Breath Like Water

by Anna Jarzab

  * * *

  We’re on a short training break post-Nationals, which works out well for Mom because I have no excuse to skip morning preparations for the tamalada. The four of us are up early to scrub the house top to bottom, then Mom drafts Nina and me into kitchen duty and sends Dad out on multiple store runs to pick up last-minute groceries, liquor, and other supplies. Mom’s been planning this for weeks, but as much as she loves entertaining, she’s always nervous about disappointing people. It’s no mystery where I got that particular fixation from.

  “We eat tamales all year-round, and yet somehow I forget how much work they are to make,” Nina grumbles as she and I prepare the drinks and appetizers for the party. If you’re going to invite fifty people to your house on a Saturday and put them to work, you have to feed them. A lot.

  I’m not a foodie or anything, but I do enjoy cooking when I get the chance. There’s something so dependable about recipes—you do this and this and this, then something delicious happens. Most days, food is just fuel to me; I don’t have time to enjoy it. But Nina let me help her plan the snacks for the day, and we had fun together looking for recipes online before settling on avocado bruschetta, creamy cauliflower artichoke dip, spicy pineapple salsa and sheet-pan black bean nachos. We’ve barely started and I’m already starving.

  Nina has appointed herself bartender. She’s mixing up pitchers of Mom’s signature cranberry agua fresca with mint and lime ice cubes, and a big bowl of pomegranate ginger apple cider punch for Dad to spike when he gets home. But I’m most looking forward to Bela’s champurrado, which only she is allowed to make. The craving is so strong I can almost taste the chocolate on my tongue.

  “Who’s bringing Bela?” I ask Mom. My abuela still has her license, but she’s not comfortable driving anymore. Whenever she needs to go somewhere, one of her kids or their spouses takes her.

  “Lillia, I think,” she says distractedly, fussing with the electric mixer. She gives it a hard smack and flips the switch, but nothing happens. Mom lets out a muffled scream. “I knew this thing was going to die today. I had a dream about it. How the hell are we going to mix the masa?”

  “Aren’t Tía Lillia and Bela bringing mixers?” You can buy masa ready-made, but Bela always made hers by hand and Mom insists on keeping that tradition alive.

  “Yeah, but I was counting on having three.” Mom sighs. “One of these days, I’m going to throw a party and everything will go right.”

  “Maybe it’s a sign of good luck,” I say. “Like rain on your wedding day.”

  Mom chuckles. “It did rain on my wedding day, and I guess that turned out all right.”

  “You guess?” Dad shouts in mock-outrage from the kitchen door.

  “Hector, finally—how long does it take to pick up a few things from the store?” Mom grabs the grocery bags from his hands. “Can you go next door and ask Bridget if I can borrow her mixer? Tell her there’s an extra dozen tamales in it for her.”

  Dad shakes his head. “The Levins aren’t home, remember? They RVSP-ed no to the party.”

  “That’s right, I forgot. Damn it!” she growls.

  Mom spends the next twenty minutes trying to track down another mixer, but none of our neighbors have one that works, and all of the family members attending the party are already on their way. The goal is to make hundreds of tamales. Without enough mixers, that process is going to be sloooow. And painful for whoever gets stuck stirring masa by hand. Actually, Harry would be good at it, due to all those muscles.

  That gives me an idea. “Harry said his mom likes to bake. I bet she’s got a mixer, and they live close by. Do you want me to ask him to bring it?”

  Mom’s face lights up. “Yes! Please do that, Susannah, go do that right now. And make sure he invites his parents to come.”

  My stomach does a long, slow somersault at the thought of having Harry’s parents at the party. It’s not that I don’t like them, I just don’t know them very well. They’re always working, so they hardly ever come to meets. I’ve only met them once, at a dual in October. Harry’s stepdad, Bruce, was friendly and warm, but his mom...not so much. She wasn’t rude to me or anything, but I could tell she wasn’t impressed.

