“That’s good money!” Bella said.
“Your shoes are very pretty,” Juanita said.
Mary smiled. “The minute I got these, I tossed the old yellow ones into the garbage.”
As the girls strolled up the street past Ferlita’s, Mary asked, “Is your mama still set on your working at the factory?”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if I was just there for the summer.”
“Maybe she’ll change her mind?” Mary said. “My luck turned for the better, didn’t it?”
“I’d love to be in school next fall when you get to show off your new shoes.”
“Mama might keep me cleaning full-time. And if she doesn’t, those boys will find something else to tease me about.”
“They can be so mean,” Bella agreed. “How is your job?”
Mary was helping her mother do housework for a rich family in Tampa. “It’s not fair for a few people to have so much. Colonel Purcell’s children throw more food in the garbage every day than we eat in a week.”
“If only we could trade places.”
“I know it sounds great,” Mary said, “but they never seem happy. The kids whine and fight all day long.”
The next morning Bella helped Mama start breakfast; then she got ready for work. Instead of going to the factory as she’d always dreamed—wearing a fine white dress and reading to the workers from a lectern—she had to put on her oldest dress and apron. And instead of sharing great literature, she’d be stuck in a stuffy room, stemming tobacco leaves. Bella felt like crying the whole way to Lola’s house.
Lola opened her door with a big grin. “Today we’ll see how good a despalilladora you are. If you don’t stem those leaves just right, the cigar rollers will tan your hide.”
“Really?”
“I’m joking. A monkey could pull out the stems and bunch the tobacco leaves together. But once you learn, you’ll be promoted.”
“So how did you start?”
“Like so many in the old days, I began as a chinchal.”
Bella frowned. Chinchal was one of the words for bedbug.
“It was a small household cigar factory. They called them chinchales because the people were packed into one place like bedbugs. We had twenty people working in a little house. Most everyone on our block helped. Even Rosa.”
“Mama was a cigar roller?” Bella asked.
“Hasn’t she ever told you?”
Bella shook her head.
“Rosa had a knack. She always had quicker hands than me.”
“Why didn’t she keep working?”
“A handsome young cigar roller named Domingo happened by one day, and she traded making cigars for making babies.”
Bella blushed.
When they arrived at the Rafael Fuente Factory, Lola gave Bella a tour of the building before she introduced her to the supervisor.
Like most cigar factories, the Fuente building was three stories high. “The first floor is for sales, packing, and shipping. This early in the morning the only fellows around are the packers and the pickers.”
A handsome man walked by. “Good morning, Miss Lola.” He winked at Bella as he tipped his hat.
“Morning, Mike,” Lola said.
“Do they all wear derby hats?” Bella asked.
“It shows they’re the kings of the roost. Our main production starts on this floor too. In the casing room at the end of that hall”—Lola pointed down a narrow corridor—“men sort the leaves into the proper grades. After they dip the bunches in rainwater to soften the fibers, they send them up to the wrapper selectors and wrapper strippers on the second floor. That’s where the important work happens.”
“Is that by any chance where your rolling bench is?”
“I’ll show you.” Lola led the way up a creaky flight of stairs.
The light was dim, and the air had a damp, moldy smell. “How old is this building?” Bella stared at the worn places in the stair treads.
“She was built in 1897.” Lola patted the open-stud wall.
As they entered the main workroom, Lola said, “We call this La Galera.” She waved at a row of benches near the front. “I work under that window. And our lector sits there.” Lola pointed toward the side of the long, narrow room. Unlike Grandfather’s lectern, which was carved like a minister’s pulpit, this platform was a simple stand with two-by-four railings. As plain as the lectern was, it thrilled Bella to imagine herself reading in such a huge hall.
“Two lectores share the reading,” Lola said; and then, lowering her voice, she added, “but neither of them can hold a candle to your grandfather. Now I’ll show you La Barbacoa.”
“The barbecue?” Bella asked.
