PART 1: The Bee at the Mansion

The worst part was not hearing them call me tacky.

The worst part was that I was standing three feet away, sweating inside a giant bee, while they laughed about the cheap birthday gifts I gave my own grandson.

And they had no idea it was me.

My name is Leonora Pascual, but everyone calls me Nora.

I am sixty-four, retired from the records office in Stockton, and not too proud to wear foam wings for extra bingo money.

Most weekends, I work for Happy Hop Party Rentals.

I have been a purple dinosaur, a dancing taco, and once, unfortunately, a princess unicorn whose tail fell into the chocolate fountain.

That Saturday, my boss, Lenny, called before breakfast.

“Emergency, Ate Nora. Our bee called in sick.”

“Your bee has allergies?”

“Please. Danville job. Two hours. Cash bonus.”

I had no plans because my grandson Miggy’s seventh birthday was supposedly “just a small family lunch.”

That was what his other grandmother, Rowena Villareal, had told me three weeks earlier.

“We’re keeping it intimate,” she had said. “You understand. We’ll celebrate with you another time.”

It hurt, but I swallowed it.

My son Martin had married into money.

Real money.

The kind with iron gates, matching luggage, and kitchen counters nobody was allowed to cut calamansi on.

I had learned not to make trouble.

So I drove to Danville in my old Corolla with the bee costume stuffed across the back seat.

When the GPS announced the address, I nearly hit a stone mailbox.

It was the Villareal mansion.

There were balloons tied to the gate and a gold sign that said, MIGGY’S MAGICAL SEVENTH.

Cars stretched down both sides of the road.

Not twenty guests.

Not fifty.

Probably closer to three hundred.

I sat gripping the steering wheel while a valet waved impatiently at me.

My first thought was to leave.

My second was to march inside and demand an explanation.

Then Lenny texted me.

CLIENT ALREADY COMPLAINING. PLEASE SAVE ME, ATE.

Fine.

If they wanted a cheap bee, they were getting the best cheap bee in California.

I changed inside the delivery van.

The costume had a striped round belly, floppy antennae, and a smiling head the size of a rice cooker box.

The fan inside the head was broken.

Of course it was.

A young event coordinator shoved a plastic bucket of candy into my hands.

“You’re late,” she said. “Stay near the children. Don’t bother the family for photos unless they ask.”

I waddled through the gate.

My jaw dropped inside the bee head.

There was a pony carousel, a balloon castle, a magician, two food trucks, a live band, and a dessert table longer than my living room.

Above the pool floated huge gold letters spelling MIGGY.

So much for a small family lunch.

Then I saw him.

My Miggy came charging across the lawn in a little white suit, his hair combed flat for exactly half a minute.

“BEE!” he screamed.

He wrapped both arms around my padded belly.

I almost said his name.

Instead, I made the cheerful buzzing noise Lenny had taught me.

“Bzzzz-bzzzz!”

Miggy laughed so hard he snorted.

That sound saved me.

I danced with him.

I flapped my wings.

I pretended to steal his cupcake and let him chase me around a hedge.

Every time I looked toward the terrace, I saw Martin greeting guests beside his wife, Bianca.

My son looked tired, but proud.

I kept hoping he would somehow recognize my walk.

He did not.

Then Rowena passed with two women carrying champagne.

She pointed at me and laughed.

“The planner’s emergency replacement,” she said. “Look at those crooked wings.”

One woman asked, “Is Martin’s mother coming?”

Rowena rolled her eyes.

“The tacky lola from Stockton? No. Thank goodness.”

My whole body went still.

The second woman giggled.

“Is that the one who gives Miggy bargain-store toys?”

“Last year she gave him a plastic karaoke microphone,” Rowena said. “It made noises like a dying cat.”

They all laughed.

That microphone had cost me eighteen dollars.

Miggy had slept with it beside his pillow for a month.

I wanted to pull off the bee head right there.

But then Miggy grabbed my hand.

“Come on, Bee! Dance with me!”

So I danced.

I danced until my blouse stuck to my back.

I danced until the children formed a buzzing parade behind me.

