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“Hoy quiero cocinar,” Esti announces. She has a determined set to her jaw, her chin tipped high.
The empty crocheted shopping bags dangling from Lupe’s elbow swing as she moves her cigarette away from her mouth. She blows smoke. “Cocinar, ¿eh? ¿Y tú sí sabes cocinar?”
“Pues claro. He ayudado a mi mamá.”
“Ah.” Lupe nods. “Has ayudado.”
“Jess,” Esti entreats, changing tacks. She looks past Lupe to where Jess is walking on the other side of her, nearest to the curb. The three of them have been assigned the shopping chore for the week, and they’re headed to the market, walking through Rockford’s downtown on pavement freshly soaked by an afternoon storm. “You think we can cook tonight? For the team?”
Jess’s lips twitch. “Course, kid. What were you thinking?”
“Mm. Algo simple, creo. No quiero matarles con un poco de sabor.”
Lupe snorts at that. She meets Esti’s eyes, a smirk peeking through. More moments have been happening like this since Esti crashed the car, moments that remind them both of joking around in the bathroom that first night.
Esti sees, and, sensing it means she’s that much closer to winning her over, grows a smile of her own. “You see? Tampoco puedes soportar otra noche de…meatloaf.”
Lupe tips her head to the side, scrunching her eyes. To Jess, she says, “Shit, she has a point. Pinche meatloaf.”
Jess arches her brows at Esti, who grins.
“Okay,” Esti says. “We are going to make– ¿Qué debemos cocinar?”
Lupe lifts her hands. “Don’t look at me. Es tu proyecto, entiendes? I’ll– I’ll hold the groceries.” She wiggles her elbow to make the bags dance in the air. “That’s it.”
“Fine,” Esti says. “Lo haré yo sóla.”
Jess squints. “I can follow instructions,” she offers. “But I don’t know if anything else I’d do is up to your standard. No me…preguntas?”
“Tes,” Lupe says. “Preguntes.”
Jess inclines her head. “No me preguntes más que…eso.”
Esti smiles at her. “Gracias, Jess.”
It should probably be pidas, but then, the pre in preguntes probably shouldn’t sound like “pray,” either, so Lupe gives her the credit and moves on.
Esti holds up the book with their ration stamps. “No necesitamos las estampillas para los huevos.”
“No,” Lupe agrees.
“Ni arroz.”
“Quieres huevos rancheros o qué?”
“¿Qué? No, arroz con huevo frito. Es comida de niños, bien fácil. Con unos plátanitos…”
“Mm. No vas a encontrar plátanos a menos que vayas a Chicago, pero creo que podrías usar las bananas de aquí. Un poquito más dulces, pero…” Lupe takes a drag of her cigarette.
“Los maduros deben ser más dulces,” Esti says. “Maybe is something you should remember.”
Jess laughs.
Lupe tries to frown, but not even her posturing can cover her gruff appreciation for Esti’s quip. “What, you planning to eat me now?”
Esti wrinkles her nose. “No, no, no, imagínate.” She affects a high voice. “Ma’am, ma’am, what happens you?” She doubles over dramatically, putting a hand on her stomach and another on her throat. Dropping her voice back to her own, she groans, “Uyy, uyy, me duele la panza. My stomach.” She hams it up. “La acidez, me está destruyendo la garganta!”
Lupe makes a face and a mocking noise. Jess fully descends into laughter, putting an arm on Lupe’s shoulder to brace herself. Warmth flushes through Lupe at the contact, the double meaning in Jess’s mirth. Esti takes a bow, eyes liquid bright in the cloud-broken sunshine, grinning with self-satisfaction.
Across the street, Lupe hears a murmur. She looks up to see two old Rockfordian ladies staring at them. Evidently, they’ve borne witness to the spectacle. Lupe feels the old urge to elbow Esti, to shush her like she used to do her little sisters, to chain her own tongue to English Only like she had to do every day on her childhood schoolyard to avoid getting her knuckles rapped. Like she’s had to do in every fucking town south of here, the moment Anglos walk by.
She doesn’t give into it, though. And she’s finally learning to not be angry at Esti for not knowing she should.
If this fucking town wants to call her the Spanish Striker, well, then, they best get used to some fucking Spanish.
