by Emma Otheguy
ALSO BY EMMA OTHEGUY
Martí’s Song for Freedom
Pope Francis: Builder of Bridges
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Emma Otheguy
Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by Kailey Whitman
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Henry Holt and Company and to Jonathan Cape, an imprint of the Random House Group Limited, London, for permission to reprint an excerpt from “In Time of Cloudburst” by Robert Frost, from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright © 1936 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1964 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Used by permission of Henry Holt and Company and Jonathan Cape, an imprint of the Random House Group Limited. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Otheguy, Emma, author.
Title: Silver Meadows summer / Emma Otheguy.
Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. | Summary: “Eleven-year-old Carolina moves with her family from Puerto Rico to upstate New York, where she attends Silver Meadows camp with her cousin, finds an abandoned cottage, and reclaims parts of the life she left in Puerto Rico.” —Provided by publisher
Identifiers: LCCN 2018018399 | ISBN 978-1-5247-7323-6 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7324-3 (hardcover library binding) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7326-7 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Moving, Household—Fiction. | Family life—New York (State)—Fiction. | Artists—Fiction. | Cousins—Fiction. | Farms—Fiction. | Camps—Fiction. | Puerto Ricans—New York (State)—Fiction. | New York (State)—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.O87 Sil 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9781524773267
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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Contents
Cover
Also by Emma Otheguy
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Two
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Three
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
A Note on the Poets…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Para mis primos veraniegos,
y en particular
Daniel, Amaya, Alina, Arabella y Hugh
¡Qué descansada vida
la del que huye el mundanal ruïdo,
y sigue la escondida
senda por donde han ido
los pocos sabios que en el mundo han sido!
What a peaceful life!
To flee the hustle-bustle
and follow the hidden path
down which have traveled
the few wise men—who in this world have been!
—Fray Luis de León (1527–1591), “Vida retirada”
Carolina wondered why none of the adults had noticed how uncomfortable it was to stand around on this shadeless lawn. The sun poured down everywhere but under the big oak tree, where Carolina’s little brother, Daniel, was playing. She left the adults talking and squatted next to him.
“Look, Carolina,” Daniel said. “It’s like silver.” He skimmed his hand over the grass, scattering water droplets.
The grass was smooth and silky, and robed in a glistening layer of dew. “Liquid silver,” Carolina said. She liked the grass here in upstate New York; how it was thin and slippery, not hard like the grass at home. But even at the thought, Carolina felt a twinge in her heart. Guiltily, she spread her fingers and patted the top of the grass, letting the stalks tickle her lightly, willing herself to remember: short grass, wide stalks, and scratchy.
“I’m going to make a silver braid,” Daniel said, but his ripping and twisting wiped away the dew, and the blades of grass turned green and shiny in his hands.
Carolina found a twig and broke it into small pieces. “If you make another braid, we can build a bridge.” Gently, she pushed the little sticks into the ground, and balanced Daniel’s tiny braid on top of two of them.
“It’ll be for fairies,” Daniel said excitedly, ripping out three fresh pieces of grass, “with teeny-tiny feet.”
“We have to make boards for the bridge, otherwise it’ll be like a tightrope.” Carolina hunted for loose scraps of bark, sifting through the rocks and dirt at the foot of the tree for something that could be a board. She found a dry, rough chip of tree bark and wriggled onto her stomach to add it to the tiny bridge. As she grabbed for more grass to use as decoration, she felt a familiar rush, like all her blood was speeding to her fingers, to steady her hands and focus her mind. It was how she always felt when she started a new art project. Señora Rivón said that Carolina needed to relax, not to force her artwork so much, but Señora Rivón wasn’t here now, and anyway, Carolina wasn’t painting. It was wonderful, to be imagining with Daniel, to have her fingers moving again, twisting grass and making something tiny and magical. As soon as she got a minute alone, Carolina would draw a fairy on a bridge. Daniel would like that. Carolina rubbed the bark, trying to memorize the texture so she could draw it later.
She was so lost in their project that for a while she forgot everything. She forgot about the Realtor sign, and her boarded-up house in Puerto Rico, and her special spot that would now belong to someone else. Then a car door slammed shut, and Mami appeared, casting a long shadow over the lawn. She was carrying a suitcase in one hand.
“Can you two help Papi with the bags? He’s carrying a lot.”
Daniel ran ahead toward the car while Carolina scrambled to her feet. Mami put an arm around her. “What were you doing with Dani?” Mami asked as they walked to the car.
“Oh, you know,” Carolina said. “I was helping him make something with the grass. When I have time I’m going to draw him a fairy bridge.” She pulled the last suitcase from the trunk of the car and walked with Mami toward Tía Cuca and Uncle Porter’s house. “If we were at home I could paint it for him, at Señora Rivón’s.”
