“I’m absolutely certain my dog will not be the yappiest in there,” Elena insisted, just in time for the screen door to open in her face.
She took a step back to avoid getting hit by the smallest old woman she thought she’d ever met. The old woman had a messy bun of gray hair on top of her head and apparently a negative amount of body fat. Elena was pretty sure that she could count every bone in her body, despite the bright pink, puffy coat she wore.
Two orange tabby kittens shot past everyone standing on the porch and directly up the large magnolia tree. The woman rubbed her forehead with a groan.
“You must be Ms. Mendéz. And who are these lovely gentlemen?”
She ran her hazel eyes over the Mendéz brothers appreciatively. Elena smiled.
“These are my brothers, Ms. Libby. They came to help me get the dog you’ve been fostering for me, since I’m allergic to cats. Speaking of, are you worried about those two?”
Libby waved a hand at the tree, where the cats were lounging behind the large leaves, batting playfully at each other.
“Sage and Paprika are the naughtiest of my foster kittens. They’ll come back when they’re cold and yell to be let in.”
“If you say so…” Elena trailed off dubiously. It was far too cold out there for humans, let alone for cats that were much bigger than her size 12 shoe, but she certainly wasn’t going to go after them.
“It’ll be all right, dear. Now, come on in, you strapping young men. You’re liable to get jumped on by one of my dogs, but if you say ‘Down’ they oughta listen. They just get awful excited…” Her voice trailed off as she turned the corner in the house. The boys followed her as best as they could, navigating around the countless animals at their feet.
Through the screen door, Elena could see a beautiful brown standard poodle, a large, goofy-looking German Shepherd, some sort of Chihuahua mix and three calico cats wandering around her brothers’ feet. She could hear other dogs barking from further inside the house, and was grateful that she wasn’t going in. With as much noise as she could hear outside, she could only imagine how badly the sounds on the interior would set off her anxiety on top of the allergies.
She walked back to the car, admiring the beautiful rows of trees in the huge yard around her. She could imagine that it would be absolutely stunning during fall when the leaves were changing. She popped open the back hatch of her SUV and grimaced at the amount of loose paper in it.
“I can’t put her in her crate back here with it looking like this,” Elena scolded herself. “Time to tidy all of this up.”
Without any further ado, she pulled her briefcase to the front of the trunk and began cleaning to prepare for her new family member.
Fifteen minutes later, Elena and her brothers had learned that the dog did not particularly like being in the crate in the trunk. Her whining was nearly deafening, even to Elena’s ears at the front of the car. The dog had been thoroughly groomed.
In a stroke of genius, Luis had picked up a beautiful length of tartan ribbon from the craft store he had wandered through while he had waited for the dog to be groomed.
“Gabriel, this dog sounds like you when you were little,” Anton joked. “Always with the whining.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gabriel replied. “At least I was cute.”
“Hey! My dog is cute, too!” Elena objected. The dog punctuated her objection with a loud yip. The humans burst into laughter.
“She seems fine enough when we’re on the highway,” Luis noted.
Elena could see in the rearview mirror that he was turned nearly all the way around in his seat to pet the dog in her crate. It seemed to help her calm down and stop whining, so Elena didn’t say anything. They were nearly home. Which meant, it was time to deviate from the path her brothers expected to take.
“Elena, is this the way to your house? I don’t remember these houses.”
“We are going home, sort of. We can’t take this lady home yet. I want her to be a surprise this evening. Luckily, our neighbor has four acres of land and more dogs than we can keep track of.”
At that, she caught a glimpse of Luis whipping around in his seat.
“Wait, you’re surprising your girlfriend with a dog for Christmas? Elena, you know better than to give surprise animals!”
She rolled her eyes. He was right - she did know better than to give surprise animals. But this was different.
“Cora went and saw this dog at the shelter three times in two weeks. I know she wants her. She even picked out a name for her before the shelter told her that she’d been adopted by someone else.”
That someone else, of course, had been Elena. As soon as the dog realized Luis’s hands weren’t on her, she started whining again.
“You are sneaky, sister. I approve, even if the dog is whiny as hell. What’s the name?”
“You’ll find out tonight. I won’t spoil the surprise, even for you three.”
She drove up a long gravel driveway that wound through fenced in pastures. It was the back entrance to their neighbor's property, and the only way that Elena was sure to get the dog into Adelaide’s house without being spotted by Cora’s eagle eyes. The house they pulled up at was much grander than theirs. It was a proper pillared southern farmhouse with white siding and bright blue shutters that Elena always found striking.
“These people make bank, don’t they?” Anton asked with a surprised laugh.
“They really do,” she admitted. “I think the house is actually inherited from his side of the family, but he does something that makes him a ton of money. I don’t know him that well yet, but I love his wife and daughter. Your kids know them, Anton. Janelle is Sofía’s age.”
He rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully.
“Wait, Janelle is real? I thought that was just her imaginary friend. Whoops.”
Gabriel and Luis burst into laughter in the backseat, which set the dog to barking again.
