It’s time to turn my feet around. Time to go home. But just as I reach the gate, I jolt at Orion blocking my way, jerking me toward him.
“I lied,” is all he says before he kisses me. Full and long and richly dark. One last time, we feed each other before he pulls away. “Goodbye, Lila.”
I still can’t say it back.
32
There’s too much heat in this city. My British summer body has to adjust like reptiles and amphibians do from shady coolness to the blistering scorch of rocks. I wake too early and even now, just ahead of dawn, air steams with the promise of a makeup drip-off day when clothes stick to skin and sweat gathers in inconvenient places. A Miami August always keeps its promises.
Yesterday my city put me into my family’s arms. I cried and clung to Pilar like a little child. I told her she looked beautiful but needed a haircut. She told me I looked like a plane cabin disaster and absolutely perfect. I texted Orion and then slept off the emptiness of our messaged words and emojis. Then I slept some more, waking only to eat.
I will go to La Paloma today. See what’s the same and what’s changed. But now I walk West Dade with a big mug of café con leche before the gossip birds are up. Chany redid his landscaping and Susana got a brand-new Honda. Grace and Cristina and Sophie left their trio of pink and purple scooters in their driveway.
I learn my house again too. Sí, the kitchen faucet drips if you don’t really jam down the tap. The floor creaks just here and the walls smell like garlic and onions. And my room—my suitcases are a tumble of rummaging and half-unpacking—carries only the sound of Pilar’s shower and the tick of an old clock of Abuela’s. But even my hazed, jet-lagged eyes spot the package on my unmade bed. The yellow sticky note reads:
Sorry, I forgot because my sister is home.
This came yesterday to LP. Sleep well?—P
DHL Express? The return address shoots tingles up my arms. Carefully, I undo packing tape and box flaps and tissue paper. I let out a helpless sob when I lift out the softest, grayest, England-est, wooliest, Orion-est cardigan ever. I clutch it to me, breathing in a Winchester townhouse and rainy soapy spice. Breathing in memories of kisses and cobblestones, motorbikes and music. I pluck out a flat white card:
This was always meant to be yours.
Love, Orion
It’s extra hard to text when your hands are shaking.
Me: I got it and you can’t
Orion: Absolutely, I can
Me: But your grandmother
Orion: Will make me another cardigan. This one belongs to you
Me: I love it so much. Thank you forever
Orion: Keep warm and talk soon
Me: Goodnight, England
Orion: Good morning, Miami
I wrap the gray cabled wool over my tank top. There’s too much heat in this city, too much for England sweaters. But this one warms a shivering heart.
* * *
“I’m a little scared for you to try this,” Angelina says, offering me her pastelito de guayaba.
I bite into flaky, sticky goodness. Yes, deliciousness. I smile broadly. “Angelina.”
“Really?” She places a paper napkin on my table.
“It’s perfect.” I’m parked at one of the two-tops at La Paloma. Rather, I’m forced to sit and look over the Family Style production details, finalize our menu choices to showcase, and greet all the customers who have been asking about me for weeks. “This is quality food and I know you’ve been doing it all summer. Thank you.”
She smiles and readjusts a bandanna over her dark blond hair before returning to the kitchen.
They don’t let me in to work today, only to poke around and bask in hugs and welcomes. In three days we will close to prepare for shooting. Showroom walls will get a fresh coat of the warm ivory I picked out with Pilar. Floors and surfaces will be scrubbed and shined.
Instead Papi gives me a throne by the entrance like I’m the panadería’s lost prodigal daughter. Their fatted calves are cafecitos and sugary samples from the kitchen. My family means well, but don’t they know I need to bake? I need to put my hands in flour, to feel like myself in this place again.
Instead I get up to look over items other employees have baked, milling around the big display rack piled with breads and Cuban rolls. Glass front cases burst with pastries, miniature desserts, and savory croquetas. Sweet and warm and inviting.
I stop at the wall where the framed Miami Herald article has hung for four years. An oversized photo in the Lifestyle section shows Pilar and me smiling over a tray of assorted pasteles. The headline beams proudly in block letters: West Miami Teens Save the “Date” at Congressman Millan’s Charity Fund-raiser.
It seems only yesterday that the same reporter who’d covered the Millans’ charity event was sitting here, interviewing Pilar and me. La Paloma grew exponentially because of my one choice to not cancel an order. To work overnight and command a kitchen at thirteen with my sister. So much change came from a single newspaper article. Now we’re going to be on TV and I can’t even dream of what will happen to this place once again.
But that same girl on the wall, printed in black and white newsprint, doesn’t sit here with a black and white mind. I think in so many shades, on the edge of myself, balanced between yesterday and tomorrow.
Basta. Enough sitting and thinking, and enough of this storefront.
In the back, the kitchen rides on grease and yeast and sugar. I stand where I would usually stand and realize too many bakers are scheduled for morning shift. They don’t need me today.
Marta whips mango mousse, alive with color. Gives me a taste with a spoon.
“Qué rico,” I tell her.
She starts pouring the filling into individual molds. “So, for the show, will you do tres leches or the flan?”
“Both if there’s time.”
