The Smell of Old Lady Perfume Read online

  The Smell of Old Lady Perfume. Copyright © 2008 by Claudia Guadalupe Martínez. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent from the publisher, except for brief quotations for reviews. For further information, write Cinco Puntos Press, 701 Texas Avenue, El Paso, TX 79901; or call 1-915-838-1625.

  FIRST EDITION

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Martínez, Claudia Guadalupe, 1978-

  The smell of old lady perfume / by Claudia Guadalupe Martínez. – 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When sixth grader Chela Gonzalez’s father has a stroke and her grandmother moves in to help take care of the family, her world is turned upside down.

  ISBN 978-1-935955-16-0 (eBook)

  [1. Family life–Fiction. 2. Schools–Fiction. 3. Death–Fiction. 4. Hispanic Americans–Fiction. 5. Grandmothers–Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M36714Sm 2008

  [Fic]--dc22

  2007038296

  Thanks to Jessica Powers for helping us enter the great world of young adult books and for her good eye on The Smell of Old Lady Perfume.

  Book and cover design by Sergio A. Gómez

  for my family

  Apá was a strong still oak. We hid under his branches like shadows. Even when he laughed a thunderous laugh, those branches shook only ever so slightly.

  Contents

  Chapter 1: All About the Sixth Grade

  Chapter 2: Talking to Apá

  Chapter 3: The Darkness

  Chapter 4: Sick Days

  Chapter 5: La Fe

  Chapter 6: Prayer

  Chapter 7: The Seventh Day

  Chapter 8: Breath

  Chapter 9: Small

  Chapter 10: Clones

  Chapter 11: Honger

  Chapter 12: America

  Chapter 13: Chiple

  Chapter 14: The Street

  Chapter 15: Out Loud

  Chapter 16: Smart

  Chapter 17: Friend

  Chapter 18: Shhshs

  Chapter 19: Ketchup

  Chapter 20: The World

  Chapter 21: Special

  Chapter 22: Job

  Chapter 23: Good Ball

  Chapter 24: Normal

  Chapter 25: House of Prayers

  Chapter 26: Apá

  Chapter 27: Flowers

  Chapter 28: After the Wake

  Chapter 29: Friends and Monsters

  Chapter 30: The Other Reconciliation

  Chapter 31: Oh Brothers and Sister

  Chapter 32: Another Year

  Chapter 33: All-School Girl

  Chapter 34: Gusanitos

  CHAPTER

  1

  All About the Sixth Grade

  Apá told me to imagine that sixth grade was like standing at the top of the tallest building downtown. It was like being up there in that tall building and looking down. The people on the street looked just like ants. To sixth graders, those ants were fifth graders, fourth graders, third graders, all the way down to pre-kindergarteners. Each grade was farther away than the next, smaller than the last. The best thing was—those ants looked up to sixth graders. Knowing this made me all the more nervous and excited about starting sixth grade.

  Sixth grade was a big deal where I lived because it marked our last year of elementary school. Some people may be too old to remember or too young to imagine, but my older brother Angel Jr. remembered. He and my sister Silvia, the twins, had been sixth graders two years before me.

  I clung to any sliver of information about their fascinating lives back then. Angel Jr. bragged that being a sixth grader was like being a big brother. Everyone wanted to be like you, and you bossed them around. Sixth graders sat in the front row of the cafeteria and got dibs on the best foods. According to him, he once took a slice of meatloaf right off a fourth grader’s plate because that was the one that made his mouth water.

  Sixth graders checked out any book they wanted to in the library too, even the special books the librarian locked in her office—the ones that explained the stuff we’d talked about once the year before during P.E. There were no tables to share in the classroom or trying to avoid a neighbor’s elbow in the middle of a test either. Each kid got a desk with a writing table attached and book basket underneath, like the ones in high school. It was the best of everything.