Mami sighed. “Mi amor, I know you miss Señora Rivón, but aren’t you a little old for this stuff? All these fairies and painting—it’s okay for Dani, but now that you’re eleven you need t
o keep your feet on the ground and help Mami and Papi, okay?”
It was one thing about the fairies, Carolina thought, but painting—Mami was the one who had noticed Carolina drawing and taken her to Señora Rivón four years ago. She’d sat with Carolina in Señora Rivón’s studio and sipped a soft drink while Señora Rivón told Carolina about learning to paint. Carolina remembered condensation gathering on the red soda can and dripping onto Mami’s red-painted fingernails. Mami complained later that she would melt in that sunny studio, but every Tuesday since then, she had driven Carolina to her lessons, and never once waited in the car. Mami was the one who always came inside to see Carolina’s progress.
“Okay, Caro?” Mami said, calling her by her nickname.
Carolina nodded but said nothing. She and Mami were the last ones in the house, and Uncle Porter shut the door behind them. The door had rubber strips around it, so when you opened it there was a sound like a plunger, and when you closed it, a whoosh. Carolina waited for Uncle Porter to turn the lock, but he didn’t. She frowned. Their house in Puerto Rico had a locking iron gate in front of a door that also locked. They had kept the windows open for the breeze, but the door they locked. Then again, locked or unlocked, once Uncle Porter pulled the door shut, this house seemed completely sealed.
Tía Cuca put down Daniel’s bag next to the staircase. “Do you want the tour now?”
“Oooh! Yes!” Mami gushed.
Carolina shivered and rubbed her arms. Goose bumps prickled her skin.
Uncle Porter must have seen Carolina shivering, because he stopped and cocked his head to the side. “Are you cold?” He glanced at the thermostat on the wall, and Carolina could see his bald spot. “It’s probably silly for us to keep it this cool. But it’s our first house with central air. Once the summer really gets going, you’ll be happy for it, trust me.”
Carolina nodded, trying to smile. She hadn’t seen Uncle Porter in three years, and she had been only eight then. She didn’t remember talking to him on that trip—he had just seemed like another piece of Tía Cuca.
Mami put a hand on Carolina’s shoulder. “She’s fine, Porter. Aren’t you, Carolina?” There was a tightness to Mami’s grip on her shoulder that made Carolina smile even wider, that made her clear her throat and find her voice.
“Yes—I’m great.”
Mami went ahead into the kitchen, but Papi hung behind. “Why don’t you go get a sweater from your suitcase?” he suggested quietly.
Carolina nodded gratefully and slipped back to the entry. She laid her suitcase flat and unzipped it. A smell of home, of fresh linens, of violets layered over dampness, rose from inside. Afraid the scent would escape into this scentless house, Carolina grabbed a sweater and quickly shut the suitcase and rolled it into a corner. The suitcases seemed all wrong in this sparse entry. Carolina loved for things to be neat and orderly, but there was something unnatural about the cleanness of this house. On the drive from the airport, Uncle Porter had told her the house had just been built and even the street was new. A year ago, this area had been a tangle of dirt back roads. Still, Carolina wondered whether the air-conditioning sucked away dust and clutter, leaving behind a house that would forever feel vast and hollow.
* * *
—
Carolina counted forks out of a kitchen drawer. “Should I set a place for Gabriela?” Carolina was trying to be helpful, even though she didn’t know where anything went, and there were so many drawers and cabinets in this kitchen that she kept having to ask.
“Of course! She’ll be home soon!” Tía Cuca always talked in exclamations, as if everything Carolina said was just delightful. “She’s excited to see you; it’s just that since we moved to this house she’s been over at her friend Alyssa’s constantly. We’ve never been walking distance from her friends before!”
“I’m excited to see her too,” Carolina said, but her words got lost in Mami’s enthusiastic shouts from the other side of the kitchen.
“I can’t believe it’s been three years! Caro, it’ll be perfect—you’ll get to meet all of Gabriela’s friends!” To Tía Cuca, Mami said, “Caro’s never had many friends; she keeps to herself too much.”
Caro fumbled with the spoons, wishing Mami wouldn’t talk about her like that, as if she weren’t there at all.
“I don’t understand,” Mami went on. “When I was her age, all I wanted to do was be with other kids, but Caro is always alone.”
“Ay, no te preocupes tanto,” Tía Cuca interjected. Don’t worry so much. It was true that Caro hadn’t been close to the kids at her school, but she didn’t see what was wrong with that. She’d had artwork and Daniel to keep her company. She had never been lonely.
