Delia's Crossing

  “By the time this cools down, I’ll have to leave. Forget it,” she said.

  I didn’t understand but figured from her gestures that she wasn’t going to drink the coffee now. I saw she had eaten everything on her plate. I picked up the tray, shrugged, and left.

  “Right, just go,” she cried after me. “Idiot Mexican. How could you be our cousin?”

  Idiot Mexican? You’re half Mexican, I thought, but imagined that, like her mother, she was in denial about it. Nevertheless, I smiled to myself and went downstairs. As soon as Sophia and Edward left for school, Señora Rosario was on me to go up and start cleaning Sophia’s room.

  “Quickly,” she said. “Do it well but quickly. No daydreaming.”

  “What would I dream of here?” I muttered. “Except to escape.” I thought I saw her smile.

  The bathroom was in the same terrible condition I had found it in when I first tried to clean Sophia’s suite. This time, I did work faster, and I didn’t spend any time scrubbing down the shower stall or the floors. I turned my attention to her bedroom instead and began scooping up clothing and hanging things up in her closet. For a few moments, I was in a daze. I couldn’t believe how many blouses, skirts, pairs of pants, drawers of socks, undergarments, and shoes she possessed. There was more in this closet than in most stores in my Mexican village or even the bigger nearby villages.

  Once the clothing was picked up, I turned to the bedding. When I took off the blanket, I was shocked to see the bloodstains on the sheet. Didn’t she know she was going to have a period or remember she was having one? Didn’t she care? For a moment, it nauseated me, and then I quickly ripped off the sheet. To my surprise, there was a rubber cover over the mattress. It was as if she was known to pee in her sleep as an infant might. I washed it down quickly, dried it, and put on a new sheet and new pillow cases. I was just finishing up when Señora Rosario came by to tell me I had ten minutes to go get myself some breakfast before I had to meet Señor Baker in the library.

  She showed me where to put all the dirty laundry, and I hurried down to the kitchen. Laughter coming from the dining room made me pause. I glanced in and saw my aunt and her guest, the young man named Travis, at the table sipping their coffee. My aunt was still wearing her negligee under her red silk robe. The robe was open, and she was leaning so close to Travis their lips were just touching. She suddenly stopped and turned to the doorway, where she saw me gaping.

  “How dare you spy on me!” she screamed. Travis laughed. “Get back to work!”

  Her shouts brought Señora Rosario downstairs quickly. She ordered me into the kitchen, shooing me with her hands. Terrified, I hurried. Both Señor Herrera and Inez stared in amazement.

  “What happened now?” Inez asked me, and I told her I had done nothing more than just glance into the dining room at Señora Dallas and her guest. When I said he looked young enough to be her son, she smiled at Señor Herrera, who laughed and set out a bowl of oatmeal for me with a glass of juice and a cup of coffee.

  “Sit,” he said, pointing to the chair by the kitchen table. “Eat.”

  I sat and started, feeling Señora Rosario behind me, rushing me along with her hot, condemning eyes.

  “Señora Dallas does not want you to be late for your English-speaking lessons,” she said.

  I gobbled down my oatmeal.

  “Let the girl eat,” Señor Herrera said. “She’s wolfing it down like a dog.”

  “You want to go tell Señora Dallas that?” she fired back at him. Now that I thought about it, I was surprised they all were speaking Spanish rather than English. Why wasn’t my aunt insisting they speak English if she was demanding it so of me? They were all able to speak English.

  He made a face and turned back to his preparations for lunch and dinner.

  Inez left to start cleaning the house, every room except Sophia’s. I was to be the fortunate one as far as that suite was concerned.

  I gulped my juice and stood up.

  “Where is the library?” I asked Señora Rosario. I really hadn’t had much of a tour of the house.

  “This way,” she said. I followed her out, glancing back at Señor Herrera, who threw me a comforting smile.

  As we walked down the hallway, I noted that practically all of the available wall space was covered with paintings or pictures. There were many pictures of my aunt taken with people I would later learn were celebrities, politicians, or simply very, very wealthy businessmen. In time, I also would learn that many officers of charities would court her to have her name on their programs.

  When I reached the library, I saw a table filled with trophies and awards given to her by this charity or that. Except for a half-dozen pictures and the large picture of her with her husband in the library above the fireplace, there was no other evidence of her husband in the house as far as I had seen. There were no trophies or plaques with his name on them. Wasn’t he as generous, or did she simply remove anything that didn’t favor her solely? In every picture I did see, he looked as if he could have been her father.

  Señor Baker was sitting behind the desk in the library when we arrived. He started to smile and stopped the moment I walked through the door.

  “Where are the books I gave you?” he demanded.

  “Back in my room,” I said.

  “Run, don’t walk,” he ordered. “Go!” he said, waving his hand at me.

  I glanced at Señora Rosario who gave me a look of chastisement and then turned and hurried down the hallway. I didn’t actually run until I was out of the house. By the time I returned, I was gasping as much out of fear as anything. With all that had happened, I had completely forgotten about the books. I never even opened one.