And when the expensive magician made a dove appear, Miggy barely looked.

He was busy teaching me his special “bee knees” dance.

For one sweet hour, I forgot I had not been invited.

Then the cake arrived beside the swimming pool.

Everyone crowded forward.

The band started playing “Happy Birthday.”

And through one tiny mesh hole in my giant bee head, I saw Miggy take a step backward.

His heel slipped off the wet stone.

He splashed into the deep end and started thrashing. He couldn’t swim.

PART 2: The Head in the Pool

I did not think.

I dropped the candy bucket and jumped.

The water hit the costume like a truck.

For one terrifying second, the giant foam belly held me on the surface while Miggy thrashed beside me, his face still above water.

Then the costume filled with water.

It became heavy everywhere except the belly, which puffed around me like an enormous striped life raft.

I kicked, but the bee shoes pulled at my ankles.

I twisted toward him, but through the fogged plastic eyes, all I could see were flashes of his white jacket.

I tore off one glove with my teeth.

I reached for him.

Then Miggy grabbed my antenna like a rope.

That little tug gave me strength I did not know I had.

My fingers caught his sleeve.

“Got you,” I tried to say.

The bee head turned my voice into a wet grunt.

I pulled him onto the floating belly of the costume.

By then, people were screaming.

Someone yelled for a lifeguard.

Someone else yelled to save the mascot.

I could not find the pool steps.

I pushed him toward the edge until his hand touched the metal rail.

“Hold it!” I shouted.

This time he heard me.

He clung to the rail while Martin dropped to his knees and pulled him onto the steps.

I tried to follow.

The soaked bee head slid sideways.

I yanked it off before it drowned me.

It popped free, bobbed across the pool, and floated past the birthday cake like a giant smiling yellow moon.

The entire garden went silent.

Three hundred people stared at me.

My wet gray hair was plastered to my face.

Black costume paint ran down my cheeks.

One antenna was still tangled around my neck.

Martin looked from the floating bee head to me.

His mouth opened.

“Ma?”

I held the rail, shaking so badly I could barely stand.

“Happy birthday, anak,” I said to Miggy.

Martin’s face changed.

First confusion.

Then shock.

Then something close to fury.

“What are you doing here in that costume?”

Before I could answer, Rowena rushed forward.

“This is not the time,” she snapped. “Miggy could have been hurt. Where was the pool attendant?”

I stared at her.

She was not worried about me.

She was worried I might speak.

So I spoke.

“I was working,” I said. “I did not know this was Miggy’s party until I arrived.”

Martin blinked.

“But you said you couldn’t come.”

“No,” I said. “I was told it was a small family lunch. I was told you would celebrate with me another time.”

Bianca turned toward her mother.

“Mom?”

Rowena’s smile became stiff.

“There was obviously a misunderstanding.”

“You said she declined,” Martin said.

His voice was quiet.

That was when I knew he was truly angry.

Rowena waved one hand.

“Martin, please. Your mother is upset. She has had a shock.”

“I heard you,” I said.

The words came out before fear could stop them.

“I heard you call me the tacky lola from Stockton.”

Several guests looked at the ground.

One champagne woman suddenly became fascinated by her shoes.

I pointed at the soggy bee body around my waist.

“I heard you mock my gifts. I heard you laugh at this costume. But this cheap bee was watching your grandson when everyone else was watching the cake.”

Rowena went pale.

“You cannot accuse me in my own home.”

“Then deny it,” said a thin voice from the head table.

Everyone turned.

Rowena’s own mother, Lola Amparo, sat alone behind a centerpiece of white roses.

She was tiny, maybe ninety, with bright red glasses and a slice of untouched bread on her plate.

I had noticed her earlier because nobody had spoken to her all afternoon.

She lifted one finger toward Rowena.

“Tama na, Rowena. Deny what you said about Nora’s gifts,” she ordered.

Rowena looked horrified.

“Lola Amparo, you misunderstood.”

“My ears are old, not deaf.”

A few guests covered their smiles.

Lola Amparo pointed at Martin.

