The Tequila Worm

by Viola Canales

  I thought about what Brooke said as I stood brushing my teeth before lights-out in front of a row of sinks. As I walked down the hallway to my room, I heard the stereos: Rock music blared from one room; classical from another; then, jazz . . . It was as though every girl was trying to assert whatever individuality she had left in the few desperate minutes before lights-out, before we were all thrown together into sleeping, eating, studying, playing, praying, and doing everything together again the next day.

  As I lay in bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark rosary, the vals “Julia” started playing in my mind, and I saw Papa waltzing with Mama around the kitchen table and Berta and Lucy stumbling, making up the waltz as they went along. Did the girls in the dorm play their music to conjure up some image of home, of their past?

  I thought about how Tiff felt awkward at home and how he felt that his school friends were now his new family. From all Brooke had said, her family was warm and close. And they lived right here in Austin.

  I leaped out of bed and took Tía Petra’s plastic-covered notebook from my desk drawer. I grabbed a pen and my secret flashlight. Brooke was fast asleep. I got back into bed, pulled the sheet over my head, and clicked the flashlight on. I started writing. It started as a letter to Papa, but it turned into a story about the image of my family all waltzing around the kitchen table. I made my characters talk: Berta said, “Stop stepping on my toes, Lucy, or I’ll bite you!” “Okay, Berta, but only if you pop out of my quinceañera cake!” This made me laugh.

  I finished my story at two in the morning, with Papa kissing me goodnight. I smiled, turned off the flashlight, and went happily to sleep. I felt they were all in the room with me.

  I woke early the next morning and reread my story. I called it “Waltzing to ‘Julia,’ Around the Kitchen Table, in McAllen.” I started writing a letter home. Now, more than ever, I didn’t want to lose touch with my family. I smiled. How could I? I kept getting more and more wacky packages from Mama.

  The very first week at Saint Luke’s, Mama sent me a round brown rock the size of a fist with a picture of Yoda on it.

  Mama called. “Sofia, did you get my package?”

  “Yes, thanks. Is it . . . a rock?”

  “It’s a paperweight, Sofia, for your desk. But Lucy is making hers a pet.”

  “A pet?”

  “Yes, a pet rock. I put a rose on hers, a picture I cut from a True Confessions magazine.”

  “Where did you get the picture of Yoda?”

  “Yoda? Who’s Yoda?”

  “The picture on mine.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that funny-looking elf had a name. He’s perfect since he has pointy ears like yours.”

  Perfect—as perfect as the “panty-hose baby” she’d made for me years ago from old pairs of hose and dressed in overalls, a baseball cap, and tiny red sneakers.

  She insisted on taking him to H.E.B., the grocery store, and putting him in the shopping-cart seat. We went up one aisle and down another, with Mama talking to “her baby,” Jesus. I followed her to the candy section, where she started showing bag after jumbo bag of candy to Jesus, asking whether he wanted lollipops or candy bars or bubble gum.

  She kept doing this until she finally got a couple of stares. The cart was now stacked full with bags of potato chips, cream-filled donuts, and a big tub of lard.

  After making sure the stares were still on her, Mama headed to the beer department.

  As she was picking up a six-pack of Tecate and another of Corona, she got a tap on her shoulder. Mama turned, a pack in each hand, to find a tall woman with red lipstick and a man with a black pin saying MANAGER.

  They glared at Mama. The man said, “It is not allowed to leave a baby unattended.”

  Mama grabbed Jesus and tossed him high into the air.

  They gasped.

  She caught him and yanked off his cap. They gasped louder! Jesus didn’t have a face.

  Mama laughed loudly, wiggling Jesus, and said, “Don’t worry! He’s just a panty-hose baby!”

  That would make a good story too, I thought as I kept writing my letter home.

  Aside from the Yoda rock, I received a tiny pair of pants she’d made out of two dishtowels. They were for the kitchen, she said over the phone, for storing the plastic bags from the supermarket. Now, instead of stuffing them into a drawer or behind the stove, I could stuff them into the pair of pants. And once it got full, it looked great because the stomach expanded and looked like the pants had just swallowed a big watermelon. You hung the pants on a hook and stuffed the plastic bags through the waist on top. Then you retrieved them as needed by simply pulling the plastic bags out of the legs below.

