A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

by Laura Taylor Namey

“I. Am. Here. Because not only did my most beloved abuelita die, but within two months of her death, my best friend abandoned me, and my boyfriend of three years dumped me right before prom. I call it the trifecta. Apparently, I wasn’t getting over it all fast enough so my family sent me here to ‘cool down.’

Inside the inn, the air is warm but not stuffy, and scented with butter and sugar.

Is this what twenty-five years in England does to a Venezuelan woman, born Catalina Raquel Mendoza? Here, in this Hampshire medieval town, with this husband, she is Cate Wallace.

Although the texture is nearly perfect, sweetness level is where many bakers fail. Flour, butter, and sugar are only platforms for other flavors—spices and extracts, fruit and cream and chocolate. A pastry never needs to be overly sweet. It only needs to be memorable.

Because of her, Pilar and I would never dare board a plane without toting a spare pair of underwear and a change of clothes. After all, the airline could lose your luggage! Abuela never did trust those baggage handlers.

Impossible. I’d heard this word before and pounded it like a hard coconut shell. Then I used the rich, white flesh to make a cake.

“Mi estrellita, if you shine too bright in his sky, you’re going to burn him out. Burn yourself out, también.”

He smells like trees and damp leather.

Andrés Millan. University of Miami. All about Hurricanes football and Marlins baseball. Ice cream junkie. Once upon a time, his bio could’ve said pastelito junkie. Lila junkie. Not anymore. Combing his feed is like picking at a scab. I know it won’t heal this way. Claro que sí, I should bandage it, keep it out of sight. But I’m not as strong facing memories as I am in front of mixing bowls.

balloons with it. “A toast,” Orion says, holding up his bottle, “to friends who don’t listen when you say stay the bloody hell away, you meddling-arse muppets.”

“A Russian superstition says if you take an old coin, walk ’round a church with it three times, then go home and put the coin in a spot where you keep valuables, you’ll get rich.”

He tasted of flan and the Coke and lime Papi had placed into his hands. The silent language of my father’s acceptance.

“I ran as much of Miami as I could, for hours. I didn’t answer any messages. Pilar ended up tracking my phone, and found me nearly twenty miles from home. I was lying in some random park on the grass, dehydrated and cried out into nothing. Basically, a mess.”

“I thought I saw a shooting star, but it was only an airplane. And I was also thinking of Jules and how she’s not waiting and hoping for her big break to just drop onto her stage. She’s working so hard for it.” “She’s not hanging her future on any wishing stars, that’s for sure. She’s gonna make herself the star.”

I’ve made this deal with the universe. I’ve learned not to ask more of it than what I’m given, both good and bad.”

I’ve grown to find peace and acceptance in not fighting what I can’t control.

“I’m beginning to wonder if all this running is about to be negated somehow.” I sample my own cooking, nibbling the warm buttered bread, a corner of the pastelito de guayaba Orion hands over. It tastes like home. “Most Cuban cooks are on a mission to feed you until you can’t walk, breathe, hold normal conversations, or any combination of the three.” My shoulder springs up. “What you do with your body is your business. Sorry, not sorry.”

“Thing is, when you put something back together it’s never exactly the same as it was before.

“Andrés is still there. The feelings are there but different, like they’ve changed shape.” This comes quicker than a blink. “I know what it feels like to fall in love. But I’m not sure what falling out of love feels like.” Abuela never taught me this part. And she left my world before I could have asked.

“I told a girl I loved her, but that’s long done. And when it ended—her idea,” he nods into the words, “it was rubbish. But I noticed I was eventually able to think and do things without my mind always running into her first. She was there, like you said, for a while. Then not as much and now, next to never.”

When the band leaves, Jules flicks my cookie box. “Bloody biscuits. I can’t believe you came out here and fed those wankers biscuits and turned them to kittens.”

“A Cuban sugar witch?”

“Ready to hear the Cuban-American centerpiece episode of Mission: Impossible?” “More than ready.” “Every self-respecting celebration—wedding, baby shower, and so on—requires centerpieces on each table. Super important. And it’s the mission of many Cuban mothers and aunts to take home as many of these centerpieces as socially possible. All posh party gloves come off, let me tell you.”

“Celebrations are a crucial part of our culture. We’re generally a social bunch. Sharing our joy with loved ones is also important. Like, it’s not uncommon for Cuban fathers to start saving for their daughters’ weddings years in advance, if they can. Just my opinion, but I think it’s about wanting to bring home a piece of the party and make it last. It’s a token of a happy event that keeps blooming for a few days.”

“My family’s not big on the mal de ojo, but the curse stems from jealousy and is usually brought on when people pass by and gaze at newborn babies or young kids. They’re most susceptible.”

“Then there’s the one about never going out at night with wet hair, and the three-hour rule about swimming after eating. These are both crucial. Not obeying them will surely bring on a stroke or a cough or maybe you’ll need a heart transplant.”

