A Step to Love

“Here, Lilly,” my dad whispered softly next to me, handing me a small squared box wrapped in pink paper. “Open up your present.”

I did so instantly causing my eyes to glisten at the sight of the silver necklace that was in it. Probably the most beautiful necklace I had received in my entire short life. Dangling from it was an oval-shaped charm with a circle of small white pearls in the middle of it that perfectly adorned it.

“Do you like it, baby?” I nodded and a giggle made its way out of my mouth. “Good.” He stroked my short brown hair before standing up. Just after it, my mother stepped into my bedroom. I kept a hold of the necklace admiring its beauty along with a little clip that was placed next to the oval form.

“Hi, Lilly!” She nearly ran towards me and embraced me in a warm hug, kissing my temple as soon as she pulled away. “Happy birthday, sweetie.” Then she took me in her arms once again, but this time picking me up from the bed and placing me at her left hip. As soon as I wrapped my arms around her neck, she used her right hand to take a look at my present. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Daddy gave it to me,” I announced and she turned to my dad who was standing against the door frame.

She gave him a charming smile, and moved her heads towards me again. “Did you say ‘thank you’?”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome.” His smile showed a perfect set of white teeth. He came towards us and placed a kiss on my forehead and a peck on my mother’s lips. “Well, I’ll leave you two to get ready for the party then.”

When my mother finished helping me put on a puffy white dress, she tried to tie my hair in a low pony tail, and just then, Eva came through the door with a white and blue dress that reached the area just below her knee, congratulating me on my birthday, as well as my other family members had already done when they’d arrived.

“Don’t do that, ma,” she said referring to the pony tail. “Here,” she said handing something to my mom while I played with Mr. Ears. “Put this white diadema on her head; se va a ver más chida.” Unfortunately, my mother was the only one who could speak Spanish completely and Eva picked up some of the language from her, so I just ignored whatever they had said in Spanish because I could not understand it. Yet, I felt my mom tugging at my hair again.

“There we go.” My mom took me gently by the shoulders and spun me around. “Are you ready to go out?” I nodded. “ ‘Kay.”

She grabbed my hand and led me towards the stairs where I was greeted by my family and some neighbors along with their little kids. All of them drowned me with waves of congratulations and a round of applause. I literally felt like I’d won a special contest, yet it was just a day where I let everyone know that certain years ago, I was born.

I received thousands of kisses, more from my mom’s side of the family that came all the way from Mexico. I had a feeling soon this would change since out of my aunt’s twelve kids, only two felt eager to do so, but Aunt Catalina always force all of them to say “hi” at least.

The day passed on quickly and finally it was time to split the cake. I had spent the entire time playing some of the games that my dad prepared for the family and friends. We even got a chance to play “put the tail on the donkey” together; it was our favorite game.

Every year, they’d decided to sing me “Happy Birthday” in both Spanish and English just so we wouldn’t upset neither of the sides of the family. And as soon as they did, it was followed by cheers and by the windy caress that took away the fire from the candle.

My mom kissed my cheek briefly and my dad crouched next to me.

“Happy birthday, Lilly,” he said again. I smiled contently.

“Happy birthday, Lilly.” I opened my eyes to see a smiling Brittany with her round cheeks covered in a light shade of pink.

“Fuck,” I whispered more to myself, in somewhat shock of my dream—a dream that was exactly like my fifth birthday.

“Happy birthday!” I heard Sasha’s voice yell from a distance just as I was about to sit. I then felt her dark arms being wrapped around my waist and her shiny black hair being pressed against my collarbone.

“Thanks, you guys.” I tried to smile a little and took a look at Sasha’s room. “What the hell happened here?” I noticed how almost all of the clothes that were in Sasha’s double door closet, were scattered all over the bed, on her bean bag chairs, and all over the desks and shelves that stood in her room. I mean, I knew Sasha was a little messy, unlike Brittany who couldn’t stand seeing something out of place, but this was incredible!

Brit and Sasha both groaned in unison, but Sasha spoke when she let go of me. “We can’t find anything to wear that is decent enough for your birthday.” I could see Brit was heading towards the bathroom to finish doing her make-up.

“I thought you guys had bought something already.” I remembered the fuchsia crossover blouse and dark skinny jeans Brittany had bought on a local store yesterday. I specifically remembered Joe being with us and complementing her butt.

Sasha on the other hand had said she her mother was getting her something to wear on her way home from work.

“Brit did, but now, when she tried it on, she said it was not too befitting for the party.”

“What about you?”

She sighed. “My mom forgot. I’m going to faint.” She put the back of her right hand on her forehead and sighed dramatically while throwing herself on the bed.

