The Tequila Worm

by Viola Canales

  “Then, it was being out in the blazing sun, picking cotton. Your papa and I did that for many years growing up.”

  A young boy dropped his three just-bought cherry raspas on the hot pavement. “It’s the canicula,” I said, and gave him a crisp dollar for new ones—a cucumber dollar I’d earned at the packing shed.

  When we got home, we found Papa out in the back-yard standing beside his grill. Nobody could beat Papa’s fajitas.

  Mama went into the kitchen and started conjuring up a stack of flour tortillas and chili salsa. She made a batch of refried beans and saved a bowl of whole beans for Papa and me.

  After a glorious fajita feast, Lucy came in carrying a round chocolate cake with fifteen candles blazing. She and Berta had secretly baked it at Berta’s house. Papa grabbed his guitar and they all stood around me singing “Las Mañanitas.” I closed my eyes, made my secret wish, and then blew out all the candles with one big puff.

  After the clapping and double servings of cake, Mama reached on top of the refrigerator and grabbed the carton of eggs.

  “Here, Sofia! This is your birthday present from all of us!”

  “Eh . . . thank you,” I said as I took the carton. Everybody started laughing.

  “Open it, Comadre Sofia!” Lucy said, kneeling on her chair.

  Papa and Mama were standing next to me, their arms around each other.

  Inside I found twelve cascarones.

  “Well, thank you,” I said, smiling.

  “Sofia,” Lucy pointed. “Look at those four. Those are your presents. Open them!”

  I took the one at the corner. It was bright yellow with a drawing of two people at a sewing machine. I turned the egg and found a drawing of five stick people in a car. “That’s from me!” said Berta, smiling.

  “Do you want me to crack it on your head?” I asked, remembering the mustard-filled cascarone she had smashed on my head many Easters before.

  “No!” They were all laughing. “Break it over your cake plate, but carefully.”

  I took the egg, cracked it around the top, hitting it on the edge of the plate. I pulled off the shell pieces.

  A small plastic box on a key chain fell into the plate. I picked it up. “Look inside! But point it at the light!” Berta said. I took the box and peered through the small hole at the end, pointing the other end at the lightbulb. I started to laugh. It was the picture of Mama and me dancing at Berta’s quinceañera.

  “It’s like you and your mama dancing on the big drive-in screen!” said Berta. “And do you know what the two drawings on the cascarone are?” I smiled and shook my head. “One is of you and me at the sewing machine, making your school dresses. The other . . . well . . . I finally got your papa and mama to agree to use my car to take you up to Austin. And I’m going too!”

  I gave her a big hug.

  “Now open Mama’s! It’s the red one!” Lucy said.

  I took the red cascarone and studied the drawings. One was of my shirt with the holy host inside the pocket. The other was of Berta and me biting and kicking each other over a candy bar. I cracked the egg, peeled it open, and pulled out a greenish rosary.

  “It glows in the dark!” Mama said. “And I made it myself ! Thank God and the Virgin that I finally found the keys to my chest, for I was secretly hiding it there. It’s for your home altar at school. And I thought you’d like a glow-in-the-dark one since I remembered how you and your papa went through all that mess and trouble catching all those poor fireflies and smearing them all over your faces and arms, just to glow in the dark.”

  “Mama, thanks.” I glanced at Berta, who was biting her lip to keep from cracking up.

  “Papa’s is next!” Lucy gave me the blue one with the silver stars and the yellow paper crown. It had two drawings: one of Papa and me cleaning beans, the other of Lucy and me coloring eggs on the porch.

  A small wooden figure fell out. “Do you know who she is?” Papa said, smiling. “I finally finished carving her this morning.” I looked more closely.

  “Is it a saint?” I turned it around.

  “It’s not just any saint, mi’ja. It’s your saint, Saint Sofia. Remember we named you after Saint Sofia since you chose to be born on her feast day—August first.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  “But, mi’ja, I want you to always remember, and especially when you’re far away at school, that Saint Sofia represents the gift of divine wisdom. Take her with you so that you can marry divine wisdom with everything you do.”

