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SHORT STORIES BY LUPE
PAPA'S STUDY Papa’s study was my favorite room. Two walls were covered with shelves and filled with books in Spanish. It was where I learned to read even before I started school. I read Aesop’s Fables and Grimm’s Fairy Tales in Spanish before I read them in English. His roll top desk and Underwood typewriter were in this room. This is where he sat typing letters for our neighbors who couldn’t read or write. I spent summer afternoons in the study reading. It was the coolest and most comfortable room in the house. Perhaps I was comfortable because I was among papa’s books. When mama or my brothers looked for me, they knew where I would be and looked no further. On cold winter nights when the wind whistled around the corners of the house and a fire roared in the wood burning stove we’d gather in the study. Friends and neighbors young and old would join us to listen to papa’s storytelling. His soft voice filled the cozy room with fascinating tales of A Thousand and One Nights and many other stories. When I think of comfortable rooms the image in my mind is always papa’s study.
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LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT Yes, it’s true, love at first sight can happen to you. It happened to me. I was thirty-five, divorced and my two children still lived at home. One day, my hairdresser, Jenny invited me along with two other girlfriends to a club dance. I told her I didn’t know how to dance. “You like Big Band music, don’t you?” “Yes, but . . .” “After much coaxing, I consented because I love the Big Band music of the forties. I was enjoying the evening, the music was wonderful and I had been asked to dance a couple of times. Then while the band took a break and the dance floor was clear, Jenny nudged me, “Look there’s Dan, the man who picks up his mother after her hair appointment. His mother said he never goes anywhere, so I told her about this club.” I saw a tall, good-looking man and my heart did a couple of flip flops. After talking to the band leader he walked toward our table and I saw his dazzling smile and I was gone, I was in love. When introductions were over he asked Jenny to dance. I thought he would never look at me. He and Jenny returned to our table and he sat across from me. When the music started again, he asked, “Which of you beautiful girls would like to dance with me?” As he spoke he reached across the table and took my hand. What else could I do? During the evening he asked Jenny and the other girls to dance but he kept coming back to me. On the way home I tried not to be too obvious as I asked Jenny questions about Dan. She said he was divorced, worked for the City and spent his week-ends at home with his mother and father. That’s what he’d told me while we danced. A couple of weeks later, Jenny called and asked if she could give Dan my phone number. I said yes, yes, yes ... and wondered what took him so long. Our first date was dinner and dancing at a Malibu restaurant. Later we strolled out on the deck and admired the full September moon shining on the ocean waves as they crashed on the piers and rocks below. The next day we went to lunch in Santa Barbara. Everything was so romantic, just like in the movies. Two weeks later Dan proposed, of course I said yes. My children didn’t know what to think of their usually quiet mom. Love made me act so silly. Everything was funny, everything was beautiful. My children liked him instantly and approved. I felt like a queen and Dan treated me like one. After meeting Dan one of my co-workers said to me, “That man is beautiful inside, don’t let him go.” Yes, Dan was as beautiful inside as he was handsome on the outside. I wondered, how did little old me get so lucky? To my surprise his mother started making wedding plans for us. We were married exactly three months from the day we met. We honeymooned in Tahoe and San Francisco. We took many trips after that, and Dan made each one as exciting as our honeymoon. Sometimes I wonder what if I hadn’t gone to that dance; I wouldn’t have met Dan, the love of my life. And to think I had never believed in love at first sight. The End
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| CHARLIE
Charlie was late. He has never been late for dinner before. I sat on the doorstep and enjoyed the sunshine while I waited. Since I met Charlie he has taken over my life and made it complete. Now I wonder how I had managed all those years without him. If anything should happen to him ... well... . How long have I been sitting here? I know it’s been more than twenty or thirty minutes. The sun went behind rain-laden clouds. Soon a few rain drops mingled with the earth and the perfume from the rose bushes bordering the walk. Where’s Charlie? Who does he think he is anyway? As if I didn’t know. I stood and stretched my cramped, stiff legs. I smoothed my wrinkled skirt and turned to go inside. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him. He walked slowly, arrogantly, as if he owned the street or maybe the world. I watched every step he took as he came up the walk, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. I ran and took him in my arms. I kissed him, he rubbed his nose in my ear as I scolded, “You darn cat where have you been all day?”
