Shady Brits with unnecessary motorbikes shouldn’t get smiles, but Orion Maxwell’s empty stomach, boyish eagerness, and wagging brows are stronger than my scowl. “No tour guide of mine is going to survive on tea and cheese sandwiches.” We reach Tesco. “You’re on snacks and I’m going hunting for new face mask.” My skin is missing the Florida humidity.
Exiting the supermarket, we leave the city center behind. Orion won’t give me any hints on our final destination as he leads me up a steadily rising grade through a high-end district with grand homes.
The neighborhood feeds us into a trail marked with wrought-iron railing and wide steps. “The lighting’s questionable and it’s a bit steep, but we both have sturdy boots. And what’s waiting at the end is worth it.” He pulls his phone, taps the flashlight icon, and urges me to do the same. “Trust me?”
I trust three things without question: Abuela’s recipes and her signature variations, my family’s business—the way it works, and the city it works in. But so far this boy has kept a reluctant Miami transplant taught, mapped, entertained, and warm in soft gray wool. Right now, I trust him, too. Maybe even more than I know him. “Lead on.”
15
The path and steps are steep but no match for my runner’s lungs. The secret trail ends with a fenced platform and a view that swallows all my words. Like Stef and I as kids at Disney World, I rush toward the city-sized night-light of color below us. Winchester spreads out like an upside-down galaxy of golden embers. We’re so high. Trees glow and buildings gleam against a blue-black sky. Railway tracks wind through like comet tails. In the center, the massive cathedral is dipped into spotlight yellow.
“St. Giles Hill.” Orion gestures to the sprawling hillside park at our left. “Come. I just hope the grass isn’t too soggy.”
It is—well, not exactly soggy—but damp enough, because this is England. Orion finds too much joy in my scrunched face and the hesitant settling of my jeans into the layer of dew.
“Since you find my wet ass so hilarious, I’m waiting for you to spout some random cultural myth about grass,” I say.
“Now you’re requesting superstitions? And here I thought all my facts and Winchester history was gonna bore you straight back to Miami.”
The word ambush, just that quick, and I’m unarmed and weak with scenery and motorcycles and music. Estoy aqui—I’m still here, Miami says. Like I could forget. But this time Miami only grazes my skin because I’ve let this sparkling city view change mine. I can wholly belong to one place, but I’m going to sit on a hill and enjoy this one right now. Maybe even love it.
“Lila. I didn’t mean to—”
“Show me what’s in that bag,” I say.
“Yes. But I know you want—”
“I want your groaning stomach to shut the hell up.”
He breathes out, whether out of relief or humor, I don’t know. But he jiggles the brown bag. “Some classic British snack foods for your initiation.”
“Hey, my life is not a hundred percent devoid of British ‘things.’ ” I fish out my phone and show him a photo of my turquoise Mini Cooper.
“No kidding.” He looks up, smiling. “Suits you. The color is very Miami and it’s lively.”
“And fast. I miss driving it.”
“Won’t be long. Before you know it, you’ll be reunited.” He delivers this like an oath. “Three months, and waning.”
And waning like the moon. I find that, too; it peeks through a tree bordering the hill, plump and round. Then I turn to Orion, and maybe gazing on one beautiful thing lets me appreciate another. Orion Maxwell is an attractive creature. More like really attractive. The worn parts of him—battered leather, scarred boots, the hair that always flirts with curl—are interesting against a city-lit face of honed edges and blue eyes straight from a painter’s palette. My next words come out like they’ve been stuck inside imagination, full of clouds. “What kind of food service provider am I? I distracted you right out of your junk bag.”
“Right.” With a flourish, Orion arranges our little snack food picnic. “Walkers bacon crisps, which you call chips. Erroneously. And for a sugar rush, Aero and Dairy Milk bars.” Lastly, he presents a familiar-looking jumbo-sized bottle. “Yeah, Oldfields again. Was in a hurry, so I went for the safe bet.”
He pours hard cider into two clear plastic cups. “The clerk at Tesco threw these in when he saw our stash and I mentioned the hill. So we wouldn’t have to drink from the bottle.” He clinks his cup against mine. “Like heathens.”
