The Gonzalez daughter is getting married. Marielys smiles, lips full and painted red, eyes lined heavily in black. Her forehead is beaded with borrowed pearls. As the guests chatter and file out, the bride steps down the stairway, the train of her dress flowing behind like glossy magazine waterfalls. She touches the door of the Eisenhower-era Ford Fairlane, and looks up at the people on the balcony.
Neighbors cheer and watch the car drive away, a fat pink balloon bouncing from the rear antenna.
As she climbs into the Eisenhower-era Ford Fairlane, Marielys looks up at the balcony, where neighbors stand cheering as the car drives away. The Fairlane's horn bellows, announcing the wedding caravan as it careens through the streets to central Havana's Palacio de los Matrimonios, the white palace on the hill where couples are wed, Cuban communist-style. Old women carrying canvas bags of dirty potatoes and thin men smoking Marlboros stop to watch the spectacle. Many of the buildings were once glamorous mansions owned by what revolutionaries termed the bourgeoisie. This sort of elegance comes cheap.