“Sorry I couldn’t meet the truck when you got here,” Aracely says now, smoothing her skirt. “Abuela needed to find periquito for my sister’s cramps. Abuela was convinced that some still grows over by Beto’s field, but it doesn’t, and by the time she believed me, we were too far away to get back before the aguacero, and we had to wait until the rain stopped.”
“No worries,” I lie. I’m not going to tell her how I freaked out when I didn’t see her with everyone else. A lot can happen here between summers, and it’s not like she and I can text each other our news. Even if my anti-cell-phone parents would let me have one, Cucubano doesn’t have cell reception. Or reliable electricity. Every time we come back here, we have no idea who’s been born or died since the summer before, and this afternoon Aracely’s mom must have seen the panic on my face, because she cut through the crowd to tell me my friend was only away for the morning.
I should have guessed, of course. Aracely and her grandmother—her abuela—often take off on expeditions to find some plant or another. Her abuela is a healer, and Aracely is learning. Last summer, Dad saw some of Aracely’s drawings of medicinal plants and asked her family if she could come to Canada to study someday. He says that with her knowledge of traditional medicine, she could make a great academic career for herself and then come back here and really help the community. Her parents were thrilled. Aracely is terrified, but she’s willing to do it if it’ll help. Now that’s courage. She’s never even been as far as Ocoa, the closest city, a two-hour bus ride away, but in a few years she’ll be living in Canada, which is so different from here that it might as well be on another planet.
“Do you want help putting stuff away?” Aracely scans my family’s makeshift bedroom. Before we arrived, Aracely’s mom cleaned it within an inch of its life. The concrete floor shone, the bunk beds were made up as well as any hotel’s, the chalkboards were a spotless black, and not a speck of dust remained on the teacher’s desk shoved into the corner. (It’s like this every summer. Being invited here by the priest in Ocoa means people treat our arrival like a royal visit.) In just a few hours, my parents and I have managed to track in big clumps of the inevitable orange dirt, and we’ve strewn our things all over the place.
I should clean up. Mom and Dad are in the other classroom, unpacking boxes for their summer medical clinic, and I came back here to organize but decided to take a nap instead—not that I had much success. Whoever thinks roosters only crow at dawn has never met Rafael’s roosters, and why our neighbor has to keep his snorting pigs and braying donkey right outside our window is beyond me. If I were at home this summer, I could sleep whenever I wanted—not that I would, of course. I’d be working at the bike shop, or lying on the beach, or going to the movies with Emily. In other words, doing what any normal Canadian teenager has the right to do in the summertime. Unless you’ve got parents like mine, who expect you to spend every waking moment saving the world.
“The mess can wait,” I tell Aracely. “Let’s go somewhere.”
“To the river,” she says.
“Yes!” I flip open a suitcase to find my bathing suit. Two years ago, Aracely announced that she was too old to swim in the river. I thought that was hilarious, since she was only twelve, but she said, I’ve got boobs. I get my period. I’m a woman now, and respectable women don’t run around half naked and jump in the river. That’s for boys and marimachos.
I asked her what a marimacho is. It means something like “butch woman” and is a big insult. No matter how much she tried to stop me from swimming, I kept doing it. She stayed on the shore while I swam. “So glad you’ve come to your senses about the swimming thing,” I say now. “How can you live so close to a fantastic river and not swim in it?”
“I don’t, and I won’t.” She leans back against the bunk bed, arms crossed. “I have to get some berro, and I’m asking you along.”
Berro. I rack my brain, trying to remember what that is. Every year, between summers, I forget way too much Spanish. A few times at home, my parents tried to speak it with me to keep theirs up, but it just felt silly. But when we’re here, they insist that I speak Spanish, no matter what. I spend the start of each summer rummaging for words I used to know or trying to understand things I probably understood the year before. I think berro is a little, flat-leaved plant that grows in clusters by the river. Aracely’s abuela collects it for one of her remedies.
I unearth my swimsuit and stand up. “I’ll let my parents know where we’re going.”
“I already told them.” Aracely links her arm with mine, pushes open the door and leads me into the sunshine. A dozen kids are playing in front of the school, on a patch of ground just big enough for a game of catch. Adults lounge along the wall, talking with each other or calling to my parents, who try to arrange boxes and socialize at the same time. The day we arrive is always like this, with everyone stopping by to say hello. Every other day is pretty similar too. The school is smack in the middle of the settlement, and anyone going anywhere usually stops in to chat.
“Come on.” Aracely tugs on my arm. “Let’s go. It’s not just berro I want. I want privacy. I’ve got something important to tell you.”
The Vegetable Museum Page 11