How Tía Lola Saved the Summer (8 page)

“And look at your masterpiece.” Tía Lola gestures with her arm. Flanking her United States vegetable garden is a sea of flowers, all Juanita’s, as she asked to be the one in charge of the flowers this year. And what a sight! Her lilies are up, her bleeding hearts, her sweet peas, her zinnias, her morning glories, her marigolds, her nasturtiums, her periwinkles, her ager-somethings. Juanita did go a little overboard. But then, that’s easy to do, ordering from a seed catalog in the middle of winter.

“But what good is it, Tía Lola, when no one even notices it?” There’s been so much excitement about their guests’ arrival, Cari’s brave deeds, Miguel’s accident, no one has paid attention to her work of art. Not even Juanita.

“
Ay
, but lots of guests are coming to the barbecue,” Tía Lola reminds her. “Wait till they see your garden! They will love it. But first,
you
have to love it, and that means we have work to do. Where is your sword?” Tía Lola is on her feet, looking her niece over as if Juanita is missing a critical part of her own body.

Juanita shrugs. “My room, I guess.” She doesn’t know why she is pretending she doesn’t know where her sword is. She left it lying on her window seat, where she had tried to curl up with a good book. But as much as Juanita loves
reading, she couldn’t take her mind off how mean she’d been to Cari.

“Why don’t you go find it and meet me down here in a few minutes.”

What is Tía Lola up to? From the kitchen window behind them, Juanita hears Mami praising Cari for the fabulous job she has done counting out all the silverware. Far off, Miguel’s teammates are cheering. Everywhere people are being singled out for doing special things, while Juanita sits on a back stoop being ignored by the whole world. She gets up slowly, with a tired sigh. She hates to tell her aunt, but she doesn’t really believe Tía Lola can help her feel special this Fourth of July.

The funny thing about feeling sorry for yourself is that once you’re busy doing something you really love, you kind of forget to remember yourself. Juanita is so caught up in her garden, harvesting flowers while Tía Lola readies several dozen Dixie cups, that she doesn’t notice when the shouts and calls have stopped in the back pasture, the team streams by, the cars come down the driveway as the guests start to arrive.

Her sword has been so handy. The plastic edge is suddenly sharp enough to use for cutting stems, but not too sharp that she might cut herself. The letters rub off the blade as she works. Who cares? Joan isn’t really her name, after all. At one point, when she’s standing very still, a pale
yellow butterfly lands right on her bee balm and then on her arm. Juanita had forgotten how much she loves growing flowers!

As they work, Tía Lola and Juanita talk to the flowers, thanking them, explaining why they are cutting some and not others. Tía Lola has told Juanita that this is very important, since all plants, and especially flowers, like it when you pay attention to them. Just like me, Juanita can’t help thinking.

“They look so pretty,” Juanita says, admiring the tray full of Dixie cups, each one filled with red and blue and white flowers. The center of each table will be lined with these patriotic bouquets. What a wonderful surprise for the Fourth of July! Once everyone has eaten, Juanita will come down the stairs in the long white robe from the angel costume Tía Lola made her for
carnaval.
Stargazer is bringing the hat Juanita remembers admiring in the window of her shop. Juanita can’t wait to see everyone’s face light up at this especially special surprise Tía Lola has thought up.

Almost as if drawn by the promise of a party, the clouds roll in. The random drops turn into a serious patter, and then throwing caution to the wind, the rain pours down. Good thing those fireworks got canceled.

Anticipating bad weather, Mami and Víctor set up the folding tables in the sunporch, jokingly calling it the rain porch. Out back, in their raincoats, Rudy and Woody are grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. Meanwhile, the dining-room
table is piled with enough food to feed a whole village—fried chicken and potato salad, deviled eggs and cheese sticks,
pastelitos
and rice and beans, and every imaginable kind of pie.

Everyone is in high spirits, exchanging stories of their summer so far. Most of the talk is about gardens: what’s doing well with this rain, what isn’t. “Yours is amazing!” people exclaim when they look out at the backyard. “Would you take a look at those flowers! And those darling centerpieces!” Whether or not they know it’s her doing, Juanita’s heart swells. People are loving something she helped create.

“You’re going to have to come over to my garden,” people remark after Tía Lola tells everyone who did the flowers. At this rate, Juanita will be booked all summer as a flower-garden consultant.

“My brother and Tía Lola did the vegetables,” Juanita admits, humbled by all this recognition. She looks around for Miguel and spots him sitting on the couch, his leg propped up on the coffee table, obeying orders from “Dr. Víctor” to stay off his foot. Maybe it’s the sword tucked under her arm, but suddenly, it’s as if Juanita has X-ray vision or something. She can tell how tough a day it has been for Miguel, not being able to play, having to watch Essie pitch. And yet he’s been such a good sport. Better than she, Juanita, could ever hope to be. Juanita feels a sudden gush of love for her wonderful, sweet, selfless brother. And, surprisingly, she doesn’t feel any less special just because she can see Miguel is also special.

