The Red Umbrella

After only a few days of being with the Baxters, I was exhausted. Not from any of the chores we’d been given, although living on a farm was much harder than I’d imagined. It was that I’d grown tired of constantly keeping a watchful eye on Frankie. I tried to keep him from speaking too loudly, running through the house, or chewing with his mouth open. I reminded him that we were visitors in the Baxter home and could be sent away at any time. If that happened, we’d most likely be separated.

“Bet you can’t catch me,” Frankie laughed as he ran around me.

“Not now.” I was concentrating on avoiding the large mud puddles left behind after the strong morning storm. “Can’t you see I’m working? Why don’t you help me carry this bag of feed over to the shed? The faster I finish, the sooner we can go eat lunch.”

“Put it down.” He poked me in the ribs. “Look. I can jump over that charco de fango without getting dirty.” He ran ahead and leapt over the mud puddle. He circled it and came back to me.

“Your turn, Lucy. See if you can jump it.”

“Frankie, behave.”

“Go. I’ll hold all that chicken food.” He reached for the brown canvas sack.

“No. It’s open on the top.”

“I got it. Now try to make it over.” Frankie pulled on the bag and tried to shove me aside.

“Watch it!” I yelled, but it was too late. I lost my grip on the bag and felt myself slip on the wet earth.

All the grain spilled out of the bag and fell on the muddy ground. I tried to keep my balance, but my penny loafers had no grip, and a second later I lay in the mud, too, my flowered dress splattered with gunk.

“Ha, ha, ha!” Frankie doubled over with laughter. “You look like a pig sitting there.”

I glared at him. “Shut up.” I stared at the wasted feed. The Baxters would not be happy.

Frankie kept laughing, almost unable to breathe.

I couldn’t stand it. I grabbed a handful of brown muck and slung it at him, hitting him squarely in the nose.

The shock on Frankie’s face made me giggle.

Frankie stood there staring at me.

I laughed harder.

This, for Frankie, was a declaration of war, and he grabbed his own handful of mud to throw at me.

I raised my hand. “Don’t,” I warned.

“Or what?” he said.

“Or I’ll”—I grabbed another handful and tossed it at his shirt—“do this again.”

Frankie smiled and flung the mud he was holding, hitting me on the shoulder.

For the next couple of minutes, Frankie and I attacked each other mercilessly. We slapped each other with the muddy mix of dirt, water, and chicken feed. Sliding around the sludge, I tried to grab Frankie by the waist, only to have him spin out of my hands and land with a splat in a larger mud puddle. Our squeals of laughter riled up the chickens, and soon they were flapping their wings, shrieking along with us.

“Lucía! Frankie! What are you doing?”

Mrs. Baxter stood on the back porch watching us make a mess of each other.

I looked at Frankie, covered head to toe in mud. I was in the same condition.

“Ay, Frankie. ¿Qué hemos hecho? She’s going to think we’re savages,” I whispered.

Frankie hung his head and lowered his shoulders. We bent down and tried to put a bit of the clean grain back into the sack.

“Leave that alone and come over here,” Mrs. Baxter called out.

We slowly walked toward the house like dogs about to get a beating.

As we got closer, I noticed Mrs. Baxter had something behind her back. When we were only about ten feet away, she whipped out a green hose and aimed it at us. “Time to wash up!”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or be scared. Mrs. Baxter started to chuckle as she unfolded the kink in the hose and water sprayed out. She took aim at Frankie, who ran around avoiding the water. I laughed at the silliness of it all until she pointed the hose at me. Then I ran along with Frankie and laughed some more. I didn’t stop until the pain in my side forced me to take a long, deep breath.

*  *  *  *  *

After changing out of our wet clothes and having lunch, Frankie and I helped Mrs. Baxter peel some potatoes for the night’s dinner. The three of us sitting quietly around the kitchen table reminded me of days spent helping Mamá in Cuba. There was a sense of peace in what we were doing. Maybe it wasn’t so much in our actions but from the fact that most of the tension that I’d carried with me to Nebraska had been washed away by Mrs. Baxter’s green hose.

The ringing phone pulled me away from my thoughts, and Mrs. Baxter rushed to the living room to answer it.

Frankie voiced my own wish. “Maybe it’s Mamá and Papá calling.”

I didn’t answer since I wasn’t sure if they even knew the phone number of where we were staying.

“Lucía.” Mrs. Baxter walked back into the kitchen. “That was Mr. Baxter on the phone. He says he was able to sell both boxes of cigars, for ten dollars each, so we’ll place that call to your parents tonight.”

“Can we call now?” I asked.

“No, honey. I think it’s better if we wait for Mr. Baxter. Apparently, it’s a bit more complicated than just dialing the number. Something about having to make the call through another country and then waiting for a phone line to Cuba to become available.”

“Oh.”

“He’ll be home soon, though. Why don’t we take a break from these potatoes and work on your English for a while?” Mrs. Baxter picked up the bowl of peeled potatoes and placed it on the kitchen counter. “Lucía, you can read the newspaper that’s out in the living room, and, Frankie”—she pulled out a picture book from one of the kitchen drawers—“we can read another book.”

Frankie rolled his eyes at me. “Yo se leer. Why do I have to look at baby books?”

“You don’t know how to read or speak in English. Presta atención,” I answered.

“Está bien. I’ll pay attention, but I won’t need any of this stuff when we go back home.”

Mrs. Baxter let out a little nervous laugh as she placed the book in front of Frankie. “I’m not sure what you two are saying, but I hope it’s all good.”

“Yes, everything good, Mrs. Baxter. Frankie just not like to study much.”

“Well, this is just the beginning. We have to get you two ready for school in September.”

I was about to explain that we would be home before school started, but then realized that I really didn’t know when we were leaving.

Frankie pointed to a picture on the cover of the book of a birthday cake with lots of candles.

“All right, Frankie, that is a picture of a cake. See the letters underneath. C-A-K-E. Cake.” Mrs. Baxter waited for Frankie to repeat the word.

I smiled as I walked out of the kitchen and heard Frankie say, “Cake. Me like cake.”