As they set off up the last block up to the grocery store, Esti loops her arm through Lupe’s. Lupe looks at her. A little surprised, a little stiff, and a lot fond, she transfers her cigarette to the other hand and pats the top of Esti’s forearm.
“Arroz blanco? Blanco? Sin nada?”
"Arroz frito es más complicado.”
“Arroz frito– Chaparrita, arroz tiene más que arroz. Cebolla, tomate, ajo, consomé de pollo–”
“Pues, ajo, claro, y sal–”
“Solamente ajo y sal?”
“Tú me quieres ayudar o no? Yo no soy mexicana! No lo hago como tú.”
“Dijiste que querías que las güeritas probaran algo con sabor—eso falta todo el sabor.”
“Lu,” Jess says. She’s leaned up against the opposite shelf, watching them bicker.
Esti gestures. “Todo el mundo come arroz con huevo y a todo el mundo le gusta, aun en secreto. Y no lo he comido en seis meses y estoy harta de sandwiches y es-o-es! Estoy a punto de ahogarme en mayonesa!”
“Ay, no mames.”
Esti shakes her head, letting out a scoff. She lifts a hand to her head in frustration. To Lupe’s horror, she realizes Esti’s eyes are shinier than they should be under the humming market lights.
“Shit,” she says. She takes a breath, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Fuck, no. Don’t– I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. You’re right, we’ll make the eggs, it’ll be great. Hey.”
Esti looks through her big lashes at her. “De veras?”
“Sí, de veras. Todo como tú quieras.”
Esti’s mouth pulls into a victorious grin. She hefts the large bag of rice off the shelf and spins away, all but skipping down the aisle.
Lupe stares at Jess. “Did she just–?”
Jess has her hands deep in her pockets, her tongue poking at the side of her cheek in amusement. “Play you?”
“She played me. That little shit fucking played me.”
“Like a fiddle.”
“Fuck.” Lupe stands there for a second, staring at the rice. “I kind of deserved it, huh.”
“You were being an ass, yeah.”
Lupe looks up at her, affronted. “Hey.”
Jess meets her eyes, level and knowing. She reaches out an arm and sets it on Lupe’s shoulder. “She wants a taste of home, Lu. And she wants to make it with us, so let’s just…let her have fun with it.”
Lupe’s mouth softens. “Yeah,” she says, after a beat. “Yeah.”
For a moment, she almost leans into Jess’s grip, her wiry strength. She holds herself back.
Jess squeezes and lets go.
They catch up with Esti two aisles over and follow her through the store as she gathers the rest of her ingredients as well as the team’s long list. As they go, Esti and Jess have brief lessons on the different translations for various things Jess sees on the shelf. Lupe steps in only to dispute the occasionally outrageous regionalisms that come out of Esti’s mouth, which will get Jess laughed out of Chicago if she ever tries her luck with them there. For the rest of the time, she hangs back and watches them. It’s bittersweet, maybe, but also a relief. The way they fit. She lets Esti sort out the stamps at the counter, lets Jess take on the role of auxiliary translator. She exists as herself, without expectations, without being a conduit for anyone else.
And before the anxiety of standing on the sidelines, purposeless, can creep in, Esti is turning from the register, looping her arm through hers again, and using her automatic reciprocation as a ploy to slip the heavy shopping bags around her shoulders.
“Hey!” she protests.
“Él que no paga carga,” Esti explains, unapologetic.
Lupe rolls her eyes. “Como si fuera tu dinero.” She hoists the bags higher on her shoulders, though, and makes no move to hand them back.
The three of them exit onto the street. Overhead, the clouds have gathered again, full and purpled with weight. As they start walking, they hear a deep rumble. Esti looks up.
Jess asks Lupe, “You bring the–”
“Fuck, no.”
They quicken their pace. Two-thirds of the way to the house, the sky opens. Rain sheets down in round, splattering drops.
“Run!” Lupe yells.
Esti bolts. Behind her, Jess and Lupe sprint, splashing through puddles that hadn’t had time to evaporate, now ringing with fresh droplets. Cold water soaks Lupe’s hair and shirt, blurs her eyes. Her grip on the bag straps becomes slick. The cans and the rice bang against her sides.
Jess reaches and grabs the one from Lupe’s pitching arm, freeing her of half the load.
