“I was trying to do a good job. It’s so dirty and messy,” I explained. “That was a mean thing for her to do to me.”
Señora Rosario sighed deeply.
“Welcome to La Casa Dallas. You’ll go back later and finish up,” she said. “In the meantime, go change out of your wet clothes. You might as well make your bed and get yourself organized in your room. Then come to the kitchen,” she told me.
I started down the hallway.
My aunt Isabela stepped out of her bedroom just as I reached the stairway and shouted at Señora Rosario.
“Why is she soaked? Why is she tracking water down the hallway?”
Señora Rosario hurried to her, urging me behind her back to continue down the stairway and out of the house as she passed me by. I looked back and saw her explaining desperately. My aunt glared after me, her eyes so red with fury and anger that I couldn’t move fast enough to get out of their range.
As I hurried from the main house, I saw two gardeners looking at me and laughing. I tried to ignore them, but one shouted, “Señorita, usted se cayó en la bañera?”
“No,” I shouted back, “I did not fall into the bathtub, but looking at you, I would advise you to fall into one.”
They both looked shocked and then roared with laughter.
I charged into the help’s quarters and went to the bathroom, dried my hair, and gathered up the bedding for my bed. Then I hurried to my hole-in-the-wall room, where I quickly stripped off my wet clothing and began to dry my body. Moments later, I heard someone coming down the hallway. There was a knock on my door.
Señora Rosario isn’t giving me much time, I thought. Why did everything have to be in such a rush here? I held the towel over my breasts and opened the door.
Standing there was Señor Baker. He had two books in his hands and a brassiere. His gaze moved quickly down to my feet and then slowly rose up my body, bringing a deep, wide smile to his face. I felt the heat of a deep blush come into my own.
“I thought you were Señora Rosario,” I told him.
“It’s all right,” he replied. “Don’t be ashamed. I’m your teacher,” he added, as if that meant he could see and do whatever he wanted when it came to me. “Mrs. Dallas wanted me to give you this right away,” he said, holding out the bra. “I bought it for you myself. I think it’s the right size.”
The sight of a strange man holding out a brassiere for me brought even more heat to my neck and face. He laughed.
“I have good language books for you,” he said, and offered them to me as well.
It was difficult to hold on to my towel and reach for everything, but he didn’t seem to care. I tried taking it all quickly, and part of the towel fell away. I brought my hand back and covered myself.
“Why are you changing your clothes now, anyway?” he asked.
“I…had an accident,” I said, thinking that was the easiest way to explain.
He nodded but didn’t turn away to leave. Instead, he leaned to look past me at my room.
“This isn’t very nice,” he said. “We’ve got to get you into nicer accommodations. Once you learn English, Mrs. Dallas will move you to a nicer room, I’m sure. We’ll figure something out.”
Why would my learning English have anything to do with that? I wondered, but didn’t ask.
“Is there anything you need now?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I have to change quickly, make my bed, and get to the kitchen.”
“Really? Put to work so soon? I was hoping to start your first lesson,” he said. “I’ll have to have a conversation with Señora Dallas about you,” he added, and walked right past me into my room.
I had no way to cover myself from the waist down. I lunged quickly for my dry dress, scooped it up, and charged out of the room, wrapping as much as I could around me. I was sure I looked very foolish.
“I’m going to the bathroom to change,” I cried, and continued down the hallway, but when I got to the bathroom, the door was closed. Señor Garman was inside.
Señor Baker came out of my room and looked down the hallway at me.
“You can change in your room,” he said, laughing. “I’ll wait outside if you like. Come on,” he said, beckoning.
I heard Señor Garman flush the toilet. When he opened the door and saw me standing half naked, holding a towel against myself and my dress around my waist, he grimaced.
“What is this?” he demanded. He looked down the hallway at Señor Baker.
“She went to change in the bathroom,” he called back. He spoke in Spanish and then realized it and repeated it in English. “She’s just very confused.”
“Why don’t you use your own room for that?” Señor Garman asked me angrily.
“He wants to know why you don’t change in your room,” Señor Baker told me, laughing. “Come on back. Change in your room, you silly girl.”
I gazed at Señor Garman, who was still grimacing angrily, and then hurried back to my room and closed the door. I could hear them both laughing in the hallway. I could barely keep my tears under my eyelids.
Señor Baker knocked on my door.
“Aren’t you ready yet?” he asked, and then he opened the door before I could respond. I had just buttoned my last button on the bodice of my dress. “Fine,” he said, entering. He stood there looking around a moment and then smiled at me. “Your aunt was right, Delia. You should wear a bra. You have a very nice figure, and you should be very proud,” he said.
I couldn’t speak. No man ever spoke about my body like that. Boys made remarks, but no grown man ever did in my presence, at least. Was this common in America?
“Okay, why waste an opportunity? Let’s have our first English lesson,” he said.
“But Señora Rosario wants me in the kitchen.”
“Don’t worry about it. Señora Dallas thinks this is more important. We’ll begin by identifying things,” he insisted. “When I point to them, I will give you the word in English, and you repeat it, understand?”
I nodded, and he put his hand on my bed.
