A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,8

I know I scared you. I just want to be home.” Home where I can put it all back together.

She blows a foghorn into a tissue. “Home hasn’t been good for you lately. You’ve proven that, okay?”

“The panadería—”

“—is something we’ve been over, what, twenty times? Angelina will do just fine.”

I don’t trust the new baker who’s only been training for a couple of months. “Temporarily.”

“Claro. It’s always going to be you and me. But I need my sister back. Take some time and let Cate take care of you.” She blows her nose again then leans in. “So what’s it like there?”

“You mean outside? I wouldn’t know.”

“I should’ve guessed by that trash heap you’re wearing as hair. But two days!”

“I’ll… tomorrow, okay?”

Music blasts again, drowning out her answer. This time it’s a screaming guitar riff. “Gordon,” I tell Pilar’s puzzled expression.

“Sounds like ‘Gimme Shelter,’ ” she says.

“You’d know.” Pilar’s penchant for classic rock, especially in vinyl form, is one thing we don’t share. “He’s been doing this—” Again, the music stops. “No clue what he’s doing, but I’m gonna make him quit right now. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Espérate.” Pilar holds out a hand. “The new clothes are nice, no?”

“They’re hideous,” I say. But I can’t stop rubbing the soft merino wool.

She snorts a watery laugh. “You’ve been coveting my boots for months.”

“Sí, pero that doesn’t mean I’ll wear them.”

A crack across my sister’s face. “But you’ll put them in the closet. And the tops and jacket, too.”

And then I feel one across mine that I can’t control, no matter how hard I try. “Maybe.”

Gordon playing yet another jam thirty seconds after I hang up sends me knocking, then pounding. Then pounding and screaming. The noise finally ceases and the rogue DJ swings open his bedroom door. His deep red hair—a mirror of his dad’s—gathers into a disheveled ponytail nub at the base of his neck.

“Hiya. You’re not actually dead, then.” He’s holding a colored pencil.

I ignore that and lead with, “So, the music.”

“What about it?”

“The volume.” I’m using my hands to demonstrate. “There’s just a lot of it. A lot of volume.”

It’s like a lightbulb turns on in the middle of his head. “Ahh. We’re properly soundproofed up here and I’m not used to having anyone else in this wing.”

“That’s not my doing.”

Gordon employs the flip side of the pencil to scratch his temple. “Right, well the music helps me achieve a certain creative mood.”

“Could a quieter version of the same music help with whatever you’re creatively mooding for?”

“Oh. For this.” With a grand flourish, he moves aside.

And… wow. His walls are covered with framed pencil drawings of houses in every architectural style imaginable. Intricate details and colorful landscaping touches fill each piece. “You drew all these?”

He nods toward a drafting table topped with measuring tools and a rainbow of colored pencils and a new square of ivory parchment. “I have for years now. A sort of hobby.”

I walk the perimeter of Gordon’s tiny home neighborhood, past stone cottages and Victorians and English Tudors. Near the window, I find a black Crosley turntable system with speakers. Records stacked in a storage cube wait for Gordon’s decibel abuse. “I have found the loud.”

He approaches. “Sorry about all the starts and stops. I couldn’t find just that right one, you know? I’ll try for less.”

“Thanks.” I pick up a Rolling Stones LP, home to “Gimme Shelter.” “Pilar collects these too. She’s always looking for rare ones.”

“Shocking what some of them go for. We have a record shop here called Farley’s. So good, many non-locals travel into town to check it out. In town just off the High Street.”

I make a mental note before investigating the rest of Gordon’s artwork. Maybe it’s the color or the shape, but I’m instantly drawn to a two-story drawing in bright peach with a terracotta roof. Delicate palm tree fronds sway across Gordon’s rendered green lawn, and pink bougainvillea vines climb across the bright stucco. I whip around. “Is this…?”

He lifts his chin. “Thought you might go for that one. Straight out of Miami—Coral Gables, if I recall from last visit. I liked the style and colors.”

Home. My heart fumbles, like it knows. Then I step back, surveying the entire wall. Next to the Coral Gables model, I find a perfect rendering of the Owl and Crow and a craftsman bungalow. Among brick Federal mansions and thatched roof cottages, the peach stucco house looks totally out of place.

5

I wake too early the next morning for any human who