“I have some people I’d like to tell we are coming, some of my grandmother’s friends.”
He turned to Jesse to explain, and then Jesse got on the phone.
“You can tell them we’ll be there by the Sunday following your last day of class,” he said. “I’ve plotted it out with the computer. What is this hotel like, this Hotel Los Jardines Hermosos?”
I laughed. “That is the hotel in the village. It has maybe six rooms and a patch of land with some cactus flowers, but the owners are nice people, and the rooms will be clean. It’s just a place to sleep,” I said. “Don’t expect any more.”
“Six rooms? I had better make reservations, then,” he said.
“They will be shocked to hear the request.”
“I’ll use your name.”
“Yes, use my name,” I said, smiling to myself at how they would react. “Thank you, Jesse.”
Edward came back on the phone to tell me he would book our tickets and advised me again to watch out for Sophia and be careful. He wished me a good
time on the weekend, too.
It was hard to get to sleep afterward. My anticipation of this trip to my village was overwhelming. I couldn’t wait to write down the details and get them to Ignacio. For me to send them so soon after I had told him of the possibility would be wonderful for him.
And for me, I thought.
For a while, I completely forgot about Adan and our upcoming weekend. The only name on my lips and the only face in my dreams and thoughts were Ignacio’s. It helped me to have a good, restful sleep.
Tía Isabela was at the breakfast table before either Sophia or I was the following morning. If Señora Rosario had told her anything about our dinner the night before, she did not reveal it when Sophia greeted her. I was already at the table, and we were talking about my upcoming trip to Newport Beach with Adan. She was telling me about the time she and her husband had owned a boat she described as a small yacht. They had kept it at Newport Beach and had even traveled to some ports in Mexico. She said it slept eight people, and they often had guests, business associates and their wives, with them on their trips. It sounded as if they rarely had taken Edward and Sophia, and she did reveal that most of the time on the boat was before the two of them were old enough to enjoy it.
“After my husband got sick, we sold the boat,” she explained.
“What about the boat?” Sophia asked as she entered.
“Well, I’m glad you got up, dressed, and down to breakfast before it was time to leave,” Tía Isabela said.
Sophia plopped into her seat. “It would be great if we still had that boat, not that I remember it much,” she said. “Why are you talking about it now?”
I realized she didn’t know about my plans for Saturday with Adan.
“We were talking about Delia’s excursion with Adan on Saturday,” Tía Isabela said.
“Excursion?”
“They’re going on the Bovio yacht.”
“You are?” she asked me. “How come you didn’t tell me?”
“Why does she have to tell you?” Tía Isabela asked.
Sophia looked at her mother with such hate I felt my heart stop and start.
“You’re treating her more like she’s your daughter and not just your niece.”
“When you show me you respect your family, respect me, I’ll have an easier time thinking of you as my daughter,” Tía Isabela replied.
“I’m doing what you want,” Sophia whined. “I got an eighty-five on the math quiz and an eighty on the social studies quiz, didn’t I, Delia?”
I nodded.
“Good. Keep it up,” Tía Isabela said.