  I wanted my sister Silvia to tell me about sixth grade too. I thought that us being sisters meant she would share all the secret things only girls knew, but the only thing we shared was our room, and that was because my parents made her. She and Angel Jr. just weren’t the same. It wasn’t always that one twin was good and one was bad, like in the movies. They were more like different parts of the same thing, like a pencil and an eraser. Sometimes they worked together; sometimes they didn’t.

  There were other ways they were supposed to be alike, but weren’t. Angel Jr. was as tall as a man. Silvia was small like me. In the same way that Clark and I had Apá’s too-broad smile, baked skin and serious eyes, the twins both had olive skin and black hair like our mom. But while Angel Jr. had a big nose and one million freckles, Silvia had a regular nose and a smooth face.

  I promised myself that when I got to be old like Silvia, or older, I wouldn’t be like her other than in the way that she dressed. I’d be nicer. I’d talk to everyone, like my dad and Angel Jr. always did. It didn’t matter that my dad’s English was rough. Apá would have talked to the president of the United States himself just as easily as he talked to the guy asking for change on the corner. I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be able to talk to anyone and give advice about school to younger kids. I especially wanted to give advice to any girls that might ask. I promised myself that when I got into seventh and eighth grade, I’d let younger girls know just what sixth grade was like.

  I tried very hard to copy Silvia in other ways, though, the ones I imagined mattered in school. We were allowed to pick out new school outfits at the end of the summer. We each got small allowances, and took turns going shopping during different weeks. When my turn came to pick out my sixth grade wardrobe, I told my parents that I didn’t want to go to Penneys. It was the only department store Downtown. I asked Amá to take me to the Korean stores on Stanton Street just like Silvia had done. Everything there was cheap. I chose things that I’d seen Silvia and her friends buying. I got red leather sneakers, one size too big. Those, my mom stuffed with cotton for me to grow into. I got four pairs of jeans and a bunch of different-colored T-shirts for every day of the week. I even got a skirt for special occasions like the first day of school. It was the jean type and long enough to hide the spider-shaped soccer scars on my knees.

  I loved soccer. My whole family had played soccer together at the park since I could remember. When we didn’t play, we watched. I played at school too. There was a P.E. tournament for every grade every spring. The winning teams got pizza parties and bragging rights. I hadn’t been to a pizza party yet, but I knew sixth grade would be different.

  When my best friend Nora came over on our last weekend of summer, I pulled out my soccer ball. We kicked it around and talked about what it’d be like to win the soccer tournament. “If we played with just two people on each team, we’d win for sure. You’re fast and I’m strong. Wouldn’t that be great?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but a pizza party wouldn’t be that great with just two of us,” she answered, wiping the sweat off her glasses with her T-shirt. “We can do that anytime.”

  She was probably right, but it would’ve still been fun. I always had a good time when Nora was around. We’d known each other since the first
grade, and had become inseparable right away, like melted cheese on tortilla chips. We laughed and told each other everything.

  Most of my expectations about sixth grade had actually come from Nora. She’d learned everything she needed to know about sixth grade at Science Camp, which was summer school for kids who loved that stuff. She had gone there for six weeks during the summer, though none of what she’d learned seemed to have anything to do with science.

  Nora had found out that we were going to be in the smart class, the A-class, together. They only spoke English in that class. We’d never been in a class like that before. Even though my parents pressed me to learn more and more English, they still only talked Spanish at home. I sometimes struggled if I tried to speak like those A-class kids. My Spanish popped through like slices of color on a yellow wall that’d been painted white. I’d always ended up in the bilingual classes because of that. It wasn’t that there was something wrong with bilingual classes, but A-class kids did seem to think they were smarter. Everyone knew their names, and other kids definitely wanted to be like them.

  Being in the A-class meant everyone would know our names too.

  “Chela Gonzalez,” Nora said as she got ready to go home. “This year is going to be different. We’re A-class now. This year, we’re going to be painfully popular!”

