How Tia Lola Ended Up Starting Over

by Julia Alvarez

  As the guests start arriving, Tía Lola greets them at the door. “¡Sorpresa!” she cries, totally surprising them. So, Tía Lola found out about her party after all.

  “We gave her her surprise last week. It was my idea,” Cari adds because Papa never remembers to say so.

  “Tía Lola, we do have one last surprise,” Miguel announces. Earlier, the children voted him to be their spokesperson, maybe to make up for the fact that he will soon be the only boy in their combined familia. Miguel has climbed up to the landing on the stairs. It’s the only way to get the attention of this noisy congregation. “It’s your surprise birthday gift. But you have to go outside to see it.”

  “A parade?” Tía Lola guesses. But how can that be? The school already decided against a parade for the colonel. The marching band might catch pneumonia.

  “I’m not telling. It’s a surprise, and not a surprise,” Miguel says mysteriously.

  Now Tía Lola is really intrigued. These children are talking in riddles, inventing adventures, coming up with fun ideas. She has taught them well. Last summer, in her third book, they learned that the power was inside them. And how! They can run magic circles around her now.

  Tía Lola bundles up in her jacket, tying her yellow scarf around her neck. It did not fail her after all. Through the thick and thin of four books, it has been her lucky charm. Outside, the crowd gathers around a mysterious white mound that has appeared on the front lawn. So that’s why Miguel and Valentino were trying to keep her in the back of the house!

  The snow keeps falling. The outdoor lights illuminate the flakes coming down like confetti thrown at a wedding or like ticker tape in a parade. It’s as if Vermont is giving Tía Lola the parade she wanted for the colonel after all. By morning there will be enough snow for a snowman.

  “Hooray for Tía Lola! Hooray for the colonel!” the guests cheer.

  “Happy birthday, Tía Lola. This is from all of us.” Miguel gestures toward the mystery gift, then toward Juanita and the Swords, and their various parents and parents-to-be.

  “TA-RUM!” Essie says, impersonating a trumpet. Miguel lifts the sheet; snow flies every which way.

  The sign reads TÍA LOLA’S C&C&C.

  “Ah!” Tía Lola exclaims. She looks over nervously at Stargazer, as if to say, Don’t breathe a word about the other sign that I ordered and ruin their surprise. “¡Perfecto!”

  It is? The kids can’t believe it. Spacey Stargazer must have messed up and carved the wrong letters. “It’s supposed to say ‘B&B,’ ” Essie points out.

  Stargazer lifts up her mittened hands. “That’s what I thought, too. But I double-checked with Tía Lola. And that’s what she wanted.” Stargazer goes on to tell the story of the funny coincidence. “This is the sign you ordered, Tía Lola, but it’s their gift. That’s why I couldn’t let you pay for it.”

  “All’s well,” Rudy begins, and everyone chimes in, “that ends well.”

  But wait. Essie still doesn’t get it. “What is a C&C&C?”

  “My very own Spanish B&B!” Tía Lola lifts her arms, introducing her creation to the world. As her last book is coming to an end, she is happy to be starting over on a new adventure. “Tía Lola’s Cama & Comida & Cariño. Bed and food and most important, cariño!” By now, the whole town is practically bilingual, so everyone knows that “cariño” means “love.”

  In the years to come, people will try to find this charming establishment in a friendly little town in rural Vermont. They will drive around in the autumn, looking for the magnificent maple in the front yard; and in the winter, for the snowman with a yellow scarf and a plastic sword in his hand. The spring will bring them to the surrounding woods to hike; and the summer, to nearby lakes and sleepaway camps. Season after season, they will try to find Tía Lola’s C&C&C, only to give up until their next trip to Vermont.

  But even if they program their GPS and drive around for days, they won’t find what they are looking for. Except for the few who climb the steps to the small library on Main Street, the one with columns that looks like a monument celebrating some important person or deed. Inside, an important activity is indeed going on: people are reading, old people and teenagers, mommas and mamis, papis and papas and dads, tíos and tías, uncles and aunts, abuelitos and grandparents. Down in the basement, with a whole floor to themselves, little kids are reading alone on pillows in cozy corners, or reading to each other in small groups of two or four, or lying inside an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub reading to the stuffed animals.

  Just inside the basement door, shelved under A, they will find the Tía Lola books. Maybe they’ll start with the first one, or maybe the third, then backtrack to the second and first, but eventually they will arrive at Tía Lola’s C&C&C. By then, of course, the house will be painted purple with magenta shutters, and the sign up front will be decked on either side with bushes pruned in the shapes of hearts or parrots or flamingos. Upstairs, their camas will be turned down, and in the kitchen, their comidas will be warming in the oven. Their hearts will fill with cariño, so much so that they will have a hard time leaving.

  But by then, they will know that they can always come back. All they have to do is open one of her books, without making a reservation or calling in advance. There is always a vacancy at Tía Lola’s C&C&C, no matter how many guests flock here.

  So if you see people walking around, looking a little lost or scratching their heads and sighing, or showing any of the telltale signs that they are still searching for something they can’t quite put into words, please tell them where to go. It might not be in a Tía Lola book, but inside one of the many books on the shelves of their libraries, surely they will find what they are looking for.

  acknowledgments

  Just as Tía Lola

  loves to invite guests

  to her B&B,

  I am inviting

  each of you

  who helped me write this book

  to a free weekend

  at Tía Lola’s C&C&C:

  Weybridge Elementary School

  Roberto Veguez

  Lyn Tavares

  Susan Bergholz

  Erin Clarke

  Bill Eichner

  Brian Goodwin

  Katherine Branch

  Erica Stahler

  The Snells at Tourterelle

  The Middlebury College Men’s and Women’s

  Water Polo Teams

  Brad Nadeau (who deserves a season’s worth of weekends)

  Hannah and Missy Williams (who helped me prove a point)

  Muchas gracias and many thanks to all of you and to la Virgencita de la Altagracia.