 No one speaks of putas on the island, no one except the gossiping old mujeres who gather on their porch steps and glare at the young women as they sashay by, red and yellow and purple skirts twisting around their hips in a dance of seduction. The foreign men speak of the putas as well, but they do not disapprove. They wander casually to the wooden stands just outside the market, where girls wearing rouge and full, multicolored skirts claim to grant wishes.

My mother told me when I was a little girl to stay away from those stands.

“But Mama!” I cried. “They’re granting wishes! We can save the soda shop!”

“No, child,” she said sadly. Even then, without schooling, I could read the pity in her eyes. For who? I wondered. “A puta‘s wishes only last the night.”

It was two years later that a white man from Coca Cola came to tear down our shop and replace it with his fancy machine.

I asked him how it worked.

“Why, you just put in your cents and push a button,” he laughed, pleased that I spoke English. Then he sobered at my wide-eyed gaze. “I’m very sorry for your shop,” he added grudgingly. My mother’s hands came to rest on my shoulders and the soda man’s eyes sharpened. I could read something in them that stirred fear into my stomach, but I did not know yet what it was. “Señorita,” the man murmured. He reached into his pocket and a smile twisted his lips. “I  didn’t realize–”

“Eva,” my mother whispered. “Go home.”

I turned to look up at her and I could see in her face–in the rouge on her cheeks–that this was not the time to protest. I hurried back to our little house, thoughts of heavy cotton skirts and kohl lined eyes fighting for control of my thoughts. I didn’t look back, not even when I heard the jingling of coins and Mama’s sobs. I did not want her to know that I knew.

After that day, I was not allowed to go near the market. But I knew. I knew from the palm tree my mother cut down for wood and from the scarlet cotton she bought and from the tut tuts that followed us into the grocería. I knew from the nights she didn’t come home and from the early mornings when she did, trembling and vomiting over the toilet. I knew, but I never spoke of it. I did not want to burden her with my knowing.

But I am nearly seventeen now. It is the age when I must continue to the universidad or leave school to find work. I can see in Mama’s eyes that she is afraid. She has worked until her back is stooped and her skin is leathery from the sun, and yet the men come every day, the wrong men, the ones that knock on our door and leave notices of debt and unpaid mortgages. The foreigners no longer come by Mama’s stand. They will not buy the dreams of an old woman.

Mama twists the hem of her skirt in her hands, shame burning beneath the rouge on her cheeks. I wonder sometimes if she needs the makeup anymore, or if it is permanent now, having seeped into her skin after so many years.

“They will buy wishes from you, Evita,” she tells me softly. “They will pay mucho dinero. You are young and beautiful.” She stares down at her wrinkled hands. “Not like your Mama.”

I want to fade into the brick walls, sink into the dirt floor. The rickety kitchen table cannot hold my fear and Mama’s shame. Our troubles are too heavy and it seems in that moment that we will fall.

But we don’t. The white washed chairs sit primly beneath their years of use. They are proud, fine chairs. They have not seen my mother’s work. They know only the dinero that has purchased them.

“I can find another job,” I assure my mother. My hands flutter helplessly, reaching for castles in the air. “The grocería is looking for cashiers. Señora Ramon needs a maid.”

Mama shakes her head and I want to tell her to take off her scarf. What is the use of covering her hair now? There is no modesty, no dignity, left in this house.

“They will not hire you, Eva. You are my daughter.”

I know she is right. All these years I have known, somewhere deep down, somewhere beneath my sweet white dresses and crossed ankles. It does not matter that I have never worn bright cotton or smeared on rouge and kohl. I am my mother’s daughter and this little island is far too small for us.

“I don’t know how,” I whisper.

Mama reaches over to pat my hand. “You will learn, my child. Men are enthusiastic teachers.”

I resist the urge to recoil, wishing a storm would brew in the ocean. I pity the sun, trapped beneath its depths, victim to the water’s seduction.

“Oh, Mama,” I cry. “I could have been so much more!”

But my mother only shakes her graying head once more. “Not in Samana, Evita. Never in Samana.”

Emily Burton is a young freelance writer hailing from sunny Southern California. Her previous pieces can be found in The Louisville Review and White Ash Literary Magazine, among other publications. As always, Emily dedicates her work to the loving family that inspires her to write and the God that gave her the ability to do so.