A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

by Laura Taylor Namey

  “The Cuban siren song. I lure my prey with pork fat.”

  “I’m a goner, then.” Orion washes his hands. Winks. “But worth it if I get to eat that before my demise.”

  He’s at my side. I drag over two of my Cuban bread rolls and hand Orion a spreader. “No Remy and Jules?”

  “Remy’s doing late shift at Bridge Street Tavern—that’s his family’s pub—and Jules has practice with Goldline. But I mentioned pork and homemade bread and I think actual tears were shed in group text.”

  “Bueno. No one cries over me not feeding them. I’ll make them a care package.”

  Gordon whips through like our personal hurricane. “Don’t mind me. Not staying,” he says, shielding himself from us with raised arms like he’s interrupting. “Thought I’d ride one of the guest bikes to the gym for a bit of extra.”

  He’s gone before we can tease him, so we settle for slanted gazes. “He ate two Cubanos with the Wallaces. Which explains,” I gesture to the back door, “that.”

  “Does it, though?” Orion peers into the pan containing the roasts I slow-cooked for six hours. I tear off a hunk. He chews. Swallows. “I was right before. You’re dangerous.”

  I aim for full-blown assassination, leading Orion through the steps of Cuban sandwich making. A mayo-mustard hybrid goes first, then Swiss cheese, thinly sliced pickles, pork, ham, and another layer of cheese. His first effort is worthy; we brush softened butter on the outside of the rolls and I tote them to the stove.

  Orion follows. “Oh, it’s hot?”

  “And melty. At home, we use a big sandwich press, like a panini maker. But here I have to improvise.” I grab a potholder and the big cast iron pan I’ve been heating. Our sandwiches sizzle on the flat top; I press down on the tops with the pan. “With this method we have to flip them, but it works in a pinch.”

  I griddle both sides of our Cubanos to a perfect crisp, cheese oozing over all the meat. Two counter stools and white plates later, I watch Orion take his first bite. He loses all words, a British drama school demonstration of a classic swoon. His free hand drops over his heart.

  I laugh and dig into mine. We eat in food-drunk silence for a bit. Miami fills my senses, feeding all the rest of me.

  “I call Cubanos the Miami fourth meal. People used to eat these after dancing at salsa clubs. Still do, actually. They’re also one of our most popular catering items for parties. Graduations, birthdays…”

  “When’s yours?” Orion asks, then adds, “Your birthday. I meant to ask earlier then forgot, and now I’m bloody shocked I can remember my own after your food.”

  I tip my head at the compliment. “August tenth. The big eighteen.”

  “You’ll still be here.”

  “Now you know how serious my parents were about sending me away. How… I guess the word is desperate. How desperate they were, knowing they’d miss my birthday, and buying a ticket anyway.”

  Our eyes meet over bread. “I imagine it will be hard for your sister. Wanting to celebrate with you.”

  “The truth?” His eyes widen and I rise and grab a handful of sliced rolls for Orion’s family and friends and slather them with the mustard spread. “I was supposed to go to Disney World for my eighteenth with Andrés. We had it planned for months.” I stack sliced meat and cheese on eight slabs of bread. “Pilar jumped in and said we’d go instead with Stefanie and one of her friends. Girls’ trip.”

  I set my finished sandwiches on a tray for heating. “Then Stef bailed and I didn’t want to think about it. So I didn’t leave any epic plans behind, if that’s your next question.”

  “That wasn’t my next question.” He plunks one elbow on the butcher block. “Which is something I won’t ask because I’m meddling and wretched.”

  “I’ll answer that question and any others you have.” Santo cielo, the words just fall out. I pull square parchment sheets to wrap the Cubanos for takeout. The last ten seconds replay and I realize Orion Maxwell is a wretched genius and a better interrogator than any one of my relatives. I know their ways. But Orion—challenging me? Making the hairs rise on my arms, curious and dared? It’s a tantalizing food I can’t resist. “Go on.”

  Blue eyes like smooth marbles. “Andrés. Do you still love him?”

