The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico (17 page)

“Here, take a little rice and beans.” Mamá Juanita handed Papi a bowl covered with brown paper.

I found my sandals by the door, slipped them on, and went to Papi’s side.

“I can carry the rice and beans.” I reached out for them, but Papi didn’t let go. Instead, he pulled away.

“No. You’re staying.”

“But I want to go.”

He walked to the door. Mamá Juanita put her hands on my shoulders and tried to hold me in the kitchen, but I wriggled free and wrapped my arms around his waist.

“Papi, please!”

“Verdita, you are too young. Stay here with Mamá Juanita.” He unclenched my arms.

I wasn’t too young. I was nearly a
señorita
. I could help. “I’m carrying the rice.” I grabbed the dish in his hands.

“Verdita, stop it!” Papi yelled.

The rice and beans teetered and nearly fell over, but I couldn’t stop.

“Let go!”

The more he pushed, the tighter I gripped. I’d hold on until he had no choice but to take me.

Then, in one swift movement, he lifted his hand and slapped me across the jaw. The bones in my ears drummed, my teeth rattled, even my eyeballs seemed to click in their sockets. I let go and held my cheek, listening to the music in my head. It had been some time since Papi had lifted his hand, and even longer since he’d actually hit me. A fire built behind my eyes and lit my tongue.

“I wish you’d all die. I’m better off alone!” I covered my mouth; my lips burned.

I ran to the underwater bedroom and locked myself inside. Papi left a few minutes later. From the lacy window, I peeked out the holes to watch the jeep move down the street and out of sight.

Mamá Juanita didn’t come in. I waited for her. First I sat on the floor with crossed arms, my face still warm from the slap. I heard her go by a few times, but she never tried to open the door. I wanted her to come and tell me how awful it was for Papi to hit me—how she understood. But she didn’t. So I pretended to sleep. But that got old and the sheets made me sweat. I walked around the room a few times, but there was nothing to do, and I couldn’t pretend away the sting on my cheek.

Soon I started to think—about the babies, about Mamá’s sickness, about the operation. I wished I hadn’t said what I had. I just wanted us to be together.

The door creaked when I opened it. The pads of my feet smacked the tiled floor, so I walked on tiptoes.

“Are you better?” Mamá Juanita asked.

I couldn’t see her.
“Sí,”
I whispered, and rounded the corner.

She sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of oranges and a book of prayers.
“Bueno
. Do you want an orange?” she asked.

An orange sat white and bare on a plate; its skin curled in one loopty-loop peel beside it. Papi could do that too—peel an orange in a long, bright ribbon. He’d learned from her.

I took a seat. Mamá Juanita rolled a new orange back and forth between her palms. Then, with a small kitchen knife, she skinned it white. The orange twirl fell onto the plate with the other skin, like a festival streamer. She cut a triangle in the top, scooped out the stem, and handed it to me.

I sucked the clean, sweet juice until the orange was squashed and empty. Mamá Juanita handed me a napkin, but I didn’t use it. I wanted the bright smell of oranges to stay on my fingers, and I was hungry for more.

“Can I have another?” I asked.

“Sí
. Here. You can do it.” She handed me the knife and another orange.

“I don’t know how. I’ll mess it up.”

“So what if you do?” She continued to read the book of prayers.

I sat for a moment, the orange in my left hand, the blade in my right. My stomach kicked again. I rolled the orange, then stuck the knife tip into the stem. It was thicker than I thought, and my hands shook from trying to keep it just below the skin, trying to make the perfect curl, trying to keep from slicing my fingers.

“Look.” I smiled up at Mamá Juanita. I was halfway around, the peel curling over my thumb.

“You’re a natural,” she said.

I pulled the knife along confidently, holding it close, eyeing every bumpy pore. Then, suddenly, the blade slipped through the white, piercing the fruit inside. Juice squirted into my eyes and dribbled down my cheeks. It burned. My eyes watered. Rubbing made it worse, and soon I was crying. I hadn’t meant to, but my eyes did it on their own, even when I tried to make them stop. And then I stopped trying. I let the tears come, pour out, wash away the sting and cool my cheeks.

Mamá Juanita handed over another napkin, and I used it to wipe my face clean.

“Try again.” She passed me a third orange. “Sometimes you have to make mistakes to find the right way. That’s why God put so many oranges on one tree.”

