How Tía Lola Ended Up Starting Over (14 page)

As they ride by Mrs. Beauregard’s house, they spot a figure behind the thin curtain in the front parlor. Past the house, they turn around. As they pedal by again, Miguel hurls one of the spiders against the window. The fake tarantula lands with a thud. Good thing his pitching arm is still strong, even if he’s months out of training.

As the two children ride away, the front door opens. Mrs. Beauregard comes out to investigate. She must have found the spider, because she calls out tentatively, “Henny?” Then in a louder, more threatening voice, she says, “Henriette Beauregard, you are in a heap of trouble!”

By this time, Miguel and Essie have reached the corner. They stop and hide behind a bush to watch.

Down the road comes Mrs. Beauregard, her slippers slapping on the pavement, her coat unbuttoned, her loose hair blowing about wildly. Just past the house, she finds one of the snakes Miguel dropped. A few steps later, a bee-tie. Miguel’s plan is working! He’ll keep dropping them all the way to Tía Lola’s B&B. A kind of reverse Hansel and Gretel, in which the children lure the witch out of her den and into the hands of the sheriff.

Miguel and Essie get back on their bikes, ready to ride ahead of their prey. But just then, Mrs. Beauregard stumbles. The light is dim. She must not have seen a pothole or a rock and has taken what looks to be a nasty fall.

“Let’s go for help,” Essie urges Miguel. Soon it’ll be dark. They should not be on an unlit country road without reflective jackets on.

Miguel would like to ride safely back as well. But he’s not about to desert a wounded person, even if she happens to be someone who has done mean things and deserves her comeuppance. “You go. Tell Tía Lola to call an ambulance. I’ll stay with her.”

“S-s-s-stay alone with Mrs. B-B-B-Beauregard?” Essie’s voice is all trembly.

So as not to betray his own shaky voice, Miguel nods. He turns his bike around and rides back to the crumpled heap on the side of the road. There’s a pool of blood beside her head. Miguel springs from his bike and kneels down at her side. “Are you all right?”

In response, Mrs. Beauregard groans. Never has Miguel
been so glad to hear a human sound. “Just lie there, don’t try to move. My friend’s gone for help.”

“No, no, don’t,” the woman cries, struggling to get up. But with a yelp of pain, she lets herself fall back onto the road. Miguel pulls off his jacket and lays it under her head. In the faint light of the setting sun, he can see that her right foot is twisted. Blood is coming from the cut on her forehead. Everything else seems to be okay. But one thing Miguel learned in their first-aid class at school is not to move someone who has been in an accident. You can make things worse. Dislocate a broken back. Cause more bleeding. All this he relates to Mrs. Beauregard in a calm voice.

“It’s going to be okay,” he keeps telling her.

A surprised look has come over Mrs. Beauregard’s face. It’s as if for the first time in a long while, she is realizing that somebody does care for her. This boy stopped to help. He took off his jacket to make her comfortable. Maybe the world isn’t a totally miserable place. Maybe there are these moments of amazing grace. “You’re a kind young man,” she murmurs. “Thank you, son.”

Sunday afternoon, Víctor and Mami return to a quiet, peaceful gathering in the front parlor. Tía Lola and the colonel sit in their rocking chairs, accompanied by two strangers, one of them in a cast. The Espada girls and Juanita and Miguel are finishing up their homework. Linda and Víctor look at each other with lifted eyebrows. Kids doing their homework without their parents reminding them!

Tía Lola and the colonel have agreed to tell Linda and Víctor the news in small portions. Otherwise, they might be tempted to close down Tía Lola’s B&B, especially if they are given a full serving of this weekend’s misadventures.

And now, more than ever, a new hotel will be needed in town, as Mrs. Beauregard’s place will be closing down. All day the two sisters have been talking. Odette has confessed her wrongdoing and begged forgiveness. Meanwhile, Margaret has taken responsibility for her own pigheadedness, leaving her sister and young niece to fend for themselves. The sheriff has already been by, and though no one is pressing charges, Mrs. Beauregard and Henny have agreed to enroll in a diversion program and get some counseling.

What turned their lives around? For Henny, it was Essie’s confiding in her. “Here this little kid was trusting me, and I was being a sneak. I felt this big,” she says, pinching the air with her thumb and forefinger.

For her mother, what melted her cold heart was Miguel’s kindness. “This boy, who didn’t owe me a darn thing, took care of me. I’ll never forget it.” Mrs. Beauregard’s eyes fill with tears.

Miguel comes clean. It was his baiting Mrs. Beauregard with those plastic critters that caused the problem in the first place. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

But Mrs. Beauregard won’t have it. That fall has led to her lifting herself up out of the pit she had fallen into. “Amazing grace, like the song says. You did a kind, thoughtful deed by stopping.” Actually, when Mrs. Beauregard
fell, Miguel didn’t even have to think about it. Of course he ran back to help her. It’s what you should do as a member of the human-being tribe. Margaret Soucy can tell you that.

