“Well?” she asked. “What is your prediction about her ability to learn? Should I bother wasting your time and my money?”
“Oh, she’s a good student,” he told her, looked at me, smiled, and repeated in Spanish what he had said. “But with her spending so much time on housework and me traveling back and forth, it’s going to take a while, Isabela. She’s very distracted concentrating on pleasing you here. There’s so much competing for her attention. She hardly has time to study and read. I can’t perform miracles.”
“What do you suggest, John?” she asked him, smirking.
He shrugged and looked at me again. “I could do wonders with her in two weeks if…”
“If what, John?”
“Well, I favor the Helen Keller method when it comes to a situation like this,” he said. “Someone who can’t speak our language, comes from a place that’s like another planet, someone like her,” he said, turning to me and nodding, “is really like someone deaf, dumb, and blind. She needs to be dependent on me to learn quickly. She then learns out of the need to survive as much as anything, but that obvious
ly speeds things up. Unless you don’t mind how long it takes, of course.”
“Of course, I mind it. Do you think I want her here like this forever?” she snapped back at him. “Look at how much she has embarrassed me just in the past twenty-four hours. My sister probably got herself killed deliberately just to make me suffer.”
Señor Baker smiled.
“Go on, laugh. You don’t know what I went through before I escaped that world.”
He shrugged again. I wished I understood more of what they were saying. I did understand that she was complaining about me. I was struggling with the few words I understood. Was all this anger caused by my forgetting my books? Señor Baker turned to me.
“Then I’m not proposing anything you’ll think terribly unfair or cruel.”
She stared at me, making me feel uncomfortable.
“If you feel her grandmother wouldn’t approve…” he continued.
“I don’t care what anyone back in Mexico thinks!” she cried.
He nodded. “Delia,” he began in Spanish, “how would you like to stay with me for a while and just spend all day and night learning how to speak English? No more housework for now.”
I looked at my aunt and then at him and then at my aunt and shook my head. I didn’t fully understand yet, but staying with him? Did that mean moving into his house?
“She doesn’t like the idea,” my aunt said, smiling coolly. “No?” she asked me, her smile still unnerving.
“No, por favor,” I said.
“No, please,” Señor Baker corrected. “Please. Say please.”
“Please.”
“See?” he told my aunt. “Imagine my being able to do that day and night for two weeks.”
“Yes,” she said. “I see what you mean. You’re right. Besides, I’m not interested in what she wants and doesn’t want. She’s already opened her big mouth and told Edward she’s his cousin.” She glared at me. “After I specifically said not to mention that to anyone!”
“It had to come out sooner or later, Isabela,” Señor Baker said.
“Later would have been better. Mrs. Rosario!” she screamed. She went to the doorway.
I looked at Señor Baker. He was staring at me strangely. It made me feel naked.
“Todo será bien,” he said, trying to calm me down, assuring me that all was going to be just fine.
I looked at my aunt again. She shouted once more for Señora Rosario, who came hurrying down the hallway.
What did he mean, everything would be fine? What was happening?
My aunt spoke quickly to Señora Rosario and then turned back to Señor Baker.