How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay, Page 3

  “This is just a visit,” Miguel keeps reminding himself as he shakes the two maracas in his hands.

  It is the first of March, and Miguel has already started his countdown. In thirty days, seven hours, and twelve minutes, it will be exactly midnight, and the day of his birthday. Back in the city, he has always thought of his birthday as a spring birthday. But here in Vermont, spring never arrives until late in April “If we’re lucky,” one of their neighbors, farmer Tom, has explained to him. “Makes for a long winter, I admit, but it keeps the flatlanders away.” Miguel doesn’t need to ask what a flatlander is. The look on Tom’s face says he doesn’t think very highly of them.

  But even if spring is over a month away, there are hopeful signs. On weekend rides in the countryside, Miguel can see steam rising out of the sugar houses. When the family sits down to supper, there is just a tinge of light in the evening sky.

  At the supper table one night, their mother asks Miguel and Juanita what happened that day in schooL Then she asks Tía Lola what happened that day at home.

  Tía Lola tells them that a man in a brown suit came to the door. But because the man was not El Rudy and Tía Lola has been told not to let in any strangers, she waved at him to go away.

  “!Ay, no!” Miguel’s mother says. “That must have been the UPS guy. I’m expecting something—” She glances over at Miguel, and then back at Tía Lola, raising her eyebrows slightly.

  Miguel sees a secret look traveling between his aunt and his mother.

  “I’m expecting something, too,” he says, in case anybody should be getting forgetful at this important time of year. His birthday is coming up in ten days, five hours, and thirty-three minutes.

  “!Ay, Dios mío!” his mother says, as if she just now remembered it.

  “How you doing, tiguerito!” His father is on the phone. It is Saturday morning. In five more days, fourteen hours, and fifteen minutes, it will be Miguel’s birthday. “What you planning for the big day?”

  “Nothing much,” Miguel replies. He feels sad. This will be his first birthday without his father-No matter how special it is, it won’t be special enough-

  “Have you thought about what you want?”

  Of course he has-More than anything, he wants his parents to be together-But he can’t say that-He has already mentioned a few things to his mom: a new bat; a baseball signed by Sammy Sosa, who also came from the Dominican Republic, like Miguel’s parents; Rollerblades; a visit from his best friend, José, once the weather gets nice-“One other thing,” he tells his dad, lowering his voice-“I wish Tía Lola…I mean, she was supposed to come for a visit—and she’s still here—and she won’t even try to learn English—”

  “Is that so? Maybe it’s good to have your aunt around so you have to practice your Spanish-”

  “But the kids at school already think I’m different enough,” Miguel explains-He is surprised that he is telling his father this much-“They can’t even pronounce my last name!”

  His father has gone very quiet on the other end-“Mi’jo,” he finally says, “you should be proud of who you are-Proud of your Tía Lola-Proud of yourself-”

  It is Miguel’s turn to be quiet-He knows his father is right, but he can’t help feeling what he feels.

  “I know sometimes it’s hard,” his father is saying softly. “You’ll grow into that pride the older you get. Te quiero mucho,” he adds. “Don’t forget.”

  For the next few days, the secret look that has been traveling between Tía Lola and Miguel’s mother, and then Juanita, suddenly finds its way to Miguel’s friends.

  In the gym, Miguel comes upon Dean and Sam whispering. They stop the minute they see him.

  “What’s up?” he asks.

  “Top-secret!” they chime in together, and then burst out laughing. Miguel doesn’t know what they are laughing about. He feels uncomfortable, but he laughs along with them.

  Friday morning, when Miguel comes downstairs, his mother is already eating her breakfast.

  “Buenos dias, Miguel,” she says, looking up and frowning. “You’re going to wear that to school today?” She stares at his Yankees sweatshirt as if it has a bad smell to it.

  “It’s my favorite shirt,” he reminds hen Just last Christmas, his father gave it to him. A few days later, his parents sat him and Juanita down and told them about the divorce.

  Juanita walks into the kitchen. “Mami, where’s my book bag? Oh, hi, Miguel. I thought I left it in the mudroom.”

  IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!! Miguel feels like screaming.

