How Tía Lola Ended Up Starting Over (10 page)

The colonel gets up grumpily. He has already told the teenage girl that he doesn’t need her to clean the whole
house anymore. The Espada family has insisted on doing the housework as a way of compensating the colonel for not charging them rent. Needless to say, the girl is not pleased. “My mother’s going to kill me if I lose this job,” she has reportedly told him. Partly to help her out, and also because deep down the gruff old man is a sweetheart, the colonel has kept her on part-time to do his washing and ironing, attend to his things, etc. She slips in and out so quietly, no one but Papa and Colonel Charlebois have laid eyes on her.

Out on the hall phone, the colonel sounds like he’s finalizing arrangements for tomorrow’s cleaning. “Okay then, Miss Beauregard. My regards to your mother.”

Tía Lola jumps as if she just sat down on Essie’s whoopee cushion, a gag that Victoria’s sister thinks is so hilarious. Victoria means to ask Tía Lola what’s up, but just as the colonel hangs up, the phone rings again. “Oh, good evening, Melanie,” he is saying. “Let me see if she is available.”

Saturday morning, after sleeping in, the water polo team comes down noisily to breakfast. They wolf down their pancakes, laughing loudly, tossing their napkins across the table at each other. They’re like puppies, Victoria thinks, but even Valentino was better behaved when he was a pup.

The team has a few hours to kill before their game this afternoon. “Any hot spots in town we should take in?” Cohen asks Victoria, arching an eyebrow suggestively, as if she knows what he means. Just to be a pill, Victoria tells him that there’s a great military museum across the lake at Fort Ticonderoga. “You’ll learn a lot of American history
and stuff there. Really,” she adds because the guy is looking at her like she just dropped in from outer space.

He snorts and looks over at his friends, who snort back. They sound like a bunch of hogs. “You got to be kidding,” he says at last.

“Victoria is absolutely right,” her father chimes in. He is surprised by his eldest’s recommendation, as Victoria has never shown a particular liking for history. But now that she’s almost thirteen, her tastes are maturing, no doubt. “It’s well worth your while.”

Hog Cohen snorts again. “I’d rather make history than learn about it, you know?” He grins at Victoria, watching for her reaction. It’s as if he gets a real kick out of embarrassing her.

The team takes off, leaving their duffel bags of equipment in the front hall where they dropped them off after last night’s practice. Victoria has to navigate her way through that obstacle course as she heads for the parlor to keep her promise and read to the colonel. She trips over a bulky bag sticking out from the others—probably Cohen’s. Victoria can’t help herself. She whacks it with her foot, once, twice, six, seven times. And one more for good measure. She had no idea guys could be so rude and in your face. If this is what she’d be dating, Victoria will gladly wait till middle age.

Melanie, along with two other friends, Sophie and Emily, drop by just as the water polo team is returning to pick up their gear. Cohen invites the girls to come watch the game. “Just as long as you cheer for us, deal?”

The girls giggle assent. Honestly. Victoria is feeling increasingly frustrated with her silly friends. All they seem to think about is boys. If this is what dating does to the human brain, who needs it?

Victoria would just as soon pass on going to the game, but Papa is off coaching, and so she has to babysit her sisters, who’ve also been invited to the game. Essie would have a major meltdown if Victoria proposed staying at home instead. Besides, Tía Lola is coming along with Juanita and Miguel, which should make it fun. And most importantly, the colonel is eager to go. It’ll do him good to be out and about.

“I’d have you know the last water polo game I watched was the famous Blood in the Water match,” the colonel informs the team. “Summer Olympics, 1956, Hungarians against the Soviets.” The colonel goes on to describe the historic game. Amazingly, the young teammates are hanging on his every word. Even Cohen is listening. Certain kinds of history must be okay to learn about. Victoria can’t help noticing the absorbed, almost sweet expression on the team captain’s face. Maybe when he finally grows up, Cohen will turn into a nice human being whom Victoria might consider dating.

It’s time for the game to start. The home team has already been out swimming laps for a good fifteen minutes. Her friends are gossiping away, so they don’t seem to notice the delay, but Victoria is growing restless. Where is the visiting team?

Finally their coach comes out and confers with the
home coach, who shakes his head and accompanies him into the locker room. He comes back out and makes an announcement. The visiting team will need another fifteen minutes. There is some problem with their equipment.

