A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,6

looked at me. “It’s not enough because you never say anything to us about your feelings. We can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.”

I straightened, my limbs lumbering and achy. “I don’t need to talk about my losses. I need to un-lose them.”

“What if that is impossible?” Mami asked.

Impossible. I’d heard this word before and pounded it like a hard coconut shell. Then I used the rich, white flesh to make a cake.

“You lost your abuelita,” Papi said softly. “The biggest part of your heart.”

“Papi.” The word was thick and dark, but I wouldn’t cry; they couldn’t have my tears. The pain was real and it was mine. Mine to suffer and mine to fix. Discussing my hurts didn’t make them theirs to “help” and direct. And now they wanted to “help” even more by sending me away?

“England will be good for you. The chisme will die down and you’ll come back refreshed—” Mami’s cell phone rang. “That’s Catalina.” She stepped out with Papi.

I held out wide, helpless arms to Pilar. I needed her to step in and shut down this ridiculous idea. She would. We were a team: las Reyes.

Now that I’d graduated, I was finally ready to step into my role as full-time head baker and future owner of Panadería La Paloma, right alongside Pilar. There would be no college degree for me––I’d already learned everything I needed from Abuela. The business was ours to take over in a year. Our legacy, our future. Abuela had started it, and we were supposed to carry it forward starting this summer. I couldn’t do that from across an entire ocean.

“I can’t wait to see what you do,” I said over a caustic laugh.

Pilar rose, urging another sip of water down my throat. This time I obeyed. “Do?”

“How you’ll get me out of this England scheme. We don’t have time for this. We need to plan the new business model and menu and staffing changes—”

“Lila.” She pivoted, her brown eyes hooded. “They’re right. You need this. I love you, but I have to let you go. Just for a little while, no?”

It was as if every footstep I’d left across Miami this afternoon turned back to stomp upon my chest. I shuddered. I could only shake my head. No. No. NO.

“I can’t.”

Pilar grabbed Abuela’s white apron with the blue scripted L on the front. She placed it into my arms. Hours ago, they had dripped with sweat and salt. “What would she say to this?” Pilar gestured to the disaster of my overworked body.

“Your sister is right, nena.” This from Mami, who had returned. “Abuelita left you her skill and drive. More than just her recipes. Honor that, Lila. You, in the walk-in, crying. You, a wreck, twenty miles away, scaring us, not caring for yourself—is that how she would want you to go on?” Tears leaked down Mami’s face. “How can you let her look down and see you like this?”

What I wanted to scream: How can I? I can because the one recipe Abuela never taught me was the one to make inside myself when she died and left us too soon. The one to make when a boy shattered my heart, and my dearest friend stomped on my trust.

What I actually said: “…”

Silent and shaking, I clutched the apron and held on to memory.

“Óyeme, mi amor,” Abuela had said months ago, after one of my fights with Andrés. “You love that boy like you love the kitchen.” She was stirring a bowl of mango glaze. “But you add yourself like too much sugar sometimes. Too much temperature.”

I had scoffed at that then. Brushed her off.

“Mi estrellita, if you shine too bright in his sky, you’re going to burn him out. Burn yourself out, también.”

That day, I’d burned my entire body out. I had turned up my own heat and lost control.

“Lila, you will go to England,” Mami had finally said. “We cannot give you the place Abuela built if you’re not well.”

And there it was.

But my run—the exhaustion, inside and out—had muzzled my fighting words. As Papi logged in to the British Airways website, I only stared at that L on the apron placket.

4

Two weeks after Papi booked my flight, Abuela’s white apron sits folded on a nightstand in England. It’s been more than a full day since I’ve landed, but I have barely left my bed.

I glance at the clock—eight p.m., and a cacophony of synths and pounding drumbeat roars from across the hall. It