“That’s the nickname they use for the room where we strip the binder tobacco. It gets a bit warm up on the third floor.” Lola led the way up another flight of stairs. The air had a hot, bittersweet smell.
“You’ll be right in here.” Lola led Bella across the hall.
As they entered the stripping room, a husky man wearing an unbuttoned vest over a white shirt and tie said, “I see you’ve brought another pullet for my henhouse.” One of his front teeth was solid gold, and he had a pencil-thin mustache.
“Good morning, Edgar.” Then, turning to Bella, Lola said, “Meet your new boss, Mr. Mendez. Since Edgar has only women working as despalilladoras, he has the bad habit of calling them pullets and hens.”
“Good morning, Mr. Mendez,” Bella said.
“A pleasure to meet you.” Edgar Mendez extended his hand.
Bella reached out to shake the foreman’s hand, but Lola slapped his hand away. “That won’t be necessary,” Lola said. “Just see that you take good care of my Bella.”
“But of course.” Edgar Mendez rubbed the back of his hand. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some paperwork to do.”
Lola chuckled after he left. “That grinning rooster and I go way back.”
“But why did you—?”
“Edgar has a reputation for getting too familiar with his female workers, and I wanted to put him in his place,” Lola said. “Don’t let him try anything.”
A young woman in a sleeveless white dress and a brown-stained apron popped through the door. “Is this the pretty niece you’ve been telling us about?”
“Say hi to Lorena Sanchez, Bella.”
Lorena smiled. She looked only two or three years older than Bella. When Lorena reached out to shake Bella’s hand, Lola said, “Lorena won’t bite, sweetie.”
“You haven’t been slapping Mr. Handsy Mendez again, have you?” Lorena laughed.
“It was my duty to see that Bella got off to a good start.” Lola patted Bella’s arm.
“If you want to know anything about the cigar business,” Lorena said, “just ask Lola.”
“And if I don’t know the answer I’ll make something up. I’d better get down to my bench. Will you show her the ropes, Lorena?”
Bella studied the stripping room. The walls were bare brick, and the floor was puddled with water. Two dozen straight-backed chairs stood beside tables made out of planks laid across the tops of wooden barrels. One foggy window at the end of the room and four bare lightbulbs hanging from the center beam provided the only light.
“The work is simple enough,” Lorena said. She picked up a damp tobacco leaf from the table and tore the stem loose.
“That’s it?”
“All we do is strip the leaves and fold them into bunches. The job might be dull, but it puts food on the table. I don’t even mind this year’s production cuts. Working four days a week gives me more time with my children. I’ve got three little ones that my mama watches while I’m here.”
“Have you worked a long time?”
“Five years. I started when I was thirteen.”
“Good morning, Lorena,” a voice called from the door.
“Hi, Ruby,” Lorena said. “Meet the new girl.” She turned to Bella. “You’d better put your apron on, honey.”
By the end o
f the day Bella’s back was aching and her fingers were raw from tugging on the slippery stems. Her hands were stained a dark brown. On the way home she asked Lola, “Will this tobacco juice ever come off?”
“It’s a nice soft shade!”
“Thanks.” Bella squinted in the bright June sun. She had a headache from breathing the mixture of damp, moldy air and stale cigar smoke that drifted in from the hall. But the biggest disappointment was not being able to hear the lectores. She’d hoped their voices would carry to the stripping room, but neither of the readers had enough fuerza de grito to project that far.
Luckily, most of the women in Lorena’s crew turned out to be good company. The conversation and joking across the tables made the mind-numbing work endurable.
“Did Edgar treat you well today?” Lola asked.
“The foreman? Oh, yes,” Bella said. “He was very polite.”
“He’ll answer to me if he bothers you.”
“Were the readings good today?”
“As I told you, Santo and Diaz aren’t strong readers. But Santo did a fair job on a Victor Hugo story.”
“What was the name of it?” Bella asked.
