by Carol Weston
We saw a lady walking two dogs on a leash, and Matt said, “Mom and Dad, if you ever want to surprise us for Christmas, you could get me and Mel a puppy. I swear, we would die!”
“Great,” Mom said. “Then we'd have two dead kids and a puppy to clean up after.”
Dad laughed, which I took as a good sign.
Matt and I are both planning to own cats and dogs when we're grown-up. In the meantime, we'll probably just keep begging. That's how we got Mom and Dad to let us have our two new pet mice, after all.
We are about to have lunch at Casa Botin (Ca Sa Boh Teen). It's in the Guinness book of records because it has been serving food since 1725. Back then, America still belonged to England—George Washington hadn't even been born!
I'm excited about the restaurant.
I'm more excited to see Miguel.
I hope I'm not too excited to eat!
Dear Diary,
Here's what Mom ate: baby eels and bull The baby eels looked like gray spaghetti. The sea bull was a giant crab.
Here's what Dad ate: cocido madrileno (Coe See Doe Ma Dree Lane Yo). It's a stew of meat and chick peas.
Matt tried cod croquettes followed by wild boar or jabali (Hhha Ba Lee).
I could not even look at their plates!
I ordered salad and roast chicken or polio asado (Poy Yo Ah Sod Oh).
Dessert was cake called bizcocho (Bees Coach Oh) and a jiggly custard called flan (Flon). I'm going to try to use more words in Spanish so I can have a vo-cabulario (Bo Cob Oo Lar E O) that is fantastico (Fon Tahs T Co).
Dear Dear Diary,
I'm tired but wired, and I'm going to make myself tell you everything even though it's reeeeally tempting to just jump ahead to the best part.
After lunch, Dad went to his client meeting, and Mom, Matt, and I went to the Botanical Garden next to the Prado. We looked at the tulips or tulipanas (To Lee Pon Ahs), then went inside the museum.
I was excited and nervous. Excited for obvious reasons, but nervous too because what if I've been making a huge deal over nothing? I mean, a gallant guy talked to me about dead bulls, lukewarm omelettes, and efficient yellow garbage men, and I've been daydreaming about him for days.
Last month Cecily had a Valentine's Day party and we played spin the bottle. I sat there while people spun the bottle around, and I kept praying it wouldn't point at me. Well, Cecily's bottle pointed to Christopher, so they kissed—I was a tiny bit jealous. Then Nor-bert's pointed to Cecily, so they kissed—quick kisses. When it was my turn, my bottle pointed to Cheshire, Cecily's cat. Everyone laughed, and I did too, but the truth is: I was RELIEVED! I gave Chesh a big loud smooch.
He started purring! It was really funny.
Today in the Prado, I was excited-nervous, like during that game. Mom stopped to look at paintings by a guy named El Greco (rhymes with gecko), who did long stretched-out people, and a guy named Murillo (Moo Ree Yo), who painted cute kids and sad Virgin Marys.
I wanted to see Las Meninas so I could see Miguel.
We finally finally finally got there. Las Meninas is over ten feet tall. It's popular, so lots of people were looking at it. But nobody I knew.
Mom pointed out how dashing Velazquez looked with his palette and paintbrushes. She whispered, “Want to know a secret?”
“What?” Matt asked.
“See that big red cross on his black jacket?”
“Si,” I said.
“Getting that cross—getting knighted—was a very big honor, but Velazquez got it after he'd already finished this painting. It was added on later, either by Velazquez or someone else—it's a mystery!”
“Cool!” Matt said, but I was disappointed. Not in Mom's Art Teacher secret but in Miguel's not being there. Where was he? That was the mystery!
Was Mom disappointed that Antonio was standing her up too?
Suddenly, uno-dos-tres, guess who came around the corner? Miguel! He saw me right away and gave me a big smile. I thought I would faint! He said, “HoL,” and kissed me on each cheek and asked, “ [Corao estas?” I said, “Bien, gracias.” I felt like adding, “Especifically now that you're here!”
Antonio meanwhile double-kissed Mom and Matt, and Miguel double-kissed Mom and Matt, and Antonio double-kissed me. How could I have not noticed this kissing custom? Love really must be blind!
