Wet, hungry, and frustrated, I arrive home in the worst mood I've been in since I last went on a diet. I am filthy, and there is nothing I want more than to make my way upstairs and shower as soon as possible. I leave my white pickup in the driveway, but I know better than to go in through the front door--mother would have a fit if I tracked in the mud from the construction site all over her carpet.

I make my way around to the back of the house and enter in through the back door, sighing as I kick off my heavy mud-covered boots in the entry and proceed to stomp barefoot down the hall into the kitchen, following the comforting scent of Chito's cooking as it welcomes me home.

As expected, Chito is in the kitchen. He is hovering over some hot oil, deep frying.... what? Sopes? Gorditas? Quesadillas? Oh, heavens... maybe... dare I hope... tacos? My mouth waters at the prospect. Above the smell of fried masa, I smell my favorite scent in the world: the smoky, subtly fruity and yet peppery aroma of dried chilies that have been toasted on a cast-iron skillet.

Ah.

Just like that, I forget the wet miserable day I had, and I know I am home.

Home, home, home.

My home.

And it smells of Mexican street food, and roasted chilies, garlic, onions, and a happy mingling of oregano, cumin, and other spices I can't quite name yet. Chito may love me more than my own father ever did, and he may have the most generous heart that ever beat, but being a man of principle he will not share the recipes his difunta mother passed on to him. Only the person who inherits the business will know it, he's said.

"Please tell me I can have some of your salsa, Chito." I say as a way of greeting. I usually hug or kiss hime when I greet him, but I never do so when he is at the stove or handling knives or anything that could potentially cause an accident. It's not just me. It is a house rule in the Lima-Naranjo household.

Chito turns my way and smiles in my direction, "Come and have a seat, first. I want you to try this."

Chito is not a handsome man. Quite the opposite. When I first met him I was both disgusted and afraid of him. I'd wondered what in the world my mother saw in him. She had painted a paragon of virtue--a man of unparalleled kindness and generosity. But I had seen none of that. I'd only seen the scars. I thought him a grotesque little man with the face of a diseased gargoyle--something from out of a horror movie.

And above all I thought it very suspicious that he would not take off his hat or his sunglasses even when we were indoors.

Strange, though, how now every time I look at Chito I don't see the appalling scars from that accident with the burning oil that deformed the right side of his face. Instead of shrinking back from him I approach him, and seeing that he has stepped away from the fire to reach for something in the fridge, I take a moment and give him a feather-light kiss. "Need help?"

"Pfft." He bats me away playfully, "Please don't. You're covered in mud and filth, kiddo. How about you wash up instead? Then have a seat. I need your opinion on something new I'm working on."

I obey and wash my hands in the kitchen sink. Then I sit at one of the tall bar stools in the kitchen island and watch contentedly as Chito prepares a plate for me of what looks at first to be three fried empanadas made of masa.

Not tacos.

So I am kind of bummed out--but only briefly, because I know Chito, and I know his cooking, and I know that whatever he makes will be amazing.

He hands me the plate.

Yes.

A plate of deliciousness with salsa, sour cream, and a little plate with guacamole on the side. Oh man, I can't wait.

"Try them," He says, "and tell me which is the vegetarian one."

Challenge accepted. I stick my fork into the first one.

Meat. The first one is meat. Beef to be precise. It is rich and so incredibly good I want to finish it up. But no. I must try a little of each first before devouring the whole plate.

I cut into the second one. Meat. The second one is meat too. This time...chicken, or an exceptionally-flavored turkey. I like the potatoes, carrots, and peas in it. Like picadillo inside a fried empanada. It is very, very good.

I try the last one. Soy protein. The third one is the vegetarian one. It's not as tasty as the first too, but Chito salsa just brings it up several notches, and I find I can't stop eating it until I finish it. Vegetarian, yet this is the winner when paired with the salsa.

"Well?" he asks expectantly, trying very hard but failing to altogether hide his excitement.

I put my fork down, "Hm....It was a valiant effort, but I could tell right away the last one is the vegetarian one."

Chito beams. "Ha!"

"What?" I ask.

"All three are vegetarian."

I can only gape and look down at my plate, "No kidding!? How'd you do that?"

We are at it for about an hour. He tells me all about how he doctored the cheap soy protein into the semblance of meat. He can tell me all about that recipe, since it wasn't his mother's secret. For that I'm thankful. Mother never cooked a day in her life, and all I know about it I learned from my step-father.

After we gorge on several more empanadas, we clean up. I am wringing out the cloth I used to wipe the kitchen stove when he suddenly broaches the subject. He hands me a mug of hot coffee (in our house a hot drink follows every greasy meal we have. It helps digestion, or so Chito says) and motions me to sit on the bar stool. He takes the other bar stool and I know I am in for it.

"Ok. What happened?"

"What?" I ask innocently.

"I could tell earlier by the way you slammed the truck door and came stomping in to the kitchen that something was off."

"Oh. It's nothing, Chito." I lie. "Girl problems, you know."

