Cinder & Ella

by Kelly Oram

  The Easter Bunny could have come down the chimney armed with machine guns and opened fire on the house, and everyone would have been less surprised. Dad tugged at his ear as if it were playing tricks on him. “What?”

  “I used to really enjoy cooking,” I explained awkwardly. “Mama taught me how to make her enchiladas suizas when I was twelve. If you’d like to have them for dinner, I can make them.”

  The entire family was still so shocked that I felt stupid for making the offer. My face heated up from embarrassment and I quickly tried to backtrack. “I mean, if you guys want to go out for dinner, it’s fine. Do whatever you want. We probably don’t have everything we need to make them, anyway. I’m going to go change.”

  My retreat set my dad and Jennifer into motion again. “I can go to the store and pick up whatever you need,” Jennifer blurted the second I moved to leave. Her whole body was shaking, as if she were having a hard time containing her excitement. “Trader Joe’s is right down the hill.”

  I glanced at my dad, waiting for him to make the decision. He bit his lip and hesitated a second, but then quietly asked, “You would really make your mother’s enchiladas for us?”

  I nodded, but then looked down at my right hand and shrugged. “I mean, one of you would have to do most of the cooking—I won’t be able to do much chopping or anything—but I can walk you through it.”

  My dad started to smile, then pulled back his emotions into a neutral mask. Maybe he was afraid to make a big deal out of this and have me change my mind. “I’d like that,” he said, swallowing really hard. “I’d really like that a lot.”

  Twenty minutes later, my dad and I were standing in the kitchen wearing matching pink and white polka-dotted aprons. Dad had pulled all the different ingredients out of the grocery bags and spread them out on the countertop as if we were starring in our own show for the Food Network. He was holding up a soup spoon and a dessert spoon from the utensil drawer with a giant frown on his face when Jennifer held up her phone and said, “Smile!”

  Dad stepped next to me, puffed out his apron-clad chest, and grinned proudly. I smiled too, but probably looked really nervous because this was the first picture we’d taken together in over nine years. I was surprised after Jennifer snapped the shot how badly I wanted a copy of it. I felt too shy to ask Jennifer to text it to me, though, and hoped she might do it without me saying anything.

  The second we were done posing, my dad went right back to staring at his spoons. “How do you know which one of these is a teaspoon?”

  I shot Jennifer a look and she laughed. “No. I’m afraid he’s not kidding.”

  “The key to good enchiladas suizas,” I said, taking the spoons from my father and placing an onion and knife in his hands instead, “is getting the sauce just right. It’s a delicate balance of cream and kick, which is why I will be measuring the ingredients, and you will do the chopping. If I remember correctly, the only thing you ever cooked was Froot Loops.”

  Dad resigned himself to his place at the chopping board and sighed. “Yes, but you have to admit I had that dish mastered.”

  “He still does.” Juliette plopped onto a barstool and checked out the scene in the kitchen with no small amount of curiosity. She smirked at my dad. “He just has to hide the evidence from Mom. She doesn’t allow ‘sugar’ cereal in the house, so he stashed his Froot Loops and Lucky Charms in the cupboard above the dryer in the laundry room and only eats them when she’s gone.”

  “What?” Dad gasped. “I do not! How did you know about that?”

  Juliette and I met each other’s eyes and both burst out laughing. Jennifer kissed the pout on my father’s face. “We all know about that, honey,” she teased, joining Juliette and me in our laughing fits. Soon, Dad was laughing, too. He laughed so hard the tears running down his cheeks might have been from crying and not just the onion he was chopping.

  The mood stayed light as we continued to cook, and eventually Juliette asked what she could do to help. She freaked at the idea of cooking the chicken or frying up the tortillas—apparently as wary of the stove as my dad—so I put her to work grating the cheese.

  Jennifer sat at the counter the whole time, but refused to lift a finger—something about having too many cooks in the kitchen. She was clearly enjoying having someone else do the cooking for once, though she eyed the butter, heavy cream, and cheese with a trepidation that made me laugh.

