Chapter 7 #2
In Spanish, she asked the elderly woman with a headset resting on her neck rather than on her head whether they still had a special menu. The woman, who looked like she could be anyone’s abuela, shook her head.
“No, we only serve the chicken,” she replied loudly, leaning forward like Grace was wearing a wire and she wanted to be sure it picked up her declaration clearly.
Grace was too good at cross-examining witnesses not to know immediately that the woman was lying. But she collected corroborating evidence. In the open kitchen behind the counter, there were only abuelas. A huge, simmering pot was not for some prepackaged gravy.
Continuing in Spanish, Grace swore that she wasn’t from the health department — though she wondered if her tailored jeans and ironed J.Crew T-shirt screamed narc.
She explained about her visiting friend and how she wanted to show her the real Miami.
For the kicker, she gestured toward Alix and in Spanish said, “Look how skinny she is, poor thing. She doesn’t have anything like this in California. ”
Abuela broke. No Cuban woman over sixty could stand to see a thin body. And anyone who didn’t have to get horizontal to struggle their way into a pair of jeans was too thin.
“Two family meal deals,” she screamed into an unplugged microphone. “To go!”
“I don’t know what that was, but it was amazing,” Alix said when they were walking to the car minutes later, two paper bags in hand.
“I thought you understood Spanish.”
“So did I,” Alix joked. “But that was so fast and her accent was… indescribable.”
Grace offered a sympathetic nod. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”
In the car, Grace opened the first container to reveal naturally vegan Cuban-style black beans over a mountain of white rice. As soon as she saw it Alix laughed.
“Holy shit! Is this for real?” She took the non-franchise Styrofoam container and inhaled the steam. “This smells so good.”
Grace wanted to enjoy the thrill of having surprised Alix, but her car’s speakers informed her that her mother was calling in surround sound.
“Eat,” Grace said, leaving no room for disagreement.
Alix grinned like she just couldn’t stop since she’d gotten out of the airport. “Yes, ma’am.”
She turned off Bluetooth and picked up the call. Grace missed the first thirty seconds while watching Alix shovel a spoonful into her mouth, close her eyes, and lean against the headrest. When she muttered a euphoric, “Oh, my God,” Grace allowed only a moment of self-satisfied glee.
“Wait, what?” Grace said into the phone.
“The Costco card,” her mother repeated unhelpfully. “She doesn’t have one.”
Grace allowed her pause to speak for her. To signal that she still had absolutely no idea what the hell she was talking about.
“It’s your cousin’s favorite pumpkin pie,” her mother explained like it was something Grace should have catalogued, or even known which cousin she was talking about. “And they’re closed tomorrow. But your Tia Sylvia is already here with the dog, and I can’t leave it—”
“Ma, what do you need me to do? Pick up a pumpkin pie?”
“Yes.”
Grace glanced at Alix, who looked like she’d reached a previously undiscovered level of bliss. “I’ll get there before they close.”
“Where are we going?” Alix asked after taking a breath.
Grace opened her container, balancing it in one hand before diving in with a flimsy plastic fork. “It’s nothing. After I drop you off, I have to get the only pumpkin pie one of my cousins is willing to accept, apparently.”
“I’m going with you,” Alix replied.
Grace chuckled. “You do not have to brave the nightmare—”
“What else am I doing? Let’s go! Show me your city.” She pointed her fork at the unappealing landscape. “You’re already killing it. What else you got?”
If Dante were revising his circles of hell for modern times, Costco in the afternoon before Thanksgiving had to be the new fourth.
No one in the endless line took pity on Grace and Alix standing there with a single item.
But the half hour they waited to pay was a blink thanks to Alix’s ability to make easy conversation.
They’d talked so long, in fact, that it was only when Grace was standing at her mother’s door holding a pie the size of a manhole cover that she realized Alix was about to meet her family.
She didn’t have time to panic before the aggressively decorated harvest-themed door swung open.
“You must be, Alix,” her mother said after ignoring Grace. She pulled her into the house and into a hug without stepping on her, so she was already doing better than Grace. “Come in. I’m Connie” was all her mother managed to get out before Tia Sylvia’s black Newfoundland dog barreled for the door.
“Don’t let him get out!” Tia Sylvia shouted from the family room as if Grace might somehow miss the two-hundred-pound bear-dog running at them.
Grace shut the door and braced for impact. At two years old, Baby was the size of a grown man and greeted everyone with a tackle. Stomping on her foot was an improvement from trying to rest his front paws on her shoulders to eat her face.
“Hey, buddy.” Alix scratched Baby behind the ear. “Aren’t you beautiful.”
“Oh, yeah, beautiful.” Connie scoffed. “You don’t have to get three tons of fur out of your AC filter.”
