She leaned in to smell the flowers, and the aroma pervaded all her senses, taking her back to the very first time she had smelled echinacea.
“This is where you wanted to take me?” Inés asked in disbelief.
Anahilda, Lumi’s aunt and Inés’s sister, looked her up and down and scoffed. “Like you’ve never been here before,” she said with a snort.
The sisters and Lumi stood outside a green cottage with a glass storefront packed with gerbera daisies, pink peonies, and buttery-yellow sunflowers.
“Maybe so, but how is a florist going to counsel me on how to handle my daughter?” Inés asked.
Anahilda called out to a gray-haired man who was sawing a piece of wood on the curb, ignoring her sister’s question. “Hola, Don Emilio!”
He waved back at the women, bestowing them with a brilliant smile.
“That’s Doña Elia’s husband,” Anahilda said to Lumi, and then turned to face Inés. “Everyone knows that Doña Elia is as popular this side of Miami for her gift of vision and the botellas she prepares to heal the sick as she is for her flowers. Just follow me.”
Inés rolled her eyes and rang the doorbell. While they waited, Lumi reached out to loosen one of the peeling leaves of paint from the wall until Inés halted her with a forbidding stare.
The door buzzed, and the women and Lumi stepped into a cavernous space filled with flowers of every kind. Light streamed in from the spaces where roses and hydrangeas did not block it and refracted off the glass and crystal vases, making some of the blooms look like disco balls.
Doña Elia was Cuban, and though they were not related, she and Inés bore a resemblance to each other. Like Inés, she was heavyset, with facial features that appeared to have been molded from thick clay. Her coarse curls, tinted copper, peeked out from the red paisley handkerchief she wore knotted on the right side of her forehead.
“Las hermanas Rosario!” she greeted them in a clear, confident tone, and pulled a lollipop out from a drawer in her desk for Lumi. She turned her gaze from sister to sister. “And where is my friend Mr. Teodosio today? Back from his trip to Santo Domingo?” she asked, studying Inés.
Inés stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Hmm?”
Anahilda shook her head vigorously. “It’s been five years, Doña, since he . . . since 1988. Let’s discuss it another time,” she added, and Lumi could feel all three women look in her direction.
Doña Elia nodded. “What can I help you with today?” she asked.
Inés lowered her head and began to speak in a tone barely above a whisper. “It’s my daughter, Doña Elia. She doesn’t want to eat anything I cook. And she says strange things about the food,” Inés said.
The older woman glanced at Lumi sympathetically. “Strange how?” she asked.
“Well, for example, this morning she refused to eat her oatmeal because she said it tasted angry. There was nothing wrong with that oatmeal!” Inés said.
Doña Elia thought for a moment, then she picked up a small cylindrical glass vase with a cluster of feathery violet-tinged flowers resting in the water. She gestured for Lumi to place her hands on the vase.
Lumi followed Doña Elia’s instruction and laid her small hands on either side of the glass. As she did, the smell of the flowers tickled her nose. She leaned in more and let it wash over her. Crisp, sweet, and almost papery. Clean. As she held the vase, Doña Elia studied the water, staring directly into the center of the glass.
Finally, she spoke, looking only at Inés. “The girl has a gift. Upon tasting food, she can discern the emotions of the person who cooked it at the time they made the food.”
Inés stared at her dumbfounded, while Anahilda nodded enthusiastically.
“How is this possible?” Inés asked. “Nobody in our family has been able to do this before.”
Doña Elia shrugged. “I don’t know, the only thing I am sure of is that she has it.” Her gaze grew stern. “You need to find a way to manage your thoughts. Either that, or your sister needs to start cooking for the child. Most importantly, don’t think about him while you prepare her food. Your anger is making her sick, and that’s why she hardly eats anymore, poor thing.”
Inés winced at her words. Lumi let go of the vase and pressed her hands together, feeling her stomach sink. She had been telling her mother for years. Why did her mother have to hear it from someone else for it to become important to her?
“Take care of her,” Doña Elia said, leaning forward to smooth Lumi’s hair, “and if I were you, I would keep this a secret. I would never want to hear of this being used against her. And she must always guard what she eats. If she in any way does not trust someone, under no circumstances should she eat their cooking, no matter how slight the doubt of the person’s intentions.”
Doña Elia’s sturdy fingers closed around the vase, and she held it out to Lumi.
“Here, m’ija. For you. These are called echinacea. A small recuerdo of this day,” she said with a kindly smile.
“Thank you,” Lumi said, taking the vase from her hand and clutching it tight to her chest.
Lumi exhaled deeply. She let the memory fade as she turned in the direction of home, bundle of echinacea flowers tied with a blade of grass in hand. She took the stairs two at a time and let herself into her apartment. She stuck the flowers in a small crystal vase and dropped in a slosh of water from the faucet. She glanced at her pantry and grabbed a bag of dry black beans from inside it. Using a knife, she slit the top of the bag and poured the beans into a round blue bowl, then covered them with cool water.
She hopped in the shower, soaked her curly hair in the water, and washed it with her favorite gardenia-lime shampoo. She dried her hair with a fluffy towel and dressed in what would be least obtrusive under her chef’s uniform later in the day: gray twill pants and a navy cotton sweater with tiny buttons on the cuff.
Back in her kitchen again, she drained the beans, replaced the water, and dumped the mixture into a pressure cooker, snapping the lid into place and turning the machine on. She pulled out her favorite cutting board. It was from the Metropolitan Museum of Art store and had a print of Matisse’s Dance pressed securely between the glass panels.
From her herb bowl she retrieved a bulbous red onion, six cloves of garlic, and a sole, slightly wrinkled shallot that needed to be used as soon as possible. From her refrigerator, she pulled out a bundle of fresh green cilantro, two firm celery stalks, and a chunk of acorn squash. She diced them all into tiny squares in short order and hummed to herself as she heated up some safflower oil in her trusty KitchenAid saucepan.
She sat with herself for a moment to see what else she would want with these delectable beans. A peek into her refrigerator reminded her she had a red snapper she needed to use. A lightbulb went off in her head. She also had a fresh coconut that she had bought on a whim at Fairway the other day. Holding back no force, she smacked the coconut down on her kitchen floor between both hands, smirking to herself as it cracked in half. Sometimes she surprised herself with her own strength. It was something she had inherited from Inés, although Inés would have simply lopped off the top third of the coconut with the machete she kept under her bed.