In the section, "The Golden Age" Junot Diaz introduces the hero, Oscar de Leon, to his readers. Oscar is "a Dominican boy raised in a relatively 'normal' Dominican family." Even at the relatively young age of seven he began taking a keen interest in girls. He was a great hit in the parties of the seventies when he would entertain the adults who would force him to be hitched to any other little girl at the party. His mother was proud of his premature display of his manliness.
Once, Oscar even had two girl friends at the same time. They were Maritza Chacon and Olga Polanca his schoolmates. However, this "threesome lasted only a week." Maritza insisted that Oscar choose between herself and Olga. Oscar didn't find it difficult to choose Maritza because she was more beautiful than Olga. Olga cried her heart out when Oscar broke up with her, but Oscar responded nonchalantly saying, "don't be a baby."
However the Monday after he had dumped Olga he sees Maritza at the bust stop holding the hands of another boy, Nelson Pardo. Maritza refused to smile at him and pretended that she didn't even see him. At first Oscar couldn't believe his eyes but when he heard Maritza tell Nelson that they should get married, he sits down on the curb and begins to cry. He was still crying when he go into the school bus which arrived shortly.
The rejection by Maritza afttected him deeply: "his life shot straight down the tubes." In two years he became fatter and fatter and consequently avoided any contact with girls because they found him repulsive: "he did not kiss another girl for a long, long time." Olga was similarly afftected and she also became fat and repulsive: "even her breasts, when they finally emerged, were huge and scary." However, Maritza on the contrary got prettier and prettier, "Maritza blew up into the flyest girl in Paterson, New Jersey."
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