How Tía Lola Learned to Teach (13 page)

Somehow the news spreads through town and at school. Tía Lola might have to leave the country.

“But she can’t!” Mrs. Stevens folds her arms and plants herself at the entrance to her school. She will not let anyone take her best volunteer away. “Who will teach the children Spanish? Who will organize
carnaval
parties and treasure hunts and paint murals to liven up the halls?”

“Who will run Spanish night?” Rudy says, shaking his head when he hears the news. “Who’s going to teach us to dance the merengue and cook
flan
and that great rice-and-beans dish
arroz con habichoolas
?”

“Arroz con habichuelas,”
Tía Lola corrects him, but without her usual lively smile. Being asked to leave the country has made her feel like a guest who has overstayed her welcome.

“Who will make piñatas for me to sell?” Stargazer sighs. “And help me paint the sale signs for the store?”

Woody, Rudy’s son, sums up the whole town’s
feelings: “Tía Lola can’t leave. She’s the best thing that’s happened to this town since …”

“Since the pilgrims came!” Dawn says, and that’s saying a lot, seeing as her ancestors came over on the
Mayflower
.

“Well, let’s not get carried away!” Colonel Charlebois, who is having his daily meal at Amigos Café, says in his cranky voice. But in fact, what he’s cranky about is this unwelcome news. “It certainly would be a sad state of affairs if Tía Lola left. One that I don’t think any of us could bear!” He clears his throat again and again. Usually a man with a hearty appetite, he barely touches his
huevos rancheros
, although they’re just the way he likes them tonight.

A few days later, Carmen calls Mami back. There are several options that would let Tía Lola stay in the USA. In order to arrive at a decision, Mami calls an informal town meeting over at Amigos Café for that Wednesday night.

The whole town shows up! The restaurant can’t fit such a large crowd, so the gathering is moved across the street to the library’s large meeting room.

Mami reads out all the possibilities Carmen’s lawyer friend suggested. Among the options is applying for an “extraordinary ability” visa, awarded to someone with an exceptional skill the country can’t do without. At the mention of this special visa, the whole town breaks into
applause. “That’s it!” people call out. “Go for it! We can’t lose Tía Lola. She has the extraordinary ability to bring us all together!”

But Tía Lola still has to report to the immigration office on Friday to plead her case before a judge. Since Friday is an in-service day at school and there won’t be any classes, Mrs. Stevens volunteers to accompany Tía Lola and speak up on her behalf. After all, this is part of her in-service, keeping this treasure in her school.

“I’m coming along, too,” Mrs. Prouty says. “Without Tía Lola, I don’t know what we’d do.”

“Make that three of us!” Mr. Bicknell is always one to take up a cause if he believes it is fair and just.

Soon every teacher at Bridgeport has signed on, and that gets the students started. A group of sixth graders convince several parents to drive them up to the hearing. It’ll be like a field trip: watching how the United States of America works. Before you know it, kids from every grade are clamoring to go. Of course, Rudy is shutting down his restaurant to head up there, and Woody volunteers his own van, and Colonel Charlebois has room in his car for three more—five if two are skinny, which could only be if they haven’t discovered Amigos Café’s fine cuisine, which is what Colonel Charlebois calls good cooking.

By the end of the evening, most of the town’s inhabitants are planning to head up to the immigration office on Friday morning.

Juanita has been sitting in the front row, worrying and wondering what will happen. Mami has told her and Miguel privately—so as to prepare them—that Carmen did say the chances are that Tía Lola will not be able to stay right away. Every foreigner has to take a turn, with preference given to the immediate family of American citizens: sons and daughters, parents and grandparents. That means that although Tía Lola actually raised Mami, still, on paper, she only counts as an aunt. She will have to go to the back of the line.

But Juanita can’t even imagine a life without Tía Lola anymore. It’s like Mami keeps saying: How can the United States of America do that to her family? They might as well deport Juanita, too, even though she’d have to leave her mother and father and brother as well as her own country behind.

Beside her, Tía Lola has been sitting quietly all evening, occasionally dabbing at her eyes with one of the handkerchiefs that Carmen gave her, for happy tears. But Juanita is pretty sure Tía Lola’s tears aren’t happy. How can they be when she is being asked to leave a country where all she has done is spread love and happiness?

As the meeting is starting to break up, Tía Lola stands and asks if Mami will translate a few words.

When Mami announces that Tía Lola has something to say, the noisy, fired-up crowd sits down obediently. You can hear a pin drop, as well as
un alfiler
.

“I want to thank all of you,” Tía Lola begins in a voice full of emotion, “for how you have welcomed me to your wonderful country. Whether or not I get to stay, I will always remain here, because you have let me into your hearts. And you will never be far from me, because I will take each and every one of you in
mi corazón
and in my memories.” Tía Lola will take the whole town in her heart back to the Dominican Republic.

