“What’s all in that?”
“It’s a Creole dish. You cook it in a big pot all day. Like it’s a potion or something. Start with sautéing the onions, garlic, green pepper, celery. Add the shellfish, the sausage.” He shrugs. “Some chefs put their own spin on it. A little okra or greens.”
“You ever made it before?” I ask.
“Not yet. But I want to. Maybe this will inspire me.”
I nod. “Okay. I’ll have the same thing.”
“Yeah?”
“You make it sound irresistible.” I shrug. He does that to virtually all food, really. It’s his superpower.
The oysters arrive with the mushrooms, and neither of them are half-bad, but I definitely prefer mushrooms. And then the gumbo is presented, in wide, big bowls with a decorative taupe trim. Santiago digs right in, but I go much more slowly… and you know what? It completely rocks my socks off. Everything mixed together, the shrimp and chicken and sausage, all in that brown broth, over perfectly cooked rice. Lord, I can’t finish it fast enough.
“This is incredible,” I say, and Santiago beams and then I almost drop my spoon. So I guess my not-talking instinct has been transformed to my default make-things-as-awkward-as-possible one.
“So you and Star road-tripping. How was that?” Yep. Awkward as flipping possible.
He frowns a little. “It was fine. She was worried about you.” He coughs. “And me, too. I was worried. About you.”
“Were you worried? Because your email—”
“Right. I was worried. I tried… not to be worried. That’s what happened when I sent you that douchey email. Sorry about that.” He clears his throat. “Your aunt said you were on a date yesterday?”
I shrug. “It was no big deal, just this guy I met at the library.”
He’s frowning again. Deeper. “Yeah. You sure bounced back.”
And right as the words spill from his mouth, I realize my heart is still wide-open broken. Because that deep ache returns, right at my chest. Right where I maybe love him… But I’m not ready to think about that too hard yet. I don’t drop my spoon, but I do place it back in the bowl a little harshly. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
He tilts his head. “What?”
“What do you mean, exactly, by I ‘sure bounced back’? Like I’m some ugly hag-girl who should’ve been waiting for you by the door in case you decided to change your mind about me? Or did you mean it like, ‘Wow, guess you really are a whore.’ ”
“Holy shit.” Santiago’s arms are up. “This—I didn’t mean—”
“Sure you didn’t.” I stand and throw my napkin on the table. “Sorry, Santiago. But this isn’t going to work out.”
“No, Moon.” He stands up. He’s following me. “Moon.” I open the beautiful iron-and-glass doors to the restaurant courtyard and frantically scan for an exit.
“Moon.” Santiago’s hand is on my arm. His voice is a deep, gentle silk all around me. “Why are you pushing me away?”
“I’m not.” I whip my arm back. “I’m just remembering what a jerk you are.”
He holds his arms out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Can you come back inside? Let’s have dessert, okay?”
I almost say yes. Almost. But he was so quick to believe the absolute worst of me, you know? How do I know that’s not going to happen again? How do I know that once I give him my heart, he’s not going to rip it into chunks and, like, pee on it before leaving to take some Star look-alike on a date? It’s too hard. I already feel like a mess and none of that has even happened. So I turn and walk away, fast enough that he doesn’t see my tears.
* * *
Tía takes one look at me when I step through the door and she’s on me instantly, arms around me tight. And then there is another set of arms. Star. “What happened?” Tía asks when I pull back.
I start to shake my head, but she stops me by saying, “Look, Moon, I know your mom never wanted to hear anything you had to say. She never cared to know about your life. But that’s not familia. She wasn’t familia. Understand? I’m your family.” She looks at Star, who nods. “And that means I want to know. I care. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say. “But I think I’m going to need a lot of passion-fruit ice cream first.”
* * *
We’re all on the porch, bowls of ice cream in our hands. Tía has cut open a passion fruit and scraped the sweet, jellylike insides on top of the vanilla. “And for you, Moon.” She holds up a passionflower.