  “How could you forget your books?” Señor Baker practically shouted at me when I returned to the library. Señora Rosario was gone. “Haven’t you opened any and started to read?”

  I shook my head. “I have not yet had the time.”

  “Haven’t had time? Don’t you want to get to go to school? Don’t you want Señora Dallas to like you? Well?”

  “Sí,” I said, choking back my tears.

  “Sí, sí…no more sí. Say yes or no, understand? Yes or no.”

  “S…yes,” I said.

  “How good is your memory?” he asked, and came around the desk. “Let’s find out. Give me the English words for what I showed you.”

  I recited the words.

  “That’s good,” he said. “You’ll make me look good,” he added. He told me to sit on the long, dark brown leather sofa. He sat beside me and opened my book. “Let’s begin,” he said, and I started to read the Spanish and struggle with the English translations, with him correcting me. He was so close that I could feel his breath on my neck. He had a sour mouth odor that came from coffee and cigarettes.

  Suddenly, mi tía Isabela was in the doorway. She was still in her robe, but she was alone.

  “Well?” she asked. “What is your prediction about her ability to learn? Should I bother wasting your time and my money?”

  “Oh, she’s a good student,” he told her, looked at me, smiled, and repeated in Spanish what he had said. “But with her spending so much time on housework and me traveling back and forth, it’s going to take a while, Isabela. She’s very distracted concentrating on pleasing you here. There’s so much competing for her attention. She hardly has time to study and read. I can’t perform miracles.”

  “What do you suggest, John?” she asked him, smirking.

  He shrugged and looked at me again. “I could do wonders with her in two weeks if…”

  “If what, John?”

  “Well, I favor the Helen Keller method when it comes to a situation like this,” he said. “Someone who can’t speak our language, comes from a place that’s like another planet, someone like her,” he said, turning to me and nodding, “is really like someone deaf, dumb, and blind. She needs to be dependent on me to learn quickly. She then learns out of the need to survive as much as anything, but that obvious
ly speeds things up. Unless you don’t mind how long it takes, of course.”

  “Of course, I mind it. Do you think I want her here like this forever?” she snapped back at him. “Look at how much she has embarrassed me just in the past twenty-four hours. My sister probably got herself killed deliberately just to make me suffer.”

  Señor Baker smiled.

  “Go on, laugh. You don’t know what I went through before I escaped that world.”

  He shrugged again. I wished I understood more of what they were saying. I did understand that she was complaining about me. I was struggling with the few words I understood. Was all this anger caused by my forgetting my books? Señor Baker turned to me.

  “Then I’m not proposing anything you’ll think terribly unfair or cruel.”

  She stared at me, making me feel uncomfortable.

  “If you feel her grandmother wouldn’t approve…” he continued.

  “I don’t care what anyone back in Mexico thinks!” she cried.

  He nodded. “Delia,” he began in Spanish, “how would you like to stay with me for a while and just spend all day and night learning how to speak English? No more housework for now.”

  I looked at my aunt and then at him and then at my aunt and shook my head. I didn’t fully understand yet, but staying with him? Did that mean moving into his house?

  “She doesn’t like the idea,” my aunt said, smiling coolly. “No?” she asked me, her smile still unnerving.

  “No, por favor,” I said.

  “No, please,” Señor Baker corrected. “Please. Say please.”

  “Please.”

  “See?” he told my aunt. “Imagine my being able to do that day and night for two weeks.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I see what you mean. You’re right. Besides, I’m not interested in what she wants and doesn’t want. She’s already opened her big mouth and told Edward she’s his cousin.” She glared at me. “After I specifically said not to mention that to anyone!”

  “It had to come out sooner or later, Isabela,” Señor Baker said.

  “Later would have been better. Mrs. Rosario!” she screamed. She went to the doorway.

  I looked at Señor Baker. He was staring at me strangely. It made me feel naked.

  “Todo será bien,” he said, trying to calm me down, assuring me that all was going to be just fine.

  I looked at my aunt again. She shouted once more for Señora Rosario, who came hurrying down the hallway.

  What did he mean, everything would be fine? What was happening?

  My aunt spoke quickly to Señora Rosario and then turned back to Señor Baker.

  “However, now that I think of it, it might attract too much unnecessary attention if you return to your condo, John.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I have that house for rent in Indio. It’s furnished. Take her up there for two weeks. No one in that neighborhood will notice or care. Half the people living up there were probably brought here last night by a coyote. I will expect that she’ll be quite different when you return,” she added in a threatening tone.

  “Oh, she’ll be like brand new,” he said, looking at me and smiling. “She’ll be a Mexican American and not just a Mexican.”

  “Good,” my aunt said. “Do you want Mrs. Rosario to go along to help you set up?”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “We don’t want her to have anyone near her who can speak Spanish. That’s the point. She will need to remember what I teach her to survive.”

  “You’ll have to keep her under lock and key up there, then, John.”

  “No problem,” he said, and smiled at me again. “It’ll be like My Fair Lady. I’ll be Professor Higgins.”

  “Yes, only don’t expect her to turn into Audrey Hepburn, John.”

  “She’ll come damn close to it,” he vowed.

  My aunt laughed.

