The Red Umbrella (12 page)

My shoulders slumped.

“Oye
, it could be worse. They could’ve sent your brother to a different camp and you’d only see him on Saturdays.”

“Sí,”
I sighed, “it could always be worse.”

*  *  *  *  *

I stood behind Angela, waiting in line to get my breakfast tray. The “cafeteria” was really just a huge room with about twenty small, square tables. An old woman wearing a hairnet and a light blue maid’s uniform brought in several trays at a time. The girls in front of me referred to her as Nena.

Angela turned around. “Keep Nena on your good side. If you clean your own tray and you’re nice to her, she’ll get you a little extra of your favorites.”

“Like what?” I asked, eyeing the box of cereal and container of milk sitting on the tray.

“Breakfast is always the same. Don’t even dream of
café con leche
or
pan cubano
. They don’t have that kinda stuff. But sometimes for dinner she’ll give you an extra piece of chicken instead of the vegetables they always want us to eat.”

“Oh.” I watched as about fifty Cuban girls, of all ages, sat around eating their cereal, laughing and talking about the upcoming day. With everyone speaking Spanish, it almost felt like we were in a boarding school back home.

Yet this wasn’t Cuba, and no matter how much I wished that everything was okay, it wasn’t. I knew it and all the girls in the room knew it, too.

“Next week you can have my bottom bunk.” Angela poured the milk into her bowl.

“¿Por qué?”
I took a bite of the sweet, crunchy flakes. It wasn’t bad, but it tasted like I was having a dessert for breakfast.

“I’m going to live with a family in Oregon. They say the family’s got a daughter just about my age. Anyway, it’s not like I have a choice.”

“Why can’t you just stay here?” I asked.

“This place is only temporary.” She leaned closer to me. “We’re like puppies at the pound. If we don’t get picked up by friends or some extended-family member, then they ship us off to make room for the new arrivals.”

“But don’t parents sometimes come to get their kids?”

Angela took a big sip from the orange juice carton on her tray. “Sure. I heard that happened a couple of months ago to someone, but that was before I got here.”

“So, they’re sending you to Oregon. Is that far from here?”

“Mmm-hmm. Other side of the country. Above California. But at least I’ll be going with Claudia.” She pointed to a little girl about eight years old sitting at a table with kids her own age. “And I’ll only have to share a room with her, instead of fifty other people. It won’t be too bad.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if she was saying this to convince me or to convince herself.

She slowly exhaled and looked at me. “Your time will come, too.”

*  *  *  *  *

Classes at the camp reminded me of school in Cuba, except here there was a sense of urgency in learning English. The idea of having to speak a foreign language all the time was overwhelming, even for girls like me who’d studied English for years. Back home, I used to feel worldly being able to understand the American movies and songs, but now I just felt silly speaking in English. Thankfully, everyone else around me sounded just like me or a little worse.

“All right, ladies … class is dismissed. Please
remember to practice speaking to each other in English. It will help you outside of camp.” Mrs. Eckhart stood at the door and handed each of us a list with vocabulary words. “Read over these new terms and we will discuss them all tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day, girls.”

I walked back to the central yard and glanced down at the purple-inked paper. It still had the smell of the mimeograph machine that it had been printed on.

“Lucy!”

I looked over at the picnic table and saw Frankie sitting with a few other boys. He quickly swung his legs over the bench and ran toward me.

“Lucy, we’ve got to figure out a way to go back home,” he said, hugging me tightly.

“Frankie, you know we can’t.”

“Then can’t you make them let me stay here with you?”

“They won’t let you, but we’ll see each other every afternoon.”

“That’s not good enough. I don’t know how things are over here, but it’s horrible over there.” He pointed across the road.

I pushed him back a little and looked at him from head to toe. “Did something happen?”

“Nah, a couple of bullies tried to mess with me, but I’m tough and it’s no big deal. But the food is really bad, Lucy.” He gave me a pained look.

I started laughing.

“No, really. I’m not kidding. I’m starving.”

I shook my head. Leave it to Frankie to view everything through his stomach.

“Can’t you do something to get us home? Maybe we can call and Papá can send money to fly back?”

“No.”

“What if we sneak out and stow away on a plane back to Cuba?”

“No.”

“Well, if we do something really bad and they kick us out of the camp, then they’d have to—”

“Don’t even think about it, Frankie,” I warned. “We
will
make Mamá and Papá proud. Mrs. Eckhart already sent a telegram to them saying that we were staying here. We’ll probably get letters from Mamá and Papá soon.”

“Not soon enough,” Frankie muttered.

“Look, this isn’t fun for anyone, but I’ll figure something out. We still have each other, and some kids get sent to foster homes. Maybe we’ll end up with a really nice family somewhere in Miami Beach.”

Frankie crossed his arms and looked away. “Yeah, or we’ll end up in a place where they’ll turn us into slaves, make us sleep on the floor, and feed us dog food.”

“Frankie, you know that won’t happen.”

“Fine, but they could separate us. Send us to different homes. That really does happen. Did you think about that?”

I opened my mouth to answer but realized that there was nothing to say. He was right. It could happen.

“See, we have to do something before it’s too late.”

“I’ll figure something out, Frankie. I promise.” I looked around. Some girls had started to play badminton, and a few others were reading under the shadow cast by one of the buildings. “C’mon, I’ll show you around. I think they even have some board games in the main hall.”

Frankie shrugged.

I gave him a little nudge. “Challenge you to a game of checkers.”

“Ha, challenge?” He smirked. “You’ve never beaten me.”

“We’ll see. Things are different now.”