I snuggle into Orion’s sweater and drink cider and sample the foods. The bacon chips—crisps—are a fast favorite. So is the view. Another thing I could get lost inside, even with a tour guide like him—and maybe even a new friend—showing me all the ways around.
Orion catches me with my gaze to the sky. “Checking out the stars?” he asks.
I lean back along the slant, my hair in the damp grass, but I don’t care. “I was looking for you. Your constellation.”
He smiles. “That was my dad’s doing and why Mum got to name Flora. Orion is a mythological Greek hunter. Dad has always hunted faraway places. Combine that with a love of astronomy and you get a name kids tease you for in school.”
“It’s the best name. Unique and strong,” I find myself saying.
“Thanks, I like it now. Had to grow into it. But you won’t find me in these skies tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Orion is visible at night in the Northern Hemisphere in the winter months. It comes back again here around early August, but only at dawn.” He bumps my side. “Orion keeps bakers’ hours.”
“I’ll still be in Winchester in August and up with the bread dough. I’ll have to go out and look, if I can even find it between all the fog and city lights. I’ve never been to a good stargazing spot. Too much city in our travels and in Miami, too.” My bright, beautiful home is never dark enough.
“You’re kidding.” Even in the dim, I catch the mock horror on his face. “Your tourist to-do list grows by the minute. There’s a stargazer’s dream spot, dark as sin, a bit of a drive, but still not too far on Millie.”
“I’d like that.” A thick breath, in and out. “It’s only in the last few weeks that I’ve even been able to look up at the stars without breaking down. After my abuela’s funeral, I couldn’t.” I swivel my head, and find him still and waiting. “They call me Estrellita in Miami, around my neighborhood. Little star. Like I’m lighting up the night sky—and the kitchen—while everyone else sleeps.”
“You do,” Orion says. “It shows in your food.”
“Thanks. I need that drive for what I’m going to do when I get home.”
“For your family’s business? I know about those.”
I nod. “My mom doesn’t bake, but she’s a skilled cake decorator. When Pilar graduates next May, my parents want to open a small custom cake shop in another part of Miami. And Pilar and I will take over La Paloma—it means dove. I’m going to supervise the kitchen staff and all the food. And Pilar’s gonna handle the books and business stuff.”
“A winning team.” He reaches out with one finger but doesn’t touch me. “That explains this charm. If all that’s waiting for you at home, I see why it’s hard to be away.”
I sit up, feel for the golden dove. The way my scarf folds, the little bird hangs just below the cheetah-patterned wool. “Being away is like being away from my heart. But it’s my fault. I kind of pulled a Flora times a thousand.”
He hinges up too, munching his Cadbury bar. “I figured they didn’t send you away for three months because you snuck off and ignored your text messages.”
“No, but one day the loss won and I got reckless. I missed Andrés, and Abuela’s death was eating me up. Then Stefanie left. Everything I knew was slipping away and I felt like I had to reclaim my whole city to make it better, grounding myself.”
“And how does one claim a city, then?”
“I ran as much of Miami as I could, for hours. I
didn’t answer any messages. Pilar ended up tracking my phone, and found me nearly twenty miles from home. I was lying in some random park on the grass, dehydrated and cried out into nothing. Basically, a mess.”
“Christ, I see why they were so worried. Someone could have robbed you… or worse.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. This is the first time I’ve talked about that night. It feels better than I thought to loosen some of the images I still think about when my hands work into dough. The panic of burning lungs and not having quite enough air, my throat parched into more desert than Florida could ever imagine. And Pilar gently combing out my washed hair before she heated up soup.
I find myself wanting to continue. “See, sending loved ones away is not what my family does unless it’s a last resort, so I guess that’s what you’d call my ticket here. Abuela coming to America as a teen was more of a special opportunity my great-grandparents couldn’t pass up—a foreign exchange program through their church. But after a few years, most of my relatives followed, cramming into houses until they found work and could afford their own. We stick close and that family unit is everything.” My eyes cloud. “So much of mine is…”
“So much of yours is Miami,” he says.