I’ve always loved passionflowers. They look like they belong on another planet, with their wild, curly stamen shooting up like antennae, reporting back to the mother ship, alongside their first layer of petals, which are long and springy like curls. And they come in the most gorgeous shades of purple and pink and white. Beautiful and weird. My kind of creature.
Tía plucks the petals and shreds them over my ice cream. “It’ll soothe your nerves.”
“Flower medicine,” I say.
She smiles. “Flower medicine.”
And then I’m crying again, and I tell them everything between bites of ice cream, and it’s so surreal, to be the center for once. To be the one looked at and listened to. It seems like the whole universe has leaned in. The clouds move away so the face of the full moon is there, bright, pale blue. The birds are quiet. Even the wind has become gentle. Combined with the passionflower and fruit and ice cream, it’s all a balm to me. A weighted blanket, filled with everything I love. Flowers, humidity, thick waxy leaves, mud on my bare feet, Mexican bingo cards, passion in fruit and in bloom on my tongue.
“So what’s the problem?” Star says. “You don’t want him. You told him. It’s done, right? Now you can move on.”
Tía tsks. “Star, it takes more than that to move on. There’s emotions, memories, hopes to process and grieve.”
“Right, but once she’s past that.”
“The problem is I’m in love with him,” I announce.
There’s silence for a moment. An eerie sort. Like, the wind is so quiet, it’s like wind was never even invented. Then Tía and Star erupt.
“What?”
“Are you serious? Are you sure?”
“But does he deserve that love, Moon?”
“Are you sure? Well, you need to freaking tell him, then, Moon!”
I shut my eyes and cover my face with my arms. “Too much information. I’m glitching.”
“Take a breath,” Tía says. “Let her breathe,” she tells Star.
I lower my hands. “Okay, to answer the questions that processed. I’m sure. I mean, I’m mostly sure.” I don’t have a filter on right now. Hazard of not being used to people listening to me for more than four seconds. “He—he’s…” I take a breath, looking at the hibiscus to my left, swaying in the breeze, which has decided to rebirth itself. All around us, the moonflowers are beginning their slow unfurl.
“He sees me. He made me feel—made me realize that what I contribute to the world is valuable. That the space I take up is mine and worthy of me.” I shrug. “When we first met, I was such an asshole. And then we butted heads like rams and then, bam, kindness.” Santiago snorting when I got down on myself. “Thoughtfulness.” Santiago insisting on the cooking show. “Attraction.” Me smiling at him, and his sentence is completely interrupted and gone. I frown. “But then again, he was so quick—”
“He was so quick to think you’d want Andro instead of him, just like you thought he wanted me instead of you,” Star finishes.
I blink. “Well, it’s not exactly—”
“It’s exactly that. The same. Having Andro as a big brother makes him insecure. You having me—and I’m sorry for taking advantage of it—but you having me made you insecure. And you both completely projected your insecurities on each other.”
The truth is bitter. I swallow and nod slowly.
“So now what?” Tía says. “Do you think you can let what he did…? Do you think you can let it go?”
I sit for a little while. Half my ic
e cream is left, already a gooey puddle in this heat. “I don’t know,” I finally say. I sound pretty miserable as I say it too. I want everything to be clear, right now. I want to know everything, to be sure about everything. I want all the universe’s secrets to be poured into my lap, a pile of little sentences folded up into letters, sealed with waxy blue stars.
“Sleep on it,” Tía says. “Take all the time you need. He can wait.”
“Really?” I ask. “You mean you can’t make my decision for me real quick?”
“Not how it works.” Tía laughs. “How nice that would be though, eh?”
This is the thought that stays with me a little as I slide under my covers. If someone could make my decisions for me, would I want that? Would it really be easier?
At first, yeah. But… if I couldn’t make my own decisions about something, would I really deserve the outcome? Would I need to earn Santiago’s friendship? Or kisses?
Great. Now all I can think about is Santiago’s kisses. I go through lists in my mind—everything I will need for college. Books. Supplies. Tomorrow, Tía and Star are going to the store to get Star her phone. I guess Mom cut her off too.
