Salsa Stories

by Lulu Delacre

  Thank you, Lord.

  Amen.

  I remember those evenings well when I was a young boy in Cuba, those balmy island nights before a trip to Guanabo Beach. The spicy aroma of tortilla española that Mami had left to cool would waft through the house as I lay in my bed. But I was always too excited to sleep. All I could think about was the soft white sand, the warm foamy water, and Mami’s delicious tortilla. Ahhh. A day at the beach. It was full of possibilities.

  One Saturday in May, I was awakened at the crack of dawn by sounds of laughter. My aunts, Rosa and Olga, had arrived with hammocks, blankets, and an iron kettle filled with Aunt Rosa’s steaming congrí. And best of all, they had arrived with my cousins: Luisa, Mari, and little Javi. Uncle Toni had come, too.

  When we were ready to leave, Papi, the only one in the family who owned a car, packed his Ford woody wagon with the nine of us. No one cared that we children had to squeeze into the back along with the clutter of pots and plates, food and bags, towels and blankets and hammocks. Soon the engine turned, and the car rumbled down the road into the rising sun.

  Along the way, we drove past sugarcane fields and roadside markets. My cousins and I shouted warnings to the barking dogs and laughed at the frightened hens that scurried in every direction at the sight of our car. It seemed like a long time until the cool morning breeze that blew into the windows turned warm. And the growing heat made the aroma of Mami’s tortilla all the more tempting.

  “Lick your skin, Fernando,” my older cousin Luisa told me. “If it tastes salty, that means we’ll be there any time now.”

  She was right. My skin tasted salty. And soon — almost magically — the turquoise ocean appeared as we rounded a bend in the road. Papi pulled into the familiar dirt lot and parked under the pine trees. While the grown-ups unloaded the car, we eagerly jumped out and ran toward the sea, peeling off our clothes along the way.

  “Remember, don’t go too far!” Mami and Aunt Olga warned us sternly from the distance. I turned to see them picking up our scattered clothing.

  When we reached the edge of the ocean, the water felt cold. I waded farther in and went under to warm up quickly. When I emerged I saw Luisa, Mari, and little Javi, all standing still in the clear water. They were watching the schools of tiny gold-and-black striped fish rush between their legs. Then they swam over to join me and together we rode the big waves.

  Later, Uncle Toni came in to play shark with us. We splashed, and swallowed the stinging sea water as he chased us above and under the waves. But after a while, we tired him out, and he went back to sit with the grown-ups.

  I was getting very hungry, and for a moment I thought of returning with him to sneak a bite of Mami’s tortilla. But then I had a better idea.

  “Let’s explore the reef!” I said.

  “¡Sí!” everyone agreed. “Let’s go!”

  We all splashed out of the water and ran, dripping wet, across the sand. High above, the sun beat down on us.

  When we got to the marbled rocks, Luisa looked concerned. “Our moms told us not to come this far,” she said.

  “I know the way well,” I replied. “Besides, nobody will notice. They’re too busy talking.”

  I looked in the distance and saw Mami and my two aunts in the shady spot they had picked. They had set up a nice camp. The hammocks were tied to the pine trees, the blankets were spread over the fine sand. Papi and Uncle Toni played dominoes, while they sipped coffee and shared the cucurucho de maní they had purchased from the peanut vendor. They were having fun. No one would miss us for a long time.

  “Watch out for sea urchins!” I warned as I led the group on our climb. The spiny black sea urchins hid inside the crevices and crannies of the rough boulders. It was very painful if you stepped on one. Luisa and Mari followed behind me. They were careful to only step on the rocks I stepped on. Little Javi came last. He stopped constantly to look at the cobitos, the tiny hermit crabs that scurried around on the rocks, and at the iridescent tropical fish that were concealed in the deepest tide pools. I had to keep checking behind me to make sure he didn’t stray from our path.

  Just then, I turned around to watch helplessly as Javi slipped on an algae-covered rock. “¡Cuidado!” I warned. But it was too late.

  “¡Ay!” he shrieked, and then began to cry uncontrollably.

