“Well, you are a pinche metiche, and I am not the only one who thinks that.”
“Call me names if you like; it doesn’t change the facts.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and stormed off.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Armando called after her.
Pamela turned and flipped him the bird.
“Did you see what she did?” Armando asked, his voice rising.
“Oh, Armando,” Callie said gently.
“And him,” Armando said, nodding toward Juanito. “He started it all. Can’t he find anyone else to buy the junk he comes up with?” He lifted his hands palms up. “I really don’t understand you, Callie.” Then he picked up the music stand again and rattled it. “Look at this thing. It’s not worth a peso.” He threw it back down and looked at his watch. “I have to get out of here.” And then he walked off.
Juanito stood there, looking puzzled. He wanted to know if Armando was angry with him.
She told him not to worry. She looked down the street where Pamela and Armando had disappeared. He could leave the worrying to her.
BY the time Callie climbed up the callejón to her house, there were two messages on the answering machine. She took off her backpack, pointed for the jaguar to notice the folded music stand sticking out the top, and then pushed the play button.
“It looks like I got there just in time. She had you crying. Calecita. Crying! I told you she was trouble.” His voice turned soft. “I know how difficult it is to put up with her, but I have to. I work with her. You don’t. And, besides, I need you.”
A wave of weariness washed over her.
“You have always been busy. Your work, your dusting, your garden, your aunt, your mother, Juanito. But did I ever complain? Never. And now when I need you the most. With Claude gone, the Maestro Chávez fragile, Tavelé missing, and your mother on the way …”
She heard him, drumming in the background, ending with a roll, before his final point. “It’s Pamela you spend time with.”
He paused. It sounded like he was taking a drink of something. She sat down.
“I understand about your mother, Calecita. I would be in constant contact with mine, if I had one. But I don’t, you know. I don’t have a mother. I never really did. Not one I remember anyway. You know that. And yet, after all I told you about Pamela, now, of all times, you are giving her your precious time. Je ne comprends pas.”
How could he understand? She hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with him. She sighed. She didn’t know what to do about that.
There was a pause, and then he added, “What were you doing in the center this morning anyway? Didn’t you have work to do?”
She breathed a sigh of relief that she had not been at home to answer that question.
The next message started up.
“Hi Granny, it’s Pamela. I don’t know how you put up with that guy. I was so mad when I got home, I poured a glass of ice water on my head to cool down.” She laughed. “In the garden. Don’t worry. I didn’t make a mess. Anyway, then I called the person I know best in the brass section to see if people are calling me names. What was that M-word Armando used?”
Metiche. Busybody. A favorite of Armando’s.
“Well, anyway, according to her, they’re not calling me names. And neither am I the only one who’s worried about Maestro Chávez. That’s just Armando’s denial talking. I asked my colleague to say something to him tomorrow.”
She paused, and then added, “It was so annoying of him showing up when he did. I wanted to run something else by you before my mother got here. And now I don’t know if there’ll be time.”
Run something by her. What could that be?
“Anyway, thanks for going along with me today, Granny. I can call you that, can’t I?”
She nodded, smiling.
“Oh, and one more thing. I think Mom and I will stop on the way back from the airport to get one of those wooden highchairs they sell by the road. I know, the baby won’t need one for a while. But I like the idea of having one in the kitchen. I can imagine her here already, eating Cheerios from the tray.”
She felt tears roll down her cheeks again.
Thirty-Seven
CALLIE AND ARMANDO STOOD BEHIND THE CORD that blocked entry to the corridor where passengers exited customs. Jorge waited nearby, chatting with another chauffeur holding a sign with a passenger’s name.
She should have made a sign with her mother’s name in case her mother swooned in customs. She wiped her hands on her shirt. Shouldn’t she have insisted that her mother stay put? That question had kept her awake all night. She was exhausted, and it didn’t help that Armando kept whispering in her ear. But she would not stop him, hoping he would get it out of his system before her mother arrived.
“And now that’s she’s gone and gotten herself pregnant. She’ll be impossible.”
So, Armando knew! Hadn’t the gynecologist counseled to wait until week thirteen to share the news?
He leaned forward to see if anyone was coming through the doors and then bent to whisper in her ear again. “Oh, and I heard she picked out a local abuela. Who would want that job?”
I would, that’s who, she thought, but kept her mouth shut. Was she beginning to side with Pamela, like he thought?
“I can’t imagine her a mother, but at least now that she has a bun in the oven, she’ll give Tavelé back.”
She frowned. A bun in the oven. Not an expression her aunt would use. He must have gotten that one from someone else.
“You know she’s a lesbian. Everyone knows. She’s not exactly discreet. All she ever talks about is Ami Mai. And now with a baby coming, the whole brass section gathers around her at break, hanging on to every word. Pamela of all people.”
He leaned forward and then back again.
“I don’t see how she’ll have time for the orchestra. Maybe she’ll resign.” He snapped his fingers. “That would be sweet.”
But it would not solve the problem of the maestro, she thought. Even Jorge had noticed. He mentioned it on the way over, how Maestro Chávez had recently paused when he got out of the cab, as if he had to think about which direction to go. Armando had brushed off Jorge’s concern, saying the maestro had a lot on his mind. “Pamela,” he had mouthed to Callie.
