The Comeback Route

by Jamie Bennett

  “Here.” Lucy set a glass in front of me, full of amber liquid. “I think you need this.”

  “Beer?”

  “Sidra asturiana. Cider from Asturias, in northern Spain,” she explained, and I took a huge gulp. “It’s alcoholic,” she noted, as I finished draining it. “Maybe I should have told you that first.”

  “It’s delicious!” I held up my glass for more.

  “Show her!” Chara urged her mom. “Watch how you’re supposed to pour it.”

  Lucy held the glass below her waist and the bottle over her head. She tilted it so that it poured exactly in, filling my glass with the fizzy liquid.

  “Wow! I want to try!” I exclaimed.

  “No,” Lucy told me, and gave me the cider. “Sip now, don’t guzzle. That was how my father taught me to serve it, the way they did back in his hometown in Spain.”

  “Why did he come to Miami?” I asked.

  “First, he went to Cuba when he was only a teenager, so he could make his way in the world. But he got pretty homesick. That was why he and my mother baked all the pastries from Spain, from Asturias, just like his own mother had done. She was a very accomplished baker, and he brought all her recipes with him when he immigrated.”

  “Here,” Chara said. She showed me a picture on her phone of a white-haired man surrounded by a smiling group that included Lucy. “This is my grandpa with my mom and my aunts and uncles.”

  I considered the picture and poured another glass. “You look a lot like him, Lucy.”

  She smiled at the screen. “I got some of my mom, too.” She patted her thick hair. “My parents came to Miami after the Cuban Revolution, starting over again with almost nothing,” she said. “After a few years they were able to establish this bakery and my mother insisted on calling it ‘El Asturiano’ for my dad.” She smiled at Chara’s picture and both of them talked about memories of Lucy’s parents. I sipped and listened, then sipped a lot more. “I miss him but this place makes me feel like he’s still with me,” Lucy concluded. “My brothers and sisters wanted to do other things, so he left it to me. Then it will be Chara’s.”

  “Mother…”

  “Someday,” Lucy said. “Not right now. First, college,” but Chara didn’t look at her.

  “Definitely college,” I agreed. “It’s one of my biggest regrets in life that I didn’t finish my degree.” I sighed at my lost youth and downed the rest of my sidra. The stuff was delicious, like juice, but even tastier. I filled my glass again but in the normal, not-over-my-head way.

  “Tatum, how old are you?” Lucy asked me.

  “Twenty-four. According to my passport, anyway.”

  She let that go. “I don’t think it’s too late for you. It’s never too late to keep learning.”

  “Like you learning to use a normal phone that does stuff besides dialing,” her daughter told her. “Like you learning to keep up with the times a little.”

  “Like you learning not to let some skinny boy lead you around like you have a ring through your nose,” Lucy snapped right back.

  I just drank my cider. “You two,” I said affectionately. “Isn’t this nice?”

  They stared at me. “What, exactly?” Lucy asked.

  “How you love each other enough to be so mean! Now, that’s a real relationship.” I drank. “And you have more family, too, even more people you can yell at. Lucky, lucky. I talked to your nephew Salvador yesterday,” I said. “Your nephew, your cousin. He’s my market researcher. My barometry.”

  “Your what?” Chara asked. “Did you mean your barometer?” She giggled. “Tatum, you sound drunk.”

  “What do you know about drunk?” her mother demanded. She bent and looked into my eyes. “Seriously, Tatum, are you?”

  “Does this cider have alcohol or something?” I asked. I finished my glass, my third. Or fourth. The bottle was oddly empty and I remembered it being a lot fuller when Lucy had done the pouring trick.

  “I told you that it does. I should have thought about the fact that you weigh ninety pounds,” she said, tsk-tsking.

  “Lucy, thank you.” I felt my eyes well. “After all the cookies I’ve eaten today…I really appreciate that.”

  “The rule is one item from the case, one per day,” she reminded me.

  “Oh, please. If there was ever a time to eat cookies! Her boyfriend is going to jail!” Chara reminded her right back.

