Summary and Background Info

This is a story about Katey's daughter. What happens is that Katey and her family move to Puerto Rico because she is a dance teacher. Her daughter feels the same way she did when moving to Cuba. Will Katey finally realize what Jeannie felt about Katey's adventures in Cuba now that her own daughter is going through the same thing?

It is set in 1984. Katey is married to a man named Arthur and has two daughters: Katie-Jean and Brooke. Javier passed away a year after Katey left Cuba. He was killed by Castro's armies. Katey recently opened a dance studio in Puerto Rico, where she could teach her specialty of Latin dancing. Brooke seemed quite excited by the news, but Katie-Jean was anything but eager to pick up her life –leaving behind her school, friends, boyfriend, and family—and start over in a new country. At least her parents had waited until mid-June, after Katie-Jean had graduated from high school. Jeannie had also passed away soon after the arrival back into the U.S. She found out she had cancer and died about a year and a half after the return. Katey had lost two people who she felt very strongly for in a matter of six months. Susie married at twenty-five, moved away to California, and started her family. No one hears from her much anymore. Katey went to school in New York where she met her husband, started her family, and had her original dance studio before her recent promotion. Katie-Jean was not too fond of New York, but she preferred it to Puerto Rico.

Katey Miller-Anderson shoved the remaining suitcases into the back of the 1977 station wagon and called for her family to hurry up. Her husband, Arthur, walked down the path of their soon-to-be former home. It was a wonderful home to raise children, which is what Katey and Arthur did while living there. Moments later, an anxious sixteen-year-old girl with bouncy blonde curls hurried out of the house, carrying a bag of things to keep her occupied on the long plane ride to Puerto Rico. Brooke, the younger of the Anderson daughters, was exhilarated about this journey. Her older sister, Katie-Jean, walked out after Brooke leading a small yellow lab on a yellow leash outside.

"Katie-Jean, could you hurry up a bit?" Katey asked impatiently.

"Mom, have you realized that you are uprooting me from the only life I've ever known to go to some foreign country so you can dance? I had to say good-bye to everything! My entire life! And you want me to hurry up?" Katie-Jean blurted out, staring at her mother.

"I'm sorry," Katey said. "But I guess you forgot how my parents did the same thing to me when I was your age."

"So why make the same mistake?" Katie-Jean was now shouting.

"Don't make the same mistakes I made."

"It wasn't a mistake when you lost your—"

"Enough, Katie-Jean, get in the car."

With that, Brooke, already in the car, moved over to her sister could squeeze in. Katie-Jean placed her new puppy, a gift from her parents for her graduation, on her lap. The puppy cuddled with her owner.

"Everyone ready for a big adventure?" Arthur said from the front seat, obviously thrilled about the upcoming journey.

Brooke and Katey let out cries of "woo hoo", but Katie-Jean sat quietly. Sometimes, she just couldn't stand her dad. He was just so nerdy. He had big glasses, buck teeth, and a bad comb over. She didn't know what her mom saw in him, seeing as he looked almost the same when they met, just a little more hair. He was usually embarrassing and dorky, making conversation with her friends about things they could care less about. She sighed as her dad looked back at her and smiled. "Why the long face, Katie-Jean?"

"Why do you think?" She rolled her eyes and looked out the window. She felt bad that she was giving everyone such a hard time about this move. After all, it wasn't her dad's fault… it was all Katey's doing. Another thing that Katie-Jean hated about her parents was the name they had given her. It had a few meanings to her parents, but one that she herself was certain of. Being born on November 21 of 1966, it was exactly six years after Jeannie's tragic death, down to the very hour. Katey, the amazing daughter that she was, wanted to remember her mother through her daughter. Being selfish (in Katie-Jean's opinion) she also wanted to name the baby after herself, and knew this would enable her to get away with it, just changing the spelling. So she was called Katie-Jean Anderson. When Katie-Jean was thirteen, Katey had confessed to her that it was also a way of remembering her first love. The initials of her first name were that of Katey and Javier. Katie-Jean felt quite used by her mother and deprived of a real name for these reasons. If she could have chosen her own name, she would make it something exotic like Melanie or Gabriella. She was happy she could choose the name of her puppy, which she called Sunny. The puppy brought such a great joy in her life, even more so now, because it would be her only friend. If you wanted to hear how corny Katey and Arthur were about naming their second daughter, then listen to this. Since they lived Brooklyn, New York at the time, they decided to be "oh so creative" (again in Katie-Jean's opinion) and name her Brooke Lynne. She felt sorry for her sister, who also was gypped of a real name. Brooke seemed to like it though, thinking it was "so cute." Katie-Jean really hated her family sometimes. At least she had Sunny, who wouldn't judge her or force her to do stupid things she didn't want to do.

The wait at the airport was long and boring. Katie-Jean sat staring into space for an hour of the two spent waiting. She had to check Sunny into a crate so she could fly to Puerto Rico with them. Brooke was off the walls. She was engrossed in a book (for the first time in years) about the lifestyles and culture of the country they were heading towards. She planned on learning to dance exotic dances like her mother had. Katey was opening up a beautiful dance studio, which she got to completely redecorate. Arthur would continue to write novels. He had a few published, which allowed for the family's affluent lifestyle. Katie-Jean just wanted to stay in New York and later move to Maine once she married her boyfriend, who she was convinced she was in love with. She cried for days when he saw that she had to leave John behind.