  Tía Lola has been outside feeding the birds. The minute she enters the room and sees Miguel, she throws her arms around him and gives him ten kisses, one for each year since he was born. Then she adds a couple more, which she calls his ñapa.

  His mother stares pointedly at Tía Lola, the way she does when she wants to remind her of something without saying it out loud. “That’s right, big boy,” she says, play-punching him in the arm, “you’re in the double digits now. Gotta run,” his mother adds, glancing at her watch. “Staff meeting.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Guess I’ll be catching the school bus today, the thirty-first of March, the anniversary of my first decade on planet Earth,” Miguel says. If he can make his birthday sound important, maybe he’ll get presents and lots of attention. Maybe he’ll get a ride to school from his mami instead of having to ride the bus on his birthday.

  “We’ll celebrate later. Promise!” his mother calls as she heads out the door with her coat half off, half on.

  All morning at school, Miguel feels gloomy. His friends are acting funny. No one wishes him “Happy birthday,” though he has been dropping hints for the last few weeks.

  “Want to hang out after school?” Miguel asks Dean as they head back for their classroom after recess.

  “Can’t today,” Dean explains. “My mom’s, um, picking me up early. Got…uh…uh…uh…a dentist appointment.”

  “I got…uh…a dentist appointment, too,” Sam says when Miguel turns to him.

  Nice friends, Miguel thinks. José would have hung out with him on his birthday instead of going to some stupid dentist. Maybe these new friends are not real friends, after all.

  Miguel grows even gloomier as the day wears on.

  That afternoon, Miguel comes out of school, head bowed, dragging his feet. His friends have run off early. The school bus is gone. Just as well, he would rather walk home than ride the noisy bus with his sister and her friends on his birthday.

  When he looks up, he can’t believe his eyes!

  Just ahead stands his father in his jeans and leather jacket, holding Juanita’s hand, a great big smile on his face, “Happy birthday, tiguerito!” he calls out.

  Miguel drops his book bag and runs into his father’s arms. This is the best birthday present ever. He hugs his father and then holds on a little longer while his moist eyes dry up.

  “!Céntrale! It’s cold here!” His father stomps his feet on the ground as if he, too, were taking dance lessons from Tía Lola.

  They get in the rented car his father has driven from New York, and Juanita and Miguel give their father directions. It takes forever to get home. They pass farmhouses and rumbly bridges and fields with brown patches breaking through the snow. Their father keeps taking the wrong turn. As he drives, he tries playing an old game they used to play in New York, “What color is that?” he’d ask, pointing to something, and Miguel and Juanita have to name off the color from their father’s oil paints, (“Cadmium yellow, raw umber, cobalt blue with a dab of titanium white?”) But everything he points to here is gray, gray, gray.

  When they finally pull up at the house, Miguel’s mother’s car is already in the drive, as is Rudy’s red pickup.

  As Miguel steps in the door, Sam and Dean spring out from behind the couch, “Surprise!” they shout. The table is piled high with gifts. Just above it hangs the parrot piñata Tía Lola has brought with her, Rudy is standing by, holding a hammer. He must have just finished put
ting it up.

  Suddenly, Miguel understands everything. He is about to thank everybody when he hears one last shout coming from the kitchen. Before he can turn around and hide, his top-secret aunt walks in with a big cake in the shape of a baseball, showing off her one word of English, “Sooprisel Sooprise!”

  Then everyone sings “Happy Birthday”— in Spanish!

  “We sort of rehearsed before you came,” Sam explains. “Your aunt taught us-”

  “I’ve never had a ghost for a teacher before!” Dean adds, poking Miguel in the side.

  Miguel feels his face getting red. But when his friend bursts out laughing, Miguel cannot help smiling.

  He looks over at his father, who smiles back at him. It’s true what Papi has said. Miguel is ten years old today and already feeling ten times prouder of being who he is.

  Chapter Four

  Lucky Love

  Spring has arrived! There is no keeping Tía Lola indoors-She puts on her bright flowered dress and her high-heel tacones. She ties her yellow scarf around her neck, buttons up her heavy suéter, and sets out to meet the neighbors.

  “Tía Lola!” Juanita and Miguel run after her. “!Tú no sabes hablar inglés!” Someone has to remind their aunt that she doesn’t know how to speak English.

