The condo Pawpaw snagged was AWESOME. It was right on the beach, but there was a huge pool, too. You could go back and forth between the two. We had the whole fifth floor. There were four bedrooms, two complete bathrooms and a huge open living area that included a living room, kitchen and dining area. A balcony overlooked the pools and the beach. Pawpaw and Mawmaw didn't even have to come down to the beach to keep an eye on me. They could just sit on the balcony. Momz and Seth were out and about most afternoons and evenings, exploring. We generally ate brunch together before they took off. No one but Mawmaw and Pawpaw got up early enough to have a conventional breakfast. Keeping the peace wasn't too difficult.
I had the smallest bedroom and the one closest to the outside door. It had it's own tiny bathroom. It evidently was designed as the maid's quarters and so was placed just inside the door by the kitchen. It was perfect for me. I could get to the eats without waking anyone up, when I got the late night craving. Momz and Seth each had their own bedroom, but they shared a bathroom. Pawpaw and Mawmaw had the master bedroom and bath.
The first day the adults went shopping in Puerto Vallarta for eats and such. I begged off. I took my fantasy book and my yo-yo and went down to the pool. The place was deserted. I sat my stuff on the table and took a quick swim, lapping the pool a couple of times. I climbed out, toweled off, and picked up my yo-yo. I started by just making it go up and down. Once I got the hang of it, I tried what looked like a pretty easy trick called walking the dog. My dog didn't exactly want to walk. I was about to throw the darned yo-yo into the ocean, or bay, or whatever the body of water by the beach was when a voice behind me said, "I take it you're a yo-yo rookie."
I turned, startled. A chick about my age was standing behind me with a smile on her face. She had on a bikini that showed off her curves. I tried not to stare.
"Yeah." I sort of stared past her as I felt my cheeks turn red. "You startled me. I didn't think anyone else was out here."
About that time three young boys cannonballed into the pool, splashing us with water.
"I wish." She started toweling off. She shouted something in Spanish and shot the bird at the boys. "Those crazies are my brothers," she said. "Name's Sasha Gonzalez."
"CW Braisford." I wondered if Mexican's shook hands or if they just did the kissy cheek thing. She hadn't offered her hand, though, so I didn't either. "Your first name doesn't sound Spanish. And your English is really good."
"My name's not Spanish. My Mom was reading a novel with a Russian heroine when she was pregnant with me. So, I'm Sasha. My English comes from attending the American School my whole life. What's CW for?"
"You'd rather not know," I screwed up my nose. "Nothing as cool as Sasha. And my Spanish is pretty much non-existent. I've got hola, audios, gracias, and denada down pat, though."
She laughed. "That's okay. The terrible three," she waved at her brothers, "speak very little English. The twins are five. They just started at the American school. The little one is only three, so he's got a couple of years before he's in school. If we speak English, they can't tell my parents anything I say." She slid her sunglasses down on her nose so she was looking over them. She sort of batted her eyelashes. "Now, tell me. What's CW for?"
I could feel the red creeping up my neck again. "Chauncy Wayne," I whispered. "Don't tell anyone or you forfeit your life."
"Yeah, I'd stick to CW, too. Good thing it's not Wayne Chauncy. Then you'd be WC. Who wants to be named after the bathroom."
"What?" Then it clicked in. "Oh, you mean water closet. That's British. Most Americans don't even know it means the bathroom." I changed the subject. "Where is your school? I didn't know they had an American school in Vallarta."
"Oh, it's not here. It's in Guadalajara. We're just here for the holidays." One of the little ones ran up and tugged on Sasha's towel and said something in Spanish. She sighed. "I have to watch them." She waved towards the bathhouse. "He needs to go the baño, that's the bathroom."
"Got it. Will he go with me?"
She said something to him in Spanish. He ginned and said, "Si," with a string of incomprehensible words after it. She boxed him playfully on the ear and said something to him that I was sure meant something like loser.
He took my hand and started dragging me towards the bathroom. "What did he say?" I spoke the words over my shoulder as I was being tugged away.
"You don't want to know," she called after me.
"Okay, spill it," I said when I got back. "I told you my embarrassing name."
She laughed. "He asked if you were my new boyfriend." This time her cheeks turned scarlet. "I told him not to be an idiot. That's translating loosely."
I waved towards the boys. "They're quite a handful, aren't they?"
"Not really. They don't bother me, most of the time. They're being crazier because I'm talking to you instead of reading or playing on my phone. Besides, you think they're bad; wait until the weekend. Our whole family shows up here for Christmas week."
"This isn't your whole family?"