  My lungs deflate. Heat fills me, a hundred degrees above the smoke and sear rolling off the flat-top grill. I loved Andrés for years. And I tried to keep my feelings the same, binding them against me until he came back, just like Stefanie. But in all my missing and wanting him, I never thought to check in with my heart to see if all my trying was really working. Tonight, hidden inside my cooking and the peaceful quiet of his town, Orion asks me. Any girl trapped in a love holding pattern should say yes, sure and quick. Yes! I still love Andrés. Shouldn’t these words just fall out too?

  But they don’t. “Andrés is still there. The feelings are there but different, like they’ve changed shape.” This comes quicker than a blink. “I know what it feels like to fall in love. But I’m not sure what falling out of love feels like.” Abuela never taught me this part. And she left my world before I could have asked.

  The way his mouth curls, he’s biting the inside of his cheek. He takes one of the sandwich parchment squares. Starts to fold and crease. “I told a girl I loved her, but that’s long done. And when it ended—her idea,” he nods into the words, “it was rubbish. But I noticed I was eventually able to think and do things without my mind always running into her first. She was there, like you said, for a while. Then not as much and now, next to never.”

  After one last crease, he produces an Origami tulip bud made from kitchen paper. “So when your mind stops running into Andrés so much, you’ll know.” He places it into my hands.

  I sit and ponder the little craft. “Maybe I will, and this is adorable, and where did you learn paper folding?”

  Orion takes a second wrapper. “You aren’t the only one who picked up a few tricks from an amazing woman.”

  I search him for sadness too, head to toe, but I can’t find it. He works with childlike animation, shaping and turning and making me another tulip.

  “Did your mother show you that so you’d have something to do with dinner napkins to, let’s say, impress a date one day?” I ask because I am also desgraciada. Wretched.

  He doesn’t even look at me. “Did your abuela teach you to make incredible sandwiches so you could make a guy’s stomach do backflips?”

  “No,” I say through a laugh. “Not necessarily for that. But if my food inspires spontaneous tumbling, I’ll take it.”

  “There’s your answer, then.” He places a second tulip into my hands and my smile blooms like a pink bouquet.

  * * *

  I’m tuned differently after a little more than a month. On my West Dade street, blaring voices ghosting through walls wouldn’t even make me look up from a book. Here I get up and peer out the side window. I know these people now, their shapes and silhouettes. Jules and Flora are in front of the churchyard with three guys who are definitely not Orion, Gordon, or Remy. I reach for the window crank but remember it screeches louder than a trumpet high note. I go for the other window.

  I cross over, open, and listen. I can’t see them from here, but I know it’s Jules who says, “How long were you guys waiting, then? Minutes, hours?”

  “If you’d unblock our numbers, I wouldn’t have to—”

  “Wouldn’t have to what, Evans?” It’s Jules again and… oh! Roth and his cohorts.

  “Will you bloody listen?”

  “They’re not saying your Goldline stuff isn’t stellar.” This from Flora. “It is, but—”

  “Not now, Flora. And I am not the reason you guys haven’t signed with North Fork yet,” Jules says.

  “The hell you aren’t! They heard ‘Blackbird.’ You, me. It’s the sound they want.” Roth’s voice sharpens even more. “I’m not about to let your playtime gig mates ruin my chance.”

  Whoa. No me gusta—I don’t like it. Before I think about whethe
r I should, I do. A running jacket zips over my oversized tee and the yoga pants I’d thrown on for FaceTime with Pilar. Only now, my sister will have to wait.

  I slide into flip-flops and creep downstairs. Between the Wallaces’ flat and the foyer, I plot my strategy for jamming up a sticky situation without making it worse. My plan naturally takes me to the kitchen. Always my war room.

  Lightning quick, I grab the leftovers I made for Jules and Remy and box an assortment of the fruit-filled butter cookies I baked while pork was roasting all day. I still have racks full, more than enough for two teatime servings, even after Orion inhaled a handful before he left.

  I use the side door; dozens of tragic outcomes pass behind my eyes. But I keep walking. Spine straight and armed with live baked-good ammunition, I reach the group and ignore five puzzled faces. Conversation halts. I hold the paper bag up to Jules. “Had these ready for you then heard you out here. Cuban sandwiches, as promised.” I check my watch. “Remy should be off by now? I mean, these are better off in your refrigerator than mine.”

