My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn; Eleven; Salvador Late or Early; Mexican Movies; Barbie-Q; 'Mericans; Tepeyac"
Note: These 22 stories and sketches are grouped in three sections, each with one story that bears the same title as the section: "My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn," "One Holy Night," and "There Was a Man, There Was a Woman." The stories will be considered here in groups for the most part, beginning with the first and second sections treated as two units.
The stories and sketches in this first section are set in childhood. Five are narrated by children; the two that are not ("Salvador Late or Early" and "Tepeyac") have children as main characters. "My Lucy Friend . . . ," whose speaker is a seven- or eight-year-old girl, is set in a poor neighborhood of a fairly large Texas city. The story has no plot; the speaker describes her friend, relates some of the things she and Lucy do together, and tells a few details about Lucy's house, family, and life. The speaker also reveals something about her own situation (she is living or staying with her grandmother). She likes Lucy and envies her having eight sisters; she feels that she and Lucy are like sisters.
"Eleven" takes place on the speaker's eleventh birthday. Rachel opens by saying other ages before eleven are still present inside the 11-year-old. She is in school; the teacher brings a sweater out of the coatroom and tries to determine its owner. A girl says it is Rachel's, and although Rachel denies it, the teacher puts the sweater on her desk and eventually makes her put it on, which brings her to tears. Later another girl remembers the sweater is hers, but Rachel is still upset and wishes she were invisible.
