A Bright Yellow Yoyo

By Bebe Lord Gow

When a determined 11 year-old, Italian girl with a love of life finally convinces her financially-deprived family that Texas is the land of opportunity, they regroup to Houston. Her devil-be-damned attitude combined with a mish-mash of amusing characters and her desire to move many mountains are evident and yet she encounters temptations, frustrations and miscalculations. As she matures, she struggles with bad luck and insecurities. But like her treasured yoyo she rebounds until...in the humid jungle of Yucatan, her independence is endangered, surprisingly rescued and another chapter un-folds. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group
• Release date: May 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781635051735

Bebe Lord Gow

Bebe Lord Gow is a published journalist, an artist, and a playwright. She created a successful tennis shop, and she also helped develop a nationwide honey business. She currently lives in Texas. This is her first novel.

Book preview

1838–1918

Dedication

For my four sons with my pride in your loyalty as we navigate through rough waters to smoother seas together. And to my greats and grands for the fun you are providing along the way.

The Weft

I’m getting on. In fact, I’ve been getting on for more years than I care to admit. When I hit 88, the years hit me back and sent me spinning in a new direction. Why was growing up so difficult for me? Why did I start worrying that my wild streak would be criticized? Where did I veer off in the wrong direction, or did I?

And now with a month to go before my 90th, I’ve been looking for the solution without a degree in psychology or psychiatry and have finally decided to search for answers in a new way.

As a girl, my dad was my comfort zone. We discussed my problems while riding our horses until I was ready to gallop on and race him home. He may be gone, but my memories are the best. When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

—Jimi Hendrix, musician, singer, and songwriter (1942–1970)

And so, ready, set, here we go . . . together.

1. The beginning

Who is Berenice Garibaldi? She can be extremely happy, likes to tease and be teased, to make people laugh, and makes friends easily. But who is she at her core?

The year is 2011, she lives in Houston, Texas, and at the moment is sitting at her seventeenth-century Italian desk in her so-called office rereading a huge stack of Christmas cards and feeling sad. Why? Christmas has come and gone, her stocking is no longer hanging by the fake chimney with cheer, or is it care? Who cares anyway?

One of her cards was mailed before a friend died. Why do good people have to die? She is tired, tired of stretching her face to look happy, which she has been many times during her 46 years and wants to be again more than anything.

An old comment confuses her When all else fails, take a nap.

Berenice is not good at naps because her mind twirls and whirls and so, still at her desk, she looks up at a photograph of her and her papa with big grins and arms around one another. A smile crosses her lips as she remembers the love they had for one another.

2. Dawn

In a very small house on a hillside in Liguria high above the Mediterranean, Berenice lives with her parents, her grandparents, and her teddy bear as she plots her life. She tries to avoid Paw-Paw, her grouchy grandfather, and her self-indulgent, critical mama. What she wants is to spend all her time with her papa because he’s a plumber and she gets to be with him all day every Saturday. He picks her up, hugs her, throws her in the air, lets her carry a little fix-it box while he carries a large one and sets the boxes on the floor in the front seat of his beat-up truck. They smile at one another except when the truck won’t start. After he fixes something under the hood, they ride up and down the hills of Liguria to tend the broken pipes and the other needs of the old homes. She already knows how to adjust the plunger of a stopped-up toilet and she’s only seven.

On weekdays, after school, she hangs around Gramma GG, who always makes a space at the family table for Bruno, a one-eared brownish teddy bear with barely any fuzz left.

Bruno is her best friend after her papa, and never asks about her black eye, the scabs on her knees, or her two protruding front teeth. Their newest project is learning to speak English, and they practice every morning when they wake up.

Hello, Berenice. Good morning, Bruno. How are you today?

Berenice already knows from a big lighted clock on the wall across her tiny room that when the little hand is on six, to stay in her room no matter what. She has explained to Bruno to be patient that they must wait for the big hand to reach the bottom before they get up. What she can’t explain is the funny looking lady on her bureau.

A toilet flushes, followed by a humongous throat clearing and a yucky spit. This means Paw-Paw is awake, and it’s best to play possum until he’s out of there.

