Chapter 20

Carlita's turn:

Mister Jackson, the old man next door, has banana trees behind his house. That is a cause for me to see him in his yard one day. We have been introduced. He knows me as Dave's wife.

"Hi, Carlita," he says when I wave.

"Hello, Mister Jackson," I reply. "I have a request. Perhaps we can have a trade."

"What do you want that I have, dear?" he asks.

"Banana leaves. You have banana trees. I need banana leaves."

"What does my neighbor need banana leaves for?"

I smile. I am thinking of the ladies who worked in the kitchen at the orphanage. When I was old enough to be useful, I often helped them and in return they taught me. "I wish to make tamales in the Guatemalan style. Sweet tamales with fruit and chocolate and nuts in them. Guatemalan tamales such as those are made with banana leaves."

He smiled back. "And if I were to provide you with leaves, I could expect tamales in return."

"I would be grateful. A plate of tamales would be one result."

"Come over then, dear. Show me which leaves you need."

After I put the leaves in my kitchen, I called Carlie.

"Hi, Lita!"

"Hello, sister," I said. "I told the children that one day I would make sweet tamales for them. My neighbor has given me banana leaves and I am hoping that you will bring the children over so we may cook together."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Lita," she said. "Let me get their shoes on."

I laid out my ingredients and started preparing them, just as I have learned.

The doorbell rang. I wiped my hand on a towel and went to let Carlie and the kids in.

We had fun. The tamales made by the children were not as neat as mine, nor were Carlie's, but this is their first time. I have had many times.

"You made so many," Carlie said.

"Yes. It is that way," I replied. "If you are going to make twelve tamales, is a lot of work. If you are going to make five dozen tamales, is only a little more work. I have some for me and my Dave. I have some for Mister Jackson in payment for the banana leaves. I have some for you to take home."

I set up my pot on the stove for steaming our tamales. "These are good for breakfast as well," I said.

"And what did you call these?" Carlie asked.

"Tamales negros. Black tamales. Every country has something like this – a dough with a filling. Some sweet. Some not sweet. Americans only know of the Mexican tamale which is like our tamale Colorado – red tamale. And your Italian food has ravioli. And there are many others. I hope you like these."

She eyed the kids. They had a spoon and were attacking the remainder of the fruit and nut filling left in the bowl. "I think I'll like them."

While the tamales steamed, Carlie and I talked. Of course, we were interrupted a time or two by the children, but we sent them out to play in the back yard. Much of the conversation was about the children.

"Have you and Dave talked about children?"

"We have," I said. "We will have children, but first I must go to college. I wish to be educated, then we will have children."

"And Dave knows this?"

"Of course. Dave brought the subject up."

"Oh."

"Why do you ask?"

"One time," she said, "He said that he didn't want to have children. Maybe it is because of you."

"I hope it is because of me, Carlie. I love Dave. I think he will be a good father. He is a caring person. Otherwise Carlita would be in a government shelter in Texas."

"You're right, Lita," she said. "I see the way he looks at you. He loves you. If you are good to him, he is yours forever."

"I want him to be mine forever, Carlie. Before I met him, I did not consider wanting a man. I met Dave. He changed me. For him only."

"You were fourteen..."

"I know, Carlie. But it is not unheard of for a girl of fourteen to marry. Among the poor, it is almost common. It gets a hungry mouth out of the house." I sighed. I knew of such. "It also often means a baby when the girl is very young. That is one reason I am waiting. My papers say eighteen. My body, it is fourteen."

"Yet you and Dave..."

"Yes. And he is very gentle with me unless I do not want him to be gentle. Sometimes I am excited and I do not want gentle. I want to be owned by Dave."

"Good! You enjoy your Dave. That is good, Carlita. I know women who do not enjoy sex very much."

"You and I, we have talked. I did not know about sex before Dave, except that it was forced on girls by men who wished to use them. No, I wish to use Dave and he likes being used."

"And you're home, making him tamales. You'll keep him."

Carlie left with a plate of tamales. A BIG plate. I brought a plate over to Mister Jackson. His wife met me at the door.

"Tamales negros," I told her. "They are sweet. Mister Jackson gave me the banana leaves to wrap them properly."

She smiled. "The old goat will be very happy to get these, Carlita. Thank you."

And I went back home to wait for my husband.

Tonight's class night. I have already invited Pat and Brindy to dinner with us. We will have tamales for dessert.

Brindy comes over in the middle of the afternoon. We work on her Spanish. She is my assistant in the class I teach. It works well, because Brindy tries to speak Spanish as my students try to speak English and sometimes they try to help each other.

It is a pleasant thing. I am – we are helping people who wish to be helped. The school thinks we are doing a good job. They say they will give me money to help if I go to college to become a teacher. When they first said that, I was very excited. I like this teaching. But I think that I don't want to be a teacher like Pat. Pat and Brindy tell me stories of what goes on in schools.

All my students here want to be here. In Pat's class many of her students do not want to be in school and they become problems. I do not like to think about having people around who want to be problems.

Pat showed up at our house about fifteen minutes before Dave did. We sat at the table and had our meal. I am proud to say that my tamales are well received.

After the meal, they went home. Dave moved to his chair. That means I get to sit on Dave. I like it. It is peaceful. He holds me in his arms and whispers loving words to me and if I turn a bit we can kiss and we have good music playing in the house and I am clean and safe and fed and happy and ever so loved.

Then it is time for me to go to class. Brindy's car pulls into the driveway and I go out to meet her.

