How Tia Lola Learned to Teach

by Julia Alvarez

  Later that morning, Papi takes Tía Lola and Juanita to lunch over at Abuelito’s and Abuelita’s. Miguel would love to see his grandparents, but Abuelita’s health is fragile. She has had one cold after another this winter. It’s probably best not to take any chances by bringing Miguel along, in case he is still contagious.

  “I don’t know about leaving you alone.” Papi worries. He has taken most of the week off from his day job, window-dressing department stores, to be with his children and their aunt. Although Papi isn’t usually that protective, he is still unsure about his new neighborhood. It was only January when he moved to Brooklyn to be closer to his parents and to Carmen. Recently, there have been a few incidents—roaming teens vandalizing properties and shoplifting from local stores. Not big-time serious gangs, but still.

  Miguel would just as soon stay alone in the apartment, especially given his plan to take off to Madison Square Garden once everyone is gone. He doesn’t know how to get there from Brooklyn, but he’s sure he can find out by asking. What was that saying his aunt told them in the car about going to Rome? Once there, he’ll find José and José’s papi and go in with them. The other four tickets they can sell.

  But just his luck: Carmen offers to take off at lunchtime from her job as a lawyer in a law firm to stay with Miguel. “I’m fine,” he keeps saying, but he is going to lose his voice all over again, protesting his good health.

  Just before they depart, Papi calls Carmen. She’s leaving the office right now, catching the subway. Papi and Tía Lola and Juanita can go ahead to lunch, as she’ll be there in less than twenty minutes.

  Finally, with one last round of Papi’s admonitions to lock and chain the door, not to open it to anyone except Carmen, to look in the peephole first, Papi and Tía Lola and Juanita depart. Miguel watches them as they come out the front door of the building, cross the street, and then turn at the corner and disappear. Quickly, he gets out of bed and puts on his clothes. As he is pulling on his Knicks sweatshirt, he feels a pang. Carmen is going to come back to the apartment and go crazy over his absence. Still, Miguel can’t let himself think about that. It’s their fault for being overly protective. He’s been housebound now for five days, and soon winter recess will be over and he’ll have spent his whole vacation in bed. Besides, he is leaving a note. He addresses it to Papi & Tía Lola & Juanita, and only as an afterthought adds & Carmen.

  Please don’t worry!!! I’m meeting José and his father at the game. I’ll be back as soon as it’s over. Miguel

  He props the paper on his pillow and feels his heart beating hard. This is really his first major act of disobedience, and he knows he will probably get in big trouble. But just the thought of his parents’ unfairness in denying him one single fun thing on his vacation puts him back on track. He strides out, turning only to check that the door is securely locked.

  Once on the chilly street, Miguel stops a man in a leather jacket and asks him, “Which way to Madison Square Garden?” The man shrugs. Either he doesn’t know or he doesn’t understand English.

  The next person he stops is an elderly woman walking a tiny dog and carrying a little bag and scooper. Someone that careful and tidy must know directions really well.

  “Madison Square Garden?” she repeats, narrowing her eyes as if she might see the complex from here in Brooklyn. “Let’s see. Madison Square Garden …,” she says again. “Madison Square Garden.” Perhaps she thinks that the more she repeats the name, the more likely she is to remember where it is. “What are you going to do at Madison Square Garden by yourself, young man?” she finally asks, sounding irritated, as if she’ll only make the effort to remember directions if Miguel can give her a good enough reason why he wants to go there.

  So much for Tía Lola’s saying that if you have a mouth, you can get to Rome. Miguel can’t even get to Manhattan from Brooklyn!

  He might as well start walking until he finds a subway station. Otherwise, Miguel is going to be standing in front of his father’s apartment building when Carmen arrives.

  But once he finds the familiar sign and descends, he discovers that the token booth is empty. A notice at the window directs customers to buy MetroCards at the machine. If he wants directions, he’d best head back up and try his luck at one of the little shops that line the street.

  As he bolts up the stairs, he smacks right into someone coming down. Miguel is about to apologize, but the next thing he knows, he has been slammed against the wall.

  “Watch where you’re going, brown boy!” A tough-looking guy, as brown as Miguel, is glaring down at him.

