The Beauty & The Beast

Chapter Fifteen- Je Aime La Bell

Chapter Fifteen

A zoo.
My house was a zoo, only instead of animals, it was stocked with energetic children and stressed fifty- and above women. There were no cages, but dam I wish there were. Our similarity with a zoo started with the people in need to be fed, places that urged a clean up and the guards who were, in this case, the husbands of my aunts, only they read the newspaper or watched t.v instead of watching over the kids.

"Play it again!" I repeated once the video was over.

"Bells, this was the fifth time we have watched it." My cousin, Leonardo complained.

"But the baby is so cute!" Gabriella, Leonardo's sister, exclaimed as she gazed lovingly at the screen of Leonardo's phone.

Leonardo rolled his eyes yet again and continued to play the tape one more time.
The video starred an overly adorable baby with puffy cheeks and big dark eyes. He tastes a lemon, scrunches his nose and starts shaking his head. It is so cute! I was at the verge of asking him to play it again when I heard my name being called, again for the millionth time.

"Bella!" The raspy voice of Aunt Emma bounced off the walls of the house. "Ayúdame a envolver los tamales amorcito." which meant: help me wrap up the tamales love.

The amount of times I have heard my name today was exhausting. They didn't even say it the right way, instead they pronounced it as "Be- yah" in their thick Spanish accent. It didn't bother me at all because it sounded quite unique, but hearing it so often made me forget how it really should sound.

It was winter break now which meant no school, no homework and most importantly, no waking up early in the morning. I was a happy girl. It also happened to be Christmas Eve which according to my family should be celebrated with massive amounts of food, or at least that is what their priority looked like to me because waking up at freaking six in the morning to start cooking was very extreme to me. I didn't possess the energy to wake up early on school days to even brush my hair, much less cook an entire meal. That was just plain crazy. I take the hat off for those who do that.

"Ya voy tía!" I screamed loudly already heading for the kitchen. I said: coming aunt. It became normal for me to speak spanglish now because I speak fluently both languages and have to often switch them when I talked to my dad and when I talked to my mom's family. After all these years, dad still refuses to learn Spanish, so now I guess it is his fault to be wearing that puzzled face ninety- nine percent of the time. Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's sad.

"Que sexy tía." I laughed loudly throwing my head back. I told her how sexy she looked. My four aunts have this tradition or habit, I don't really know but the thing is that they all wear white, long and baggie camisoles to sleep. For some reason, mom doesn't, which my aunts claim to be an outcome of her 'americanization' and truth being told, I do agree with them. The camisoles are really old and have tiny holes here and there, yet they don't seem to be a problem for any of them. They are funny looking, although during nighttime, they are more scary than anything. She wasn't the only one wearing pajamas, in fact, everybody was still in sleeping clothes because it was still ten in the morning. I, myself, wore my flowery pajama pants and soft pink t- shirt. I was also not wearing shoes but socks merely. It was easier than losing them every time I went to the garden to check on Bear. Mom insisted we take a shower only when we are done working so we don't sweat later. We have to change into our Christmas attires also, and they would go to waste if we ruined them with sweat or food.

"Ay, ya fregaste vos Bella. Mejor ponéte a trabajar." She said: Oh, shut it Bella. Better get to work. Or something like that, some things in Spanish don't translate to English.

"Bella," My eight- year old cousin, Chris, sauntered into the kitchen holding the Santa Clause doll against his chest. "There is someone at the door asking for you." He spoke naturally as though English was his first language. All my cousins attended bilingual schools back in their country, so they tried to practice it here with me.