"Hm...." He grimaces and, using his spotlessly-clean handkerchief, wipes his face. He is sweating profusely from the hot coffee. "Not being a girl myself, I can only guess: Is it that man at the construction site again? Can I send Gaspar to kick his ass now?"

"No!!!" I exclaim horrified, "My professor will kill me. Besides," I shrug dismissively, "He's just another idiot. If I don't learn to deal with people like him I'll never survive in that world."

"He didn't make you go fetch lunch or coffee for everyone again, did he?"

"Noooo." I frown. "But he pulled me off what I was doing, and ordered me to fetch gear that the surveyors left behind in the northern construction site. Add to that that it started raining by then, and the slope turned to mush with all the rainy weather we've been having, And I..." I bow my head, and feel my eyes beginning to sting "I had not eaten lunch yet."

Funny. Of all things to upset me was not the blatant unfairness of having to be the one to fetch the equipment. It was having to do it on an empty stomach.

"I thought Reuben was with the surveying team. Why didn't he do it?"

I suddenly feel hot and cold at the same time.

"Reuben did not come in today. It... appears he asked and was granted the day off."

Chito nodded, "I see. Well, it is Friday. Technically students have Friday off. Maybe you can ask to have a day off too. You need it. 'Specially if you insist on not doing anything about that man."

I shake my head slowly, "I don't need a day off Chito. Its just... Well. I don't really know. You know?"

Chito could not know, of course. I am trying to be as obscure about this as possible, "Your mom and I have noticed you look rather restless these days. Are you eating well? I only see you eat chicken soup these days...and you keep going out to run at an ungodly hour of the morning. And you keep making tiramisu and tossing it in the trash when it is not to your liking. I don't mind that you help yourself to whatever we have in the pantry and fridge, but I hate to see good ingredients go to waste like that. I know you, kiddo. Food is sacrosanct to you. What is going on?"

My shoulders sag in shame. He is right. I have repeatedly committed such a heinous crime. All over a stupid boy. And I can't believe I am about to have this conversation with Chito. But who else would listen? No one, really.

"Where is Dulce?" I ask.

"Hm?" Chito is surprised by the change in conversation, but goes along with it, "She left in the morning. Meeting a friend at some place... had a Spanish name to it... La Canasta? La Campana?"

That's enough confirmation.

"La Cañada." I say, sighing.

"That's it. Why? What's wrong?"

"If she's at La Cañada she's with Reuben."

"A date?" Chito asks after a prolonged beat.

"Apparently. But its the first time she doesn't tell me about it." Ever since she started dating at 16 and mixed up the dates she had with two guys in her physics class whose names sounded alike, Dulce has always told me when and with who she is going so that I will be able to keep her date agenda straight. It works for me. I know where she is and with who, and help her ever-forgetful little head keep her dates straight. 

Buy why didn't she tell me about this date? I feel my brows shaping into a frown.

"Ay, Candy." He chuckles, "Your sister is no longer a baby. She'll be fine. Reuben knows you would murder him if anything bad happens to her." He pours us both more coffee, "Relax, kiddo. Besides, she could do worse than date him. At least she finally dumped that sleazy guy you hated."

I nod, resigned to accept the truth. 

Yes. I know.

I know! 

That's what I keep saying to myself. Reuben is handsome, and hygienic, and funny, and he is going places in the world--He is smarter and more talented than any one in our class. Not only that, his parents are loaded. He is only attending a school in the Cal State system to spite them, as they refused to pay for any career that was not in the medical profession, and have temporarily disowned him for dropping out of med school. 

He should be a stuck-up prig far beyond my league. But the thing is: he is not. He is my best friend. He is a really, really, nice guy. Someone whom you could laugh with. Someone whom you could be friends with forever. Someone whose smile is much like the sun shining out from the rain clouds after a spring rain. So warm and soothing and friendly. And underneath the magnetism of his personality that attracts people to him like flies... he is such a dork. A hopeless optimist, someone who still needs to be given reality checks now and then. 

He is... I don't even know what else to say, because I'm crying.

I'm crying in Chito's kitchen, hiding my face in the wet towel I used to wipe the greasy stove with.

Oh, man...

I never thought this would happen. I so desperately wanted this not to happen, but it did.

I've fallen in love with Reuben.

Chito has wrapped his arms around me, saying soothing things, but I can't stop crying. He is not my mother to give me advice--Mother, bless her soul, wouldn't even know what to say or do in this situation. The best thing she has ever done, however, is marry Chito--this wonderful man. Because it is he that tells me to be strong and to not hesitate. If I want Reuben I must go after him.

"But remember," he warns me, "Timing is everything. Like in cooking. For the love of all that is holy, don't miss your timing, or you'll end up with caca."

I nod, but I know it is hopeless. Even if by some miracle I could win Reuben's heart, I could never betray Dulce.

My sister is in love. I've been seeing the signs for weeks now. Today it simply confirmed things on his side.

My timing sucks.

If my love was fried empanadas they would be burned to a crisp--that's what happens when you are too stupid to even notice that they were in the frier in the first place.