  That was before Harry and I got together, though, so maybe she disapproved of our complicated friendship. When I asked Harry if I’d done something to make her dislike me, he said his mom could be skeptical of strangers and not to take it personally. But now she’s my boyfriend’s mother. If I still can’t win her over, how else am I supposed to take it?

  It doesn’t help that Harry seems to be thinking along the same lines. He immediately responds to my text about the mixer with a promise to bring it, but when I say, You should bring your parents, too, it’s a while before he responds. Finally, he asks, You sure that’s okay?

  I tell him it is, even though no, I’m not sure. The day is going to be chaotic enough without adding two people I want desperately to like me into the mix.

  Too late now, though. They’re coming.

  * * *

  “Mi vida,” Bela says with a happy sigh, cupping my face in her hands. I have to bend so she can press a warm kiss against my cheek. “You’re so tall! I think you grow an inch every time I see you.”

  “Maybe you’re shrinking,” I say. Bela pinches my chin in retaliation, but she smiles at me before turning to torment Nina about her grades.

  “Buenas tardes, tía,” I say, giving Tía Lillia, Mom’s sister, a big hug.

  “Buenas tardes, darling.” She squeezes me tightly and rocks me back and forth, the way she always did when we were little, which makes me laugh. Tía Lillia has always been my favorite aunt, and not to flatter myself, but I think she likes me best of all her nieces and nephews.

  We actually have a lot in common. These days, she’s an accountant at a Big Four firm, but all through her teens and most of her twenties, Tía Lillia was a nationally ranked tennis player. Maybe that’s why Mom’s always been so cautious about my swimming career—she knew from watching Tía Lillia as they were growing up how much sacrifice being an elite athlete requires. But Tía Lillia’s always encouraged me and my dreams.

  Bela is saying to my sister, “You have to get good grades so you can go to college. No more messing around. You worry your parents to death.”

  “I know, Bela, I know,” she says, then hastily adds, “Susannah’s boyfriend is coming to the party. Can you believe she has a boyfriend now, our little Susanita?”

  “You have a boyfriend, Susannah?” Bela coos, grabbing my hand. “How nice.”

  I shoot Nina a glare. “That was shameless,” I tell her.

  Nina beams at me and wiggles her fingers in the air. “Misdirection.”

  “What is his name?” Bela asks at the exact moment Tía Lillia asks, “How’d you meet him?”

  “Harry,” I tell them. “And he’s a swimmer. We’re on the same team.”

  “I mean, come on,” Nina says. “Where else would Susannah meet a guy?”

  Mom pops her head into the entryway. “Oh, hi! ¿Como esta, mami?”

  “Bien, bien,” Bela says. Mom embraces Bela and Lillia warmly.

  “Nina told us your little one has a boyfriend, Maria,” Tía Lillia teases, snaking an arm around my shoulders.

  Bela asks, “Is he a good boy, this...?”

  “Harry,” I say, thinking about what he said the other day: I don’t want to be a curiosity. My heart sinks. My relatives are going to eat him alive.

  “Yes, we like him,” Mom assures them, although she and Dad have only met him once, that first time he picked me up for a Sunday swim.

  Dad pops his head in and shouts, “Even though he’s a Cubs fan!”

  I laugh and shake my head.

  “He’s a nice young man,” Mom says, giving Dad a little shove. He disappears back into the living room. “He’s coming today with his parents, so you m
ight as well wait till they get here to torture Susannah with embarrassment. There’s a lot to do in the kitchen, and you’re detaining my help. Did you bring the mixers and filling? Girls, go get the stuff from the car—Lillia, give them your keys.”

  “Older sisters, always so bossy,” Tía Lillia scoffs, handing over the keys to her Prius as Mom disappears into the kitchen. She winks at me. “Does this Harry make you happy, Susannah?”

  I smile. “Yeah, he does.”

  “Then I can’t wait to meet him.”

  * * *

  Tía Lillia does, in fact, have to wait to meet Harry. And wait. And wait some more. Because he doesn’t show up on time. He’s not even fashionably late, like Jessa and Amber—he’s just fucking late.

