How Tia Lola Ended Up Starting Over

by Julia Alvarez

  “Ingenious! Worthy of the wise Kogis.” This is Margaret Soucy, world authority, commending Tía Lola, who never went past fourth grade. “But will it work?”

  Tía Lola nods with certainty. “Believe me. One thing I know from living in your United States of American tribe, Margarita, is that curiosity killed the cat.” Tía Lola grins, pleased at the opportunity to use a saying she recently learned in English.

  Miguel sure hopes Tía Lola’s plan will work. She has a good track record. After all, it was her Thin Edge of the Wedge idea that got the B&B ball rolling with the guinea-pig weekend. Unless the offender is caught and safely put where she can’t cause any more harm, Miguel is sure that Mami and Víctor will close down Tía Lola’s B&B—even if his aunt would rather keep it open to spite Mrs. Beauregard.

  “In order for this plan to work, you must stay out of sight inside the house,” Tía Lola cautions Henny. “Your mother will come around, but it might take a while.”

  “When she does, she’ll kill me.” Henny has started worrying again.

  But her bold, brave aunt throws an arm around her niece and gives her a hearty shake. “Courage, my dear. One thing I learned from the Bushmen in the Kalahari, when you hunt the kudu, it’s persistence that wins out.”

  Soon they are launched into another one of Margaret Soucy’s incredible adventures. Miguel can’t help thinking that if a Bushman with a bow and arrow can bring down a large animal, surely five people, one of them armed with a samurai sword, can handle Henny’s crazy mother.

  But by late afternoon, Miguel is not so sure Tía Lola’s plan is going to work. They’ve been waiting all day, and still no sign of Mrs. Beauregard. Every hour or so, he and Essie make the rounds, inspecting the yard for fresh footprints. Finally, Miguel and Essie decide to go check why Mrs. Beauregard hasn’t come in search of her messenger.

  The two children ride their bikes out to Miguel’s house in the country. Miguel has hatched his own plan: baiting Henny’s mother with her very own bag of fake critters.

  As they ride by Mrs. Beauregard’s house, they spot a figure behind the thin curtain in the front parlor. Past the house, they turn around. As they pedal by again, Miguel hurls one of the spiders against the window. The fake tarantula lands with a thud. Good thing his pitching arm is still strong, even if he’s months out of training.

  As the two children ride away, the front door opens. Mrs. Beauregard comes out to investigate. She must have found the spider, because she calls out tentatively, “Henny?” Then in a louder, more threatening voice, she says, “Henriette Beauregard, you are in a heap of trouble!”

  By this time, Miguel and Essie have reached the corner. They stop and hide behind a bush to watch.

  Down the road comes Mrs. Beauregard, her slippers slapping on the pavement, her coat unbuttoned, her loose hair blowing about wildly. Just past the house, she finds one of the snakes Miguel dropped. A few steps later, a bee-tie. Miguel’s plan is working! He’ll keep dropping them all the way to Tía Lola’s B&B. A kind of reverse Hansel and Gretel, in which the children lure the witch out of her den and into the hands of the sheriff.

  Miguel and Essie get back on their bikes, ready to ride ahead of their prey. But just then, Mrs. Beauregard stumbles. The light is dim. She must not have seen a pothole or a rock and has taken what looks to be a nasty fall.

  “Let’s go for help,” Essie urges Miguel. Soon it’ll be dark. They should not be on an unlit country road without reflective jackets on.

  Miguel would like to ride safely back as well. But he’s not about to desert a wounded person, even if she happens to be someone who has done mean things and deserves her comeuppance. “You go. Tell Tía Lola to call an ambulance. I’ll stay with her.”

  “S-s-s-stay alone with Mrs. B-B-B-Beauregard?” Essie’s voice is all trembly.

  So as not to betray his own shaky voice, Miguel nods. He turns his bike around and rides back to the crumpled heap on the side of the road. There’s a pool of blood beside her head. Miguel springs from his bike and kneels down at her side. “Are you all right?”

  In response, Mrs. Beauregard groans. Never has Miguel been so glad to hear a human sound. “Just lie there, don’t try to move. My friend’s gone for help.”

