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“Aw come on, your abuela loves me,” he insisted.
“She loves me too, but she’d still flay me alive for parking my butt on that counter,” the girl shot back.
The boy chuckled but hopped down, sliding into one of the benches instead.
Interloper vanquished, the girl turned to me, flashing straight white teeth in a winning smile. “Welcome to Xiomara’s Cafe! What can I get for you?”
“Hi,” I said. “Um, I have something for Xiomara, actually. My aunt asked me to bring it over.”
The girl’s smile flattened a little as she drew her eyebrows together in confusion. “Your aunt?”
“Yeah, Rhiannon Vesper? She asked me to—”
My voice trailed away as the mouths on all three faces dropped open in surprise.
“Rhiannon Vesper is youraunt?” the boy on the bench asked, his voice full of awe as though I’d just said my aunt was Taylor Swift or something. He pushed his dark hair out of his face and stared at me with renewed interest burning in his eyes, which were a startling shade of blue.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Here.” And I held the package out to the girl on the other side of the counter, who took it without looking at it. “She mentioned she and Xiomara were friends,” I added in a desperate attempt to fill the silence. “Are you Xiomara?”
The girl blinked, and the spell seemed broken. She laughed a raucous laugh, the kind of laugh you couldn’t hear without wanting to laugh yourself, even if you hadn’t heard the joke. “No, Xiomara’s my grandmother. She’s in the back; I’ll get her.” The girl tossed her head over her shoulder and shouted, “Abuela! Someone to see you!”
“Quien es?” came a shouted reply.
Before the girl at the counter could answer, a wizened brown face appeared at the pass-through from the kitchen. Her dark eyes seemed to pierce right through me as she took me in. Her iron gray hair was twisted into a knot on top of her head, and she wore a hairnet over it.
“It’s Rhiannon Vesper’s niece,” the girl said, the words weighted with significance I could hear but couldn’t interpret. Why did this whole damn town seem to know who I was?
The narrowed eyes widened, and I heard the woman whisper what sounded like, “Este no tiene nombre!” Then Xiomara disappeared from the pass-through and appeared again about five seconds later barreling through the door. She hurried around the counter, wiping her hands on her apron as she went.
“Home at last then, child,” she said, peering closely at me. Her dark eyes managed to be both sharp and warm at the same time, and she spoke with such surety that I had no choice but to nod my head.
“Yes,” I managed hoarsely.
She nodded. “About time, and not too late, I hope,” she said without further explanation, and then she looked me up and down appraisingly. “You’re hungry,” she announced. “I’ll feed you and then you can show me what foolish nonsense your aunt has sent me this time.”
“Oh, I…” I stammered, “that’s… yes, I was going to order something, um…” I squinted over her shoulder at the menu, but she was already disappearing into the kitchen.
“I… doesn’t she want to know what I’m going to order?” I asked her granddaughter, a little bewildered.
The girl laughed her infectious laugh again. “No, she said she wants tofeedyou. Trust me, whatever she puts down in front of you would be better than what you ordered, even if you know Cuban food.” She cocked her head to one side. “Doyou know Cuban food?”
I shook my head, reddening.
The girl chuckled. “You’ll know it soon if you stick around. Feeding people is my grandmother’s love language.”
“Oh, it’s so worth it,” the boy added enthusiastically. “Just go with it, I’m telling you.”
“Okay,” I said, managing a smile at last. Frankly, whatever she was cooking back there already smelled like heaven.
“I’m Eva, by the way,” Xiomara’s granddaughter said. “Eva Marin. And this is Zale MacDowell, who you can mostly ignore.” She flicked a careless hand over her shoulder to acknowledge the boy, “and this is Nova Claire.”
I’d nearly forgotten the other girl, who had dropped back into the corner when I’d entered and hadn’t yet said a word. Now she stepped forward, holding out a hand and staring at me as though trying to memorize every feature of my face.
“I’m Wren,” I said, my voice cracking as I took her hand, which gripped mine firmly and then turned it over so that she could trace her fingers over my palm. I froze at the intimacy of the touch.
“The mysterious Vesper girl at last,” Nova said. Her voice was as smooth and honeyed as her flaxen hair, which hung in two glossy curtains on either side of her pale, heart-shaped face. Her eyes were wide, and such a smoky shade of blue as to be almost lavender. Her full lips parted into an expression halfway between a smirk and a smile. “Well, well, well, I feel like I’m meeting a storybook character.”
“Give it a rest, Nova, she just got here,” Eva said. Was that a note of warning in her voice?