Speaking of blind, it took me a few minutes before I noticed this girl around my age standing right with us. Miguel put his hand on her back and nudged her toward me and said, “I present to you Luisa.” He said a few more words I didn't understand, probably because I was in utter shock. I didn't want to meet Loo E Sa! I wanted Miguel all to myself.
“Hola,” I mumbled.
“Hola,” she said. She was pretty and petite (that's French for short) with dark eyes and dark lashes and dark hair.
I should have figured Miguel would have a girlfriend!
My throat felt thick and my eyes felt moist and I had to will myself not to do anything really dumb—like cry or llorar (Your R). I kept telling myself to be strong and act normal. After all, I had my pride. (Somewhere!)
Miguel asked about Barcelona and I told him that we saw a bunch of Picasso paintings of the painting in front of us. “{Te gusta Pescado?” I asked.
Miguel said, “Do I like fish?”
“Wait, no no, not pescado—Picasso!!” I said, and started blushing. “Now I'm embarazada” (M Bah Rah Sah Da).
Miguel laughed. “Embarazada means pregnant. You mean embarrassed, true?”
True! But now I was embarrassed embarrassed embarrassed because not only had I been kidding myself about how he felt but I'd just asked him if he liked fish and told him I was pregnant! Even though I wanted to go hide in the museum bathroom the way I did in Amsterdam, I made myself keep talking—in English!
“I like Las Meninas,” I said, and babbled about the blurry king and queen, the dwarf servant, and the added-on cross. I said it was a painting of a painter—a look at real palace life rather than a formal portrait. I even said two things Mom hadn't said: #1, that it looked like the girl has a secret, and #2, that it seemed as if Velazquez were painting us, as if we were in the scene too. I did not add: “As if we were King Miguel and Queen Melanie—with Luisa the dwarf!”
Miguel said, “You said I was a good teacher, May Lah Nee. But you are a good teacher too. I have learned a lot about Velazquez.” (He pronounces his name the Spanish way: Bell Oth Keth.)
So Miguel did remember our conversation! Had he been replaying our talks in his mind too?
Luisa was quiet and I couldn't tell what she was thinking. Was she jealous? Bored? Miguel said she takes French in school, not English, and he translated what I'd said for her.
At least that's what I think he was saying. For all I know, he was saying, “Be nice to the tourist kid because her mom is friends with my dad.”
Antonio and Mom, meanwhile, were admiring a painting of wise old Aesop. She turned to me and said, “I could spend all day here!”
Well, Mom is the real teacher, and she led us to Philip IV on horseback and asked, “What's wrong with this picture?”
“Wrong?” Matt repeated.
“How many legs should a horse have?” Mom asked.
Matt said, “Four!” at the same time as I said, “¡Cuatro!” (QuaTro).
I was going to shout “Jinx!” but “four” and “cuatro” aren't really the same word, and I didn't want to sound immature in front of Miguel.
“How many do you see?” Mom pressed.
We all looked again and couldn't believe it! The horse had four legs—and a fifth ghost leg! What hap-pened was that Velazquez painted the leg one way, then changed his mind, and painted it in a different place.
“Even though he painted over the original paint,” Mom explained, “as the years went by, that first leg sort of reappeared. The underlying image had never really disappeared! Now it's just part of the painting. That's called a pentimento.”
“Awesome!” Matt said.
Antonio seemed impress
ed too.
Miguel said, “Your mother is culta.”
“Cool Ta?” I repeated. “Cool??”
“Cultured.” Miguel explained. “She knows a lot about art.”
I said, “She's a profesora (Pro Fay Sore Ah) of am” (R Tay). Miguel nodded, which was good because I was afraid I might have said that my mother was a professional artichoke or something. I was going to add that she's a culture vulture, but I didn't want to try to explain that.
Miguel said her name, Miranda, comes from the verb mirar (Meer R), which means to look. Well, Mom told us to look at some paintings by Goya (Goy Ya). He lived to be 82, but in his forties, he got a disease that left him deaf and maybe un poco loco.
“Do lots of artists go crazy?” Matt asked.
“What do you mean?” Mom said.
“Like Goya and van Gogh,” Matt said.
“No, Matt. They had illnesses,” Mom said.
