Oh boy, Miguel thinks. It’s always worrisome when your parents take the long way down memory lane.
“Your mother made a lot of sacrifices. It was she who finished college and got her master’s and held down a job so I could paint.” The napkin has been folded down to such a tiny square, it might just disappear. Maybe it’s not an origami project but a magic vanishing act, Miguel thinks, wishing he could vanish. He doesn’t want to think about what’s coming.
“It’s really because of the mistakes I made that I’m sure I’ll be a much better husband the second time around.”
“So are you and Mami going to get married again?” Juanita asks excitedly. But suddenly, her face falls. “What about Carmen?”
Papi smiles in spite of himself.
“No, no, mi’jita,” Papi tells his little daughter. “Mami and I—Our marriage, well, it’s over. Sometimes we make mistakes and there’s no going back to correct them. But we can learn from them and make better choices in the future.”
“Like me losing the treasure hunt for my team but learning to pay attention,” Juanita says, nodding.
“Exactly.” Papi nods back, even though he can’t know what Juanita is talking about. But Papi doesn’t wait for an explanation. Soon the weekend will be over. He has some important news for them. “So, what I want to tell you is that I’m ready to be married.”
A long silence follows this statement. Miguel attacks his own napkin, except instead of folding and refolding it, he is twisting it tight, wringing its neck.
“So, what do you kids think of Carmen?” Papi asks, like he’s changing the subject to some totally unrelated question.
At least Juanita doesn’t seem to catch on. “I love Carmen!” She says it so loud that some people turn in their booths to see what the little brown girl is so excited about.
“And you, mi’jo?” Papi asks delicately after waiting some seconds to hear what Miguel has to say.
But Miguel can’t seem to find his tongue. He looks down at the napkin in his lap. He has managed to rip it apart, and has a piece in each hand.
“S’okay, mi’jo,” Papi says. “I understand you need to get used to the idea. But it would mean a lot to me if you could learn to love Carmen. She thinks the world of you, you know.”
Miguel nods but keeps his head down. She thinks the world of the whole world, he wants to say. But he knows that would hurt his papi.
In the midafternoon, Papi and Carmen say their goodbyes. Miguel gives Carmen a goodbye handshake, which she turns into a heartfelt hug.
“Hey, Miguel Ángel, thanks again for a wonderful visit!” she gushes.
“Thank you for coming,” he says, glancing toward his mami.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!” Carmen gives him another hug.
“It was fun,” Miguel concedes. It is hard to resist Carmen’s enthusiasm.
At dinner, Mami queries them about “your breakfast meeting with your father.” It bugs Miguel how his parents talk about each other like they themselves were never related. Your mother. Your father.
“He talked about learning from mistakes, like me not paying attention in class, but now I do,” Juanita says, going on to give a garbled account of how Papi learned so much from being married to Mami.
“I’ll say,” Mami mutters. She doesn’t like to criticize their father in front of them, but sometimes she can’t help herself.
“He said you’re the greatest!” Juanita adds.
Mami replies with a hmph, then bites her lip to prevent any further criticism from coming out.
“Ay, querida,” Tía Lola reminds her dear niece, “Daniel has grown up a lot. Remember, los tropezones hacen levantar los pies!”
“Stumbling might have taught him to pick up his feet, but meanwhile, what about the people he’s stepped on along the way?”
Tía Lola must have a dozen sayings about forgiveness, but she says nothing. Sometimes you just have to let people express their hurt feelings. Mami would be the first to tell them that.
Mami folds her napkin and places it beside her uneaten plate of food. Then she hurries from the room, wiping her eyes on her sleeve since she doesn’t have Tía Lola’s handkerchief handy.
“Your mami will be just fine!” Tía Lola reassures them. “Those tears are just washing away the past so she can begin again, too.”
“Did Papi really step on her, Tía Lola?” Juanita’s bottom lip is quivering.
