Read Online The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico by Sarah McCoy - Free Book Online

up the big serving spoon that Mamá used for mixtas and dipped it into the cream. It was thicker than I’d anticipated, like rice soup or tembleque before it stiffened up. I looked back at the door. Mamá sang with Tío Benny, the troubadours played on.
    “Quickly,” Teline wheezed behind me.
    I hesitated. Titi Lola had said that Teline couldn’t have any. But I couldn’t get in trouble, I reasoned, because Mamá never said I wasn’t allowed. I lifted the spoon to my lips, holding my breath so my nose hairs wouldn’t catch fire, and sipped. The smell didn’t betray the taste. My throat burned, then cooled in a sweet candy coating. It was good. I put the whole spoonful in my mouth and gulped.
    “What’s it like, Verdita?” Teline pulled my arm.
    “Ay! You’ll make me spill.” I licked the spoon clean and set it back on the countertop. “Coconut fire candy.”
    “I want to try.”
    I handed her the spoon. “You’re still a scared chicken,” I teased.
    Teline ladled the mix into her mouth.
    “Ay bendito!” She grabbed at her throat, her mouth turned down, and her nose flared. After a moment, she licked her lips. “It’s not bad.”
    “Sí,” I said, and out popped a laugh. I covered my mouth and looked to the door. Still no Papi or Mamá. We took three more spoonfuls each; but then Tío Benny stopped singing, and I quickly licked the white off the back of the spoon and slid the plate over the bowl.
    Papi came inside with Señor Lopez and some other barrio men.
    “Don’t you want to hear the troubadours, Verdita?” He palmed a couple of Schlitzes from the fridge and handed them around. The men popped open the tabs and sucked the fizz, their eyes glittering silver, their thumbs beating rhythms against the tin cans.
    Papi went to the bowl of coquito . His hand was next to the serving spoon. He stood for a moment. I swallowed my heart and felt the thump-thump in the bony ridge of my throat. The heat of the coquito must have filled up my face. Sweat beaded above my lip and across my forehead.
    He took off the plate, dipped his thumb in and sucked it.
    “Venusa!” he called.
    I closed my eyes. My eyeballs were hot under their lids. I had my defense ready: Titi Lola drank the coquito ; Mamá never said I couldn’t—
    “Coquito bueno!” he said.
    I popped open my eyes. Papi picked up an empty tumbler and scooped from the bowl. The coconut drink trickled down the sides. He licked the trails.
    “Come on, Verdita. Teline.” Papi ushered us through the kitchen door and out to the parranda tent. My legs felt heavy, my head light. Teline and I tried to share a plastic chair, but the puff of our skirts made us slide off. So we sat on the large wooden bench that stretched across the far end of the veranda. Our dresses fit perfectly on it, spread wide like peacocks’ tails.
    Teline giggled beside me. “Me gusta coquito, coquito, coquito,” she sang in a whisper, then broke into titters.
    Nobody noticed Teline. She giggled all the time. It was when I started to do it that Mamá stuck out her lips from across the tent. She was watching me. The troubadours strummed their guitar and grated their guiro . They got the beat going before they picked a story. We all clapped along; my fingers tickled. I slapped them together and laughed.
    “What kind of bolero should I sing?” the guitar-strumming troubadour asked.
    “Sing about a woman,” said Titi Lola.
    “A beautiful woman!” someone shouted from the back of the tent.
    “There once was a beautiful woman named Esmeralda,” the troubadour began.
    The rhythm continued, but he paused while a few others called out what Esmeralda’s problem was. This washow the troubadour ballads worked. The crowd called out the hero or heroine and his or her problem, and the troubadour sang the story. Sometimes the crowd would only give a word, a color, a place, and from that he spun a great tale.
    “She loses all her teeth,” Señor Lopez laughed.
    “She’s a famous