Mari tells me to keep still. She's almost done. I'm laying on her bed, the sun shining through her bent miniblinds onto my eyelids and forehead. A car cruises by blaring the one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three beat of a Celia Cruz song. My shoulders jump and my hips move from side to side, bunching up the pile of sparkling dresses strewn beneath me on Mari's comforter.

"Girl, I'm gonna make a salsera out of you yet!" She laughs, then holds the tweezers between her fingers threateningly. "But, for now, hold your ass still so I can tame these bruja brows."

I'm wondering how the hell I'm going to explain these new eyebrows, the excessive makeup, the low-cut dress Mari's picked out for me. When I slip into bed next to him at the end of my annual girls' night out, will he notice how late I've come home?

Mari finishes and taps my shoulder to tell me to sit up. Then she hands me her makeup box. It's about two feet long and filled with oddly shaped sponge things, metal objects better suited for doctors' offices, and bluish brownish reddish colors that can't possibly go with my skin tone. I stare into the abyss of it until Mari offers to help.

"Mujer, don't you do yourself up ever?" She's half horrified, half scolding.

"Why - when I've already got a man?" Adrian and I have been together since I was sixteen. Back then, I didn't need coverup for dark circles. "And with little Adriana and Gabriel running around, who has time for this?" I rattle the two-ton makeup box, and then I avoid Mari's Cleopatra eyes.

She says nothing. Her acrylic nails cup my chin as she tilts my head back to paint me bonita. I don't look at the mirror until I've squeezed my butt and breasts into the too-small spaghetti strap dress. Then, there I am - barely.

Mari wants to accept all of the drinks bought for her, so I drive. At a red light, I look over at her still-perky body and wonder how it feels to be single.

"You know," she sighs, "sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get what you have."

I say nothing as she glances out the window toward the sky.

When we get to The Mayan, I lose Mari to quick hands that spin her in the one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three passion of salsa. And I lose my own desire to dance. I sit at a table and stare into my glass of water, thinking of one two three pasiones waiting for mami at home.