  “No, prison. Although, I’ve been looking into all the extradishes places, and plenty of countries don’t have treaties with the United States. I’m going to push for Morocco. Would you guys visit me? Do you think there are bakeries there that would need my skill set? Oh, I’m going to miss my friend Daisy so much! I think it will be too far for her to fly to Monaco. I mean, the other place.” My eyes filled up again.

  Lucy looked at the clock on the wall. “Your shift here is done, but I’m a little reluctant to send you home like this. Why don’t you walk with Chara to our apartment? It will help to clear your head.”

  “I would love to see your place,” I agreed. “Let’s bring the cider with us.”

  “No, that stays here,” Lucy answered, picking up the mostly empty bottle. “Chara, watch her. I’ll be home in an hour.”

  “I love your mom,” I told Chara. We linked arms as we walked down the street. “Isn’t she so cool? She’s so bossy.”

  “Well, she is your boss, Tatum.”

  “Yeah, that’s true! I guess that’s her deal, right? Bossing me. But you get to have her as your boss and as your mom.”

  “Lucky me,” Chara said. “Step around that pothole. Tatum! Not in it!”

  “Oh, my foot is wet!” I shook it a little. My new shoe from Nico was pretty gross, but I still had the other one. “I never had a mom like that,” I admitted to Chara. “Not that I remember. You are lucky, because she loves you so much. But you love that Pirro, even though he seems like a jackass to me.”

  “Pirro isn’t a jackass!”

  “Then where is he right now?” I challenged.

  “Your boyfriend is practically under house arrest,” she answered furiously. “And up until a few days ago he was posting pictures of himself with every jinetera in Miami!”

  “What does that mean? I can guess, is it like pata sucia but a whole lot worse? I’m really learning so much from you, Chara!”

  She tugged me along sidewalk. “Tatum, is Nico really your boyfriend?”

  “Mostly. I would say, we’re a work in progress. Know what I mean?”

  “Not really,” Chara said, shaking her head. “It’s a simple question, right? Are you together, or aren’t you?”

  “I think relationships are largely a matter of opinion,” I explained. “In my opinion, we are absolutely together. We’re really good together. For example, he doesn’t seem to want to kill me, and I’ve noticed that after a while, a lot of people do.”

  “Your opinion is that you’re in a relationship. What does Nico say about it?” she asked.

  “That’s a really good question. I feel like I’m risking a lot to be with him. Like, my good reputation! No,” I considered, “I don’t have that. But I’m not going to let him be some Pirro with me, screwing around and treating me like dirt so that María José in the bakery says ‘pobrecita’ when she talks about me!”

  “Hey!” Chara protested.

  “Let’s ask him,” I said. “Let’s call Nico right now.” I stopped and Chara pulled me as I dialed.

  “You can’t stop in a crosswalk!” she was telling me, just as Nico answered.

  “Hi, Tates, are you on your way home?” he asked.

  “Where are we?” I demanded. The phone beeped in my ear.

  “What? Are you lost?”

  “I am. I’m really lost,” I said angrily. The phone beeped again and I remembered that it meant I was running out of time on it.

  “Look around and see if there are any street signs—” Nico started to direct me.

  “I’m not talking about that,” I interrupted, even
angrier. “I’m talking about us. Our relationship status. Oh, I feel dizzy. Hold on.” I leaned on Chara heavily. “I think I forgot to have lunch, or also breakfast, but I did eat all those cat tongues. Not real ones, cookies,” I explained to everyone. “If I fall, can you catch me?” I asked Chara. She shook her head and kept us walking.

  “Who are you talking to?” Nico asked. “Why are you dizzy and falling?”

  The phone beeped more, the stupid thing. “Because of the wonderful cider! We’re definitely going to get some, and I’m going to learn to pour it over my head. Maybe I’ll practice pouring water over my head, before I turn to alcohol.” I sighed. “I really wish there wasn’t an extradishes treaty with Spain.”

  “Tatum, you’re making me very worried. Can you go inside a store or restaurant and ask where you are?” Nico said.

