With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Flash
January and February move fast as we prepare for state tests, begin work on our final projects, and give one last push to get our grades up before it gets too close to the end of the year. Before I know it, March rolls around.
I should be happy. In three and a half weeks, I’m actually going to Spain, but the first week in March finds me anxious. Steve reduced my hours to two or three a week, and the money I was making wasn’t enough to make a dent on most of the costs we have. I finally quit when I realized it wasn’t worth the round-trip fare when I was mostly breaking even.
Malachi and I are still circling each other. Friends who hold hands and sometimes flirt, but nothing more. We don’t talk about the future and we don’t push for more than this. He found out he was accepted to Morehouse back in December, and regardless of what I end up doing there will be distance between us. Angelica has been busy with Laura and some last-minute applications. And the icing on the cake: Tyrone is taking Babygirl this weekend and I can’t even look forward to hanging out with her.
When I hand her over to him Saturday morning, the fist around my heart squeezes tight and it takes everything inside me to not ask him if we could skip this weekend. Tyrone bundles her up, and she waves goodbye to me while jibber-jabbering in his ear. I turn in to a hug from ’Buela and she pats my hair.
“Want me to make lunch and then we can watch Remember the Titans or The Blind Spot?” ’Buela loves a good sports pep talk and I know it’s an offer she can’t refuse.
’Buela doesn’t look at me as she walks to the coat closet and pulls out her long overcoat. The weather is still cold and it might even snow. She wraps a Super Bowl scarf around her neck.
“I can’t, m’ija.” She doesn’t say anything else. I haven’t asked about where she goes when she says she’s going to a doctor’s appointment, even though we both know it’s code for “Gloria Time.” She’s made it clear it isn’t my business.
She gives me a kiss on the cheek, and with a final whiff in the air of her vanilla perfume, she shuts the door behind her.
I think about calling Malachi, or seeing if I can bribe Angelica with food, even if it means I crash a date between her and Laura. But instead, I go into the kitchen and take ingredients out of the fridge. I make ’Buela’s recipe for sofrito that I’ll use to season the ground beef. Softening the garlic and onions, adding tomato paste. This is the first step for most traditional dishes, the flavoring that gives a rich taste for everything from beans to stew. Then I brown meat and make a homemade sauce from fresh tomatoes. I grate fine shreds of mozzarella cheese and boil sheets of pasta. While the oven is preheating, I slowly layer my guilt, my hope, and a hundred dreams. I don’t know if it means anything at all, but ’Buela has always said my hands are magical, and I use them now to put all my feelings into the pan. I put together a salad, making sure it’s not overdressed, and then I sit down. Watching as the oven timer counts down.
When the oven chimes, I pull the lasagna out and wash the dishes in the sink while I let it rest for a couple of minutes. My fingers are itching to grab my phone, to talk to someone, to distract myself on social media, but instead I take out a plate and place a thick square of lasagna on it, decorating it with some basil. I plate my salad, and set the small kitchen table. From the fridge I pour myself a small glass of ’Buela’s holiday wine. I know she’ll raise an eyebrow when she sees I had some, but she won’t reprimand me; growing up, she was allowed to drink from the time she was fourteen and she finds the alcohol rules on the mainland excessive. And even if she did have something to say, I don’t think it would bother me.
Because today I am alone, in my kitchen, with a meal I made myself. I sit at the table and cut a bite of the lasagna. I don’t know what I am going to be, or who I am not; my own desires are thickly layered like the food on my plate, but I know that one day soon I’ll be a grown-ass woman. So, I let myself enjoy the meal, the moment, and my own company.