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This story was written sometime in the seventies. THE MISSION When I was ten, Friday night became the worst night of the week. Before that, Dad came straight home from work and go with Mom to buy the weekly groceries. Sometimes he'd turn on the television to a ballgame or any sport that happened to be on. Then he'd start cooking dinner. Other times he'd say, "As soon as your mom gets home from work we'll go for hamburgers and then a drive-in movie, okay guys?" My brother Tommy and I showered off the sweat from playing basketball or football in the street. Dad would be ready and we'd jump in the car and head for McDonald's, Dad would be whistling and Mom smiling. Dad loved baseball and had won many trophies as best pitcher in the valley. I believed that Dad was an expert at everything he did. He played a great game of golf, he had learned from the pros when he was young and caddied at the Country Club. Mom kept a scrapbook of Dad's newspaper write-ups. She told me that grampa had taught Dad to play chess and after that Dad won every game. Grampa gave up, he couldn't win. I asked Mom if there was anything Dad couldn't do, she said no. Why didn't it last? Years earlier, Mom had bought a painting of a beautiful
Spanish Mission. The frame was gilded and measured about 24 x 48
inches. The mission had a red tiled roof and a cobblestone courtyard
bordered by huge oak trees with leaves turning brown, yellow and
red. An arched doorway led into the mission where two figures in
black were entering. Mom was fascinated by those figures. Dad was an operating engineer for a large construction company. He operated tractors, diggers and graders and set up the stakes for the foundations for the new homes that were going up so quickly after World War II. He was a hard worker and liked his work, but soon he started to like his beer, too. He and his co-workers drank at the end of the workday. In fact, I believe that's when things began to go wrong. I knew Dad's routine because in summer he'd take us to the job site. We had fun riding the bucket and dad was always very careful so we wouldn't get hurt. We loved going to work with him, but we saw what was going on. Friday afternoon, a worker would go buy beer and bring cokes for Tommy and me. They kept the beer in coolers in the back of the pickup truck. The men went one by one to the pickup truck. At four o'clock they were all hanging around the beer cooler. They were a hard working, fun-loving bunch. The stories and jokes flew back and forth faster than Tommy and I could catch them. Now when he drank too much he’d come home and get rough with us. I’d clench my fists and wish I could punch his face. We’d huddle together in Tommy’s room or mine until we didn’t hear Dad’s slurring, sloppy voice. Then we’d know he’d fallen asleep or taken off again. One day at the beginning of the really bad years. I saw Mom standing in front of the mission painting. She looked at me and I saw a far-away look in her eyes, and tears rolling down her cheeks, falling on her blouse leaving dark spots on the blue silk. “Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked. “Oh, nothing, honey, just thinking that I wish I could go into that mission. It looks so cool and peaceful,” she put her arm around me and pulled me close. Then I felt her fingers walking up and down my arm and shoulder. I knew she was going toward my armpit and she’d be tickling me until I fell on the floor, weak from laughter. She did that when Tommy and I were little, but I was fifteen now and I wasn’t going to fall on the floor with laughter. Instead, I turned and put my arms around her. I was almost a head taller than she. She held me tight and sobbed on my shoulder. She didn’t have to tell me why. Dad had started disappearing for days at a time. Some weekends we didn’t see him from Friday to Monday or Tuesday. Now, Mom dried her tears and turned to look at the picture. “You see the two figures going into the mission? One day there will be three, one of them will be me.” She really wished she could escape into the picture. When she saw the worried look on my face, she laughed and kissed my cheek, “I’m kidding, Bobbie . . . I think.” Somehow, we managed to survive with Mom’s job at the real estate office. She paid the mortgage and put food on the table. By then Tommy and I had part-time jobs bussing tables and caddying at the Country Club. Mom made sure we stayed in school. "By hook or by crook," she'd say, "you're going to graduate from high school.” Dad came and went, a shadow in our lives unless the liquor riled him up and he got angry if we so much as glanced at him. Mom still wished she could escape. Many times I'd see her looking at the painting. One day I came up behind her and asked her, “Do you still want to enter that mission, Mom?” “No, I’ve changed my mind. I want your dad in the picture instead. That’s the only way we’ll know where he is,” we laughed. “Maybe if we wish hard enough it will happen,” I said and we cracked up. Tommy came in and I told him what we were laughing about. He, too, thought it was funny, then he said, “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. I heard that somewhere.” That sobered us and Mom asked what did we want for supper. On my last year of high school, I worked at a small coffee shop and tried to keep up my grades. One night I came home from work about eleven o’clock, Tommy and Mom were waiting in the living room. “What’s wrong?” “Dad’s gone,” Tommy said. “What else is new?” “It’s different this time, the house feels empty.” “Are his clothes gone?” I asked. “No, everything is here, so is his pickup.” I hadn’t noticed if his truck was parked at the curb. “Well, then . . . why?” “The house feels so different, quiet and peaceful. It doesn’t feel that way when he’s home,” Mom said in a soft, resigned voice. “I’ll call the police,” I moved toward the phone on the desk.
By force of habit, Mom walked over to look at the painting. She
dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, then cried, “No!”
Tommy and I rushed to see what she meant. There were three figures near the entrance. The new one was bigger than the original two, and blurry as if he were running to catch up with the others. Instantly, we knew why the house had felt so peaceful. In his own way Dad had granted our wish. He had found peace from his tormented life, but he had not abandoned us. Dad was home to stay. THE END
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