For Hildelisa Victoria, my brave and beautiful mother
If you find undissolved sugar in the bottom of your teacup, someone has a crush on you.
—Superstition
Mañana, by the way, does not mean tomorrow: It means not today.
—Billy Collins
1
Call it whatever you like. A vacation. A high school graduation present. Maybe even an escape. All I know is I’m as far from Miami as I’ve ever been.
I’m here because the Cuban Remedy failed. It’s forever ancient and reads like a recipe. Though the ingredients may vary from family to family, the goal is always the same: suffer heartbreak and your family will fix you. Except no amount of food and family could heal my heartbreak, so like a plotline from one of Mami’s telenovelas, they tricked me instead.
“Next, please.” The London Heathrow customs officer waves me forward. “The purpose of your visit, miss?” he asks after I hand over my passport.
Two seconds pass, then four, then my blatant lie. “Vacation.”
I keep quiet because one of my summer hosts, Spencer, is waiting, and me getting hauled into secondary screening sits right up there with teeth pulling and gyno exams. But Dios, how I want to go full force on this officer and this entire day. I barely resist leaning close to his dapper blue customs uniform and snarling, “I. Am. Here. Because not only did my most beloved abuelita die, but within two months of her death, my best friend abandoned me, and my boyfriend of three years dumped me right before prom. I call it the trifecta. Apparently, I wasn’t getting over it all fast enough so my family sent me here to ‘cool down.’ I didn’t want to come to your England, but my mami pulled out her greatest trick of all, even more powerful than guava pastries and other common Cuban heartbreak remedies. She pulled out Abuela. So to answer your question, I have no purpose for being here.”
Thwack. The officer stamps my passport and slides it toward me. “Enjoy your stay.”
Not bloody likely.
* * *
Two hours later, after a near-silent bus ride followed by a totally silent cab ride, the driver drops us off at a place I’ve only seen in pictures. Unfortunately, they forgot to add sunshine. I’m shivering under a bland sky as Spencer wrestles my two large suitcases from the trunk.
So this is Winchester, Hampshire, England.
I cross the narrow street and approach the Owl and Crow Inn. Like many of the buildings we passed in town, the Owl and Crow looks like something straight out of a Jane Austen novel. The massive wedding cake of orangey-red brick towers over the neighborhood. Climbing ivy twists from the portico, traveling around the three-story inn with avenues of green veins. History—this place bleeds it.
Nothing in Miami is this old. Not even Señora Cabral, who still hobbles into my family’s bakery every Monday and was tan vieja before my parents were even born, is this old.
Spencer Wallace rolls my bags under a rose-draped arbor. Seeing Spence here, instead of in Miami when he’s visited with his wife and son, makes me realize how much his entire look blends into his brick-and-mortar inn. Newly graying red hair. Tight goatee and moustache combo. He even wears a heavy tweed blazer. And it was this, the first glimpse of my distant family member at the airport, that made my journey even more surreal than when I boarded my flight. Mami and Papi have sent me to a foreign country where men wear tweed blazers. In June.
“Come along then, Lila,” Spencer says from the doorway.
“Cate should be back from the physio by now. Nice and toasty inside.” He bumps into my shoulder when he shuts the door behind us. “Sorry,” he says, and casts another concerned glance at my traveling outfit, the same one he’s been side-eyeing since I exited customs. As I discovered all throughout Heathrow Terminal Five, my white jeans, gold sandals, and flimsy hot pink tank aren’t typical choices for England vacations, even in early summer. But it’s perfectly normal for my Miami. Whether I’m cold or not makes no difference.
Inside the inn, the air is warm but not stuffy, and scented with butter and sugar. I breathe in the elements and try to keep them there. The familiar smells are as much home as I can have right now.
Tía Cate appears at the bottom of a polished wood staircase. “Ah, here she is.” She approaches, looping her arms around me. “Sorry I couldn’t come with Spencer to meet your plane, and I had to hijack the car, too.”