Tía Lola is shaking her head. “Let me put it this way: they both made the mistake of getting married too young. Afterward, they found out they disagreed on a whole bunch of things. But they would both agree on one thing: if they hadn’t made that mistake, they would have missed out on having the two most wonderful kids! No hay mal que por bien no venga.”
Every bad thing has something good in it.
“Is that like ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’?” Juanita wants to know.
Tía Lola looks surprised. “I had no idea that clouds had silver inside them.” This must be science she never learned because she never went past fourth grade. So Miguel and Juanita have to explain. It’s a saying, just like the ones she has been teaching them in Spanish.
“Don’t you love sayings?” Tía Lola says after laughing at herself. “They really help you to remember wise things.”
At the door, Mami has reappeared, her face shy with an apology. “Sorry, everybody. I just want you to know I made some mistakes, too.”
“But you are picking up your feet, right, Mami?” Juanita says.
“And how,” Mami says, kicking her heels up in the air just like Mr. Flamingo, now dangling from a ceiling hook at Amigos Café.
lesson six
En todas partes cuecen habas
Everywhere, people cook beans
Now that Juanita is paying attention, she has made so many friends at school. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that Juanita is related to Tía Lola, whom everybody loves. It’s just too bad that Juanita’s birthday is in September, too early in the school year for her to have made a whole lot of friends. But now, midyear, could she ever throw the greatest party—even better than Rudy’s!
Maybe she can have a half-year birthday party? But she isn’t turning eight and a half until March. And it’s now, in frigid February, that a birthday party would be most welcome.
“Tía Lola, what do you say I have an almost-eight-and-a-half-year-old birthday party?” Juanita proposes to her aunt as they are riding the bus to school on one of Tía Lola’s teaching days.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea! We need a party every week in this kind of weather.”
Juanita gazes up lovingly at her aunt. The wonderful thing about Tía Lola is that she thinks like a kid, but being a grown-up, she can actually make wishes come true.
“So when should we have the party?” her aunt asks. “When you turn eight and a half or now?”
Juanita doesn’t have to think about it. “Now!”
Tía Lola laughs in total agreement. “No dejes para mañana lo que puedas hacer hoy.”
“We have the same saying in English! ‘Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today.’ ” Juanita is so excited when English and Spanish actually match. Usually they don’t because each language is like a fingerprint, totally unique.
“The Americans must have copied us!” Tía Lola says, not doubting for a second that Spanish speakers think of everything first.
“But, Tía Lola, how can you be sure?”
“Un pajarito me lo dijo.” Tía Lola winks playfully.
“We also have that saying! ‘A little bird told me.’ ” Juanita is amazed. It’s like when a baby discovers that the hands at the ends of her arms belong to her and she can move them all by herself. “That one you copied from us, right?” Juanita teases back. It’s a game now: What came first, the Spanish saying or the English one?
“I think we both copied it from the little birds,” Tía Lola remarks, laughing. “By the way, I haven’t seen a bird in a long tim
e.”
“Tía Lola!” Juanita narrows her eyes. She isn’t sure whether her aunt is still teasing her. “You do know that most birds go south in the winter, right?” She watches her aunt’s face, trying to figure out if Tía Lola already knows this.
But Tía Lola’s face is hard to read. “I guess those little birds forgot to tell me before they left!” Just when Juanita is convinced that her aunt missed out on basic science by not going past fourth grade, Tía Lola winks. “Maybe they were chirping in English and I didn’t understand?”
It’s Mami who vetoes the half-birthday-party idea. “I don’t mind a party party,” she explains. “But if you call it a birthday party, people will feel they have to bring a gift.”
Exactly, Juanita thinks.
“And if everyone in the world starts having half birthday parties as well as full birthday parties, we’ll never save enough money to buy a house.”
Juanita loves the idea that they might someday actually have their very own house. But she also hates the idea of moving out of this wonderful old one, with so many nooks and crannies, and an attic with a little bedroom for Tía Lola, and a long staircase with a sliding banister, and a big bay window at the landing. “Does Colonel Charlebois want this one back?”