“What’s the secret?” I asked.

“The secret is there’s no secret.
Papá Dios
gave each person his own hand. You have to find your own way of doing it.”

I rolled the orange back and forth until it was soft and juicy.

“Your papi must have gone through two dozen oranges before he found his way of peeling,” Mamá Juanita said. “And you nearly got it on your first try.”

I cupped it in my palms. Smelled it. Ran my tongue over the rippled skin and thought of Papi sitting beside Mamá Juanita with two dozen half-peeled oranges.

“Mamá Juanita, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.” I stuck the tip of the knife just under the stem and cut between the skin and flesh.

“I know,” she said. “We all say things we don’t mean. Everything will be okay. God is with them.”

I held the blade steady and turned the orange. The peel twisted around my hand and hung in a limp curlicue over my wrist. It reminded me of the ponytail curls Mamá used to pomade my hair into when I was little. I missed the feel of her fingers smoothing the rough kinks on my head. Rounding the bottom, I sliced it clean, then held up the white fruit and the orange peel. I wished Papi and Mamá were there to see it.

“Very good, Verdita!” said Mamá Juanita. She buttered two pieces of bread for breakfast, and I skinned four more oranges. I ate it all, hungrier than I had ever been, it seemed.

Afterwards, Mamá Juanita put down her book of prayers. “What do you say we go to El Morro?”

I had only ever passed by the fortress. Papi always said he would take me when we had time to spare, but we never had it.

“You would like that. And besides,” she sighed, “we need something to take our minds off things,
sí?”
I couldn’t agree more.

T
HE ENTRANCE TO
El Morro stood at the end of a long, green field on the edge of a cliff. Mamá Juanita and I walked past the spot where we’d lain in December. I wished I could go back to that moment. Now there were no children flying kites, only a group of shirtless older boys chasing a soccer ball from left to right. The sun was out, but the sun was always out in San Juan. I couldn’t remember a time when the city wasn’t outlined in gold.

We walked the dirt roadway toward the entrance, passing a family speaking a language I’d never heard before—not English or Spanish. Maybe French. Or Chinese. I wondered how many different languages were in the world. I only knew two, but I wanted to learn at least five.

“Where are they from?” I asked Mamá Juanita.

“I don’t know. Sounds German or Russian,” she said, and took my hand so we could pass quickly.

Russia was a big red chunk of land on Señora Alonzo’s map—a hundred times bigger than Puerto Rico, bigger than the United States. Russia was communist like Cuba.

Ahead on the path was a tour group guided by a man wearing a white, buttoned-up shirt tucked into a pair of teal shorts with matching sneakers.

“This is the largest Spanish fort in the Caribbean, taking over two hundred years to complete,” the guide said in English.

“Mamá Juanita, look—Americans?” I whispered.

“Sí
. We have lots of them here.”

In the group was a blond girl who looked my age. She watched me and I watched her. She had a round face and bowed lips and skin the color of coconut milk. I wondered if her name was Jane. The group stopped to take photos while we went on. I wished I was part of their group, wished I could stop and talk to Jane—be her friend. But she was a stranger to me, and I to her.

Inside, we walked the stone steps of El Morro alongside other tourists. On the highest lookout, a plaque read that gunmen had kept watch for U.S. ships during the Spanish-American war on that spot. Farther down, along the fortress wall, was Fort San Cristobal. Its black cannons still aimed toward the sea. I wondered if they kept them there waiting for the next to come and try to claim our beaches. Across the horizon, a cruise ship with colorful flags sailed by the weapon line.

A round lookout hole in an empty turret framed the port of San Juan. Through it were white ships strung with glittering lights and flags. Antlike men and women walked
the brown decks and in and out of the bridged walkways reaching from ship to land. Names like
Bianca C
and
Empress of Canada
were printed on the sides of the ships.

“Look at those boats!” I said to Mamá Juanita.

“Rich Americans and English,” she replied. “Your Titi Carmen lives in Miami, you know, and they have many of these there. People sailing all over the world on holiday.”

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“Nowhere. They just want to get away from where they were.”

A woman leaned against the top deck railing of the
Empress of Canada
. I wondered what her story was.

