9
CECíLIA
On the Friday before the visit, Joana stuck a sheet of paper to the fridge and wrote my name under a word she’d underlined twice.
LUNCH.
“Is that an order?” I asked.
“An attempt. I gave the order at two, and you scraped out another bowl.”
It was twenty to three. I had a piping bag in my hand, forty-eight chocolate disks in front of me, and no memory of hearing her the first time.
“I’m going to finish these.”
Joana pulled the empty baking sheet I was planning to fill next off the counter.
“These. Not the next hundred and twenty.”
I nodded. She went back to the boxes but didn’t take my silence as a promise. She left my lunch beside my water bottle, away from the ingredients.
Our first delivery of the season to the Hotel das Acácias was Saturday afternoon.
Three tiers, pale frosting, little sugar flowers the bride had taken weeks to choose.
The sweets table included four other items. We had the kitchen space, the approved budget, and the hours I’d allowed for the work.
Yet all week I’d checked every measurement as though I’d forgotten the difference between centimeters and grams.
My phone vibrated next to the scale.
Elisa. In the photo she’d sent, the shelf in the hotel’s walk-in was finally where we’d agreed. An employee held a tape measure across the opening. The second photo showed the door all the way open and the path to our reserved space.
I zoomed in, checked the measurement, and forwarded both photos to Teresa.
“Did they fix it?” Joana asked.
“They did.”
“Great. Now you can stop imagining a decapitated cake.”
“I wasn’t imagining that.”
She looked at me.
“You were imagining me holding up the top while you argued with a manager. Same difference.”
I laughed, and the piping tip slipped toward the edge of a disk. I set the imperfect one aside for our tasting box. No reason to throw it out; it simply wouldn’t be going on anyone’s wedding table.
Teresa called while I was finishing up the last row.
“Elisa confirmed it with me, too. You still have access at three. Ivo’s cleared, and your name and Joana’s are already with security. Anything else outstanding?”
I looked at the list pinned to the cabinet.
“The fresh flowers for the table can’t go in the boxes with the sweets. I need them separate until setup.”
“The decor team received that in writing.”
“And the table needs to be in place before I start.”
“Cecília.”
I closed my eyes for a second.
“I know. It’s on the schedule.”
“It is. If anyone’s late, I’ll handle it. You won’t have to negotiate with a florist while holding a cake.”
I’d been holding the phone between my shoulder and my ear. I straightened my neck and let out a breath.
“Thank you.”
“We work well together. I want to keep it that way.”
There was no probing in her words. Teresa knew enough to see that my worries about the hotel went beyond a delivery, but she didn’t treat the contract as permission to ask. It let me bring up something else that was difficult.
“I have an appointment tomorrow morning. I’ll get to the bakery around noon. Joana opens up, and Ivo stops by at one.”
“All right. I’ll let you both know if anything changes.”
The world didn’t stop because I’d be out of the kitchen for a few hours. The bottoms didn’t fall out of the boxes. No one suggested finding another vendor.
Still, I had to read the list twice before crossing off the last item.
By the time I sat down to eat, the rice was cold around the edges. Joana had put one of the imperfect disks on the lid of my lunch container for dessert. I bit off an edge before taking my first forkful, and the chocolate broke with a clean snap.
It was that sound that took me to another kitchen.
I’d stopped working for the group a few months before Dante came to my old apartment with a bag of groceries, sure we could make dinner. It was a Sunday. I’d spent the day testing a dessert for the restaurant where I’d started working and didn’t want to see another pot.
He took out a package of fresh pasta, tomatoes, two bars of chocolate, and a sprig of basil that looked as though it had ridden home under everything else.
“I got what was on the list,” he said, inspecting the crushed leaves.
“Did the list say to sit on it?”
“There was a logistical problem.”
He was so serious I started laughing before I could take the tomatoes. Then he smiled at my reaction. I still remembered how surprised I’d been that he was happy to be laughed at.
While the water heated, I found an open bar of chocolate on the counter.
“You ate one of my ingredients.”
“I bought two.”
“Because I needed two.”
He looked at the piece in his hand. He looked at me.
“I can go get another one.”
“You can give me that piece first.”
Dante held it to my mouth. I held his wrist and bit, feeling the edge of the chocolate crack between my teeth. A bit fell onto my T-shirt. When I looked down for it, he kissed my forehead.
