A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,94

funnels down to drip-drops and long stretches of silence. I don’t have a recipe for this. I’ve never had a best-friendship ending before. We improvise.

“I think I’m going to extend my term here,” she says.

Which I’d already guessed. “I’m proud of you. I’ll always be proud of you,” is what feels the most true.

“I don’t know when we’ll see each other again.” From her.

Tears well, but my heart has gone back inside now and it’s softly thunking away. Right where it’s supposed to be. “I don’t know when I’ll see you, either.”

Her eyes are glassy. “I’ll always be proud of you, too, Lila.”

“I’ll keep track. Of everything you’re doing. All the good.”

She nods and smiles. “I’ll watch you take over the world.” Then she looks left and right. For seconds—too many—the quiet is thick and gray like clouds. “I have to go,” she whispers.

She doesn’t just mean from the call.

“I love you, Stefanie.”

“Te amo, Lila.”

The screen goes black. And a best-friendship doesn’t die. Instead, it runs its own way now, miles over bridges and roads and desert sand. Without us.

33

Days later a Temporarily Closed for Filming sign hangs on the door. I’m here when the shop is dark and wants to sleep. I rouse it awake, forcing it to listen. I came back to have this kitchen to myself for just a bit before the world peeks inside.

I don’t know why Pilar is here.

“You’re in my territory,” I say. Pilar Reyes, who nests in the office and hates the dusty stick of flour on her hands.

“How I knew where to find you.” Only a few of the task lights shine. My sister is half mermaid, half math itself in her prim white blouse knotted at her waist and a flowy miniskirt. The hair we share—it needs its own zip code, we always say—riots around her face, waiting for our stylists tomorrow.

We meet at the butcher block island and do something Mami and Abuela used to scold us over. One, two… up! We scoot close and let our legs swing and dangle. I lean against the shoulder that’s always been so very strong. Strong enough to hold these walls up, and mine.

“Why are you wearing your dove on a silver chain?” Pili asks.

I reach for the gold bird. “I gave mine to Orion’s sister. Flora.”

“You wouldn’t surrender that necklace in a robbery.”

“Well…” is all I can say. Two sisters: which one will get FaceTime Lila and which will get the RealTime me?

“I was thinking you should highlight one of the special variations Abuela made here. For Family Style.”

“Sí. One more way to make her a part of it.” Slowly, I take in all my grandparents built. “Remember how she always put currants instead of raisins in the picadillo? She loved the little burst of flavor, even though they were more expensive.”

“And the special sugar, the one that sparkles, for the pastelitos for fancy parties,” Pili adds.

“Pineapple or hazelnut or pumpkin flan for different holidays, or the extra syrups she added to cakes, and everyone wondered why they were so moist. And knowing how to play with ratios so they were the same dishes or pasteles but also, just better versions of the same.”

Pili bumps my side. “Like you know how.”

Because she taught me to change recipes. But only after I could make the original perfectly. In my head her teachings come alive, not from a white coffin, but from years of corn and flour and sugar. I hop down and mark the spots where lessons were learned.

To change recipes.

I stand in the middle of her life’s work. I stand in the middle of her life. And then—

She changed her own recipe too.

I open my heart like a history book. Inside, there is a seventeen-year-old Cuban girl named Lydia Rodriguez who leaves a small Cuban farm. She boards a plane alone, no family, no friends. She crosses an ocean and a culture with a single suitcase. She joins an American host family. And instead of returning home when her program ends, she works through a hundred details to stay. She chooses a new life in a new country, building a business with the recipes her own mother taught her.

Not just food. Abuela changed her life recipe.

In my heart, Abuela tells me I’ve been wrong all this time. She never put a spoon in my hand and skills in my head to tether me to one place. She gave me knowledge so I could choose too. The place she built. Or the places