  Dinner turned out to be a success. The food was great and the atmosphere was the lightest it had ever been since I’d come to the Coleman house. Even Anastasia ate her dinner without slinging a single insult in my direction.

  My father scraped the last bite of his plate, then leaned back in his chair and groaned. “Ellamara, you are amazing. I think those were even better than your mother’s.”

  Something inside me warmed at the first genuine compliment I’d received from my dad. Still, I had to shake my head. “Not even close. But Abuela showed me the secret to her sopaipillas before she died, and those I did manage to cook better than Mama. Maybe this Christmas we could…” My voice trailed off as I was hit with a crippling pang of grief. I brought my napkin—an actual cloth one—up to my eyes and muttered an awkward apology.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Anastasia muttered.

  Juliette tried to deflect Anastasia’s question by asking, “What’s a sopaipilla?”

  Dad jumped on the life raft Juliette threw him. “The way her mother used to make them, they were like deep-fried pumpkin doughnuts dipped in maple syrup. They were delicious. We used to have them for breakfast every Christmas morning with hot chocolate. Ella was always more excited about the sopaipillas than she was about her presents.”

  “It was tradition,” I whispered, falling into a lifetime of memories. “Last year was the first Christmas I ever missed them.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to eat twice as many this Christmas to make up for it,” Dad said.

  My head snapped up and I felt ridiculous when my eyes pooled with tears. “Really? We could make them on Christmas? That would be okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Yeah, that definitely sounds like a tradition I could get behind,” Juliette said. “Usually all we eat for breakfast on Christmas morning is whatever chocolate we find in our stockings.”

  The mood was saved, but still seemed fragile somehow. It probably had something to do with the way Anastasia was glowering into her lap. We all noticed, and were trying our best to ignore her, hoping she wouldn’t explode.

  Dad tried to move the conversation along. “Abuela really told you the secret?”

  I grinned. “You have to use chancaca instead of regular brown sugar. It’s hard to find, but makes all the difference in the world. I never did tell Mama what it was. Abuela made me pinkie swear. It was our secret. Drove Mama crazy.”

  Dad laughed, and I smiled, too. It was so surreal to be sitting here reminiscing with him about Mama. When she died, I felt as if I couldn’t talk about her because I had no one to talk about her with. There was no one else in my life that knew her. But Dad had been married to her for over eight years. It’d been so long that I hardly ever made the mental connection that he was the man from my childhood memories.

  “Abuela…,” Juliette said, pulling me from my daydream. “That means grandma, right? She’s your mom’s mom?”

  I nodded.

  “Does she live in Boston?”

  I released a heavy breath. “She died when I was fourteen. Granpapa died when I was eleven and Mama was an only child, so it was just the two of us after Abuela passed. I didn’t have any other family.”

  “Yes, you did,” Anastasia snapped. “You had a dad.”

  My dad had been reaching for his glass and missed, spilling wine all over the tablecloth. Anastasia was too busy glaring at me to notice. “You’re not an orphan, Ella.”

  “I never said I was,” I mumbled.

  The good mood was officially gone. There would be no salvaging it. The only question wa
s exactly how bad was the coming train wreck going to be? You never knew with Anastasia.

  “How come you never told us about her?” Anastasia asked Dad suddenly. “We didn’t even know she existed until the police called after her accident.”

  I hadn’t known that. I looked up for some kind of confirmation of this. My dad wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I glanced at Juliette. Her grimace said all I needed to know. Anastasia was telling the truth. He never told them he had a daughter. I really had been nothing to him.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until I sniffled, and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on me. “I knew about you,” Jennifer whispered quietly. “He used to tell me stories about you when we first started dating.”

  “Did he tell you he was still married when you started dating?” I asked the question sincerely. Not because I wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings, and not because I wanted to throw their mistakes in their faces, but because I needed to know.