  “Um, yeah. Thanks. He, err, is.” Jules reaches for my sandwiches in steady slow-mo. Her face is an original song. A timid melody of confusion arranged with I see what you’re doing harmonies.

  A quick look at Flora reveals a mouse-like gaze and posture, smaller than I anticipated. I open the box of Abuela’s favorite cookies—so buttery, the scent clouds over afternoon rain and honeysuckle. The guys instinctively step forward. Ha! The Cuban siren song strikes again. “I’m the new baker at Owl and Crow and I’ve been experimenting with fillings. I tried fig, strawberry, and lemon.” Now to turn up the temp. “I mean, I’m new around here and can hardly predict which ones the guests will like best, you know? Maybe some locals can weigh in?”

  Will/William/Whatever, Heaven’s Gate concertgoer and the reason Flora’s probably breaking curfew, gives a What the hell? Biscuits! shrug. He plucks out a lemon variety from my box. Flora immediately chooses strawberry.

  My smile’s laced with more sugar than I add to any recipe. I point the box to Roth and the other flannel shirt guy, who looks enough like Will for me to peg him as his brother. Both dig in, then Jules takes a fig and strawberry.

  There’s no tense talking now, no accusations. Only chewing and pleasant reaction noises carrying down the pavement.

  “What are we all eating?” Gordon shuffles up in joggers and a denim jacket. He yawns. Rakes his hand through his hair, creating a red tempest cloud. “Heard a scuffle out here.”

  “No scuffles. Just some taste-testing and voting.” I offer Gordon the box. One of each flavor for him.

  He bites then consumes the other two in less than thirty seconds. “They’re all brilliant. Also, do you ever stop baking? What is it, half-past ten?”

  “Something like that,” I say then shoot Flora an innocent but knowing look. Orion’s gonna blow his top. Past her curfew and running around with this lot—I throw it all on my face and cock my hip.

  Flora answers with a messy sigh. “I would maybe eat the strawberry one again. I’d better get on.”

  No way am I giving Will and Flora any “FaceTime” at her door. I turn to Gordon. “Hey, can you walk—”

  “I’ll see you home,” he tells Flora, right at her heels. “Less chance of hellfire if your dad peeks from his window and sees little old me leaving.” He pivots toward me and swipes a hair band from his wrist, cinching back the frizzy mass. “And my vote goes to lemon.” A silly, courtly bow and bent arm make Flora crack a reluctant smile. “Milady?”

  Bien hecho, Gordon. But seeing his goofy grin, now I’m wondering if it’s more than just a random “nice touch.” The other three guys are actually voting on cookie flavors. Strawberry and lemon are the clear winners. I plant myself next to Jules, a united front, and I’m not leaving. If Roth and his buddies want to pester her, they’ll have to go through a bag of sandwiches and me.

  Silence.

  Roth scratches his temple—the one without the crow wing flop of hair dangling over it. He looks his buddies over. “Okay. Yes. We’d better get on as well, then. Jules, we’ll be seeing you.”

  “Don’t bother,” she says.

  When the band leaves, Jules flicks my cookie box. “Bloody biscuits. I can’t believe you came out here and fed those wankers biscuits and turned them to kittens.”

  “It’s just my way.”

  “I was about to use my ways before you turned up.”

  Wait. Is she pissed at me? Did I go too far? Stick my spoons and spatulas where they didn’t belong?

  Jules slants her body against the courtyard wall, closing chunky wool tightly around her. Her long cabled cardigan reminds me of another gray sweater. “Your tricks are all well and good,” she says. “But I’m used to digging myself out of my own shit piles.”

  “I… I’m sorry,” I say and mean it. Unlike my new British friends, I dole out apologies like they’re rare and costly ingredients. I don’t part with them easily and add them sparingly. “I heard you guys and saw Flora. Orion told me the whole backstory and I just wanted to help.” It’s what I do, sometimes without even thinking. I take over. “I should have let you handle it.”

  “Well.” Jules waves a hand. “There will always be a next time for me to handle if I know that lot.”

  I slant too; the wall is cool against my back. “Also sorry about that.”