“I bet they’re happy in between places,” I said to Mamá Juanita. “Not worried about what they left or where they’re going.”

“
Sí
, I guess so.” Mamá Juanita pulled a pink clamshell compact from her purse and fluffed her hair. “But me—I like to get where I’m going. I’d get bored sailing in a big circle. Where have you gone? Nowhere. You end up in the same place you started and what good is that? I like to know for certain where I am.” She put the compact back in her purse when a Chinese family, in matching purple T-shirts, stopped nearby.

I watched the boats through the cannon hole. It was like a spyglass to a secret world. So clear and yet so far. I’d be happy on that ship. I just knew it.

“Scusi?”
said a man in a wide-brimmed straw hat and mango-colored pants.

“No, no, Bob, honey, for God’s sake, that’s Italian. They speak Spanish. Espanole,” said a woman with cropped brown hair and big white sunglasses. She looked like a bum-blebee.

“Oh yes. Okay. Umm,
Por favor, un foto?”
Bob asked and then smiled as wide as his hat.

They both had small lips and strong jaws. Blond stubble grew in patches on Bob’s cheeks, but his face didn’t look dirty and rough, like Papi’s when he didn’t shave. It looked fuzzy, like the face of a stuffed animal. The woman was pink-cheeked and pink-lipped and stood with her head up, like a movie actress. They were bright and friendly.

“We speak English,” I said. Eager to use all the words I knew. “Are you Americans?”

“Yes. We’re from Connecticut. On our honeymoon,” Bob replied, and kissed the top of his wife’s head.

“Congratulations,” said Mamá Juanita.

“Congratulations,” I said too.

“Thank you.” The woman smiled up at Bob, then stuck out her hand. “I’m Jill.” I took it and shook. It was small and soft, and I knew without a doubt that she’d never cracked a coconut or peeled a plantain or shucked corn in her whole life. Her fingers were smooth as water, and I worried that she could feel the calluses on my palm.

“Beautiful island you got here.” She reached out to Mamá Juanita next. “Just gorgeous.” They shook, and Mamá Juanita smiled and shrugged as if Jill had just complimented
her
.

“I’m Juana, and this is Maria Flores,” said Mamá Juanita.

She used our formal names with the Americans. They were strangers. But I wanted them to know the real me—Verdita.

“You can call me Verdita. It’s what everybody does.” Mamá Juanita shot me a look.

“Nice to meet you, Verdita,” said Bob.

My name sounded different when he said it. The
Ver
was strong and clear and didn’t roll together with the
dita
.

Bob handed Mamá Juanita his Minolta. We didn’t own a camera, but I’d seen pictures of them in magazines and on television. I was jealous that Mamá Juanita got to use it. She looked through the back while Bob and Jill posed—arms wrapped around each other, big smiles. We only had one photograph of Mamá and Papi. Their wedding day. They didn’t have a honeymoon. Papi said that Puerto Ricans didn’t take honeymoons because the island was already paradise and every day was a celebration. I figured that was true; why else would people like Jill and Bob come?

Mamá Juanita pushed a button and the camera made a small click. I’d expected more.

“Nice camera. My daughter has one like this. She lives in Miami.” Mamá Juanita handed it back to them.

“That’s where we boarded. Pretty—Miami,” said Bob.

It was all happening so fast. We were talking to them, meeting them. I knew their names. Bob and Jill. Jill and
Bob. Dick and Jane. Of course they were Americans. With those smiles and happy lives, what else could they be?

“Hey, any chance you could tell us a good joint to eat? We’re dying to try some of the food here. All we get on the ship is pork chops, steak, and salmon. I’m sick of it.” Bob laughed. It sounded more like a cough, but I could tell by his smile and the way his eyes welled that it was a laugh.

I wondered how anybody could get sick of pork chops, steak, or salmon. It sounded pretty good to me. I’d only had bread and oranges for breakfast. I bet all Americans ate pork chops, steak, and salmon—plates and plates of it. I’d never had pork chops, steak, or salmon, but I’d had plenty of chicken.

“Try
arroz con pollo
—rice with chicken. It’s good,” I said and tried to make my smile as wide as theirs.

“Rice and chicken?” said Bob.

Mamá Juanita gave them directions to La Bombonera, an old restaurant on Calle San Justo. The owner’s wife played bingo with her on Monday nights.