Read Online Mission Libertad by Lizette M. Lantigua - Free Book Online

shopping! Then I have to help carry all the shopping bags. That’s all right. I will stay home and watch TV.”
    Did he say
all
those
shopping
bags
? Luisito thought. What a great day!
    Luisito wolfed down his breakfast of toast with butter and
café con leche
and joined Rosie, his mother, and Sonia in the car.
    â€œCome on, Luisito. The stores are just around the corner,” Rosie said. But Luisito figured that in Maryland around the corner meant at least a thirty-minute ride.
    The stores were nothing like Luisito imagined.
    â€œIs this just one store?” Luisito asked.
    â€œNo, there are many stores in this one building. It is called a mall,” Rosie explained. “It’s better this way because you can walk inside without dealing with the hot or cold weather.”
    They entered through the perfume department. There were so many different smells that it drove Luisito crazy. His mother tried on many different perfumes. She looked like a kid in a toy store. Luisito wanted to leave this part of the store before he spent the whole day smelling like a girl!
    Then they stepped onto the escalator to the second floor. Luisito pretended he wanted to see something downstairs again so he could ride on it one more time!
    â€œThis reminds me of
El
Encanto
,” Elena said. “It was a beautiful store in Cuba before the revolution. It sold items from Europe and from the United States.”
    â€œFrom the United States?” Sonia said, surprised.
    â€œYes, and what a store it was!” Elena said. “There were such helpful employees who had been working there for years and knew so much about their products. The items you purchased were often delivered to your house.”
    â€œI remember
El
Encanto
, as well,” Rosie said joining in the nostalgia. “A few days before we left Cuba my mother took me to buy a coat. You could see that many shelves were empty. It was evident that things were going downhill in our country.”
    As the foursome walked around the store, a man in his thirties, blond and wearing a t-shirt and jeans, watched them from afar. At first, Elena didn’t pay any attention. Then the same feeling she had in Cuba came back to her. She realized that the man, who was pretending to look at the merchandise, was also keeping a steady eye on them. The man glanced at two other men a few yards behind Elena. These men had dark hair and looked Hispanic. They wore checkered shirts, dark slacks, and black shoes. Was something going on between them? She had seen those two men at the perfume stand.
    Luisito also noticed the men. Were they all together? Were they planning to mug them? The two dark-haired men pretended to read the label on a box of men’s slippers, but the box was upside-down. When they saw that they had been noticed they turned around and left quickly.
These men look familiar—but that couldn’t be possible
, Luisito thought. He had only been in this country for a few weeks.
    The blond man watched the two men leave, and he continued to keep an eye on Luisito and his family.
    â€œI think that guy likes you, Sonia,” Luisito said. “He keeps glancing this way.”
    Sonia smiled at Luisito and twirled her hair.
    â€œHow can anyone resist?” she said jokingly and then looked in the general direction of the guy. “Eww, he is ugly!” she said.
    â€œNiña, que te oye,”
her mother said, reprimanding her for saying that out loud.
    â€œI am not rude. He is the one staring,” she said turning around.
    â€œKids!” her mother said, rolling her eyes and smiling at Elena.
    Elena continued to have an uneasy feeling but she dismissed it as a result of having lived so many years in constant fear. They continued shopping and the man kept his distance. At a certain point they realized he had disappeared as well.
    Rosie bought Luisito several pair of jeans, shirts, shorts, long pants, one nice, dressy, black pair of shoes,