“Bed,” he said. He went through my room, identifying everything from the floor up. I knew many of these words already, but then he surprised me by turning to me to identify the parts of my body.
He took my hand.
“Hand,” he said. “Arm.”
He touched my face, and I repeated every English word: eyes, nose, cheeks, forehead, mouth, chin.
Then he stepped back and tested me by pointing to everything he had translated. I was very nervous and trembling so much inside I had trouble speaking, but he was impressed with my memory.
“Very good,” he said. “You have an ability for language, and you are motivated to learn. We will be very successful very quickly. I feel confident I can help you. It’s good you know some English already. Were there many American tourists coming to your village?”
“No, only a few and not to the village. They stayed at the hotel where my aunt used to work, but they came to the square or to the farmers’ market sometimes.”
“Your aunt worked in a hotel? I didn’t know,” he said. “She never told me much about her youth or her life in Mexico. Most people think she came from somewhere else in America.”
I said nothing, afraid that I wasn’t supposed to tell, and now she would have another reason to be angry.
“Oh, well. It’s not important. What’s important is your learning English well enough to get along. I want you to start with this primer,” he said, picking up one of the books. “I’ll be working with you right after you serve breakfast every day and attend to Señorita Sophia’s room. Don’t waste time, because you’ll be wasting my time as well as you own,” he warned. “And besides, the faster I get you into some basic English, the faster things will improve for you. Understand?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know,” he muttered in English, and then looked at me and shook his head. “She wants you to learn English practically overnight so you can attend school. I
don’t see how catching you between your chores is going to work for either of us, but don’t worry. I have an idea.”
He smiled again and stepped closer to put his hand on my cheek.
“You’re a very pretty young woman,” he told me. “You will do very well once you learn English. Before you know it, you’ll have todos los muchachos eating out of your hand. Did you have a boyfriend back in Mexico?”
“No,” I said.
“A real virgin, then?” he asked.
I did not reply. My father would whip him to an inch of his life for talking to me like this, I thought. With an aunt who wasn’t sympathetic, servants who seemed to resent me, and a cousin who mocked me, I was totally unprotected.
Suddenly, he brought my hand to his lips and kissed it.
“Welcome to America, Miss Yebarra,” he said.
He held my hand and smiled.
“You say thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“You could also say, ‘I’m pleased to be here.’ Go on,” he urged, and I said it. Then he nodded and released my hand.
“It’s a nice way to say hello to people or even good-bye,” he emphasized. “You have to learn the social graces,” he told me, pretended as if we had just met, and did it again.
“Oh, I can see it won’t take us long to get you up and running in English if I can have enough time with you,” he said, his face so close to mine I could see the pores in his cheeks, some filled with what looked like soot. His breath was a mixture of onions and cigarettes and made my stomach churn, but I was afraid to move or insult him.
“Your aunt wants you to do more than learn English, Delia. She wants you to learn how to be in society, how to be a lady. I’ll show you how to walk, sit at a table, even how to eat, so that when people meet you, they will think you came from a quality home.”
“I did come from a quality home.”
“Yes,” he said, laughing, “but not quite the level of quality your aunt appreciates. Believe me,” he said, “you’ve crossed more than a border. You’ve crossed into a new life. That is why she wants you to forget the old.”
I started to shake my head.
“At least, pretend you have,” he warned.
Finally, he said good-bye and walked out of my room.
I stood there, feeling as if my chest were filling with air, and any moment I would simply explode.
This was my welcome to my new life? To forget the people I loved?
I gazed around my tiny, dark room and wondered what we had possibly done to anger God so much.
5
Edward
I didn’t meet my cousin Edward until I helped serve dinner.
He sat across from Sophia and was dressed in a dark blue sports jacket and a light blue tie. He had long, dark brown hair tied in a ponytail, which surprised me. Unlike Sophia, he was slim, with a long, narrow face and a nearly square jaw. His eyes were more narrow and a lighter shade of brown. He had a thin but small nose and full, almost feminine lips. He smiled the moment I appeared and then looked at Sophia, who was staring down at her plate.
Mi tía Isabela was at the head of the table. There was a tall, light-brown-haired man sitting across from her at the other end of the table. He wore a beige jacket and a dark brown tie. He fixed his bright blue eyes on me and smiled. I quickly looked away. I was bringing out a tray with four bowls of French onion soup. It had a deliciously strong aroma. My stomach churned with hunger. I had yet to eat anything since my arrival. The main dish, or entrée, as Señora Rosario called it, was a delicious-looking poached salmon. My aunt had a chef, Señor Herrera, who, I learned, had been the head chef on a luxury cruise ship. My aunt had been on the ship and had stolen him away.
I picked all of this up by listening to the tidbits of gossip while I worked in the kitchen alongside Señora Rosario and another maid, a Mexican girl who had been born in America, Inez Morales. She didn’t look much older than I and was barely my height, thinner, with eyes that revealed a catlike timidity. She hovered over her work as if she thought someone would steal it and therefore her reason to be there. I could see she was looking at me suspiciously, perhaps thinking I was there to be trained to take her place.