"Well, it's my whole family, if you're talking about just me and my brothers and parents. But in Mexico, the whole family means the whole family, you know grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins."
"So your whole family fits in one of those condos? Ours only has four rooms. Are there ones that cover two floors?"
"No and no." She laughed. "My grandparents own the sixth floor. We're staying with them in that condo. My uncle owns the seventh floor. His family, a wife and three sons a little older than my brothers, will get here on Friday, late. My Dad's sister and her family will get here on Saturday afternoon. She, her husband and their three little girls will stay with my uncle. There will be kids all over the floors at night. My other Uncle and his partner will get here on Sunday. They bunk with us."
I had been adding in my head. "So there'll be 19 people staying in two condos? There's only five of us. Any more would be a crowd."
"I know. It is kind of crowded, but since I'm the only girl, I get a room to myself. It's really the maid's room, but who cares. The family thing is okay, but I'm older than the others. My Mom got pregnant before she was supposed to." She sort of rolled her eyes. "She and my Dad didn't get married. I have a," she hesitated, "step-father?" She didn't wait for me to confirm it. "Anyway, I'm glad you're here. At least I'll have someone to talk to and do stuff with." Suddenly her eyes widened. "You are here for Christmas, aren't you?"
"Yeah." I smiled. "And I'll be happy to hang with you."
She looked puzzled. "Hang is slang for," I stopped and thought about it. She probably wouldn't understand hang out, either. "Uh, sit around and talk and stuff," I finished lamely.
She grinned. "Hang. I'll have to try that out on my friends at school, see if any of them understand."
I laughed. "Go up to one of the boys and say, "Yo, you wanna hang, dude?"
"Yo? Wanna?"
"Hola, do you want to," I interpreted.
She laughed again. "Ok. Dude."
"Homies?" I asked and held out my hand.
"What?" She looked at my hand.
"Homies means friends." I kind of shook my hand up and down. "I was asking you to shake my hand to prove you are my friend."
"Weird." But she stuck out her hand. "Homies," she said.
After a while someone came out on the balcony above ours and hollered something in Spanish. "That's abuelita." She waved in the general direction of the woman. "That's Spanish for grandma. We have to go eat. You wanna come, homie?"
I laughed. "Not this time. I promised Mawmaw I'd help her decorate the tree."
"Mawmaw?"
"I call my grandparents Mawmaw and Pawpaw. That's the names some people in South Louisiana use, but there's lots of ways to say grandma and grandpa in English.
"Mine are abuelita and abuelito. You can call them Viejo and Vieja in Spanish,too." She grinned. "It means Old Lady and Old Man. My Dad doesn't think it shows enough respect."
"That's funny. In America, kids call their parents their old lady and their old man, but not usually to their face. I might tell my friends my old lady made me do something, but I would call her Momz or Mom or Mama to her face. If I said old lady to her face, it wouldn't show respect."
She began shooing the boys out of the pool. As they headed upstairs, she stopped and called over her shoulder. "I'll be out this afternoon while the boys sleep. I don't take a siesta. How about you? If you come out, I'll have my yo-yo. I can teach you some tricks."
"You do yo-yo tricks?"
"Yeah, my Dad taught me some when I was younger. I do them sometimes to relax, but not usually when my homies are around." She shrugged. "Since you were trying to do some, though, you won't laugh at me. You can be my yo-yo homie."
I laughed. "Ok. Why don't you stop by my condo? If we haven't finished decorating, you can help and then we'll go to the pool."
"And hang." She flashed her dimples.
That encounter set the tone for the holidays. Sasha and I hung out most days, except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Those days were for family.
My family opened presents on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning was for stockings and Santa. Even though I knew my Momz was Santa, we still did the Santa thing for whatever major gift she chose to give me. It gave me a second day of Christmas gifting. We each put something in the other's stocking, too.
After Mawmaw put up the tree, everyone put gifts under it. I made sure I put Popz last gift with the ones that were from me.
On Christmas Eve, we started the celebration around 6pm. Pawpaw read the Christmas story from the Bible. Then we sang Christmas songs. Most were carols, but I chose "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree." The problem with that was most of us could only remember "Rocking around the Christmas tree, have a jolly holiday," and then it turned in to la, la, la. It got us all laughing, though.
After that, Mawmaw put on her Santa hat that looked like it was from a Dr. Zeuss book. There was a tiny bell at the end of the red fuzzy spiral that sprang out of the top of a red skullcap with white fur for trim. Every time she bent over, it tinkled.
