translations of the spanish are included in brackets. thanks to @florchis for help with translating! any other mistakes are mine, and please feel free to correct me. i’m cuban myself, so all culture stuff is from personal experience.
The phone rings in the kitchen. Jake sighs and pauses the tv, already wishing he could get back to it.
It’s the first time all week that he’s gotten a chance to sit down and actually catch up on his shows. Well, he says shows. All he really does is turn on HGTV and watch House Hunters until he can’t keep his eyes open.
But hey, it’s what he likes. He’s never liked sitcoms or intricate fantasy subplots.
He stands up from the couch, grabs his water, and makes his way into the kitchen. It’s nine at night, and he’s alone in the apartment. Amy’s working a late shift, trying to solve a case that she’s been working on for two weeks.
His dinner was a microwaved hot dog and a glass of water. He doesn’t know why he bothers leaving the office without her, except that he’s been craving some time where he doesn’t have to talk to anyone. Even his wife.
He reaches the landline, dodging the sticky spot on the floor that’s been there for four days. “Yeah?”
“Mijita, para el cumpleaños de Jorgito- permiso, ¿quien estas? ¿Donde esta Amy?” [Honey, for Jorgito’s birthday- excuse me, who is this? Where is Amy?]
“Uh-” he says. His Spanish is still pretty terrible, all things considered. “Estoy su- darn it, uh- su esposa. Esposo. Estoy el esposo de Amy.” [I’m her- darn it, uh- her wife. Husband. I’m Amy’s husband.]
“Ah, Jacob!” says the woman on the other end. “I am Amy’s Tia Maria Carmen.”
Her English is accented but carefully pronounced, as if she knows he can’t speak Spanish. “Hi,” he says, relieved. “Sorry, Amy’s still at work. She won’t be home for a while. Hard case and all.”
“Ah,” says Maria. “She has always worked hard.” Jake can hear her smile on the other end of the line. “I am glad to speak with you, Jacob. Your wedding was so complicated.”
“Yeah,” he says, smiling ruefully, even though she can’t see him. “Bomb threats and all. I’m sorry none of you got to make it.”
Okay, so he was looking forward to his night off, but he doesn’t mind taking a few minutes to talk to Amy’s aunt. He regrets not getting to meet her extended family at the wedding. She’s so close with them, and he wants to meet the family he married into.
“We wish we had gotten to go, too,” says Maria. “To see Amy’s wedding, and to meet you. But you are coming to Jorgito’s party on Sunday, yes?”
“Uh...” he says, thinking fast. They hadn’t gotten an invitation in the mail, but that might mean he missed it. Should he try to cover his tracks? Oh, well, everyone already knows he has the attention span of a fly. “I didn’t know there was one.”
She chuckles. “It is okay. This is why I called Amy. The invitation says 12:30, but everyone should show up at 1:30.”
“Oh,” he says. “Why not just put 1:30 on the invitation?”
“Because they will arrive at 2:30,” she says, patiently. “Can you tell her, please?”
“Yeah, of course,” he says. “I think we can make it.” Rule number one of relationships: don’t agree on behalf of both of you until you get to discuss it. “But I’ll have to check with Amy.”
“Tell her to tell her mother,” says Maria. “She will tell me. Thank you, Jacob. It was nice to speak with you.”
She pronounces his name Yakob, sort of like the Hebrew pronunciation. It’s strangely comforting.
“Sure thing,” he says. “Goodnight.”
“Hasta luego,” she says, and hangs up.
A few hours later, Amy unlocks the door and walks inside, waking him up from his light doze on the couch. She hangs up her coat and leans down to kiss his forehead. “Hey, babe.”
“Hi, Ames,” he whispers.
As he feels around the couch for the remote to turn off Property Brothers, she goes into the bedroom to take off her shoes and plug in her phone. He pulls the remote over and squints to find the power button.
He must fall asleep again, because the next thing he knows, she’s lying down on the couch, molded to his side.
“How’s the case?” he asks, yawning. He puts an arm around her shoulder, relishing having her close. He’s gotten his alone-time and is back to loving his Amy-time.
“It’s going well. We’re gonna crack it tomorrow. I have a good feeling.”
“Awesome,” he murmurs, and then blinks awake. “Oh, right. Your aunt called.”
He can hear the frown in her voice. “My aunt?”
“Your Tia Maria.”
She shakes her head, her hair brushing against his shoulder. “Which one? There’s three.”
