Landing on the Right Key

==Anticipation==

The grip on her luggage bag was getting limp by the minute. It was only five minutes to liftoff time, but the gate was nowhere in sight. Typical of her nervous self, Esmeralda began to fear that she would be marooned at home for the summer rather than get to experience the sun, surf, and intrigue that her parents had already paid for.

"Home" was Buffalo, NY. Her mom, Teresa, and dad, Santos, both worked there as architects, and had lived there since they were in their mid-twenties. Their original home was in South Florida, or Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba if one wanted to get completely descriptive of them. Since forever, the Matos family had been showing the flag of their heritage, which seemed a little clownish living in a city where their was four foot snow and kids started practicing for hockey once their amniotic fluids had been cleaned off.

In a certain sense they had lived their humdrum lives up north in order to be able to afford those brief vacations back to FLA. Esmeralda remembered the numerous instances when they would take the holiday flights down to Ft. Lauderdale or Miami, cool their heels with Tía Roberta in Aventura, or her mother's cousin Norberto in Little Havana.

The best destination had always been to her Tía Gladís, her mother's sister. Whereas all of her father's family seemed to be dominated by macho guys who only talked about their storefront businesses if they were mature or old, or walked around in popped collars and slacks if they were younger, Gladís's house seemed to be an island of serenity. Her cousin Veronica had always been more of an older sister than a distant cousin to Esmeralda, even though they would only see one another for isolated months of a year.

Esmeralda finally located the correct gate and panted in exhaustion as she withdrew a boarding pass from her luggage and presented it to the smiling middle aged boarding crew woman. "Have a nice flight Miss May-toss", pronounced the woman with a heavy Swedish Minnesota accent. This gave her scarce time to settle into her chair and ease up, and she of course could not use her I-Pod to listen to her latest Freezepop download. Her neighbour was this dorky thirty year-old accountant type. Breathing in deeply, Esmeralda Matos exhaled hoping that the mediocrity of her average life in Buffalo would be expelled in the same breath.

Before she knew it, a neighbouring passenger was nudging her awake. Esmeralda deplaned and was greeted at the gate by Gladís and Veronica who both enveloped her in hugs and kisses. Gladís was a rather slim bookish looking woman in her late forties who nevertheless had a very business-like demeanour. She was an insurance risk assessor, and was usually vivacious at home. Maybe this was to compensate for her mundane job. Veronica had blossomed into a stunning portrait of the ideal Miami girl, and was wearing an outfit that would have been perfect for clubbing right then and there even though it was only 2 PM. She wore a black miniskirt, high heels and leggings, and a purple sequined backless top with straps along the back and neck.

While Gladís was asking her about her flight and if she was hungry, Veronica showed that she had one priority on her mind. "Chica, I'm gonna get you all dressed up, and we're gonna introduce you to everyone. The Cespedes girls are one more stronger." Cespedes was Esmeralda's mother's maiden name, and therefore that of her relatives. She wondered why Gladís didn't have her husband's name, and then realized that she had no idea whether Gladís was married or what her status was. But her curiosity was short in this respect, and she focused on getting caught up and absorbing the South Florida lingo.

That night, after a nap, a generous seafood dinner, and clothes shopping for a perfect clubbing outfit, Esmeralda was ready to set out. Hers was much more modest than Veronica's, and included a spaghetti strap tank top with a dark green-blue shiny pattern and matching blue miniskirt and shoes. When Veronica's best friend Flor showed up, the trio were completed by her own outfit dominated by green. Veronica explained hesitantly that she usually liked to colour coordinate with her circle, and that this was the usual, but not the only, pattern that they stuck to.

The actual dancing experience was very hectic, as was to be expected at Latin clubs. They had taken Gladís's spare car, a Toyota Yaris, over to the South Beach section and were enjoying themselves at a club ridiculously called Peekante. They exerted themselves on the floor, and the three danced among themselves and occasionally with guys. Esmeralda was being very physically pursued by a tall Cuban guy with reddish tinged hair who looked to be of mixed race, and for a few seconds, she thought he was going to undress her right then and there. She was feeling very uneasy about that, even though he was by no means ugly, but at the right moment Veronica stepped in and guided her away.