  “I didn’t see you,” Miguel tries explaining.

  “YOU DIDN’T SEE ME?!” the guy screams in his face. It’s now that Miguel notices that this guy has a whole group of his friends with him. But he is the toughest-looking of the bunch, though they all look tough enough, dressed in black with body piercings in places that look painful: nostrils, eyebrows, studs along the rims of their ears. “Whatcha mean, you didn’t see me?”

  Miguel feels his heart beating so strong that he’s afraid this mean guy will tell him to shut the thing up.

  “Come on, Rafi!” the girl clinging to his arm pleads. “Leave him alone. He’s just a little kid.”

  Normally, Miguel would take offense at this description of himself. After all, in four weeks, he’ll be eleven years old. But he’d just as soon have this tough think he’s Juanita’s age if that would make him leave Miguel alone.

  But the guy seems annoyed, being told what to do by his girlfriend. He gives Miguel another shove. “Kid? He’s no kid! How old are you, anyhow?” he growls.

  Miguel is sure that whatever he says, it will be the wrong answer. Besides, he can’t seem to find his voice. It’s as if his laryngitis has come back, big-time.

  “Rafi, come on, the train’s coming.…” The girlfriend yanks at Rafi’s arm. And sure enough, a train is rushing into the station with a deafening roar. But Rafi seems undecided whether to follow his girlfriend and buddies, who are ducking under the turnstile, or, like a cat with a mouse, keep playing with his terrified quarry.

  Just then the doors of the train whoosh open. Out of the corner of his eye, Miguel catches two sights that make his heart soar. The first is a pair of uniformed policemen disembarking, and right behind them, a face he never thought he would be so happy to see—Carmen’s!

  It takes her only a second to size up the situation. When she does, she springs into action, a lioness defending her cub. “GET AWAY FROM HIM!” she screams as she dashes through the turnstile, pulling something out of her bag. It’s the little canister of pepper spray she was showing off to Tía Lola the other night.

  But by the time she is ready to use the spray and Rafi has turned around to punch out whoever is telling him what to do, it’s too late. The policemen have tackled him: one has him in a neck hold, the other is clamping handcuffs on him. Meanwhile, Rafi is screaming foul language the likes of which Miguel has never heard before.

  By now, Carmen has raced to Miguel’s side to shield him from the kicks the panicked Rafi is throwing in the air. Over her shoulder, Miguel catches a last glimpse of the faces of the other gang members. Their mouths have dropped open—none of them looks so tough anymore; the girlfriend is crying black-mascara tears. The doors close. The train pulls out of the station, carrying them safely away from their vanquished leader.

  On the walk back to the apartment, Carmen slips her arm around Miguel, as if to protect him from any further thugs. She is unusually quiet. Probably she is still shaken, and more than a little angry at him. Miguel doesn’t blame her one bit. He wants to apologize, but the cat really has got his tongue. He can’t think of where to begin. Besides, he is waiting for the scolding he knows he has coming to him.

  He has to admit, Carmen was so brave, the way she threw herself in harm’s way to protect him. She also didn’t get him in trouble with the policemen by disclosing that Miguel had no business being outside of his father’s apartment by himself. In fact, she had
refused to press charges, saying that Rafi was just a kid who needed help. He probably didn’t have a nice family like Miguel’s to take care of him.

  “Thank you,” Miguel finally says after several minutes of silence. “You were awesome. I’m sorry.”

  Instead of lecturing him, she squeezes his arm. “If anything should happen to you, Miguel Ángel, I just …” She falls silent again, as if the worst thing that could happen to her would be if something happened to him.

  She hasn’t even asked, but Miguel knows he owes her an explanation. So he tells her: how much he really appreciated the tickets she’d gotten; how he didn’t want to miss the game; how he wanted to see his best friend, José; how he did leave a note. Even so, he knows he made a wrong decision and was being totally selfish. Papi and Tía Lola and Juanita would have been worried to death about him.

  “And Carmen, too,” she reminds him.

  “I’ll never do something stupid like that again, promise.”

  “Or at least tell me first, so I can run away with you next time!” Carmen is grinning when Miguel looks up at her.

