I walked outside and sat on Mima’s front porch. Uncle Mickey was smoking a cigarette and talking to someone on his cell. He winked at me. He was kind of a winker. I thought that was cool. Fito would have called my Uncle Mickey a cat. To Fito, some guys were cats. Don’t know where he got that cat thing.
I stared at Uncle Mickey’s tattoos. I thought maybe there were two kinds of people in the world: tattoo people and non-tattoo people. I already knew which category I fit in.
“So,” my Uncle Mickey said, “is she your girlfriend now?”
“Nah. It would be too weird.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I remember her from when you were little kids. She liked to scream a lot.”
“She still does,” I said.
We both laughed.
“She’s living with us now, you know? Her mom died.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Poor kid. That sucks.”
“Yeah, it sucks.”
He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He handed me a fifty-dollar bill. “Here, give this to her for me.”
I nodded. I knew that Uncle Mickey was terrible with words. But he cared, and he showed that care in the only way he knew. I smiled. “You’re a good guy,” I said.
“For a screwed-up guy, I’m all right.”
Uncle Mickey. He was always beating up on himself. I wondered why. But then I thought, Well, I get that. I so get that.
I walked into the kitchen, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing—?Sam rolling out a tortilla while Mima stood over her. Sam was whining: “Mine aren’t round, Mima.”
“You have to be patient, Samantha. They don’t come out perfect the first time.”
I loved the way Mima pronounced her name. The way she said Samantha as if it were a Mexican name.
“Mima, Sam’s not patient.”
“Not true.”
“Yes, true.”
“You’re not patient either, Sally.”
Mima smiled and shook her head. “Patience is a gift you have to work for.” She looked at me. “Samantha will learn if she wants to.”
I offered Sam a crooked smile. “I’m impressed. I didn’t know you knew what a rolling pin was.”
“Mima, tell him not to be mean to me.”
I had to hand it to Sam. She knew how to work it. But I was getting a kick out of her first shot at being domestic. I watched her as she gave the sad flour tortilla she’d just rolled out a look of disgust. “It looks more like a map of South America than it does a tortilla.”
“Nope,” I said. “It looks more like Africa.”
“Australia,” she said. “Definitely Australia.”
Mima shook her head. “That’s okay. It’s your first time.” She winked at me. “Don’t laugh at Samantha.”
Actually I thought it was great that Sam was making such an effort. It wasn’t like her to please other people. That wasn’t her style. She was changing. She really was changing.
I looked at Mima and Sam. “Is it all right if I stay and watch the lesson?”
Sam smirked. “Why not?”
So we sat in the kitchen, Sam trying to learn how to roll out tortillas, Mima telling stories about how things were when she was a girl and how the world had changed, and she seemed a little sad.
Sam and Aunt Evie and I helped her cook. Mima didn’t generally like people in her kitchen, but I was thinking she was beginning to let go. When you were dying, you had to let go of the things you loved. And Mima loved her kitchen, so yeah, the letting-go thing was starting to kick in. Me, I wasn’t letting go of anything just yet. Not ready. Just not ready.
I grated the cheese for the enchiladas. Mima taught Sam how to make red enchilada sauce, and Aunt Evie fried the corn tortillas. If you don’t fry the tortillas, the enchiladas won’t be any good. Some restaurants don’t quite get that. In our family, frying the corn tortilla was a rule. Nobody was allowed to break it.
You know, it was beautiful to be in that kitchen just then. I guess there are times of quiet beauty in life. My dad had told me that once. At the time I didn’t have a clue as to what he was trying to say.
I smiled at my Uncle Mickey staring at his plate of enchiladas. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” He loved to say that. Mima always served him first. Don’t know why.
As I watched Mima serve everyone that Sunday afternoon, I wondered how many more meals she had left in her.
Sam. Me. The Future.
ON THE DRIVE home, Dad asked me and Sam where we stood on our college applications. Sam said she had all the paperwork but still had to complete some of the forms.
“Lina and I will go over the financial forms ASAP,” he said.
“Thanks, Mr. V.”
“You’ve written your admissions essay?”
“I’ll get on it,” Sam said.
“I know it’s been crazy,” Dad said. “But this is important. And you, Salvie? How’s the essay coming?”
“It’s coming,” I said.
“Is it, Salvie?”
“Okay, it’s not coming.” It’s not as if my mind was on college. My heart just wasn’t in it.
Sam reached into her backpack and took out her list of schools.
“You carry that around?” I asked.
“Yup, Sally. For luck.”
She handed it to me. “Read me my list,” she said.
“Why?”
“I wanna hear. I wanna hear the sound of the future.”
“You cray-cray,” I said.
“Humor me. I’m still in mourning.”
“You’re pulling that card out again?”
“Yup.”
I could tell my dad was getting a big kick out of our little exchange.
Sam shoved her list in my face. Literally. I took the list. “You want me to read it like it’s a frickin’ poem?”
She crossed her arms.
I looked at the list and said, “’K. Here goes.” I put on a formal voice: “Number one on the list: Stanford University. Now, that’s a real college. Number two: Brown University. Uhh. Brown. Rhode Island, here I come.”
“Skip the commentary, you clown. Just read the list.”
“No sense of humor,” I said. I got the look. “Okay, okay. Number three: Georgetown. Number four: UC Berkeley. Number five: UC Santa Barbara. Number six: University of Texas. Hey, we have a school in common.”
“If you’re going there, I’m definitely not.”
“Whatever, Sammy. Hmm. Okay, to continue, number seven: Boston College. Number eight: University of Notre Dame. That one’s cuz you’re such a good Catholic.”
“Shut up. Mr. V, tell him to shut up.”
My dad was cracking up. “You’re doing pretty well on your own, Sam.”
“Clocking in at number nine: the University of Miami. And rounding out the top ten is Cornell University, where Sam will text every ten minutes complaining about the winter.”
“You mangled my list.”
I gave her my best snarky smile. “But seriously, Sam, you’ll get into all of them.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure about the money.”
“You have the money, Sam,” my dad said.
“Yeah, well, it sucks that I have the money because my mother had a good insurance policy.” She was fighting back tears.
“Hey, hey,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“Yeah, Sally, one minute it is okay. And then another minute I’m falling apart. You know, Sylvia and I fought all summer about this list.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I noticed that my dad didn’t interject himself into the conversation.
Lists = Future?