How Tía Lola Came to (Visit) Stay (12 page)
Read How Tía Lola Came to (Visit) Stay Online
Authors: Julia Alvarez
“La siesta,”
she explains. “To bed to take a nap.”
Only babies take naps, Miguel is thinking.
“How can they be sleepy when it’s not time to go to bed?” Juanita asks.
“We have a different sense of time,” Tía Lola explains. “If someone tells you to meet them at four, it means any time between four and five. We don’t live by the clock. Remember the story I told you—We live by the sun and the sea, and we love surprises. Have you noticed?” She winks.
Looking at her radiant face and dancing eyes, Miguel thinks, This is the happiest I’ve seen Tía Lola in a long time!
Miguel tries to rest in the bedroom he is sharing with Angel and his brothers. He has begun to worry that Tía Lola is actually planning to stay on the island when they have to return to Vermont. She seems so happy here, speaking Spanish all the time, exchanging stories, fitting right in with everyone else. But if she does stay, Miguel and Juanita and their mother will have no one to tell them wonderful stories. No one to make
frío-fríos
in the summer or sew his baseball
uniforms. No one to think up surprises all the time.
This trip has been a bad idea! Once Tía Lola is back on her beloved island, there is no way she will want to return to Vermont.
Around him, he can hear his cousins snoring away, enjoying their siestas. He will never be able to sleep in the middle of the day—especially now that he is worried about Tía Lola.
As he lies there, he hears the pounding of the sea not far away. It seems to be singing Christmas carols to him.
“Navidad, Navidad,”
the waves sing as Miguel drifts off….
The next evening, the whole extended
familia
gathers together for
Noche Buena
, Christmas Eve. Mami and Tía Lola pile the gifts they have brought under a plastic tree on the patio. Later, Santa Claus will be coming from the North Pole to distribute them among the cousins.
“When is he coming? When is he coming?” the littlest cousins keep asking.
“After you eat your dinner,” Tía Lola replies. She is dressed up tonight with gold hoops in her
ears and a bright red dress in honor of the occasion. Her beauty mark is on her right cheek again. Sometimes it seems Tía Lola forgets and the beauty mark appears on her left cheek or on her upper lip. Sometimes it doesn’t appear at all
More and more relatives arrive, and there is more kissing and hugging. Several girl cousins recite poems, and everybody claps. One uncle takes Miguel aside to show him the little bone spur next to his pinkie. “My sixth finger!” he brags. His aunts gossip, exclaiming over how big Little Linda has gotten. Miguel wonders if dinner will ever be served. It isn’t that he’s hungry, but he wants dinner to be over so that presents will be given out. He has figured out a way to get one more gift from Santa Claus.
“When is dinner, Tía?” he asks the aunt who is Angel’s mother. It turns out to be the most flattering thing he can say. “This boy is a joy to have in the house,” his aunt tells Miguel’s mother. “He’s a good eater. He’s polite. He shakes hands like an Englishman and says, ‘Excuse me’ when he interrupts.” Angel’s mother is looking at Angel as if to say,
You should learn from your
perfect
cousin.
Miguel glances over at his mother, who gives
him her you-andT-know-better grin. He grins back.
The plates are cleared away-The uncles push back their chairs and light up their cigars. Then the doorbell rings.
Standing before them is Santa Claus. He looks different from the American Santa Claus—much more slender, his skin soft brown, his eyes dark and lively. But he still wears a white beard and a bright red suit with a thick black belt and shiny boots.
“Santicló! Santicló!”
The littlest cousins give a shout and rush forward to make their wishes known.
When it is Ángel’s turn, he unfolds a list from his shirt pocket and begins to read.
“Un bate, un guante, una pelota de
—”
“That’s enough, Ángel,” his mother calls out. “Remember. Be polite. Ask for only one thing.”
Out of Santa Claus’s bag come the very bat and glove and ball that Miguel picked out for his cousin at the WahMart in Vermont!
When all his cousins have received their gifts, Miguel steps forward. “My turn,” he says.