Passengers began streaming out, laden with luggage. Where was her mother? Had she swooned? She felt her heart begin to race. She should not have let her mother chance the trip.
She was on the verge of interrupting Armando’s monologue when her mother walked through the doors. “There she is!” Callie waved both arms above her head until her mother saw her.
She followed her mother’s approach. There was something new. Not her hair pulled back into her customary bun, nor the A-line that fell just below her knees. It was her posture, which had always been perfect, if somewhat forced, that now looked effortless, as if a yoke had been lifted from her shoulders. Callie frowned at the thought of the yoke that had weighed her mother down, even from his grave.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?” her mother asked.
“Of course!” Callie smiled and put her arms around her mother. Her own body felt soft and squishy against her mother’s ribs. She breathed in the familiar fragrance of violets and felt tears come to her eyes. “I am so glad you are here.”
“Hey, give me a chance,” Armando said, pulling her away and bending down to kiss her mother. “I’m Armando.”
Her mother smiled up at him. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Armando glanced at Callie.
“Not everything,” she said and laughed, trying to reassure him without giving anything away.
He took her mother’s hands. “And I’ve heard you’re soon to be married.” Callie looked at the two of them together. Her mother beaming. Armando smiling, but tired around the eyes. He looked in a way older than her mother.
He nodded to Jorge, who came for the bag, and then offered Callie and her mother each an arm. At the car, he insisted that
Callie sit in front by Jorge. “You will have your mom to yourself soon enough,” he said, opening the front door for her and the back door for her mother. “And, besides, I’m on a mission from your aunt Ida.” He walked around the car and got in the other side.
Callie’s mother turned to him. “Oh, I know all about that. And I might just take you up on it, young man.”
Callie turned from the front seat. “You want to see the mummies?”
“Of course she does,” Armando said.
Callie didn’t think so. “But Aunt Ida said …”
“I wasn’t enthusiastic about seeing them, I admit. But on the way here, I thought, why not go see them? It would make your aunt happy.” She turned to Armando and said, “But first I want some quality time with my daughter.”
Quality time? Where had her mother picked up that expression? Callie leaned back against her seat, stifling a sigh. Whatever could she mean?
“YOUR mother,” her father had always said, “is part sparrow. She’s always hopping about.” But at seven thousand feet, even her mother slowed down. Callie had led her to the guest room off the kitchen and expected to continue showing her around, but her mother sat on the chair by the daybed and leaned down to take her shoes off. “I’ll have to tour later,” she said.
So Callie had pulled back the daybed cover and gone for a pitcher of water and a glass. By the time she got back, her mother had changed to a flowered flannel gown and was sitting on the side of the bed, unwrapping a framed photo of John.
Callie poured a glass of water for her mother and kissed her on the cheek. As she was leaving, her mother called her back. “I almost forgot. Your doll. She’s there, in my suitcase.”
Callie bent to open the suitcase, and there, on top of her mother’s folded clothes, was the doll, her new eyes shining. They reminded her of her father’s eyes, shining with hope.
THE next morning Callie found her mother sitting at the kitchen island already dressed and looking through a stack of tourist brochures. On hearing Callie, she looked up and said, “What’s for breakfast?”
Callie smiled. The sparrow was back.
ARMANDO called every day to let her know how the search for Tavelé was going, but he left them mostly to themselves, saving his energy for la pièce de résistance of her mother’s visit. The mummy museum. Pamela, who was occupied with her own mother, wanted to meet Callie’s mother, referring to her as “Little Flea’s great-granny,” but insisting there was no rush.
And so Callie and her mom had plenty of time on their own, “quality time,” Callie supposed, for visiting Diego Rivera’s childhood home and the Alhóndiga with Chávez Morado’s murals depicting local scenes from Mexico’s war of independence. Jorge took them to Dolores Hidalgo, where Father Hidalgo raised the cry of independence, and then to San Miguel— “so you can practice your English,” Armando quipped. At her mother’s insistence Jorge drove them several times on a loop through the historic center, going one way on the plaza-level streets and then back on the Subterránea underneath.
Her mother sampled gorditas and tamales—“nothing like the canned ones I bought for your father to heat up when I had a church meeting”—and one evening even dared a sip of Armando’s margarita.
Amazed by the sweetness of fresh papaya, not a meal could go by without her mother asking, “Will we be having papaya?” And they always would, since Juanito, who came by every day asking to do errands, happily ran up to the fruit stand to buy them.
In the evening, her mother would take the portable phone to her room to call her dear John, and Callie could hear her laughter through the door. She would tiptoe away, grateful her mother hadn’t been persuaded to stay home.
“I’ve gone on so about Guanajuato,” her mother told Callie one morning, “that John asked me if I wanted to be married here.”
“Do you?”
“No,” she said. “I want to be married in our church. But I did say that maybe I would go on another trip, if he liked. You know what he said? ‘I would take you around the world.’ And I believe he would, Callie. I believe he would.”
From what Aunt Ida had said, John would do anything for her mother. But then, knowing her mother, she wasn’t likely to ask him to do anything he didn’t want to do in the first place.
