A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,88
to keep my celebration in focus. I hide my ticking clocks and impossibilities into centerpieces, drowning them in flutes of bubbly champagne. I study the faces of my new friends and try to memorize them. We’ll have texts and FaceTime, but I want all the RealTime skin and bones of them, the hearts and little pieces of them. Enough to last.
Orion, toting a big plate of chips, finds me again. He turns me around as Jules and her Goldline friends group in the opposite corner. “More surprises.”
“She’s going to sing?”
The band members settle into a stripped down, acoustic rig of two guitars, keyboard, and a box drum. Jules grabs a mic that’s been turned low for the inn. “Where’s Lila?” She spots me through the faded light then grins. “Oh, there she is. So in honor of your big birthday, and well, just in honor of someone who is bloody spectacular, I wanted to debut Goldline’s newest song tonight. It’s called ‘Sweaters,’ um, not ‘Jumpers,’ because America and all. This one’s for you.” She blows me a kiss and I’m already teary.
Orion pulls me into his side as the minor chords strum. Remy videos as Jules comes in with her airy singer-songwriter tone. My heart breaks over beauty when she hits the chorus.
Sweaters for my shoulders
Blankets for the cold
You’re painting stars where
I colored black holes
Your embers, my ashes
Your sugar for this sinking sand
You cover me again
You cover me again
It’s like Jules took everything out of me—the bricks and building blocks of my heart—and set it to music. All these weeks she’s been watching, writing my life with lyrics.
Orion has to hold me steady when the bridge starts. The guitar players grin, standing from their stools. Leah the drummer winks, then the chords, the beat, the rhythmic patterns change: Goldline is referencing salsa. Jules toggles between English and Spanish in the most unique bridge I have ever heard. It’s not out of place, but a perfect mash-up like a Cuban pastry filled with English fruit.
“What?” I look at Orion and find his face split with a grin. “You knew about this?”
The music goes on and shifts back to the delicate minor progression. “Only that she was planning a song. She’s bloody brilliant. The Latin groove in the middle slides in perfectly. Unexpected but not out of place.” He kisses my temple. “Just like you.”
When it’s over, the band moves into more acoustic numbers, but Jules finds my big sandwich hug. “You’re incredible,” I tell her. “Thank you. I’ll never forget this.”
She draws back. “After that night we had in the kitchen, cooking and dancing, I just had to. I had the lyrics in bits but couldn’t fit all the pieces together. Then it hit me. Maybe it was the Coke and lime.” She laughs, but her eyes mist. “Can I come to Miami to visit you? I’m going to miss you so damn much.”
I nod into her bare shoulders as we hug again. “Soon—please. Soonest.”
And then, and not at all surprisingly, we decline as much as the party. Our chaperones head out. Wine and champagne and cider flow and so does sugar from the ice cream sundae bar Cate set up in lieu of cake (for the best baker in Winchester?).
Another not-surprise, the girls end up together in one corner for a bit, belly-down or crossed-legged on the carpet, shoes flung. Flora, darling in a plum lace minidress, licks her sundae spoon and cracks up as Jules entertains us with parody songs and bawdy jokes.
“What do you think it’ll be like? Being on the telly?” Carly from Goldline asks.
“Terrifying,” I say through a laugh. “But hopefully less scary after my sister and I spend about a week salon hopping. Brows and nails and highlights.” My other life tugs—me racing around with Pilar in my Mini Cooper, barely dodging speeding tickets.
“Yeah,” Jules agrees. “It takes a village to look like we do.” She fluffs her hair.
My gaze hooks onto Orion, sprawled out across the room with his buddies. Bottles and shot glasses are lined up beside them. He smiles; it unravels loose and lopsided across his face. I chuckle to myself—he could be at any prom after-party I’ve ever heard about. Alcohol moves his limbs with the wobbling sway of marionette strings.
Back to my girls: Leah and Jules and Carly have moved aside, giggling between pulls of cider and bits of story. But Flora rests her back against the wainscoted wall, just watching me. I scoot closer.