  “Come on,” she says. “I’m going to call your mami and talk to her. She’s probably just worried because she’s far away. If she agrees, we’ll tear up your note and write a new one, telling your papi and Tía Lola and Juanita to meet us at Madison Square Garden. I’ll call José’s dad so he knows not to scalp our tickets. It’s worth trying, don’t you think?”

  Miguel can’t help but grin back. The way he’s feeling right now, even if they end up watching the game on TV, he’ll have a good time. Carmen will think of some way to make it fun. And if they do go, Miguel will be relieved of having to ask directions, because Carmen probably knows how to get to Madison Square Garden, as well as Rome, on her very own.

  lesson eight

  Nunca es tarde cuando la dicha es buena

  It’s never too late when you’re in luck

  (or something like that)

  Back in Vermont, winter drags on. The one bright spot is Miguel’s eleventh birthday at the end of March, but in twenty-four hours it’s gone!

  Then April begins, with one small step toward spring, four giant steps back into cold weather. The town grows grayer, the people paler. The few out on the streets move with slow steps so as not to slip on the icy sidewalks. The pace is so sluggish, the whole state could be in hibernation.

  But Rudy’s Amigos Café is rocking, the one lively, tropical spot for miles around. Every Wednesday it’s Spanish night, with the whole menu printed en español. Tía Lola helps with the cooking. She comes out of the kitchen with her big pot of tasty food, piling on seconds (for free). Afterward, the tables are pushed back and Tía Lola offers dancing lessons—salsa and merengue and cha-cha-cha—to work off all those extra servings nobody can resist.

  Between her school lessons and her restaurant lessons, Tía Lola is being kept muy, muy ocupada. Anyone in town can tell you what that means: very, very busy. In fact, the whole county is slowly becoming bilingual.

  “Tía Lola, not only did you learn to teach in school, you’ve learned to teach everywhere!” Juanita exclaims as she and her aunt ride to the bus to Bridgeport Elementary on a wintry morning—too cold for April, for heaven’s sake.

  Tía Lola smiles happily. “I have been so lucky,” she admits, shaking her head in disbelief. “I thought I would come to Vermont and be so lonely and sick for home. Instead, I am having the most fun I ever had in my whole life. I’ve seen Nueva York, and a ballet, and even a Kicky game!”

  “Knicks, Tía Lola,” Miguel calls from the back of the bus, where he’s sitting with Dean and Sam. His friends have heard all about his adventures in New York City, including his near-mugging in the subway. Of course, Miguel has used the imagination fifth graders are known for and touched up the incident, so it’s him jumping the turnstile, pulling out the pepper spray, with Rafi’s girlfriend pleading at his feet, “Please spare my boyfriend, please!”

  But one part of the story that Miguel hasn’t had to improve is how Carmen managed to convince Mami to let him go to the Knicks game. Not only that, Carmen and Mami have had several conversations since then. Miguel can tell that his mami now really and truly wants him and Juanita to get along with Carmen. In fact, Mami has admitted that the children’s father is lucky to have found a woman like Carmen to keep his feet on the ground. “Better her than me,” she has added, less generously.

  Tía Lola tries again. “Okay, okay, a Kee-nee-kee game!” But no matter how much you coach her, Tía Lola just can’t pronounce certain words in English. “I have been so lucky coming to Vermont, learning to teach at your school, making so many new amigos: el Rudy, la señora Stevens, la Mrs. Prouty, la jovencita Sweeney …” Tía Lola starts to count them, but suddenly, she stops. Nervously, she touches her forehead, her chest, her left shoulder, then her right, finally kissing her thumb.

  “What in the world are you doing, Tía Lola?” Juanita asks, mystified.

  “Just making the sign of the cross. To protect myself. It’s bad luck to boast about being lucky.”

  “But why?” Juanita is looking at Tía Lola like she just dropped in from outer space, not the Dominican Republic.

  “It’s one of our costumbres, you know—a custom from the old country, like our sayings,” Tía Lola explains.