  “Now mine!” said Lucy, jumping up and down and handing me the green cascarone.

  “Now, Comadre Lucy,” I said. “It’s not a real egg this time, is it?”

  “No!” she said, beaming.

  “Is that the three comadres in Berta’s car?” I pointed to the black crayon drawing on the egg.

  “Yes! And I’m the one driving!” she whispered. I cracked it open and out fell eight quarters.

  “It’s to buy candy at that school!” Lucy said. I hugged her hard, knowing it was all the money she had saved up in her pink Barbie bank. I started to cry.

  Then Papa touched my shoulder and handed me his guitar. He whispered. I took the guitar and started to play “Julia,” the vals he had just finished teaching me. Papa took Mama in his arms and waltzed her around the kitchen. Berta grabbed Lucy and they stumbled around, making it up as they went along. I played my heart out.

  After the vals, Lucy raced up and smashed a cascarone on my head. Confetti flew everywhere as we ran around breaking the rest of the cascarones on each other’s heads.

  Later, after Berta had gone home and Mama and Lucy were praying the rosary in the other room, Papa came into the kitchen, where I was strumming the guitar. I looked at him and thought, was it the crazy canicula that was making me wonder whether I should actually go away . . . now that everyone seemed so happy for me?

  “Mi’ja, this is for you too,” Papa said, handing me a cascarone painted to look like the globe of the world, with the sun, moon, and stars on the paper top. “It’s my secret cascarone . But don’t open it now. Wait until later.”

  I held it carefully. “But when can I open it, Papa?”

  “Oh, you’ll know,” he said, smiling. “And that little Saint Sofia will always be around to help you too. Good night, mi’ja.” He kissed me.

  I put the cascarone in my shirt pocket along with Saint Sofia. I now felt that I would never be alone, even far away from home, and that I could finally start packing.

  My birthday wish had come true.

  AnoTheR MunDo

  We woke up super early one Sunday late in August, packed my things into Berta’s car, and set out for Austin.

  I had spent the previous day saying my good-byes to all my relatives and finishing my packing. I must’ve been hugged, kissed, prayed over, and drenched with holy water a thousand times.

  Mama insisted on my taking the family’s one suitcase, which was hard plastic, avocado green. It needed a rope to stay closed. There I put the five new dresses, other clothes, and the copy of Don Quixote Papa had given me, saying, “It’ll inspire and amuse you, mi’ja, on this new quest of yours.”

  Then Mama presented me with a sealed cardboard box. “This is for your room altar.” I looked at Berta and rolled my eyes. Mama returned with a second box. “The first box was for your soul; this one is for your body,” she said, putting it beside the other one.

  “What’s inside, Mama?” I said as I emptied the top drawer of the bureau I shared with Lucy. She could start using it now.

  “A big bag of empanadas and a brand-new box of Ibarra Mexican chocolate.”

  After Mama left the room, Berta started laughing. “I can just picture you using your comadre props—the pan dulce and hot chocolate—to try making friends with those snooty girls. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a homemade empanada before, or talked to a Mexican American, for that matter.”

  I shook my head and went on emptying the drawer, trying to find little treasures to give L
ucy. She happily took my rose quartz, my mariachi puppet, a clown pin, some miniature Mexican ceramic pots, and an old set of tiny worry dolls. And she was especially excited when I gave her my tequila worm piggy bank with a whole dollar inside.

  But she refused my three-inch praying mantis floating in a bottle of alcohol, my slingshot, my bag of marbles, my wooden top, my plastic magnifying glass that I used to fry ants, and my fishing knife. I knew Berta wouldn’t want any of these treasures either, so I put them in a shoe box. “No wonder you’re always wearing the same jeans and shirt,” Berta said. “Your drawer is completely full of junk!” I just smiled.

  As Papa drove, he drank black coffee from a thermos, while the rest of us ate our breakfast egg tacos, which Mama had made early that morning.

  “Have you heard anything about your roommate?” Berta bit into her chocolate-topped concha.

  “All I know is that her name is Brooke, Brooke Fisher. And that my dorm is called Ames Hall.”