“The one about the priest and the boy who steals the loaf of bread and ends up spending nineteen years in jail.”
“Les Misérables.” Bella sighed. “That’s one of my favorites.” She thought, Not only will I be stuck in a sweaty stripping room all summer long, but I won’t get to hear the stories that I love.
CHAPTER 13
The First Man
Bella was exhausted at the end of each day, but the children still wanted their stories. One night she said, “Let’s walk to the Regensburg tower and watch the clock.”
Pedro wouldn’t go, but Juanita and Isabel were excited. Bella led the girls up the street, thinking of the many times Papa had taken her to watch El Reloj toll in the redbrick tower. As they waited, Bella knelt and whispered, “Get ready,” just as Papa had.
Boom, boom, boom . . . A flock of blackbirds rose from the trees across the street, and the girls squealed at each bright clang. When the tolling was over, Juanita said, “Now you can tell us a story on the way home.”
“Yes!” Isabel said. “Pedro will be sorry he didn’t come.”
At the end of the week Bella was looking forward to picking up her pay envelope. But after donating a nickel to one charity, a dime to another, and paying the cafetero for her coffee breaks, she was left with only $3.40. She looked at the change in her hand and thought back to the huge piles of tobacco leaves she’d stripped that week.
As Bella headed out the door, Lola asked, “How does it feel to be a working girl?”
“It’s nice to get paid, but I wonder how much the Fuente Company earned from my three dollars and forty cents?”
“More than you can imagine, dearie.” Lola turned down the street toward home. “But you’d be making a lot less without the union fighting for you.”
“We’d be starving like those miners in Kentu—”
“Señorita García. I must say you are looking most lovely today.”
It was Cesar Hidalgo, the grumpy roller from El Paraíso. He smoothed the ends of his mustache and bowed to Lola.
“Don’t waste your sweet talk on me, Cesar.” Lola smiled.
“If only I were a poet and could do justice to your beauty,” Cesar said.
“You’re so full of it,” Lola laughed. “Have a pleasant weekend.”
“May you enjoy your holiday as well, señorita.”
As they walked away, Bella whispered, “I thought he was always crabby.”
“Cesar can get ornery, but he’s always been kind to me.”
“How do you know him?”
“I worked with him at the Cuesta-Rey factory. He was always running off at the mouth.” She leaned closer to Bella. “Did you know he once shot a man in a duel?”
“Grandfather said he had a temper, but he never mentioned that.”
“It started when Cesar and another man were arguing over Cuban politics at lunch,” Lola said. “No one thought anything of it, but that evening both of them showed up downtown with pistols. Luckily they were poor shots. Cesar emptied his gun and only wounded the fellow’s shoulder. The main casualty was a customer in Joe’s Barbershop.”
“The barbershop?” Bella frowned.
“Joe had just lathered up a customer when a stray bullet shot out his plate glass window. No one blamed Joe for slipping with his razor—he nearly took the man’s ear off—but poor Joe was so shook up he had to quit barbering.”
Bella’s eyes were wide. “You’re lucky Cesar likes you!”
When Bella got home she was still feeling discouraged about her pay. But when she gave Mama the money, the expression on Mama’s face was worth all the sweat. “You must keep some for yourself,” Mama said.
“It’s my turn to help now.”
“We’ll put your money right here in the cupboard.” Mama took a pint fruit jar and set it on a shelf. “What we don’t spend on groceries I’ll leave as an emergency fund.”
“Maybe there’ll be enough left to pay for school someday?”
“One never knows,” Mama said.
“And if Pedro decides he doesn’t want to go to school, we might have more than we need.”
“As the future breadwinner of his family, Pedro will have no choice but to go to school or at least learn a trade.”
“But that’s not fair.” Bella filled the basin to wash her hands.
“Why must you always question things?” Mama asked.
“You know I get the best grades in my class. What’s wrong with asking for the world to be fair?” Bella scrubbed her hands as she spoke. “It would be nice if life turned out perfectly all the time. But not everyone gets married.”
