Silver Meadows Summer

by Emma Otheguy

  Gabriela rolled her eyes. “Daddy, Alyssa and I are too old to do farm stuff at camp anyway. Lydia lets us just hang out and talk. We’ll be the oldest campers this year, remember?”

  Uncle Porter clapped his hand to his heart in mock surprise. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re thirteen? I think I almost forgot for five minutes!”

  “Thirteen!” Tía Cuca wailed. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “It’s not like it’s news,” Gabriela said. “My birthday was four months ago.”

  “Still.” Tía Cuca shook her head. “I just can’t believe that next summer we won’t have a reason to visit Silver Meadows every day.”

  Mami was twisting the small hairs at the back of her neck, holding her head at an angle. “Maybe Carolina and Dani will go again next year.”

  Carolina was almost glad to see Mami so uncertain—not that she liked seeing Mami nervous, but in it Carolina saw a glimmer of hope: maybe they wouldn’t stay. Mami and Papi kept telling her it was permanent, that Papi would find a job and they would get their own house in New York. But then, there was that kernel of uncertainty in Mami’s tone: maybe Carolina and Dani would go to Gabriela’s camp next summer. Or maybe they’d be back in Puerto Rico, back at home where they belonged.

  Uncle Porter started clearing the table. “I just hope Lydia is still up for running this whole operation next summer.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be?” Gabriela asked.

  “It’s a lot of work to keep up a farm,” Uncle Porter said.

  “Oh, but it’s so nice!” Tía Cuca said. She turned to Carolina and Dani. “You kids will love it. Lydia treats all the kids like her own family.”

  “I’ve never been on a farm before.” Carolina tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “Lydia will make you feel right at home. The farm isn’t far from our old place; we used to visit all year round, and I can tell you that Lydia is just the sweetest.”

  “What kind of animals does she have?” Daniel chirped. “I like chickens, but I’m not petting any pigs.” He held a finger out at Tía Cuca. “I mean it. No pigs.”

  Everyone laughed, including Tía Cuca.

  “Dani, how do you even know you like chickens?” Carolina asked.

  “I just do,” Dani said. “They go co-co-co!”

  “It’s bok-bok-bok in English,” Mami corrected him, and Dani took off into the other room, flapping his arms and clucking all the way.

  “She mostly has cows,” Uncle Porter said to the air.

  “I don’t get it,” Carolina said. Her ears turned hot as everyone put down the plates and platters they were carrying to listen. “Umm—” she stammered, wishing she hadn’t said anything. “You don’t even like bugs, Tía Cuca. But you like farms?”

  For some reason, everyone thought this was hysterically funny, and Caro stood shifting her weight from one foot to the other until Tía Cuca answered. “I’m not much of an outdoors person, you’re right. And Lydia does like to get you kids out and about on the farm—”

  “She’ll have you muck out the barn and everything,” Uncle Porter added.

  “But I love Lydia and I love that there’s a camp right in Larksville because of her—the only other camp is three towns over,” Tía Cuca went on.

  “Besides, the fresh air is good for you,” Uncle Porter added.

  “I’m sure Caro will have a great time,” Mami concluded. “Especially since she’ll be with Gabriela. We’re very grateful to all of you.”

  Carolina tried to make her face look grateful, and not nervous. She noticed Papi smiling at her, but before she could smile back he dropped his gaze to his hands, so that Carolina smiled only to his hair, thick and black.

  * * *

  —

  As they made their way upstairs after dinner, Tía Cuca slipped her arm around Carolina’s waist. “Let me show you the room we chose for you.”

  Except she said show like choe, and Gabriela groaned from behind them. “Ma, it’s show. Shhhh. Got it?”

  Mami shook her head. “I do that, too, Cuca, even though I’m an English teacher!”

  Tía Cuca laughed, and squeezed Carolina a little tighter, so that Carolina’s face touched her aunt’s hair. It smelled flowery, with a hint of that metallic scent from hair dryers, and Carolina was relieved when Tía Cuca let her go and turned the knob to a door in the corner. “This is your room, Caro!”

  Carolina must have jumped away from Tía Cuca too quickly, because Mami frowned. Gracias? she mouthed from behind Cuca.