I wander more, peering into the deck ovens, winding through the storage bay. I finally land in Papi’s office and stop short in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
My family perches on the small sofa, a trio of love. Papi, with his work-weary eyes and dark hair sprinkled with salt, and Mami still wearing her apron. Pilar’s in the middle, binding everyone together like glue.
Mami lifts her face from her laptop. “Why did you not tell us, Lilita?”
“What?” My mind reels. I sink into Papi’s desk chair.
Their faces drop and Pilar’s fingers fidget in endless combinations.
“Catalina sent the pictures she took at your birthday party. The prom they did for you,” Mami says. “Qué linda.”
“It was.” Those pictures are in my e-mail box too. I haven’t been able to open the file. Not yet. Orion’s flowers rest on my dresser, drying out.
Pilar says, “We were waiting for you to say something. Nothing yesterday off the plane, but you were so tired.” Her hand dashes aimlessly. “And nothing today, this morning over breakfast.”
My palms turn clammy and my heartbeat thrums in my chest, and not from two cafecitos.
Papi turns the laptop, scrolling. Cate snapped my party but captured my truth. Pictures show Orion dancing with me, his eyes closed and his lips poised at the top of my head. My face rests against his lapel, dream-spent. Then me, snuggled into his side as Jules sings my song, and dozens more of me and my new friends.
Words fail. I’m stripped of more than my apron today, naked and bare. I have to cross my arms at my chest to keep my traitorous emotions from flooding this place we all built. The sobs start inward, rolling, but I hide them behind a storm wall, anchoring myself into my father’s seat.
“We know about Le Cordon Bleu,” Papi says. “Catalina had a lot to say about that. About your plans and how much you impacted Winchester. How you love the city and could bring our food there. But you have not had anything to say.”
Say it? Give it actual words, ripping this little square office right down the middle?
Pilar scoots forward. “Don’t let it be like before. Don’t hold it al
l in.”
The wall cracks. “Yes, okay? Fine.” I’m flooding now, standing, ripping into myself. “It’s true. England, the school, Orion—all of it. But Miami is my home and everything here is my home. My future. How can I just… leave? Just forget everything we are, everything we’ve been working for?”
“Lila, answer the simple things,” Papi says. “Your sister told us about your Orion. Does this boy love you too?”
I close my eyes as inner snapshots flip. Orion Maxwell has never said the words, but he’s also shouted them a million ways, a million times. “He does.”
Mami slides her arm around Pilar. They cling to each other, faces wrestling with emotions until jagged smiles win.
“Bueno. And we looked at the pastry program. It’s wonderful. Do you want to go to this school?”
“The tuition is so expensive. And so are the train passes, and I couldn’t work for a long time on a student visa.”
“Abuela’s inheritance for you is enough.”
How can I even think of this? Using the money Abuela earned at La Paloma for a future opposite of the one she prepared me for? “I want to make the right choice. The best one for our family. For our business and everyone.”
“What happened to the best choice for you?” Papi asks.
For me. My legacy. My heart. My future.
But a piercing truth slashes like Tío’s knife into corn stalks. I turn to my mother. “You didn’t send me to England so I would choose it over our family, over Miami and La Paloma.” Not the woman who lost her best friend to the same country. “If you’d known, you wouldn’t have put me on that plane. But you did and now look!”
Mami stands and reaches for me, her hands twined with mine and her eyes like arrow points. “Did your heart find peace and some closure and something new to smile about in England?”
“Sí, Mami,” I whisper. “So, so much.”
Now she cries, a fat tear rolling down her cheek and the smell of her like honeysuckle. “That is exactly why we sent you.”
* * *
Stuffed with pork and Cuban side dishes, topped with an extended family’s worth of kisses and dancing and domino games, I sit on my bed. I’m stuffed with choices, too, pulled in too many ways. I trace the miniature colored pencil drawing of the Owl and Crow Inn, Gordon’s birthday gift.
FaceTime pings from my laptop and the name flashing on the screen sinks into my stomach. But I’m ready. I accept the call.
Stefanie stares at me from across the world. “Lila.” Her voice is small and I barely recognize this girl with a straw hat and no makeup.
“Hi.” How do we start? What do we do?
“I’m sorry about—” comes out of my mouth right when she says, “I’m sorry I—”
We both laugh shakily and I motion for her to go first.
“I’ve had service for a few weeks now, since my e-mail. But you went to England and I thought you’d be busy… and I was a little scared to call, to be honest.” I nod and she says, “I hate the way we left things. I didn’t get to explain. Lila, for years all I did was watch you change entire rooms with your food.”
“Stef—”
“No, listen. You would bring over croquetas or your flan, and people would just smile. They’d forget their problems or stress for a little while. And I’ve always thought that was your gift. Your magic.”
My chin crumples. But I keep listening.
Stef glances down then back at me again. “I just wanted my own magic too, separate from us together. I wanted to change rooms and help people. And I didn’t want to wait anymore. I’ll go back to school, but later. I didn’t know how to tell you—”
I hold out my palm. “Wait. I wasn’t acting like the kind of friend you could tell. So I’m sorry. Sorry I made you run all those miles and tried to plan your life.”