“No, he still wants to keep renting to us. It just makes more economic sense for us to buy rather than rent,” Mami explains unhelpfully. When Mami or Papi starts talking about mortgages or income taxes, Juanita is just glad she can wait until she’s older to find out about all that stuff.
“Okay.” Juanita lets out a long sigh. “I suppose my half birthday will go by just like any other stupid day.…” As she heads out of the room, her little shoulders droop with the burden of not getting her way.
Upstairs, she delivers the news to Tía Lola, who instantly puts on her magic thinking cap. It’s not a real cap, just a look on her face where you can almost see grand thoughts parading across her forehead.
“Let’s see … what other kind of party can we throw in febrero? I know a good one for the end of February! We can celebrate carnaval!”
“What’s that?” Juanita doesn’t feel too hopeful if it’s some holiday she has never heard of. She herself was thinking of Valentine’s Day.
“You’ve never heard of carnaval? All the more reason to have a party, then! Carnaval is huge back home. It’s a big celebration right before Lent.”
“What’s Lent?” Juanita wants to know.
Tía Lola looks at her niece in total disbelief. “Your parents were young not to teach you these things! Bueno, Tía Lola will! Más vale tarde que nunca.”
Before Juanita can tell her aunt that “Better late than never” is also a saying in English, Tía Lola winks. “Don’t tell me! You have the same one in English, too. And I know you didn’t copy it from us or we from you. It’s because we’re all one human family, even if we speak different languages and come from different countries. Like the saying says: En todas partes cuecen habas.”
Everywhere, people cook beans? “That’s one I never heard before in English, Tía Lola,” Juanita admits. “What does it mean?”
“There are certain things that people everywhere in the world do, like cook beans or have babies or dream dreams or fall in love.”
“Or want birthday parties,” Juanita joins in dreamily, “and half birthday parties and lots and lots of wonderful presents.…” Juanita imagines a Chinese girl and an African girl and a French girl and a Mexican girl, all wishing for a birthday party with lots and lots of gifts.…
The thought of a Mexican girl reminds Juanita of Ofie. Last week, Ms. Sweeney’s room had a sharing circle about birthdays. When it was her turn, Ofie told the class that she had never had a birthday party because she can’t have friends over on account of her parents being Mexicans.
What in the world does having Mexican parents have to do with not having friends over? Juanita wondered. She would have asked, but Milton’s hand had already shot up. This time, however, Ms. Sweeney did not pause for questions. In fact, she hurried on to somebody else’s birthday story.
Thinking back now on Ofie’s story, Juanita feels lucky. Not only can she have friends over for sleepovers and playdates, but she has had a birthday party with gifts once a year all her life, for as long as she can remember.
“Do Mexicans celebrate carnaval, Tía Lola?” Juanita wants to know.
“Why, of course!” Tía Lola says. “Why do you ask?”
So Juanita explains about Ofie never having had a birthday party in her life. “So if we have carnaval, Ofie’ll get to celebrate a holiday her family would have celebrated back in Mexico.”
Now it’s Tía Lola who is gazing lovingly at her niece. “You are an angel, you know that?”
“No, I’m not, Tía Lola. Miguel is the Ángel!” Juanita grins. She is proud of herself for thinking of this little joke.
But Tía Lola keeps shaking her head as if to say, I know an angel when I see one, even if her name is Juana Inés.
Mrs. Stevens thinks the idea of a school-wide carnaval celebration is fantástico. Every year, Bridgeport Elementary has a talent show or a candy sale to raise money for field trips. So this year, let it be a carnaval. A great way to complement the Spanish lessons Tía Lola has been giving.