There was nothing extraordinary about that dinner.
The sauce was acidic, the pasta a little overdone.
We ate on the floor because my baking pans covered the table.
Dante listened to my story about a customer who’d called almonds wood shavings.
He told me he’d walked into the wrong meeting in his own office and taken nearly five minutes to admit it.
Later, he washed the dishes. Rolled up his sleeves, asked where I kept the dish towel, and left two wineglasses draining upside down on a surface I hadn’t cleaned properly. The next day, I saw the rings and smiled to myself.
I’d loved that man, too. The one who overcooked pasta and stayed until the pots were put away.
For a long time, remembering him like that had felt like betraying the woman who’d walked away from the altar. As if admitting there had been a good Sunday made what he did afterward any smaller.
My fork struck the rim of my lunch container.
Joana was standing in front of me, holding two ribbons.
“Ivory or white? For the boxes people will see on the prep table.”
It took me a moment to answer.
“Ivory. The other one looks bluish in that light.”
She picked out the right roll.
I finished eating.
***
That night, Bento emptied his pencil case onto the bed and picked out three pencils to take with him.
“Can I only take three?” he asked.
“No. You can take the whole pencil case.”
He considered the offer, gathered up the three pencils, then opened the case again to check that the red one was there. The notebook lay next to his sneakers, carefully closed.
I sat at the end of the bed, laying out his clothes for Saturday.
The play space was fifteen minutes from home, part of a small center with a café and workshops.
We’d been before. Bento knew the low slide, the sandbox, the woman who welcomed the children at the entrance.
I’d chosen it so everything wouldn’t have to be new at once.
“Are we going after breakfast?” he asked.
“Yes. At ten.”
“And then am I going to Grandma’s?”
“Yes. She’ll pick you up at home. I have the wedding delivery.”
“The cake I can’t poke.”
“You can’t poke any wedding cake.”
He lay on his back and stretched his feet until they touched the notebook.
“I can poke yours.”
“My slice. When I let you.”
A small smile appeared. Then Bento stared at the ceiling, where the light from the hallway cast a long rectangle.
“Does he know my name?”
I slowly folded the T-shirt.
“He does.”
“My whole big name, too?”
“Bento Avelar? Yes, he does.”
He turned his face toward me.
“Do I call him his name?”
He seemed to have been holding that question since I’d told him who Dante was. I put the T-shirt with the other clothes so my hands were free.
“You can call him Dante.”
“Like you do.”
“Like I do.”
He nodded, satisfied with an answer he knew how to use. I didn’t add that he might call him something else one day. That word didn’t need to wait in front of him like another thing he had to do.
During his bath, he asked if there would be children. While I dried his hair, he wanted to know if he had to play in the sand. Then he asked about the time again, and I accepted that we might be talking about the same worry in several different ways.
“I’ll stay there with you,” I repeated.
Bento rested his head on my stomach for a few seconds. I stroked him near his ear until he pulled away to get his pajamas.
When he finally fell asleep, I took the bag to the living room and checked for water, a change of clothes, and a pack of tissues. The phone was on the table.
Dante had sent a message confirming ten o’clock and the address. No question about my day. Nothing that meant getting through another conversation before bed.
I replied that everything was as planned.
After sending my reply, I stared at the dark screen.
I wanted to add something, one last instruction to prevent whatever I couldn’t foresee.
Don’t insist on a hug. Don’t arrive with expectations written on your face.
Don’t leave my son wondering what he’s done wrong if he doesn’t like you right away.
We’d already talked about the boundaries. I could repeat them until dawn and still not control the entire encounter.
In the kitchen, I washed Bento’s glass and left it in the dish rack. There were two crumbs near the stove. I ran my hand over the countertop, picked them both up, and threw them in the trash.
Then I went back to the bedroom.
My son had kicked off the blanket. I covered his legs, moved the notebook away from the edge of the bed, and turned off the light.
I left the three pencils inside the pencil case, exactly where he had put them.
10
DANTE
Eunice placed two pages in front of me on Thursday and kept the rest of the documents with her.
“This is what we’ve been able to confirm so far.”
We’d scheduled half an hour. I’d kept the following hour free, too. The precaution began to seem inadequate as soon as I saw Cecília’s name on the first page.
“The eighteen deposits?” I asked.
“They were found in the statements provided by Linha Norte. The dates and amounts match the receipts you received.”