Free The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico by Sarah McCoy Page A

steps.
    “Aren’t those nice.” Mamá didn’t say it like she wassurprised or angry that Santa disobeyed her. “And so white. You can wear them to church and they match all your dresses.”
    I squatted and slid my fingers over the slick patent leather. The only thing that perplexed me was the color. I asked Santa for red pumps. Either way, I was glad to have them, but obviously something in Santa’s workshop was misunderstood. I picked up the shoebox. Across the lid were the words MONTGOMERY WARD . Santa got his gifts at Montgomery Ward? The television showed short men with pointy ears making toys at the North Pole. Before I had a chance to think, Papi handed me the second gift. I tore off the paper. It was a journal with gardenias drawn on a green, swirled background. The cover read Diario de Meditación in a loopy-loop script. It was beautiful. The cover creaked a little when I opened it; the pages were whiter than our Dick and Jane’s, the edges as sharp as a knife. In the middle of the first page was an inscription: Le pertenece a and then a space. In it, Maria Flores Ortiz-Santiago was written in a handwriting I had seen before—Papi’s.
    In that moment, I saw it all. Mamá’s yarn holding the turrones on the tree, our brown paper from the kitchen, the heels from the Montgomery Ward catalog, the journal that Papi had scripted my official name in. Papi and Mamá gave me these gifts, not Santa. There really was no Santa.
    Tears welled. The colored lights on the tree spread out like globs of syrup in a piragua .
    “Now you have a place to write,” said Papi. “Good, clean pages.” He took the journal and ran his hand along the spine.
    I wished I could go back to the hour before, the day before, or even the year before, when there might be a Santa who just couldn’t find our barrio , couldn’t find Puerto Rico; back to before I saw Mamá and Papi on the couch, before the cockfight and Papi at the jíbaros bar. I wanted to forget everything and go to the States.
    “Feliz Navidad , Verdita,” Mamá kissed my head. “Do you want some mango for breakfast?”
    I wasn’t hungry, but I pulled an almond nougat off the tree and stuffed it in my mouth.
    “You’ll get sick if you eat candy so early,” she warned.
    I pulled another off. “I like it.” I could lie too.
    “No sweets this early,” Papi said. We eyed each other without blinking, then the telephone rang. It was Tío Orlando in Washington, D.C., calling to wish us a Merry Christmas.
    While Mamá and Papi handed the phone back and forth, I took my journal to my room and sat on the bed. With my pumps on, my feet could reach the floor; they couldn’t when I was barefoot. I took a black pen and scribbled across where Papi had written my name. Over the black jungle of spirals and lines, I wrote Verdita in strong, straight print.
    “Verdita!” Papi called from the living room. “Come talk to Omar.”
    I came out, still wearing my pumps, and click-clicked to the phone.
    “You’ll get holes in the soles before you’ve even worn them out of the house,” Mamá said from the kitchen. She sliced a ripe mango, the mango I’d already decided I wasn’t going to eat, no matter how much my stomach growled.
    “Hello?” I said into the receiver.
    “What’s up?” said Omar.
    “Huh?” I wondered how he knew I was wearing heels.
    “Merry Christmas.”
    “Merr—” It was hard to say it like he did. My r ’s kept rolling together. “Feliz Navidad,” I said instead.
    “Santa finally make it to the barrio this year?” Omar asked. He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I got a bike. You should see. It’s practically brand new. My best friend, Blake—his dad’s going to oil the chain for me.”
    “Blake? Who’s that?” I asked.
    “He moved in on my street. He’s over right now ‘cause I got this new board game called Risk. It’s cool, man.”
    I didn’t know why Omar was calling me a man, nor did I think playing a game where you were cold