Becoming Naomi Leon

by Pam Muñoz Ryan

  I patted Gram’s hand, then reached across the table for my notebook. Turning to a clean page, I wrote a hundred times, We will find him. We will find him. We will find him. . . .

  Mexico paraded outside the cab of Bernardo’s truck, but at times the scenery blurred and my mind clouded with all that had happened: The night when Skyla waltzed into Baby Beluga, the perfect M of her lips, me sitting on the floor while she braided my hair, Owen’s face when he saw the bike, and my new clothes. My thoughts were also smudged with Thanksgiving Day, teachers’ conferences, Children’s Hospital, and the sting of Skyla’s fury. Now, I was chasing a father who was nothing more than a wisp of smoke floating in the air, someone I didn’t know for sure I would ever really touch.

  Even though my life was a fog of the good and the bad, one thing was clear as a vinegar-shined window in my mind. I belonged with Gram and Owen. I wanted no part of living with Skyla, Clive, and Sapphire. If finding my father was my only hope, then I was going to latch on to every positive, forward-thinking, universe-tilting notion to fulfill that prophecy.

  I just wished I didn’t have all of Mexico standing between me and a sunshiny day.

  It was only five-thirty in the morning, but Bernardo wanted to arrive in Oaxaca City before the streets filled with workday traffic, so the truck and trailer already lumbered on the road. We had two hours of driving left.

  In the dim early-morning light, Gram studied the tiny calendar on the back of her checkbook. “It’s been four weeks since Skyla arrived in Lemon Tree. I feel like I’ve lived a year since that day and added a few hundred gray hairs. If someone had told me then that today we’d all be traveling in Mexico and staying in motels with Baby Beluga only spitting distance away, I would have more likely believed a cow jumped over the moon. Owen, settle down back there. You’re as antsy as Lulu.”

  During the four days of the drive, Owen and I had spent time playing cards and that game where you call out the states from people’s license plates. (I had no idea there were so many people from the United States in Mexico!) When we weren’t playing games, Owen arranged blankets on the seat around himself, like a nest, and read out loud to Lulu. At night, we stopped at small motels. Bernardo and Owen slept in Baby Beluga with Lulu. Gram, Fabiola, and I slept inside the motel room. Now, as the truck and trailer motored around gentle curves of green hills, Owen bounced on the seat.

  “Why don’t you read to Lulu some more,” I said.

  “I don’t feel like it,” he said. “How much longer?”

  Gram turned around, giving me a helpless look that told me her patience was wearing thin.

  “Owen,” I said. “Want to see my brand-spanking-new list?”

  “Which one?”

  I flipped through my notebook. I passed over the most recent list of “Regular and Everyday Worries about Mexico,” which was based on everything I’d heard on the playground: stories about college kids who went to Tijuana, got thrown in jail for absolutely no reason, and were ransomed back to their parents for thousands of dollars; reports about people who went camping on the beach in Baja and were murdered; warnings about drinking the water or eating the meat because it gave people horrible sicknesses; rumors that everyone peed on the side of the road so the whole country smelled.

  When I turned to “Things I Saw on My Way to Oaxaca,” I read aloud: “1) Lots of brown desert, 2) Cows, 3) Honking cars that wanted Baby Beluga out of their way, 4) Reddish hills but some green, 5) Cornfields, 6) Apple trees, 7) Burros grazing, 8) Bamboo forests, 9) Avocado trees, just like at home, 10) Green mountains with misty clouds around the tops.”

  “You forgot the dead dog on the side of the road and the squirrels all together under that tree,” said Owen.

  I wrote it down.

  “And that lady selling tortillas at the gas station. And the spider that looked like a real scorpion but wasn’t that got into Baby Beluga the first night . . . and you forgot the rainbow . . . oh, and the cockroaches at the little pink motel. Don’t forget the cockroaches. . . .”

  Slowly the truck climbed for over an hour with occasional bursts of memory from Owen. Finally, in the distance, I saw a flat valley scattered with thousands of white rooftops.

  “That is the city,” said Bernardo. “It is on a mesa, a tabletop.”

