Missing Celia by José H. Bográn
FICTION
“¿Quién se robó mi disco?” Tía Mima asked.
She loved to dance salsa and merengue. Celia Cruz was her favorite salsera, and the only artist she ever saw performing live. At the end of the concert, she bought a CD, this was in the mid-90s, and got it autographed. How she managed it remained a mystery, but the scribbled “Azúcar, Celia,” was clearly legible, and was, for a want of a better word, her precious.
They say death and public speaking are two of the most frightening things to people. To Tía Mima though, they occupied third and fourth place. Her biggest fears were losing the CD…and rats. They may even be tie for the first place.
Was it, then, really a surprise that Tía Mima went ballistic when the CD went missing? Daniela didn’t think so.
Seven people lived in the big house, and Daniela as the youngest of four sisters, was usually to blame because of her notorious trouble making. She got in trouble so often her father, a New Yorker who grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons during the 90s would have nicknamed her Dennis the Menace had she been born a boy. Her Puerto Rican mother prevailed and the girl grew up honoring the name of Daniela la Traviesa.
Except this time, it wasn’t her. She was smart enough not to mess with sacred relics from the previous century. She had learned that lesson the hard way when she had used her mother’s DVD collection of the telenovela Marimar to organize a Frisbee throwing competition with her sisters. It was the only time she saw her mother threaten to fajearla.
Luckily, her father had intervened at the last minute and she got non-physical punishment instead.
Besides, Daniela loved her aunt and didn’t like to mess with her.
“Don’t worry; you can listen to the album on Spotify.”
“¿Qué es eso, niña?”
Off she went explaining about streaming to which her favorite aunt retorted, “Pero ahí no puedo ver su firma.”
During a writing class in school, the teacher had said a writer must always show, not tell. Daniela applied that wisdom to the real world and fished out her cellphone to open the app.
“What’s the name of the album?”
“Mi Vida es Cantar,” she replied.
Within seconds the phone boomed with the orchestra opening of Tía Mima’s favorite song from the album, La Vida es un Carnaval, followed by the Guarachera del mundo’s throaty voice.
“That’s terrible. Celia sounds like she’s squeaking.”
A couple of more taps and the flat screen hanging from the wall came alive, along with its surround system. The sound was not only louder, but infinitesimally better. His father made sure they had top of the line sound equipment for watching TV.
“How did you do that?” Tía Mima asked looking impressed.
“Es magia,” Daniela said with a mischievous grin.
“¿Dónde está tu mama?”
Daniela shrugged. “She said she had some errands to do.”
“Hmmm…sometimes she takes the CD.”
“I don’t think so. She can’t play it the new car.”
“Oh, right. It comes with, what you call it, Bluetooth?”
“Yes.”
Tía Mima’s trouble look made Daniela sad. “Did you look for it everywhere?”
She nodded absently.
“How did you move the dresser?”
That brought her out of whatever memory she was reliving. “¿Que dices, niña?”
“Remember last time the remote control for your TV fell behind the dresser in your
room.”
“I never knew how it could go there.”
“Nobody did, but I’m thinking…”
Tía Mima smiled as she understood the implication. “Ven, ayúdame a moverlo.”
Her room was on the second floor, the very last one at the end of the hall, with an awesome picture window overlooking the backyard and the garden Daniela’s mother worked so hard to keep. Daniela asked her to switch rooms several times.
“Your sister snores,” or “too far from the bathroom” were the usual comebacks.
The dresser stood to the right of the window in the back wall. It was a six-drawer monstrosity that had been in the family for generations. Tía Mima said it belonged to her grandfather when he worked in a banana company. They provided furnished homes to the plantation supervisors. When he retired, they allowed him to take the furniture of the last house he had used. According to Tía Mima, that dresser was the last surviving piece. Daniela went down and turned on her phone’s flashlight.
“¿Ves algo?”
“No CD, only accumulated dirt. When was the last time you moved it clean behind
it?”
“Let me think. We found that remote control last Christmas or the one before that?”
“Better make sure it’s not there.” Daniela stood up.
After heaving, grunting, and maybe a strained muscle, they moved the dresser enough to their heads behind it.
“Nada.”
Tía Mima left the room and returned carrying the broom. “Mejor aprovechemos el chance.”
Once they had cleaned and returned the piece of furniture to its original position, they went downstairs. For the eleventh time, Tía Mima checked the CD slot in the boom box.
