“Hey,” my best friend hops up to the juice bar. Her athletic top reveals the lines down her toned torso. “Remember that Matcha tea smoothie you used to make for me?”
“Barely,” I say, trying to think. I always prided myself on my therapeutic smoothie concoctions. I was always reading recipes and experimenting. “Matcha tea was really hot a few years ago, but it never took off.”
“The health food industry overestimates how much Americans want to drink something that color.”
“Seems like I remember you putting kale in everything back then.” I make a disgusted face. Kenny has never possessed my talent behind the juice bar.
“It was for a client!” She shoves an escaped strand of purple hair behind her ear. “Veggi-Smooth really wanted to work with us.”
“They were a smoothie shop.” I lower my gaze, giving her my most offended look. “I’m the smoothie girl here. You were competing with your best friend.”
“I think we saw who won.”
“That’s right, and don’t you forget it.” Sometimes I’m surprised at how healthy I sound. I’m lucky nobody sees me at night when I go home. “You want me to make you one?”
“Do you remember how?”
Pulling out my old notebook, I raise an eyebrow. “A true chef never throws away a recipe.”
Flipping page after page, I try to locate my recipe for the dark-green tea concoction. I’m near the back when a sketch derails everything. I swallow hard as pain shoots through my chest. It’s the sketch I started of Stuart the day after he came here, the day after I met him for the very first time.
I only used a Number 2 pencil, but I can still see the dominant shade of green in his hazel eyes. I worked on it over and over for months, even after I went to Great Falls to pursue him. Even after I left him there… He gazes soulfully from the pages of my notebook, reminding me of every time he looked at me with longing, desire, possession.
“What’s wrong, babe?” My best friend hops up on the bar, and I slam the book shut.
Blinking fast, I clear the heated mist from my eyes. “Nothing,” I try to laugh it off, but I sound like a sick pigeon. “I have to check my other notebook. I’m sure I’ll find it.”
Kenny’s blue eyes narrow. “Whatever you say, liar.”
“I will!” I insist. “Do you need it now?”
“I guess not.” She’s still watching me as she slips off the bar. Kenny’s quiet, but she’s smart as a whip.
“I’ll have one ready for you first thing in the morning.”
“My three o’clock is here, but I’m watching you.” She points two fingers at her eyes and back at me as she goes into the gym. I hold my face steady while she watches, waiting for any crack in the wall.
Finally, she turns away to the older lady wanting to increase her muscle mass, and in that moment, my shoulders fall. I slide my finger out of the book, turning it back to his beautiful face looking at me, and all the love I felt for him in all those days I spent drawing this image burn in my heart like a brand.
Later that night, alone in my apartment, I quickly walk past the closed door of my small studio-room. I haven’t returned to the Musée d’Stuart since the first night I got back. Those sketches and paintings will have to remain shut up until I’m strong enough to go in there and face them, and pack them up.
Instead, I lean over my bar staring at the small Turkish coffee pot, my ibrik, and I wish for my grandmother. Yaya believed in soul mates and true love. She taught me everything I know about dreams and auras and reading coffee grounds. She’s the reason I waited so long, until I found Stuart, to lose my virginity.
Yaya wasn’t religious, but she was incredibly spiritual. She believed in the bond between a man and a woman formed through sexuality, and she told me many times it was the most important thing I would ever do. It was a union that would create new life.
Picking up the phone, I call our favorite Thai place and order takeout Pad Thai. In the meantime, I wander back to my bedroom, to my closet where I keep the box of her final possessions. It’s been a long time since I sifted
through this memorabilia, but it’s also been a long time since I needed to feel her close to me this much.
The first item I lift out is her beaded shawl. She never wore it, but when I was a little girl, I would wrap it around my shoulders and pretend to be her. I would waltz through the house, speaking in an overly dramatic voice about the future and finding my purpose.
Under that, I take out her favorite book, The House of the Spirits. Turning it over, I read the blurb. Apparently it’s one of the most important books of the last century, weaving magical realism, fate and love into an epic saga. I’ve only ever watched the movie. Opening the front flap, I scan the dedication, “To my mother, my grandmother, and all the other extraordinary women in this story.”
Setting it aside, I think of my mother. She died before I ever knew her, and even though Yaya loved her dearly, we never talked about her. I dig deeper into the box, deeper than I ever have before. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I only feel the need to keep digging. I want answers, but I don’t know the question.
After Yaya died, I was too sad to pack up her things. My great-aunt Beatriz assembled this box for me. In the beginning I didn’t want to dig deeper. Later, I guess I felt like I knew everything there was to know about her. Now, in view of my recent history, I understand everyone has so much history we don’t know. I suppose I’m curious about what my grandmother might have held onto, what she might have found important enough to preserve.
The first thing I find is a sepia photograph of a handsome man in uniform. His thick black hair is styled away from his face, and he has dark brows and an imposing jaw. His black eyes twinkle with mischief. Turning the photograph over, I read Manfred Heron.