Mami grows teary-eyed as she translates. From her chair in the front row, Juanita herself is seeing a double Tía Lola and Mami through the tears in her eyes. Meanwhile, Miguel is ready to bolt out of his chair and protect Tía Lola if the guards come to take her away, just like Carmen protected him from Rafi in the subway.

Throughout the room, people are blowing their noses and coughing away their sadness. Tía Lola’s words have a goodbye ring to them. But then her tone changes. “One last thing,” she says, flashing her lively grin. “Before I leave, I promise that with your help, I’m going to put up a good fight to stay!”

Once again, the room breaks out clapping and cheering, except this time the response is louder, fiercer, and seems to go on forever. Even Melrose, the town clerk, has to admit that he has never seen anything like this. “Maybe Tía Lola should run for governor or something.”

“Nunca es tarde cuando la dicha es buena,”
Tía Lola concludes before she sits back down.

Mami struggles to translate the saying. “It’s never too
late when you’re in luck. Or something like that. Anyhow, thanks, everyone, for helping us out!”

Instead of clapping and stomping her feet, Juanita closes her eyes.
Please, please, please
, let Tía Lola stay, she wishes with all her might. She tries it in Spanish for double strength:
¡Por favor, por favor, por favor, que tía Lola se pueda quedar!
And then Juanita can’t help herself. She touches her forehead, her heart, her two shoulders, then kisses her thumb, sealing the biggest wish she can ever remember making in her life so far.

lesson nine

En la unión está la fuerza
In unity there’s strength

Along with everyone else in the county, Miguel wakes up on Friday morning with a hopeful, fearful feeling. By the end of the day, Tía Lola’s fate will be decided. Mami has warned him and Juanita not to get their hopes up too high. But how can they help it when the day dawns so sunny and warm and bright?

After breakfast, Tía Lola appears at the door with a little suitcase. Miguel’s heart feels like a pebble dropped in a well, leaving an empty hole in his chest. “What are you doing with that
maleta
?” he asks, as if he can’t guess.

“Por si acaso,”
Tía Lola says brightly. Just in case. “But
notice how small it is, Miguel. If I go away, I won’t be gone long.”

Mami makes light of the suitcase as well. “It’s the ‘raincoat lucky charm.’ If you wear your raincoat, it won’t rain. If Tía Lola takes her suitcase, she won’t be sent away.”

Miguel groans. He can remember any number of times his
mami
has made him wear a rain slicker and it still has rained.

“Now, now, Miguel Ángel Guzmán,” Mami reminds him. “You’ll make your
tía
Lola nervous if
you
get too nervous. And remember, she has to charm the socks off the immigration judge. We have to present a united front. As Tía Lola likes to say—”

“En la unión está la fuerza.”
Tía Lola quotes her own saying: In unity there’s strength. It sounds like something from the Declaration of Independence. That should charm the socks off an immigration judge!

“Hey, Tía Lola, why don’t you just quote your wise sayings to the judge?” Miguel says, half in jest. “That’ll show him why we can’t let you go.”

Mami drops down on the bench in the mudroom. It’s as if she has just had a suspicion confirmed. “Now I know it’s a fact: I have a genius son! That is a brilliant idea!”

Miguel loves a compliment as much as the next person, but Mami can go overboard. And when you get praised too much, it’s like you’re an animal paralyzed by headlights on the road: there’s no wiggle room to make
a mistake or even improve at something you’re already good at.

“Tía Lola, we’ll prove to the judge that you’re our town oracle!” Mami claps her hands.

“What’s that?” Juanita asks. She wonders if an oracle is anything like a barnacle, a word she learned just last week in school when they were studying beach flora and fauna. But Tía Lola doesn’t remind Juanita in the least of those little shellfish that attach themselves to cliffs and the sides of ships.

“An oracle is a person or place or even a book full of wise knowledge.” Mami launches into an explanation about the Delphic Oracle in Greece; how in olden times in China, people consulted this oracular book called the
I Ching
.…

Miguel is half listening, half daydreaming. After so many ho-hum weeks, it’s going to be an exciting day! Papi couldn’t miss any more work, but Carmen is actually flying up with an immigration lawyer from her firm who has agreed to represent Tía Lola. They will all meet up at the immigration office.

At first, Mami hesitated when Carmen made her offer. “I don’t know that we can afford that, Carmen. That last lawyer wiped us out.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. There’s no charge,” Carmen had assured her.

But after hanging up, Mami was thoughtful. “I have a feeling that maybe Carmen is paying for this herself.”

“She is a true friend,” Tía Lola acknowledged, a hand on her heart.
“Amiga en la adversidad es amiga de verdad.”
A friend in adversity is a true friend.

If Tía Lola can keep saying her sayings, surely she will get that special visa. Miguel doesn’t feel like he is cheating his country in any way. Tía Lola does have so many extraordinary abilities. Look at all she has done for their little town. Free Spanish lessons, good food, and that special magic of hers that brings everyone together. Plus her sayings
are
wise. Miguel suddenly feels hopeful. It can’t be every day that the Department of Immigration gets an application for a special visa from an oracle—with a genius for a nephew, at that!