  About halfway there, we stopped in Three Rivers to eat lunch at a little Mexican restaurant right off the highway.

  “Sofia,” Mama said, “order a big platter of cheese enchiladas, for it’ll be a while before you can come back home. And for all we know, until then you’ll be eating, what—celery sticks and crackers?”

  After I forced the last forkful of enchiladas down, Mama insisted on ordering a plate of hot sopapillas, which we dipped in honey.

  Then off we went again, this time with the three comadres in front and Berta driving. Papa fell asleep, while Mama opened her big purse, took out her rosary, and started praying silently. Mama’s santos were taped onto Berta’s dashboard. Lucy’s comadre job was to keep finding a clear Top 40 radio station as we drove, passing tiny towns and ranches, but mostly mesquite trees, tumble-weeds, and bushes.

  In Austin, Papa drove around and around until he found a little motel called Casa Mexico. He rented one room with two queen-size beds. We went across the street to a Mexican café before turning in for the night.

  The next morning, we started toward Saint Luke’s. I hadn’t been able to eat any of the huevos rancheros at breakfast.

  “Sofia,” Mama said, “are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes!” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

  “You look as gray as when you put that holy host in your pocket.” Berta and Lucy started laughing. I forced myself to laugh too. I didn’t mention that I had put Saint Sofia in my shirt pocket that morning.

  Papa turned at a granite marker with the words SAINT LUKE’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL etched in big block letters and proceeded up a winding hill behind a brand-new silver Mercedes. I felt a headache coming on. I turned around and felt a little better when I saw an old white Volvo station wagon with a couple of dents behind us.

  After three miles of winding up the hill, we passed through a stone gate.

  “Wow!” said Lucy. “It’s like a magic kingdom.”

  And it did look like a small magic town on top of an enchanted hill, with the spacious green playing fields, a chapel steeple at the very top and center, and the grand stone buildings around a large quadrangle. There were numerous gardens and small courtyards. As we drove around trying to find Ames Hall, we passed an observatory, riding stables, gyms, tennis courts, a swimming pool, faculty homes, a golf course, and the dining hall.

  “So where’s Wal-Mart?” said Berta.

  “Yes, and what about the drive-in, the panaderia, the raspa stand? Dios mio! I wouldn’t need the canicula to go crazy here,” said Mama, shaking her head.

  “Yeah!” said Lucy. Papa caught my eye in the rearview mirror and just smiled.

  Ames Hall was a two-story white stone building with a small garden in front. A golden retriever was fast asleep on the trimmed grass.

  “Look, Sofia!” Lucy said. “Why don’t you get a pet too!”

  Papa parked between the same silver Mercedes and white Volvo I’d seen on the road.

  “Your dorm reminds me of my army barracks,” Papa said as we climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to my room. The place was spartan, with rooms opening onto a long stone hallway. There was a bathroom at each end, and a faculty family lived in one corner of the building. There was also a common room on the first floor, which had a fireplace and a bookcase. The walls were covered with framed pictures of students at sports, at teas, at graduation.

  “Where’s the TV?” asked Lucy, looking around.

  “And the kitchen?” said Mama as we kept looking for my room and smiling politely at the other girls and families walking around carrying lamps, suitcases, plants, rugs.

  “I don’t think there is a TV or a kitchen,” I said.

  “Dios mio! No Wal-Mart, no panaderia, no raspa stand, no drive-in, no H.E.B., no TV, and now no kitchen?

  Are you sure this isn’t a reform school, Sofia?” Mama said, shaking her head.

  “Here it is,” I said, pointing to my name.

  “They’re like cantina doors,” said Berta as we walked through two swinging doors. The room was empty except for a box on one of the two beds.

  “Wow!” said Lucy. “And I thought you were going to live like a princess. This is no bigger than our room at home.” The room was about twelve feet by fifteen. On each side there were one metal frame bed, a desk, a chair, a bookcase, a three-drawer bureau, and an open closet. The only really nice part was that it had two windows overlooking the garden outside.

  The cantina doors flew open and in walked a tall blond girl wearing green slacks, a monogrammed pink shirt, and brown loafers.

  “Have you seen Brooke?”