  Cautiously, we all hurried back to help Javi. Luisa and Mari crouched down to examine his foot.

  “He stepped on a sea urchin!” Mari cried. “Now what are we going to do?”

  “We should have never followed you,” Luisa lamented. “We’ll all be punished.”

  At that moment I did not want to think of what the punishment would be. What if we couldn’t have any of Mami’s tortilla? All I knew was that we had to help Javi right away. I looked around and found a piece of driftwood.

  “Luisa,” I ordered. “Hold his leg still while I remove the urchin from his foot.”

  Luisa held Javi’s leg still as Mari held his hand and tried to comfort him. But Javi’s desperate cries were now drowning out the sound of the sea.

  I pulled and tugged, but the urchin wouldn’t budge. It was stuck to Javi’s foot by the tips of its spines. Javi was scared and in pain. And we were too far from our parents to ask for help. What if we couldn’t get Javi back? I struggled relentlessly until I was finally able to remove the spiny creature from his foot.

  Gently, Luisa poured some sea water over Javi’s foot. That was when she noticed there was still a piece of the sea urchin’s spine lodged in it. Javi wasn’t going to be able to walk back and he was much too heavy for us to carry. We had to remove that piece of spine so that he could walk on his own.

  The sun burnt our backs as we all took turns trying to dislodge the sea urchin’s spine.

  “I have an idea,” said Luisa suddenly. She removed her hair barrettes and held them like tweezers. Then, with the smallest movement, she pulled the broken spine out. With that solved, we started back.

  I helped Javi walk on his sore foot. He wept and limped with every step. Our walk back seemed endless. As we got closer I realized that we would have to explain how it was that we went to the reef in the first place. I would surely end up with no tortilla if we told the truth.

  “What will we do now?” Mari asked.

  “We’ll have to tell our parents what happened,” said Luisa matter-of-factly.

  “No!” I said emphatically. “We’ll be punished for sure.”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence. The sound of crashing waves, children playing, and seagulls’ calls became a background drone to Javi’s cries.

  When we finally reached our parents, Javi was crying louder than ever. Aunt Olga took one look at him and gasped. “¡Niños! Children! What’s happened to Javi?”

  Mari looked at Luisa. Luisa looked at me. Javi cried even louder.

  “Well …,” I hesitated. By now everyone was staring at me. “We were walking along the beach looking for cockles and urchin shells,” I began, “when I found a live sea urchin attached to a piece of driftwood. So I called the others. Javi came running so fast that he stepped on it by accident.”

  Luisa and Mari stared at me in disbelief. I didn’t think they liked my story.

  “Let me see your foot, Javi,” Aunt Olga said, kneeling next to her son.

  Mami and Aunt Rosa looked on as Aunt Olga examined Javi’s foot closely. Then she gave him a big hug and a kiss. “He’s fine,” she said at last. “It looks like the children were able to pull it out.”

  And at this good news, Javi’s tears disappeared and were replaced by a big broad smile. “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “Then let’s have lunch,” Aunt Olga said.

  I was dumbfounded. Not only had they believed me, but we were also going to eat Mami’s tortilla!

  The men went back to their domino game. The women went back to their conversation as they busied themselves serving everybody. No one but me seemed to notice how quiet Luisa and Mari had grown.

  M
ami handed me a plate filled with my favorite foods. The tortilla smelled delicious. But I was unable to eat. I looked up at Luisa and Mari who were quietly picking at their food. I watched Mami as she served herself and sat next to my aunts. I looked at my plate again. How could I enjoy my food when I knew I had done something I wasn’t supposed to do? There was only one thing I could do now. I stood up, picked up my plate, and went right over to Mami.

  “What’s wrong, Fernando?” Mami asked.

  I looked back at Luisa and Mari and swallowed hard. Then, I handed Mami my untouched plate.

  “You wouldn’t have given me this if I had told you the truth,” I said.

  Mami looked puzzled. The whole group grew silent and watched me struggle. I was very embarrassed.

  “It was my fault,” Luisa said. “I should have stopped them.”

  “And I went along,” said Mari.