  “Thank you, Mama,” I said over the phone. “But remember, there’s no kitchen here.”

  “So use it for your socks. But be sure to hang it on a hook, so everyone can see it. Lucy just loves hers. I’m making one for Berta!”

  Then there were the delicate flowers and birds she carefully crocheted on covers for rolls of toilet paper. Lucy got a green one; I got purple; Berta got red. The strange dusting gloves she made by attaching hundreds and hundreds of strands of yarn to a perfectly good glove. I felt a jolt when I opened the package and found what looked like a giant spider inside. Mine had taken the longest to make, she said when she called. She used ten different colors of yarn, whereas Lucy’s was all just a shocking pink, the glove as well as the yarn. She was making one for Berta, too.

  “Isn’t it great?” she said. “Go and try it out.”

  I slowly slipped the glove on and then moved my fingers. It was the strangest thing, with hundreds of stands of yarn of all colors—dangling from all five fingers and the whole palm.

  “Go dust your bookcase—your room altar!”

  I walked over to the bookcase in the corner and slowly started rubbing the plastic Virgin and the chipped saint. I couldn’t even feel the surfaces I was dusting. It felt like my hand was floating.

  “Now, isn’t that great!” she said. “And you can’t even see the dirt on the glove. And I bet it’ll be a big hit with your friends, and soon you’ll be calling me to make them some too. And that’s okay. But don’t lend yours out, except to Brooke, or you’ll never see it again.”

  I eventually received the embroidered tortilla holder she made by sewing two handkerchiefs together. The yarn cap with dangling plastic circles that looked like shark gills. The basket made from the plastic rings that hold six-packs of pop cans together. Styrofoam clown heads for the tops of all my pens and pencils. “Aren’t they great! You can talk to them as you write!” And countless other things—just for me.

  But one thing I sent back was something she’d made by trapping my old Barbie doll in a huge ruffled red dress, crocheted and decorated with yards and yards of shiny bows and lace. I just couldn’t believe it. Barbie seemed to weigh a ton.

  “What’s at the bottom?” I asked on the phone, for all that showed of my former doll were her little head, neck, and arms.

  “Rocks.”

  “Rocks?”

  “Yes, rocks. She’s a doorstop. I said to myself, what can I do with her to make her useful again? So that’s when I got the idea.”

  “But she’s a doll, Mama.”

  “Not anymore. And anyway, her left leg kept falling off. Remember?”

  “But what do you want me to do with her? You know that my dorm room has swinging doors about two feet off the floor.”

  She finally agreed to let me send her back—until I got a real door. She said, “I wish you were more like Lucy. She always loves my gifts.”

  I said, “Lucy might love the Barbie doorstop.”

  “Lucy’s already taken care of. I’m making her a doorstop too, using her old Easter bunny.”

  “You’re putting a dress on her pink rabbit?”

  “Sure! It’ll look great!”

  As I was addressing the envelope, the wake-up bell started clanging. Brooke yawned, stumbling out of bed.

  “I had a dream about you l
ast night, Sofia. You and your father were waltzing around this kitchen table. I think you’ve told me so many stories about your family, especially about your father, that I’ve now started even dreaming about them.” Wow! My secret story did bring them here!

  I called home that evening. Lucy answered, laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You!”

  “Why?”

  “Mama just finished making the Sofia doll for Clara. And it’s so funny-looking! Looks just like you!”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “No, you should see it, Sofia. I mean, it’s so funny how she attached your crazy hair to the sock doll she made.” I could hear Berta laughing in the back. “She even put pointy ears, using buttons.”

  “Send it, Lucy. I want to see it.” So I can destroy it! Imagine Clara going around with this crazy Sofia doll!

  “No way! It’s going straight to Clara first thing tomorrow morning. You’d kick it to threads if you saw it.”

  “Well, it sure sounds like the canicula lives there at home—and for the entire three hundred sixty-five days a year!”