"You should sit down and cool off a second with Flor, nenita." she said, using her affectionate address of "baby" to her younger cousin. "Quita de ella, cabrón, es una de nuestras," declared Veronica to the nameless man who had been dry humping Esmeralda only moments before. Even with her basic northerner high school knowledge of Spanish, Veronica could understand that Veronica was saying ¨She's one of ours". And the guy took one look at their group, and then gave a knowing smirk and walked off.

She pointed Esmeralda toward a circle of couches where Flor was seated with three other girls that had already been introduced to her, the fellow Cuban Lorena, and two Anglos: the redheaded Vanessa and the cocoa brown Gwen. Lorena and Vanessa were sitting awfully close when Esmeralda approached, and separated slightly when seeing her arrival.

Flor was dominating the conversation, and it was mostly talk of which art galleries in the area were destined to survive or fail. Flor was already making a name for herself as a burgeoning art critic, and commanded a good audience. "I'm telling you, Fabián Vasquez will soon be doing home fixtures. He's a great sculptor, but people just won't make that investment these days."

She turned her attention to Esmeralda. "What's wrong baby? Calmate acá (Calm down here)." She said smiling; her throaty voice was reassuring. "Don't let these creeps work on you. He's practically making the leap between stranger and deadbeat dad. Stick with us here."

The girls continued to chat for about forty-five minutes, with some of them coming or going to the bar, bathroom, or dance floor. At one point Veronica, who had been at the bar ordering a cocktail, motioned Flor over to the wall next to a huge pastel mask decoration. She whispered in Flor's ear one second, and then they both came over to Esmeralda.

"Are you having fun?" Veronica yelled over the throbbing beat of the live band's drums.

Esmeralda took a second to respond. She had had two Smirnoff Ices and she wasn't used to drinking at all. "Of course I am. Why, are you planning on something?"

"Escucha nenita (listen baby), we have another party that we're invited to, but it's for mid-twenties people. So. . ., we can drop you off back in Aventura on the way there. I don't like ditching you, but it doesn't get much better than this here."

"What type of party are you going to?" Esmeralda said in a dejected tone.

"Uh," Flor had now come in. "This is for my art circle, so I only have a limited amount of media passes." And she was waxing apologetic."Sorry, but I've already promised them to the rest of the gang. I hope you understand." And Esmeralda's meek look confirmed that she did. "Don't worry, you'll get to party with us again".

The ride home was somewhat lethargic. Esmeralda rode in the backseat while Flor and Veronica remained in the front and once in a while said something in hush tones, usually in Spanish.

Finally they turned into Gladís's ranch driveway and Veronica braked the Yaris. "Well nenita, we'll be seeing you soon. Buenas noches, y bienvenida a casa (Welcome home)." As Esmeralda slinked out of the car she noticed a white Infinity SUV pulling out of the driveway with a middle aged woman driving while drinking from a bottle of water. The light went out in her aunt Gladís's room.

==Speculation==

She was really trying to enjoy her time in Florida. During the days she would often tag along with Veronica to the beach where they would catch rays and watch surfers try to harness the waves. Or when Veronica would have a shift at her juice bar job Esmeralda often kept her company.

And at nights they would go out with Flor and the rest to Peekante, another Latin club, or just a quiet café. With every day and night that passed Esmeralda felt herself really coming out of her shell. Sometimes she missed her usual humdrum existence of reading a book quietly in the afternoon or baking all night to submit an entry to a contest. As much as the other girls commented on her dress and activities, Esmeralda always felt that they were only teaching her a way to be stylishly, rather than homely, feminine. Flor had told her that maybe she had grown into a woman in Buffalo, but Miami would make her an interesting woman. And indeed, she found herself judging her own appearance more, applying and reapplying makeup copiously but without being trashy, and engaging in the catty banter from time to time.

But in the back of her mind there were still doubts that rankled her since the first night. Some nights the group would live it up for a couple hours or until closing time at the clubs, and they would dance either as a group, as pairs, or with strangers. This didn't seem strange; at the U of Buffalo and in high school Esmeralda had gone to a few dancing functions and had danced with any friends available. But most of the other girls in their circle would beg off dancing with a guy after a couple minutes, even if he was really interested. Many nights ended for Esmeralda like the first, with the rest of the gang taking off for a "more mature party", and it was beginning to sound condescending.