“Exactly. It’s where we started, in a way.”
Orion’s phone dings. “Go on. It might be Flora,” I say.
He tips his chin at me before reading the text. “Not Flora. It’s Remy. Remember Jules and her producer Twitter stalking?” When I nod he says, “Jason Briggs tweeted about some Saturday highlights from the small town of Winchester. But not a word about Goldline.”
I straighten my spine. “That’s ridiculous. Jules is one of the best singers I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah and sometimes a text won’t do. We should ring her.” He does and when Jules answers, Orion puts her on speaker. “So that’s just bloody fucking shit,” he says.
“Now, those are some fitting lyrics, Ri,” Jules says over the line, deadpan. “Briggs even gave a nod to GLYTTR—GLYTTR!”
“Jules, it’s Lila. You and your band were way better than anyone else on that stage tonight. I heard some of that GLYTTR group and they’re a zero. I’m really sorry.”
“Thanks, love.”
I go on, “So Briggs’s studio is in London? I could always bake him something you know, special, with an extra ingredient to keep him stuck in the loo for long, painful hours.”
A harmony of laughter fills the quiet hill.
“She’s sinister, that one. I like it.” That comes from Remy.
“Me too, and tempting, but I think not,” Jules says. “This is how it goes. The entire industry is subjective and all about catching someone’s fancy at the right time. I’ll just put on my big girl pants and roll out my new songs right over that Jason Briggs. And from now on, I don’t want to hear another word about my purple book from the lot of you.”
We agree and tell her so. Then we hang up and Orion catches me, again, with my face in the clear, black sky. “You trolling for other guys with constellation names?”
“Ha bloody ha,” I say, mimicking him, which earns an amused snicker. “I thought I saw a shooting star, but it was only an airplane. And I was also thinking of Jules and how she’s not waiting and hoping for her big break to just drop onto her stage. She’s working so hard for it.”
“She’s not hanging her future on any wishing stars, that’s for sure. She’s gonna make herself the star.”
I look up and out again. “But it’s still fun to wish. If that little falling light wasn’t an airplane, what would you wish for?”
“Trying your Cuban food.”
I slant my gaze at him. “That’s a given.”
“Is it really?” He swivels, resting on one elbow. “You say these things but I’ve yet—”
“You will. I’m starting you off with something called the Cubano sandwich. No hints except it requires braising a couple pork shoulders and baking a ham. So, days, Maxwell. No need to waste a wishing star. Now, what’s your real wish?”
His happy grin cinches closed. He dashes his hand toward the muted stars. “I’ve stopped wishing on those long ago. I mean, I still have hopes and dreams. And it certainly doesn’t mean I sit around waiting for things to happen. But I’ve made this deal with the universe. I’ve learned not to ask more of it than what I’m given, both good and bad.”
“Since… your mom?”
“Since that, yes. I’ve grown to find peace and acceptance in not fighting what I can’t control. I don’t come to God or the universe as a beggar anymore. It’s helped me.” His mouth wobbles slightly. “And see, sometimes the universe gives me really fun nights showing visiting Cuban bakers around my friend’s music, and motorbikes, and our native snack foods. So you might want to be home. I get that and all the reasons why. But right now you’re here and I can’t find myself thinking that’s all that bad, Lila.”
“No. It’s not bad at all.” The words rush out of me, outrunning countless Miami echoes and Cuban roots, and everything I packed in my bag for this cold, foreign place. It’s entirely true. I’m wearing his sweater and it’s okay and a new kind of good that I’m starting to wear his city, too.
A night wind comes through, blowing through all the heaviness and swirling our empty plastic cups down the hill. So we share the rest of the cider, passing the bottle back and forth. Like heathens. And it doesn’t matter that his namesake constellation is only visible in Australia or New Zealand in June. I’m here, in his hemisphere. I find Orion anyway.
16
It’s because of Spencer that my mid-morning run starts and ends with the Crow kitchen. All Spence had to tell Orion when he ran into him by the rose arbor gate was four words: Cuban pastries, Cuban bread.