“Okay, let’s use that back-tracking trick. Where do you remember seeing it last?”
Tía Mima tilted her head. She had never used hair dye and swore would never do.
The gray was slowly but surely winning the battle against her black hair. The natural look only made her more stunning, if Daniela’s school male friends were to be trusted. They all gawked when she brought them home for homework or play.
“I was teaching crochet to Juana, la vecina.”
“You took the disk there?”
“Don’t be silly, child. I took the small boom box. That’s why I was checking on it now.”
Then her eyes widened. “She didn’t have a power eyelet. Her daughter was using it to charge her phone.”
“What’s that got to—”
“Don’t you see? We played the disco in her CD player.”
Tía Mima rushed outside as Daniela struggled to keep up. By the time she reached the front door, Tía was already banging on the door.
Juana opened the door. She had a big smile on her face. She always looked happy to see Tía Mima. Juana lived alone since the last of her two boys left for college the previous year. Sometimes her father would joke they should just move in together.
“Did you see my Celia’s CD? I think we played it here yesterday.”
Juanita smiled. “You took it right off before leaving. You were in such a rush you actually forgot your crochet, but the CD? Not a chance.”
Tía Mima looked pensive, as if reaching for the memory inside her head. Eventually she nodded. Her lips turned downward.
When they returned home, Tía Mima plumbed down on the sofa.
“Ahora si lo perdí.” She sounded defeated.
“I’m sorry.” Daniela felt sad for her.
“Yeah well, I wanted to keep it until I died, for when I saw her in heaven she’d be proud of me.”
The odds of finding Celia Cruz in the afterlife were slim, but Daniela stayed quiet.
“Did I tell you how she came to say to goodbye to me when she died?”
“What?” She hadn’t heard that story before.
“Celia died on July 13, 2003. It was all over the news. The next day when I went to work I turned on the radio and one of her songs came up.”
“That could be just coincidence. Every time a singer dies their records get lots of air play,” Daniela had seen spikes of recently departed singers in the Spotify top lists.
“No…this was different.”
“Why?”
“The song. It wasn’t one of her most popular. It was a Spanish cover of Gloria
Gaynor’s I’ll Survive, called Sobreviviré.”
“I see, but the song is about a girl overcoming her dependence on a former lover.”
“Not in Spanish. The lyrics say how Celia would forever live in the feet of any salsero dancer, or the hands of any man playing conga drums.”
Daniela was impressed. She did the only thing she could do, play Sobreviviré in the TV.
The act of kindness brought a smile to Tía Mima. She stood up and started to dance. Her feet were a twirl of movement. The sound seemed to control her movements. She was really a spirited dancer.
Daniela added a couple of more songs to the queue and allowed herself to be led into an impromptu dancing lesson. Not her first, but she knew she could use the practice. They danced and laughed for the length of three songs, the last one being an extended radio edit that lasted close to ten minutes. They danced until they dropped back on their chairs.
Daniela felt tired, but exhilarated.
Her mother, Blanca, walked in. “Hola chicas. ¿Que hacen?”
“Dancing our farewell to Celia’s CD,” Daniela said.
“I don’t understand,” Blanca said.
“No encuentro el disco,” said Tía Mima.
Blanca put her purse on the coffee table and dove her hands into it. She pulled a small blue paper bag. With a flourish style, she inserted her thumb and index finger and pulled the content.
“¡My disco!” Tía Mima jumped and grabbed it. Then turned to Daniela. “Te dije que ella lo tenía.”
“The box was broken at the hinges.”
“That happens all the time,” she commented.
“Right? Anyway, I took it to the store and bought you a new case.”
“You could’ve bought the case and bring it. You know, spare the drama.”
Blanca turned toward her daughter. “I needed the thick booklet to make sure it’d fit.”
Tía Mima opened the case to look at her treasure as tears began to fall down her cheek. “Thank you,” was all she managed to say before locking Blanca in a tight embrace.
Years later, when Tía Mima died, Daniela made sure the treasured CD went inside the coffin so she could show it to her idol when they meet in heaven.
José H. Bográn is an award-winning international author of novels, short stories, and scripts for television and film. Born in Honduras, he writes in both English and his native Spanish. Although he’s the son of a journalist, he ironically prefers to write fiction rather than facts. His genre of choice is crime fiction, but he likes to pour a dash of others into the mix.