  Juanita starts thinking back to when she might have boasted recently. But nothing bad happened after she came back from winter recess bragging about going to see the New York City Ballet with Ming and Carmen and Tía Lola. In fact, except for winter dragging on, her life is wonderful! At school, she has a really nice teacher and so many friends. And now that she pays attention in class, every day is an adventure.

  “But there have been many, many, many unlucky things, too,” Tía Lola says loudly, as if she wants to make sure that whoever might be in charge of punishing people for bragging about good luck hears about her bad luck, too. “¡Muchas cosas desagradables!” Many unpleasant things!

  Juanita knows she should be helping Tía Lola ward off bad luck, but she’s too curious. “I thought you were really happy here, Tía Lola. Like what bad things have happened?”

  Her aunt’s forehead furrows as she tries desperately to think of something to complain about. “Bueno, well … it has been cold for a long time.” Just then, a burst of sunlight splashes through the window, flooding the bus with summery warmth. Tía Lola sighs, giving up. There is no denying it. She has had a very lucky life lately.

  From the back of the bus comes the sound of Miguel’s voice reporting on some play by the Knicks at the Madison Square Garden game.

  “¡Ya, ya!” Tía Lola cries out. “I know what very unlucky thing has been happening: el inglés! Learning English is too hard. In the restaurante, the eggplant has no egg. The hamburger no ham. We serve dessert, but no one can desert the table to go to a desert because there are none in Vermont. More than one goose is ‘geese,’ but more than one moose is not ‘meese.’ No, no, no! Es muy difícil. It’s too hard to learn. ¡Me voy a volver loca aprendiendo inglés!”

  Is Tía Lola really going to go crazy learning English, or is she just saying so to ward off bad luck for bragging about her good luck? Just when Juanita is starting to worry about her aunt, Tía Lola winks. Her beauty mark, usually painted on the right side of her upper lip, dots her left cheek today. It makes Juanita smile to see it there. If Tía Lola were not in her life, Juanita would be a very unhappy, very unlucky girl, that’s for sure. Juanita squeezes her eyes shut and concentrates real hard. It’s her costumbre—instead of doing Tía Lola’s sign of the cross—to close her eyes and make a wish when she really needs good luck.

  That night, bad luck moves in like yet another cold front. Mami goes through the mail and finds a letter from the United States Department of Immigration saying that the visitor’s visa of María Dolores Milagros Santos is about to expire. She must report to her local immigration office and be prepared to leave the country immediately. Mami’s face gets as pale as a brown per
son’s face can get.

  “¿Qué pasa, Mami?” Juanita wants to know what’s wrong. Already her heart is beating hard, remembering the bad-luck conversation this morning on the bus.

  But Mami is too preoccupied to explain. “What do they mean, she has to leave immediately? But we applied … The lawyer said … How can they separate a family this way?”

  “Mami, who are you talking about?” Juanita asks desperately. It’s horrible when you see your parents in a panic but you don’t know what is upsetting them!

  “María Dolores Milagros Santos,” Mami explains unhelpfully. Then she must realize Juanita and Miguel have no idea who this person is. “Your tía Lola. That’s her real name.”

  No wonder Tía Lola is having bad luck, with a name like that! After all, dolores is the word for “sufferings” in Spanish. Imagine being named Sufferings! Of course, milagros means “miracles,” so maybe that cancels out the suffering? Juanita certainly hopes so.

  “No hay que ahogarse en un vaso de agua,” Tía Lola counsels calmly. Let’s not drown in a glass of water. This is what she always says when anyone gets too worked up about a small matter.

  But if Tía Lola has to leave them, that is a very big deal. “She’s like our grandmother,” Juanita says weepily.

  “Perhaps I can go and come back. You know, like I did last Christmas.”

  Mami shakes her head. “Remember what the lawyer told us? The visa was for sixteen months, no extensions. But he was going to apply for your residency card so you could stay. He said it shouldn’t be a problem when I explained you were like my mother. After we paid him all that money …” Mami’s voice trails away. She sinks down in her chair, defeated.

  Miguel has been sitting by, racking his brains about how to help his family. He has told the mugging story so many times that he has come to think of himself as a superhero. In fact, he has been awaiting the opportunity to truly rescue somebody. Here it is. But what to do? He hasn’t a clue.