Elena sighed, a little exasperated and frazzled, as she parked the car next to the screened-in wrap around porch.
“Y’all are a damn mess, you know that? Now get out and help me get her inside without causing a panic, please.”
“Aye, aye, captain.” Gabriel punctuated the remark with a mocking salute.
Cora and María beat Elena and the boys home, which wasn’t surprising. They had only been gone for maybe 45 minutes. She couldn’t imagine how busy the only grocery store in town would be on Christmas Eve. Besides, it gave her time to hide the ring and help get everything set up for dinner.
As soon as they got out of the car, high-pitched voices assailed them from the field next door.
“Tía Cora! Abuela! C’mere!”
“Miss Cora!”
She knew those sounds. Janelle and Sofía had found each other already, and David was toddling along after them. A glance confirmed it, and that the three were surrounded by dogs, as usual. Marianne watched from the neighbor’s porch.
“Quien es?”
“Hey Janelle!” she yelled across the yard. Their nine-year-old neighbor waved back furiously. “That’s our neighbor Janelle. She and Sofía have become very good friends in the times that she’s visited us.”
“They have so many dogs! Where do they put them?”
“I’m pretty sure they foster some for the local animal shelter,” Cora laughed. “Plus they have 3 acres and a heated barn.”
“Oh, I see. And they are nice people? The dogs will not bite Sofía or David?”
María still looked slightly concerned, so Cora laid a gloved hand on her shoulder comfortingly. María looked down at her skeptically.
“The dogs are safe and the people are lovely. It looks like Adelaide is coming out now. Would you like to go and meet her?”
She thought for a moment and then nodded firmly. The grass, still slightly frosted over, crunched underneath their feet as they made their way across the side yards. The five dogs of varying sizes raced towards them, leaping up on Cora and sniffing at María’s feet
and legs.
“Everybody, down,” Cora told them with as much authority as she could muster before laughing and scratching each of their ears in turn. She heard Adelaide’s loud braying laugh behind them, and looked up to see the short, stout woman standing there with a mug of something steaming in her hands.
“Merry Christmas, Cora! How did the asaltó navideño go this morning?” Her country accent butchered the Spanish words, even though she was trying.
María laughed loudly at the cheesy grin on Adelaide’s dark brown, freckled face, and the frown that had formed on Cora’s.
“Am I the only one who didn’t know about that?”
“Well, Elena didn’t want one of us to hear singing at the crack of dawn and call the police, so probably,” she drawled. She turned to María and stretched out her gloved hand.
“I’m Adelaide, the neighbor. You must be Mrs. Mendéz. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you! The girls talk about you all the time.”
María raised an eyebrow at Cora.
“I hope they say good things! It’s nice to meet you as well. Sofía has told us all about your daughter Janelle.”
The girls punctuated María’s sentence with a joyful shriek as they played.
“I’ll let y’all go. I’m sure you have a lot of prep work to host both your families tonight. I just wanted to come say hey and introduce myself. Y’all holler if you need anything!”
As quickly as she had come to talk to us, she walked back to her porch where Marianne still sat. She waved at them and went back to watching the kids run around in the yard.
“I guess that’s our cue to get cooking!” Cora said with a sigh. “You ready to go inside?”
“I am ready to be warm again,” María told her, then offered the shorter woman her arm. “Come on. Let’s get back into the heat.”
Chapter 3
By the time Elena and her brothers arrived back at the house, Cora felt like the entire house was in chaos. Three different timers were going off in the kitchen and Sofía and David were running around talking at what seemed like the highest possible volume.
The kitchen was normally comfortable for her and Elena. With all of the Mendézes in it, and all of the food on the counters, Cora was fairly certain that there wasn’t a single square inch of space left unused in the room. And then the doorbell rang.
“I get it!” David yelled in his highest pitched voice. Cora glanced at the stove and saw that it was nearly 4 PM, which meant that the people ringing the doorbell were her parents.
Their timing, as usual, could not have been worse. Cora heard her mother’s voice talking to the two-year-old and called out to them.
“Come on in, guys! I’m in the kitchen!”
She shoved the oven mitts back onto her hands and grabbed a pot of boiling potatoes by both handles.
“Coming through!” Cora shouted, making her way through the crush of people and trying to avoid burning them with the outside of the pot. The colander was waiting in the sink and she dumped the soft potatoes into it.
Steam billowed up from the sink, clouding around her face. She turned quickly, coughing at the sudden, intense smell of potatoes. When she opened her eyes, her parents were standing in the arched doorway of the kitchen.
Her mother wore a simple and elegant maroon tea length dress that hugged her slight curves, and her father wore a pale green buttoned shirt with a tie that matched his wife’s dress. hey each held a few presents, and had matching nervous smiles plastered on their faces.
Elena tapped Cora’s mother on the shoulder from behind, a genuinely welcoming expression on her face. Both parents turned and Cora lost sight of their expressions.
“It’s so good to see you, Victoria!” Elena cried, wrapping Cora’s mother in a gentle hug.
“Hugh and I are always glad to see you, Elena,” Victoria reminded her as Cora’s father offered his best handshake.
