Chapter 19

Haley’s turn:

I looked at my tinkling iPhone. Call from Carlita.

“Hey, new sister!” I said.

“Hello, Haley. I assume that since you answered your phone, you are not at school.”

I looked at my Bill. He’s still flushed. I imagine I am, too. Got tingles. Smiled. “No, I’m visiting my husband at his new office,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I have no classes this afternoon. I thought that perhaps we could meet and talk.”

“I’d love that,” I said. “I have to pick up Deena after school, but right now, sure. You’re in town?”

“Yes. Coffee?”

“Horrible commercial coffee in a snobby coffee shop?”

Giggle. “Starbuck’s, then!”

“Okay, see you in a bit,” I said. I turned to Bill. “Carlita. For coffee.”

“Okay. You coming back here?”

“Probably not. I’m eying pick-up time for Deena.” I smirked. “Besides, you’ve already had your way with me here today...”

He swept me into his arms. “Indeed I did. And I adore you for silliness like that.”

“Don’t want a bored husband,” I said. I kissed him and got him to unlock the front door so I could leave.

Fifteen minutes to the Starbuck’s. I have no idea what we’re going to talk about. I have a million questions about college, and even though it’s not my business, I have another million about Carlita.

I listen to the stereo on the way halfway across town to meet Carlita. When I pull into a parking slot, she bounces out of a little grey car to meet me. She’s smiling.

Hug in the parking lot, then inside.

“I like the iced coffee. I do it better, though,” she said. “You need to come visit sometime and I will make it for you.”

“I’d like that.”

We sat at a table deep into the place so we’d be out of the traffic path. I took a sip of my drink.

“So, okay, Mizz Haley – what do we talk about? School first? Or life?”

“Bingo,” I said. “School’s gonna happen, one way or another. How’s life?”

“Life is very good,” Lita smiled. “Yours? Being married at sixteen?”

“Very much good,” I said. “I married the man that I loved.”

“I did also. We have a good family.”

I watched those dark brown eyes. Hers connected with mine. “Brindy and our Dave and me.”

“I kinda saw that,” I said.

“It is not usual. Many people think that three people, a man with two wives, that is sin.”

“I don’t know if it’s exactly sin,” I said. “It’s unusual around here, but I’m not going to judge. People see me and my Bill and just KNOW I’m being exploited.”

“I went through much of the same. I am told that I do not look nineteen. I was eighteen when I got married,” she said, but I noted a strange look cross her face. There’s more to the story. I’m not going to press, though.

“Cindy says you came here from Guatemala? I never met anyone from Guatemala that I know of...”

“I am an American girl now,” she smiled.

“You speak English very well.”

“Thank you. I was raised by American missionaries in an orphanage. I worked very hard to learn.”

“You do well. Accent’s neat, too.”

“It is not as bad as it once was. I and Brindy still teach an English as a Second Language class two nights a week. I get to keep my Spanish up.”

“Brindy does that?”

“It is funny. Brindy’s bad Spanish gives our students the idea that learning a new language is not just a problem for them. Actually, Brindy’s Spanish is much improved in the two years we’ve been teaching.”

“Brindy’s a surprise.”

“Ah, yes,” Carlita said. “In so many ways she has been a surprise to me. To Dave. She was Dave’s sister’s ... Uh, I do not like the term ‘lover’ because that trivializes who she was to Pat. She and Pat were in a car accident. Pat died. Brindy had a tough life and in a moment she was in the world alone. We wanted her to have somebody. That’s us.”

I guess I looked a bit shocked, still.

“It is complex. It is simple,” Lita said. “We are a family. Dave loves us both. I am officially married to Dave. We got married before Pat was killed. Her death was a shock to all of us and I think that our coming together is the way we adjusted to the loss. Now I cannot imagine us being any different.”

I smiled. “I am that way about my Bill,” I said. “And his daughter moved in with us a week after we married...”

“But she is not...”

“Oh, no,” I blurted. “Nothing like that. But she’s two years younger than me and I worry about...”

“You are sixteen and you worry about having a teenaged daughter,” Lita chuckled. “It is funny.”