“We need to go shopping again!” Brit cried from the bathroom.

I stood up and walked towards the bathroom to wash my teeth. While in there, I saw from the mirror that Brit was straightening her hair. When my teeth were cleaned, I turned. “At what time did you guys wake up, anyway?”

“Four,” they both said in unison.

“What?! Why?”

“Because we had to get the place ready, silly head,” Sasha said from the room and I walked up to her, realizing it was only ten in the morning.

“I thought I was helping.”

“Nope, you’re not doing any work today.”

“But it’s my birthday.”

Brit came in. “Exactly.” She approached us with her hair and make-up already done. “What do you girls think?”

“I think you stand here with your whole make-up on without knowing what you will be wearing.” Sasha smiled and stood up to grab her wallet from the floor and placing it in a purse.

Brit rolled her eyes. “Don’t be silly, you kn—”

“We’ve known each other since we were ten and you still don’t realize that the only thing she wears is pink?” I interrupted.

Sasha laughed. “True.” Then she added, “Well, apparently we have to go buy something for tonight—oh, wait!” She ran towards her closet and grabbed a wrapped rectangle box, from one of the shelves in the closet. “We forgot to give you your present. Happy Birthday, again.”

Brit jumped up and down to Sasha, and then helped her carry the box. “Open, open!” she instructed and a smile appeared immediately on my face.

“Guys, you shouldn’t hav—”

“Shhh. Just open it.”

I grabbed the decorative paper and ripped it away from the box. I placed the white rectangle box on the bed and gently removed its lid, revealing a gorgeous purple cocktail dress in it. Even though, it looked rather simple with its spaghetti straps and its short v-line, it was still beautiful and unique. In the middle part of the dress, where I imagined my waist would be, had another piece of fabric that was darker shade of silvery purple wrapped around it; just below, a double skirt hung. “Oh, God,” I gasped. “You guys!” I hugged them both, thanking them.

When I went to hug Brit, she suddenly gasped and took a hold of my hair. “Your roots are starting to show.”

Sasha screamed loudly coming to my side, panicking instantly. “Really?”

“Yes.” Brit mimicked her expression.

“Now?”

“Yes,” Brit whispered again.

I tried to speak. “It’s no—”

“What do you mean it’s no big deal?” Sasha interrupted and without a second thought she picked up her phone while saying, “Brit and I are going to buy our dresses while you get ready.”

“But it’s only 10:05am.”

But they ignored me. “Mom, I know I promised you I wouldn’t bother you for anything, but we kind of need your help.” She waited patiently for her mom to ask her what was wrong. “See, the thing…”

I blocked Sasha’s conversation with her mother out of my head and instead focused on cleaning the room a little bit, putting some of the clothes that were in the bed, on Sasha’s closet. Brit came and helped me a bit with the clothes that were in the chairs, until Sasha suddenly asked what type of color was my hair.

“Type?” I asked confused.

“Yeah, what type? Number four, cero-one-b, six…?” I pushed both of my brows together, frowning at the complication I was facing. She raised both of her eyebrows and waited for an answer, but really…

“What the fuck are you talking about, man? My hair it’s just black…I-I don’t know if it’s a three or a two hundred and fifty or an A.”

She rolled her eyes and turned to her cell phone. “She doesn’t know—just bring her something that would look very good on her.” She paused. “Thanks, mom. I love you, too.”

“Guys, you really don’t have to do this. I’m not getting married.”

Sasha shrugged. “We know, honey, but we want tonight to be special, so, you’re just going to wait here for mom to come and then, she’ll dye your hair and help you get ready while we go look for our dresses somewhere.”

She walked towards me and kissed my cheek. Brit came and hugged me tightly. “We love you.”

“Me, too.”

Brit suppressed a sigh as she let go. “We have no idea where we’re going to find something, so we won’t probably be back for a while.”

Just as they were about to walk out of the door, I remembered a place where I knew they would find something. “Wait! I know of a place!” They stopped immediately and turned to ask me where. “You remember my ex neighbor, Flora?”

“Yeah, the creepy old woman?” Sasha asked.

I nodded. “Well, she sews beautiful things at low prices and she’ll make it instantly because she doesn’t have anything else to do. So you can go, choose from the million fabrics she has and she’ll measure you up and do it right there!” I yelled getting excited instantly that I finally got the chance to say something good about the place where I used to live.

“But doesn’t she hate your family to guts or something?”

“Well, yeah, but she doesn’t know much about you. Besides, you won’t die if you try.”

Sasha laughed. “I hope not. Sure, we’ll give it a try.”

Brit waved to me. “See you later, then.” And with that, they walked off and I decided I would clean until Sasha’s mom, Bonnie Gibson, showed up.