Soon the whole school is learning all about carnaval in Spanish class. How it comes right before Lent, a time of year when you give up fun stuff and fast, which means you don’t pig out on anything and you think about how to be a better person. But right before the start of this thoughtful time of year, you have one last celebration, called carnaval, in which you eat lots of yummy food and party and dance and have tons of fun. And the best part is that everyone dresses up in a costume, which is cool, like having another Halloween in the middle of winter!
Milton raises his hand. “Can we use our Halloween costumes?”
“Of course you can,” Ms. Sweeney says. She must see some worry flash across Ofie’s face, because she adds, “But you don’t have to dress up if you don’t want to. Am I right, Tía Lola?”
Tía Lola nods vigorously. “The point is to have a party. Everybody in the world loves a party!” The class claps wildly, proving Tía Lola right. “En todas partes cuecen habas,” she adds, but even Milton is too excited to ask Juanita for a translation.
Yes, Juanita is thinking, everywhere in the world people love to party. It’s kind of nice to have something happy the whole world can share—besides beans, which, Juanita hates to tell her aunt, are not among her favorite things.
“I’ve been thinking about your little friend Ofie,” Tía Lola says to Juanita on their ride home on the bus. They’ve already gone by the farm where Ofie gets off with her older sister, María, and the farmer’s son, Tyler. “You said her birthday was in August?”
Juanita nods. Ms. Sweeney wrote everyone’s birth date on the big calendar, but since Ofie’s was in the summer, Juanita didn’t pay that much attention. “I think it was like the last week in August.”
“That means her half birthday is in late February, which is about the same time as carnaval, so what I was thinking—”
“That’s a great idea!” Juanita interrupts Tía Lola. It’s as if Juanita were a mind reader, because she knows exactly what her aunt was about to suggest. Why not make the carnaval fiesta also be Ofie’s half birthday party?! And since the celebration is at school, Ofie doesn’t have to worry about having friends over.
But there is only one other problem. Mami has vetoed the idea of half birthdays. If you do it for one kid, every kid in the world will want one.
“I have a feeling your mother will make an exception in this case,” Tía Lola says. “Toda regla tiene su excepción.”
“I know,” Juanita says. “We have that saying, too.” There is an exception to every rule, in Spanish, in English—in fact, everywhere in the world.
A day later, when Tía Lola boards the bus with Juanita, they sit across the aisle from Ofie and her big sister, María. “So what would you like to dr
ess up as for carnaval?” Tía Lola asks the girls.
The sisters exchange a glance. “We don’t have costumes,” Ofie speaks up. “We’re not allowed to dress up for Halloween or beg for treats. We have to come straight home after school.”
“Those are the rules, I know,” Tía Lola says. “But we’re talking about wishes.”
The girls’ faces soften. They, too, love this special aunt. All their own tías are back in Mexico, Ofie has told Juanita.
“I would be a princess,” the older one, María, says shyly, then looks down, embarrassed.
“I would be a princess, too,” Ofie says, “or a mermaid.”
“Wonderful choices.” Tía Lola smiles approvingly.
“I was a princess last Halloween and a mermaid the year before that,” Juanita pipes up. “You guys want to wear my old costumes for the carnaval at school?”
The girls’ faces light up. “Really?” Ofie asks in an awed whisper.
“I don’t think they’ll fit us.” María is older, more doubtful. But her face betrays such longing, Juanita would hate to disappoint her.
“I can alter them, no problem,” Tía Lola explains. “I worked many, many years as a seamstress.” In fact, last summer she sewed all the uniforms for Miguel’s baseball team.
“Can we really borrow them?” Ofie says, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
It’s only now that Juanita realizes she has left herself high and dry. Unless her mother buys her a new costume—and Mami is saving for a new house—Juanita will have nothing to wear for carnaval herself. But seeing these two sisters so happy makes her reckless. For a moment, she understands how fairy godmothers must feel all the time.
“So what are you going to wear as your costume?” Miguel asks Juanita after the girls have gotten off the bus. He’ll probably just dress as Big Papi in his number 34 Red Sox jersey.
How Tia Lola Learned to Teach Page 5