  “No, no, don’t,” the woman cries, struggling to get up. But with a yelp of pain, she lets herself fall back onto the road. Miguel pulls off his jacket and lays it under her head. In the faint light of the setting sun, he can see that her right foot is twisted. Blood is coming from the cut on her forehead. Everything else seems to be okay. But one thing Miguel learned in their first-aid class at school is not to move someone who has been in an accident. You can make things worse. Dislocate a broken back. Cause more bleeding. All this he relates to Mrs. Beauregard in a calm voice.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he keeps telling her.

  A surprised look has come over Mrs. Beauregard’s face. It’s as if for the first time in a long while, she is realizing that somebody does care for her. This boy stopped to help. He took off his jacket to make her comfortable. Maybe the world isn’t a totally miserable place. Maybe there are these moments of amazing grace. “You’re a kind young man,” she murmurs. “Thank you, son.”

  Sunday afternoon, Víctor and Mami return to a quiet, peaceful gathering in the front parlor. Tía Lola and the colonel sit in their rocking chairs, accompanied by two strangers, one of them in a cast. The Espada girls and Juanita and Miguel are finishing up their homework. Linda and Víctor look at each other with lifted eyebrows. Kids doing their homework without their parents reminding them!

  Tía Lola and the colonel have agreed to tell Linda and Víctor the news in small portions. Otherwise, they might be tempted to close down Tía Lola’s B&B, especially if they are given a full serving of this weekend’s misadventures.

  And now, more than ever, a new hotel will be needed in town, as Mrs. Beauregard’s place will be closing down. All day the two sisters have been talking. Odette has confessed her wrongdoing and begged forgiveness. Meanwhile, Margaret has taken responsibility for her own pigheadedness, leaving her sister and young niece to fend for themselves. The sheriff has already been by, and though no one is pressing charges, Mrs. Beauregard and Henny have agreed to enroll in a diversion program and get some counseling.

  What turned their lives around? For Henny, it was Essie’s confiding in her. “Here this little kid was trusting me, and I was being a sneak. I felt this big,” she says, pinching the air with her thumb and forefinger.

  For her mother, what melted her cold heart was Miguel’s kindness. “This boy, who didn’t owe me a darn thing, took care of me. I’ll never forget it.” Mrs. Beauregard’s eyes fill with tears.

  Miguel comes clean. It was his baiting Mrs. Beauregard with those plastic critters that caused the problem in the first place. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

  But Mrs. Beauregard won’t have it. That fall has led to her lifting herself up out of the pit she had fallen into. “Amazing grace, like the song says. You did a kind, thoughtful deed by stopping.” Actually, when Mrs. Beauregard fell, Miguel didn’t even have to think about it. Of course he ran back to help her. It’s what you should do as a member of the human-being tribe. Margaret Soucy can tell you that.

  But the biggest surprise of the weekend so far is that Margaret Soucy has decided to come home. She is tired of traveling, all those airplane flights, elephant rides, trekking through deserts and jungles. All those bad meals of spiders and locusts and yak’s milk. She’s ready to hang up her binoculars and netted hat. To settle down with her sister and niece and guide them both into happier, healthier lives.

  Víctor surveys the cozy scene. “How lovely to find everyone safe and sound and happy.” His eyes land on the Soucy sisters. “I believe we haven’t met.”

  “These are some nieces of mine,” Colonel Charlebois speaks up. It’s the truth. Since childhood, the two Soucy girls, who lived down the road from his family farm, have called him Uncle Charlie. They might as well be
relatives.

  Once the introductions are over, Linda and Víctor exchange a long glance. It seems they, too, have some news to share. But first, Mami asks, “So how was your weekend?”

  No one says a word. They all stare at the floor, afraid to catch each other’s eye and explode with laughter. Thank goodness for Margaret Soucy, who never met a silence she couldn’t fill with stories of her adventures.

  “I was actually telling the children about my time among the Itabo.”

  “She was indeed,” Colonel Charlebois asserts. “Fascinating stories.”

  “And I was telling about my childhood in the campo.” Tía Lola is not one to be left behind when it comes to stories. This is another of her ploys, along with The Thin Edge of the Wedge and The Messenger Hasn’t Come Back. It’s called the Arabian Nights strategy. You find yourself in a tight spot and you start telling stories to save your life. One story sparks another and another. By the time 1,001 stories have been told, no one remembers to cut off anybody’s head or close down anybody’s B&B.