The way we did gifts was by age. That meant I got one first. We went up by age until Pawpaw got one and then we'd start over. Everyone watched while a gift was opened and showed appropriate excitement before the next gift was given. So, when Mawmaw handed me Popz gift, everyone was watching.
"Who's it from?" Pawpaw boomed.
"Popz," I said.
"Who?" Mawmaw asked.
"It's from Paul, Mama," Momz said.
"Oh," Mawmaw said.
I ripped off the paper. Inside was a small, black, leather-bound Bible. There was a Dove on the front. CW Braisford was etched across the bottom. Inside the front cover was a picture of Popz being raised up out of a baptismal tank. Across the top of the picture were the words, "This is my adopted son. He pleases me." There was a DVD in the back of the Bible. I took a folded paper out of the DVD cover. "This DVD contains the following Bible stories read aloud by Paul Braisford for his son CW." There was a list of a dozen Bible stories followed by the biblical reference where they could be found. The name of each story was followed by a tiny piece of colored paper. Small matching post-its marked the places where the stories were located in the Bible.
I looked up. Everyone was watching me. I held up the DVD. "Popz recorded 12 Bible stories for me," I passed the Bible to Mawmaw with it open to Popz picture.
"Oh, my, James, look." There were tears in her eyes. "We never stopped praying, and look. God found him and adopted him. Praise God."
Momz was looking down. I couldn't see her eyes. Seth had his hands on her shoulders. Suddenly Momz looked up. "You never stopped praying?" she asked. "After everything I went through?"
"Especially after everything you went through," Mawmaw said. "It couldn't have been for nothing, Patty. God had to bring something good from it."
"But not this," Momz protested, pointing at the baptismal picture. "How can God just forgive him after everything he did? At least one boy he sold drugs to died. Who knows what other lives he ruined. It's just not right."
"Oh, sweetheart," Mawmaw said, sitting down by Momz. "Think about what you're saying. If we all got what we deserved, none of us would be forgiven. Yes, he did some terrible things, and he's paying the price. But God is in the business of forgiveness. He wants all of us to come to him and confess. You have to give him your bitterness, Patty. You just have to."
"I'm trying." She laced her fingers together and turned them inside out . "I really am."
"Besides," Pawpaw said, "Think of the difference he can make where he is and after he's released. With his background, maybe he can save some boys and men that are on the brink of becoming what he was."
"It's time for Momz next gift," I interjected, uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.
We finished opening gifts and then had a junk food feast. I pigged on mini pizzas, queso and scoops, tiny pigs in the blanket, and every kind of Christmas candy or cookie imaginable.
Afterwards I said to Momz, "Sasha said the Catholic church always has a candlelight midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Why don't we go?"
We walked to the church and joined with the locals for a mass we couldn't understand, but all those candles made it an interesting service. One of the twins almost caught abuelita's shawl on fire. We recognized most of the carols and sang in English while they sang in Spanish.
After we got home, we all went into the living room at different times and put stuff in the stockings. Momz told me to go first because I was the most likely to peak.
"You and Popz broke me of that with the six days of Christmas, remember?" I said.
"Well, we tried." She smiled. "I'm pretty sure all we did was make you sneak around more."
The next morning we got stockings. I was the only one with anything from Santa. He left me a brand new I-pad to replace my outdated one.
"If you want to leave the old one here," Mawmaw said, "there are lots of boys who could make good use of one."
"If you only knew," I thought. "This makes three."
We had a huge turkey spread about one o'clock. I ate so much I was about to split. I had to try all four kinds of pie. I just couldn't decide which of them looked the yummiest.
The day before we were supposed to leave, Sasha brought me a carved St. Christopher on a leather neck strap. "He's the patron saint of travelers," she said. "Maybe he'll bring you back next Christmas."
I gave her a beaded medicine bag Aunt Glory had made. In the bag was a hand-blown blue glass heart. "My aunt made this." I held up the tiny bag made into a necklace. "The American natives believe that whatever you put inside is good medicine. There's a heart inside. It means you'll always have a strong heart."
"But your aunt made if for you."
"She gave me two. She said that I'd know when I needed to give one away. You need a strong heart to deal with those three demons you call brother." I grinned.
She laughed. "Okay. In that case, thanks. She put it around her neck. I'll stay strong until next Christmas," she said.
"We can talk and text on Wattsapp or Skype. You do have those on your phone, don't you?"
"Yep." She held out her phone so I could see the apps.
When we got on the plane on December 30th, I was fairly happy for the first time in months. Things were okay with Momz and Seth. I had a new friend that I could tell things without it getting around school. Life was looking up.