But I keep going back to Santiago. His lips, specifically. Then I groan and punch a pillow. “Sleep,” I say. “Just sleep on it.” And that’s exactly what I do.
54. The Fourth (and Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh) Times I Ever Had Sex
WHEN I WAKE, it’s late. There’s a note in the kitchen. Breakfast burrito in the fridge. We’ll be back after lunch. —Tía
I try not to think about Santiago. About kissing him. About loving him. Needless to say, the effort is futile. The best I can do is get on with my day as fast as I can, filling it so that he doesn’t seep in the edges of my brain too much. After all, he’s still all over my heart. And there’s nothing I can do about that at the moment. So I eat as quick as possible, then jump right into the tub when I’m done.
After I’m showered and dressed and fed, I get on Tía’s computer and start planning my next self-portrait photo shoot. My room has slowly become my muse. I’ve moved some of Tía’s orchids in here, along with a couple of pothos vines. On corkboards nailed into the walls, I’ve pinned photocopies of my favorite images. There’s Cindy Sherman, of course, and, like, every image of Ana Mendieta. Also the work of Helen Levitt, Cyndi Brown, Ivette Ivens, Kirsty Mitchell. There’s so many women out there, being amazing in every way. Is it weird that I think I can join them somehow? I’m beginning to think it’s less and less weird, and more and more what I was made to do.
My empowering thoughts are interrupted by a weird sound. Like someone is dragging their sharp nails on glass just outside my bedroom. “What the—” I’m cut off by a series of four thumps. Big thumps that make me think of things like Godzilla’s reign of terror.
Oh God. It’s a rapist. Or La Chupacabra. Or La Llorona. Any way I can spin it, it ends with me in a bath of my own blood. So I do what any person interested in self-preservation would, I think. I grab Tía’s biggest cast-iron skillet lid—the one with the sharpest spikes—and tiptoe to the door.
A huge, dark form appears at the front window and I almost drop the lid. I can’t do anything about the gasp I emit.
“Shit,” I hear from outside. Oh God. It is a man. Scarier than La Chupacabra. That’s for sure.
But the tone of that voice was… familiar. Images wash over me. Cheese grits, huckleberry pie, fancy New Zealand honey, gray-gemstone salt.
Salt!
I run to the door and throw it open with such force, glass bottles and jars rattle all around me. Why are there glass jars rattling—but then I spot him. Impossible to miss, what with his tall, hulky frame. Santiago’s frozen with a look of guilt on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he grits out finally. “I’m leaving now.”
“Wait. What are you doing here? Why are there…” I stop speaking when I take in the bottles. The jars. There’s ten, twenty, God. There’s, like, fifty jars set up on Tía’s porch, filled with water and… and…
“Fireweed.” My voice is breathless as I take it all in. Because… no, I’m not dreaming. Tall stalks of fireweed are everywhere around me. Pink, petaled, perfect.
“What—how—wh—” I can’t form words. The combination of Santiago and fireweed has destroyed my faculties.
Santiago walks back over, slowly, hesitantly. He’s in jeans and a white shirt. Somehow the casual, simple clothes make him look even more godlike.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t mean for you to find me here.”
I’m going between the fireweed and him so fast, I probably look like I’ve just snorted a mountain of cocaine.
“I contacted a guy in Alaska. Found him on this message board. He had to mow his field, but it was filled with fireweed. He, ah, mailed them to me. Wrapped in ice packs, to keep them fresh. I—uh, even though you don’t want me, I didn’t want to leave without giving them to you.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Yes.” He’s staring at me. He blinks, like he’s been abruptly unhypnotized. “I should go.”
“No.” My voice is all choked up. “No. Don’t. Please.”
“Are you sure?” His hand’s in his pocket. He’s moving his weight from side to side. I’m worse, trembling from my jaw to my ankles.