I love you, Bruno. Yesterday you are good in my class in English, and then sleep good by my side the entire night. Bravo! One day I take . . . will take . . . sleep lessons from you, pinky promise.

She hooks her little finger around his leg and nods his head. But al momento, I need your help. Why do not all people love each other like us? Why does Paw-Paw yell at GG and why does he pull his brows together and call me egocentrica whenever he sees me? Why can’t he understand I want what I want when I want it? Is it because I’m covered with freckles, or what?

She kisses Bruno on his nose, reaches over to the bookshelf beside her bed, full of books that she knows are good to have and will read one day.

You know what, baby boy? I want . . . wanted . . . to tell my boyfriend, Emilio, what I bought him for Christmas until I think . . . thought it over and decide to keep it a secret. Why does he think surprises are such a big deal when I like knowing what’s going on all the time? What about you, Bruno? Are you like Emilio or are you precious . . . precocious . . . like GG calls me?

She speaks into his only ear. GG say precocious means de-vel-oped but she is wrong. As you can tell, I’m still totally flat up here. Do not worry, sweetie, I do not know what the p-word means either and as soon as papa comes home, we can ask him while we help him fix the po-po. So let’s just hug and be patient until we get a little bigger. That’s what we gotta do. Right?

Satisfied that Paw-Paw is back in his room, Berenice climbs out of her makeshift bed, slips into her brand new green taffeta Sunday dress all by herself, and skips into her parents’ bedroom. They need to know now that Santa Babbo has left a pole and to sleep tight because he will arrive with presents at their home in only tre giornos. (three days).

She opens the door and stops suddenly.

Papa?

What are they doing, she asks herself. The sheets on their bed are tented and her papa’s voice from somewhere underneath sounds croaky like it does when she beats him down to the water and back up the hill.

Berenice! It is . . . it is . . . early. . . . (puff, puff)…Go back . . . go back to your room . . . right now . . . por favore!

From down the hall, a blast from Paw-Paw.

Berenice! Berenice! Dio mio! Dio mio! What troubles you make-a now?

Paw-Paw’s constant complaints hurt her feelings and yet she’s in her taffeta dress. And so, confused and tearful she takes her paw-paw’s hand and joins the rest on their way to Mass. Inside the church with beautiful stained glass windows and sturdy columns that hide the priest from her view, she feels more secure and follows her family into the same pew with Emilio’s parents. She makes room for her papa, squeezes in next to Emilio, and stares up at him. Does she like him because he’s at least a foot taller, has curly brown hair and blue eyes like Bruno, or because he speaks three languages, Spanish, English, and Italian? Berenice speaks only two fluently, Italian, and French with her grand mere. Is this what’s wrong? Maybe if she speaks English perfectly and listens to the priest for a change, Paw-Paw will be nice to her. She tries until her mama interrupts her efforts, removes a small Christmas gift from her purse, and hands it to her. It is wrapped in a piece of a brown paper bag and tied with twine in a bow.

Emilio eyes it and points under the pew beneath his feet to a gift, wrapped beautifully in shiny green paper with a red satin bow. The paper crackles as she reaches for it. Paw-Paw shoots her a menacing look. The priest finishes speaking and Papa crosses himself. Berenice whispers in Emilio’s ear.

Paw-Paw is in another bad mood today. He wants to blame me for everything, and we know it’s not all my fault, right?

Emilio shrugs and after Mass, they meet in the courtyard. He opens her present for him, runs a red yo-yo up and down the string, and puts it in his pocket without saying a word. Her mood spirals downward.

Do you like it? I hope you do.

Sure. Thanks.

You don’t really like it, do you?

I just said I did.

I know, but do you know you can do tricks with it?

Yeah. I had one of these when I was little.

Tears collect. She blinks them away. Okay. What did you bring me?

Open it and see.

She opens a pair of roller blades, her eyes expand and her mouth flies open . . . until she covers her eyes with both hands. He asks what’s wrong.

Everything. Your parents are rich and we’re not.

Who cares, Berenice? I thought you could use the blades like . . . when you grow up.

