* * *
I sleep in the next morning, because it’s summer and I can. But when I go to get some cereal around noon, Ita and Clarí are in the kitchen. My sister is chopping something green while Ita gives her directions, motioning with her fingers to chop it in smaller pieces.
“What are y’all making?”
“Chimichurri,” she says without looking up. “To go with dinner tonight.”
I walk across the kitchen and lean over to hug Ita.
“Buenos dias, Tinita,” she says, giving me a kiss on the cheek. Tinita was always her nickname for me, which makes me smile. Mom and Dad used to use it, but since we moved here, I preferred just Valentina or Val, so I’d asked them to stop. Now I kind of wish I hadn’t.
“Buenos dias, Ita,” I tell her. I hope my pronunciation was okay. I’m trying to keep my mouth open more when I pronounce my vowels. I read that online somewhere. Hopefully it’s not terrible advice, but it is the internet, so who knows.
I gesture to the pile of herbs Clarí is working on with Dad’s best knife. “Can’t you just make that in the food processor?” Dad always does. Chimichurri is an Argentine sauce we keep around all the time; Dad probably makes a batch every week or so. I had to laugh when it started to become trendy and we suddenly saw it everywhere. But Dad says no one ever gets it right. That Texans always add cilantro.
Apparently he doesn’t either, according to Ita.
Clarí shakes her head. “Ita says that’s, like, sacrilegious. Hand-chopped is the way to go.”
“Si,” Ita responds. “A mano.”
“She was mad that Dad doesn’t have a mortar and pestle, but I think that’s way too old-school for him.” Clarí laughs.
“Can I help?” I ask, but it looks like they’re almost done.
“You can grab the oil.” Clarí nods toward the pantry.
I grab a couple of bottles, not knowing which one they want to use. To be honest, I never paid much attention when Dad was making it before. Cooking was always more Clarí’s thing. “Which one?” I ask.
Ita takes the bottles from me and inspects them. After taking a taste from each one, she settles on the olive oil and sets it next to the bowl already full of the chopped herbs, garlic, and red pepper flakes.
Clarí scoops up the parsley and dumps it in the bowl. She asks Ita something in Spanish that I don’t understand, and the two of them start talking. Their voices get louder, gestures more pronounced. They both take food pretty seriously.
“Mírame,” Ita says, pointing to the corner of her eye. Watch.
She perches the bottle of oil in one hand, thumb over the top to control the flow. With the other hand she begins to lightly stir the mixture as she slowly streams in the oil. It’s just stirring, but she does it with flair. Like a Top Chef contestant sprinkling salt in the pan.
Clarí has more questions. And the two of them are off again on their intense foodie conversation. The more excited they get, the faster they talk. And the faster they talk, the less chance I have of picking up even a single word.
While they’re distracted, I stick my finger in the bowl and then lick it.
It’s good.
Better than Dad’s.
I lick off the rest and forget about the cereal I came for. I just wipe my hand on a kitchen towel and go back to my room. The chatter continues in the kitchen. Ita and Clarí don’t even notice I’ve gone.
* * *
“What crawled up your butt?” Clarí asks as she comes into the room. “We were having fun and you just left.”
No, you were having fun, I don’t say. “Nothing.” I grab my clothes out of the drawer and try to stomp past her to take a shower, but she grabs me by the shoulder.
“Just tell me what you’re mad about.” Clarí always wants to hash things out as soon as they come up. Doesn’t she get that some of us like to stew in silence for a while?
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to breathe through the lump rising up in my throat. “Just let me by.”
“No.” She steps out wider to block the doorway.
“Ugh. Clarí. I really don’t want to talk about this right now. Especially with you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you couldn’t possibly understand what this is like for me. You and Ita are, like, best buds.”
“We were trying to include you. You’re the one that walked off.”
“Well, you were doing a crappy job.”
Clarí doesn’t have a clever retort to that one. She leans against the door frame and I take my chance to squeeze by her.
I finally let myself cry once I shut the bathroom door, hating that Clarí can probably hear me anyway. Of course she doesn’t understand why I’m upset. She hasn’t lost what I’ve lost. She hasn’t had to grieve for something she doesn’t even remember having. I let the steam fill the tiny bathroom, fogging up the mirror while I hide away and let the water wash away the tears.
* * *
I wipe the sweat off my forehead as I walk in the back door. Walking over to my friend Amy’s house in June was clearly a terrible idea. I always forget how hot ninety-something degrees is until summer comes around again. But I needed to be out of this house for a while, and I didn’t feel like bugging Clarí for a ride after our fight yesterday.
When I step into the kitchen, Mom looks up from sorting through a bunch of plastic bags spread across the table. “Oh, good. There you are.”
“I went to Amy’s,” I say. “What is all this?”
“Oh, I took Ita to the art supply store to get some things so she could paint.” She pulls a tube from one of the bags. “We dug your easel out of the box under your bed,” Mom says. “Hope you don’t mind.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s fine.” I survey the stuff spread over the kitchen table. Mom even got out the old tablecloth I use when I paint at home.
My tabletop easel is set up, and there are several new canvases stacked on the counter. “You guys didn’t need to buy all this stuff. I have plenty of paint and brushes she can use.”
“Ita likes to use oil paint,” Mom says. “She says that you don’t use the same type of brushes for that.”
“Oh.” I guess that’s true. I never thought of that. No one at school uses oils. Someone asked our teacher about them once, but she went on a tirade about the smell of turpentine, so no one ever asked again. Plus, from what I know about it, you have to wait a whole week for one layer of paint to dry so that you can work on top of it again.