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them on friendly terms, avoiding jealousy and<br />
complaints.<br />
For the most part, they had all observed the<br />
treaty, though it was<br />
least successful in respect to Esperanza's<br />
education. Tita wanted<br />
Esperanza to have a different education from<br />
the one Rosaura had<br />
planned for her. So even though it wasn't<br />
part of the deal, she took<br />
advantage of the moments Esperanza spent<br />
with her to provide the child<br />
with a different sort of knowledge than her<br />
mother was teaching her.<br />
Those moments added up to most of the<br />
day, for the kitchen was<br />
Esperanza's favorite place and Tita was her<br />
best friend and<br />
confidante.<br />
It was during one of these afternoons in the<br />
kitchen when Tita learned<br />
that Alex, John Brown's son, was courting<br />
Esperanza. Tita was the<br />
first to know. He had seen Esperanza again,<br />
after many years, at a<br />
party at the school she was attending. Alex<br />
was finishing medical<br />
school. They were attracted the moment<br />
they met.<br />
When Esperanza told Tita that when she felt<br />
Alex's eyes on her body,<br />
she felt like dough being plunged in boiling<br />
oil, Tita knew that Alex<br />
and Esperanza would be bound together<br />
forever.<br />
Rosaura tried everything to prevent it. From<br />
the first, she was flatly<br />
and frankly opposed. Pedro and Tita<br />
pleaded Esperanza's case, which<br />
started a struggle to the death between<br />
them. Rosaura insisted loudly<br />
upon her rights: Pedro and Tita had broken<br />
the pact; it wasn't fair.<br />
It wasn't the first time they had argued about<br />
Esperanza.<br />
That had been when Rosaura insisted that<br />
her daughter shouldn't attend<br />
school, since it would be a waste of time. If<br />
Esperanza's only lot in<br />
life was to take care of her mother forever,<br />
she didn't have any need<br />
for fancy ideas; what she needed was to<br />
study piano, singing, and<br />
dancing. Mastering those talents would be<br />
tremendously useful, first<br />
of all, because Esperanza could provide<br />
Rosaura with marvelous<br />
afternoons of entertainment and amusement,<br />
and second, because she<br />
would stand out at society balls for her<br />
spectacular performance.<br />
She would captivate everyone and would<br />
always be welcome among the<br />
upper class. With great effort, after three<br />
long conversations, they<br />
managed to convince Rosaura that besides<br />
singing, dancing, and<br />
performing at the piano, Esperanza need to<br />
be able to talk about<br />
interesting subjects when she was around,<br />
and for that she had to go to<br />
school. Very reluctantly, Rosaura agreed to<br />
send her daughter to<br />
school, but only because she had been<br />
convinced that Esperanza would<br />
not just learn how to make agreeable and<br />
amusing conversation there,<br />
but would mingle with the cream and upper<br />
crust of Piedras Negros<br />
society in grade school.<br />
Esperanza went to the best school, with the<br />
object of improving her<br />
mind. Tita, for her part, taught her something<br />
just as valuable: the
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