God, please, I thought, not the quinceañera. I hated the quinceañera. But of course, my mother had imposed all of her missed opportunities and broken dreams onto our lives, as if she were forcing the pieces of one old puzzle onto a completely different other one. As a child she had surmised that the only thing needed to change her life was money. And she would find a way to make it, no matter what. At thirteen years old, after getting her first job, she promised herself that she would never be poor again.
