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“She was legendary back in Cuba,” Eva said proudly. “If you’d come here on the weekend during the lunch rush, you would have found a line out the door and down the block.”
“I believe it,” I said.
Xiomara plunked another plate down on the pass-through, and Eva handed it to Zale, who dug in at once.
“You want one?” she shot at Nova.
“I just ate, thanks Xiomara,” she replied. Then she turned to roll her eyes at Zale. “My God, control yourself. You’re in public.” To be honest, there were some borderline indecent sounds coming out of him.
“I can’t, I’m having a religious experience,” Zale moaned.
“Really? Because it sounds more like the kind of experience religion frowns upon,” Nova snorted.
“How long will you be staying in Sedgwick Cove?” Eva asked me.
I forced an enormous swallow to answer. “I’m not really sure yet. A few days, anyway. My last day of finals was yesterday.” I looked around, realizing that I was looking at three kids my age sitting in a cafe on a random Wednesday. “Have the schools here already started summer break?”
Eva looked like she wasn’t sure how to answer, but Nova jumped in. “School’s a bit different here. There aren’t really enough kids for a traditional school, so it’s sort of a… homeschool collective type situation.”
“Oh. That’s… um…”
“Weird,” Zale finished for me, his mouth full.
“Yeah, kinda,” I said, smiling sheepishly.
“Sedgwick Cove has always kind of done its own thing,” Eva agreed. “But it works for us.”
Just as I was in danger of seeing the bottom of my plate, Xiomara came out of the kitchen again, this time with a heaping plate of what looked like fried dough.
“Buñuelos,” Xiomara said, putting it down in front of me. I could smell anise, cinnamon, and orange as I gingerly picked one up off the plate and took a bite. All three of the other kids descended on the plate, too. Nova actually threw an elbow at Zale so she could snatch one before he had a chance.
“I thought you already ate?” Eva reminded her, smirking.
But Nova was unabashed. “There is always room forbuñuelos. Always,” she said solemnly.
And a single bite later, I had to agree with her. Soon everyone was licking their sticky fingers and crowing over how delicious they were. Xiomara stood with her hands on her hips, watching the pile disappear with a satisfied expression, until there was nothing left but crumbs. There wouldn’t even have been crumbs, but Eva slapped Zale on the back of the head when he tried to lick the plate.
“Seriously, boy, who raised you?” she snapped at him.
“A woman who boils the taste out of everything and who thinks salt and pepper are the pinnacle of seasonings,” Zale muttered, rubbing his head ruefully.
“Well, now that I’ve fed the neighborhood,” Xiomara said, “what did Rhiannon Vesper have the audacity to send to me this time?”
Wiping my fingers on a napkin, I reached into my bag and pulled out the package Aunt Rhi had given me. Xiomara yanked unceremoniously at the tape and unraveled the brown paper wrapping.
“Eva, get me my glasses,” she barked as she squinted down at the contents.
“I mean, I could, but you can reach them easier, abuela. They’re on your head,” Eva said with a determinedly straight face.
Xiomara muttered a string of what I could only assume were expletives as she untangled the glasses from her hairnet and perched them onto the end of her nose. Then she lifted a sealed mason jar from the package and read the tag that Rhi had tied to it. A moment later, she snorted.
“And what does your aunt expect me to do with this useless muck, fertilize my garden with it?” she demanded, staring over her glasses at me.
“I, uh… I don’t even know what it is,” I confessed.
“I mentioned to her that I’ve been suffering from arthritis in my hands, and she insisted she had the perfect remedy for me.” She snorted. “It’s a miracle, she tells me, you’ll be a new woman! As if I haven’t tried ginger and chamomile. Wait here.” She slammed the jar on the counter and hurried off into the kitchen again.
I stared after her before turning to Eva, eyebrows raised.