“Don’t talk that way. Of course you’ll get married.”
“Aunt Lola’s doing fine. What if I want to be like her? Or work in an office or teach?” Bella faced Mama as she dried her hands. “And look at what’s happened to us. How can you ask me to count on a man supporting me? And a family?”
“Don’t be cruel.” Mama fought back tears. “I try to take good care of you.”
“That’s not what I mean! Of course you do.”
“I do the best I can.” Mama was crying now.
“I know! I know. I’m sorry, Mama.” Bella gave her a hug.
It’s no use, Bella thought. She didn’t want to hurt Mama, but why couldn’t she let Bella have her own chance? Maybe Mama looked on school as a thing that would take Bella away from her . . . the way the trip to Cuba had taken her Domingo?
When Bella told Grandfather about her first payday, he said, “Work is noble, but you must never forget that gold is worthless compared to the currency of honor.”
“All I want is enough gold to get me through high school.”
“With your natural beauty and the nice dresses that I’ve bought you, it should be easy for you to find a proper husband.”
“It’s sad that husbands can be bought so cheaply.”
Grandfather started to say something, but he looked at Belicia’s portrait on the wall and sighed instead.
The following morning Bella woke to the smell of coffee. She opened her eyes and saw Juanita staring down at her. “She’s awake!” Juanita called.
Isabel stepped forward with a tray that held a slice of bread and a steaming cup of café con leche. “What’s this?” Bella asked.
“We’ve made you breakfast in bed.” Isabel smiled.
“It was the girls’ idea,” Mama said. “Since you’ve been working so hard, they wanted to let you sleep.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock,” Isabel said.
“We should get started on the laundry.” Bella pushed the covers aside.
“You sit back,” Mama said. “We’re already half done.”
“Yes,” Juanita said, “enjoy your rest.”
“How nice of you to take such good care of me,” Bell
a said. The girls stood proudly.
Bella lay back and relaxed. This was the latest she had slept since Easter.
Later that afternoon the family was sitting in the parlor sharing the newspaper. As usual, the Navarros’ radio was on. José had been keeping the volume turned down since Mama had spoken with him, but Bella still had trouble reading with the noise in the background. Once the sun went down, the reception cleared up.
Bella enjoyed some of the music that played in the evening, but she didn’t like the way the radio pushed the familiar sounds of Ybor into the background. The whistles from the train and the box factory, the clanging of the trolley bell, the calling of the pirulí man all sounded muted and far away.
The next morning after breakfast Pedro ran to Grandfather’s and borrowed the Sunday Tribune so he could read the comics. Though Juanita couldn’t read yet, she studied the society-page photos of blond girls in fancy dresses posing with teacups in their hands.
As Bella was reading the front page, Isabel looked over her shoulder at a picture of a woman standing beside an airplane. “Did Amelia Earhart set another record?”
“Yes. She flew to a new high-altitude record.”
“Who cares?” Pedro didn’t look up from his comic.
“You’re still mad about that girl striking out Babe Ruth,” Isabel said.
“I am not,” Pedro said. “But I say girls are lousy pilots. Wait until Lucky Lindy gets his new plane. He’ll break more records in a month than that Earhart dame could set in a year.”
“Don’t be so closed-minded!” Bella laughed.
“What’s that mean?”
“A closed-minded person shuts his mind to new ideas,” Bella said. “Get used to it. Women will soon be doing anything they want.”
Pedro rolled his eyes.
“And now that women can vote, it’s only a matter of time before we have a woman president in this country.”
“That’s right.” Isabel lifted her chin. “And maybe you can grow up to marry a smart woman one day and live in the White House when she’s president.”
“Never.” Pedro shook his head. “Besides, what does Bella know? She’s only an old tobacco stripper.”
“Pedro Lorente!” Mama said. “Show some respect.”
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