La Cienega Just Smiled Author:Leslie DuBois Have you ever been so happy you feel a tingle in the pit of your stomach? That feeling is the fabled smile of La Cienega. Years after leaving Puerto Rico, the words of La Cienega still resonate in Reyna Lewis? mind. "It's not what you see that makes you truly happy,? the old blind woman said. ?What you see may not always be there. How you fee... more »l never has to go away. There's nothing better than that tingly happiness that courses through your body and lands in your face causing your cheeks to rise." Whenever she feels that tingle, she believes it?s La Cienega smiling at her. The first time Scott Kincaid felt La Cienega?s smile was in the sixth grade when he kissed his half black, half Puerto Rican best friend Reyna. Now, as the star quarterback of Charleston Preparatory school in South Carolina, Scott is poised for a spectacular professional career in sports. Between leading Charleston Prep to victory week after week, and pleasing his tyrannical and racist mother, Scott never had time to develop that romantic spark with Reyna. But when his once healthy body is attacked by a debilitating disease, he reevaluates what?s important in life. Just when he finally realizes he?s in love with Reyna, Barack Obama wins the presidential election and throws their small private school into racial turmoil. Now it is up to them to unite a city.« less