When our meals arrive, I learn how close shepherd’s pie is to our Cuban papas rellenas. Spiced ground beef sits under a carb lover’s dream of mashed potatoes, baked until the top is golden crisp. I eat heartily while also sneaking fried potato wedges from Orion’s fish and chips plate.

And I can’t stand it anymore. I’ve forgotten to remember I’m bold. I command kitchens! Can’t I take command of a question? Bold, that’s who I am. I’m not a helpless wonderer. “Orion.”

“So let’s do this. Let’s create a new category for our kind of us. We don’t have to define it. We’ll leave it blank and take things day by day.”

“And when it’s right, you can find someone again.” He tightens his grip. “But I have a few requirements for any future bloke. Hypothetically speaking, of course.” My laugh spurts out. I sniffle. “What requirements?” His look, like I’m dense. “Obviously, he has to have a motorbike. Now, I’m okay with him not naming it.” “How generous.” “I am that, if anything.” He shakes a warning finger. “And he must be able to make a decent cuppa. Because you need your afternoon tea now. And he’ll have to take you to just sit and look at this beautiful world, because you tend to work too hard.”

“Traditionally, if you spill coffee, it means a lover is thinking of you.”

“Okay, maybe you can settle our squabble. Undisputed queen of eighties rock, Stevie Nicks or Pat Benatar?”

The smell, Lila—just like this. I followed it in here. The guests are going to wonder when supper is served.” The Cuban siren song.

“If I close my eyes, I’m in Miami again,” Cate continues, “and the air conditioner is broken and we’re all dripping sweat with portable fans blowing loud behind us and the music playing louder.” Her hands on her heart. “Your abuela Lydia could have been in the most high-end kitchen in her mind. And more than me, she fed everyone. When times were tough for her neighbors, she brought pots of caldo de pollo and pan Cubano.” I lift my gaze through the molasses drag of memory. Flora and Jules have stopped chopping, just listening. This is my Miami, my history. This is me. “Stay,” I tell Cate. “You can cook with us.” She reaches into the stack of aprons, grinning.

“This music!” Jules says, eyes bright with wonder. “The polyphony and drum work and rhythm are fantastic. It sounds like a tropical resort and a colorful street lined with merchants and…” “What?” “I know it’s weird, but it sounds like this food smells. Spiced and sexy.”

“Sleep now. But be sure to exit the bed on the same side you enter to avoid the worst of the worst kind of luck.”

Vanilla black.” I drink again, the flavors of two cities I love tangling on my tongue. “Orion, this one.” “What?” “It’s my favorite.”

“It’s been a whole five minutes since I told you a superstition.” My laugh hums; I thump his side. “Well, go on. You have to have one about gardens or flowers.” “About bees, actually. But we wouldn’t have gardens without those guys. And this one’s English in origin, so, also fitting,” he says as we stare into one of the reflecting pools. “Beekeepers thought it was essential to good honey production to talk to their bees. So, telling the bees, as they called it, became a must. They’d tell them about any household events like births or marriages. And especially deaths.”

“Abuela would’ve loved you.” My storyteller and teamaker and the boy who could nick and knife my heart, just for living under another flag.

“And Orion’s the best at knowing when you need a cup of tea or a really big hug. Well, it would actually take me until bedtime to tell you all the things he’s the best at.”

“Don’t you know there’s literally nothing you can’t tell me?”

“Does one have to be worse? Or can’t they both be the same amount of terrible? They change us and make us stronger, and we do our best to go on, all the same?”

Keep me? Another wish I can’t even trust the stars with. What language do I use to wish for continents and cultures to bend? Keep me impossibly. I wish this with my hands, my nails marking a star-named boy with half moons.

“No forest creatures. Just us heathens tonight.

But all my dancing parts are most at home with a prom date I didn’t even know I was waiting for, on a milestone night I’d wished away.

Is there a superstition about things you let go of, only to be surprised later with a version of them that’s so much better?

“Where’s Lila?” She spots me through the faded light then grins. “Oh, there she is. So in honor of your big birthday, and well, just in honor of someone who is bloody spectacular, I wanted to debut Goldline’s newest song tonight. It’s called ‘Sweaters,’ um, not ‘Jumpers,’ because America and all. This one’s for you.” She blows me a kiss and I’m already teary.

Sweaters for my shoulders Blankets for the cold You’re painting stars where I colored black holes Your embers, my ashes Your sugar for this sinking sand You cover me again You cover me again

It’s like Jules took everything out of me—the bricks and building blocks of my heart—and set it to music. All these weeks she’s been watching, writing my life with lyrics. Orion has to hold me steady when the bridge starts. The guitar players grin, standing from their stools. Leah the drummer winks, then the chords, the beat, the rhythmic patterns change: Goldline is referencing salsa. Jules toggles between English and Spanish in the most unique bridge I have ever heard. It’s not out of place, but a perfect mash-up like a Cuban pastry filled with English fruit.

“Lila, answer the simple things,” Papi says. “Your sister told us about your Orion. Does this boy love you too?” I close my eyes as inner snapshots flip. Orion Maxwell has never said the words, but he’s also shouted them a million ways, a million times. “He does.”