How Tía Lola Came to (Visit) Stay Read online

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  For Susanna—

  who could be Tía Lola

  if she were from the islands

  if she were into makeup & dressup

  if she wore high heels

  if she had jet-black hair

  & a fake beauty mark above her upper lip

  if she spoke Spanish

  if she had been my aunt

  instead of

  my dear friend

  and

  (y)

  Para mis queridas tias—

  Tía Rosa y Titi y Tía Idalita

  Tía Teolinda y Tía Laurita y Tía Josefina

  Tía Ana y Tía Claudina y Tía Fofi y Tía Edi

  Tía Anny y Tía Lulu y Tía Clara

  Tía Carmenza y Tía Estela—

  tantas tias queridas

  que ayudaron a criarme

  y me dieron con su amor

  esperanza

  y alegria

  ¡GraciaSy tias!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Tía Lola Comes to Visit

  Chapter Two

  Bienvenida, Tía Lola

  Chapter Three

  Top-Secret

  Chapter Four

  Lucky Love

  Chapter Five

  The Spanish Word War

  Chapter Six

  Three Happy Days in Nueva York

  Chapter Seven

  Two Happy Months in Vermont

  Chapter Eight

  Mami’s Birthday Party

  Chapter Nine

  The Best Place in the World

  Chapter Ten

  LaNapa

  A Word About the Spanish

  (Una palabra sobre el espanol)

  Chapter One

  Tía Lola Comes to Visit

  “Why can’t we just call her Aunt Lola?” Miguel asks his mother. Tomorrow their aunt is coming from the Dominican Republic to visit with them in their new home in Vermont. Tonight they are unpacking the last of the kitchen boxes before dinner.

  “Because she doesn’t know any English,” his mother explains.

  “Tía is the word for aunt in Spanish, right, Mami?” Juanita asks. When their mother’s back is turned, Juanita beams Miguel a know-it-all smile.

  Their mother is gazing sadly at a blue bowl she has just unpacked. “So you see, Miguel, if you call her Aunt, she won’t know you’re talking to her.”

  That’s fine, Miguel thinks, I won’t have much to say to her except “Adiós” Goodbye! But he keeps his mouth shut-He knows why his mother is staring at the blue bowl, and he doesn’t want to upset her in the middle of a memory.

  “So, please, Miguel,” his mother is saying, “just call her Tía Lola. Okay?”

  Miguel kind of nods, kind of just jerks his head to get his hair out of his eyes. It can go either way.

  It is the last day of January. Four weeks ago, during Christmas break, they moved from New York City into a farmhouse Mami rented from a Realtor by phone. Miguel and Juanita’s parents are getting a divorce, and Mami has been hired to be a counselor in a small college in Vermont. Papi is a painter who sets up department store windows at night in the city.

  Every morning, instead of walking to school as they used to do in New York City, Miguel and Juanita wait for the school bus by the mailbox. It is still dark when they board and drive down the dirt road, past their neighbor’s sheep farm to town. It is again dark when they get home at the end of the day and let themselves into the chilly house. Mami does not like the idea of Miguel and Juanita being alone without an adult, and that in large part is why she has invited Tía Lola to come for a visit.

  Why not ask Papi to come up and stay with them instead? Miguel wants to suggest. He doesn’t really understand why his parents can’t stay married even if they don’t get along. After all, he doesn’t get along great with his little sister, but his mother always says, “Juanita’s your familia, Miguel!” Why can’t she say the same thing to herself about Papi? But Miguel doesn’t dare suggest this to her These days, Mami bursts out crying at anything. When they first drove up to the old house with its peeling white paint, Mami’s eyes filled with tears.

  “It looks haunted,” Juanita gasped.

  “It looks like a dump,” Miguel corrected his little sister. “Even Dracula wouldn’t live here.” But then, catching a glimpse of his mother’s sad face, he added quickly, “So you don’t have to worry about ghosts, Nita!”

  His mother smiled through her tears, grateful to him for being a good sport.

  After some of the boxes have been cleared away, the family sits down to eat dinner. They each get to pick the can they want to bring to the table: Juanita chooses SpaghettiOs, their mother chooses red beans, and Miguel chooses a can of Pringles, “Only this one night, so we can finish getting settled for Tía Lola,” their mother explains about their peculiar dinner. Every night, she gets home so late from work, there is little time for unpacking and cooking. Mostly, they have been eating in town at Rudy’s Restaurant. The friendly, red-cheeked owner, Rudy, has offered them a special deal.

  “Welcome Wagon Special,” he calls it, “Three meals for the price of one and you guys teach me some Spanish,” But even Miguel is getting tired of pizza and hot dogs with french fries on the side.

  “Thanks for a yummy dinner, Mami,” Juanita is saying, as if their mother has cooked all the food and put it in cans with labels marked Goya and SpaghettiOs, then just now reheated the food in the microwave. She always sees the bright side of things, “Can I have some of those chips, Miguel?” she asks her brother.

  “This is my can,” Miguel reminds her.