  Jennifer must have seen the desperation in my face, because she shut her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

  “How come you never told us about her?” Anastasia demanded again. “If you loved her so much and have all these fun memories of her, you’d think you would have mentioned her every now and then, or kept a picture of her around here somewhere.”

  My dad couldn’t come up with an answer to this, so Anastasia turned her anger on me. “Why didn’t you ever call or send him your school pictures or anything?”

  “Ana,” Dad pleaded.

  His plea didn’t matter. Not to Anastasia, and not to me. I didn’t need him to fight my battles for me. I was so sick and tired of Ana twisting the knife in a wound that was painful enough without her help. I sat up as straight as my body would allow, squared my shoulders, and looked her in the eyes.

  “I sent pictures, drawings, cards, and letters telling him how much I loved him and missed him and begged him to visit me for years. He was the one who never wrote me back or called. For the first few years all I got was the random birthday card or Christmas card, but even those stopped coming after a while, so I gave up. There’s only so much rejection a girl can handle before her pride takes over.”

  Anastasia glared at me, but didn’t have a snarky reply. It was my dad who broke the silence. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

  His voice was barely audible. I pretended not to hear it and glanced at Jennifer. “May I please be excused?”

  Tears spilled from Jennifer’s eyes and rolled down her pale cheeks when she nodded.

  The last thing I heard before I escaped to my room was Juliette shouting, “Are you happy now, Ana? You ruined everything!” and then stomping upstairs.

  I broke Dr. Parish’s rule and retreated to my bedroom to hide. There were several knocks on my door that night but when I didn’t answer them, people took the hint and left me alone. Cinder was apparently denser than my stepfamily. He called, and when I didn’t answer, he called again. And then again. Then he got online and made my computer start beeping at me with instant messages while my phone continued to ring.

  EllaTheRealHero: Sorry, Cinder. I’m not in the mood to read tonight.

  Cinder458: We don’t have to read. We can just talk. Call me?

  EllaTheRealHero: I can’t. Not tonight.

  Cinder458: Is this because of earlier?

  I stared at the screen with my fingers poised over the keys to type a response, but I had no idea what to say. I was in no place to deal with Cinder at the moment. This day had completely wrecked me. I’d taken a huge step in trying to be part of my dad’s family tonight. I’d offered up a piece of myself to them, and in turn it opened the lid on all the memories I’d been suppressing for years.

  For a while, it had worked. For a few minutes I had my dad back—the dad I remembered from my past. Anastasia’s question had taken him away again. She’d opened up those old wounds while I was in the middle of reliving the happy memories, so it hurt like a fresh cut. Normally I would let Cinder cheer me up, but I didn’t even have him tonight. He’d rejected me this afternoon too, just like my dad had all those years ago.

  Cinder458: Ella?

  Cinder458: I’m so sorry.

  Cinder458: Ella, please talk to me. Let me explain.

  EllaTheRealHero: You don’t need to explain yourself. I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry Vivian put you on the spot like that. I only met her a couple of days ago. We hadn’t had the “Cinder” conversation yet. She didn’t know what she was doing when she asked you to come Friday. If I’d known she was going to do it, I would have stopped her. I’m sorry.

  Cinder458: You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s me, Ella, not you. I know how that sounds, but it’s true. You know how much I care about you, right? You have no idea how much I wanted to accept your friend’s invite. I just…

  My phone rang again, but I didn’t pick it up. I didn’t want him to hear me cry.

  Cinder458: Can we please not do this over the Internet?

  EllaTheRealHero: Do what?

  Cinder458: Have this talk.

  EllaTheRealHero: We don’t have to talk about anything. I understand. It’s okay.

  He called me again, and I ignored it again.

  Cinder458: No, you don’t understand. It’s not that I don’t want to meet you; I just can’t. My life is really complicated. I don’t want you to get hurt because of it.

  EllaTheRealHero: Are you saying that because you have a “sort of” girlfriend who you hate, but can’t dump?

  Cinder458: That’s a big part of it.

