“Oh, I love it,” Diane said. “I’m sick of it being winter.”
“Winters in New York,” Francisco declaimed, looking up, arms spreading, like a hero in a Broadway musical about to transpose into song. “Beautiful women in long coats.” He smiled at her as if she were one of them. “And that air! There’s nothing like taking a deep breath on Fifth Avenue on a cold February night. Clears all the junk out of your head.”
“You’ve been away a long time,” Diane said. “Now the air is polluted.”
“It was always polluted. Wonderfully full of pollution.” Diane laughed. “Really,” he assured her. “There are ideas in that air. It even makes the stupid people think. They don’t think great thoughts, but at least they think. Down here, and in Cuba, when it gets too hot, everybody sits around stupefied, sweating their brains out. You can’t have a serious conversation in Havana until the sun sets. And in Tampa! It’s too humid. Even at night, it’s impossible.”
“Don’t say that to her!” Pepín slapped Francisco’s back, but feebly, hand trembling. “This is a good place to live. Of course she likes our weather. Nobody wants to be cold.”
“Don’t get agitated,” Francisco said in Spanish. “I’m not serious.”
“You sound serious,” Pepín complained. His mouth quivered as if he were going to cry. He switched to English and insisted to Diane, “Many people like to visit Tampa. They put up a new building almost every day. And we may get a baseball team,” he added to Cuco. “People love to come here,” he said to me.
“Of course,” I said. “Diane and I will come every winter to escape the cold.”
This earned me a stare from my father, the first look that acknowledged I was in the room.
“That’s right,” Pepín said. His trembling hands went to his already buttoned collar, ready to button it again. “You can come for Noche Buena and stay through New Year’s. Make a good vacation.” He looked down, confused that he couldn’t button the collar. “Ah,” he said and added in Spanish: “It’s buttoned.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “That’s what we’ll do.”
“Great,” my father said as he moved to leave the room. “Why don’t you make your reservations now?”
Diane reached for him. “Wait.”
Francisco paused at the doorway.
“Is it all right if I dress this casually?’”
Francisco stepped to her, bent over, and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re lovely. Don’t worry, they won’t mistake you for a peasant. They’ll know they’re dealing with a superior person.” He moved off, out of the room, saying, “But us Latinos, we’d better put on the dog.”
Cuco poured the heated milk and espresso in a large mug for me. Pepín continued to stand in the middle of the room and look at nothing, his hands worried and worrying at his clothes, touching his cuffs, pulling at the ironed crease of his pants, feeling his collar. At one point he undid his belt buckle, stared at the separated pieces, then refastened them. He smiled afterwards and commented in Spanish, “It’s hot, no?”
By then Cuco had left to dress and Diane and I were talking in whispers. We had tried to engage Grandpa in conversation, but he seemed not to hear our questions, and that was the first time he had spoken on his own. “Do you want to open your collar?” I asked.
“My collar?” A hand went to his throat. His fingers pressed all around the top button and he frowned.
I stood up. “Should I undo it?”
“No, no,” he backed away, turning toward the barred window, a hand guarding his throat. “No,” he said once more, softer, sadly.
I sat down. Diane held my hand. “Your father’s very charming,” she said.
“I told you.”
“And he’s very handsome.”
“I can’t believe he’s seventy-four.”
She squeezed my hand. “You look like him, you know. Very much like him.”
“That must stick in his craw.”
“No …” Diane was disappointed. “He must like it.”
“Makes it harder to deny me.” Pepín tapped me on the shoulder. “Yes, Grandpa?”
He spoke in English. “This is no problem. Don’t worry about it. It will be no problem.”
“I won’t,” I said. He patted my shoulder and winked. “What shouldn’t I worry about?”
“Today! Don’t you remember the appointment?”
“Oh, yes. I’m not worried,” I assured him.
“Good. Because there’s nothing to worry about.”
Cuco appeared, dressed in what appeared to be brand-new chinos and a white dress shirt, also with no tie. “We must go. Papá’s bringing the car out of the garage.”
That was the first time I heard Cuco refer to my father as Papá, his natural address for Francisco. I envied him and had to push down a swell of resentment. Perhaps that was why, when we went outside to find Francisco behind the wheel of Pepín’s white Buick, I walked to the driver’s window and leaned in to ask him, “Do you have a valid license to drive in America?”
Francisco stared ahead as if he weren’t going to answer. Cuco opened the rear door for my grandfather and Diane. There was some conversation amongst them about where Diane should sit. I maintained my position, leaning in, less than a foot from Francisco’s face. My father turned his head to me after a moment. I felt a jolt in my chest as his warm brown eyes looked deep into mine. They seemed the absolute master of what they surveyed. “No, Officer,” he said with a mocking lilt. “As a matter of fact my license has expired.”
“Then I’d better drive,” I said.
Francisco looked forward again. Diane and Grandpa had gotten into the back, Diane in the middle, Grandpa on the right, with space on the left, presumably for me. Cuco opened the passenger door. “Sit in the back,” Francisco said to him in Spanish and slid over to the passenger side.
So I drove. My father directed me in a cold authoritarian voice, as if he were training a dog. I obeyed like a star pupil.
After we left the first home, Grandpa said over and over in a faint voice that the place was nice. We rejected it, however, for being little more than a dreary boarding house run by a thin man with an unctuous manner. The manager followed us all the way to the car, saying he hated to rush us, since he thought Mr. Neruda was a gentleman and also obviously very intelligent. “He would be an asset,” he said, a curious choice of word I thought. “But,” the manager added ruefully, “I have one vacant bed and it’ll go quickly.” I got a smile out of my father by whispering as I pulled away from the curb, “Uriah Heep.”
Francisco forgot to maintain his unresponsiveness. “Yes, he’s probably stealing their Social Security checks and feeding them gruel.”
“Right,” I said. “Or taking the checks and burying his clients in the backyard so he can save on the gruel.”
“Shhh,” Diane said and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. She glanced at my grandfather, who, indeed, appeared to understand enough of our sarcasm to be alarmed.
Francisco told me the next address and what my first turn would be. In the back seat, Cuco and Diane explained to Grandpa why Uriah Heep’s Retirement Home wasn’t right for him. Perhaps because this gave us a moment of privacy, my father volunteered to speak to me, albeit in a low voice. “You read Dickens?”
“Because of you,” I answered. “You practically forced me to read Oliver Twist when I was eight. And in Spain you used to read Great Expectations to me before bedtime.”
Francisco nodded and mumbled, “You remember.”
“Of course,” I said. “As a matter of fact, when they’re old enough, I encourage my young patients to read him. From their point of view, Dickens doesn’t seem all that out of date.”