  The low hills around the edges of the mesa reminded me of an old piece of copper pipe — green, gold, and rustcolored. Behind the foothills, on the horizon, giant curvy purple mountains stood guard. Below, the shadows of the wispy clouds overhead made the entire valley look mottled, like a camouflage jacket.

  “Oh, my! I never dreamed I’d be in such a tropical place,” said Gram.

  I added tropical to my “Splendid Words” page.

  “It is so good to be close to our home,” said Fabiola, looking out the window, starry eyed.

  Bernardo drove the truck down into the flatland next to dry brown fields that looked like they needed a deep soaking with a sprinkler.

  “We are almost there,” said Bernardo. “We are almost at Barrio Jalatlaco.”

  “I thought we were going to Oaxaca,” Owen said.

  “We are. Barrio means ‘neighborhood,’” said Bernardo. “Hah-laht-lah-coe is the name of our neighborhood.”

  Gram, Owen, and I practiced the name by saying a lot of la-la-lahs and we made Bernardo laugh at our attempts.

  As we got closer to the town, the streets became narrow and bumpy because the ground was set with stones in cement. Baby Beluga took up more than half the road. When another car came toward us, the driver had to pull up on the sidewalk to get by, but the driver wasn’t mad. He just waved to us and smiled.

  I read the street names that were printed on the sides of buildings, trying to pronounce them out loud, “El Calvario, Refugio, Niños Heroes.”

  Gram laughed. “We are not in Lemon Tree anymore.”

  “Here is the street,” said Fabiola.

  Bernardo turned down what looked like a long alley.

  I sat up tall in the seat and stared out the truck window. I couldn’t see any houses. Only walls and more walls, some of them two stories high. On both sides of the street were lengths of wooden fence, then brick walls, then cement walls, all painted different colors, but all run together. Black grills covered windows and doors that faced the street, and there didn’t seem to be any roofs. Every now and then we passed big double wooden gates. What was behind them? Did my father live here? And where would Bernardo ever fit Baby Beluga?

  Bernardo finally stopped in front of two rickety wooden gates that were taller than the truck. They hung crooked and barely met in the middle. He hopped out of the truck, unhitched the rope loop that held the gates together, and swung them open.

  Behind them, a little world appeared in a grassy field with a giant tree, blooming purple, right in the middle.

  “Will you look at that!” said Gram. “That’s the biggest jacaranda I’ve ever seen.”

  A tiny gray house, square and squat, sat toward the back of the lot. On one side of the house a huge full-grown vegetable garden sprawled over the dirt with a maverick vine overtaking the fence. On the other, a washing machine hugged the side of the house. Plastic clothespins shimmered in the morning sun, gripping four rows of laundry, already stiff from the dry air. Behind the house a bougainvillea spilled over from a neighbor’s high back wall. Tiny walking paths crossed the yard, but it wasn’t formal, like in a magazine. It was homey, like a trailer park.

  Fabiola, Owen, Gram, and I slid off the truck seats and into the bumpy street.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cobblestone street,” said Gram.

  “They are everywhere here,” said Fabiola. “You are lucky you have comfortable shoes. They are not easy on the feet.”

  Bernardo got back in the truck and began slowly backing the trailer into the narrow opening between the gates and, finally, parking it on the side of the house. Then he signaled for us to come, and he shut the big gates.

  I could not take my eyes off the lit
tle house and the walls that surrounded it. An entire universe existed in this yard, but no one would know it from the street. Skyla and Clive would never find us here.

  “¡Hola! ¡Aquí estamos! We are here,” hollered Bernardo.

  The screen door swung open and a man, two women, and a little boy came out.

  Hugs, kisses, and pats on the back passed among the relatives. Bernardo and Fabiola introduced us. The house belonged to Fabiola’s sister, Flora, and her husband, Pedro.

  Flora and Fabiola looked alike except for two things. Fabiola had short, curly brown hair due to her permanent wave and wore tiny dot earrings, and Flora had short, straight brown hair and wore dangly earrings. Pedro reminded me of Santa Claus because of his gray mustache and his round belly that really did jiggle when he walked.