  “No, no, it was my idea to go to the reef,” I said. Then I told everyone about our adventure at the reef. When I was finished, Mami looked at me with tear-filled eyes.

  “You are right, Fernando,” she said. “I should punish you for doing something you knew not to do. Somebody could have been seriously hurt.”

  “I know,” I whispered, “and I’m sorry.” But then the glimmer of a smile softened Mami’s expression. She slid her arm over my shoulders as she said, “You know, Fernando, anyone can make mistakes. But not everyone has the courage to admit it. Gracias. Thank you for telling the truth.”

  That afternoon, under the shade of the pine trees, the nine of us sat down on the old blankets for lunch. We had congrí, bread, and Mami’s famous tortilla española. And do you know something? That day it tasted better than it ever had before.

  Back in the 1940s, in Puerto Rico’s walled city of Old San Juan, everybody knew everybody else. We neighborhood children played freely together on the narrow streets, while from windows and balconies adults kept a watchful eye on us. It was only my lonely friend José Manuel who was forbidden from joining us.

  “Look, Evelyn,” whispered Amalia. “He’s up there again, watching us play.”

  Aitza and I looked up. There he was, sitting on his balcony floor. He peered sadly down at us through the wrought iron railing, while his grandma’s soap opera blared from the radio inside. No matter how hard José Manuel tried, he could not convince his grandma to let him play out on the street.

  “Too many crazy drivers! Too hard, the cobblestones! ¡Muy peligroso!” His grandma would shake her head and say, “Too dangerous!”

  Besides her fear of danger on the street, José Manuel’s grandma kept to herself and never smiled, so most of us were afraid of her. That is, until my sisters and I changed all that.

  One day, Amalia suddenly announced, “I’m going to ask his grandma to let him come down and play.” If anyone would have the courage to do that, it was my little sister Amalia. Even though she was only seven, she was the most daring of the three of us.

  We never knew what she would do next. In fact, at that very moment I could see a mischievous grin spreading across her freckled face as two elegant women turned the corner of Calle Sol. Once they strolled down the street in front of us, Amalia swiftly snuck up behind them and flipped their skirts up to expose their lace-trimmed slips.

  “¡Sinvergüenza!” the women cried out. “Little rascal!”

  We could hardly hold our laughter in. We all looked up to make sure none of the neighbors had seen her. If anyone had, we would surely have been scolded as soon as we got home. News traveled fast in our neighborhood.

  Luckily, only José Manuel was watching us with amusement in his wistful eyes. Grateful for an audience, Amalia smiled at him, curtsied, and ran down the street toward the old cathedral with us chasing after her. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for my friend as we left him behind.

  There was hardly any sea breeze that day, and running in the humidity made us quite hot.

  “Let’s get some coconut sherbet,” said Amalia, peeling her damp red curls away from her sweaty neck.

  “¡Sí, sí,” we agreed, and we chattered excitedly about our plans for that night all the way to the ice-cream vendor’s wooden cart by the harbor.

  It was June twenty-third, and that night was the Night of San Juan. For this holiday, the tradition was to go to the beach, and at exactly midnight, everyone would walk backward into the sea. People say that doing this three times on the Night of San Juan brings good luck. I thought of my friend José Manuel. Perhaps if he did this with us, his luck would change, and his grandma would allow him to play with us outside on the street.

  I thought about this as we bought our coconut sherbet and then ate it perched on the knobby roots of the ancient tree above the port. Excitement stirred in me while the distant ships disappeared over the horizon.

  “How can we get José Manuel to go to the beach tonight?” I asked my sisters.

  “Evelyn, you know very well his grandma will never let him go,” Aitza said. “You know what she will say —”

  “¡Muy peligroso!” Aitza and Amalia teased at once. “Too dangerous!”

  It was getting close to dinnertime, and we knew we had to be home soon if we wanted our parents to take us to the beach that night. So we took the shortcut back across the main square. In the plaza, groups of men played dominoes while the women sat by the fountain and gossiped. Back on the street we heard the vegetable vendor chanting:

  “¡Vendo yucca, plátanos, tomates!”

