Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Sneak Peek at Random Acts of Kittens
Also by Yamile Saied Méndez
Copyright
“Well done, María Emilia!” said Mrs. Prescott as she placed a corrected test on my desk. Though her voice was soft, I was sure the rest of the class had heard her too.
My cheeks burned, feeling like they were the exact same color as the red 10/10 on the corner of the paper. “For real?”
“Why are you so surprised?” she said, her blues eyes sparkling. “I expected nothing but the best from you.” She beamed at me and continued handing out papers to the rest of the class.
Surprised? I was relieved! The feeling was so intense that the whispers of a song started blooming in my heart.
I wanted to sing. I wanted to dance. But my life was not a musical, so instead, I wrote down the beginning of a verse in the lined pages of my notebook.
The mountain’s hard to climb, when you think you’re all alone …
Surprisingly, the lyrics came to me in English. But then, this English practice test had consumed my life for weeks. I hadn’t wanted to let my family down. And all my hard work had paid off. When finals arrived in November, less than three months from now, I’d definitely be ready to move on to the next level of English class.
I couldn’t wait to tell my parents and Lela, my grandma. Last night, she’d had a dream that we’d be celebrating something today.
Lela’s dreams always came true in one way or another.
“Psst!” Violeta, my cousin, called to me from the other side of the room.
When I read the question on her pretty face, I gave her two thumbs-up, joy spilling from me. She smiled back, but her hazel eyes were watery.
“How did you do?” I mouthed at her.
She shrugged, and my victory song died down with a sad twang.
Violeta …
Violeta and I were the only seventh graders in this after-school English class at the American Institute in downtown Mendoza. While the rest of our friends spent their free hours hanging out at the park, she and I studied for hours. After school. During the weekends. She knew the verbs and vocabulary just as well as I did. And if I was being honest, her English accent was a teensy bit better than mine. Okay, a lot better.
What had happened?
I tried to send her a reassuring smile, but Mrs. Prescott was already back at her desk. “Overall, I’m satisfied with your grades,” she said.
Around me, most of the kids smiled.
My heart gave a little gallop when Nahuel caught my eye and winked. With his black hair that swooped over his large brown eyes, he was the cutest boy in class. Although he was only a couple of months older than me, he was already in the first year of high school, which in Argentina starts in eighth grade.
Before he saw me blush red as a beet, I turned back toward Mrs. Prescott.
“The scores in the written section were good, mostly,” she said. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought her eyes flitted to Violeta. “Still, I feel most of you aren’t quite ready for the listening comprehension and conversational parts of the final tests. I need all of you to practice with someone who’s fluent in English or with each other any time you can.”
Violeta and I could practice with my parents, who spoke English, but what about the rest of the class?
As if she’d read my mind, Mrs. Prescott added, “There’s a lot of technology at your fingertips, kids. Use your noggins.”
The class laughed. Mrs. Prescott was a proper English lady, straight from London, but every once in a while, she threw in random slang words in the best American accent ever.
Decades ago, when she was young, she’d come to Mendoza on a tour of the world-class wineries in the valley and had fallen in love with not only the place but also the tour guide. They’d gotten married shortly after, and she’d moved to Argentina. Their story was super romantic.
“See you Monday at half past six. Now you can go back to speaking Spanish.”
“Castellano,” a boy called from the back.
I cringed, but Mrs. Prescott laughed and said, “Yes, Castellano. Once my brain learns something, it’s hard to switch.”
Around me the class laughed. We all knew how true that was.
The sounds of chatting filled the air while I gathered my stash of flash cards and the pile of books I’d brought from school. Seventh grade was in the late shift that got out at five thirty, which meant that by the end of English, I was already exhausted and ready for a break.
Halfway to the door, Nahuel caught up to me and said quietly, “Good night, María Emilia.”
He kept walking, but I saw a pinkish hue spread across the brown skin of his face. My cheeks went pomegranate mode.
“Good night,” I replied a second too late.
Nahuel passed Violeta, who was waiting for me in the doorway. She had the most expressive face in the world. Dozens of embarrassing questions were painted on it. I hoped Nahuel couldn’t read any of them.
Violeta clutched my arm as we walked out to the lobby and exclaimed, “What was that all about?”
I playfully shoved her. “Violeta! Quiet!” A flutter of tiny wings tickled my tummy, making me giggle.
Mrs. Prescott, who had followed us out, looked as if she were trying not to laugh.
“Nahuel said good night to you!” Violeta squealed.
“Stop it!” I said, watching Mrs. Prescott and Alejandra, the receptionist, exchange an amused look. “He was just being nice.”
Violeta wiggled her eyebrows like a dork. “I’ll say. Ah, María Emilia! Your life is practically perfect!”
“Of course it is! I have you, don’t I?” I hugged her with one arm, looking out the window to see if Lela was on her way.