Her face softens. “We both messed up.”
“Yeah we did.” I breathe in then out. “Are you happy?”
Her nod comes quickly. “So happy.”
She tells me about Africa and the work she’s doing—saving lives, changing them. Her face gleams and animates well enough, but she doesn’t go deep into adventures.
“I’m finally used to the climate and no A/C.”
“When supplies are brought in, we fight over the dark chocolate bars.”
“Hats and long-sleeved white tees are my friend.”
Stefanie summarizes Ghana and the people and the skills she’s learning as if she’s reading her new life off a glossy travel brochure. My friend is holding back.
I don’t know what to do with this. I shift restless legs, then burrow under my comforter. I can’t get comfortable so I take my turn and talk about England. Only, talking about England is like knifing my heart from my chest. Held in front me, it drones a steady metronome beat, keeping me alive well enough. But this heart ticking between my body and Stef’s face on the monitor is cooler and paler than hearts should ever be.
So I can’t go deep. I hold back too and remain like the last-minute toppings of things. My stories are dusted powdered sugar and mango glaze. I can’t tell my friend about the thick, bittersweet fillings of castles and vanilla black tea, or the rich, spongy cake of new friends and songs. I can’t talk about the motorbike wind and green and stone I baked into crusty bread and into the baker. Me.
“It rains so much. Like more than Miami.”
“You’d really love the accents. They’re always apologizing for everything.”
“It’s so old. There can be a petrol station right next to a five-hundred-year-old building.”
Stef wrinkles her nose. “Since when do you say petrol?”
Petrol—I didn’t even notice. Telling her why I brought so much of another country back into mine doesn’t work. Neither does my mouth when I try to tell her about Orion. Nothing. Nada.
I’m 100 percent unable to tell the girl who cried for hours with me over Andrés a single word about Orion. The way we were in England is mine; I’m not sharing. I can’t even say his name or that I’m holding his sweater on my lap because if I do, I’ll knife through all the rest of me. I have to lock him inside to keep myself together.
But isn’t Stef my best friend? And then, what if there’s an African Orion, or a dozen other stories beyond chocolate bars and straw hats that she’s not telling me?
If this is true, it’s okay. And because it’s so okay, I realize we aren’t the same and different in a new-old friendship. We are just different now.
So this is what we do when our talking funnels down to drip-drops and long stretches of silence. I don’t have a recipe for this. I’ve never had a best-friendship ending before. We improvise.
“I think I’m going to extend my term here,” she says.
Which I’d already guessed. “I’m proud of you. I’ll always be proud of you,” is what feels the most true.
“I don’t know when we’ll see each other again.” From her.
Tears well, but my heart has gone back inside now and it’s softly thunking away. Right where it’s supposed to be. “I don’t know when I’ll see you, either.”
Her eyes are glassy. “I’ll always be proud of you, too, Lila.”
“I’ll keep track. Of everything you’re doing. All the good.”
She nods and smiles. “I’ll watch you take over the world.” Then she looks left and right. For seconds—too many—the quiet is thick and gray like clouds. “I have to go,” she whispers.
She doesn’t just mean from the call.
“I love you, Stefanie.”
“Te amo, Lila.”
The screen goes black. And a best-friendship doesn’t die. Instead, it runs its own way now, miles over bridges and roads and desert sand. Without us.
33
Days later a Temporarily Closed for Filming sign hangs on the door. I’m here when the shop is dark and wants to sleep. I rouse it awake, forcing it to listen. I came back to have this kitchen to myself for just a bit before the world peeks inside.
I
don’t know why Pilar is here.
“You’re in my territory,” I say. Pilar Reyes, who nests in the office and hates the dusty stick of flour on her hands.
“How I knew where to find you.” Only a few of the task lights shine. My sister is half mermaid, half math itself in her prim white blouse knotted at her waist and a flowy miniskirt. The hair we share—it needs its own zip code, we always say—riots around her face, waiting for our stylists tomorrow.
We meet at the butcher block island and do something Mami and Abuela used to scold us over. One, two… up! We scoot close and let our legs swing and dangle. I lean against the shoulder that’s always been so very strong. Strong enough to hold these walls up, and mine.
“Why are you wearing your dove on a silver chain?” Pili asks.
I reach for the gold bird. “I gave mine to Orion’s sister. Flora.”
“You wouldn’t surrender that necklace in a robbery.”
“Well…” is all I can say. Two sisters: which one will get FaceTime Lila and which will get the RealTime me?
“I was thinking you should highlight one of the special variations Abuela made here. For Family Style.”
“Sí. One more way to make her a part of it.” Slowly, I take in all my grandparents built. “Remember how she always put currants instead of raisins in the picadillo? She loved the little burst of flavor, even though they were more expensive.”
“And the special sugar, the one that sparkles, for the pastelitos for fancy parties,” Pili adds.
“Pineapple or hazelnut or pumpkin flan for different holidays, or the extra syrups she added to cakes, and everyone wondered why they were so moist. And knowing how to play with ratios so they were the same dishes or pasteles but also, just better versions of the same.”
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