How Tía Lola Came to (Visit) Stay (10 page)

“I got exactly the day I wanted,” his mother replies. “I love rainy days. I wished for one for my birthday.”

Miguel and Juanita look at each other, surprised-Then they both glance at Tía Lola, who winks as if she already knew that along with onions and plantains, their mother wanted a rainy day on her birthday.

A little while later, Stargazer stops by. She needs Linda’s advice on a display she is setting up in her store for a new line of incense. Behind Mami’s back as they go out the door, Stargazer gives Miguel and Juanita the V for Victory sign. Their plan is working out.

As soon as they drive away, the house goes into full gear. Plates are set out. Forks and spoons are laid in baskets. Napkins are stacked in leaning towers. Where are the balloons?

At about ten o’clock, a van pulls in at the purple house on Charlebois Lane. The driver dashes toward the front door in the driving rain. He has a vaguely familiar wide smile and rumpled hair. He wears sneakers and a red bow tie that makes his whole face look like a gift tied with a ribbon. “I got a delivery here for you,” he tells Miguel. “Where do you want it?”

“Bring it right in,” Miguel says, hurrying away.

“It’s too big to bring right in,” the man calls after him, but Miguel is already halfway down the hall and doesn’t hear-Soon Rudy will arrive with the tasty pastries and dishes Tía Lola has been cooking over at the restaurant. At noon, the guests will start streaming in. Half an hour later, Stargazer will return with their mother. Miguel and Juanita are hurrying here and there, pushing furniture against the wall to make room. With the rain continuing, they have decided to move the party indoors.

“We need Tía Lola’s help to move the couch,” Miguel tells Juanita.

“Tía Lola!” they both call out. “TÍA LOLA!”

But Tía Lola cannot hear them. She is standing in the back field in the rain, helping the bow-tied man and his three workmen set up the large white tent.

Looking out from the window at the landing, Juanita sees three white peaks above the maple trees. She calls out to Miguel, “Look, it must be Rudy’s son!”

They won’t have to cram the party indoors after all! Thank goodness for the seventy-eighth guest, even if that guest has not turned out to be their papi.

*   *   *

Cars are coming down the driveway and driving onto the back field-Neighbors park and step out, squealing, into puddles, carrying gifts and umbrellas. They stand inside the white tent, waiting and visiting with each other-It is the end of the summer-There is talk of what kind of a winter to expect in the months to come.

Finally, over the sound of the rain, they hear a car approaching-

“Get ready!” Tía Lola calls out-A sudden silence falls inside the tent.

Miguel and Juanita look around to make sure everything is in place-Under one of the butterfly piñatas, Rudy and Tía Lola are filling up the last of the purple and pink balloons-Colonel Charlebois, wearing his new purple-and-white-striped baseball uniform instead of his old olive-green army uniform, keeps refilling the popcorn bowl, which Miguel’s team keeps emptying-Their neighbors Tom and Becky are crouched on either side of a lamb wearing a pink bow with a gift tag attached-Juanita’s friends have finished arranging the presents in a pyramid at the center of the tent-At the far end, Reggie is conferring
with Mrs. Prouty about which CDs to play on her portable player, Melrose and Petey tie down the last of the tent flaps.

Have they really made so many friends in just eight months? It seems the whole county has gathered together. How they wish their father were here for this big fiesta.

Just beyond the tent, the car door opens. Their mother steps out, a look of shock on her face, “Surprise!” everyone shouts. And then Tía Lola and Rudy release their balloons with HAPPY BIRTHDAY written across them in big white letters.

Looking up, Miguel and Juanita get their own surprise. Above all their heads stretches the canvas tent, like a broad white (titanium!) brush stroke, keeping them dry as their mother’s birthday rain falls steadily outside.

The Best Place in the World

As the last guests drive off, the rain stops. The clouds part and become pieces of litter in the sky that the wind sweeps away-The sunset will be glorious.

Juanita and Miguel, their mother, and Tía Lola pile into the car They pass the last house in town and drive up the winding mountain road. The air grows cooler. Here and there, red leaves glow on the maple trees.

They sit on an outcrop of rock that overlooks the whole valley. Across the lake and behind the Adirondacks, the sun is setting. The sky fills with splashes of red and gold and purple. It looks like their father’s painting
Three Happy Days in
Nueva
York.

Then one or two stars begin to show.

For a moment, this seems the most beautiful place in the world.

“Thank you,” Migue's mother whispers as if the sunset has been arranged just for her birthday.

“Muchísimas gracias,”
Tía Lola agrees, bowing her head toward the flashing rays, “Thank you very much,” The beauty of the world is an everyday gift. All you need, Tía Lola is always telling them, is to reach out and receive it.

“Now for your last present,” Tía Lola says to her niece, “Do you remember how when you were a little girl, I would always tell you a special story on your birthday?”

Miguel and Juanita’s mother nods as if she were that little girl again, “It’s been a long time,” she says, a faraway look in her eyes.

“A long time,” Tía Lola agrees, “Today I will tell you that same story but in English,”

“!Ay,
qué bueno!”
Their mother kisses her aunt, “It’s so important to me, Tía Lola, that you came to Vermont and learned English so you remain connected to us. And so important,” she goes on, kissing Miguel and Juanita, “that you
hear Tía Lola’s stories so you can always stay connected to your past”

“Speaking of the past…,” Tía Lola says, hurrying her story along. The sun is sinking behind the mountains and a chilly wind is coming up.