  “I’m in Miami! But where are you? Where are we?” I demanded. Chara had stopped at a small apartment building and was pointing at it. “Oh, we’re here, so I have to go.”

  “Where? Who are you with?”

  “You know, now that I’m thinking about it, it probably isn’t the nicest thing to spring all this on you right now. Sorry, Nico. Just thinking about Pirro, I got all riled up,” I explained.

  “Who the hell is Pirro?” he asked loudly. “Tatum, where are you?”

  I squinted at the street signs and read off the names and the number on the building. “Where am I going?” I asked Chara, and repeated the information to Nico. “Unit D. I’ll talk to you later, I can’t take this beeping anymore. Don’t worry about the extradishes…I keep saying that! I mean I don’t care where we go, but I’m going to try to manufacture evidence first. I met some people outside the bakery who are—”

  “Holy hell, stay right there, Tatum.”

  “I will,” I assured him, and he was still talking when the phone turned off. Chara and I went upstairs and I sat on her couch very tiredly.

  “You’re kind of a mess when you’re drinking,” she told me, and handed me another glass.

  “I always have been, even when it’s water like this.” I took a big sip and spilled some. “Let’s call Pirro now!” I suggested.

  “No, you know what? I’m not going to call him today. Seriously, what if we stay together, and then someday I end up like you, with him not acknowledging me as his girlfriend? And me with no college degree, and not even a laptop of my own, and Pirro going to jail?”

  “Prison,” I corrected her. “Do you have any more sidra here?”

  “No, you’re good on sidra. Don’t tell my mom though, ok? About Pirro? I don’t want her to know that she was right. A little bit right.”

  “No, I won’t tell her. Because I think I’m going to go to sleep. Is that ok with you?” I put my head back on the couch. “I didn’t sleep very well last night. I heard Nico walking around the apartment and awake for hours but then he slept in, and I had to get up and go to the bakery. It’s such a thing, having to work every day. Like, every day!” My eyes closed.

  “I’m going to put dinner in the oven for me and my mom. I’m thinking you should eat with us later, right, Tatum? Ok?”

  But I was too tired to answer. My eyes and my mouth stayed stuck closed.

  They only opened when I heard a dull pounding that made me jolt awake on the couch.

  “Open this door. Open this door!”

  “Nico?” I was very confused and my mouth was very gross. I had been dreaming that I was back on the bus on my way to Miami, but it had gone rogue and was turning around and around in circles instead of motoring in a straight line down the highway. Now when I sat up, I still felt like I was spinning inside that terrible dream bus. “Oh, make it stop,” I moaned.

  “That’s your boyfriend?” Lucy was there suddenly, and she looked a little frightened. “I was just about to call the cops!

  “No!” I lurched off the couch, still confused, but very sure that I didn’t want the police to come. “No, don’t call them! What is he doing here?” As both Lucy and Chara told me no, no, don’t, I went and opened the door to Nico. “What—” I started to ask, but he picked me up and squeezed me. The room rolled.

  “Tatum!” he shouted. “Tatum, are you all right?”

  “No, I’m going to puke,” I warned him with a groan. But it was too late, because I did.

  “Sorry,” I told Nico a little while later. “I had all that cider on a stomach filled with only rosquillas and the cat tongue cookies.”

  “Lenguas de gato,” Lucy put in, and I nodded.

  “I can clearly see now that taking down an entire bottle of sidra all by myself was not a good move,” I concluded. I felt less tipsy now, but things weren’t what you’d call perfect.

  Nico and I sat on the couch where I had napped. He wore a t-shirt that Lucy had unearthed in her drawer that had belonged to an old boyfriend of hers. “It’s the biggest thing we own,” she had explained, but it still didn’t fit Nico. It rode up and exposed the cut rectangles of his stomach, clung to his muscled chest, and barely covered the tops of his powerful arms. He seemed a bit constricted in it but he was able pull off the look and still be as hot as ever. Also, it was much better than wearing his own shirt, which was unfortunately covered in my vomit.

  “Sorry,” I said again, and patted his arm.