“You’re the best brother in the world!” Juanita exclaims,
plopping down beside him. She is about to throw her arms around him, but she can see him flinching, not wanting to be embarrassed in front of his friends. “You don’t believe me?” she asks because he looks wary. Juanita has been running in and out of the room, up and down the stairs with Tía Lola—always a sure sign she is up to something.

“Okay, so I’m the world’s greatest bro. How come you just realized it?”

“Having the Swords here made me realize how lucky I am I’ve got a brother, you know?”

Her brother frowns, pretending annoyance, but she can see he is gratified by this admission. Then a mischievous smile hooks up the corners of his lips. “Well, I can tell you that having them around has made me realize how lucky I am I have only one sister.”

Juanita gives him a peck on the cheek, real quick so no one sees, before she runs off to help Mami and Tía Lola carry in the rest of the platters from the kitchen. It’s only later, thinking back over Miguel’s puzzling grin, that Juanita realizes that her brother’s remark wasn’t exactly a compliment.

“Please, everybody, serve yourselves from the buffet on the dining-room table, then go out to the rain porch and take a seat,” Mami directs her guests. “Oh, and try to sit next to someone you don’t know very well, okay?” It’s a fine and dandy thought, but a little later Mami sits down beside Víctor. Glancing at Mami’s radiant face, Juanita understands
why. Víctor is a new and special friend whom Mami wants to get to know a lot better.

“Everybody has a fork and a knife and a spoon inside your napkin.” Cari has stood up on a chair to make her own announcement. She demonstrates, unwrapping a sample packet. When everyone claps appreciatively, Cari’s little face turns crimson with pleasure. Juanita can see how big a deal this is for Cari. With two older sisters, it must be hard to feel important or good at anything. “Hey, Cari, come sit by me,” she calls out to the little girl, who has filled her plate and is now looking around for a seat in the crowded room.

Cari hurries over to the space Juanita has just made beside her at the table. It’s amazing how instantly forgiving she is, as if Juanita’s kind gesture has completely erased her earlier unkindness. “I love how you wrapped everything together,” Juanita praises the little girl. “Where’d you get the idea?”

“I was making a silverware family,” Cari explains. “First, I started with the papa knife, and then came the mama fork and then the little baby spoon.” She demonstrates again with her own set and beams up at Juanita when she is done.

How did Cari get to be
so
adorable? Or was she this adorable when she was being annoying? Juanita feels another sudden gush of love just like she did for her brother. “I wish you were my little sister,” she says. She really means it.

“Me too,” Cari says, putting her spoon beside Juanita’s to make silverware sisters.

The two girls plow into their delicious, self-served meal—a wonderful thing about parties: parents too distracted to insist on a serving of vegetables or a bigger piece
of meat. Cari’s plate is piled high with French fries, surrounded by a pool of ketchup, and that’s it. Juanita opted for Tía Lola’s luscious
pastelitos
, cheese sticks, and a hot dog destined for Valentino. The conversation turns to tadpoles and frogs, slimy stuff that Juanita would prefer not to discuss while she is eating. But Juanita is feeling so pleased with how pretty the Fourth of July bouquets turned out, how everyone has been enjoying the garden, that things that would usually annoy her just don’t seem to have that effect on her at all.

Across the table from Cari and Juanita, Victoria is listening politely to a really boring baseball story some guy is telling her. Victoria has got to be the nicest person, always taking care of everybody. In fact, normally, Victoria would have reached over and wiped the ketchup off little Cari’s T-shirt. She would have insisted that Cari include more of the food pyramid on her plate. Of course, Victoria hasn’t touched her own food, so she can hardly complain about her little sister.

The story finally comes to an end with a flurry of home runs and a win for the home team. “That’s awesome, Owen,” Victoria congratulates him. Owen … Owen … the name sounds familiar. That’s right: Owen is Dean’s older brother, who has been helping Rudy coach the team. And suddenly, like a last puzzle piece snapping into place so she can see the whole picture, Juanita understands why Victoria has forsaken Tía Lola’s summer camp to go down to the pasture to watch a bunch of boys play baseball.

“I ate too much,” Essie groans from the other end of the table.

“I didn’t!” Cari exclaims.

“That’s because you only ate French fries!” Essie blurts out. Everyone laughs. Juanita glances at Cari, hoping she won’t feel ridiculed and burst into tears. Essie can sometimes have a big mouth, just like Juanita this morning, not thinking how her words might hurt somebody’s feelings. Maybe Essie is also afraid she’s going to be squeezed out of any attention. But maybe now that she has been getting lots of compliments on her baseball skills, Essie will be nicer about sharing the spotlight.