  “We miss you, Sofia. How are things up there?”

  “Okay. A little crazy. But most of the students are nice, or, at least, nice enough. Now let me say hi to Berta. . . .”

  “I’ve gotten three more requests to borrow the bedsheet dress, Berta. You’re amazing! And thanks for sending me those chocolate bars. How are you?”

  “Well, Jamie and I are still together.”

  “I know. You’ve sent fifty pictures of Jamie so far.” We laughed. “But how’s Lucy?”

  “Boy, she misses you. She’s always talking about you. How’s Brooke? Marcos? Classes?”

  “Brooke’s fine. Nice, but still hogging the ball in hockey.

  “Marcos is fine too. He’s funny. We kick the soccer ball around on Saturdays and catch up on our Spanish. We complain about how it’s all about getting into college here, about the individual, about competition, about this thing they call character building. But we’ve both made friends here.

  “And as for classes, the teachers are terrific. It’s amazing, Berta, how hard they work. They live and work Saint Luke’s, even eating all their meals with the students. So far, I’m keeping up.

  “But I miss you all so much. Can’t wait for Thanksgiving. Now let me talk to Papa. . . .”

  After Papa, I spoke to Mama, and after I hung up, I started to cry. A big part of me wanted to go home. Now. School felt like a strange passage to . . . I didn’t even know where.

  My calls home were also feeling more and more like performances, always sounding cheerful. If they only knew how many times I’d been to my secret place, the old oak tree by the river, to cry from loneliness.

  Later that week I received my first package from Papa. It was the tequila worm he’d promised, in a tiny empty mescal bottle. I made it part of my room altar, setting it next to Papa’s secret cascarone. My stories were helping me feel less homesick. Now Papa had sent the real cure. I’d save it, just in case.

  The FRoZen TaMaLeS

  The school campus became a sea of Beemers and Mercedeses and one or two Fords and Volvos the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Brooke’s parents had insisted on dropping Marcos and me off at the Greyhound station in downtown Austin. This would be my first trip home, and I was so excited. Mama had written that Tía Petra wanted us to come over for a special surprise Thursday morning. And that the abuelitos were coming over for Thanksgiving dinner.

  As we drove into the city, I said, “Boy, it feels exciting just to be off campus, and to see real people, stores—even traffic.” We laughed.

  After buying our tickets for our eight-hour trip to McAllen, Marcos and I got a cup of coffee. I said, “Are the other valley students going home too?”

  “No. They’re spending Thanksgiving with friends. It’s too long a haul for such a short break.”

  “Brooke asked me to come to her house, but I have to go home.”

  “Me too.”

  “You know, it’s strangely fun to be drinking coffee from a paper cup.”

  “Yes! It’s another world at Saint Luke’s, isn’t it?” We sat down. I wondered how home would seem, now that even a bus station seemed strange. I thought of Tiff. No! I was determined to feel that home was home, that my family was my family.

  Marcos said, “Don’t you sometimes feel like you’re at boot camp and that everything at Saint Luke’s—the endless classes, sports, and such—is like one big drill to strip us and then shape us into some prep army?”

  I told him what Brooke had said about Tiff.

  “I believe it. Tiff’s in my dorm, and I see it with some of the senior guys.”

  The bus to the Rio Grande Valley was announced. Marcos and I sat in the first row to look out the front window.

  I said, “Is the big drill getting to you, too?”

  “Sometimes. Part of me wants to just go, go, go—from Saint Luke’s to college to medical school to . . . But when I talk to Mama, I feel that I need and want to stay close. . . .”

  “I know what you mean. I think it’s different for us. I feel I’m here for my family, too, not just for myself. I love so much about my family, my barrio. Saint Luke’s makes me appreciate them more. . . .”

  “Yeah. It’s confusing.”

  “At least the fall term exams are over.”

  “Wow, was that intense.”

  Despite the grind, I thought I was doing well in all my classes. Hockey, too. And I enjoyed hanging out with Brooke and Marcos and my other friends. But it felt good just to be sitting in a bus, looking out the window. Marcos dozed off. By the time we stopped at the tenth tiny town, I was dozing off too.

