#322 Night at the Fiestas- Kirsten Valdez Quade
Frances is sixteen, coming of age and like most teenagers,
she is ashamed of her parents. She rides the bus, the one her father drives, on
her way to the Fiestas U.nil she gets there, she is still just her father’s
daughter.
“Frances had found herself looking away from his sad,
obsequious displays of friendliness, embarrassed.”
Frances is smart, but shy. She wishes she could be like her
cousin, open, flirtatious and free. She wishes she could be like Tess of the
D’Urbervilles.
“If Frances’s life was to be a novel—as Frances fully
intended—then finally, finally, something might happen at the Fiestas that
could constitute the first page.”
She has an exciting but dangerous interaction with a painter
on the bus. She is uneasy about him and the package he accidently left behind.
As her and her cousin dance and drink at the Fiesta, Frances is uneasy and
can’t seem to fit in.
“She danced and laughed, but her rhythm was off, her voice
false and harsh. She gulped the beer until she felt the disembodies sensation
of drunkenness, but the feeling only made her less a part of the crowd,
untouchable and remote.”
Growing up is messy and complicated, and if you’re not
careful you could sell off your own innocence before you even know what’s
happening.
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