Violeta was a week younger than me. We had photos of our moms, who were cousins too, with smiles as big as their bellies, and then of us two together, from the cradle we’d shared during naptimes at Lela’s house to our last year of elementary school. Two peas in a pod. Even if I occasionally wished she came with a mute button, I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
Violeta’s dark eyes sparkled when she looked at me. “You’re the luckiest girl in the world! You’re beautiful. You have the two sweetest little brothers, perfect grades, and such a perfect voice you got the choir solo at graduation. The cutest boy ever said hello to you …” She ticked off all these blessings on her fingers. She didn’t sound jealous at all, and my heart quivered. To me, she was the prettier and smarter of us.
She didn’t see it though. She was so hard on herself.
“Knock on wood,” I said, rapping my knuckles against her head, part superstition, part joke. What if because she mentioned my life was perfect, everything fell apart? “Your life is perfect too.”
Before Violeta could contradict me, Mrs. Prescott sneezed. Violeta’s eyes went wide with surprise, as if she had just noticed our super-proper teacher could hear our conversation all along.
“Sorry,” she mouthed at me.
I tried to suppress a smile.
After a few seconds of embarrassed silence, Mrs. Prescott looked up from her phone and asked in English, “Do you need to call your ride, girls?”
Although we weren’t in the classroom anymore, I made an effort to reply in the best accent I could muster. “No, thank you, Mrs. Prescott. My grandmother is on her way.”
Lela was never late.
In that moment, Tía Yoana, Violeta’s mom, opened the door and a gust of frigid August air blasted over me.
Tía Yoana and my mom looked a lot alike. Some people thought they were twin sisters. They both had the same pointy face, almond-shaped brown eyes, and high cheekbones. Short and slender, Tía kept her hair long and curly, while my mom kept hers in a chin-length bob of straight black hair. Violeta looked a lot like them, while I’d taken after my dad. I was taller and curvier than Violeta, but some people said we had the same laughter, explosive and loud.
“Mami!” Violeta said, surprised, and kissed her mom on the cheek.
I gave her a kiss too, and she smiled and said, “Hola, mi amor.”
“Hola, Tía,” I said, grabbing my backpack. “Bye, Mrs. Prescott.”
Tía Yoana’s eyes widened. “Actually, Mimilia, Lela is still coming to get you.”
Instant disappointment. Why did she insist on calling me Mimilia, the pet name the family had given me when I was a baby? Violeta and I were both trying to go by our proper names for high school, and the time to get into the habit was now. Tía didn’t get it though. Or she didn’t want to get it, according to Violeta, whose nickname was Leti.
I wasn’t fast enough to hide my feelings, but at least I didn’t whine like Violeta, who said, “But why? We had it all planned out. Can’t she come home for a little bit?”
Tía shook her head and grimaced. “I’m sorry, my loves. Mimilia’s parents are coming home from Buenos Aires tonight.”
My breath hitched. “They’re coming home already? So everything went okay?”
Tía smiled like a cat and made a motion as if zipping her lips.
I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t even know what “okay” would mean to me. My parents had gone to the capital for an interview at the US embassy. Mami had been offered a position to teach Latin American history at a college in the United States. Although in the past the opportunity to live in another country had excited me, at the end of seventh grade—as my family got closer to actually doing it—the idea now terrified me. Depending on the visas, and on the meeting today, we might be moving our lives to an entirely new country. And we might not.
Violeta sent me a pained look. “Call me as soon as you know.” She grabbed her backpack and coat. “I won’t be able to sleep!”
“As soon as I know.” I nodded.
Tía gave me one last kiss and took Violeta’s hand. “See you later, Mimilia. I’m sure we’ll talk.”
When they left, I gazed out the window, trying to make Lela materialize before Mrs. Prescott asked me about my parents. But it seemed Mrs. Prescott couldn’t resist the mystery. She asked, “Were your parents in Buenos Aires to go to the embassy?”
How did she know about the embassy?
She must have read the question in my eyes because she said, “Your mom told me, of course. I helped certify the translation for a few of the forms.”
That made sense. There had been dozens and dozens of forms for each of the five of us. The visa requirements changed every month, it seemed. It was hard to keep up with the ever-moving target. Hard and expensive.
“Thanks,” I said. Lela said that the Zonda wind makes people do and say unusual things. Maybe that’s why I blurted out, “Getting the right seals for my birth certificate was a pain.”
“You were born in Miami, right?”
The receptionist glanced at me with curiosity, and I hesitated. It wasn’t a secret that I’d been born in the United States, but I never talked about it. It didn’t really matter. I didn’t even remember being there. I was from Mendoza like my family for generations before me.
But I couldn’t ignore Mrs. Prescott’s question.
“My parents were on vacation and I came early,” I said, nodding. “I was in the NICU for a few weeks before we could all come back home.”
Home. This was my home.
Home wasn’t the same as the place where you were born.
Besides, like Violeta had said, my life was perfect. Here. Now.
The wind howled outside, making the naked trees bend under its force. There was no sign of my young, energetic abuela, and I was getting a little worried.
“Are you excited to live in the United States?” Mrs. Prescott asked.
