How Tía Lola Came to (Visit) Stay (5 page)

The doors from the kitchen swing open. Tía Lola, bearing a plate of eggs covered with tomato sauce, onions, and peppers and followed by a worried-looking Rudy, heads for the corner table.

“Buen
provecho,”
Tía Lola says, setting the plate down in front of the old man. The old man nods as if he understands that Tía Lola has just wished him a happy meaL Then he puts a forkful in his mouth. It seems the whole room is holding its breath.

“These are the best darn huevos rancheros Tve had north or south of the Rio Grande,” the old man growls.

When the colonel has wiped the plate clean, Tía Lola asks him,
“¿Quiere más?”

“That means,
Do you want more?”
Miguel calls from his perch on the stool.

“Of course that’s what it means!” Colonel Charlebois barks, “I didn’t travel all over the face of creation with the United States Army for nothing. And of course I want more!
Por favor “
he adds, smiling up at Tía Lola.

Rudy is shaking his head as he follows Tía Lola back into the kitchen, “Magic, pure magic,” he mutters.

By the time they get home that afternoon, Tía Lola has made a dozen new friends.

Miguel is astonished. He is not shy, but still,
after four months of living in Vermont, he has only two friends, Sam and Dean. Many of his classmates are friendly, but he can’t really call them friends. Sometimes he sits with them in the lunchroom. But after exchanging complaints about how much homework Mrs. Prouty has given them or talking about the upcoming baseball tryouts, he doesn’t know what else to say. At least some of them have stopped calling him Gooseman or making duck sounds when he walks down the hall.

There is only one conclusion that Miguel can come to. Rudy is right. His aunt is working magic on everybody. Miguel has never forgotten his mother’s remark that Tía Lola is something of a
santera.

“What exactly does a
santera
do?” he asks his mother that night.

“Santeras
practice a religion called
santería,”
his mother explains.

“That explains a lot, Mami!” Miguel crosses his arms. “Okay, just tell me. Can Tía Lola help me get an A in my math exam? Can she help me make the team?”

His mother laughs and puts her arms around him. “Miguel,
amor
, your mother can tell you
how to do that-” She pats his butt. “Apply your
fundillo
to the seat of your chair and you’ll get an A if you study hard. As for making the team, eat more of Tía Lola’s cooking. Tve asked Tía Lola to make you some good Dominican food. Pizzas and Pringles are not the most nutritious meals for a budding major leaguer”

“Very funny,” Miguel growls. Sometimes he feels as cranky as Colonel Charlebois when his mother teases him too much.

The next day in school, Miguel opens his lunch-box and finds four meatball-looking things wrapped in tinfoil next to his can of Pringles. He is about to toss them when Mort says, “What you got there, Gooseman?”

Mort is a farm boy in Miguel’s class who has muscles where the rest of the boys can only imagine them. “My name means ‘death’ in French,” he likes to brag, pounding his chest as if he were Tarzan. His family came to Vermont from Canada in the nineteenth century, before the skiers and vacationers and college students arrived. He likes to brag about that, too. But Mort doesn’t get very good grades, and some of the
town boys make fun of his homemade haircut and clothes from the Second Hand.

“Meatballs! Yum, my favorite-” Mort pops one of Tía Lola’s treats into his mouth.

Miguel expects Mort to spit it up or keel over dead-Instead, Mort helps himself to another-”Don’t mind if I do!” He laughs-“Hey, these are delicious!”

That afternoon, it might be a coincidence, but it certainly is a first: Mort spells Mississippi correctly during the spelling bee.

There is one treat left in Miguel’s lunchbox-On the way to baseball practice, he pops it into his mouth.

Miguel thinks of asking his mom about the strange treat, but it is Tía Lola who always fixes their lunches-“Tía Lola,” he begins, showing her the crumpled-up tinfoil-But before he can ask about the magic treat, Tía Lola is hugging and kissing him-She is so pleased he likes her
quipes.
They are made of grain and ground meat and a dash of pepper, and they will put muscles on his arms.

Miguel doesn’t care what they are called-Are
they magic? “I have to make the team, Tía Lola,” he adds.

Tía Lola nods.
“Yo sé.”

Of course she knows! She is a
santera
, Miguel reminds himself She works magic.

At lunch the next day, Miguel finds a half-dozen chewy fritters in a plastic container. Mort has four and Miguel two. Tía Lola says the chewy treats are called
empanaditas de queso
, and they are made of cheese and dough fried in peanut oil.

The following morning, Mort reports a piece of luck to MigueL His pop just found out he’d won five hundred dollars on his weekly lottery ticket! Since Mort helped pick out the winning number, his father is going to buy him his very own heifer to show at the county fair that August.

“Awesome,” Miguel says, trying to make his voice sound as if he thinks that is an exciting purchase. Meanwhile, his own lucky surprise arrives in the mail. A Sammy Sosa Louisville Slugger his father has sent up from New York for good luck in the upcoming tryouts.

Every day when he wakes up, Miguel takes imaginary swings at an imaginary ball with his new
bat. He flexes his arms, but the muscles are still pretty soft. Still, he definitely feels stronger. Tía Lola’s special magic rations in his lunchbox are working.

He asks her about the jars she brought from the island. She explains that they are potions made from
hierbabuena
and
guayuyo
and
yema de huevos
to put on sores and cuts.

“Magic potions?” he wants to know.

She smiles and pushes the hair back from his eyes.
“Todo es mágico si se hace con amor, Miguel.”

That is too corny for words—in English or Spanish. Everything is magic if made with love? Oh, please, and
por favor.

But, of course, it is just like a
santera
to be secretive, Miguel thinks. He winks back, pretending to go along with Tía Lola. After all, in this country, she can probably be arrested for working magic so her nephew can make the local baseball team.