  “Flora.” Jules makes a rough noise of frustration. “As much as I love that little sprite, I could wring her neck right now. She let it slip to Will that we’d be jamming in Tristan’s garage. We have a set-up there.” She gestures with her head. “It’s just ’round the corner. They were waiting, just casually ‘hanging out’ between Tristan’s joint and my flat. Followed us this way with that bloody shit you probably heard.”

  “Subtle. Doesn’t Flora get that you’re not interested?”

  “Here’s the thing. Flora has a tough road and two men who love her very much. And I don’t mean that arse, Will. I try and I’ve known her since I was a girl. But she just won’t settle. She goes with the wind and forgets… she forgets that what she does in one, small moment can affect tomorrow.”

  The words nudge softly, like Abuela waking me at dawn to start bread dough. “That sounds like a song lyric. Where’s your book?”

  “Ha. Perhaps you’re onto something.” Jules pulls the purple notebook from her messenger bag, waves it proudly. “My mum and dad still ask sometimes why I don’t just join up with Evans. I mean, he’s got a trust fund bank roll, the latest and greatest equipment.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Easy. I don’t trust him. He hit on a girl I was seeing for a bit, before Remy. Her dad owns one of the local clubs. Then he totally denied it.”

  I give her a sympathetic wince.

  “And professionally, he’s a great singer, but he wants to run the whole of it. In Goldline, we collaborate. Listen to one another and make sure everyone’s heard. Roth swears I’d have a lot of creative say. Says we’d do my songs and all that. But…” Her eyes complete the thought.

  “It sounds like he’ll say anything to get you to sign. Then you’d end up following his lead all the time.”

  “Yeah and I’m no follower. I think my music would get lost,” she notes with an audible breath. Her gaze breaks away as she studies the bag of Cubanos at her feet. She pulls one out. “Almost forgot about these. Orion texted right before I ran into Roth. Said you killed him good and dead with whatever’s in this package. And now I’m thinking what the hell does it matter that it’s nearly eleven and I’m knackered?” She unwraps the parchment.

  “There’s actually a version of that sandwich called the medianoche, with softer egg bread. They got their name because they were usually eaten late at night, after clubbing.” I urge her to dig in. “So I figure, salsa dancing, band rehearsal. Close enough, right?”

  Jules grins and takes a hearty bite. “This is aces, my friend.”

  She’s accepted my sorry; we’re good and we lean agains
t moss-painted stone that was built eons before either of us was ever imagined. A friend, eating my food after late-night music. Miami, Winchester—like salsa dancing and band rehearsal, they’re different but also kind of the same.

  18

  Today is too bloody summer to run, Orion declares. He has other plans, plus a suspicious knapsack tossed onto Millie’s caramel leather seat. I had one job: pack lunch. This time I fit onto the bike and around Orion easily. I wear his backpack and balance Cate’s insulated tote on one shoulder.

  We’re in thin layers for rising temps, open chambray and checked cotton shirts flapping over tees, jeans, and almost matching Chucks. I breathe in the sun-wind-freshness of it all. Can I bottle some to take home?

  We ride to the edge of town, parking Millie off a tree-stamped road. A grassy hill rises high and proud. “Today your tour stops at St. Catherine’s Hill.” Orion uses his radio announcer voice. “The site of an iron age fort and now a prime picnic spot.” He gestures to a small wooded grove crowning the top.

  Too steep to climb without help, the hill’s man-made steps resemble a line of railroad tracks carved into grass and wildflower patches. Three hundred steps, Orion tells me. We take them slowly, not wanting to workout, just to talk. Halfway up, we trade info about Jules and Roth and Flora. Unfortunately, my magic fruit-filled distraction biscuits failed to keep his dad from finding out about Flora’s little late-night jaunt, leaving Mr. Maxwell somewhere between annoyed and pissed.

  “You planning on eating flies for lunch?” Orion asks.

  We’ve reached the summit and my mouth wants to hang wide open. To the north, the city lies below, a daytime version of my view from St. Giles Hill. But southward… qué bonito. The southern expanse opens to endless downs. Green, greener, greenest, farther than I can see.

  My eyes are too small for this England summer day. “I could eat this whole place for lunch. But I brought Cuban food.”