  In one town we grabbed a sandwich. As we ate, Marcos said, “Hey, is Terry still being a creep?”

  “The hate mail stopped her cold. And she’s still getting some.” Marcos laughed.

  “Well, that was such a dumb thing to do. But it was funny, too, Sofia. I will never in my entire life forget the expression on your face when you saw your plastic Virgin all lit up at the front of the chapel.” We both laughed.

  “Oh, but that’s not the half of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Terry also grabbed my crucifix and said, ‘Aren’t Mexicans obsessed with death?’ ”

  Marcos shook his head. “I think part of it is that death is not even in the Saint Luke’s vocabulary. I mean, there’s this guy in my dorm, Skip. Well, Dan, his roommate, told me their advisor mentioned that Skip’s father was terminally ill, just in case he needed help. Dan said, ‘Skip, I’m so sorry about your father. Let me know if . . .’ Skip said, ‘My dad’s fine. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Two days later, he left for his father’s funeral.

  “But here’s the weirdest part: not one single person in the dorm has mentioned a word about the death, even if they all know about it. Skip now goes around like some ghost. He’s even on probation, like he can’t function.”

  We were silent after that, until we spotted the McAllen city limits sign. Marcos and I cheered and highfived.

  And when we finally pulled into the bus station, my heart exploded with joy as I saw Papa, Mama, Lucy, and Berta waving frantically.

  “Sofia! Sofia!” said Lucy, kissing me. I kissed them all. I greeted Marcos’s family. Marcos and I joked about how we couldn’t wait for our bus trip back. Papa was wearing his brown and white boots. He looked especially happy to see me, but I noticed a slight weariness in him.

  “Papa, are you feeling all right?” I asked, putting my arm around him.

  “Yes, mi’ja. It’s so wonderful to have you home.”

  “Mama, Papa, can the three comadres drive around in Berta’s car once we get home?” said Lucy. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “I told you, Sofia,” said Berta. “Lucy is becoming a comadre at the speed of light! She’s not on Mexican time like you!” I kicked Berta’s shin gently.

  I dropped my stuff off
in our room and then discovered a dozen frozen tamales in the freezer. Wow! What a treat, especially after months of dining-hall food.

  “Mama,” I said, “can we have the tamales for dinner?”

  “Don’t even think of it, Sofia,” she said. “Those are for me to eat on the Day of the Dead. And don’t think you can just go over to Davila’s and buy me a dozen there.” She then went on and on about the tamales at Davila’s, how no way was she even going to touch them, and how they should be shot for even calling them tamales, since they only put a speck or two of pork inside.

  “We’re having cheese enchiladas. If you want tamales, go to Davila’s and buy some.”

  I started to laugh, for I couldn’t believe anyone could feel so passionately about a dozen frozen tamales.

  “Are you eating them when you go to leave flowers at the cemetery?” I asked.

  “No. I’m eating them in the cemetery, but when I’m dead.”

  “What?”

  Mama said, “You know I make twelve dozen tamales every year for Christmas—since you eat most of them yourself—and I make one extra dozen in case I die during the coming year. This way I can at least look forward to eating my own tamales on the Day of the Dead.”

  I remembered the hot chocolate and pozole Doña Virginia had made for her dead child and parents years ago, and Mama saying that they were coming to visit her on the Day of the Dead.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I said, kissing her, “I won’t touch them,” and I put the tamales back in the freezer.

  Berta, Lucy, and I got into the front seat of Berta’s bottle green car. It was as though I’d never left, except this time we were driving around to keep warm.

  “Berta, pull over so I can drive!” Berta and I switched sides. I turned on the ignition and shifted to D. It felt so good to be driving.

  “Lucy,” I said. “How’s your quinceañera coming along?”

  “I’m still working on my boyfriend, Noe. But I now have ten comadres, including you and Berta. . . .”

  “Wow! And I also hear you’re making arts and crafts like Mama.”

  “Yes, but it’s a secret.”

  “Secret? You’ve taken over our entire room. Lucy, where am I supposed to sleep? My bed is covered with papers, magazines, pieces of material.”