There were the frequent shows of physical affection among members of the group. And then whenever a sharply dressed guy would walk into the juice bar or a ripped surfer would emerge from the waves Esmeralda would be sitting mouth agape, but then would smile at Veronica only to see that she hadn't even noticed. One time a dripping wet guy with tribal tattoos was kicking a soccer ball across the smooth sand in front of the water, but Esmeralda had to nudge Veronica to get her to even raise her head. "What do you want, I'm reading 'The Count of Montecristo,'" she retorted.

At some point Esmeralda chalked it down to cultural differences. The men down in Miami, particularly some from the community, were often macho jerks, and the girls in Veronica's circle were awfully sophisticated in their habits, and could be called yuppies. But the subject of men never came up in their girl talk. Whenever Esmeralda would point out a guy in the club, Flor would usually wave him off as a "date rapist". One time Esmeralda had been mentioning something about her father to Veronica over lunch, and used the occasion to ask her about her own dad.

"Octavio?" she asked with her brow furrowed. "You've never met him?" She seemed confused. "Oh that's right, he moved away when I was. . ." she did the math, "and you were twelve. He's remarried and living in Daytona Beach. Decided it was easier to restart his career as a community banker there." The comments were very nonchalant, as if this weren't an issue for Veronica.

"Do you get to see him much?"

"Hmm." She seemed at a loss for words. "I guess I don't really think about that. Well, what would he do here anyway?"

"I dunno, hang out. See you and Evita, if not Tía Gladís." Evita was Veronica's youngest sister, only thirteen and just recently released from her elite prep school, and already pining to come along with them just as Esmeralda once had when she would visit in high school.

Veronica's expression remained puzzled. "Well, I guess he never gets around to it. I wanna go buy those beads I saw yesterday at Frederick's." And with that non sequitur Veronica snuffed out the conversation.

==A few hours' "vacation"==

One day Esmeralda took the bus downtown to register for a summer course at Miami Dade College. She'd had a tendency to view any time without earning credit as a waste, notwithstanding the adjustments she had made and experiences she had had since arriving. Esmeralda picked a day when she knew that Veronica would be scheduled to work so she could go alone. It seemed somewhat relaxing to be able to sit on the seats and watch the scenery pass by, while glancing at her route guide to track the stops. She had chosen to wear a blue floral print sun dress, her hair up in a pony tail and with large thick rimmed sunglasses that Flor had picked out for her. Finally, she arrived on campus and began the task of registering and acquainting herself with the campus. This was largely pointless as she was taking a social sciences elective two days a week, but she was in the mood to explore.

Yet MDC's campus was pretty dead on a Wednesday morning in the summer, and after buying a fruit smoothie at the only open venue Esmeralda decided to wander around a little more downtown. She passed by some street performers, walked a few minutes down the downtown shore, and snapped a few photos of the flamingos in the water with her Nikon before settling down on a bench and reading "Memoirs of a Geisha". The content was getting her all hot and bothered, along with the sun beating down on her. Also, a group of skateboys had moved into the area and were doing jumps, grinds, and ollies probably for her attentions. One of them skated up and introduced himself.

"I can't believe I'm seeing someone read when it's this sunny outside. It always hurts my eyes."

Esmeralda smiled in reply. "Better than to stay in my dark room."

"I could think of some other things that you could do in a dark room."

Ordinarily this type of double entendre would be a turn-off for Esmeralda, but she was feeling adventurous. She continued conversing with the dread-locked white guy, his name was Dustin from Boston, and eventually they exchanged phone numbers. At some point, though, Esmeralda felt like she should be getting home, and made the excuse of needing to catch her bus. Never mind that it was still only 12:30 and they were expecting her home only at four or five.

==Revelation==

The bus ride home was once again sedate and relaxing as the midday traffic was thin and there were few crowds on the two buses she needed to get home. Esmeralda had learned not to fear the neighbourhoods that she now recognized as she passed by such as Buena Vista, Little Haiti, and Morningside. The people who boarded and alighted were still usually poorer, and it made Esmeralda realize that she hadn't viewed this side of Miami, nor Buffalo for that matter, in her still young life. Finally the bus laboured northward and into Aventura and she stepped off in front of Gladís's house.