That was all the Cora could hear over the din of the kitchen, but she watched Elena led them into the living room to put down the presents.
Turning back to the sink full of steaming potatoes, Cora lifted the colander by its handles and shook it until there was no water left in them.
“Gabriel, can you help me out?” she called over my shoulder. “Get the bowl ready for these, would you?”
“Already there! Just bring them over.”
Cora did as she was asked and stepped back. Gabriel took over, mixing the cream cheese, sour cream, and chives into the potatoes and began mashing. She wiped her forehead on her shoulder.
She couldn’t believe how hot it was in the kitchen with all of the various appliances running, not to mention Elena’s brothers and mother in the room.
As if summoned by Cora’s thoughts, María appeared next to her, spiriting the young white woman out of her own kitchen.
“Go spend time with your mother,” María commanded her. “We’ve got it handled in here.”
Cora had every intention of following her instructions until she asked her to wait.
“You’ll do better if you change into your Christmas clothes, my girl. Your parents will be more impressed.”
As usual, María was right. The close the Cora was wearing now were splattered with various things that she had been cooking and cleaning since she had returned home from shopping. She hadn’t even thought about changing before greeting her parents, but it was a good idea.
She had picked the perfect green dress for tonight, complete with a cardigan and pockets that would allow her to conceal the ring in her pocket and keep her warm, which was always a priority.
Family was a source of anxiety for Cora, but she always felt better when she looked good, and her mother liked it when she wore dresses. She hoped the outfit would earn her a few brownie points.
Cora pressed a kiss to Maria’s floury cheek and walked back to the office to change. Elena had warned her this morning that she wasn’t going to be allowed into the bedroom because she had to put some finishing touches on Cora’s Christmas presents.
Cora knew better than to argue with her about it, so she’d planned ahead. She slid out of her food-splattered clothes, tossing them into the laundry basket with a sigh.
The dress slid easily off of the hanger, thanks to the satin lining on the interior. She loved the way that the satin lining felt against her skin as she stepped into it. It was a beautiful dress that she rarely had an opportunity to wear, and it was the perfect armor against her anxiety about what might or might not come out of her parent's mouths during the festivities.
They weren’t terrible people, but they were older and fairly privileged, which meant they didn’t always think about the effect of what they were saying before they spoke. It was the first time that Cora had introduced her parents to a female partner’s family, and she couldn’t help but be nervous.
She took a deep breath in through her nose for fortification before returning into the fray of the household. It smelled perfectly wonderful in the house between all of the different dishes that were still being put together in the kitchen. She closed her office door behind her, hoping to keep the children out of it, and found herself wishing that Luis was making coquito that was as rummy as Elena liked it. She also wished that was a healthy way to handle strained relationships, instead of just a delicious way to get drunk. She just had to make it through the evening and she would be okay, she told herself.
Cora heard laughter echoing from the living room, and was a little stunned by what she saw. Sofía and David were crawling all over her parents, and the normally uptight couple were smiling at them.
She plastered a happy smile onto her face and sauntered into the room
“Hiya, folks! I see you’re already making friends.”
“Cora, darling! You didn’t tell me that these children would be so delightful!” her mother exclaimed.
Elena sat in the wide armchair next to them, watching the children carefully to make sure they didn’t grab onto the Christmas tree on the other side of Hugh.
Cora caught her eye and Elena raised an eyebrow at her that says that it was going well. She tried starting a conversation again.
“So how was the drive up, Dad? Hit any traffic?”
“Oh, not any more than we expected,” Dad said, waving a hand at Cora. “You know the ride from Raleigh here is nothing to be worried about. There’s rarely more than two or three cars on the road.”
“There weren’t even any tractors on the road this time, right, Hugh? That was a nice change!”
“I’d have been more concerned if there were tractors on the road on Christmas Eve, Victoria.” He looked seriously at Victoria, who waggled her eyebrows at him like a cartoon villain. Cora smile became a little less forced their antics.
Well, here’s to hoping the rest of this evening goes this well, she thought to herself.
A slightly sweet, yet meaty, smell was floating out of the oven, telling everyone in the house that it was time to eat before the last timer went off.
María and Victoria worked together to arrange the various dishes on the counter so that everyone could get to everything while the meat cooled enough for Manuel to slice it up for eating.
Looking at the ham, Cora realized that she might have gotten a little too much meat for the size of their party. A 20-pound ham may have been overkill, but they would have plenty of leftovers to enjoy for the next week. That wouldn’t be a problem.
So far, all of their families were getting along swimmingly. Cora hadn’t heard a single political argument or even a rowdy discussion that hadn’t dissolved into laughter. Sofía and David had been running in and out all day, and Cora thought she had spotted Janelle’s small afro outside with them the living room window. Everyone seems to be having a great time, even Cora, despite her nerves. She hoped that stuffing herself full of food would help quash the rest of her anxiety, as it usually did.
All of the smells of the various foods they had made mingled in the air together, creating a cacophony of scent that nobody could resist.
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