  “I ehspeak Eengleesh,” Tía Lola replies, tossing the ends of the scarf over her shoulder as if to say, that is that. She always seems more determined when she wears that yellow scarf. “Mz buena suerte,” she calls it. Her good-luck scarf.

  * * *

  They stop at the sheep farm next door. Tom is out cutting wood by the barn. “Howdy there, neighbors. Is this your aunt you told me about?” he asks Juanita.

  Juanita nods. “Her name’s Tía Lola. Actually, tía means ‘aunt,’ so you can’t really call her that.”

  “How about Lady Lola?” Tom suggests.

  “Encantada,” Tía Lola says, handing Tom her hand as if they were in the court of Queen Isabella, not in a stinky barnyard. But the real surprise is how the gruff farmer in his bib overalls and full red beard bows like a knight and kisses Tía Lola’s hand.

  “Enchanted, as well,” he pronounces.

  “Hey, Becky, hon,” he calls over his shoulder. Blond, shy Becky, who can lift a bale as well as any man, comes out from the barn. She is carrying a small, bawling lamb.

  “!Ay! !Qué cosita más mona!” Tía Lola exclaims. What a cute little thing! Soon she has tied her yellow scarf around the lamb’s neck.

  “She is pretty, isn’t she?” Becky smiles fondly at the lamb in Tía Lola’s arms. “But she’ll slobber all over your scarf if you don’t take it off.”

  “Mi buena suerte,” Tía Lola explains. Her good-luck scarf.

  “IVe got a good-luck charm, too,” Becky says. “Except it isn’t a scarf but my 4-H bandanna-”

  Miguel has never heard Becky say this many words in the four months they have known her. All trace of shyness is gone as she chats along in English. Tía Lola nods and chats right back in Spanish. The two women aren’t speaking the same language and yet they seem to understand each other perfectly!

  Maybe her scarf is lucky? Maybe Tía Lola can work magic?

  After the visit to the sheep farm, Miguel and Juanita and Tía Lola continue down the road. All around them, the fields are the pale green haze of new growth. The sky above them is a rich blue. If Papi were along, he would be pointing left and right. “What color is that?” Viridian-green hills, pale violet buds, and a tumble of titanium-white clouds in the cerulean-blue sky!.

  Tía Lola smiles at the weather vanes pointing south; she whistles at the swallows darting in and out of the barns; she waves at the farm woman cleaning out her garden, who waves back with her rake.

  In town, they stop at Rudy’s Restaurant. “!Hola!” Tía Lola greets everyone as she walks in the door. Farmers in work clothes and professors from the college, grading papers, and teenagers with purple hair grin at the friendly woman. Little babies sitting in high chairs reach out their hands, motioning for Tía Lola to carry them. Only one customer, a sour-looking old man in a uniform, sitting at a corner table, glowers at Tía Lola as if her friendliness were a public disturbance.

  Rudy comes out of the kitchen, shaking his head. He looks weary, and his smile is brief.

  “I’ve been having a heck of a day,” he confesses, nodding over their shoulders at the scowling man in the corner. It seems the old man has ordered huevos rancheros but keeps sending them back to the kitchen. Rudy has counted three returned orders. “He says they’re not real huevos rancheros. That Colonel Charlebois is a royal pain in the— How do you say this in Spanish?” Rudy asks Tía Lola, slapping his backside.

  Miguel begins to translate, but Tía Lola has already understood! “Eso es el fundillo,” she says, slapping her own fundillo. As for huevos rancheros, she has a special recipe that can turn the scowl on that viejo’s face into a boyish smile.

  “Nothing short of magic is going to turn that old sourpuss around,” Rudy grumbles as he heads back into the kitchen with Tía Lola to give huevos rancheros a fourth try.

  Miguel sits at the counter, observing the old man. Colonel Charlebois …, Colonel Charlebois …, The name sounds familiar. Isn’t that the name of the owner of their farmhouse? The Realtor said Colonel Charlebois had retired from the army years ago and moved back to the farm country where generations of his family had lived. But he had finally decided to rent out the old homestead and buy a place in town because of his bad arthritis. From their neighbors, Miguel has heard that Colonel Charlebois has turned into something of an oddball living all by himself. He insists on wearing his full-dress uniform and marching down the street as if he were inspecting the troops back in World War II.