Oh my God! I am already grown up.

She runs out the big, tall door to her family’s badly dented Honda Civic, sits on the ground beside it and sobs.

Suddenly she stops, looks all around, and focuses on a swing. She loves to swing, especially from a dead start, and, without touching the ground, she starts pumping back and forth, little by little until she is way up high and can see the sea, the cathedral and other tall buildings on a distant hill. She is happy, lost in oblivion when her paw-paw runs breathlessly out of the church and finds her.

She is prepared. This is not the first time she has run off. One time she told him she forgot and another time that she had to pee, which upset him. This time she took the Lord’s name in vain. He has not approved of her very much lately.

But the truth is different. She is not interested in Mass. She is far more interested in what is going on outside. Her papa leads her back to the car where she apologizes but when they get home, he orders her to stay in her room for an hour. She hates it when she disappoints him, but her room is her Empire of Imagination, and boredom has been banished. She removes a package of gum from her pocket and chomps on it noisily while she sets up her bedroom like a classroom. Playing teacher is one of her favorite things.

Now, Bruno, you absolutely must stop disappointing me and bossing your classmates or I will put you in the dungeon…Okay, that’s better.

She pretends to read him a story from When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne, then switches to a verse from Christopher Robin. When I am king of Tim-buc-too, I’ll think of lovely things to do. And I think when I am King of Greece, I’ll push things off the mantelpiece. And guess what, Bruno, when we are kings of everything, we can tell the people ‘We’re the kings!’ They will all have to do everything we say."

She giggles. "Also when I learn to read as fast as Emilio, I’ll teach you to read fast too because I have a secret and I know you won’t tell, right? Good boy. Now this is it. I want to be a plumber and the best teacher in this whole wild world."

She piles up a stack of books, high enough to see the city clock out her other window and is assured by both clocks that there is just enough time to chew the sugar out of her gum. A loud knock scares her. She falls to the floor, hits her head against the bedpost, wants to scream, and knows better. She will be called clumsy and awkward, not by her papa but by Paw-Paw. And so she rubs her hurt place and says Jeeps! Jeeps! Jeeps!

Paw-Paw throws open her door and informs her if she ever speaks ill of Jesus again, she will have to subire les consequenzes."

Ill? She is not sick, has no clue what consequences are, can’t speak back, and buries her head in Bruno’s soft tummy.

3. Hatched

Four years and several lifetimes later, Berenice awakens in a sweat twisted up in the sheets of her wobbly double bed. She has had her first real dream in English! Hooray, she is speaking English now almost better than she speaks Italian! She remembers a promise from her teacher. One day you will dream in English and when that happens you will be on your way. But reality returns as she glances around the room.

She is still in Italy. GG has hung the photo of her and her papa on a wall and Paw-Paw is no different. He still refuses to let her have fun like most kids do. She lies back, adjusts her too-tight nightie under her, and fights him with her mind. She’s ready to get going this very minute and get precocious as GG said, but she still knows better than to awaken her family, particularly Paw-Paw. His increasingly loud snortings, now called acid-reflux, most certainly annoy the neighbors and others who climb past their crumbling stucco home.

She kicks her way out of the imbroglio and discovers it’s still dark outside. If only Bruno had not been washed away by a wave at the beach. If only she had a sister to talk to. No. A sister would be a copycat and a pest. What about a brother? Maybe not. Boys have a thing she doesn’t have, and most boys don’t like to talk about complicated things. They just try to act like they already know it all…like Emilio at times. She wants him to wait for her to marry, but he hardly ever does what she wants. So for now, she decides it’s best to be an only child, to get what she can when she can . . . and keep on waiting. For something new. Patience is so-o-o hard.

After her shower, with her wet head wrapped in a towel, she hears her papa’s truck trying to start and Paw-Paw’s door opening. Oops! As she beats a hasty path down the hall, she thinks again about her dream. All that twisting and turning the night before and feeling ensnared in strings was for a very good reason. She had actually dreamed in her new language and maybe she was free at last . . . free to go her own way. Si! Si! Si! Finalmente! So now what?

Berenice has considered going to Sunday school every week to