Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster by Andrea Mosqueda

A color can’t be a theme,” Alyssa insisted. “I thought your cousin’s theme was kind of cute,” Mom noted defensively, tilting her head to glance at us in the rearview mirror. “Themes for quinces are sooo tacky though.” I paused the new Cuco album I was listening to and took out my headphones. “Shouldn’t you have thought about that before you bought the dress?” She raised a perfectly plucked and filled eyebrow she was twenty-five going on forty and went to the University of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences, the cosmetology school in Harlingen, one town over, so her looks of disapproval were often accessorized with sharp winged liner and flawless lash extensions. Our mom was driving, so Veronica turned around to face us. She must have tried on a dozen of them before settling on this one, and now she was going to get to see it, fancy turquoise beading and all, for the first time. It was the tried-and-true dress shop in San Benito, smack dab in the middle of Sam Houston Road near the railroad tracks both my older sister, Veronica, and I had gotten our quince dresses there, so of course Alyssa had to get hers there too. “Should we have a theme?” Alyssa asked as we sat in the back seat of our mom’s Altima on the way to the Sewing Box. Today’s act: the first try on of the dress.

Planning my little sister Alyssa’s quince was quickly turning into a three-ring circus, and she was more than ready to be the star of the show.

Not even weddings were treated with such a militaristic approach. In the Rio Grande Valley, a quinceañera was the most important party a kid could ever have.

Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster by Andrea Mosqueda