That night on the phone, Miguel confesses to his father that Tía Lola is putting magic foods in his lunchbox to help him make the team.

“It means a lot to you to make that team, doesn’t it,
tigueritol”
his father observes.

It does mean a lot. After all, his only two friends are already on the team, “Ah, Miguel, come on, you’re a shoo-in,” Sam keeps saying to him.

Dean agrees, “Yeah, you’re Dominican, I mean, baseball’s, like, natural for you,”

When Miguel tells his father what Dean has said, his father gets annoyed, “You’ll make the team because you’ve been practicing hard, that’s why,” Papi often says that the worst thing you can do to people is make assumptions about them. Stereotyping, he calls it.

Perhaps he, Miguel, is making assumptions about Tía Lola. Maybe she isn’t working magic on him. After all, she tells him the name of everything she cooks and exactly what she puts in it. Besides, she also fixes the same things in Juanita’s lunchbox, and Miguel hasn’t noticed any improvements in the little-sister department.

What Miguel doesn’t tell his father is that Tía Lola isn’t the only one who is trying to work a little magic. Often, when he is driving to town
with Mami to get groceries or do some Saturday errand, Miguel will think to himself:
If the traffic light changes to green before we reach the corner
,
I’ll make the team.

Sometimes just before they reach the corner, the light changes to green, Miguel feels a rush of relief and joy-But just as many times, the light is still red. Miguel sits in the front seat beside his mother, scowling, and thinking, Í
mean, the very next light, not this one.

He worries that he is letting himself get too jumpy and superstitious. But he keeps hoping his wishes will come true:

If the phone rings in the next minute, I’ll get an A on my math exam.

If we pass seven red cars before we get home, I’ll make a lot of new friends.

If I see a falling star…a double rainbow…a unicorn…a space alien
—

This wish requires higher and higher stakes—

My
parents will get back together again.

The weekend of the tryouts a most magical thing does happen. His father comes up from New York to give Miguel “moral support.”

“Kind of like Tía Lola’s magic,” his father explains.

Saturday morning, they all drive over to the school playground—Papi and Mami and Juanita and Tía Lola, just like a real family. The field is already full of players who made the team last year. Miguel spots Dean in the outfield and Sam manning first base. Rudy, in gray sweatpants and sporting a Red Sox cap, is calling instructions to the rookies who have come to try out.

Miguel joins the lineup of boys waiting to bat. Suddenly, he wishes stereotypes were true, and he could automatically make the team
because
his parents come from the Dominican Republic.

He glances over at the bleachers, where his family is sitting, and one of his superstitious wishing-thoughts pops into his head.
If Tía Lola gives me a sign, I’ll make the team.

He closes his eyes tight, shutting out such silly thoughts. This is no time to spook himself with superstitions.
Miguel Guzman
, he tells himself,
you re going to make this team because youve practiced hard and you deserve to win!

At that moment, just as he opens his eyes, Tía Lola waves her yellow scarf.

He swings and the ball goes flying up, high and far, all the power of her Dominican cooking behind it and all the magic of her love behind that.

The Spanish Word War

Their father is having a private talk with their mother in the kitchen. Now that the weather is nice, he drives up every other weekend to see Miguel and Juanita. Once school is out, he wants them to come down and visit him in the city. But their mother is obviously not in agreement. Voices are rising in the kitchen.

Juanita hurries to her brother’s side. Miguel can tell she is about to cry. He is not going to get upset. When things get bad, he just daydreams about baseball.

But now his sister’s tearful face is getting between him and a fly ball.

In order to catch it, he pushes her aside. She stumbles, falls, then bursts into tears and runs upstairs.

Miguel crouches, catches the imaginary ball,
and throws it to the catcher. The crowd stands and roars. His buddies on the team slap him on the back.

But somehow he doesn’t feel as good as he thought he would.

He knocks on his sister’s door.

“Se
puede.”
Tía Lola calls out permission for him to enter.

Their aunt is sitting on the bed with a tearful Juanita, “Tienes
que cuidar a tu Inermanita”
Tía Lola begins when she sees her nephew.

“I know I have to take care of
mi hermanita
, Tía Lola,” Miguel agrees. He speaks to his aunt in Spanglish, Spanglish is what his mother and father call the English with a sprinkling of Spanish that Miguel and Juanita speak when they think they are speaking Spanish, “It’s just
que
sometimes Juanita
es una
baby—”

“I am
not
a baby!” Juanita howls.

Tía Lola puts an arm around each one,
“!Ya, y a!”
she pretends to scold them. They are brother and sister. They must not fight. They need to do something together so they will learn to get along.

“Maybe she can learn to throw a baseball?”
Miguel suggests-He smirks at his sister, who sticks her tongue out at him.

Tía Lola’s face suddenly lights up. She has a great idea: her niece and her nephew can give her English classes together!

Miguel’s face falls. He doesn’t want to spend the upcoming summer doing anything that resembles schoolwork. “But you don’t want to speak English,” Miguel reminds her.

“English is too hard, Tía Lola, really,” Juanita adds.

For the first time all day, brother and sister agree on something.

Already, Tía Lola’s idea is working.

Miguel definitely owes his aunt a favor or two. He is still convinced that back in early spring, she worked some magic to help him make the team. But why does his aunt suddenly want to learn English after months of refusing to do so?
“¿Por qué, Tía Lola?”

Their aunt looks rather shy, which is hard for Tía Lola to do with her lively face and bright eyes. She has an admission to make. Their mother has asked her to turn her visit into a stay. She can be of more help to everyone if she knows more English. And to repay her niece and
nephew for teaching her English, Tía Lola is going to teach them more Spanish.

“Yo sé mucho español,”
Miguel protests. He knows a lot of Spanish.