  It’s not like I’m surprised. Harry has a casual relationship with time, which of course Dave is a huge fan of. But I keep thinking back to that Sunday when we were supposed to hang out and he didn’t show up, with no real explanation. Is that what’s happening now? Is Harry ditching me?

  I can tell Mom is anxious about the mixer he promised to bring. We started making the tamales, because we couldn’t wait, but it’s going slower than Mom would like. The masa is the star of the show—you can’t make tamales without it. Since we’re down a mixer, I help by kneading the corn flour and lard by hand. It’s killing my shoulder. I keep texting Harry, but he doesn’t reply.

  Nina called shotgun on filling the tamales and grabbed Amber to help her as soon as she walked through the door. The two of them are chatting at the dining room table, which we extended with two card tables so it could accommodate twenty people filling and folding in an assembly line Henry Ford would be proud of. It’s nice to see how well Amber and Nina get along.

  My sister doesn’t like Jessa, though, so she’s in the kitchen with Mom, Bela and me, soaking corn husks in hot water to soften and make them easier to fold.

  “Where’s your man?” she asks me, popping a tortilla chip in her mouth. “I thought he was coming.”

  “He is,” I insist.

  “He’ll be here soon,” Mom says, even though I’m sure by now she has her doubts. She’s not a huge fan of Jessa, either. She thinks she can be a little mean.

  As if on cue, the doorbell rings, and my heart surges against my ribs. In my rush to answer it, I almost trip over my three-year-old cousin Gabriel, who’s playing with a set of Matchbox cars Mom gave him in the hallway. Lulu is barking her head off upstairs—I put her and the cats in Mom and Dad’s bedroom so they wouldn’t be underfoot all day.

  Gabe looks at me, wide-eyed, and asks, “Where’s the doggy? I want to play with the doggy.”

  “You can play with her later, I promise,” I say, scooping him up. I deposit him in the living room, where Dad’s holding court with my uncles and male cousins. They’re supposed to be watching the younger kids, but they’re mostly watching sports and eating the appetizers I made.

  “Whoops,” my cousin Luis—Gabe’s dad—says. “Guess he got away from me.”

  I glance at the TV. “Yeah, wonder how that happened.” He gives me a sheepish grin. I pat Gabe on the head, and steel myself to answer the door.

  The thing about Harry is, my irritation melts away when I see him. I can’t help it—I love the sight of him. And my sore shoulder loves the sight of the KitchenAid mixer he’s got in his arms.

  “You made it,” I say. “I’ll take that from you.”

  “No, I’ll carry it into the kitchen,” he insists, kissing my cheek. “Hey, Susie. Sorry we’re late.”

  Oh, that’s right—we. Bruce and his mom are standing behind him. Harry’s mom looks confused. “We’re late? Harry, what time were we supposed to be here?”

  “No worries, it’s kind of a come-whenever sort of thing for guests,” I tell her. “Hi, Mrs. Matthews, Mr. Matthews. It’s good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you, too, Susannah,” Harry’s mom says. “Thank you so much for inviting us. You can call us Bruce and Paula.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the mixer. Ours broke this morning, so we had to get creative.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  Bruce claps his hands together. He’s a big man, tall and broad, with a full beard and a huge, booming voice. “This is exciting. We’ve never been to a tamale party before. How can we help?”

  “The guys are in the living room, so you can head on in there if you want,” I tell him. “There’s a game on, and some food and drinks.”

  “I can watch the game at home,” Bruce says. “I came to make some tamales. Give us jobs!”

  I laugh and Harry grins. He worships Bruce. “Okay, then, let’s find you something to do.”

  Once I’ve introduced Bruce and Paula to my parents and Bela, the four of us sit down at the dining room table to help put together the tamales.

  “So, first you take a corn husk and spread a layer of masa, like this,” I say, demonstrating. “Then you put filling in the center of the masa. It’s about a tablespoon, but you can eyeball it. We’ve got four kinds of filling here: beef, red chili and pork, chicken, and vegetarian—bean, cheese, and potato.”

  “You made all of this today? You must’ve started around dawn,” Paula says.

