The Tori Trilogy (7 page)

He comes up behind Gina and me, grabbing us by our waists and pulling us into one of his well-known bear hugs. For an old man, Abuelito is strong, and after Gina and I hug him and he refuses to let us go, we struggle against him for a minute, laughing and trying to escape.

Finally, he lets us break away, and then goes over to greet Auntie Luz and Sofie.

After what seems like a million years, Auntie Luz hugs and kisses Gina and me goodbye, and we hug and kiss her back, and hug and kiss Sofie, too. “Have fun, girls,” my aunt says, tugging the hood of Sofie's jacket over her short curls. “We'll let you know tomorrow who'll be picking you up.”

And finally, she's off. Gina and I have Abuelito and Abuelita all to ourselves. Let the weekend begin!

Chapter Two

Abuelita shuts the door behind Auntie Luz and Sofie, and turns to face Gina and me. “Why do we not sit by the fire?” she suggests, waving us into the cozy living room. I notice that red-orange flames crackle noisily over logs in the brick fireplace.

Realizing how chilly we are, Gina and I hurry to sit by the hearth. Abuelito settles into one of the armchairs on either side of the fireplace, but Abuelita doesn't sit yet.

Instead, she beams a knowing smile at my cousin and me and says, “You girls must be hungry. How about
una entrada
...” her voices trails off as she searches for the English word “...an appetizer? I have made
papas a la huancaina
.”

Gina and I look at each other, our eyes wide with surprise.
Papas a la huancaina
is a traditional Peruvian dish made of boiled, sliced potatoes covered in a rich, spicy cheese sauce. It's served cold, and Abuelita always decorates it with slices of hardboiled egg and pitted Greek olives. I always pick those off (yuck!), but the rest is delicious. It's a very special appetizer that I usually only have on holidays or family birthdays.

But now Abuelita's made it just for Gina and me! She laughs at our shrieks of excitement, disappears into the kitchen, and reappears moments later with a tray holding four little plates full of
papas a la huancaina
, forks, napkins, and four cans of Inca Kola, a refreshing Peruvian pop that tastes, in my opinion, like a cross between bubblegum and cream soda.

Abuelita sets the tray on the coffee table and passes out the appetizers and drinks. The four of us sit by the fire for awhile and talk, about family things and about school and our grades and our friends. Our most exciting news today is, believe it or not, something that Mr. London, our fifth-grade teacher, told us.

“We're getting a new student in our class!” I blurt excitedly. “A girl! She's starting on Monday.”

“This Monday?” Abuelito's thick eyebrows shoot up. “How nice for you both. A new friend, no?”

“We hope so,” says Gina. “As long as she's nice. But I don't know why she wouldn't be. Anyway, I'm glad it's a girl who's coming, not a boy.”

“You can say that again.” I wrinkle my nose. “Boys are so annoying, and I already have too many at home.”

My grandparents laugh. “Ah,
Victoria
,” says Abuelito, pronouncing my name with Spanish flair. “Someday you will appreciate your brothers.”

I decide not to tell him that once in a while, I actually do. Instead, I say, “Well, I like Andrew. He's old enough to not act stupid like the rest of them.”

“
Muy bien
,” Abuelita replies. “He is married and soon will be a father. He must not act stupid now.”

Gina and I look at each other and burst into giggles. Hearing sweet Abuelita pronounce a word like “stupid” in her soft Spanish accent is hilarious.

Abuelita glances from my cousin to me, a puzzled expression on her face. “What is so funny?” she asks, making us laugh even harder.

I reach up and take her hand, which is resting on the arm of the chair where she sits. “Nothing, Abuelita,” I say. “We love you very much.”

She shakes her head at us. “This is why you are laughing?”

“Never mind, Abuelita.” Gina hops up and kisses her on the cheek.

We sit by the fire talking for at least an hour. We speak mostly in English, occasionally in Spanish. Gina's Spanish is better than mine, but I can speak and understand enough to get by, and I love to practice with my grandparents.

The conversation turns to my oldest brother Andrew and his wife Stephanie, who are expecting a baby next month. “I will
die
if they have a boy,” I say. “After all these years of putting up with four big brothers, the least I deserve is a niece!”