  He came around every evening to sell his fresh cassava, plantains, tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables.

  Leaning from her balcony, a big woman lowered a basket that was tied by a cord to the rail. In it was the money that the vendor replaced with two green plantains. As we approached our street I saw José Manuel and his grandma out on the second floor. She gave José Manuel money and went back inside. He was about to lower his basket when I had an idea. Maybe there was a way we could ask him to join us.

  “What if we send José Manuel a note in his grandma’s basket inviting him to go to the beach with us tonight?” I offered.

  “It will never work,” Aitza said. “His grandma will not like it. We could get into trouble.”

  “Then we could ask her personally,” I said.

  “But what excuse could we use to go up there?” said Aitza. “Nobody ever shows up uninivited at José Manuel’s house.”

  “Wait! I know what we can do,” Amalia said, jumping up and down. “We’ll tell him to drop something. Then we’ll go up to return it.”

  Even though Aitza was very reluctant, we convinced her to try our plan. We wrote the note and asked the vegetable vendor to please place it in José Manuel’s basket next to the vegetables. We impatiently waited on the corner as we watched. When he opened the note, he looked puzzled. He took the tomatoes he had purchased in to his grandmother. Soon he returned with his little red ball. He had just sat down to play when suddenly the ball fell from the balcony. It bounced several times, rolled down the hill, and bumped into a wall. Amalia flew after it. “I got it!” she called triumphantly, offering me her find.

  With José Manuel’s ball in my hand we climbed up the worn stairs of his pink apartment house. And while Aitza and I stood nervously outside his apartment trying to catch our breath, Amalia knocked loudly on the wooden door. With a squeaking sound it slowly opened, and there stood José Manuel’s grandma wearing a frown as grim as her black widow’s dress.

  “¿Sí?” she said. “How can I help you?”

  Aitza and I looked at each other. She looked as afraid as I felt. But without hesitation, Amalia took the little ball from my hand and proudly showed it to José Manuel’s grandma. I wanted to run, but a glimpse of José Manuel’s hopeful expression made me stay.

  “This belongs to José Manuel,” Amalia declared. “We came to return it.” Amalia took a deep breath, then took a step forward. “We also wanted to know if he could come to the beach tonight with our family.”

  Aitza and I meekly stood b
ehind Amalia.

  “The beach?” José Manuel’s grandma asked, surprised, as she took the little ball from Amalia’s palm.

  “Y-y-yes,” I stuttered. “Tonight is the Night of San Juan, and our parents take us to the beach every year.”

  José Manuel’s grandma scowled at us. How silly to think she would ever let him go. I suddenly felt embarrassed and turned to leave, pulling both sisters with me by their arms.

  “Wait,” we heard her raspy voice behind us. “Come inside for a surullito de maíz.”

  It was then that I smelled the aroma of the corn fritters that was escaping from the kitchen. José Manuel’s grandma was making surullitos for dinner.

  “Oh, yes!” Amalia followed her in without a thought. And before we knew it, we were all seated in the living room rocking chairs next to José Manuel, eating the most delicious corn fritters that we dipped in garlicky sauce. Somehow, sitting there with José Manuel, his grandma seemed less scary. After we finished, José Manuel’s grandma thanked us for our invitation and said she would let us know.

  José Manuel smiled.

  When we got home we found Mami waiting with her hands on her hips. She had just hung up the phone with José Manuel’s grandma. She had reason to be upset. Not only were we late for supper, but in our excitement we had forgotten to ask for permission before inviting José Manuel to the beach. We all looked down, not knowing what to do or say.

  “It wasn’t my fault. It was Evelyn and Amalia’s idea,” volunteered Aitza, the coward.

  “Bendito, Mami,” I said. “Don’t punish us, we forgot.”

  “Forgot?” Mami asked.

  “Sí, Mami,” we all said at once. “We are sorry.”

  “Actually it was very nice of you girls to invite him,” said Mami. “But please remember to ask me first next time.”

  Late that night the whole family went to the beach as was our tradition on the Night of San Juan. But this time was special, for we had José Manuel with us.