A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,7
has to be from Gordon’s room. I can’t see Cate or Spencer blasting eighties rock between entertaining guests and managing the property. Just as I identify the group as Van Halen, the music stops. Not ten seconds later, a bass intro from another tune vibrates through the fine wood paneling, volume set to overload. Then… it stops after a few bars. ¿Cómo?
My eyes find rest and respite on my little altar of mementos—the framed photos and white t-shirt. The swoop of the embroidered blue L.
Los recuerdos have a unique kind of power, one of love and history and legacy. Here this memento calls me out sharply, decibels louder than the music, in the language that raised me. Abuela would never stand for me being this idle, barely leaving my bed for more than a day. For her, I will at least get up and unpack.
Just as I peel back my comforter, I’m greeted by a blaring wave of electronic techno-pop. All right, is it the universe’s turn, in the form of Gordon Wallace, to say my hibernation time is officially done? Either way, no. Racket this loud is not going to work for me the whole summer. Before I reach the door, the music stops abruptly, just like before. I wait for some terrible reprise, but nothing comes. “Hmm,” I tell myself and face my suitcases.
Ten minutes later, after dividing up shoes and clothes between the dresser and closet, I’m into my second bag. My flat iron and cosmetics case rest on top. But underneath my bathrobe I find a square notecard and my sister’s familiar scrawl.
Hermana, don’t be mad, but I know you.
Love you, but miss you more, already. —P
Don’t be mad? One never-fail way for Pili to make me mad is to tell me not to get mad, so I’m extra wary when I pull out a thick parcel. The first item out of the brown paper wrapping is a black merino wool sweater.
I did not pack a single sweater.
And then it gets out of control:
Another identical sweater in gray. Short, black waterproof trench coat. Two running jackets. Pair of dark skinny jeans. Two long sleeve tops, one in blue and white stripes and the other in solid navy. Finally, an oversized scarf in a gray and black abstract cheetah print.
Now I’m suspicious of everything in this suitcase. I rummage through for more evidence of tampering and find the black ankle boots Pilar bought when we visited New York last fall. I want to hug her. I want to throw one of these boots at her round, Cuban ass. Neither is an option, so I break my sister-silence and reach for my phone.
The lock screen lights up, showing four voicemails and sixteen text notifications from Mami. Nothing from Pilar.
“You knew, Pili!” I say when my sister’s oval-shaped face fills my FaceTime screen. She’s in Papi’s black leather chair in the back office of the panadería.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Pilar says. “No contact for two days and this is what I get?”
“I texted you and Mami when I landed.” I wave the black sweater in front of the phone. “You knew.”
“What, that you’d spite pack?”
I blow a single puff of air.
“And,” she goes on, “that when I’d go through your suitcase all I’d find would be las camisas pequeñas and sundresses? Of course I knew. And I was right. An English summer is not a normal summer. Mami told you how to prepare, Cate told you, and I told you, pero—”
“I’ll wear what I want.”
She sighs; I can almost feel the hot breath circling it. “Winchester is not Miami.”
I fling daggers into FaceTime.
“Lila, don’t you think I know? Me without you is never okay, but it was the only way.”
“I. Was. Handling. It,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Handling it? You, disappearing and Papi seeing your car in the lot and thinking… well what would you think seeing that? And when I finally found you… what I found? Dios, Lila, that is not handling it.”
Pilar rarely cries. She considers and dissects. She organizes and compartmentalizes. It’s one of the reasons we work so well together. I dream and create with eyes that are too big for everyone’s stomachs. Then I make the food that fills them to brims while she finds every way to sell it. But now she’s sniffling and dripping like a leaky faucet, and I am so dense to think I was ever the only one broken. The only one who has lost her abuela.