  “We made the beef and veggie fillings yesterday. My grandmother and aunt brought the other two,” I tell her. “So, after you fill the husk, you fold it like this, to make a little envelope that holds the tamale together, and then tie it off so it doesn’t fall apart in the steamer. Some people use strips of corn husk, but we use string because who has the time?”

  Paula laughs. “Indeed.”

  “And that’s basically it,” I say. “Depending on which filling you use, you put the finished tamale on one of these colored plates, and then we steam them.”

  “When do we eat them?” Harry asks, popping a piece of shredded chicken into his mouth.

  “Hey, don’t waste the filling,” I scold him. “If you’re hungry, there are nachos in the kitchen.”

  Harry pushes back from the table. “See ya,” he says, bolting out of the room.

  Paula shakes her head and smiles. Harry doesn’t resemble her much—Paula is short and stocky, with a round face and green eyes and blond hair shot through with gray—but in that moment I realize: his smile is all hers. “That boy could eat every hour of every day and never be full.”

  “Swimming burns a lot of calories,” I say with a smile. “We’ve got to get them from somewhere.” Then I remember she’s a nurse and probably knows how the human body works.

  “That kid better change his mind about not swimming after high school, because by the time he graduates we’ll have spent his entire college fund on Pizza Rolls and he’ll need the scholarship,” Bruce says, laughing.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Paula jabs Bruce in the ribs with her elbow. “He’s joking. Harry’s college fund is fine.”

  My smile wavers. “No, I mean about Harry not swimming after high school?” I always assumed he would swim in college, like me.

  “I—” Paula stops when she sees Harry come through the door carrying an entire tray of nachos. “You didn’t want to leave some for anyone else, darling son that I raised to be polite and have good manners?”

  “Susannah’s mom told me to take the whole tray,” he mutters, only sort of embarrassed by his gluttony. “And her grandma basically shoved it into my hands!”

  “Bela likes to make people eat,” I say. “It’s how she shows her love.”

  “If that’s true,” Harry says, shoving a big piece of nachos into his mouth, “then I think your abuela wants to marry me.”

  Even though he’s talking with his mouth full and wiping his fingers on his jeans and clearly didn’t brush his hair today and was super late, a lightning bolt of affection and attraction hits me squarely in the chest when I look at Harry. I can’t believe I thought I could control my fe
elings for him, or resist them for even a second longer than I did. Harry and I, we were inevitable. And nothing feels more right to me than us here, together, surrounded by our families and outrageously in love.

  * * *

  Once all the tamales are filled and folded and steamed, Paula and Bruce help me, Mom and Tía Lillia wrap them in foil and pack them up for people to take home. The unanimous opinion was that Harry couldn’t be trusted not to steal a few for immediate consumption, so he joins Dad and the rest of the guys in refilling ice chests, pouring drinks, and setting out snack platters and sides on the table.

  Not all of the tamales leave with our guests. Some we eat right away, during the second half of the tamalada, and that’s when the party really begins.

  While the adults set to work getting tipsy off Dad’s spiked punch, I take Lulu out to pee. Jessa, Amber and Nina join me, but my aunts and cousins have Harry and his parents in a conversational headlock and refuse to release him. Serves him right for being so late.

  “How long are we going to be out here?” Jessa asks, shivering in her inadequate coat.

  “I told you you’d be cold,” Amber says, but she puts her arm around Jessa to warm her up. Nina raises her eyebrows at them, then pulls her gloves off with her teeth and scrolls around on her phone.

  “This is all I have to wear,” Jessa snaps. “And I wasn’t going to let you guys leave without me.”

  “I owe Lulu a long walk for being cooped up all day,” I say.

  “Frick and Frack were cooped up, too, but I don’t see you out here with two cats on a leash.”

  Amber laughs. I shake my head. Jessa can be a bit much sometimes. “You’ll warm up,” I tell her. I almost didn’t invite her, after the way she’s been acting toward me lately, but I know how much pressure we’re all under, and anyway, it’s Christmas.