  “Oh—yeah,” Carolina said. “I mean, umm—”

  Gabriela’s eyes shot up, and Carolina cringed, realizing how awkward she sounded. She paused for a minute, then took a deep breath. “Thank you, Tía Cuca. It’s wonderful.”

  It had taken her a minute to find the words in English. It wasn’t that it was hard to speak English, she spoke it okay, but here it was relentless. It made her tired. She realized that since Gabriela had gotten home, the only words she’d heard in Spanish were Chiquifancy lyrics. Uncle Porter and Gabriela didn’t speak Spanish, and around them her family’s normal back-and-forth between Spanish and English evaporated.

  Alone in the room, Carolina sighed and pulled her sketchbook out of her backpack. She laid it flat on the bare desk, and looked around for a cup or a mug to keep her pencils, but couldn’t find anything. The room was tidy, and the furniture was sparse: a nightstand with a lamp, a bed with a sky-blue comforter. She sat down and spaced her pencils out around the desk, just to fill the empty space.

  She made some light lines on the page, envisioning the fairy bridge she’d wanted to draw for Daniel. After a few minutes, she tossed her pencil down on the paper and crossed her arms.

  The paper felt so small, the pencil strokes too light and stiff. At Señora Rivón’s, the easels had held canvases, big ones, large enough that Carolina had moved her whole arm, her whole body even, with every brushstroke. She remembered the wet paint, how it glided, how it felt like dancing, sliding the color this way and that.

  Sternly, Carolina told herself to make do, and pushed the memory out of her mind. She picked up the pencil and drew Daniel’s bridge.

  Papi poked his head in. “Qué descansada vida,” he remarked, and kissed her good night. Papi was like that, always quoting poetry. Every time he saw Carolina drawing, he’d say Qué descansada vida—What a peaceful life. It was from a poem about fleeing the hustle and bustle, and following a hidden, secret path. Papi thought it described Carolina perfectly, and maybe it did. After Papi closed the door, she drew an opening in the trees beyond Daniel’s fairy bridge, a secret path all her own.

  “Caro?”

  Carolina dropped her pencil in surprise. “Dani! Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

  “Um, it’s a little too quiet in my room. I thought it would be better in here. But it’s not.”

  “I know what you mean.” Their house in Puerto Rico had been open and airy, with overhead fans and a breeze from the patio to cool them off, and carry in the noises from outdoors: the traffic from the main road, just past the gate that separated their little community from the rest of San Juan, and the coquís, the tiny brown frogs that lived in their yard and sang all night long.

  Their house was locked up now, and the gate around the front yard and the terraza, the porch in the back, had been padlocked shut. Mami and Papi were going to sell the house: before they left, Mami’s cousin Conchita had buried a statue of Saint Joseph upside down in the ground. She’d told Mami it would help the house sell quickly.

  Carolina shivered. Daniel was right: it was quiet, so quiet here. Just the constant sound of the central air, and nothing else. She picked up Daniel and carried him to his room, where she tucked him in tight.

  “Close your eyes and pretend you’re on the terraza at home,” she told him.

  Daniel popped open o
ne eye. “Maybe you could draw me a picture. So I don’t forget?”

  “Tomorrow,” Carolina promised. “Now imagine the tiles, the blue-and-white ones. Imagine the wind chimes jingling, and birds swooping through. The goldfish are swimming in the little fountain, splashing the virgencita.”

  Daniel’s body relaxed. It had been his job to feed the goldfish that swam around the statue of Mary.

  “Now imagine it’s night. All the birds have flown away, and Papi turned off the lights. Co-quí.” Carolina imitated the sound of the little brown frogs, repeating the two syllables they made again and again: “Co-quí, co-quí.”

  Even after Daniel fell asleep, Carolina kept repeating that sound, until she ran out of voice, and the rattling of the air around them filled her ears.

  The farther they got from Tía Cuca and Uncle Porter’s house, the older the world became. They drove through Larksville’s downtown, which was really only one intersection, and Carolina liked the sturdy brick post office and the tiny steepled church with its worn wooden doors. There were a few more houses after the church, but then the houses ended abruptly, and they were truly in the countryside. There were pastures on each side of the road, interrupted only by gray silos and the dusty clapboard of a stray barn.