“The shuttle bus was fine,” I say into her itchy wool shoulder. Her blond low bun is the same as I remember, but her accent sounds flatter than ever. Is this what twenty-five years in England does to a Venezuelan woman, born Catalina Raquel Mendoza? Here, in this Hampshire medieval town, with this husband, she is Cate Wallace.
“Look at you. Almost eighteen.” Cate steps back, furrowing her brows. “Let’s get you into the parlor for tea while Spence takes up your bags. There’s a fire going and I can get you a sweater before you unpack. That thin blouse—we don’t want you to catch cold.”
My chest tightens around my heart and then… it happens. Here in the cozy Owl and Crow foyer with weathered wood planks beneath my sandals and tall canisters filled with pointy umbrellas at the door. It didn’t happen at Miami International when I wore an unbreakable scowl, even as I gave obligatory kisses to mis padres and my sister, Pilar. It didn’t happen as I watched the stardust lights of my city disappear behind the jumbo jet wing. I didn’t cry then. Wouldn’t. But Catalina-Cate Wallace gets me good right here and I can’t stop it. My eyes well, and my throat closes over a memory that won’t ever let me go.
¡Ponte un suéter, que te vas a resfriar!
Put on a sweater or you’ll catch a cold! The Cuban mantra of all mantras. Tattoo it on our foreheads. Write it in indelible ink on our violet-scented stationery. Yell it at impressive volumes from windows to children eating Popsicles on Little Havana streets. My abuela threw out stacks of virtual sweaters left and right. Until that cold March morning she couldn’t. The coldest day of all.
My hand flies up to the golden dove charm hanging around my neck, Abuela’s gift from four years ago. Cate notices, her refined features wilting. “Oh, your sweet abuelita. She was such a wonderful woman, love.”
Love. Not mija. Not for English Cate.
“Abuela practically raised me, too.” Cate meets my swollen eyes. “I hated that I couldn’t come for the funeral.”
“Mami understood. It’s a long way.” Four thousand, three hundred and eighty miles.
Cate webs both of her hands over my cheeks. It is a gesture so like Abuela’s that tears want to flow again. “Tell me the truth,” she says. “Even though I’d just had neck surgery, your mother still found a way to blame me, right?”
I laugh. England hasn’t stolen everything. Her pursed lips, cocked hip, and challenging eyes hail straight from the Cate I remember from the Wallaces’ last Miami trip. “How did you guess?”
“I love your mother dearly. But telenovela mujeres could take lessons from that one.”
Soap opera drama. Mami never went to college, but she majored in drama, anyway, with a minor in extra. She also majored in doing the opposite of what’s best for me.
“Find a seat in the parlor while I fetch the tea Polly made for us,” Cate says and gestures to the archway before scooting off.
I remove my black cross body purse; the customs form peeks out from the front pocket. Enjoy your stay. I crumple the slip into the smallest ball I can manage. No so-called vacation is going to fix me.
2
I can see why Owl and Crow guests rave about the afternoon tea served in the parlor, but there’s too much sugar in this scone. Although the texture is nearly perfect, sweetness level is where many bakers fail. Flour,
butter, and sugar are only platforms for other flavors—spices and extracts, fruit and cream and chocolate. A pastry never needs to be overly sweet. It only needs to be memorable.
Not that I’m a scone expert; in fact, I’ve never made one. The last one I ate was four months ago when Pilar wanted to celebrate her twenty-first birthday with afternoon tea at the Miami Biltmore Hotel.
Like that historic space, this parlor, with its icy blue walls and brocade fabrics, seems more like a painting than a room. Here, I’m a figure drawn into someone else’s life.
I’ll call it “Cuban Girl with Over-Sugared Scone in Not-Miami.”
“… and walks, and the countryside is so close. You can ride one of the guest bicycles everywhere and really, really get some rest. City center has cafés and little shops I know you’ll love.” Between sips of strong black tea, Cate has spent the last five minutes trying to sell me on Winchester like some real estate agent.
I smiled stiffly through it all, as if she could sell me. “Sounds nice. And thanks for letting me stay.” The imaginary space between wanting to drown all my words inside the rose-covered teapot and showing respect to this woman whom I’ve known since birth—that’s where I sit.