It was my fifth day at Kendall. I felt like a prisoner, counting the days of a sentence, waiting for my release. The only good moments were when I got to see Frankie, but other than that, I just couldn’t get used to life at the camp. There was never any real privacy, and we weren’t allowed to leave the area surrounding the girls’ camp. Not that there would be anywhere to go. We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a scattering of trees that housed millions of mosquitoes, and they seemed to be the only visitors we got.

“Good night, Lucía.” A couple of voices called out in the dwindling light. The sun had gone down about fifteen minutes earlier, and since the lights were always turned off at exactly eight o’clock, most girls were
already in their assigned beds, chatting until total darkness set in.

“Hasta mañana,”
I answered as I walked past the rows and rows of bunk beds. I had chosen to change in the bathroom so I could have a little bit of privacy, and now I was one of the last ones getting into the room.

I thought about Mamá and Papá. Back home, we’d usually be finishing dinner at around this time. Were they eating right now? Would they spend the rest of the evening outside on the porch, trying to keep up appearances? When would I get a letter from them? I knew that all the mail was checked and read by the Cuban censors, but how much longer would it take?

As I approached my bunk, Angela rolled over to face me. In the dim room, I could see she was waiting for me to get closer.

“Psst, Lucía,” she said. “I have something for you.”

“¿Qué?”

“I took an extra one. You really need to be here on time.” She handed me a large sugar cookie and a carton of milk.

“Thanks.” I tossed the carton and cookie up onto my bunk and took two steps up the ladder.

Even though Angela was younger, she reminded me a little of Ivette. They both always looked out for me. I peered in between the rungs, down at Angela lying in her bed.

“Good night, Angela.
Te voy a extrañar.”

“I’m going to miss you, too, Lucía. Good night.”

I climbed up to my bed and looked around for the cookie, to make sure I didn’t smash it as I crawled in, but it was gone. Had it bounced to the floor? I glanced down, but the floor was bare.

Then the covers moved. Something was there. I was about to scream when I heard a familiar “shhh.”

I pulled back the rough gray sheet completely. Frankie lay there grinning from ear to ear, eating my cookie.

For a moment, I was glad to see him, then I realized what he’d done. I glanced around to see if anyone else had seen him. The nightly crying had already started, and everyone was too lost in their own memories to pay attention to me.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, hoping that the whirring fans overhead would drown out my voice.

He pulled the cover back up over his head, only letting a small corner of his face show. “I had to see you. Lucy, I can’t take it anymore. I want to go home.”

I crawled into bed, pushing him against the wall. “You know we can’t, Frankie.”

“Lucía, is that you? Are you talking to yourself?” Angela asked from below.

“Yeah, sorry. I was, um, I was just praying.”

“Oh, okay. No problem.”

I signaled for Frankie to keep it down.

He lowered his voice some more. “I won’t stay here,
Lucy. I just won’t. There’s a new boy who sleeps in the cot next to me. He snores and in the morning he makes me fix his bed. He says I’m gonna be his servant.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll tell Mrs. Eckhart.”

“No!” Frankie said in a loud whisper.

I quickly covered his mouth with my hand … and waited. No one seemed to stir in the beds around me. I peeled my hand away from his mouth.

“Lucy, nothing’s worse than a tattletale. I’ll get clobbered by the other boys. That’s why I didn’t tell Mr. Ramírez.”

“Mr. Ramírez?”

“I told you about him. He’s the one in charge of the boys’ side. Lucy, write to Mamá and Papá. Tell them what it’s like over here. They can send us money to fly back.”

I thought about the letters I’d written every day to my parents. Telling them it’d been a mistake to send us here. That we wanted to go back. How all those letters were still sitting in my suitcase, never to be mailed. I thought about how the one letter I’d sent told them everything was fine, that we were treated well and to please let me know when Ivette got back from the brigades. That I needed to apologize to her.

I shook my head. “I don’t think …”

“Why?”

“Papá and Mamá have enough to deal with. We shouldn’t make them worry about us, too.”

“Then let me stay with you.” He gave me his sad-puppy face. The one that used to work on Mamá.

“We’ve been through this before.”

“I’ll hide. No one will know.”

“How?” I pointed around the large room. “I don’t have any privacy. There’s fifty girls sleeping in here. You can’t just stay here every night.”

“Fine, but at least tonight. Please. If I leave now, I’ll get caught.”

He was right. We’d have to wait for everyone to fall asleep. “Okay, but you have to go back before the morning bell. By the way, how’d you know this was my bed?”

Frankie smiled. “I snuck in while everyone was at dinner and looked for your suitcase. I guessed that you were up here.”

I gave him a kiss on the top of his head. “I’m glad you’re a good guesser. If not, Angela would’ve been quite surprised,” I whispered.

Frankie curled up next to me. Having him there made me feel so relaxed that I was able to fall into a deep sleep for the first time since I’d left Cuba. I started dreaming about all the things I’d left behind. Silly things like my pink pillowcases, my record collection, my award for being the best speller in sixth grade. I could almost taste Mamá’s
picadillo
or
arroz con pollo
, the
café con leche
she would make us every morning. I could hear Papá’s car engine as it pulled into the driveway or how his shoes sounded coming up the staircase.

The memory of his footsteps sounded so real that they could have been right next to me. I turned over, and through half-closed eyelids I saw two shadowy figures by my bunk.

“Mamá? Papá?” I muttered.

“There you are!” a woman’s voice grumbled as a large hand pulled Frankie by the leg.

“We can’t have boys sneaking into the girls’ dormitory. All the young ladies deserve to feel safe. We owe them that much!” Mrs. Eckhart argued.

“I know, I know.” Mr. Ramírez nodded. “But he’s only seven and he wanted to be with his sister. You can understand that.”

Frankie and I sat next to each other in a small office watching the two administrators go back and forth deciding what our punishment should be.