Thirty-Eight
CALLIE EXPECTED TO TAKE A TAXI UP THE HILL TO the enormous statue of the Pípila, the independence hero who died blasting open the door to the Alhóndiga. But Armando insisted she take her mother in the funicular so her mother could take photos of the spectacular views of Guanajuato’s historic center and surrounding hillsides on the way up. So, one afternoon, when they had seen every other tourist attraction, except the mummies, they bought their tickets and then waited on the platform at the base of the tracks. While her mother got her camera ready, Callie relived the steep ride up and the jar a few meters from the top, when the car came to a stop and then inched to the end of the line. She shuddered, remembering there being fewer bolts clamping the cable the last time Armando talked her into taking the funicular.
Soon the approaching car entered the platform, and the door slid open. Her heart, already pounding in anticipation of the ride up, felt as if it would break through her chest wall at the sight of Pamela stepping onto the platform, followed by a woman that she recognized as Pamela’s mother from the photo in her living room.
Pamela looked radiant, and, in normal circumstances, Callie would have been delighted to see her. She had at first started toward Pamela, her arms outstretched and a smile on her face. But then it came to her. The trumpet. If only she had thought up something when she noticed it still in a bag by the terrace door when she showed her mother in. At least she had put it back in the case and taken it up to the laundry room right away. But still, with all her planning, why hadn’t she taken care of that detail before her mother arrived? What if Pamela said something about her taking a trumpet lesson? How would she explain that to her mother? She dropped her arms and turned away, hoping Pamela would not notice her.
“Callie.”
She turned to see Pamela coming toward them.
“You’re going up the funicular?” she said to Callie and then turned to Callie’s mother. “You must be Callie’s mother.”
“Evelyn, Evelyn Quinn.” She offered her hand, which Pamela took before hugging her.
She stepped back and gestured to the woman by her side. “This is my mother.” She glanced at Callie and then looked back to her mother. “Pearl Fischer.”
As the arriving passengers finished exiting and the departing passengers approached the funicular doorway, Evelyn and Pearl went through the usual “How long will you be here?” and “Where are you visiting from?”
Callie, meanwhile, felt sick about having turned away from Pamela. How could she have! At least it appeared that Pamela hadn’t noticed.
When Evelyn learned that Pearl was from Chicago and that Pamela grew up there, she turned to Pamela and asked, “Did you know Callie there?”
Pamela turned to Callie. “You didn’t tell your mom?”
She braced herself. Tell her what? About Pamela remembering seeing the woman wearing a black scarf in the back of an auditorium? No, she hadn’t told her any of that. She shook her head no.
“Well, I’m not surprised.” She laughed. “The first time I met your daughter was right here when she tossed a margarita at me.”
Callie laughed, too, then froze. Would Pamela mention the trumpet?
Noticing Callie’s discomfort, Pamela put an arm around her shoulders. “And in spite of that—no, because of that—we became friends. Right, Granny?”
She glanced at her mother, who looked surprised, but didn’t say anything, and then back to Pamela. She tried to make her voice sound calm. “Right,” she said. She slipped out of Pamela’s embrace and stepped through the funicular doorway.
ON the ride up the hill, her doubts about the bolts gave way to the certainty that when her mother learned, as she inevitably would, about the trum
pet lessons, nothing would stop her from putting two and two together. Pamela was around the same age her baby would now be. They may have known each other in Chicago. And that had drawn Callie to the trumpet. There was no other reason for Callie to take up the instrument. It had to be because she thought it would lead her to her child. Standing there, holding onto the rail and avoiding the view, Callie felt the eyes in the back of her mother’s head trained on her.
When the jolt came and then the car eased into the platform, she relaxed. Once she stepped onto firm ground again, she realized how crazy her thinking had been. Her mother could not have figured out from one spilled margarita why she approached Pamela. She took in a long, slow breath. And if her mother did ask, Armando would save her. Armando and Tavelé. All she had to do was tell the truth. Well, part of the truth, anyway.
THAT evening after dinner, she got her chance. Juanito, hoping to please Armando, but afraid to approach him himself, stopped by with another music stand. When he left, her mother said, “Didn’t I see a trumpet in a bag by the terrace door when I first got here? Was that for Armando, too?”
So she hadn’t put the trumpet away in time. She drew in her breath and told her mother the story she’d prepared. She had bought the trumpet from Juanito not knowing what she would do with it. One evening in the Jardín, Armando asked her to take a lesson from Pamela as a pretext to look for Tavelé. She was, of course, nervous about approaching someone new and unfortunately spilled a margarita on Pamela. But she did, nonetheless, ask her for a lesson, just as Armando wanted. Callie looked over to see the jaguar frowning at her.
Before Juanito’s arrival, her mother had been chirping away about how lovely it was that Callie would be a local grandmother. It reminded her of how much fun she had been having at the lake when John’s great-grandniece came to visit. Callie had been enjoying her mother’s breezy manner. She felt relieved that, after years of avoiding any mention of babies, her mother spoke freely, not just of children, but of babies, too, as if she had never remained silent on the subject.
The Trumpet Lesson Page 22