“No bullshit,” Cate says. “You can be straight with me.”
“Fine.” I set down my teacup with an undignified clank. “I don’t want to be here.” Family or not.
The words don’t even pierce her gaze—cool like the white marble sky outside the windows. Cate traces the rim of her teacup. Her oval-shaped nails shine with black cherry lacquer. “Of course you don’t. No need to pretend. But your parents think some time away will help—”
“What about what I think? How I feel?” I’m a broken record, repeating the script I’ve been reciting since my flight was booked. All the help I need lies four thousand miles across the Atlantic. It’s the place where, weeks ago, I had everything I wanted. It’s the home of our bakery that I will take over and grow—the one that would always rest on Abuela’s roots. Panadería La Paloma. Her memory and spirit are still inside those walls and now, I’m not.
I don’t need England. Miami is my charm city. The home where I have won so often in seventeen years. It calls me, blood thick and marrow deep. You are mine, it says. You can win again.
But not here. Not in England.
Miami held my most cherished relationships, the ones I cry for in secret. Abuela. Andrés. Stefanie. My heart and body and memory are not finished with them yet. In eighty-five days in England, too many more things can change and I won’t be home to stop them.
“You’re hurting, Lila. And you frightened your parents,” Cate says. “Your mental health is more important than your taking over La Paloma right away.”
Bueno. Well. The no-bullshit rule goes both ways. But I was handling it. I need more time, not more talking. Not more space. Why can’t Mami and Papi see that?
Cate twists a blond strand escaping her bun. “Just promise one thing, because we both know the wrath of tu mamá.”
I flick my eyes up at her use of Spanish.
“Try to find your place here. Maybe even have a little fun. But you’ll do it carefully, no?” It sounds like spending the last half hour with me has caused her accent to lean southwest a little. “Don’t jog alone at night or do anything… reckless.”
Reckless. Like what I did two weeks ago? My cheeks flame with ire and regret. I was so sloppy. Careless.
But I don’t say any of this. I hide the rest of my verbal responses under my last bites of Polly’s black currant scone. Yes, too sweet.
Half of the tea remains in my cup when Cate jostles my forearm. “Let’s get you settled. Spence should have your bags set up by now.” She stands, motioning for me to follow her into the foyer and up the sweeping staircase.
The second floor of the Owl and Crow Inn hosts eight guest rooms. Cate had mentioned all are booked, but right now the paneled hallway is only occupied by rows of brass sconces. Large, golden bird wings flank each fixture.
We stop at a wide, unmarked door with a keypad. “Here are the stairs to our private flat. The door code is the Miami zip code for our old neighborhood.” Cate’s features soften with nostalgia. When her parents moved to Miami from Venezuela, Cate spent so much time at Abuela’s with Mami, it became her second home. Pilar and I never called her cousin. She’ll always be our tía.
She motions for me to enter the five digits I know well. After a beep, the lock clicks open, revealing the mouth of another carved-spindle staircase.
The stairs dump us into a sprawling loft-like space. Cate points to one hallway. “Spence and I have our rooms down there.” She pivots, leading me across the living room through the opposite wing. “This side has your guest room, one bath, and Gordon’s room. He’s with a study group at the library.”
I have a vague memory of being told school exams run well into summer around here. “I can’t believe Gordon’s sixteen.”
She grins. “And so tall you’ll barely recognize him. The last time you saw each other he must’ve been around twelve. Right before our Key West trip.”
“Yeah, he loved running around the kitchen at La Paloma while you and Mami drank cafecito out front.” My dark hair falls over my face and smells like airplane. I rake it back. “He tried to steal an empanada from every tray Abuela pulled from the oven. She kept whacking at him with her hand towel, but it didn’t stop him.”
The burst of memory stings like a rubber band snap.
I look away until Cate squeezes my shoulder. She opens a paneled door and pokes her hand inside. “Here we are. You know where to find me. Supper’s at seven.”
