“It needs another twenty minutes,” she said to no one in particular. “Antonio always says I rush it. He likes it darker.” A pause. “Liked. Likes. Whatever.”
Selena and I traded a look and walked over to her.
“Smells perfect to me.”
“It’s not done.” Lupe gave the pot another turn, then set the spoon down and wiped her hands on her apron, summoning a smile that didn’t quite make it. “Sorry. Eat. There’s plenty. There’s always plenty.”
She tried to drift away when Selena grabbed her shoulder.
“What happened?”
“I kicked him out. He called me names, and I just…I just didn’t want to deal with it anymore.”
“Did he hurt you? I’ll kick his ass if he even tried—” I’dprobably do a lot more than that, the shark in me clearly not satisfied tonight.
She shook her head.
“No, he just left. After six years he didn’t even…”
She covered her face and started sobbing, and Selena wrapped her up in her arms.
“It’s okay, mija. You deserve so much better.”
Selena peered up at me over her distraught cousin’s shoulder. Her eyes darted between Lupe and the dance floor, and I got the message.
“His loss, Lupe. The man had no taste and no sense. I meant what I said at your place.”
Lupe gave a wet, hiccupping laugh.
“You saw more of him in two minutes than I saw in six years.”
“Not everyone can be as smart and handsome as me, but that’s a burden I bear.”
There it was, a smile again.
Selena bit her lip to keep from laughing, and that was all the reward I needed.
“So, can I ask the chef for a dance, or is she too busy?” I held my hand out to her.
Lupe looked between me and Selena, who gave her an encouraging nod. She took my hand, and I led her onto the dance floor.
Lupe was a good dancer, but she started off slow, nervous. We kept it chaste, my hand respectful at her back, and I led her through the slow movements. But just like I could read a wave, I read how she liked to move, and as the music picked up, I didn’t let her wallow. Soon I had her spinning, and the warm smile I’d seen in her kitchen returned.
“You know,” she remarked, catching her breath between turns, “with the way Selena talks about you, I expected rows of jagged teeth. Maybe a tail.”
“Only on the full moon.”
“She called you”—Lupe scrunched up her face, recalling—“a ‘sponsored frat boy with a god complex.’”
“That’sactually pretty good.” I spun her out and back. “If she’s not careful, RipTide might snap her up to write copy.”
That got a real laugh out of her, watery but real, and across the yard I saw Selena watching me get her cousin to laugh, smiling softly.
Then Lupe narrowed her eyes, still teasing but studying me more closely now.
“She talks about youa lot, is the thing. Like she’s always thinking about you…” She let it hang.
And under twinkling string lights, smelling like chiles and citrus, in a crowd that wasn’t anonymous but so intimately known it could be suffocating, I wanted to be known too.