“Maria... hm... wait, there’s actually three of them? That’s cool. I don’t remember her name, though. It was a C-name.”
“Maria Carmen?”
“Yes!” he says, pointing at the ceiling. “Yes. She called about Jorgito’s birthday party on Sunday?”
“Yeah?” says Amy. “We got the invitation.”
“Oh, we did?” he says. “That’s one question answered. Anyways, she wanted to tell you to show up at 1:30, not 12:30.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“Why did she do that?” he asks, just realizing it. “I mean, you’re super punctual.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Cubans are generally late to things, so people put early times on the invitation. It’s cultural.”
“And you’re never late.”
“Nope,” says Amy. “Not me, not my brothers, not my parents. So we have to show up an hour later on purpose.”
“But your parents’ sister still put late times on the invitations? Your parents are the odd ones of their siblings, huh.”
“What? My aunt- oh. Tia Carmen isn’t my aunt, technically. None of the Marias are. Tia translates to aunt, but it really means any female relative that’s my parents’ age or older.”
“Oh,” says Jake. “That... makes things easier.”
“Yeah,” says Amy. She kisses his shoulder, and he smiles into the darkness. “You didn’t have any problems understanding her?”
“What? No. Her accent was really understandable. She spoke really slowly for me too, which was nice.”
“Yeah,” says Amy. “Good. Of course, that’s why she called you. She has the best English out of all the aunts.”
“What?” asks Jake. “She didn’t call me, remember? She called you.”
“No,” says Amy, drawing out the word. “I told my mom that I was staying late at the precinct today. The aunts show up to my parents’ house on Wednesday nights, when my grandmother holds coffee hour, and my mom would have told them I was busy. Not to mention I already know to show up an hour after the time on the invitation.” She smiles into his shoulder. “Anyway, if someone were actually going to call me about Jorgito’s birthday party, it would be Jorge.”
“Who’s Jorge?”
“Jorgito’s dad,” says Amy, like it’s obvious. On second thought, it probably was. “My second cousin.”
Jake shakes his head, feeling betrayed. “So... she called just to talk to me?”
“Yeah, probably on behalf of all the aunts,” says Amy. “I mean, they want to meet you. They didn’t get to go to our wedding, and you’re family now.” She sits up and smiles at him “I’m sorry she lured you under false pretenses, though.”
He shrugs. “I suppose I can forgive them,” he says, turning his nose up. “More or less. Maybe.”
“That’s my husband,” says Amy, grinning at him. She holds out her hand. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”
Do you have any tips for depicting a bilingual Spanish/English person? My character is a Cuban girl born in the 1940's who lived Spanish household but went to an American Catholic girl's school, for some background. I've done some research on the time period and such, but I'm unsure if I can write her in a way that's realistic to readers, and I certainly do not want to be write her offensively. Any input on the subject would be very much appreciated, thanks!
I’m in no way an expert in any parts of those things (being bilingual, being Cuban, growing up in the 1940s, or going to a Catholic girl’s school). You can check out my bilingual characters tag as well as my language tag, which might hopefully collectively be of some use to you.
My five years of middle school were spent at a school that was about 65% Hispanic, and I saw that, a lot of the times, a lot of them would speak Spanish to each other. Some teachers weren’t particularly a fan of that, and I’m guessing they would be even less of a fan of that in a 1940s Catholic girl’s school.
I’m not really clear on if your character is growing up in a Spanish-speaking household or a Spanish (aka people from Spain) household, but I’m guessing Cuban Spanish is a bit different from Spain-Spanish, so there could be some tension there if she’s growing up in a household that speaks Spain-Spanish. (This is just a guess, so someone please correct me if I’m wrong.)
I genuinely know nothing about Cuban migration to the US pre-1959 diaspora and so I have no idea how people from Cuba were viewed in the US at that time, and answers to questions like this would differ depending on where she lives, but consider where she would feel comfortable speaking Spanish to, who she would feel comfortable speaking Spanish to, and whether there are any other Spanish speakers in her school. I suggest thinking also about whether she or other members of her family are literate in Spanish. I know a lot of the students I went to school with weren’t particularly literate in Spanish, even if they were fluent/native speakers.
Consider also how fluent and/or literate her family is in English. That would likely depend pretty heavily on how long they’ve been in the US, though I have no idea if English was being taught in Cuba at that time.
If any of my followers have anything to add to this, I would really appreciate it. A lot of what I have experience with was just seen from the outside, and so there’s unfortunately not a ton of advice I can give.