  Silence.

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh, you must be Sofia?”

  “Yes. Hi.”

  “I’m Terry Gibbs, and my room is just across the hall. Listen, I know Brooke from before. We go to the same country club. Would you mind terribly if we switched?”

  “Switched?”

  “Yes, I would really like to room with Brooke. We could just switch rooms now and it would be no trouble since neither of us has unpacked.”

  “Well, I don’t even know if we can, if it’s allowed, you know. And anyway, I’d like to think about it first.”

  “Okay, but let me know as soon as possible.”

  “Okay.”

  Terry turned and left.

  “These people have no manners,” Mama said, shaking her head.

  “Sofia,” Lucy said, “come back home with us.” Papa just looked at me.

  I made myself laugh. “Let’s hurry with my things, since you still have the long drive back.” When we went back to Berta’s car, I saw Terry taking a large stereo set from the trunk of the silver Mercedes. There was a man in a black vest and slacks helping her, saying, “Yes, Miss Terry. Yes, Miss Terry.”

  Then Terry started running up the hill. “Brooke! Brooke!” she said.

  A girl with shiny brown hair and bright green eyes was walking down the hill with her parents. As they got closer, I saw she was wearing old sneakers, faded jeans, and a white shirt with a tiny green alligator.

  Terry air-kissed the girl and shook hands with her parents. I was taking the box with the altar stuff out of the trunk when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Hey, Sofia, this is Brooke,” Terry said. “So do you want to switch?”

  “Ah . . . hi, Brooke,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “Terry,” Brooke said, “I want to room with Sofia.” She smiled at me.

  “Oh! Okay.” Terry’s face turned red. “But promise you’ll let me know if you change your mind. And how’s your brother Chris? I’m sure he’ll get into Harvard.”

  Brooke just nodded. She introduced her parents to me and met my family.

  We spent the next two hours unpacking.

  “Now let me set up your room altar,” Mama said as she set the box on top of my freshly made bed. Brooke had already hung a framed, signed Chagall print on her wall—one with a lady’s face that could be seen as two different faces. She’d put a small Persian rug b
y her bed and placed a cut-glass vase with pink and yellow roses on her bookcase. Her bedspread was a quilt with a pretty repeating fan pattern.

  “Mama,” I said, shaking my head as she tore the tape off the box and pulled out a yellow votive candle, a ten-inch statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe with lightbulb and cord, the glow-in-the-dark rosary, a framed print of the Guardian Angel, and my late grandmother’s favorite saint, the black San Martín de Porres. It was so old and badly chipped that his face was chalk white and his body rotated in three broken parts on a thin wire. Last was a twelve-inch bleeding Christ on a wooden cross. Berta kept biting her lip to keep from laughing. Papa was sitting on one corner of the bed, calm and smiling, wearing his brown and white boots. “Now, where should I put your altar?” said Mama.

  “Put it on top of her bookcase,” Lucy said, “so everyone can see it!” Then Brooke walked in carrying a white orchid, which she placed next to the vase of roses on top of her bookcase.

  “Cool!” Brooke said, smiling. “Is that for your home altar?”

  “Yes, but how do you know?” I said.

  “My parents run a foundation for schools in Latin America. So I’ve seen pictures of them.”

  “See, mi’ja,” Mama said as she proceeded to arrange my room altar on top of my bookcase. “And it’s for you, too, Brooke,” Mama said, turning and smiling at her. “It’ll sanctify your room.” She took her plastic bottle of holy water from her purse and started sprinkling.

  After all the students and their families gathered in the courtyard in front of the chapel for a welcome tea with the headmaster, it was time for Berta and my family to head back home.

  “Those sandwiches were so tiny,” Mama said as we walked toward Berta’s car, “like for a doll. And where was the coffee? The hot chocolate? Ay, mi’ja, I’m so worried for you: your dorm looks like a prison, and the food . . . It’s like stepping into another mundo. And here I thought that it was the canicula that made things crazy. Listen, when you get back to your room, break open the other box and have yourself an empanada or two. And be sure to share them with Brooke. She’s too skinny and pale.”