  Víctor and Linda listen delightedly to Margaret and Tía Lola. Then, in a quiet lull between stories, Cari asks the question that stops all the storytellers in their tracks. “What I want to know is: are we going to keep having Tía Lola’s B&B or not?”

  Everyone turns to Tía Lola. “Vamos a ver,” she says mysteriously, winking at the colonel. We shall see.

  How Cari Got Her Answer

  and a BIG New Familia Was Formed

  Remember that look that passed between Linda and Víctor? During the weekend away, the two parents have had a chance to talk.

  Víctor has finally confessed that he doesn’t want to be a lawyer anymore. And it’s for the best. His part-time coaching job at the college will officially become full-time, starting in January! How happy he is with this opportunity to follow his dreams.

  That’s not the only dream that has come true. Víctor has proposed, and Linda has said yes!

  But now they need Tía Lola’s help. What is the best way to tell the children that they would like to get married and form a big family together?

  As Tía Lola is mulling this over, she gets a call from Daniel and Carmen in Brooklyn. They have been debating where and when to get married. Ever since she slept in the bridal bedroom, Carmen has been dreaming of staying at Tía Lola’s B&B for her honeymoon. They’d like to come up this weekend and discuss options and possibly work out the details.

  And so Tía Lola plans the biggest, most ambitious weekend at her B&B so far, with all the families coming together under one roof. Carmen and Daniel and Linda will each get a guest bedroom; Víctor, the kids, and Tía Lola will stay up in the attic. This will be a trial run of the big new familia that the children and adults will all be forming together.

  “Perhaps I’ll go stay out of the way in the farmhouse,” the colonel offers.

  Tía Lola won’t hear of it. “You can’t leave, coronel! You have to stay and help me. After all, you and I are the fairy godparents.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” the colonel says crankily. He’s not the fairy-godfather type. He has been too many years in the military. But the last year of getting close to Miguel and Juanita’s family has softened the old man’s crusty character, and the arrival of the Espadas has further sweetened his temperament. “Just as long as I don’t have to go around carrying a wand and wearing wings instead of my uniform, I guess I can join in.”

  No wand, no wings, Tía Lola promises, saluting him.

  The night before all the parents are due to arrive, Tía Lola and Colonel Charlebois hold a meeting with Miguel and Juanita and the Espada sisters. None of the children know the specifics of why all the parents are gathering. But hey, kids are smart. They’ve figured out what is coming down the pike.

  “Big surprise: our parents are getting hooked up.” Essie sighs one of those been-there-done-that sighs.

  Tía Lola’s hands are at her hips. “Esperanza Espada, there’s more to family than ‘hooking up,’ as you call it. Isn’t that so, coronel?”

  “How would I know?” Colonel Charlebois replies gruffly. The military has been his only family all his adult life. “But yes, yes, of course, I imagine that is so.” He did agree to be a fairy godfather. This means being an authority on any number of things.

  “It’s extremely important that each of you takes part in your parents’ remarriages,” Tía Lola’s voice has assumed a serious tone. A somber mood settles in the room.

  “But I don’t get it, Tía Lola.” Juanita speaks up for all of them. “What are we supposed to do? We’re not the ones getting married.”

  “Oh no?!” Tía Lola raises her eyebrows at the colonel as if she can’t believe these kids have gotten this far in life without knowing what’s what. “Your parents are not just marrying their new spouses, they are marrying your new stepparents. Anything you’d love to see in your new family or anything you want to keep from the old, now is the time to say so.”

  It’s nice of Tía Lola to look out for their interests. But the children aren’t really worried. Never mind the bad rap that fairy tales have given stepmothers, especially. Every one of their soon-to-be stepparents is a really nice person.

  “You are very lucky children,” Tía Lola is saying, as if reading their minds. But she has her own reason for saying so. “In this country, children have only nuclear families: mama, papa. That’s it!” She holds out two empty palms. “So few to love and be loved by. Back home, we have huge familias, with mamá, papá, abuelitos, grandparents, tíos, tías, uncles and aunts, primos, primas, cousins and more cousins, and many amigos. Now you, too, will have a big familia in this country.” Tía Lola starts counting them off: Linda, Víctor, Daniel, Carmen, Abuelito, Abuelita, el coronel.…

  “But wait, Tía Lola,” Essie stops her. “Daniel and Carmen aren’t related to us.” She points to her sisters and herself.