“I knowwww,” I grinned. “I want her to have what I have when she meets her mate. I live for Bill like he lives for me. I want that for her. There are so many people out there who never find that.”

“I had no idea,” Lita said. “And then I hid behind the seat of Dave’s truck in a remote place in Texas. He rescued me. I lived with Dave and he worried every day...”

“So did Bill. I didn’t exactly live with him. He lives – we live next door to my mom and step-dad. But Bill worried about us being together.”

“Ah,” Lita lit up, “you were with Bill before you got married...”

“Well, in the view of the law, we were, but in our hearts we knew that we loved each other and committed to each other and that is the heart, the true meaning of marriage...”

“You have told me a secret. I have a secret also...”

“Really?”

Those dark brown eyes twinkled. She looked around. We were isolated in our corner. “I am really fifteen. I was fourteen when I married Dave.”

“How?!?”

“I had no papers when I came to America. Dave paid a man in the Guatemalan consulate to obtain for me a certificate of birth and a passport so I could be in the country legally. I asked him to make me a new birth date so I could be eighteen and marry Dave.”

“Wow! That makes this college thing a lot more crazy. It was bad enough if you were eighteen...”

“I know. I was very surprised. I have been given yet another gift and I must respect that gift. That is why I am here to help you and Deena.”

“I appreciate it, Lita.”

“It is what I must do. It is what others have done for me. Those crazy people in Alabama, they have helped me. I will help you. Perhaps there is a time you will help others.”

“I already help students with math in high school,” I said.

“See?!? You know...”

“People want help. I can help,” I said. “I’m picky, though. I don’t do that for students that don’t WANT to get help or get ahead. I could never be a teacher, not with a bunch of kids in a classroom who just don’t care and make it hard for those who do.”

“You are observant. I see the same thing. I went to an orphanage school in Guatemala. We only DREAMED that we could have the things I see in American classrooms. The one thing we did have were teachers who were dedicated to having us, helping us, learn. I was fortunate that it was easy for me.”

“And college is easy also?” I asked.

“It is hard, more difficult. I am testing out of classes, but I spend a lot of time reading the texts and talking with the instructors. Haley, they are not giving me anything. I may well be the first Guatemalan-American teenaged girl to graduate with an engineering degree, but it is not because they let me take an easy path.”

“That’s what Nikki said,” I replied. “She says that Auburn held her to a higher standard than if she’d taken the classes.”

“Ah, yes, that,” returned Carlita. “Spend four months, twice a week, sitting in a classroom, or close yourself in a room for several days, being unbearable to those who love you, while you bypass the classroom.”

“Unbearable?”

“I only cook on rare occasion, when I need to escape the books. Brindy and Dave have picked me up and carried me away...”

Now that’s a picture I have in my head...

“They support you, then...”

“They love me. As your Bill and Deena love you.”

“I cannot see Deena helping Bill carry me away...”

Giggle. “Maybe to a special dinner...”

My turn to giggle back. “Sometimes Bill IS the dinner.”

“How does that work with Deena living with you?”

“Her bedroom is at the opposite end of our house,” I said, “So Bill and I have that privacy. And Deena goes places with her friends and we get the place to ourselves.”

“That is interesting,” Lita said. “She knows...”

“Yes, she knows. She and I talked before she moved in with us. Actually we were talking about her moving in with her dad even before he and I got married. Deena didn’t know then...”

Those dark eyes flashed. “She ... she didn’t know then that you and Bill were ... Together?”

“No. She says she didn’t have a clue. Bill and I worked very hard NOT to show anything in public.”

“Dave and I had a little time like that. I started loving Dave before he knew...”

“I was much the same. Bill was my best friend for two years ... since I was twelve...”

“I was lying in bed beside Dave,” Lita said. “Ever since the first night when he rescued me, I was in bed with him.”

I guess my face changed and she noticed.

“Oh, not, not like THAT,” she said. “I had just come a thousand miles as a refugee, hiding the fact that I was a female, and that first night, I was in the biggest, cleanest, nicest bed I had ever been in, in my whole life, and I felt so alone. I crawled in bed with him just to be next to a human. When he found out, it scared him badly.”