Alone, the bedroom where I will spend the next eighty-five days has an actual four-poster bed. Not some IKEA special, but an authentic piece fit for the regency period. I drop my purse and slide my fingers along the cherry wood grain. Like the rest of the inn, it feels old.
Spencer left my bags next to a gray velvet bench. I survey the space—dresser with TV on top, gray floral loveseat, writing desk. One wall has a generous paned-glass window, now letting in dusky light from the street. The other outside wall has a wider set window, but with crank mechanisms. I shove back cream silk drapes. The window frames let out a paranormal whine as I turn the handle and inch my torso through. Leaning over the sill, I peer just over treetops into a walled church courtyard that bumps closely against my side of the Owl and Crow. My eyes struggle to adjust, trading palm trees and peach stucco for weathered brick and steepled churches—just like the tiny stone parish next door.
My new room is gorgeous. But it doesn’t stop one half of me from wanting to beat my fists against the wall, screaming the feral sounds I’ve had echoing in my mind all day. All March and April and May. It doesn’t stop my other half from wanting to hide underneath the plush down comforter.
I settle for rolling my suitcases toward the door—I’m not ready to organize my new reality. I unzip my large carry-on tote on top of the bed. Miami is inside. Traces of Mami’s lemon-vinegar tile cleaner and my gardenia-scented room spray cling to all the contents I’ll need tonight. Abuela could’ve packed this bag.
Because of her, Pilar and I would never dare board a plane without toting a spare pair of underwear and a change of clothes. After all, the airline could lose your luggage! Abuela never did trust those baggage handlers.
And I hadn’t trusted them with these items. After leggings and a long tee, I remove Abuela’s signature white apron. The one I held on my lap during her funeral. Then, a family photo of myself and my parents and Pilar in my great-uncle’s garden. And another small snapshot of Abuela I took last year, her slight frame topped with a jaunty crop of graying black hair, smiling over her simple breakfast of café con leche and pan tostado.
Abuela and I were the only ones in the family big on keeping los recuerdos—mementos. Pili didn’t get the sentimental gene, and Mami hates clutter. But Mami still hasn’t removed the little altar of cards, photos, figurines, and dried flowers from Abuela’s dresse
r. She hasn’t turned Abuela’s bedroom into a guest room yet, or moved her worn garden clogs from the patio. For now, even my mother is keeping things.
I set up my transplanted altar, placing my Miami items on the nightstand. My heart snags on the last item in my tote: a white University of Miami t-shirt I bought for Stefanie. It’s un recuerdo of huge proportions, a memento of a best-friend plan I’m not quite ready to stuff into a drawer.
This shirt is the biggest reason I’m here.
Two weeks ago, the back-ordered white tee arrived at Panadería La Paloma on the same day Stefanie’s flight left, like a sick joke. Stef wasn’t going to UM anymore. My friend wasn’t going anywhere in Miami anymore. Not with me.
The beginning of our ending happened two days before the shirt delivery. I’d flopped onto her bed the same way I always had, except now, an enormous duffel bag swallowed Stef’s area rug. Her passport and piles of travel documents and the packet from the Catholic Missionary Fellowship of South Florida covered her desk.
The end of our ending happened as I slammed doors and fled from a house I’d been welcomed inside like family for years.
And in the middle, my best friend admitted she’d been preparing for a two-year health aid post since November. Months of training she never mentioned. Stef had traded her University of Miami acceptance for a remote African village without a word.
Two weeks ago, alone in the bakery office, I’d stared at the UM logo on the t-shirt. The words we’d spewed pelted me like hail.
You couldn’t tell me?
Lila, I’m so sorry. You would’ve talked me out of it.
That’s not true.
I have to go.
You totally rearranged your life behind my back?
You’d just lost your abuela. And after what happened with Andrés… Plus you know you would’ve fought it. And won, just like always.
Then I ran home and cried over a graduation selfie of us, taken the week before. My brunette mane and her fine blond layers flowed under mortarboard caps tinted the dark color of deceit.
A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow Page 1