  “¿Qué no? Oh no? Of course they will be. Daniel is the father and Carmen will become the stepmother of your stepsisters. So they are your stepparents once removed!”

  Essie can buy that. After all, the Espada girls have been calling Tía Carmen aunt for as long as they can remember. Carmen and Papa used to work together in the same law firm in New York. In fact, if Carmen hadn’t recommended Víctor for Tía Lola’s immigration hearing, this story wouldn’t be happening at all.

  “Sometime this weekend, we will have a big meeting of the whole familia.” Tía Lola spreads her arms as if she means to hug all of them. “Each of you will get your chance to tell your wishes.”

  “Is there a limit?” Essie would ask.

  “Because you are many, why don’t you each pick one thing that you’d like to see in the new family, and one thing you’d like to keep from the old one?”

  For the rest of the evening at Tía Lola’s B&B, the children are quiet, thinking over their memories, their hopes, and their dreams. Even Valentino stares pensively into the fire, wondering how best to convey his own doggy desires.

  Saturday night, after all the guests have had a day to settle in, Tía Lola calls for a gathering in the front parlor. “Todos. Everyone. Including our one-and-only mascota,” she adds. Valentino loves the Spanish word for “pet.” It makes him feel that he’s not just a pet, but the mascot of the family.

  Tía Lola explains why she is holding this meeting. How they will soon all be one familia. How everyone in a familia gets a vote, just like in this great United States of America, with people coming from around the world to form one country together. “You, grown-ups, have had a chance to share your hopes and fears with each other. Now the children would like their turn.”

  Tía Lola glances over at the children, sitting together for moral support. “Who would like to start?”

  No surprise, Essie does. “We all agreed on the one thing we’d like to keep, Papa.” Suddenly, very uncharacteristically, Essie is stricken with speechlessness. She turns to her big sister. “You say it.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Victoria mutt
ers under her breath. Essie would pull a “You’re the oldest” when faced with something she doesn’t want to do. “First, let’s each say what we want in our new family, okay?” she suggests, delaying the uncomfortable request.

  This part is no problem for Essie. “I’d like for our whole new family—you guys, too …” She nods toward Daniel and Carmen. Before Papa can stop her with that look of his, Essie races through her wish: “I’d like us to all gotoDisneyWorldlikeyoupromised, Papa.” Earlier this year, Papa said he would consider a trip to Disney World. Instead, he brought his daughters to Vermont, which Essie has to admit turned out to be fun. But still. Essie can’t help feeling shortchanged.

  Incredibly, Papa says, “Well, Essie, you’re in luck.”

  Linda elaborates. “Your father and I have been talking about going to the D.R. so my familia there can meet our new family. Disney World is on the way—”

  Before she can finish, the room explodes with cheering. Two cool trips in one! Essie especially goes ballistic, as her older sister calls it, high-fiving everybody, including Valentino. Finally she settles down so her little sister can have a turn.

  “For something new, I want a little baby sister,” Cari whispers. “I promise I’ll carry her with both hands.” She shows how she will do it.

  “We’ll definitely work on it,” Carmen promises her, biting her lip so as not to smile. “Except it might turn out to be a little boy. Would that be okay?”

  “Just as long as it’s littler than me,” Cari says, relieved that her wish is being taken seriously.

  Victoria levels one of her killer looks at Essie. Don’t you dare. It would be just like Essie to make fun of Cari by reminding her that a baby sister or brother has to be littler than she. But the look is lost on Essie, who is already far away in Disney World, zooming down Space Mountain, screaming her head off.

  Victoria is next. She feels timid about wishing for stuff after her water polo boy-wish fiasco. She settles on something that’s not too personal—so she won’t feel awful if it backfires on her. “I know this is going to sound weird because we’re Mexican-Americans. But, Papa, like you’ve told us, you were raised almost totally in English. You guys know so much more Spanish.” Victoria nods at Miguel and Juanita. “I’d really like it if we spoke Spanish sometimes as a family. Like maybe even pick a day a week?”