  The doors from the kitchen swing open. Tía Lola, bearing a plate of eggs covered with tomato sauce, onions, and peppers and followed by a worried-looking Rudy, heads for the corner table.

  “Buen provecho,” Tía Lola says, setting the plate down in front of the old man. The old man nods as if he understands that Tía Lola has just wished him a happy meaL Then he puts a forkful in his mouth. It seems the whole room is holding its breath.

  “These are the best darn huevos rancheros Tve had north or south of the Rio Grande,” the old man growls.

  When the colonel has wiped the plate clean, Tía Lola asks him, “¿Quiere más?”

  “That means, Do you want more?” Miguel calls from his perch on the stool.

  “Of course that’s what it means!” Colonel Charlebois barks, “I didn’t travel all over the face of creation with the United States Army for nothing. And of course I want more! Por favor “ he adds, smiling up at Tía Lola.

  Rudy is shaking his head as he follows Tía Lola back into the kitchen, “Magic, pure magic,” he mutters.

  By the time they get home that afternoon, Tía Lola has made a dozen new friends.

  Miguel is astonished. He is not shy, but still, after four months of living in Vermont, he has only two friends, Sam and Dean. Many of his classmates are friendly, but he can’t really call them friends. Sometimes he sits with them in the lunchroom. But after exchanging complaints about how much homework Mrs. Prouty has given them or talking about the upcoming baseball tryouts, he doesn’t know what else to say. At least some of them have stopped calling him Gooseman or making duck sounds when he walks down the hall.

  There is only one conclusion that Miguel can come to. Rudy is right. His aunt is working magic on everybody. Miguel has never forgotten his mother’s remark that Tía Lola is something of a santera.

  “What exactly does a santera do?” he asks his mother that night.

  “Santeras practice a religion called santería,” his mother explains.

  “That explains a lot, Mami!” Miguel crosses his arms. “Okay, just tell me. Can Tía Lola help me get an A in my math exam? Can she help me make the team?”

  His mother laughs and puts her arms around him. “Miguel, amor, your mother can tell you how to do that-” She pats his b
utt. “Apply your fundillo to the seat of your chair and you’ll get an A if you study hard. As for making the team, eat more of Tía Lola’s cooking. Tve asked Tía Lola to make you some good Dominican food. Pizzas and Pringles are not the most nutritious meals for a budding major leaguer”

  “Very funny,” Miguel growls. Sometimes he feels as cranky as Colonel Charlebois when his mother teases him too much.

  The next day in school, Miguel opens his lunch-box and finds four meatball-looking things wrapped in tinfoil next to his can of Pringles. He is about to toss them when Mort says, “What you got there, Gooseman?”

  Mort is a farm boy in Miguel’s class who has muscles where the rest of the boys can only imagine them. “My name means ‘death’ in French,” he likes to brag, pounding his chest as if he were Tarzan. His family came to Vermont from Canada in the nineteenth century, before the skiers and vacationers and college students arrived. He likes to brag about that, too. But Mort doesn’t get very good grades, and some of the town boys make fun of his homemade haircut and clothes from the Second Hand.

  “Meatballs! Yum, my favorite-” Mort pops one of Tía Lola’s treats into his mouth.

  Miguel expects Mort to spit it up or keel over dead-Instead, Mort helps himself to another-”Don’t mind if I do!” He laughs-“Hey, these are delicious!”

  That afternoon, it might be a coincidence, but it certainly is a first: Mort spells Mississippi correctly during the spelling bee.

  There is one treat left in Miguel’s lunchbox-On the way to baseball practice, he pops it into his mouth.

  Miguel thinks of asking his mom about the strange treat, but it is Tía Lola who always fixes their lunches-“Tía Lola,” he begins, showing her the crumpled-up tinfoil-But before he can ask about the magic treat, Tía Lola is hugging and kissing him-She is so pleased he likes her quipes. They are made of grain and ground meat and a dash of pepper, and they will put muscles on his arms.

  Miguel doesn’t care what they are called-Are they magic? “I have to make the team, Tía Lola,” he adds.