  “I did squeeze you pretty hard,” he admitted. At least now he was speaking. For a while after the incident when he’d arrived, he had looked close to heaving himself, and had kept his lips sealed shut. “You made me worried when you were so incoherent earlier on the phone,” he continued. “More, I mean, than usual. Thank you for letting me in and giving me clothes,” he told Lucy.

  She and Chara sat at their kitchen table, gaping at him. They hadn’t spoken much since Nico had arrived. I wasn’t sure if the problem was that they didn’t believe that he was innocent of the drug charges and were scared that he was a criminal, or if it was just having a famous person in a toddler-sized shirt in their living room. Or maybe it was all the muscles. They had said things like, “Here’s a towel,” and, “You may need to shower it off,” and, “It still smells in here, I’ll put that in a garbage bag” and then stared at him.

  “You’re welcome,” Lucy said. Her eyes went to his abs, but the timer dinged on the oven, startling her so that she stopped gawking. “Oh, dinner is ready. I was going to ask Tatum to stay…would you like to, also?” she asked Nico.

  “Uh…” Nico looked at me, and I nodded. I liked to unite different people in my life. “Sure, thank you, if Tatum is feeling better.”

  “I think I got it all out,” I said, and gestured to the door, beyond which sat the garbage bag with Nico’s former t-shirt in it.

  “I’d have to think there couldn’t be too much more that would fit in you,” Nico agreed. We joined Chara at the table and Lucy bustled around the small room setting out plates and glasses. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Oh, it’s all ready,” she said, so flustered and different from how she acted at the bakery. We all started to eat in silence. Well, the three of them started to eat, but I was maybe not quite as ready for food as I had thought.

  “Tatum, we have to learn how to make this chicken,” Nico said. “It’s delicious.” He smiled at Lucy, that wide grin that had made him almost as famous among his female fans as his skills on the football field. Lucy reacted the same way all of them did, smiling right back at him and sighing a little.

  “Jesus, Mamá,” Chara muttered. “Don’t start ovulating or something.”

  “Chara! Language!”

  That broke the ice a little between the three of them. I sucked on some actual ice out of my water glass and that made me feel better, too.

  “How did you get over here?” I asked Nico curiously. “Were all the reporters gone?” He glanced at Chara and Lucy. “Oh, they know all about how you’ve been hounded by the press,” I said. “I’ve been telling them everything.”

  “Did you tell them how you pretended to be a palmetto bug exterminator i
n order to get close to the news people to eavesdrop on what they were saying?” Nico asked. “And all you heard was them arguing about where they should order pizza because they were hungry, and then the doorman had to come out and help you because you couldn’t see where you were going with the protective screen of the hood over your face.” He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why you had a coverall in your suitcase.”

  “I packed heavy when I left Michigan,” I explained. And no, I hadn’t mentioned that particular story to Lucy yet.

  “But yeah, the building is free and clear of reporters,” Nico said. “They’ve moved on after they filmed me at the lawyers’ office, but I think they’ll be back tomorrow because, uh,” and he stopped. “This was the first time I’ve felt like I could move around and not get tailed. After you called me and hung up—”

  “The phone broke, again,” I explained. “I’ve been talking to Daisy a lot for moral support and also for her to tell me not to do things, like dressing as an exterminator. My name was going to be Deborah Pearl, a long-time Hialeah resident originally from eastern Louisiana with a deep hatred for palmetto bugs…anyway, I’ve been calling Daisy so much that the phone ran out, I didn’t hang up on you.”

  “I thought you were lost and wandering around Miami with a stranger, or someone was kidnapping you. Drunk like that, in the middle of the afternoon? Do you remember what you said to me when we talked?” His eyebrows lowered and now he frowned.

  I did remember what I had said, unfortunately. I had been trying to talk to him about the status of our relationship and things had gone sideways. “I was making a point about where we were, not directionally, but coupled-ly. But it was hard to explain, because I had just stepped in a puddle and I was concerned about that, and then the cider, which, by the way, is alcoholic. Can you imagine that they sell that to children? I used to guzzle it as a kid! I had no idea.”