“Hey, there, my polite and wonderful son,”
his mother calls out-“Remember, you and Juanita already got this trip”
Santa Claus looks at him with dark, dancing eyes-“Yes, Miguel-You already got your gift-”
“But I got it in Vermont, and now I’m in the D-R-And my Tía Lola says that here you can ask for a
ñapa
, a little bit more, after you’ve gotten what you asked for-”
Santa looks thoughtful-“Your aunt has a point-1 do owe you a
ñapa
, dear boy-”
Miguel is grinning-He has been planning this joke on Santa all evening!
But Santa is taking him quite seriously-“Tell me, then, what is it you want?”
Now that his opportunity has come, Miguel cannot think of what to ask for-He really has plenty of video games, and his worn glove is good enough-The vacation itself is turning out to be fun-The day after tomorrow, they will fly to New York, so he and Juanita can spend the rest of the week with their father and old friends-On New Year’s Eve, they’ll go on a special outing to see all the department store windows Papi decorated for Christmas-
As Santa draws him close, Miguel notices the flash of gold hoops in Santa’s pierced ears! Come
to think of it, there is something else he really wants.
“Thank you, Santa, for the great trip,” he begins. “But just one thing. When it’s over, I want Tía Lola to come back home with us-”
Santa winks, “FU see what I can do,”
As Miguel turns to go, Santa catches him by the arm. “You are forgetting something,” Santa reminds MigueL
“Feliz Navidad”
Miguel says, “Merry Christmas!” Then he reaches up and plants a kiss right on the beauty mark on Santa’s cheek.
(Una palabra sobre el español)
In reading about Tía Lola, some of you who know Spanish might wonder if Tía Lola is really speaking Spanish, After all, you know the word in Spanish for a sweater is
abrigo
, not
suéter.
You might never have heard of a
burén
or a
aguapa
or a potion called
guayuyo.
Or you might have learned that the correct way to say “my son” is
mi hijo, not mi’jo.
First, I want to reassure you that Tía Lola is indeed speaking Spanish. But just as there are many variations in the ways we speak English, people in the Spanish-speaking world have different ways of speaking Spanish-Spaniards are known for lisping their c’s and for priding themselves on their “pure” Spanish, We in the Caribbean swallow our s’s and elide two-word phrases so they sound like one word
(mijo
for
mi hijo).
And we borrow English words—for example, “sweater” becomes
suéter
and “mop” becomes
mope.
In the Dominican Republic, we have our very own
words for certain things. We call kites
chichiguas
instead of
cometas
, as they are known in Spain; bananas,
guineo;
and buses,
guaguas.
So if you know Spanish and wonder sometimes about Tía Lola’s Spanish, just remember, she’s got her own special
dominicano
she’s speaking.
As for those of you who might not know any Spanish at all, I’ve tried always,
siempre
, to translate each phrase or word right after the Spanish, so that in reading about Tía Lola, you (like Miguel and Juanita) might learn a little bit of Spanish,
un poquito de español
, from her.
Who knows? Maybe one day, someone who speaks only Spanish will move in next door and paint the house purple and offer you a
frío-fríol
And you’ll know enough to say,
“Sí, muchas gracias^
Or you might visit a Spanish-speaking country and be able to try out the words you learned in this book.
Speaking of
gracias
, I have a special thank-you to give to my cousin,
mi prima
, Lyn in the Dominican Republic. Often in writing this book, I had to double-check with her about the Spanish. Although I originally came from the Dominican Republic to the United States, I’ve lived many, many years in English. So every
once in a while, I forget how to say a word in Spanish. But I’ve never forgotten how to say thank you to those special people who help me write my books.
“!Gracias
, Lyn!”
by Julia Alvarez
Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Anita de la Torre has never questioned her freedom. But by her twelfth birthday, in I960, most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her beloved Tío Toni has disappeared, Papi keeps getting mysterious phone calls about butterflies and someone named Mr. Smith, and the government’s secret police regularly search her house for evidence of her family’s opposition to the country’s terrifying dictator. Even the words Anita writes in her diary about becoming a woman and about a blossoming first love must be erased so that they will not incriminate her family.
As the situation on the island becomes increasingly dangerous and her family is forced into hiding, Anita must struggle to overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving behind all that she once knew.
From award-winning author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable novel about adolescence, perseverance, and what it means to be free.
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc, New York
Copyright © 2001 by Julia Alvarez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-53118-6
Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
August 2002
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