  “But you can share,” his mother reminds him, “Pretend we’re at the Chinese restaurant and we share all the plates,”

  “We’re not Chinese,” Miguel says. “We’re Latinos” At his new school, he has told his classmates the same thing. Back in New York, lots of other kids looked like him. Some people even thought he and his best friend, José, were brothers. But here in Vermont, his black hair and brown skin stand out. He feels so different from everybody. “Are you Indian?” one kid asks him, impressed. Another asks if his color wears out, like a tan. He hasn’t made one friend in three weeks.

  “I didn’t say to pretend you’re Chinese,” his mother sighs, “just to pretend that you’re at a Chinese restaurant—” She suddenly looks as if she is going to cry.

  Miguel shoves his can of chips over to Juanita—anything to avoid his mother bursting into tears aga
in. She is staring down at her bowl as if she had forgotten it was there underneath her food the whole time. From that blue bowl, Miguel’s mother and father fed each other spoonfuls of cake the day they got married. There is a picture of that moment in the white album in the box marked ALBUMS/ATTIC that their mother says they might unpack sometime later in the distant future maybe.

  Juanita must have also noticed how sad Mami looks. She begins asking questions about Tía Lola because it makes their mother happy to talk about her favorite aunt back on the island where she was born. “How old is she, Mami?”

  “Who?”

  “Tía Lola, Mami, Tía Lola que vierte maņana” Juanita says in Spanish. It also makes their mother happy when they use Spanish words. Tia for “aunt.” maņana for “tomorrow.” Tía Lola who comes tomorrow. “Is she real old?”

  “Actually, nobody knows how old Tía Lola is. She won’t tell,” their mother says. She is smiling again. Her eyes have a faraway look. “She’s so young at heart, it doesn’t matter. She’ll be fun to have around.”

  “Is she married?” Juanita asks. Mami has told them they have tons of cousins back on the island, but are any of them Tía Lola’s kids?

  “I’m afraid Tía Lola never did get married,” Mami sighs. “But, kids, do me a favor. Just don’t ask her about it, okay?”

  “Why not?” Juanita wants to know.

  “It’s a sensitive issue,” her mother explains.

  Juanita is making her I don’t-understand-this-math-problem face. “But why didn’t she get married?”

  Miguel speaks up before his mother can answer. He doesn’t know how the thought has popped into his head, but it suddenly pops out of his mouth before he can stop it-“She didn’t get married so she wouldn’t have to get divorced ever,”

  Mami blinks back tears. She stands up quickly and leaves the room.

  Miguel studies the beans pictured on the outside of the can his mother has picked for dinner. One little bean has on a Mexican hat.

  “You made Mami cry!” Juanita blubbers tearfully and follows their mother out of the room.

  Miguel finds himself alone in a drafty kitchen with all the dirty bowls and plates to wash and the table to wipe. As he cleans up at the sink, he glances out the window at the frosty world outside. Up in the sky, the moon is just the tiniest silver sliver. It looks as if someone has gobbled up most of it and left behind only this bit of light for Miguel to see by.

  For the first time since he heard the news, he is glad his aunt is arriving tomorrow. It might be nice to have a fourth person—who is still talking to him—in the house, even if her name is Tia Lola.

  * * *

  The next morning at the airport, Miguel’s mother cannot find a parking space. “You kids, go in so we don’t miss your aunt, I’ll join you as soon as I find a spot,”

  “I’ll help you,” Miguel offers.

  “Miguel, amor, how can you help me? You don’t have a license. The cops’ll take you in if they catch you driving,” his mother teases.

  As nervous as Miguel is feeling about his aunt’s visit and his new school and their move to Vermont, he thinks he wouldn’t mind spending the next year all by himself in jail.

  “Por favor‘, honey, would you go inside with your sister and look for Tía Lola?” His mother’s sweetened-up voice is like a handful of chocolate chips from the package in the closet. Impossible to resist.

  “Los quiero mucho!” she calls out to both children as they clamber out of the car.

  “Love you, too,” Juanita calls back.

  The crowd swarms around them in the small but busy terminal.

  Juanita slips her hand into Miguel’s, She looks scared, as if all that Spanish she has been showing off to their mother has just left on a plane to South America. “You think we’ll recognize her?” she asks.

  “We’ll wait until somebody who looks like she’s looking for us comes out of the plane,” Miguel says. He sure wishes his mother would hurry up and find a parking spot.

  Several businessmen rush by, checking their watches, as if they are already late for whatever they have come for. Behind them, a grandma puts down her shopping bag full of presents, and two little boys run forward and throw their arms around her, A young guy turns in a slow circle as if he has gotten off at the wrong stop, A girl hugs her boyfriend, who kisses her on the lips, Miguel looks away.

  Where is this aunt of theirs?

  The crowd disperses, and still their aunt is nowhere in sight, Miguel and Juanita go up to the counter and ask the lady working there to please page their aunt, “She doesn’t know any English,” Miguel explains, “only Spanish,”

  The woman in the blue suit has so many freckles, it looks as if someone has spilled a whole bag of them on her face. “I’m sorry, kids. I took a little Spanish back in high school, but that was ages ago. Ill tell you what. I’ll let you page your aunt yourself.”