The wind blows softly through the darkening trees. The leaves make a sh-sh-sh sound as if they are quieting a noisy crowd.

You might not believe this
, Tía Lola begins,
but once all of the world was warm as summer.

Flowers bloomed and birds sang and the weather was perfect all year round.

And our little island was no exception.

“What about Vermont?” Juanita wants to know.

“And Vermont was no exception,” Tía Lola continues.

But people, being people, thought that things were better somewhere else.

Maybe there was more summer farther north? Maybe the sun was brighter down south? Maybe the birds sang prettier songs somewhere else?

So they set out for other places to see what they were missing.

Miguel looks up at the starry sky-
If I see a falling
star…He begins his old magic-wishing game. But it’s no use. Some things, like his parents’ divorce, he just has to learn to accept.

He wonders if things are better on other planets, other stars. What Tía Lola has said about people is true of him, too. When he is in New York with his father, he misses his mother and new friends. But once he is back again in Vermont, he longs to be with his father and his old friends. It’s hard to know what is home anymore.

Maybe it would be better to live on some other planet and be some other boy?

Tía Lola’s voice brings him back down to earth and to her story.

People were on the move all over Mamá Earth. No place was exactly as wonderful as the people had imagined it would be, so they kept wandering around.

Some of these people arrived on an island in the middle of a warm blue ocean.

“This is better than where we were before,” they said, and they decided to stay.

So was that their home? Juanita wonders. She herself isn’t sure anymore where she is from. Both her mami and her papi came from the Dominican Republic. She was born in New York and lived there all her life until eight months ago, when they moved to Vermont. So is she from Vermont now?

Back at the house, her dolls are falling asleep in the boxes that Papi has cut and painted into elaborate cradles. Juanita always keeps them in the same place. When Mami or Tía Lola moves them, Juanita gets upset. Her dolls will feel lost if they wake up and find themselves in a new place, she tries to explain. “Is that the way you feel,
amorato!”
her mother asks, touching her face softly. Because Juanita’s mother is a psychologist, Juanita has to be careful what she says about her dolls because her mother always thinks she is really talking about herself.

But this time, her mother is right. Like her
dolls, Juanita feels lost when she thinks of all the places she is from.

Maybe she will never know where she really,
really
belongs.

Tía Lola continues with her story, her voice like warm waves of sound lapping against their ears.

News spread that there was a place where people stayed put.

That must be the better place, everyone thought, or why would anyone want to
stay?

So everyone started to settle there
—
everyone
—
and it was a very little island.

Soon the island began to complain.
“I
just cant hold all these people up!” she cried. “Help me, Papá Sky. Help me, Hermano Sun, Hermana Wind
, Amigo
Cloud.”

And so Father Sky cleared his throat and thundered. Brother Sun beamed down scorching heat. Friend Cloud sent down torrents of rain. Sister Wind blew on the ocean and drove huge waves toward the shore, which smashed down all the houses.

As soon as the rains relented and the seas calmed
and the sun shone, people began to go back to where they had come from.

The island was quiet again. The birds began to sing the prettiest songs. The flowers grew bright and tall. It was as peaceful as it had been before the first people got there.

As she listens to the story, Miguel and Juanita’s mother is growing younger and younger by the minute. She is going back to birthdays past, when she was a little girl in the Dominican Republic and Tía Lola would tell her this story. Little Linda would be so proud of having such a beautiful island as her home, where the birds sang the prettiest songs and the houses were purple and pink and yellow and turquoise blue as if to match the many flowers that bloomed all year round.

Suddenly, she feels the chilly night air around her. Years and years have gone by. She is now the mother of a little girl not much older than she was when she first heard this story. The mother of a boy not much younger than she was when she first came to this country. She puts her arms around her children and draws them close.

*   *   *

Tía Lola’s voice threads through all their thoughts as she continues with her story.

The people went back to the places they had come from. They were happy again. Home was not such a bad place after all

But after a day or two or three, they began to doubt themselves. They began to think of going back to where they had last come from.

And so, one night when all the people were suspended in their dreams, Mamá Earth and Papá Sky and Hermano Sun and Hermana Wind and Amigo Cloud had a secret meeting.

“People will always be people,” Mamá Earth reminded them. She came up with a plan. “Why dont we make sure every place has something wrong and something right with it? Then people will realize that every place has its good and its not-so-good side.”

“
Fine idea, Mamá Earth,” Papá Sky said, smiling his starry smile.”

So they drew up a list of the not-so-good things that could happen. They listed earthquakes and monsoons, blizzards and heat waves, volcanoes and
terrible hailstorms and driving rain, endless winters and long mud seasons and summers as hot as something coming to a boil in a bubbling pot.

Then all the places on the earth had to pick their own bad weather.

Since the island had worked so hard holding so many people, she alone was allowed to keep her perfect summer weather all year round. But she was such a little island, she couldnt use up so much good luck by herself. So she offered to share this gift with the other islands in her part of the world.

But just in case people would all want to move to that part of the earth again, the lucky islands decided: “Let’s each take a little bit of bad weather. Let’s have a few heavy rains every year, and a sprinkle of snow on our highest mountains, and a volcano going off now and then, and the occasional earthquake or cyclone or hurricane. That way people will come for vacation, but not be tempted to stay.”

Suddenly, Tía Lola’s voice falls silent. She is remembering her beloved island. Even with its occasional tremors and bad cyclones, it is the place she loves the most. No matter how far she travels or how long she stays away, she always
wants to go back home to watch the wild parrots fly and the palm trees sway-