Of course, the first thing that comes into Victoria’s mind is that series of walloping kicks she delivered to the clunky sports bag. What if she broke some critical piece of equipment? She feels awful. She’ll have to fess up. Victoria wouldn’t sink so low as to do something wrong and then be a sneak about it. But this is just the kind of ammunition she does not want to give a guy like Cohen.

When the visiting team finally trots out of the locker room, Victoria is so relieved, she stands up and screams right along with her friends. Thank goodness, nobody’s wearing something broken and patched up. In fact, they’re hardly wearing anything at all, except caps and teensy striped Speedos that look like they can easily be yanked off. And they can be, as evidenced several times in the course of the ensuing game. Victoria doesn’t know where to look, and neither do her friends. “That’s disgusting,” Melanie mutters. “Yuck!” Emily agrees. “Double yuck,” Sophie adds. Another source of relief for Victoria. Maybe she’s not so different from her girlfriends after all.

When the team comes back to check out from Tía Lola’s B&B, Victoria and Melanie join everyone in the hall to congratulate them on their win. The minute Cohen and his teammates spot Victoria, they turn angrily on her.

“Thanks a lot,” Cohen spits out. “What a mean, double-crossing …” This time, the coach doesn’t tell him that he’s out of order.

Victoria’s eyes burn. It’s her turn to mutter: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin anything.”

“Well, you did! If we hadn’t won the match, I would’ve wrung—”

“Out of order, Cohen,” the coach barks. “It was a silly prank but not grounds for murder.”

“It wasn’t a prank,” Victoria says, sniffling, and struggling to keep tears from spilling. She doesn’t want to cry in front of seven guys, one coach, her sisters, and her new friends. “I just was mad with all these bags in the way. I didn’t mean to break anything. It was just a kick. A little kick.” She demonstrates, a less vigorous version of the original whacks she gave his bag.

“What are you talking about?” Cohen narrows his eyes, as if he can see right through Victoria. “Don’t try to cover up how you smeared Vaseline all over our equipment.”

“Smeared Vaseline?” Victoria’s sobs immediately stop. It’s as if Cohen has uttered the magic words that control her tear ducts. This is no time to be a crybaby. She has her defense to mount. “I would
never
do such a mean thing.”

Cohen’s upper lip curls cynically. He shakes his head. He knows better. “You’ve had this thing against us from the get-go.”

The colonel steps forward, ready to do battle for the fair Victoria. “How dare you impugn the honor of a
lady!” he thunders, wagging a finger at the surprised young man. “You owe her an apology.”

The coach intervenes. “Let me get this straight. None of you put Vaseline all over the gear in our bags?”

“No one here would do such a thing,” the colonel declares indignantly. “And I can vouch that no one came into this house except those present and their parents, so help me God. And I have proudly worn the uniform of the United States Army for longer than any of you have been around.”

Tía Lola has been listening keenly to the conversation. Just now when the colonel vouched that no one had come into the house except those present and Víctor and Linda, he was forgetting one other person. The cleaning girl with the same last name as someone who seems to be bent on destroying the reputation of Tía Lola’s B&B. But one thing Tía Lola loves about her new country is how everyone is innocent until proven guilty. She will not blame anyone until she has some evidence. But from now on, she will keep her eyes wide open.

“I’ve been, like, a total jerk, and I’m sorry.” Cohen is apologizing? “And you know what bugged me most of all? I just couldn’t get my head around how an awesome girl like you would, like, do such a crappy thing.”

“Language,” the coach barks. “You’re talking to a lady.”

A lady, an awesome girl. Oh my goodness! Victoria feels a thrilling rush. If she were to go back to that candle stub, this moment is all she would wish for.

By evening, the team has left with many thanks to Tía Lola and her hardworking crew. Even though the mystery
of the Vaseline prank is still unsolved, the coach assures Tía Lola that he’ll be recommending her B&B to all his colleagues and friends.

The house is quiet again. Victoria and her sisters strip the beds and clean up the guest rooms with help from Juanita and Tía Lola and Miguel. At one point, Victoria peeks in on the colonel. He has dozed off, but this evening, it’s understandable that he would be tired after his outing. She tiptoes in and collects his empty cup and lifts the tea thermos he always has by his side. It needs a refill. Before she exits into the kitchen, Victoria has no idea what gets into her. She leans over and kisses the old man on the forehead. Let her friends date all the seventh and eighth graders they want. For now she’ll stick to a guy who has already grown up into a gentle old man.