
He notices how his mother and Tía prepare the food for the party and is drawn to his mother's beauty. Yunior ventures into the kitchen twice during the party. Yunior can hear his parents socializing in the kitchen. Yunior takes a seat next to Wilquins on the couch and the group of kids soon start playing dominos. He turns to Wilkins and asks him what they should do to entertain themselves, but Mari notifies him that Wilquins does not speak. Both of the girls smile at Rafa and only give Yunior a cursory glance, but Yunior is not bothered. Yunior is immediately drawn to the girls, but he also knows that Rafa is going to "gun" for Mari because she is physically endowed. Yunior meets the other children in the living room: Leti, Wilquins, and Mari. Rafa and Yunior join the other kids in the living room, who are already eating. Tía derails the tour by bringing out several of their neighbors to introduce to Mami and Papi, which results in only the adults getting a tour of the "four-room third-floor" apartment (32). Mami tells Yunior and Rafa to join the other kids in the living room but Tío insists on giving them a tour of the apartment. When she reaches Papi she hesitates a little bit, "like maybe she'd seen a wasp on the tip of his nose," but greets him anyway (31). However, "everybody could tell he was lying" (31). Tío consoles Yunior and tells him that they should have seen him on the airplane to the United States, when he was convinced they were all going to die. He tells Yunior that he looks horrible, and Rafa reveals to their uncle that Yunior threw up in the car. When the family arrives at Tío Miguel and Tía Yrma's apartment, Tío Miguel is the first to greet them. He punishes Yunior by jamming a finger into Yunior's cheek and the family drives the rest of the way to the Bronx in silence. However, once they cross the George Washington bridge, Yunior begins to "feel woozy" and he soon throws up out of the car window to Papi's great irritation.


The car ride begins smoothly enough, which causes Papi to loosen up. He warns Yunior that he better not get sick in the car. He quickly gets angry when Mami tells him that she fed the children because Yunior gets carsick whenever they have a car trip. He arrives at six, right after work, and wordlessly goes straight to the shower to clean the evidence of his Puerto Rican mistress off his body. On the day of the party, the family has dressed up nicely and is waiting for Papi to come home. It is clear that time has passed between this story and the previous one because the family is living in the United States and Yunior mentions his little sister, Madai, who was born after the family immigrated to the US. This short story begins with Yunior explaining that his aunt and uncle have moved to the United States and the family has decided to celebrate their arrival.