  “Shell do it.” Miguel nudges his sister forward. Even though he is older, Juanita is the one who is always showing off her Spanish to their father and mother.

  Juanita shakes her head. She looks scared. She looks about to cry.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of,” Miguel encourages, as if he himself has paged his aunt every day of his life.

  “That’s right, sweetie,” the woman agrees, nodding at Juanita. But Juanita won’t budge. Then, turning to Miguel, the woman suggests, “Seeing as she’s scared, why don’t you do it instead?”

  “I don’t speak Spanish.” It isn’t technically a lie because he doesn’t know enough to speak Spanish in public to a whole airport terminal.

  “You do, too,” Juanita sniffles. “He knows but he doesn’t like to talk it,” she explains to the airline lady.

  “Just give it a try,” the freckled lady says, opening a little gate so they can come behind the counter to an office on the other side-A man with a bald head and a tired face and earphones sits at a desk turning dials on a machine. The lady explains that the children need to page a lost aunt who does not speak any English.

  “Come here, son,” The man beckons to Miguel-“Speak right into this microphone-Testing, testing-” He tries it out-The man adjusts some knobs and pushes his chair over so Miguel can stand beside him.

  Miguel looks down at the microphone-He can feel his stomach getting queasy and his mind going blank-All he can remember of his Spanish is Tia Lola’s name and the word for “hello-”

  “Hola Tía Lola,” Miguel says into the microphone-Then, suddenly, the corny words his mother says every night when she tucks him into bed, the ones she has just called out when he and Juanita climbed out of the car, pop out-“Te quiero mucho.”

  Juanita is looking at him, surprised-Miguel scowls back-“It’s the only thing I remember,” he mutters-With all the stuff popping out these days, he’s going to have to get a brake for his mouth.

  “I remember more!” Juanita boasts. She steps forward, her fears forgotten, and speaks into the microphone. “Hold, Tía Lola,” she says in a bright voice as if she is on TV announcing sunny weather tomorrow. “Te esperamos por el mostrador” She and Miguel will be waiting by the counter. “Te quiero mucho” she closes, just as Miguel has done. I love you lots.

  As Miguel and his sister walk out of the office, they hear a tremendous shout. It isn’t a shout in Spanish, and it isn’t a shout in English. It’s a shout anyone anywhere would understand.

  Someone is mighty pleased to see them.

  On the other side of the counter stands their aunt Lola. You can’t miss her! Her skin is the same soft brown color as theirs. Her black hair is piled up in a bun on her head with a pink hibiscus on top. She wears bright red lipstick and above her lips she has a big black beauty mark. On her colorful summer dress, parrots fly toward palm trees, and flowers look ready to burst from the fabric if they can only figure out how.

  Behind their aunt, their mother is approaching in her hiking boots and navy-blue parka, her red hat and mittens. “Tía Lola!” she cries out. They hug and ki
ss and hug again. When Tía Lola pulls away, the beauty mark above her upper lip is gone!

  “Those two,” Tía Lola is saying in Spanish to Miguel’s mother as she points to him and Juanita, “those two gave me my first welcome to this country. !Ay, Juanita! jAy, Miguel!” She spreads her arms for her niece and nephew, “Los quiero mucho”

  It is a voice impossible to resist-Like three handfuls of chocolate chips from the package in the closet, a can of Pringles, and his favorite SpaghettiOs, all to himself For the moment, Miguel forgets the recent move, his papi and friends left behind in New York-When Tía Lola wraps her arms around him, he hugs back, just as hard as he can.

  Chapter Two

  Bienveniàa, Tía Lola

  Miguel cannot believe how much luggage his aunt has brought from the Dominican Republic!

  Two big suitcases, covered in plastic wrap. “Para mâs seguridad,” Tía Lola explains. For more security. She raises her eyebrows as if the crown jewels are packed inside.

  A box with a pinata, which Tía Lola says they should save for a special occasion.

  A duffel bag full of gifts from their cousins, aunts, and uncles.

  A tube with a rolled-up Dominican flag inside.

  A flowered carpetbag with Tía Lola’s cositas, her thises and thats.

  Miguel looks at the pile of luggage, which he has helped unload from the car. “How long did you say you were staying, Tía Lola?” he asks.

  “¿Qué dice?” Tía Lola wants to know what Miguel has asked.

  Miguel shakes his head and picks up a bag. He starts the long trek up the stairs to the room they have fixed up for his aunt.

  The next day, Tía Lola is still unpacking.

  “No sabia que traer, “ she explains. She didn’t know what to bring, so she brought a little of everything.

  First, Tía Lola unpacks a small case she has carried by hand. It is full of makeup and rollers, earrings and several jars with odd ingredients, which Mami says are probably potions. Tucked at the bottom is a bottle of Agua de Florida, which Tía Lola sprinkles around the room.

  “Why’d she do that?” Miguel asks his mother.