“And the lovely Maritza Chacon?… Well, before you could say Oh Mighty Isis, Maritza blew up into the flyest guapa in Paterson, one of the Queens of New Peru.” (18)

Here, we can see quite a drastic difference between Maritza and Oscar’s early adolescence. As a result of their “break-up”, Oscar was very hurt. He gained weight, and a developed a face full of acne. This turned him from a ladies’ man into someone who was either ignored by his female peers or downright insulted, his previous reputation was no more. However, as this was happening Maritza had the opposite reaction. Diaz describes her as a very beautiful girl, who had such a nice body that men two to three times her age took interest in her and she had only been in the sixth grade when this started happening. Oscar very often saw Maritza engaging in promiscious behavior from a very young age, and he saw it often considering that they were neighbors and all he had to do was look out of his window. Being able to see her with other guys all the time and with such ease could’ve easily been the cause for Oscar continuing to stay as undesirable as he was. By seeing something that mad him so sad, it probably made it even more difficult for him to get over her, resulting in his sadness to continue to get the best of him. Despite the fact that the two had once been romantically involved (standing next to each other at the bus stop, hand holding and cheek kissing) with each other at such a young age, they both grew up and matured very differently with Oscar becoming a loser and Maritza becoming the “Queen of New Peru”.