  It was hilly here, Carolina realized. You couldn’t tell from Uncle Porter and Tía Cuca’s perfectly leveled, brand-new street, but in the farmland the pastures rolled and wrinkled into the distance, with patches of light grass and patches of dark. They seemed to move, and watching them reminded Carolina of being in a boat, cruising in the Caribbean sun: these hills, tumbling in every direction around her, were like the sea had always been for Carolina, chaotic and nerve-racking when she looked too closely, but from a distance, peaceful and green, all the colors blending together into one complete sea, one complete countryside.

  The car climbed a large hill, forcing Carolina to lean back in her seat. When they reached the top, a farm spanned the valley before them. Carolina could see swaths of grass and fences, and rows of crops growing. They rolled down the hill and pulled up in front of a sign swinging from a lamppost. WELCOME TO SILVER MEADOWS.

  “Have a good day!” Tía Cuca called as Gabriela, Carolina, and Daniel climbed out of the car.

  Mami got up from the passenger seat and closed the door behind her. Ahead of them, Gabriela checked her phone, savoring her last few minutes before camp started. Caro watched her stop beneath the lamppost, her long hair swinging in front of her face, the new Chiquifancy cell phone case glinting in the sunlight.

  Caro and Dani lingered by the car with Mami.

  “I’ll miss you,” Caro said impulsively, and Mami pulled her in for a hug.

  “It’s just a few hours.” Mami patted Caro’s hair.

  “I know, but—” Caro hesitated. She felt teensy tiny and clumsily big all at once. She wanted to hear Mami call her Carolinita, my little Caro, like she’d done when Caro was younger, but just the thought seemed childish.

  Not seeing Caro’s face, Mami pulled away. “Okay, you two, be good. Caro, keep an eye on Dani.”

  “I’m always good.” Dani batted his eyelashes dramatically, and Mami and Caro both shook their heads.

  “I mean it,” Mami said. “Uncle Porter and Tía Cuca had to pull some strings to get you scholarships for this camp. It was very nice of Lydia to have you. Do you understand?”

  Caro and Dani nodded.

  “And, Caro, try and make a good impression on Gabriela and her group, okay? None of your antisocial stuff this time. Make a fresh start of things here.”

  Caro didn’t say anything at all. She wasn’t antisocial, and for a moment she hated Mami for deciding to bring her here, for wanting so desperately for Caro to have friends, the kind of popular friends who listened to Chiquifancy and never talked about fairy bridges made of grass. Carolina could taste failure, the disappointment Mami would feel if no one at camp liked her.

  Then Mami got back into the car and Tía Cuca waved again before they drove away. The flash of anger passed, and Carolina felt again too small in a too-large self. She gripped Daniel’s hand tightly as they went to meet Gabriela by the lamppost.

  Gabriela slid her phone into her back pocket. Chiquifancy’s wide smile peeked out from inside. “Lydia doesn’t let us have these out at camp. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  They followed Gabriela through the parking lot and past a one-story building. Behind the yellow building and its white trim, fields stretched out and melted into pastures, and past the pastures, a green hill loomed over the farm.

  “That building’s the camp center, but everyone always waits around on the playground. We’re early.” Gabriela motioned for them to follow her to the back of the building.

  “Look, Caro,” Daniel whispered as they passed a patch of grass. “Silver.”

  Carolina squeezed his hand. “Liquid silver,” she whispered back. It was a relief to be away from the new house, out amidst this grassy world, where it was still dewy but getting warmer every minute.

  The playground buzzed with kids, talking or texting or hitting a tetherball back and forth. Gabriela spotted her friends and waved frantically. “Alyssa! Hey! I’m here!”

  Carolina squinted at the tiny blond girl hurrying toward them. Her first thought was that this couldn’t possibly be Gabriela’s friend Alyssa. She just didn’t look old enough—shorter than Carolina, with her hair half-up, half-down and clipped in place with a pink barrette. But as she came closer Carolina noticed that her teeth were perfect and straight like Gabriela’s, and that in spite of her small size the shape and lines of her face were those of a teenager. Her chipper voice carried far as she shouted hello.