“And you. Stop standing there like a decorative lamp. Your mother just pulled your child out of a pool.”

Martin stood.

He took the microphone from the stunned bandleader.

Then he looked at me, dripping at the pool steps.

“Ma,” he said, and his voice broke. “Please don’t leave.”

PART 3: Who Got the First Slice

Martin stepped onto the pool stairs in his expensive leather shoes.

He did not remove his jacket.

He walked straight into the water, wrapped one arm around me, and helped me out.

The wet bee belly squeaked between us.

Under any other circumstances, I would have laughed.

Instead, I started crying against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” he whispered. “I should have called you myself.”

That apology mattered because it was true.

Rowena had lied, but Martin had made it easy for her.

He had assumed.

He had let somebody else manage his own mother.

Now he turned to the guests with water pouring from his trousers.

“My mother belongs here,” he said into the microphone.

“She will always be invited. If anyone here has a problem with that, you can leave before the cake.”

Nobody moved.

Not even the champagne women.

Then Martin faced Rowena.

“You kept my mother away from her grandson and lied to me about it.”

Rowena’s eyes filled, but Martin did not soften.

“We will discuss this after the party. Right now, apologize.”

She looked at the crowd.

She looked at Bianca.

Bianca folded her arms.

“Mom,” she said. “Apologize to Nora.”

Rowena’s chin trembled.

“Nora, I am sorry.”

It was not a beautiful apology.

It was not enough.

But I was cold, exhausted, and still wearing the bottom half of an insect.

“We can talk when I am not full of pool water,” I said.

Lola Amparo slapped the table and laughed.

That broke the silence.

People started clapping.

Then Miggy ran toward me wrapped in a white towel.

“Lola?” he cried.

I knelt.

His face crumpled when he understood.

“You were my bee?”

“Surprise.”

He threw himself into my arms.

“I knew the bee loved me!”

That finished me.

I cried into his wet hair while he squeezed my neck.

The event coordinator came over carrying my dry clothes from the van.

I changed inside the house, using a bathroom bigger than my first apartment.

When I returned, I expected the party to feel awkward.

Instead, Miggy had dragged a chair to the head table.

He had placed it between himself and Lola Amparo.

“Dito, Lola Bee!” he shouted.

Rowena was seated on the other side of the table, very quiet.

I almost chose a chair farther away.

Then Lola Amparo patted the empty seat.

“Tabi tayo. I have been ignored for three hours, and I need someone interesting.”

So I sat.

The cake had seven layers and little sugar bees around the edges.

Miggy insisted that I receive the first slice.

Then he gave the second slice to Lola Amparo because, according to him, “Old lolas need emergency cake.”

Lola Amparo nearly choked laughing.

Within ten minutes, she told me Rowena had been bossy since kindergarten.

Within twenty, she had invited me to her Wednesday mahjong group.

Within thirty, we discovered that both of us cheated at bingo by carrying lucky coins in our bras.

“I knew I liked you,” she said.

Martin sat beside me after the guests began leaving.

He held my hand under the table.

“You gave Miggy that karaoke microphone?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He shook his head.

“He still uses it. We hide the batteries, and he finds them.”

Miggy heard him.

He grabbed the band’s microphone and began singing “Dahil Sa’yo” with every note wrong.

Lola Amparo joined him even louder.

Soon I was singing too.

My voice cracked.

My hair smelled like chlorine.

One of my borrowed slippers kept sliding off.

I had never been happier at a fancy party.

Before I left, Bianca hugged me tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I believed Mom when she said you wanted space.”

“Next time, call me.”

“I will.”

And she did.

The following year, Miggy’s invitation arrived six weeks early.

My name was written first on the envelope.

Inside was a drawing of a yellow bee holding hands with a little boy.

Under it, Miggy had written in crooked letters:

LOLA BEE MUST COME BEFORE EVERYBODY.

These days, I no longer take mascot jobs.

My knees have retired too.

But every year, I bring the same crooked bee wings to Miggy’s birthday.

Lola Amparo wears the antennae.

And before anyone cuts the cake, Miggy saves the first slice for the two old bees who finally got invited.