"Would those boarding flight 356 to Puerto Rico first class please board the plane?" The voice from the loudspeaker boomed and echoed. The Andersons stood up and gathered their bags, and boarded the plane for the long flight ahead of them.

After the three hour flight, Katie-Jean rushed off the plane, carrying a hot pink backpack which contained a few books and things for her to do. Brooke followed excitedly, anxious to explore her new surroundings. Katey and Arthur were also thrilled to be in this exotic country. It was her first time out of the United States since Cuba, so Katey was more than excited. After they picked up their luggage, they took a taxi to their new home. It was a large, white single home with a white picket fence. Katie-Jean lugged her black suitcase and pink backpack up the pathway and walked into the house, which Arthur had just opened. She wandered up the steps and saw numerous bedrooms.

"Pick your bedrooms, girls!" Katey yelled up the steps. "The big one in the front is ours!"

Katie-Jean dropped her bags and ran into every room. Brooke was still outside, so Katie-Jean had first pick. One had a window seat, good for reading. Another one had blue walls and a large double bed. The last one was quite small, with ugly pink wall. She decided on the biggest one with the window seat. She dragged her bags into the room, and looked around. The walls were plain white with soft green carpet on the floor. She stared at the huge walk-in closet with a gaping mouth. She hadn't seen this when she took her first peek. There was a also a large bed.

"No fair, you got to pick before me!" Brooke peeked her head in the room. "Wow, this room is so much cooler than the one I picked. I have the one with blue walls. The pink one was ugly. Mom said she was going to redecorate it."

"Great, go away now."

Brooke sighed as she turned around and left the room. Katie-Jean wandered downstairs. As she was about to explore the rest of the house, she heard the doorbell ring. She turned around and headed towards the front door instead of the kitchen. She opened the door and saw a middle aged couple and their three kids.

"Hi," the lady said with a smile. "We live next door."

"Come in." Katie-Jean opened the door wider so that the neighbors could enter the house. Katey and Arthur walked out of the kitchen and smiled at the sight of visitors.

"Hello, I'm Katey. This is Arthur, my husband. This is my eldest daughter, Katie-Jean." Katie-Jean smiled and said hello. "And that one," Katey pointed towards the blonde coming down the steps, "is our youngest, Brooke."

"I'm Martha, this is my husband Ernie. These are our three kids," First she pointed to the oldest, an 18 year-old girl named Violet. The middle child was 15 and called Alessandra. The youngest was a 10 year-old boy named Zack.

The adults wandered into the kitchen, followed by Zack, leaving the four girls in the living room.

"Hi, I'm Katie-Jean. You're Violet?"

"Yep, wanna go hang out front? It's kinda boring in here."

"Okay." Katie-Jean was anxious to escape the clutches of the new environment. As soon as they were outside, they sat down on the bench out front of Violet's house. "How come you came to Puerto Rico?"

Violet sighed. "You first." Katie-Jean told Violet about her mother's promotion and the dismay she had in picking up her entire life and moving to a new country. She hated her parents for it.

"At least your parents waited til you graduated. I had to finish out the school year here. I've been here since February. My parents moved here to research some stupid plant. So yeah, I completely understand how they think its okay to pick up our lives at their convenience."

"What kills me is that my mom went through the same thing and yet she's doing it to me." Katie-Jean explained about her mother's experience in Cuba.

"Oh, yeah. There are a lot of cute boys here, so yeah, I see." Violet winked. "Here come some."

A few Spanish boys walked down the street. They yelled something in Spanish. Katie-Jean only took two years of Spanish in freshman and sophomore year and had long since forgotten the better part of the language. All she could pick out was "girls" and "hot". From those two words, she could understand the meaning of the sentence.

"Gracias!" Violet waved at the boys and flashed a smile. She was a typical American. She was really pretty with dark blonde hair that was curly and hung down to her shoulders and striking green eyes. Katie-Jean looked at herself. She had straight brown hair. It was quite thick. She was relatively attractive, despite the fact that she looked like her father. She stared at the passing boys through her dark brown eyes.

"Hey, do you want to go to a club tomorrow night?" Violet asked. "It's for people over 18, we can legally drink down here. It's like a dancing club. I go all the time, its really fun. It will be a great way for you to meet people. A bunch of my friends are going."

"Sure, I'd love to go. We can drink? Awesome." Not that Katie-Jean was a heavy party-go-er, she just was out for a good time.

"Great, I'll come over tomorrow around 6:30 to help you get ready. Then my friend will pick us up."

"Violet, dear, are you ready to go?" Martha and Ernie came out, Zack and Alessandra following. "We're going to Mrs. Gregory's house for dinner."

"Yeah, just a sec," Violet called over to her parents. "I'll see you tomorrow, Katie-Jean. Bye."

"Later." Katie-Jean walked home and happily skipped up the steps to put her things away.