“Isn't Goya the name of a company that makes beans?” I asked. As soon as I said that, Matt started singing,
Mom scowled at me as though Matt's outburst were my fault, not his.
I glanced at Miguel and was glad that he and Luisa were talking in Spanish and paying no attention to us. (I wasn't 100% glad, but I was trying to look at the bright side.)
Matt kept singing, and Mom told Matt to can it.
“Like ‘canned beans!’“ He laughed, so I told him to zip it.
“It is zipped!” he said, checking his pants zipper.
We decided to ignore Matt, and Mom continued her gallery talk. “Goya painted all sorts of different subjects—picnics, kids, bullfights, dukes, witches, giants, and the horrors of war. Look!” She pointed to a painting of Cronos (Zeus's dad) devouring one of his other sons. The dad's eyes were popping out and scary, and the son was headless and bloody.
Matt stopped laughing. “Whoa! Disgusting! Cronos was a god and a cannibal who ate his own kid?”
Mom beamed. “I love teaching Goya. He's never boring.”
Then she showed us two famous matching paintings. Maja Vestida (Ma Hhha Vess T Da) is a woman lying down dressed. Maja Desnuda (Ma Hhha Dess Noo Da) is the same woman lying down naked.
Matt, of course, lost it, and Mom told him he'd better shape up N-O-W.
Even I was a little embarrassed (not embarazada), particularly with Miguel right there. And Luisa!
Mom never finds art embarrassing. She was on a roll and showed us The Three Graces by Rubens (three fat naked ladies) and Children on a Beach by Sorolla (three skinny naked boys). It was as if Mom were playing Matt's and my favorite museum game, Point Out the Naked People!
“I wish we had time to visit Sorolla's studio,” Mom said as she led us to some old old old paintings that were extremely extrano (X Tra Nyo) or strange! They were by Bosch (rhymes with Gosh).
Antonio said, “I love Bosch.”
Maybe Antonio is extremely extraño?
The Garden of Earthly Delights is a huge painting on three panels that is bursting with naked people, which would have been bad enough—but they are not just naked! There are nude people riding on ducks, nude people inside mussel shells, mutant animals, a man pooping coins, and— Trust me, this Bosch guy went overboard.
“¿Te gusta?” Miguel asked. I didn't want to say no if Bosch was his favorite painter. But I didn't want to say si if he thought Bosch was a perv.
“It's interesting,” I said. “I like Velazquez more.”
“Me too,” Miguel said. ?? tambien.” (Yo Tom Byen.)
He smiled really cutely and said he was glad to see me again. But then he started talking to Luisa and I kept wishing I could eavesdrop. Or make her disappear!
It wasn't fair! Obviously, Miguel didn't hate me. Why did he have to love her? And bring her?!
Matt the Brat whispered, “I know something you don't know.”
“What?”
“What will you give me if I tell you?”
“If you don't tell me, I'll kick you.”
“Then why should I tell you?”
“Matt, you Problem Child, just tell me.”
“Guess.”
“No.”
“Come on, Melanie. It's something important. Im Poor Ton Tee.”
“That's not even how you say it. It's Eem Poor Ton Tay.”
“Do you want to know or don't you?”
“I do. So tell me or I am going to drop you off at the lost and found, and Mom is so busy with Antonionio, she won't even notice you're missing until we're back in New York.”
Matt said, “It's only because I'm nice that I'm going to tell you.”
“It's only because I'm nice that I've let you live this long,” I said, a little too loudly. Matt can get me so so so mad!
“Okay. Luisa is Miguel's prima (Pree Ma). Guess what that means?”
The word rang a faint bell. “Girlfriend?”
“Cousin!” Matt said, all triumphant.
I could pretend that I mumbled a casual, “So?” but why would I lie to you, my own diary? I whispered, “Matt, are you positive?”
He said Antonio told him.
It felt right. It made sense. And I suddenly halfway remembered learning that primo means boy cousin and prima means girl cousin.
I couldn't help it. I started smiling—inside and outside.
I even whispered gracias to Matt the Brat!
I looked over at Miguel and you know what? He was looking over at me! We smiled at the same moment and my insides got all happy.
Unfortunately, Mom said it was time to leave. We had to meet Dad for dinner and they had to meet their grandmother.
