“Furthermore, Mrs. Dallas wants you to forget your Mexican background immediately. Never talk about your family or the…slum village you come from. It is an embarrassment to her to have any reminders of it or of your family. Your cousins don’t speak Spanish very well, so don’t hope for that.
“Eventually, Señora Dallas will make your adoption formal, and you will become a legal American citizen, but until then, you are to earn your bed and board here just like any other servant. Señora Rosario will show you where you sleep and will tell you what your duties are. You are not to wander about the property without permission or go into anyone else’s room without permission. You are to do your work properly and efficiently, and you will be held accountable for anything you break or damage.”
“What about school?” I asked him.
“Until you learn enough English to get by, you will not attend public school here. Those are your aunt’s specific orders. For the time being, until otherwise instructed, you are not to tell anyone that you are Señora Dallas’s niece.”
What?
I looked at her. Of course, she understood everything he was saying in Spanish, but she kept her face unchanged and stared at me.
“Por qué?” I asked. I had to know why I couldn’t do that. She was my mother’s sister. We had the same blood.
She muttered something to him that I couldn’t hear.
“Señora Dallas is a woman of high regard in Palm Springs. She is very well respected and admired. She would find it an embarrassment for people here to know that she has such an uneducated, unwashed relative living under her roof.”
“Unwashed?”
“She doesn’t mean you’re dirty. It simply means unsophisticated, uneducated.”
“I’m not uneducated. I go to school,” I said.
“It’s not the same thing. Don’t worry. I’ll be teaching you all about social etiquette. I’m very good at what I do. I’ll have you ready for school in no time, if you listen and do what I tell you to do,” he added, smiling and drawing very close to me.
He’s the one who looks unwashed, I thought. His teeth were yellow, and now that he was close to me, I could see he wasn’t very care
ful about how he shaved. There were tiny pockets of stubble along his jaw bone. He put his hand on my upper left arm.
“Repeat after me, Delia, in English. Thank you, Mrs. Dallas. I am pleased to be here and grateful for all you are doing for me. Go on.” He winked. “She’ll like that.”
He repeated it, urging me strongly.
I turned to her and said it.
“See how easy that was?”
“Well, John,” my aunt said, relaxing her posture, “if anyone can turn her into something at least tolerable, it’s you, I’m sure.”
“I might need to spend a lot more time with her,” he said, scrutinizing me as if he were going to adopt me and not her. “I’ll let you know when we begin and I see how much we have to do. I have no idea how quickly she can learn.”
“Spend as much time as you want. She has no important appointments at the moment,” she added, and they both laughed. I knew the words spend and time and important. I could figure out that they were making fun of me.
“Dare I say I see some resemblance between you?” Señor Baker asked her, pointing to me and to her.
“No. She looks more like her father than my sister.”
“Your aunt says you look like your father,” he told me. I took it as the first sign of familial warmth, but when I looked at my aunt, she seemed even angrier. I was afraid to say anything or even smile.
I glanced at the front door. The thought crossed my mind that I should pick up my suitcase and walk out now, but how would I get back to Mexico? I had no money, and I didn’t even know the way back. Abuela Anabela would be so disappointed, too, even if I did find my way home.
My aunt saw the look in my face and the direction of my gaze.
“Tell her she can leave anytime she wants and go back to that squalor she calls home,” she told Señor Baker, who translated for me.
I looked directly at her now. I would not speak through him.
“I am here,” I told her in Spanish. “I will do what I must to make you happy, and in the end, you will be proud to have people know me as your niece.”