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what — she’s going to have a baby! (YEEAHH! Another cousin to play with Santos and Aurorita!) And Nelson brought his 12-string guitar and Tío Luis’s voice just gets better with age, and Abuela Aurora bought me the most amazing outfit. I’m wearing the skirt, can you feel this material? And o-o-o-oh, my little cousins are so cute but destructive.
    Not to mention Isabel — dear Isabel.
    **I love my sister**
    Nbook, I solemnly promise I shall no longer mock her. (Well, at least for another week.) She arranged to get Mami and Papi out of the house. She forced Simon Big Tooth Lover Boy to bring the party goods here on time. While I designed the decor, she did most of the grunt work.
    AND she remembered to invite Brendan, whom I hadn’t even thought of inviting because my head has been so screwed up over these last weeks.
    Anyway, all the relatives arrived here just fine — the flight, the rental car, everything was perfect
    — and I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE HERE. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! Am I making
    sense? I’m not making sense.
    WHO CARES?
    Sorry, Nbook, I haven’t seen them in ages.
    Dear Abuela, she can barely keep from crying. I know she speaks English, but she talks to me only in Spanish, telling me how proud she is of me, folding up a dollar bill in my hand — just the way she did when I was a little girl.
    I try to fill her in on our move, the town, school. My Spanish is not great, but she listens patiently, stopping to ask questions. At one point she leans over to me and tells me I’m a good girl. I’ve never forgotten who I am.
    I feel myself choking up. I throw my arms around her and start to cry. If she notices, she doesn’t make a big deal out of it. She just pats my back and says Ah, bueno.
    I’m crying because she’s wrong. I have forgotten. Big time.
    I forgot who I was on that Friday night outside the cineplex [sic]. After those girls got ahold
    [sic] of me, I thought I was nothing.
    It’s so easy to lose who you are, Nbook, and so hard to get it back. I guess you don’t question your identity until you have to. You figure, hey, you’re born with it so nothing can affect it.
    But that’s not true, is it? It’s more fragile than you think. When it runs and hides, you have to go and fetch it. You have to let it prove how tough it really is.
    Someday maybe I’ll tell Abuela about what happened. She’ll know what I went through. She’s been through everything and she’s risen above it all.
    So has Tío Luis. And Papi and Mami. And just about everyone in my family, in their own ways.
    I must have gotten the ability from somewhere.
    That’s the thing. In a way, I am Abuela. I’m Mami too, and Cristina and Nelson and Aurorita and Tío Luis. I’m also my great-grandfather the farmer, my other abuela who crossed into the U.S. with nothing but a work visa and Papi in a baby blanket.
    All the generations — all the dancing and music and thought and love — it’s me. Without them, I don’t exist.
    Does that make sense, Nbook? Because I see it so clearly. No person is alone. Everyone’s part of something bigger. Something that came before. Something that has gathered strength over the years, resulting in the person you are.
    Nobody can take any of that away. Ever.
    So I enjoy the music. I watch my friends having a good time. I dance with Brendan and he tells me how much he loves my family.
    He tells me he’ll miss me too. I know I’ll miss him. It’s hard to believe he’s leaving in three days. And that I’ll start work on Maggie’s dad’s film in three weeks.
    The summer’s coming up fast.
    Life will go on.
    I’ll go on.
    But right now, it’s just Vargases at the house. Everyone else has gone home. So in the meantime, maybe one more dance before bed. Maybe two.
    See you.
    About the Author
    ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, NJ, with
    her parents and her younger sister, Jane.
    Although Anne [sic] used to be a teacher and then an editor of