“
Ay, qué dramática mi nieta
(my granddaughter is so dramatic)
,
” Abuelito chuckles. “If the baby is a boy, you will love him, I promise you.”

I know he's right. Babies are hard
not
to love. But still....

Gina is still thinking about something I said. “Your
niece
,” she repeats, her voice low. “I'd never thought about that. Tori, you're going to be an aunt!”

I have thought about that, and I still can't get used to how grown-up it sounds. Andrew and Stephanie's baby will have a ten-year-old aunt who plays with Barbies and collects Webkinz and wears purple high-tops. It doesn't seem real.

“The baby's due right before Christmas, isn't it?” Gina continues.

“December twenty-first,” I say. “If she's even a little bit late, she could be born
on
Christmas.”

“
She?”
Abuelita shakes her head at me. “Time will tell,
cariño
.”

We have a delicious dinner of chicken and rice with salad tossed in Abuelito's homemade salad dressing. When we're through, Gina and I pitch in to help clear the table and wash dishes, and then we all return to the living room. Abuelito brings the fire back to life, and we play cards and talk some more, and after a while, Abuelita dishes up big bowls of chocolate-chip ice cream for us all, and we eat while we play and talk.

When our bowls are empty and our third game of Go Fish has come to an end, Abuelita takes out her old photo albums, and we spend over an hour looking at them. Gina and I have seen them many times before, but we never get tired of the hundreds of pictures, carefully organized by date from earliest to latest. The pictures are black-and-white in the first albums, faded-color in the middle albums, and brighter-color in the most recent albums.

They date all the way back to when Abuelita was a little girl growing up in Lima, Peru. It's fascinating to see her so young, on her way to school, or playing with her brothers and sisters. There aren't many pictures from that long ago, but in the ones she does have, the city of Lima looks so different from the modern photos I've seen.

And then there are the pictures of Dad and Auntie Luz and Auntie Crista and Uncle Javi growing up in an apartment in Chicago, then later on, in this very same bungalow in Cicero. There are pictures of them on the first day of school, sitting on Santa's lap at the mall, in a sailboat on Lake Michigan, visiting relatives in Lima.

“Your dad looks like Joey in this picture,” Gina points out, and I gasp in horror when I see that she's right.

Abuelita laughs and laughs.

I decide to change the subject. “I like the pictures that were taken in Lima,” I say. “I can't wait till Dad takes me there.”

“When will that be?” asks Gina.

“I don't know,” I sigh. Dad took Andrew to Peru when he was twelve, and he took Nate and Ben together when they were fourteen and eleven. He's been saying for years that he'll take Joey and me as soon as I'm “old enough to appreciate it.” I'm ten-and-a-half now, so I'm not sure what he's waiting for.

“It stinks that I have to go with Joey,” I continue. “Why couldn't we all go separately, like Andrew got to?”

Abuelita smoothes my long hair with her fingers. “Andrew is the oldest,” she reminds me. This is not a good point, but it's a point enough.

I sigh loudly.

As always, Gina and I spend the night in the small, cozy guest room at the back of the house where Auntie Crista and Auntie Luz slept when they were growing up. Their old furniture is gone, replaced by an old-fashioned four-poster double bed, a tall dresser with a tilting mirror, and two round bed tables with long, spindly legs.

The mattress is thick and soft, and Abuelita piles cover after cover on top of us when she and Abuelito come in to kiss us goodnight. The very last one is an alpaca wool blanket that was brought from Peru. It's brown and white with what Dad would call “indigenous designs” all over it, sort of like Native American loom weaving.

I like thinking that I'm wrapped up in a piece of Peru. Spending time with Abuelito and Abuelita always makes me feel closer to that part of my background. And, as Abuelito flicks off the guest room lights, I realize something else: being with my grandparents makes me very proud to be half-Peruvian.

Gina and I stay up talking till after three in the morning. We eat the entire bag of Sour Patch Kids that Gina brought, tell a few ghost stories (until Gina gets scared), and discuss Andrew and Stephanie's baby and our friends and all the truly annoying things about Mr. London, but also the things we like about him. That brings us to the subject of the new girl.