  What was going on? They were speaking too quickly, and the words I caught and understood just confused me.

  Mi tía Isabela turned to Señora Rosario and began explaining everything. She told her to explain it all to me in Spanish. For a moment, Señora Rosario looked as if she was going to disobey her. My aunt widened her eyes, and Señora Rosario turned to me.

  “Señora Dallas and Señor Baker think it’s going to take you too long to learn English here while you spend so much time helping with housework. Señora Dallas wants you to learn faster and get to school.”

  I nodded. That didn’t sound so bad. No more housework.

  “Señora Dallas and Señor Baker think it will be better for you if you are somewhere where no one speaks Spanish so you will have to learn English quickly.”

  “Where?” I asked. “Dónde?” Were they talking about me living in his house again?

  “Señora Dallas owns many properties. She has a house in Indio that you and Señor Baker will use. It’s not that far away from here.”

  “Only me and Señor Baker?” I turned to him. He was smiling at me gleefully. I felt my heart begin to thump. I shook my head.

  “Don’t you dare shake your head!” mi tía Isabela screamed at me. “Tell her if she doesn’t do what I tell her to do, I will contact her grandmother and let her grandmother know how disrespectful and disobedient she is.” She smiled, folded her arms under her breasts, and stood straighter. “Tell her I will stop sending her grandmother money to help her survive.”

  Señora Rosario told me, and I looked up with surprise. Aunt Isabela was sending money to my grandmother?

  “That’s right, Delia. I am sending her money now,” she told me in English. “She’s an old, old lady. She can’t work hard enough to keep her house and herself alive. Without my help, she’ll be out in the street. Tell her what I said, and ask her if she would like that.”

  Mrs. Rosario translated.

  “Well?” my aunt demanded, bringing her hands to her hips and stepping closer to me. “Are you going to do what I want you to do or not? Yes or no? I have no more time to waste. Tell her!”

  Señora Rosario told me.

  The tears broke free from the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t imagine mi abuela Anabela left to live on the street. Her friends wouldn’t permit it, but I also knew she was too proud to accept charity. I lowered my head and nodded.

  “Good. Get her miserable things together,” my aunt told Señora Rosario. “Mr. Baker has wasted enough time. Bring her back in two weeks speaking English well enough to get by, or I’ll see to it that you’re deported along with her,” my aunt threatened him.

  Señor Baker laughed, but whatever she had told him brought a little fear to his face, especially into his eyes.

  “Don’t worry. I know I’ll be successful,” he said. “We’ll be successful,” he told me in Spanish.

  “Go on. Get her started!” my aunt ordered.

  Señora Rosario returned to my room with me to make sure I hurriedly gathered my things. I put everything back into my little suitcase while she stood there looking very sorry. My tears flowed even more freely.

  “I don’t want to go with Señor Baker,” I told her. “I don’t like him.”

  She bit down on her lower lip as if she was stopping herself from saying something she would regret and then shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she told me. “Do the best you can. It’s what we all do. Come along.”

  I followed her to the front of the house, where Señor Baker waited in his car. He was all smiles, eager to help me with my suitcase. Then he opened the car door for me.

  “Adentro. Get in,” he said.

  I got into his car, and he closed the door and got in behind the wheel.

  “I’ll start your lessons by identifying every part of the inside of the car,” he told me, and then, as he touched something, he pronounced the English word for it. He asked me to repeat what he said and then touched the part again without speaking and asked me to identify it in English.

  Despite my nervousness and fear, I was able to do it easily.

  “S
ee how easy it can be when we work like this?” he said loudly enough for Señora Rosario to hear. He nodded and smiled at her, but she just stared at us. “That was so simple. You liked that, didn’t you?” he asked me.

  “Sí.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” he said, starting the engine. “We’ll have a little tour of the desert. We’ll stop and get groceries, and I’ll teach you words all along the way. It will be good. You’ll see. I’ve gotten you out of slave labor here, too,” he said loudly, and nodded at the house and Señora Rosario, who continued to stand there on the steps watching us. She grimaced and shook her head slightly.

  “The housework you will have with me will be nothing in comparison with what they made you do here,” he said, leaning over to whisper, “and you won’t have to put up with that spoiled brat, Sophia. I’m the only spoiled brat in your life now.” He laughed.

  “Now, here’s another good idea,” he said. “I’ll teach you a song that will teach you numbers in English. Ready? It starts like this: One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer. If one of the bottles should happen to fall, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall. See? Sing along. Come on,” he said as he drove away from the house.

  I looked back at Señora Rosario and saw her shake her head again and turn to go back inside. Despite what Señor Baker said and how I had been treated, I was not happy about leaving with him. We continued down the long driveway, past the beautiful flowers and hedges, the statues and fountains.

  “Sing what I sing,” he ordered.

  I did.

  “Louder. Be happy, energetic. You’re off to begin a new life. Ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall…”

  The gate opened for us, and I looked back one more time as Señor Baker continued to sing and forced me to sing along with him.

  Now I don’t even have a phantom family, I thought.

  Why should I care what awaited me when we reached zero bottles of beer on the wall?

  7