Winded, I wash up then toss my running partner a water bottle. “I think that’s the fastest we’ve done that loop. Your pace wouldn’t have anything to do with pastelitos, would it?”
He swipes the cold plastic across his forehead and hits the sink. “I’d completely forgotten about those.”
“Liar.” I turn my back on his snort and grab his secret stash. The kitchen gleams, newly organized and arranged to match my setup at La Paloma. With Polly gone, it’s finally my kitchen. At least until the end of summer. Earlier I repurposed one of Orion’s tea delivery boxes as a bakery box. I lift the lid to reveal a half-dozen pastelitos. The rectangular turnovers are scored at the top to reveal sweet fillings.
“Oh God. Now I see why you made me wait until after our run. No way I’d stop at one bite and it would drag me down to nothing good.” He inhales butter and flaky pastry dough.
I point out the two kinds, coco y guayaba. “Coconut and guava. My mom sent guava paste, but I’m using that for friends, not guests. And no, they aren’t all for you.” I shake my head at his pout. “Two other people live in your house.”
He bites into the guava pastel then makes a loopy, half-drugged face. “Should be illegal. Can’t remember the last time I had anything this good in my mouth.”
My eyes lock onto his, faster than a finger snap. Ready, set, blush. I can’t stop it. Please let him think it’s only my post-run face flush.
His laugh rumbles inside his chest. Fail. “What gutter did you drag that one into? I was strictly talking about the pastry dough—so light. You made that, too?”
¡Tranquila! Chill, Lila. I clear my throat and shoot off a look that says, do you even know me? “I spent all day yesterday making a freezer full of dough sheets for the next couple of weeks.”
While he munches, I bring over a large oval bread loaf, perfectly golden with a split top running down the center, still warm from the oven. “Pan Cubano. Cuban bread. Many cultures have a native bread and this is ours. It’s similar to French bread but uses lard. We love our pork products.”
“I approve of the pork.” He raises one brow when I slide the loaf forward. “The whole thing is for me?”
“For you and your family. I’m glad I hid it back here. Cate says she only had
a half loaf and six pastelitos left for the service crew to share. I need to up my quantities again.” I grab a serrated bread knife and slice off a hunk, then slather it with one of my new favorite things—the grass-fed Irish butter I keep nearby in a small crock.
He tucks into the carbs and fat and makes another expression of ecstasy. “So perfect. This will make a brilliant cheese toastie, too.”
“I knew you’d say that. My mom owes me a coffee shipment, so I can make you some café Cubano.” Mami actually forgot it in my last care package but was sure to include one extra sweater and a new pack of underwear. Por Dios. “Anyway, we dunk the bread in the coffee and it’s the best thing ever.”
Already mostly finished with his slice, he says, “You make it, I’ll try it.”
I waggle my brows. “Next you’re trying Cuban sandwiches. That’s tomorrow since the meat will take all day to roast. Come around seven if you can. And you can learn how to make them.”
“Oh, I can.” He hooks one hand on his chin. “I’m beginning to wonder if all this running is about to be negated somehow.”
I sample my own cooking, nibbling the warm buttered bread, a corner of the pastelito de guayaba Orion hands over. It tastes like home. “Most Cuban cooks are on a mission to feed you until you can’t walk, breathe, hold normal conversations, or any combination of the three.” My shoulder springs up. “What you do with your body is your business. Sorry, not sorry.”
“Like that, is it?”
Our eyes meet for another sparring match. I lose—the first to break, giggling. He does too before he returns to his pastelito. His tongue darts out to nab bits of guava filling at the crease of his mouth. A fine mouth, really. Full and the perfect amount of wide. It’s not like I haven’t noticed before. Now, noticing stretches into wondering. I can’t see how my wondering could mean or be anything more right now. But hot, red blood still pumps from broken hearts like mine.
Spencer and Gordon trample through my musings, trudging through the back door with grocery bags bursting with farmers market finds. Spence tips his head at Orion and tells me, “Success. Not only did they have your figs, they were on bulk special.”
A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow Page 11
