Juliana laughed. Not a nervous laugh. A real one. It had been four years since she’d laughed like that. Four years since she’d left Medellín for a sterile apartment in Toronto, chasing a promotion that left her with carpal tunnel and a curated loneliness. Her abuela’s final words echoed in her head: “Mija, la navidad no se vive en un celular. Se vive en la chiva culiona.”
“Merry Christmas!” Juliana yelled, and the crowd yelled back, “ Juliana! Juliana Navidad! ” Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona
They danced until dawn. Don Pepe gave her the brass bell from the chiva’s front rail. “So you never forget how to come home,” he said. Juliana laughed
She hadn’t understood then. Now, bouncing between a man playing a ragged accordion and a woman balancing a tray of natilla and bunuelos , she began to. It had been four years since she’d laughed like that
So Juliana did the only thing she knew: she improvised. She tore the hem of her linen shirt—a stupidly expensive thing from a Yorkville boutique—and wrapped the hose. She borrowed a woman’s hairspray to seal a leak. She convinced a teenage boy to sacrifice his bicycle’s inner tube for a belt. And when the battery whimpered its last, she ordered everyone out.
Don Pepe crossed himself. “La patrona,” he whispered, looking at Juliana. “She has returned.”