Serenade by Angely Mercado (good english books to read .TXT) 📕

“Were you ever serenaded mama?”

My grandmother looked at me from her seat at the table and laughed. She knew I wanted a story and a good one too. I craved an idea, a blurb, and any little piece of wisdom she had to offer about life. Though my grandmother was over 80 and had almost died due to strokes during the summer of 09 but once she had recovered she was as sharp witted and entertaining as she had always been. My grandmother and several other relatives had raised me on stories and whenever I asked for one they would smile and rack their brains for anything that they knew would entertain me.

“Your generation could use a serenade or two” she responded.

I smiled down at the dishes I was washing and waited for her to continue.

“Well…I wasn’t always an old woman, and I didn’t always cut my hair short so let’s just say that my sister and I did gather a few serenades in our time”.

I had to laugh at the hair comment. Though my grandmother now dyes her hair to keep the white from showing, she once had very dark, long, thick and straight hair. Taino hair, I called it. To those in the Dominican Republic that stressed descendents through hair, it was a sign of beauty.

“Did they sing to you in a plaza or did they go to your house and sing?”

“They would come to my house, stand near my window in the evening and sing” my grandmother sighed.

“Then did they take you out on a date or give you flowers?”

“Nope, it was late so I’d just say thank you, close the windows and get ready for bed”

“That’s not romantic at all mama” I laughed.

“How is that not romantic? They sang bolero to me from outside was I watched from my window”.

“But that’s it? You get someone spilling their heart out to you through the medium of song and facing rejection but all they receive is thank you?”

“Well what do you want, it was late and we had to get up early. We didn’t live in a city that had stores and restaurants that are open till 3 in the morning.” She scoffed.

I just shook my head. I had never gotten a serenade and if I ever did, the guy who pulled it together would not just get a thank you and then a closed window. At the very least, I’d go down to my front door to thank him. If someone was putting himself out there to face possible rejection I couldn’t just close the window in his face and go to sleep.

“Well did you like any of the men who serenaded you? I asked.

“Eh…”

“I guess not”

My grandmother laughed again at my reaction. I was expecting a love story, or maybe even a story of my grandfather serenading her, sweeping her off her feet and maybe even a story of talking the long way home from school or the market just so that she’d have a few extra minutes to walk with a special someone.

“My sister liked the serenades but she swore that if someone came singing a particular song, she’d shut the windows in their face”

I giggled and tried not to drop one of the dishes.

“What song was it?” I asked

“Llevame al Cielo, take me to heaven” my grandmother said with a smile “Cela hated that song with a passion; she called it a jumble of noise.”

I didn’t remember much about Cela, she had passed away when I was in the 7th grade but my grandmother’s other stories had made her sounds like a kind and patient woman. I tried to imagine a younger version of my grandmother laughing at her sister’s reaction to Llevame al Cielo.

“Did anyone ever sing that song to her?”

“Luckily for Cela, no one picked that song.”

I kind of wished that New York City had serenades. I had heard of dedicating music during concerts and of dedications on the radio but I had never seen a guy under a girl’s window with a band around him holding a rose. If that was happening in here in my city, it definitely was not happening to me or anywhere near me. Until romance went back to hand written letters, men singing while holding a single red rose, or someone reciting “Verde que te quiero verde, bajo la luna gitana…” to me under a full moon, I would probably receive no serenades (Lorca,1941). And if someone attempted to be romantic online in a very “I’m doing this because it’s easier and no one will see if it goes wrong” I will be accepting no serenades.

A few minutes later I was walking down the street with my mother’s younger sister I asked
“Tia, where you ever serenaded?”

My aunt laughed. “Your cousin’s father serenaded me. He was piss drunk.”

I left it at that and figured that my grandmother had all the luck. I was sure that mom hadn’t been serenaded by dad. He wasn’t the type to do so. My sister was pretty enough to have had several things dedicated to her, but I doubt someone had put on a sombrero for her sake and sang out of key so that she’d love him. I had seen my brother show me notes in middle school that girls had given him, telling him that “roses where red and that violets where blue…” and usually ended in something corny and maybe even perverted. I doubt that he had serenaded or had been serenaded. Tagging a girlfriend’s name to a link on Facebook didn’t count in my book.

The only thing that counted as a serenade was when I had gone to Guanajuato, Mexico with my aunt and her church group. The town had a tradition of having tourist groups go around the town with a group of musicians. They had told us jokes and sang for us while we danced down the cobbled streets and colonial looking alley ways. At one point they had sang Cielito Lindo and Besame Mucho, but they had sang it to the group. To close my eyes and pretend it was being directed only at me would have been extremely wishful thinking.

That night after the conversation with my grandmother I let my mind wander. I hoped that somewhere in Mexico, maybe even in Guanajuato, a girl was receiving a song and a rose. It would be handed to her by a blushing young man who led a group of singers and musicians under her balcony so that for a night, she’d be Cielito Lindo and he’d be Pedro Infante. Maybe a girl in the Dominican Republic would be walking on a dirt road on the country side. Holding hands with a boy who couldn’t stop grinning at her while he hummed a Juan Luis Guerra love song. Maybe a boy was jumping a fence in the south of Puerto Rico, near the mountains where my father grew up. Scraping his knees on the tall scraggly grass and laughing at the wild dogs that barked at him as he cuts through fields. He’d brave all that and more to place a flower, stolen from his grandmother’s garden, on a sleeping girl’s window sill.

I also hoped that gondoliers in Venice would feel a sudden change in the breeze and turn their boats towards the Atlantic and up the Hudson. I prayed that people would gently wipe the dust off forgotten acoustic guitars and take to the streets. I hoped that lovers too shy to sing would speak. Looking at their feet while rhythmically reciting Marvell to coy women who deserved eternities of passion. Shakespeare to those who imagined themselves dancing in a midsummer’s night. Lorca, to those who those how romanticized full moons and dreamed of emeralds, periwinkle colored seas, lush forests and mint tea. Or maybe someone in New York City would spontaneously put a sombrero on, grab a rose from someone’s garden or a convenience store that sold flowers and sing out of tune. He’d hand the rose through an open window. He’d receive a smile and a good night.

Publication Date: 01-18-2012

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