As they turn up the path to the house, Esti beckons to them from the porch. She’s a sight—large eyes wide in alarm, dress plastered to her skin. Jess and Lupe scramble up the porch steps to join her, collapsing onto the bench. They drop the bags on the wood in front of them.
“Shit!” Lupe says, gasping for breath. “Fuck, I forgot the umbrella, I’m sorry. Shit.”
She hears a sound that, for a second, she thinks she must be imagining. But when she looks up, sure enough, Jess is laughing.
“Are you laughing?” she asks.
Jess has to unhunch herself slightly to meet Lupe’s gaze. She props a hand on the armrest to support herself. “Look at us,” she says. She dissolves into laughter again.
Lupe, freezing, cold to the bone, with a layer of water in her shoes that she’ll have to tip out before she walks into the house, frowns in disbelief. She looks at Esti to see if she’s made sense of it.
To her shock, Esti has a small smile growing, too. She takes one of her pigtails and wrings it like a hand towel. A gout of water splatters to the floor. Jess cackles.
Lupe stares at the drips, hearing Esti join the laughter. She glances at Jess. Her jaunted cap only protected one side of her hair—the blonde at the other temple has gone brown. Her pale button-up clings to her skin, sheer through to her white undershirt. Her thin face shines with droplets.
Esti kneels down on a part of the deck untouched by their puddling trail. Gripping her other pigtail like a paintbrush, she daubs a heart on the deck.
“What are you doing?” Lupe asks.
Esti, the absolute dork, gives her a taunting smile. “Siempre me ha encantado pintar.” She dips her head again and scribes a second layer on the first, where it’s started to dry, then puts an E and a J around the heart. She cocks her head at Lupe, considering for just long enough to tease. She adds an L below. As she rights herself and shuffles back, her dress leaves a smudge far larger than her art.
Jess puts a hand on Lupe’s back, her shoulders shaking against the wicker.
The tight ball in Lupe’s chest relaxes. She lets herself grin.
“You guys are something,” she says, with absolutely no bite in it.
“Something, huh?”
Esti crawls so she can lean against Jess’s legs. “Something nice.”
“Eh…” Lupe wobbles her hand in a so-so motion.
Esti scoffs and slaps at her stiff jeans.
Lupe shakes her head, cheeks aching.
“Alright, alright,” Jess says, when Esti starts to shiver. She pats a hand on her shoulder, next to the goosebumps that have flushed her neck. “Should we head inside and change?”
Esti nods. Hugging herself one final time, she pushes herself up and scoops the bags of groceries off the deck. She pauses at the door, looking over her shoulder to make sure they’re coming. Lupe waves her on. No point in her catching a cold waiting around for them.
Jess stands and extends a hand. Lupe reaches out and winces—the cold has made her bad elbow stiff and achy.
Jess crosses one arm over the other to open her other hand. Lupe takes hold by the wrist. Her fingers close around the waterlogged cuff, the clammy skin beneath.
“Good?” Jess checks, brisk.
Lupe nods. Jess lifts her gently, firmly, to her feet. Numbed to her toes, Lupe misses a step and stumbles slightly into Jess, who absorbs it.
Their faces are inches apart. Jess has a sheen on her cheeks, a faint cluster of freckles on her nose. Her lips are parted around her front teeth.
Lupe swallows.
Jess looks her up and down. She pinches the drenched pocket of Lupe’s shirt. “Bit wet, there, hermano.”
Lupe lets out a breath from the side of her mouth.
Jess grins.
“Yeah, yeah.” Lupe shoves her inside.
Lupe watches Esti mix the golden, runny yolk of her fried egg into her rice. She lifts a spoonful to her mouth and hums, eyes closing.
As Jess had fried up the last few eggs, Lupe had snuck upstairs to grab her camera. She raises it over the table edge now, pressing it to her eye. “Esti,” she calls, to get her attention. “Cómo salió? Lo vas a disfrutar?”
Esti blinks and registers the camera. Bright mischief daubs her eyes and cups her cheeks. She draws herself up, leaning forward between Jess and Ana. She holds her spoon out for Lupe to see. In the deep tone she takes when she’s impersonating Lupe, she cries, “A huevo!”
Lupe laughs; the camera flashes.
They eat.