“Which fridge do you want this in? I want to get Alix back to Wynwood. Her hotel—”
“Hotel?” her mother repeated like Grace had uttered an unforgivable curse. “No. She doesn’t need a hotel.” She looked at Alix. “You don’t need a hotel. I made up the guest room—”
“Mom, no. She has a perfectly nice hotel and she doesn’t need—”
“What need?” Her mother was undeterred and hell-bent on making things weird.
She shouldn’t have picked up the stupid pie that was getting heavier by the moment.
“It’s Thanksgiving. She’s not going to stay by herself in a cold hotel.
And there’s no sense driving back and forth three hours round trip.
Both of you stay. Alix, you want to stay, don’t you? ”
Alix looked like she was about to let herself be guilted into moving right in and paying rent if Connie wanted her to.
Grace stood between Alix and her mother to block her view. “Don’t put her on the spot. She’s too polite to say no, but I’m not. She already has—”
The sound of something shattering against the tile floor yanked everyone’s attention to the family room. To where her Aunt Sylvia was picking up the shards of a vase.
Her mother unleashed a tirade of curses that were mercifully in the Cuban Spanish Alix hadn’t grown accustomed to yet. While her mother and Sylvia, who were cousins and not sisters, argued, Grace saw her chance to flee.
“Don’t move,” Grace whispered to an incredibly amused Alix still standing by the door. “And don’t agree to anything,” she warned.
Alix flashed a Scout’s Honor, like Grace’s family had stunned the words out of her. Oh, God. Tomorrow was going to be a fucking nightmare.
Grace bolted to the kitchen to drop the pie on the counter already overflowing with meal prep. She dashed to the door, primed to shout her goodbye and drag Alix back to the car.
“I can’t cancel my trip, Connie!” Sylvia shouted, Baby jumping at her side like they were playing the best game.
“You told me he was trained, Sylvia!”
“He is!”
“In what? Aerial performance?” her mother shrieked, earning a chuckle from Alix. “How am I going to wrangle him and thirty people tomorrow? It’s too much.”
“I’m getting on a plane to Finland in six hours, Connie.” Sylvia threw her arms out wildly like it was related to her point. “Where am I going to find a sitter who can administer his medications on such short notice, huh?”
“They’re probiotics, Sylvia. Don’t be dramatic.”
“He needs them. He has a very sensitive stomach.”
“I can’t—”
“If I cancel, I won’t get my money back. Do you know how expensive it is to book a heated igloo under the northern lights?”
“Why the hell are you even going?”
“It’s on my bucket list, Connie!”
Grace stepped into the living room with an open view of the family room. “You guys, we’re leaving, okay? See you tomorrow—”
“Grace!” Aunt Sylvia said like she’d already forgotten she was there. “Why don’t you and your girlfriend stay at my place? It’s only ten minutes away. You don’t—”
“Tia, she’s not my—”
“Of course I will,” Alix said when she appeared behind her, and the noise stopped. Even Baby ceased jumping to look at Alix.
“Really?” Sylvia’s eyes widened like Alix had sprouted wings and a halo.
“What?” Grace turned to look at Alix.
“I can stay at your aunt’s place and take care of Baby. I’m sure the hotel will be thrilled to have the room back. They won’t charge—”
“If they charge, I’ll pay for it.” Sylvia vaulted forward and slammed into Alix with a hug almost as aggressive as Baby’s greeting. “And I’ll leave you girls some pizza money, don’t worry.” She beamed at Grace and added, “This one is definitely a keeper.”
There were too many things warranting objections happening at once. “Tia, I can’t. We don’t… I—”
“It’s no problem.” Alix grinned, her arm still around Sylvia like they were old buddies. “She can’t miss the northern lights, Grace. It’s on her bucket list.”
“Bucket list,” Sylvia repeated with a fervent nod. “And you know, at seventy, I might not have many opportunities left to travel.”
“What the hell is a bucket list?” Connie grumbled, but she looked too delighted to get Baby out of her house to side with Grace.
Grace relented. “You don’t have to lay it on so thick, Tia.” She cast a glance at Alix. “I can’t leave you in my aunt’s house alone with him.” She glanced down at Baby and his lolling tongue. “I’ll stay with you.”
“Oh, you’re a doll.” Sylvia cupped Grace’s face. “You’ve always been my favorite,” she lied, starting for the door.
Grace watched Alix turn back to Connie, reaching out to take her hand and say, “It was so lovely to meet you. I hope we get to talk more tomorrow.” Her mom ignored the hand and responded with a hug and pat on the cheek.
Sylvia paused, Baby’s leash in hand. “Come on, I’ll show you how to administer his medication with every meal.”
“Because my daughter passed the bar but she can’t sprinkle powder on food?” her mother called after them.
Grace was driving with Alix in the passenger seat and following Sylvia’s van when she registered just how unexpectedly disastrous Alix’s first encounter with her family had gone. At her side, Alix looked like she’d never been more amused at having witnessed an actual circus.
Grace might’ve laughed. But then she remembered whose house they were driving toward.