In the span of two seconds, the whole spectrum of my emotions surged in me. I crossed my arms. “When I was little, I dreamed about living in Miami or New York … and now …”
A black car pulled up to the curb and honked.
A smile lit up Mrs. Prescott’s whole face. “Oh, I’m sorry. My ride is here, María Emilia. See you next week.” She waved as she swept out the door. “And make sure you practice lots and lots of conversation. Your accent is getting so much better.”
The song of victory I thought had died down reawakened in me. We’d been speaking English the whole time, and I hadn’t even noticed. Usually when I spoke, I was so self-conscious about my accent I forgot the right words.
Just when I was about to ask the receptionist if I could use the office phone to call Lela, the door swung wide open, and a whirlwind entered—not the atmospheric kind. It was my two brothers, Mateo and Francisco. The sound level at the institute went from spa peaceful to fútbol-stadium decibels, but Alejandra smiled at the sight of them. At six and seven, they were pure unbridled enthusiasm. I’d been an only child for a long time, and now I treasured my little brothers—even when they were annoying.
“Mimilia,” they exclaimed in unison when they saw me. “You’re never going to guess the news!”
My brothers’ voices rose and rose in volume and pitch as they struggled to speak over each other. My ears rang.
Pulling my best trick, I put my hand up and my brothers went silent. Papi called me the brother whisperer for good reason.
“Tell me outside,” I said, waving goodbye to Alejandra.
Lela sent me a grateful smile and led us out of the lobby. As soon as we opened the door, the wind snapped my uniform skirt. I placed a hand firmly against it even though I was wearing shorts underneath. After last week’s Zonda, the wind had turned cold and humid, bringing snow to the Andes and biting cold to the valley.
Lela and I sandwiched Mateo and Francisco between us, and holding hands, we made our way to the bus stop. I had so many questions, but I didn’t know what to ask first.
My brothers’ chatter continued on the bus. “Mami’s bringing us a big surprise from Buenos Aires. Maybe it’s a Messi jersey,” Francisco said.
Mateo shrugged. “I want a Cristiano Ronaldo one.”
Francisco puffed up his cheeks, gathering strength for an argument about who the greatest fútbol player of all time was. The two of them went full steam until they had everyone on the bus laughing. One man in a suit and tie told them neither one was the GOAT. The best was Maradona.
To stop my brothers from arguing back, Lela gave them her phone. That was the only way to keep them quiet the rest of the ride.
With them entertained, she snuggled me close to her with one arm. Her coat smelled of lemon-lavender fabric softener. “Now tell me about the test,” she said.
I broke into a smile and showed her my perfect score.
“Your skills in English are going to come in handy,” she said softly, arching an eyebrow.
“You mean … ? Is that the surprise Mami is bringing from Buenos Aires?”
“All I can say is that your mami sounded happy when we spoke on the phone.”
“What did she say exactly, Lela?” I asked.
My parents’ news would change our lives,
one way or another. Teaching in the United States was one of Mami’s biggest dreams. But Lela wouldn’t be coming with us. There would be heartbreak with either possibility, yes or no, and I didn’t know how to prepare myself for both at once.
“She and your papi will tell you in person soon, mi amor. Be patient.”
As the oldest sibling, I was used to having to set an example for my brothers, but now I wished I could throw a mini tantrum so Lela would tell me.
“How soon? When will they get here?”
“It’s a long ride from Buenos Aires,” Lela said, patting my arm. “They’ll be home tonight.”
I sighed and looked out the bus window. Even in the distance, the Andes looked majestic in their mantle of new snow. Papi had climbed Aconcagua when he was in college. He’d promised me that in October, before the weather turned too hot, we’d hike to the first Aconcagua base camp. I’d been wanting to do it for a long time. After Lela’s news, I worried I wouldn’t have the chance.
My heart felt heavy in my chest. The happiness of getting a perfect score felt like a memory from last year. Nahuel’s wink now didn’t even make me smile.
The song I’d started writing still hummed quietly in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t come up with any words to add. So I let the melody ring. Some feelings are too hard to put into words. Music is a language in itself.
Soon, it was our stop. Pretending they were birds in the blowing wind, the boys flapped their arms as they ran to the front door of the house Lela shared with us, where Mami had grown up.
“Hurry, Lela,” Mateo said, jumping in place, his lips chattering.
Lela fumbled with the keys to the iron door and then the front door.
“Careful that Estrellita doesn’t sneak out!” I warned as my hair whipped into my face.
Our cat Estrellita, Little Star, behaved more like a dog than a cat and always waited for us at the door. But when Lela finally opened the door, Estrellita wasn’t there to greet us.
“She must not have heard us,” Lela said.
Estrellita’s absence felt like a missing tooth. The last thing I needed was for her to get lost in a storm.
“Estrellita!” I called.
Although I tried to keep my voice calm, my brothers must have sensed my rising panic. They started running all over the house calling out for her. They wanted to help, but their yelling would only keep her away. In her old age, Estrellita had become extra sensitive to loud sounds.
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