Sabrina & Corina: Stories

The narrator, Clarisa, opens this story by saying, “A dermatologist with a can of liquid nitrogen can remove a wart in four to five seconds. I can remove one overnight with a clove of garlic and a Band-Aid” (70). She learned the remedy from her great-grandmother Estrella, who learned all manner of folk remedies from “her own grandma on their pueblo in northern New Mexico” (70).

Clarisa used to get lice from her half-brother Harrison. The first time it happened, Clarisa’s mother, Millie, used a tip she learned from another hygienist at the dentist’s office where she worked: She put mayonnaise in Clarisa’s hair. When Clarisa asked why they didn’t consult Grandma Estrella for help dealing with the lice, her mother sternly told her, “You can never tell your grandma Estrella you have lice” (71).

Harrison lived in an apartment on Grant Street in downtown Denver with his mother. Millie began taking Clarisa there to pick him up for visits when Clarisa was 11 and Harrison was 10. Clarisa noticed that, in Harrison’s building, there was “a bathroom built into the wall, like a lime-green goat closet. [She] peered inside at an old porcelain bathtub with claws at the bottom” (73). Clarisa recognized the bathtub as one similar to her Grandma Estrella’s, and Millie told her that, in the olden days, people would share bathtubs.