  CHAPTER

  2

  Talking to Apá

  One of the major things Nora had told me was that Camila, the most popular girl in our grade, was moving to a private school. Camila had always been the queen of our grade. With her gone, someone else might actually have a shot at winning the All-School Girl Trophy. According to Angel Jr., only the smartest and most popular girl and boy in school ever won the All-School Trophies.

  My thoughts raced around and around that trophy. I decided I wanted to win it real bad. Every time I thought about it, I felt short of breath like when we ran on the school soccer field. I imagined what it would be like to walk up to the cafeteria stage when the principal called out my name as the All-School Girl at the awards assembly. I’d have on a new blouse and my hair would bounce when I turned my head to thank him. I’d be the next Camila, the smart and pretty one everyone looked up to. Even while I celebrated the rumor of Camila’s endless summer, the one she’d never return from, I still wanted to be like her.

  My excitement grew and grew so much I thought I might pass out from all the running in my head. It was already nighttime and too late to call Nora. But talking to my dad usually helped me see things better.

  So the night before sixth grade started, I walked into the living room and found Apá sitting on the floor. He was reading the Spanish-language newspaper and drinking his favorite drink, a tall glass of milk with lots of ice in it. I quick kissed him on the brown of his left cheek. He turned his head toward me—wearing the hat he sometimes wore even indoors to cover his baldness. My thoughts spilled out like marbles rolling everywhere. I spoke so fast that I stumbled on my words and had to repeat myself. I told Apá what Angel Jr. had said about the All-School Trophy. I told him how much I wanted to win. I knew that with Camila gone, I could do it.

  Apá didn’t say anything at first. He sat there thinking for awhile, the way he always did. He breathed deeply and stared into space as if he could see something important. He fiddled with his pack of cigarettes and tucked one behind his ear like a pen. Then he turned back to me. “Chela, be proud of who you are. You’re going to win that trophy because you’ll work hard to be the smartest. It doesn’t matter who your competition is.”

  “¡Si, Apá! But now it’s definitely going to be easier,” I insisted.

  “You know,” Apá said, “when I was your age my father wouldn’t let me go to school because we couldn’t pay to go into the city to study. He was a poor farmer and too proud to let me take a scholarship. Most people where we came from only made it to the sixth grade. But even when I couldn’t go to school anymore, I read everything I could get my hands on.” He snapped the pages of his newspaper to make his point. “I never stopped learning.”

  I understood what Apá was saying. I needed to push myself no matter what, even if there was no school or no Camila. The only way to win the All-School Trophy was to work hard.

  Later that night, we watched an old cowboy movie on Canal Cinco, the Spanish channel. Apá asked me if I wanted to be a cowgirl. I said the first thing that popped into my head. I told him maybe I wanted to be a mom and giggled. He didn’t laugh. He told me it was a hard a job. Being a parent was like being a teacher but the after-school bell never rang. Of course, my dad made it look easy. But he also always told the truth. It made me want to be something like a lawyer or a doctor instead.

  “Go to bed, mija,” Apá said after a while. “I’ll wake you up early at six, right after I get up.” I kissed him goodnight. When I walked through the living room, Amá was laying out our first-day-of-school outfits on the red couch. There were slacks and a blouse for my sister, baggy pants and T-shirts for my older brother and little brother, and a skirt and a tee for me. My dad’s work clothes were there too. I kissed Amá goodnight.

  I walked up the stairs into my room and pulled on my pajamas. I climbed into the top bunk bed. I fell asleep and dreamt about the first day of my last year in elementary school. I dreamt that when Nora and I got to school everybody loved us and everything was perfect. Our hair and clothes were perfect. Our team won the big soccer tournament. We got straight A’s. Everyone either knew who we were or wanted to know us. We were the new queens.

  It was all perfect, except it didn’t actually happen like that.