She grabbed another place setting from the drawer and left Mami and Tía Cuca to it. She set the table in the kitchen. There, sliding glass doors led to a deck overlooking the yard. Uncle Porter had suggested they eat out on the deck, but Tía Cuca had complained that there were too many bugs. Carolina couldn’t quite believe Tía Cuca was afraid of bugs: Mami certainly wasn’t. Sometimes Tía Cuca and Mami seemed so similar that they blended together, their loud and happy voices talking at once, their wide and toothy smiles matching perfectly. But other times Carolina couldn’t believe they were sisters, that Tía Cuca, too, had grown up in Puerto Rico, and not in some sealed-off house in upstate New York.
“Hey, everyone.”
Carolina looked up, and they all stopped what they were doing.
Gabriela stood in the entry with a tote bag slung over one shoulder. She pulled out her earbuds and strode across the room to give Mami and Papi a hug. She waved at Tía Cuca and Uncle Porter as if they were strangers in the park and not her parents, then hugged Carolina awkwardly.
Gabriela was longer than Carolina remembered. She had long legs, and long black hair. She wore dangly earrings, and a neon-green Is It Friday Yet? T-shirt. The braces she’d worn were gone, and now Gabriela had a smile as big as Tía Cuca’s.
Mami couldn’t wait to talk to Gabriela. “Your mom told me you love living closer to your friends!”
“It is nice. Our old house was all the way out in the country. Plus now we have all this space.” Gabriela grinned.
Mami laughed. “Which you barely got to enjoy before we showed up to crowd you.” Mami reached into her purse. “Here, we brought you a little something.”
“Ana, you shouldn’t have!” Tía Cuca called from the counter, where she was loading chicken onto a platter.
“It’s really nothing,” Mami said.
“Thank you,” said Gabriela as she tore the pink-and-black wrapping off the package, letting the paper fall to the floor. Tía Cuca, on her way to the table with the chicken, snatched up the paper in a flash and tossed it in the recycling.
“A Chiquifancy cell phone case! Neat!” Gabriela was already popping the old glitter case off her phone and replacing it with the one Mami had brought her.
“I heard you were a fanatic, Gabs, and that you had your own phone, so it made sense.”
Gabriela stuck her phone back in her pocket, letting her earbuds dangle over her shoulders. “Yeah, I’ve had a phone for two years. Time for an upgrade, right, Daddy?” Gabriela winked dramatically at Uncle Porter.
Carolina waited for Mami’s famous lecture, the one Mami had practiced on Caro and Dani every year before school started, about how no kid should need their own phone before high school. At Carolina’s old school in Puerto Rico, where Mami had been a seventh-grade teacher until just a few weeks ago, that speech was famous. Mami had slides and statistics to back it up and everything.
But instead of launching into her preprogrammed lecture, Mami smiled brightly.
Carolina stared at Mami, wondering if she was listening to herself, if she knew what she was saying, or if she was just that determined to be chipper. More importantly, Carolina wanted to know when Mami had started c
alling Gabriela Gabs. They’d been in New York for only a couple of hours.
Gabriela popped her earbuds back in her ears and helped set the table, singing Chiquifancy lyrics under her breath and wiggling her hips as she rummaged for napkins.
Chiquifancy was so popular you couldn’t walk down the street without someone singing Canta, y baila, y cha-cha conmigo and dancing the Fancy, Chiqui’s signature dance. Mami said they should be proud that a Puerto Rican was so popular, but privately Carolina had hoped that kids in New York would be less into the Fancy, which always made her feel clumsy and slow. No such luck. Chiquifancy was officially everywhere.
Uncle Porter sidled up next to Gabriela, pretending to dance, but with so little rhythm that Carolina laughed out loud. He plucked Gabriela’s earbud out of her ear. “Dinnertime!”
Tía Cuca insisted on serving everyone, even though Mami protested that even Daniel was perfectly capable of passing things around. When everyone was eating, Tía Cuca launched into camp talk. “Gabriela, you should introduce Carolina to Alyssa and Jamie tomorrow, okay?”
Carolina swirled her lettuce around in a puddle of dressing. She could tell from Gabriela’s quick up-and-down scan that her cousin was sizing her up, and suddenly, her old school’s uniform polo seemed childish. Carolina wanted to blurt out that she didn’t usually wear uniform stuff in the summer, that all their other clothing had been packed, but she kept her mouth shut.
Gabriela flipped her shiny hair over her shoulder. “Yeah. I’ll introduce you to Alyssa and Jamie.”
Uncle Porter grabbed Gabriela’s hand and said teasingly, “So you and Alyssa painted your nails pink to get ready for farm camp? I’m sure the cows will appreciate your style.”