The skies had become overcast since she had boarded the bus, but there seemed to be no hint of rain, although the tint of sunlight on the pavement was darker.Esmeralda used her key to open the large glass double doors leading into the house and set down her book bag in the guest room on the first floor. She then started walking around the house searching for anyone. She knew that Gladís was still at work, but by now Veronica had to be done with her shift at the juice bar.

At one point Esmeralda considered sitting down and waiting or just calling Veronica's phone, but then she noticed that one of the backyard sliding doors was open and a breeze was coming in. She made here way to the door to close it, and then noticed that there were two people in the pool. This was not surprising, as Gladís's household usually used it when it was too rainy or cloudy to go to the beach, although Evita tended to prefer staying at home and hosting friends as opposed to the beach.

They were wading back toward the ladders as Esmeralda noticed that the two figures were Flor and Veronica. Excited to see them home, she moved to yell out a greeting, but something stopped her. As Veronica reached the top step of the ladder, the grinning Flor spun her around and planted an aggressive and passionate kiss on her mouth. This caught Esmeralda in shock, but her cousin's reaction made it obvious that this had not been a surprise for her. Veronica savoured the lips of her girlfriend, now clearly this was more than just a casual term, and prolonged the kiss.

They proceeded to climb out of the pool entirely and shake off the water. With their backs to her while they toweled off in front of a lounge chair, Esmeralda moved out of the house and into a better position behind a window almost directly in front of the two girls where she was still virtually invisible, not that it would've mattered. Flor and Veronica were completely focused on each other. They were both in bright coloured thong bikinis that left little to the imagination, but they weren't going to wait for them to dry. Esmeralda felt guilty for her voyeuristic behaviour, but she shook off the apprehension by reasoning that they should have been open enough to trust that she would accept them. After all, she had given them all of her time until that very day, and they often left her out of the loop and feeling like she was still uninitiated.

She felt a raised heartbeat as she watched Flor commandingly embrace Veronica and begin untying her bikini top. The straps and cups fell revealing firm and smooth B cups and the delicate swelling contours of her chest. Veronica returned the favour by raising Flor´s sportier top over her head and moving her to the side. Flor's breasts were more prominent, just like her attitude and her other features on her squat body which was at least an inch shorter than Veronica's 5'6. They both had dark skin tones and mocha skin, but Flor wore her hair to shoulder length, as opposed to Veronica's longer locks that were always primped perfectly with the curling iron.

The humidity seemed to encase her surroundings as Esmeralda watched her cousin and her friend nuzzle each other. Veronica lay back on the lounge chair and allowed Flor to straddle her. From her view she could see that her crotch was grinding back and forth on Veronica's left thigh, and both of them were moaning at an increasingly audible volume.

This was all a shocking scene for Esmeralda. She had been acquainted with the term "lesbian" before, but until now it had only encountered her in sociology texts. At her private school there had been the occasional best friends who people whispered about being too close. And there was Trudy, a frumpy supervisor at the library she worked at who looked the type and identified as such very obviously, but was possibly one of the least sexual and vibrant people Esmeralda had seen.

Furthermore, the concept of love between women was always vague to her. She usually watched love scenes in movies with straight couples, but never porn of any type. When she learned to pleasure herself it was because of curiosity from one of those health sciences books, and in order to arouse herself she had stripped in front of a mirror and fingered herself. This was usually how she continued to take care of herself, and she rarely was able to use mental imagery, be it of men or women.

Spread before her eyes were now two girls who until now she had viewed as her idols, and they were obviously experienced at his. Now Veronica was undoing the strings of her own and Flor's bikini bottoms. They were both revealed to have very smooth groin's, with not even a whisp of hair interrupting the glistening and shiny texture. Above the moist lips of her genitals, Flor had a tattoo of two figures with female bodies entwined in an intimate position over the background of a two cherries joined at the stem. Esmeralda had already seen Veronica naked once when they had showered together at a gym, and knew that she had Mortal Kombat tattoos on either side of her lower belly, one of Kitana with her fans and one of her sister Mileena with her sais. These two tattoos were now being enveloped by Flor's hips, as she ground against Veronica.