Yes, I want to say. I am sure. Come here and hug me. Don’t ever leave. But when I open my mouth, this is what comes out. “Will you help me move them into my room?”
“Okay.” His answer is quick. Gruff. “I have a pallet.…” He wanders to his car and returns with a wooden box in his arms. Together we fill it with the jars. The fireweed blooms are so tall, they bump and slide against one another. We can only fit a few at a time.
It takes us five or six trips, him carrying the box and me balancing three bottles in my arms. My hands shake a little and I spill some water on my yoga bottoms.
We survey my room together when we’re finished. My bed, covered in a quilt with a print of hibiscus, pink and red and white. The walls, green, the exact green of the trees that line Tía’s backyard. And now the fireweed. Real fireweed. The sweet berry and bergamot-like scent surrounds us in a cloud.
“I love you.” My voice is calmer now. Grounded. “That’s why I pushed you away.”
Santiago stops breathing for so long, I wonder if he’s going to faint or something, but then he inhales, takes two giant steps toward me, and his hand is on my face. “Tell me I can kiss you now.” His voice is sharp and crackly.
“You can kiss me now,” I say. It’s just a whisper, but he hears me well enough, because he bends down low and then his next inhale is with my mouth on his.
The kiss is gentle for all of four seconds, and then everything is open and wet and warm and so, so good. We go backward until my shoulder blades hit my door, shutting it with a bump we both ignore. In fact, he shoves himself at me harder with his hips. A strangled sound comes out of me and he pulls back fast. “Did that hurt?”
“No.” I’m breathless, but I don’t even care. I put my hands on his neck and pull him in, back to my mouth, so I can suck on his delicious lips.
I basically rip his shirt off and stare at him for a moment, letting myself really look, unlike all those other times he’s paraded his chest in front of me. He’s so firm everywhere, and there’s a fine sheen of hair in the middle of his chest that tickles my palms a little. The more I touch him, the faster his breath goes. “You’re perfect,” I say, and then feel kind of basic, because isn’t that a cheesy thing to say to a boy you’re about to have sex with?
And Santiago chuckles and says, “All except for this, huh?” and he lifts his left arm. He’s trying to be light, but I can feel the pain in the joke. It scatters around me like dropped glass.
So when he goes to kiss me again, I put my hands around his face and make him look in my eyes. “No.” My voice is firm and final. “Santiago. You are perfect.”
And he stops breathing again, but befo
re he passes out, he kisses me so hard. We’re on the bed now, and I don’t even know how we got here. We kiss more, we lose more clothes, until all I’m wearing is my moonstone necklace and all he’s wearing is a condom. And he’s on top of me, waiting.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Yes.” I am emphatic.
He stays still, looking at me. His eyes are dark and a little bit scared. Finally he says, “I’ve never done this before.”
“Oh.” The surprise leaves my mouth before I can control it. “Well, there’s not much to it, really. And the first time isn’t a big deal to guys.”
His jaw is a little hard. “It’s a big deal to me.”
“Oh.”
He swallows and says again: “It’s a big deal to me, Moon.”
I open my mouth and spill my heart. “This is a big deal to me, too.” Now I swallow. “A really big deal.”
And then it’s happening. And I sort of stay still a little, because he’s so beautiful, his muscles rippling like water, each movement a stone’s throw into a wide lake. After a minute he stops and I furrow my brow. “What—”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes…”
“You’re quiet.”
“I am?”
“You don’t like it?”
And I smile and say, “You feel nice, Santiago.”
He pulls out and leans on his arm next to me. “And you feel fucking amazing, Moon. That doesn’t seem equal.”
“What? You think I feel good?”
He scoffs and then raises his eyebrows. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“I mean.” I take a breath. “You don’t think I feel like… the Grand Canyon?”
His face, he gets it now. “No. Christ. No. You feel like… I dunno. A glove. Or an agnolotti pasta.”
And now I’m snort-laughing. “Oh my Lord. You just called my vag a pasta noodle?”
“Not a noodle. Agnolotti.”
How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe Page 29