Fortunately, we are all getting together tomorrow morning at Retiro (Ruh Teer Oh) Park.
P.S. Dinner was okay. We got to the restaurant at 8:30, but in Madrid, that is sooooo early that the place was empty. Dad got the idea that he and Mom could sit at one table, for adults, while Matt and I could sit at another table, for kids. Matt thought that was great. I wasn't sure.
March 24 morning
Dear Diary,
Here in Madrid, Matt's and my hotel room is attached to Mom and Dad's. Dad just came in and saw that I'd put my outfit on my bed, shoes and all.
“Get your shoes off the bed!” he said. “They're dirty. They've been on the street.”
Matt added, “Walking on dog pee and cockroach heads and people spit and worm germs.”
I put my shoes on my feet and said, “Fine!” really loudly. Dad looked at me as if I have an attitude problem.
Even though Dad isn't as art'crazy as Mom, he didn't want to miss the Prado. Since we'd already been there, he said he'd go alone after his conference calls and would meet us afterward for lunch.
Mom said, “Are you sure you don't want to come with us to the park?”
“I can walk around Central Park in New York,” Dad said. “I can't see Las Meninas.”
Mom said, “And you're sure you don't mind if we don't go with you?”
Dad shrugged and said, “Suit yourself, Miranda.” I thought that meant that of course he minded.
But Mom said, “Well, the kids need exercise and fresh air, and we can't expect them to go to the same museum twice. So if it's really okay, we'll meet you at 1:30. I hope the calls go well.”
He nodded. Poor Dad. I keep forgetting that while we're on pure vacation, he has work problems to fix.
Well, we are now about to meet Antonio and Miguel without Dad—again. I am not sure if that is the world's best idea, but I couldn't bring myself to say I'd go back to the Prado with Dad. Especifically since I'm dying to see Miguel!
Dear Diary,
We are about to go meet Dad, but wait till you hear what happened!
Antonio and Miguel met us at an entrance to the park, and we all double-kissed—a dozen kisses all around. Then we walked by fountains, statues, trees, a rose garden, and a glass mansion called the Crystal Palace. Finally we reached this big lake, and Antonio suggested we rent rowboats.
“Remember when we used to do this?” he asked Mo
m. She nodded, and I started worrying that Dad should not have left Mom and Antonio alone again to relive their lovey-dovey past.
Why did he anyway? Is he trying to show Mom that he trusts her and it's okay with him if she wants to practice Spanish and catch up on old times? But it's not totally okay with him. He's been acting annoyed—or “miffed,” as Mom puts it. Should I worry? (I can almost hear Cecily saying, “Don't worry”—but her parents are divorced!)
Anyway, we got to the place where you rent boats, and Antonio rented two. He gave the guy some euros, which are pronounced Ay Ooo Rose in Spanish and You're Rose in English.
Antonio and Mom climbed into the first boat.
Miguel got into the second. Then he looked at me with his chocolate eyes. He said, “May Lah Nee, let me help you,” and held out his hand.
I took his hand.
I was holding his hand!
He was holding my hand!!
We were holding hands!!!
I stepped into the rowboat and it rocked a little, but then everything was calm again. I sat down even though that meant having to let go of his hand.
Matt was standing by the edge of the water, and I was praying that he would not join me and Miguel for three reasons:
I wanted it to be just Miguel and me.
I didn't want to worry about Matt's telling Miguel that I like him.
I felt guilty that nobody was chaperoning Mom and Antonionio.
Their boat and our boat were both still on shore, but then Antonio pushed off with his oar and started rowing away—with Mom.
Matt looked right at me and I was thinking, Oh no! when he smiled and shouted, “Mom! Wait! I want to ride with yoooooou!” He may have made himself sound extra babyish, though it's hard to tell.
Mom couldn't exactly pretend she didn't hear him, so she made Antonio go back for Matt. (Hee, hee.) Once Miguel was sure Matt wasn't going to be left behind, he said, “¿Nos vamos?” (Nohs Bom Ohs), which means “Shall we go?” and I said, “¡Si!”
I have to say, it was really fun to be alone with Miguel in the middle of Madrid. The sun was warm on my face and the birds were singing and the trees were pink and fragrant and the sky was blue blue blue.