We walk into the building together, Brindy and I, and we are greeted in English and Spanish. I suspect that many of my students are doing their best to speak English to me, and they also like to see Brindy smile when she returns their greetings in Spanish as well. Brindy is becoming more comfortable with her new language.

The class goes well. I started out from the first day telling my students that the more they spoke English, the easier it would get.

"When you see a baby learn to walk, his first steps are very hard, are they not?" I said this in English, then switched to Spanish and said the same thing. "Rodolfo," I said to one of my students. "Did you fall down often when you were little?"

"Si ... Jes..." His round, heavily tanned face smiled broadly.

"And now, Rodolfo, do you fall often?"

"Cervesa ... I fall. No cervesa, I walk. I run. I climb." Rodolfo is the class clown. He is smart. He works on a construction crew, but he wants to speak better English so he can become... "El jefe ... If I speak better Eengleesh, I will be the boss."

I'm the teacher, and because of my obvious age, I'm also a mascot and a little sister or daughter to many of them, and Brindy's, well...

"Dees Anglo girl, she ees trying ver' hard to learn Spanish ... why?" one older woman asked.

"To be able to talk to people like you. If you speak bad English and she speaks bad Spanish, maybe you can talk to each other."

She started to say something. I think Senora Vasquez thinks I am too young to be a teacher. "Senora Vasquez, you are in America. Do you not find people here who are good? Who are happy? Who will smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh?"

"Si. There are also..."

"And there were none like that in Mexico?"

She started to say something. I continued, "There are good people and there are not so good people everywhere. Brindy is good people. She likes to see people smile when she uses her bad Spanish."

"In Mexico..." she started.

I interrupted. "You are here. Did the Anglos kidnap you?"

"No."

"Be happy. I am happy to see you. You are happy when you have success with English."

Sometimes it is not about learning, I see. I understand that people are not all the same. It is not like mathematics where if I put the same numbers on the page, I get the same answer. So I get Senor Rodolfo, who always laughs, and Senora Vasquez, who is sour, like a bad fruit.

Back to Brindy.

The next day Dave is out of town for two days and Pat is in Houston for a seminar. Brindy does not want to miss our class, so she is not going.

I question this.

"I would go, but then Pat is in the seminar all day and I am in Houston by myself. I don't know Houston and I don't think I would like being there alone."

"Stay with me," I say.

"Your house or mine?"

"Mine," I reply. Of course. In my head I know that it is the house of me and Dave.

We go out to eat together, and then I call Dave and talk to him in one room and Brindy calls Pat and talks to her in the other. After our phone calls, she is back in the living room with me. I sit in Dave's recliner. It has his aroma, that smell that he let me choose for him.

Brindy notices me close my eyes and breathe to smell Dave.

"You really love him, don't you?"

"I do. He is my husband, forever."

"I think Pat really does love me," she said.

"I am happy to hear that. She has said this to you?"

"Yes, but it wasn't like it was just words. Carlita, you know what it feels like to be loved, don't you?"

I closed my eyes for a second. I know. It feels like Dave's arms. "Yes I do, Brindy. I cannot describe it."

"Neither can I," she said. "But I think I feel it."

"This is a good thing? Do women get married?"

"They can now. Used to not be able to. Now we could..."

"I would be at your wedding," I said.

"Thank you. I don't know who else might. My life with Pat is not general knowledge. I know that Dave knows. I do not think that Carlie and Gary know. I don't think that any of Pat's friends know. None of my friends know."

I do not know what to say. Pat and Brindy are the first female couple I have ever met. I think that my best plan is to be a friend and watch my sisters love one another.

"I know. And it is okay. I have never known Brindy without Pat. It is, to me, the way things are supposed to be."

Brindy smiled. "Thank you. I wish we had been in school together. You would have been a good friend."

"We ARE in school together..."

"We're TEACHERS!" she giggled.

"Oh, yeah..."

It was time for showering before bedtime. I say this to Brindy. "You can use the hall bathroom, or you can use the master bathroom. It has a bigger shower."

"Bigger?"

I smile. "Yes. Two of us in that shower. It was made for that, I think."

"Two of US?" Brindy squealed, smiling. "You and ME?"

That wasn't what I meant when I said it. I meant Dave and me, but I saw Brindy's face, so happy, I could not hurt her. "Yes, if you want that. Girls shower together in school, do they not?" In my orphanage, there was one shower for the girls. We all used it, several of us at the same time.

Brindy's head nodded. Her eyes smiled with her face. She was happy. "I will go get my clothes."

When she got back, she looked at me. "Well? We have to get undressed, I guess."

"Yes, it is preferred," I laughed. I started undressing, turning away from her. When I turned around, she was naked, covering her breasts with her arms. The part she didn't cover ... there was no hair.

"Where is your hair?"

She giggled. "That's Pat's thing. We shave. I thought it was weird at first, but now I like it. The things we do ... No hair in the way..."

I am thinking. Dave has never complained about my hair. I do not have much, like some of the older girls I have seen, but I do have hair. Should I surprise Dave? "Maybe I should shave. It would surprise Dave."

"I think he'll like it," Brindy said.

"I have never ... How do I do it?"

"I dunno. I shave Pat. Pat shaves me."

"You would shave me?"

"I would shave you."

"Let's shower, then. And maybe I get shaved." Okay. Maybe it was a little bit sexy, but mostly I was thinking about Dave when I surprise him.

In the shower, there is room for two of us, but I did not notice that when Dave and I are in the shower, we bump into each other very much. Dave has always washed me and I washed him.

Brindy and I tried washing ourselves. "Uh, Lita?"

"Yes?"

"It is not enough room for both of us to shower."