  Graciela, their daughter, looked to be a little older than Skyla. She had the longest, thickest black hair I’d ever seen. It was perfectly straight and pulled back, half up, half down. If my bangs ever grew out, that was exactly how I would wear my hair. Her uniform of pink drawstring pants, a bunny-printed smock, and white tennis shoes made her look like a nurse at Children’s Hospital, only she wasn’t. Fabiola had already told us she was a doctor’s assistant and helped with the well baby checkups at the clinic. She lived in the house, too, with her seven-year-old son, Rubén, who had cute pudgy cheeks. I already felt sorry for him because they were the kind that ladies love to pinch.

  Everyone knew we did not speak Spanish, but they were all smiling at us. Flora and Graciela hugged us right off even though we didn’t know one another yet.

  “I speak English,” said Graciela, smiling at me. “And my parents, they speak a little bit.”

  I smiled back at her.

  Rubén walked over to Owen. His hair was black and cut short in a grown-up haircut. Someone had taken some time to part it perfect on the side and comb it down slick with gel. Even though it was almost Christmas, it was hot here so he wore shorts and sandals. He pulled a small rubber ball out of his pocket and held it up.

  Owen nodded and they ran over to the side yard and began tossing the ball back and forth.

  Gram shook her head and said, “Give a boy a ball and that’s all it takes to seal international relations.”

  I followed everyone else into the house, peeking in rooms as we headed toward the kitchen at the very back. The house had only two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Baby Beluga was almost as big. Some of the windows didn’t have screens and were open to the world. By the looks of all the iron chairs on the lawn, I guessed the outside was part of their living area, too, just like at Avocado Acres.

  The aroma of something cooking tickled my nose. In the kitchen Flora pointed for us to sit down at the long table that was covered with a plastic flowered tablecloth. Fabiola poured Gram and me cups of juice. It tasted like a punch but with cinnamon. I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not. Before we knew it, Flora was serving up eggs, tortillas, and spicy sausage. Graciela called Owen and Rubén in from outside and everyone crowded around the table.

  During breakfast Bernardo and Fabiola told the story of what happened to us. I could tell because their sentences were filled with our names as well as Skyla’s and Clive’s.

  Flora, who was still standing at the stove with a wooden spatula in the air, said, “León . . . León. . . .” She started talking fast to Fabiola.

  “She says that the cheese lady at the market married a León,” said Fabiola. “Tomorrow, when we shop for dinner, we will talk to her.”

  Gram’s face scrunched up in worry. “But isn’t León a common name?”

  “Yes and no,” said Fabiola. “There are many with the name, but it is an old name with much history and, well, cousins know other cousins and other cousins know more.”

  “Maybe we’ll be lucky,” I said.

  “Maybe,” said Gram, but I could tell that suddenly she wasn’t convinced. What had happened to her true feelings about thinking positive?

  From what I could figure with Fabiola and Graciela translating every few sentences, the rest of the talk was everyone catching up on their personal family news. I looked around the kitchen at the odd things on the walls: a colorful peacock painted on some strange paper that looked like a leathery bag, little ceramic plates with fruits and vegetables painted on them, a line of tiny tin mirrors painted with pink and red flowers, and a picture of a beautiful queen, in a long robe decorated with gold and pearls, wearing a crown on her head.

  Graciela noticed me staring at the picture. “Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. Our Lady of Solitude,” she said, “the patron saint of Oaxaca. You can see the statue in la basílica, a beautiful old church not too far from el zócalo, the town square.”

  “Soledad. That’s my middle name. And Owen’s, too.”

  “It is a very special name in Oaxaca,” said Graciela.

  I smiled at her, thinking that it must have been special for my father, too.

  By the time we finished eating breakfast it was only eight-thirty in the morning, but it felt like noon. Pedro left for work at a big hotel where he was a gardener and Graciela left for the clinic. Owen and Rubén went out to Flora’s garden. Bernardo pointed out a giant spider on the fence and told them never to kill that particular type because they were considered very good luck in Oaxaca. The boys then set out on a “lucky spider” hunt.

  I helped Gram set up housekeeping in Baby Beluga. First we opened all the windows. Then Gram unlocked the storage bay and pulled out a long piece of green indooroutdoor carpet and Mrs. Maloney’s card table and chairs.