  CHAPTER

  3

  The Darkness

  I opened my eyes to a sun already stamped on the sky. I knew instantly that more than the sun was up. There was no wake-up call as promised. It made me angry. Apá had forgotten, and we were going to be late for our first day of school.

  I nudged Silvia awake. I unhinged my jaw to complain. Then it hit me: this had never happened. My dad ALWAYS woke us up, ever since I could remember. He woke us up even when there wasn’t any school.

  “Where’s dad?” I asked Silvia.

  “I don’t know,” she yawned, “maybe he overslept. He just finished that big job.”

  My dad renovated houses—he made big fancy rooms with clean wood floors and shiny marble tile in neighborhoods with green lawns and no chain link fences. His days had been longer and harder than usual.

  I climbed out of bed, thinking that I would check on him before getting ready for school. Silvia must’ve thought of the same thing because she pushed me aside and hurried out of the room in front of me. It wasn’t a trick to try and hog the bathroom. She headed straight down the stairs.

  When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Silvia brought both her hands over her mouth. “What happened?” she squeaked.

  Apá lay frozen on the large furry brown rug in front of his bed, with Amá and Angel Jr. leaning over him. My mom held Apá’s hand and tried hard to look calm, but her eyebrows stretched too far up on her forehead for that to be true. Angel Jr.’s face scrunched up too, and his freckles looked like they were about to jump ship.

  Angel Jr. spoke fast, fattening up the minutes with words. “I heard this thump. I jumped out of bed. ‘Who’s there,’ I yelled. Then I saw Apá slumped over in the hallway. Amá rushed out of her room too. We pulled him in here and tried to lift him onto the bed, but he was too heavy.”

  “But what happened?” Silvia repeated.

  “I don’t know,” Angel Jr. said.

  Maybe he had fallen and hit his head. If he had, he wasn’t saying so. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t getting up.

  Apá’s chin was smooth, so I knew he’d been up before the sun. He always shaved in the upstairs bathroom, the one with the full-sized mirror. He’d probably come down the stairs carefully and quietly when he was done, one step at a time, to get the clothes Amá’d laid out for him on the couch. It couldn’t have been much different than other days, except for may
be he’d tripped or gotten dizzy. Only he hadn’t called for help.

  “Apá,” I urged. “Please get up and go to work. Get dressed. Put on your work jeans, and take us to school. I’ll help you lace up your boots. Please.”

  “I can’t move,” Apá slurred when he finally opened his mouth. “I don’t feel myself inside myself.”

  “Mari?” he called out. My mom squeezed his hand hard, not letting go. “Mari, I want to talk to the kids.”

  We gathered around him like what my grandma called a circle of penitents. My mom pushed gently at my arm, but I didn’t know what else to say. I’d been sideswiped by a dark feeling that only sank me deeper when I remembered I’d been angry with him when I woke up. Apá whispered to Angel Jr. to take care of us. He kissed each of us. “You go to school now and work hard,” he said. I bit the inside of my cheek until the taste of copper told me there was blood. I didn’t let out another peep. I held very still because I didn’t want to do the wrong thing. I didn’t want him to know I was scared that he was saying goodbye when no one was going anywhere, not even school.

  “I was born near the waters of the Rio Florida,” he said. The river, which had since turned into more of a dry creek, was named after the town where he and Amá grew up. “I’m going to close my eyes and wake up in those waters.”

  There was panic on Amá’s face when he said those things. It was like that time when she had a headache that wouldn’t go away no matter how many Tylenol she took. She went to the doctors who told her she had a brain tumor. She thought she was going to die. She told Apá that she couldn’t believe Diosito would let her leave us without a mother. She was right. Pretty soon her belly started to outgrow her shirt. She didn’t have a tumor—God was just sending us my little brother.

  The look on Amá’s face was that same look. It was a look that asked God how He could leave us without a father. But then her face changed. It was like someone had thrown a bucket of ice cold water on her, and she finally woke up.