  “Hi, Alyssa! Hi, Jamie!” Gabriela called back.

  Carolina hadn’t even noticed Jamie. She was as tall as Gabriela, but she slouched, and she trailed behind Alyssa, so Carolina wouldn’t have known they were together if Gabriela hadn’t said hello.

  “Is this your cousin?” Alyssa chirped.

  Daniel tugged on Carolina’s sleeve. “Can I go play tetherball? Everyone keeps getting it wound around the pole.”

  She nodded, but it was like being torn apart, or left at sea. She hadn’t been separated from Daniel for so much as an hour since they left Puerto Rico—even before they left, ever since the school year had ended a few days ago, and they’d been at home helping Mami pack.

  “Yeah, this is my cousin Carolina,” Gabriela said offhandedly. Carolina tried to stand straight and alert.

  “What was that?” Jamie asked, not unkindly.

  Before Carolina could answer, Gabriela cut in, “It’s Caroleena. Like Nina. Or Tina.”

  Alyssa hoisted a sequined beach bag higher on her shoulder. “You’re going to be in our camp group. Lydia always picks the groups by age and there aren’t enough thirteen-year-olds to make a group, so we have all the elevens and twelves too.”

  Carolina nodded. Petite or not, Alyssa was clearly in charge.

  “This is Jamie,” Alyssa said, even though it was obvious.

  Jamie gave her a little nod. “Was that your little brother?”

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Jamie’s like the mother’s helper extraordinaire of the whole town. She loves little kids.”

  Jamie shrugged. “He seemed sweet.”

  Gabriela pulled a magazine out of her tote bag and settled down on the ground. “Come on, I already took all the quizzes, but you-all haven’t.”

  “Hiya!” A girl with a long braid and booming voice interrupted them. “I just asked Lydia, and I’m going to be in your group this summer.”

  Alyssa sighed. “That’s great, Jennifer.”

  Jennifer turned to Carolina. “Hi, have we met?”

  Gabriela cut in. “That’s my cousin Carolina. She just moved here.”

  “What part of Larksville? I know all the old houses. But
not all the new ones,” Jennifer added, with a glance at Alyssa.

  Before Carolina could speak, Gabriela jumped in again. “Her family’s staying with us for a while. Just until her dad finds another job. They just—they just moved and all.” Gabriela bent her head back to her magazine, but Carolina caught her looking sideways at Alyssa. Apparently she’d left out that detail before.

  “Jennifer, knock off the third degree. We’re looking at a magazine,” Alyssa said.

  Jennifer shrugged, put her hands in her pockets, and looked up at the sky. She whistled, as if the clouds were the most interesting thing in the world.

  Gabriela moved the magazine closer to Carolina, and she understood without words that she was supposed to ignore Jennifer and get interested in the magazine. But Carolina couldn’t stop staring, not for the life of her. Jennifer’s braid stretched all the way to her butt, and there was something in it. A paintbrush was stuck into it, so that the bristles popped out halfway up the braid. Jennifer’s backpack was bulging, even though Carolina knew from double-checking and triple-checking the camp mailings that all they were supposed to bring were swim clothes and a towel. To top everything off, Jennifer’s overalls were splattered with paint.

  “Are you—?” Carolina ignored Gabriela’s warning look. “Are you a painter?”

  Jennifer stopped whistling and grinned at Carolina. She had three different-colored rubber bands on her braces: red, yellow, and green. Carolina hadn’t known it was even possible to get more than one color. “My dad’s a painter. I help him sometimes. But mostly I like to make things that you can hold in your hands. Painting is just too flat, don’t you think?”

  Carolina didn’t know how to respond. Señora Rivón had taught her all about perspective, about how to bring dimension into painting, and she didn’t think it was flat, not at all. But if Jennifer’s dad was a painter, maybe he knew…except—Carolina’s heart beat quickly—what kind of painter was her dad? Maybe he painted houses, but maybe he painted canvases, too, landscapes of rolling pastures like the ones all around here, the ones Carolina longed to paint.