  “She loaned them to me in my time of need,” said Gram. “Wasn’t that nice?”

  I had to smile, thinking of Mrs. Maloney and Gram conspiring to bring us to Mexico. I unrolled the blue awning, propping it up with poles that had been tied to the side of the trailer. This made a nice shady spot. As we arranged the table and chairs, Gram hummed the whole while.

  When everything was positioned, Gram put her hands on her hips and said, “Naomi, I believe I feel like a clean, fluffed sheet on bed-making day. Yes . . . I think that’s how I feel.”

  I heard a tickle of hesitation in Gram’s voice as if she was trying to convince herself of her own cheerfulness, but even so, she did continue with her humming.

  Bernardo sat under the jacaranda tree with a panel of wood and his tools. I went inside and found the twentyfour pack of Nature’s Pure White, unwrapped one of the bars, then joined him.

  “It is nice here, yes?” said Bernardo, handing me a small knife.

  I nodded.

  “Tomorrow my cousin Beni, he is coming for dinner and you will meet him. We are carving together this year in the festival with Pedro. It will be in el zócalo, the square in the middle of town, in only . . . twelve days.We must decide on our presentation soon.”

  “That’s plenty of time, right?” I said.

  Bernardo adjusted his straw hat. “Some people spend many months deciding on a presentation. Plus it is not a long time when relatives must agree.” He nodded toward my carving. “What is inside?”

  I wished I could look into the soap and say, “It is my father inside.” Then I could just carve away and find his face staring at me. Wouldn’t that be easy? What would Bernardo think if I told him my silly thoughts?

  I held up the bar against the turquoise sky and examined it. “Maybe a squirrel, sitting up, with the tail like this.” I waved my hand, making the S shape. “What will you paint?”

  “Maybe a sunrise over the mountains,” he said. “But we will see what happens. Oaxaca, she is a city of magic and surprises. When I am here, I am different, so the art is different.”

  A gentle breeze tickled my face with warm air. I looked around at the walls that sheltered me and took a deep breath, but it was not the worrisome kind. It was the relief kind.

  I swept my knife across the soap and tiny shavings darted and swirled in the air. As I watched the white pirouettes, my own laughter startled me.

  “
Naomi, are you going with us?” called Gram.

  I stood behind a giant zucchini plant with Owen and Rubén, gawking at the garden spider that was as big as my hand.

  “Coming!” I said, quickly leaving the boys to their treasure and hurrying to join Fabiola, Flora, and Gram, who were already at the front gate. I didn’t want to miss meeting the cheese lady.

  We walked through the uneven streets of Barrio Jalatlaco to el mercado, the market. Even though they were out in the neighborhood, Fabiola and Flora still wore long bib aprons over their clothes. (Gram had not deviated from her pantsuit and running shoes.) They all carried big mesh bags for the groceries. I hugged my notebook, wanting it handy in case I was lucky enough to make another entry to my newest page: “Everything We Know About Our Father”: 1) His name is Santiago Zamora León. We know this for sure because Gram dug out our birth certificates, 2) Santiago Zamora is also the name of a town in Guatemala, but Fabiola said it is only a coincidence, 3) He lives in Puerto Escondido near the ocean in the state of Oaxaca. Puerto Escondido means “hidden port” in Spanish, 4) Puerto Escondido is a long way from Oaxaca City, maybe five hours driving, 5) He is a fisherman and has a boat, 6) He is a carver, 7) In Gram’s eyes he was always a good, kind man, 8) Once, he wanted us.

  After five blocks we reached a building that looked like a big white warehouse. On the front, giant red letters formed the words Mercado de la Merced. I expected a grocery store or a supermarket, but this was different from any I had ever seen. Inside, stalls and tables crowded the cement-floor room. It was a party of colors and smells: flowers, tortillas, packages of fireworks, piñatas, fruit, raw meat, herbs and vegetables, ground spices in big canning jars. An entire table of different types of chiles towered as high as my shoulders. I smelled strawberries and oranges from the fruit juice stand. A woman sat on the floor next to a big steaming pot and sold tamales while she nursed her baby.