I found out she was in her midtwenties and had been married but deserted by her husband after she had twin boys. Her mother cared for her children while she worked. She worked for my aunt six days a week, alternating her day off between Saturday and Sunday every other week, depending on my aunt’s schedule and needs. She was there from six in the morning until ten at night, which didn’t leave her much time to spend with her children.
When I entered the dining room, I wondered if my aunt would say anything more to me about what had happened in Sophia’s bathroom. She glared at me and then smiled at the young man across from her. I wondered who he was. He seemed much younger than she was. Could he be another relative I had not met or even knew existed?
I placed the first bowl in front of her. I had been given instant instructions about how to serve at the dinner table, but Señora Rosario was there overseeing it all. I glanced at her, and she nodded as I moved toward Sophia.
“I like your new help,” the young man said, still smiling at me. “Welcome…what’s her name?”
“She doesn’t understand that much English yet, Travis,” my aunt told him before I could even think of responding. “I’m having her tutored to get her up to speed quickly.”
“Oh. Let’s see…ah, recepción a America…what’s her name? How do you say that in Spanish, Isabela?”
“I forget.”
“Forget? How could you forget that?”
“Easy,” she muttered.
“Well, what’s her name? You must know the name of someone you just hired.”
“Delia,” my aunt said, almost under her breath.
“Delia,” he repeated. “Hi, Delia.”
I looked at the young man and returned a smile. I started around Sophia, but I didn’t see she had turned just enough to bring out her foot. I stumbled over it, and the tray slid from my hand, the two remaining bowls of soup flying off and onto the table, splashing over everything.
My aunt screamed and pushed herself back. My cousin Edward leaped out of his seat. Some of the soup hit Travis and spotted his jacket. I caught myself from falling altogether and immediately started to clean up the mess.
“Get her out of here!” my aunt screamed.
Señora Rosario seized my arm and pulled me back from the table. Sophia was smiling up at me.
“Dios mío,” my aunt screamed, looking at the table. She realized instantly that she had spoken in Spanish and slammed her chair against the table. Her face was pepper red. I held my breath. “Get this table cleaned up and reset immediately, Mrs. Rosario. Get her out!” she said, pointing to me and then to the kitchen door. Although I didn’t understand all of the words, her rage was terrifying, and it was all clearly aimed at me.
“Isabela,” Travis said, wiping down his jacket. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“Don’t tell me what it is and isn’t.”
I looked at my cousin Edward. He wasn’t smiling. He was glaring at his sister and shaking his head.
Señora Rosario practically dragged me out of the dining room.
“You had better go to your room,” she ordered.
I glanced at Señor Herrera, who was confused.
“Qué sucedío?” he asked.
Inez, who had seen it all, now looked at me with pity and no longer suspicion while Señora Rosario explained.
“How could she…how did you stumble? Tropezó?”
I wanted to tell him how Sophia had tripped me, but instead, I started to cry and ran out of the kitchen, through the pantry, and outside. I started across toward the older building and then stopped. Above me, a thousand stars blinked as if tears had crossed each and every one of them. Could there have been more of a horrible finish to this horrible day? I sucked in my breath, looked back at the main house, bright and warm, and
then headed for the dark building and my small room, tears now flying off my cheeks.
When I got there, I sat on my bed and stared down at the cold concrete floor. I hadn’t closed my door. I sat there with my arms around myself, swaying back and forth, wondering if I would be sent home right away. At the moment, I was wishing for that.
Suddenly, I felt a shadow fall over me and looked up at Edward standing in my doorway.
“Hey,” he said, stepping in. “Are you all right?” I stared up at him. “Oh, I guess I have to practice my broken Spanish.” He pointed at me. “Okay, sí?”
I shook my head and looked down and then up again at him.
He pointed at himself. “Edward,” he said.
“Edward, sí. Edward.”
“I saw my sister trip you.” I shook my head. “Mi hermana…” He stuck out his foot.
“Sí,” I said, nodding.
“She’s an idiot,” he said. “So, you don’t speak much English? No habla mucho English?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Poco. A little. I understand…from television…a little school…”
He nodded and stared at me. “Why did you come here? Why…por qué…aquí?”
I sat back. Why here? I pointed to myself.
“Sí, sí, por qué aquí?”
I stared at him. Sophia didn’t know who I was, and now it was clear that he didn’t, either. I wasn’t permitted to tell anyone who I really was, but did that apply to my cousins as well? Right now, I was so angry, I didn’t care if my aunt found out I did. Besides, he should know who I am, I thought, and then wondered how I should explain all this. Just come right out and say it, I thought. I was still hoping to be sent home, and perhaps doing this would speed that up even faster.
I pointed to him and then to myself.
“Primo,” I said.
“What?”
“Primo.”
He shook his head. “My mother made me take French. The only Spanish I know, I know from the workers,” he said.
I started to explain that I didn’t understand that, but he held his hand up to indicate that I should wait, and then he went out of my room and out of the building. I stood up and looked out the window. I could see him walking over to a man who was washing down an outside patio. He spoke to him and then turned and looked at my building, spoke to him again, and then slowly started back.