“All we know is that she's from Georgia,” I say. “Let's play a guessing game, and then on Monday, we'll find out if we were right.”

“Sounds fun,” agrees Gina, poking a red Sour Patch Kid into her mouth. “I'll start. Hair color?”

I think hard. “Strawberry blonde.”

“I was going to say light-brown,” Gina replies.

“We'll see who's right. My turn. Eye color?”

“Hazel,” says Gina.

“Green,” I say.

“Short, tall, or medium?”

“Tall.”

“I think so, too.”

We play the game for a long time until we've agreed that the new girl will be tall and skinny with an outgoing personality and a very Southern accent. We don't agree on the rest, but that's okay. Monday will be here soon enough.

At long last, we are so tired, we can't keep our eyes open anymore. We switch off our flashlights and snuggle down under the warm blankets.

I turn onto my side and hug Starfire tightly. “Goodnight, Gina,” I whisper.

But she's already asleep.

Bright and early Monday morning, the new girl walks into Room 5L. Immediately Gina and I study her, trying to figure out who won that guessing game. Her long hair is blonde, but not strawberry blonde, and instead of green or hazel, her eyes are the deepest blue I've ever seen. She's medium height and thin, but not skinny. We'll find out about the Southern accent and the outgoing personality soon enough. But so far, it doesn't look like either of us wins the prize for that game.

Mr. London introduces her to the class as Anastasia Adams from Savannah, Georgia. I can't get over that name. First of all, what a mouthful! And second, the only Anastasia I've ever heard of before is a character in a Disney movie. Anastasia is wearing cream-colored leggings with a navy-blue sweater-dress and matching navy-blue boots that are the exact shade of her eyes. The whole outfit looks like something you'd see in one of those over-the-top expensive kids' clothing catalogues. A thin gold chin dangles from her neck, and her fingernails are French-manicured. I've never seen anyone under twenty with a real French manicure!

Even in ordinary clothes, Anastasia would be beautiful. Her hair is shiny and thick, with no split-ends, and her eyes are big without being too big, and everything about her seems graceful somehow. But let me tell you, in the outfit she's wearing today, she looks unreal, like a princess from some fairytale, not a ten-year-old girl joining Mr. London's fifth grade.

The classroom is absolutely silent, which is pretty unusual, and as I look around, I see that all of my classmates are having the same reaction as I am. Their mouths are hanging open. They're speechless. I think we'd all been expecting someone totally different, almost the opposite of Anastasia, a girl from the South with freckles and braids and maybe even a smile with gaps in it. But not this fashion plate who's standing in front of us! We don't know what to do or say. We're in shock.

Mr. London asks Anastasia to tell the class a little bit about herself. She smoothes her perfect hair between her palms and takes a tiny step forward. She runs her hands down the front of her dress, like she's checking for wrinkles that aren't even there. After a long pause, she opens her mouth and begins to speak. “As you all know, my name is Anastasia. My family moved to Forest Grove from Savannah only a week and a half ago. My father was transferred, because the Chicago-area branch of his company decided they couldn't live without him.”

Talk about laying it on thick. I glance back at Gina, and then at our friend Shannon, who, I can tell, are thinking the very same thing. Gina winks at me and I suddenly realize why: the new girl has a Southern accent...not a heavy one, but still. We were right about something!

“I have an older sister, Cynthia, who's in college at Stanford,” Anastasia continues, “and a Toy Poodle named Brigitte. My hobbies are reading and playing the piano. I've been taking lessons on our baby grand since I was four. Back in Savannah, I attended a private girls-only academy. This is my first time ever in a public school, and I can already tell that it's going to be very different.”

I stare at the new girl, unable to believe what I'm hearing. Not only does she look and dress like a princess, she lives like one, too! I mean, a four-year-old playing a baby grand piano, a sister at Stanford, a private academy for girls, and to top it all off, a pet Toy Poodle with a fancy name like Brigitte! I'm not sure yet whether or not I'm actually going to like this girl, but there's one thing I am sure of, and I can tell that the other girls in my class feel the same way. We're all dying to find out more about Anastasia Adams.