But the biggest surprise of the weekend so far is that Margaret Soucy has decided to come home. She is tired of traveling, all those airplane flights, elephant rides, trekking through deserts and jungles. All those bad meals of spiders and locusts and yak’s milk. She’s ready to hang up her binoculars and netted hat. To settle down with her sister and niece and guide them both into happier, healthier lives.

Víctor surveys the cozy scene. “How lovely to find everyone safe and sound and happy.” His eyes land on the Soucy sisters. “I believe we haven’t met.”

“These are some nieces of mine,” Colonel Charlebois speaks up. It’s the truth. Since childhood, the two Soucy girls, who lived down the road from his family farm, have called him Uncle Charlie. They might as well be relatives.

Once the introductions are over, Linda and Víctor exchange a long glance. It seems they, too, have some news to share. But first, Mami asks, “So how was your weekend?”

No one says a word. They all stare at the floor, afraid to catch each other’s eye and explode with laughter. Thank goodness for Margaret Soucy, who never met a silence she couldn’t fill with stories of her adventures.

“I was actually telling the children about my time among the Itabo.”

“She was indeed,” Colonel Charlebois asserts. “Fascinating stories.”

“And I was telling about my childhood in the
campo
.” Tía Lola is not one to be left behind when it comes to stories. This is another of her ploys, along with The Thin Edge of the Wedge and The Messenger Hasn’t Come Back. It’s called the Arabian Nights strategy. You find yourself in a tight spot and you start telling stories to save your life. One story sparks another and another. By the time 1,001 stories have been told, no one remembers to cut off anybody’s head or close down anybody’s B&B.

Víctor and Linda listen delightedly to Margaret and Tía Lola. Then, in a quiet lull between stories, Cari asks the question that stops all the storytellers in their tracks. “What I want to know is: are we going to keep having Tía Lola’s B&B or not?”

Everyone turns to Tía Lola.
“Vamos a ver,”
she says mysteriously, winking at the colonel. We shall see.

Remember that look that passed between Linda and Víctor? During the weekend away, the two parents have had a chance to talk.

Víctor has finally confessed that he doesn’t want to be a lawyer anymore. And it’s for the best. His part-time coaching job at the college will officially become full-time, starting in January! How happy he is with this opportunity to follow his dreams.

That’s not the only dream that has come true. Víctor has proposed, and Linda has said yes!

But now they need Tía Lola’s help. What is the best way to tell the children that they would like to get married and form a big family together?

As Tía Lola is mulling this over, she gets a call from Daniel and Carmen in Brooklyn. They have been debating where and when to get married. Ever since she slept in the bridal bedroom, Carmen has been dreaming of staying at Tía Lola’s B&B for her honeymoon. They’d like to come up this weekend and discuss options and possibly work out the details.

And so Tía Lola plans the biggest, most ambitious weekend at her B&B so far, with all the families coming together under one roof. Carmen and Daniel and Linda will each get a guest bedroom; Víctor, the kids, and Tía Lola will stay up in the attic. This will be a trial run of the big new
familia
that the children and adults will all be forming together.

“Perhaps I’ll go stay out of the way in the farmhouse,” the colonel offers.

Tía Lola won’t hear of it. “You can’t leave,
coronel
! You have to stay and help me. After all, you and I are the fairy godparents.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” the colonel says crankily. He’s not the fairy-godfather type. He has been too many years in the military. But the last year of getting close to Miguel and Juanita’s family has softened the old man’s crusty character, and the arrival of the Espadas has further sweetened his temperament. “Just as long as I don’t have to go around carrying a wand and wearing wings instead of my uniform, I guess I can join in.”

No wand, no wings, Tía Lola promises, saluting him.

The night before all the parents are due to arrive, Tía Lola and Colonel Charlebois hold a meeting with Miguel and Juanita and the Espada sisters. None of the children know the specifics of why all the parents are gathering. But hey, kids are smart. They’ve figured out what is coming down the pike.

“Big surprise: our parents are getting hooked up.” Essie sighs one of those been-there-done-that sighs.

Tía Lola’s hands are at her hips. “Esperanza Espada, there’s more to family than ‘hooking up,’ as you call it. Isn’t that so,
coronel
?”

“How would I know?” Colonel Charlebois replies gruffly. The military has been his only family all his adult life. “But yes, yes, of course, I imagine that is so.” He did agree to be a fairy godfather. This means being an authority on any number of things.

“It’s extremely important that each of you takes part in your parents’ remarriages,” Tía Lola’s voice has assumed a serious tone. A somber mood settles in the room.

“But I don’t get it, Tía Lola.” Juanita speaks up for all of them. “What are we supposed to do? We’re not the ones getting married.”

“Oh no?!” Tía Lola raises her eyebrows at the colonel as if she can’t believe these kids have gotten this far in life without knowing what’s what. “Your parents are not just marrying their new spouses, they are marrying your new stepparents. Anything you’d love to see in your new family or anything you want to keep from the old, now is the time to say so.”

It’s nice of Tía Lola to look out for their interests. But the children aren’t really worried. Never mind the bad rap that fairy tales have given stepmothers, especially. Every one of their soon-to-be stepparents is a really nice person.