  EllaTheRealHero: But Cinder, I don’t care about that. Well, I mean of course I care, and I want you to break up with her because she makes you miserable and you deserve better, and I want you to be happy. But I don’t mind that you have a girlfriend. That wouldn’t hurt me. I’m not asking to date you. I just think it might be nice to finally meet my best friend.

  Cinder458: But that’s just it. You’re my best friend too, and if we met everything would change. It could ruin our relationship. I’m not ready to take that chance. My life is too crazy right now, and I need you too much. I need our friendship. You’re the most important thing to me right now. The one thing that keeps me grounded. I can’t lose you.

  EllaTheRealHero: You’re not going to lose me. Things would change between us a little, I’m sure, but it would only make us better friends. There’s no way it could ruin our friendship. Nothing could do that.

  Cinder458: I know you think that, but you don’t understand. You’re so sweet, Ella. You’re still so young and naïve, and my lifestyle is so different from yours. You couldn’t handle it.

  Right then was a really bad time to have this conversation. I was already emotional thanks to Anastasia, and Cinder could be so infuriating. I lost my temper and dialed his number. He picked up almost instantly and sounded relieved. “Hey!”

  “You’re kidding me with this, right? You know how arrogant that makes you sound, don’t you? You’re what, twenty? Twenty-one?”

  Okay, he’d sounded relieved until he realized I only called to yell at him. “It’s not arrogance. It’s just reality. And I’m twenty-two, FYI.”

  “Oh, twenty-two, excuse me. You’re so old and wise. Those three-and-a-half years or whatever you have on me must be vital ones if I’m still so young and naïve compared to you.”

  “I didn’t mean that as an insult,” he said with a tired sigh. “You’re not immature—hell, you’re way more mature than I am by far—but you’re so innocent in some ways. You’d be like a goldfish in a shark tank in my world. You’d get eaten alive. People like my own damn girlfriend would rip you to shreds. I can barely handle the bitch, and I’m a master at the game.”

  “Screw you, Cinder! I’m not some kind of baby. I’ve been through more than you can possibly imagine and I’ve survived so far.”

  I was up now, barefoot and pacing my bedroom. It was making my toes hurt, so I braved the risk of earthquakes and stepped out onto my deck. I leaned against the railing, taking the majority of
the weight off my feet, hoping the view and crisp air would calm me down.

  The line was silent for a long time and then Cinder quietly said, “That’s different, Ella. I know you’ve been through a lot. And you’re right, I have no idea what that must have been like for you. I’m sure you’re tougher than most people in some ways, but trust me, if I sucked you into my bullshit, it would crush you. And if we met in person, you would get sucked in. It would be unavoidable.”

  “Thanks for the faith, jerk.”

  Cinder sighed again. “I’m sorry. I know you’re frustrated. I know I sound like an asshole, but I swear to you if there were any way I could make it work, I would. My life is too insane and I don’t really have any control over it. You would get hurt, and you would end up hating me for it. Will you please just trust me on this? Can’t you let what we have right now be enough? Please?”

  Ugh. He sounded genuinely desperate. There was no way I’d be able to say no to him, but I couldn’t just give in and let him have his way, either. “Fine. Whatever. I have to go.”

  I hung up on him.

  He called me back.

  I turned off my phone.

  By the time I went back inside and climbed into bed, Cinder had gone back to instant messaging me.

  Cinder458: Come on, Ella. Don’t be like that.

  Cinder458: I’m not trying to be a jerk.

  Cinder458: Hello???

  Cinder458: Ella!

  Cinder458: Stop ignoring me, woman!!!

  I should have signed off and put my laptop away. Instead, I responded.

  EllaTheRealHero: I’m sorry, but I am just so pissed at you right now.

  Cinder458: I know, and I’m sorry. I understand if you need some time. Just don’t stay mad forever, okay? I’ll miss you too much. I need you, Ellamara. I need this friendship.

  I read his message and pulled my pillow over my face so I could scream into it.

  EllaTheRealHero: Ugh! I hate how you do that!