A Mexican Valentine
It's Joaquina's first day on the job as our housekeeper, and she's outraged at how much my husband Skip and I have paid a roving vendor for clean-up rags. Newcomers to our Mexican village, we hadn't known we should haggle about the price. Joaquina chases the vendor down the street, renegotiates the price, and extracts a refund. From that day forward, she made it her mission to protect our interests and school us in the practicalities of village life.
When she came to work for us, we didn't speak Spanish and we'd never had household help. Our contractor said we'd need a housekeeper. He suggested Joaquina. She was deaf, he said, and because of nerve damage she had limited use of one hand. But she was out of work, needed a break, and he thought she could do the job. "A tough old bird," he called her.
I don't remember when I started calling Joaquina "mi tía loca," my crazy aunt, but it's a term of endearment that always makes her laugh. She's a complex, unusual person -- "un poco loca" is how she puts it. Even though we're not related, "aunt" seems apt. After seven years together, we've become as close as family members, and I have to ask myself, "What makes someone 'family'"?
Although she became deaf at nine because of an ear infection, didn't finish high school, and never had any special education, Joaquina writes and speaks Spanish in a formal, often florid style. An expert lip reader, she likes to coach me on vocabulary, grammar, slang, and profanity. When she explains crass expressions, she says she is educating me about Mexican street talk. If I should hear these phrases, I should not make the mistake of using them.
Joaquina lives with her ten cats and her cocker spaniel, Barbi, in a ramshackle, concrete block house that she built herself. She has had several partners in the past, but she is emphatic about not wanting another one. "I'm 60 years old. I've lived a long time without a husband, and I don't want anyone telling me what to do," she confides. Her four grown children and five of her grandchildren live in the village, and she visits them frequently. Living alone suits her well, she says. For one thing, it gives her time for oil painting, her passion.
Joaquina doesn't look like someone who would enjoy making sentimental gestures. Always dressed in a tee shirt, sneakers, and men's pants cut off into knee-length shorts, she cultivates a no-nonsense image. Her thick black hair is cropped short. She has a large-boned face with a jutting lower jaw. You wouldn't guess that she likes to mark special occasions -- birthdays, the safe return from a trip -- with cards, handwritten notes, and e-mail messages. Valentine's Day could have been made for her.
In Mexico, as in the United States, February 14th is a day to celebrate romance. Red roses, candy in heart-shaped boxes, and romantic cards are for sale everywhere. El Día de Amor y Amistad, the Day of Love and Friendship, as it is called, is also an occasion to let friends know you care.
In 2005 we started what was to become a Valentine's Day tradition: dinner with Joaquina. She suggested we go to Chalupa's restaurant, a modest place in the village that is popular with both Mexicans and Americans. She enjoyed being out socially with us, though she felt self-conscious. "People will see us and gossip," she said. "They'll say, 'Who does she think she is, hanging out with the people she works for?' But I don't care."
By 2007, Valentine's Day had become an extended observance in our household. On the 14th I was in the States visiting family, and I received an e-mail from Joaquina. It began with her usual greeting, Hola, mi linda jefecita," " Hello, my pretty little boss." Her message translated as "that you should have a delightful day with your children and dearest friends, that it should be a day worthy of remembering in posterity, full of happiness, tenderness, and special memories." She added a quick report about Skip -- he had not been eating enough vegetables, which she said is often the case when I am away -- and closed: "Please accept my best wishes and sincere affection today and always."
Meanwhile, in Mexico, Joaquina had bought red and white carnations and a box of chocolate-covered cherries for Skip. The two of them were eating a lot of candy, he said, but he would try to save a few pieces for me.
Our celebratory dinner that year was homey and intimate. I had suggested going to a restaurant, but Joaquina wanted to stay in and have Italian food. So I bought lasagna from the Italian bakery, and Skip and I made garlic bread, salad and a cake. After dinner, we sat on the porch and talked about her life and ours -- her aspiration to have her own business someday, maybe a fruit stand; our cat; her ten cats; the grandchildren in California whom she misses; the grandchildren in Connecticut whom I miss.
In 2008, we delayed the Valentine's Day observance because Joaquina had injured her foot. When I visited her at her home, she was putting the finishing touches on an oil painting. I admired the picture and then she broke the news: She had decided to leave her job with us. She wanted more time to paint, and she was finally going to set up her fruit stand. "But," she asked, "could you find some work for me now and then? You know how much I care about you."
"Of course!" I said.
When she was walking again, we returned to Chalupa's. She brought me one of her paintings and we talked about the fruit stand. She'd applied for her vendor's permit and she had a good location picked out, on the main street under a shade tree. I gave her news about my family. It was comfortable, relaxed conversation, the kind you have when you share a lot of history with someone.
These days the house is too quiet. I plan to find tasks for Joaquina, so she can be here at least some of the time. Is she a friend, employee, family member? I don't know. I never could fit the relationship into a neat category, and I stopped trying. But I know that around next February 14th, we will have dinner as usual.
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