“Blessings and curses have a lot in common, mija. One can easily become the other. It’s all in how you look at it.”
I glanced down at the diminutive woman in front of me. Her still-black hair was drawn into its usual health-code-friendly bun and her round form attested to the excellence of her cooking. Her face was as pleasant as always, but her dark eyes and heavily accented voice were serious.
“I don’t understand, Abuela.” I’d used the Spanish term for my first love’s grandmother since high school. Years later it tasted warm and natural on my Southern-born-and-bred tongue. A firm believer in—and, I’d often suspected, practitioner of—folk magic, this was hardly the first time she’d mentioned curses to me. But the topic didn’t usually spring up out of the blue. I peered at her more closely. She’d turned eighty on her last birthday, after all.
Amusement danced in her crackling black eyes. “I’m not slipping,” she assured me, reaching up to tuck a wisp of blond hair behind my ear. “I still run the best Mexican restaurant in South Georgia, don’t I?” She gestured around her and I sniffed deeply, enjoying the piquant scents that lingered in the air.
“In all of Georgia,” I assured her. “Maybe the entire South.” Despite four years of college in Austin, and another four in eatery-laden Atlanta, I’d never found anything to compare to her chilaquiles con pollo with its tender, fragrant chicken, fresh corn tortillas, perfectly blended herbs and chilies just fiery enough to complement the dollop of homemade sour cream on top. Thinking about it made my mouth water. My stomach growled, reverberating through the usually bustling kitchen, now quiet during the lull between lunch and dinner.
A burst of laughter crinkled her eyes and bunched her still plump cheeks into ripe, round apples of merriment. She patted my arm. “It’s almost ready. I put it in the oven the moment I heard your voice out front.”
Affection enveloped me and for the first time since arriving in town, I felt truly at home. I always felt that way in this place—warm and loved and…understood. Free of my mother’s expectations, of the confusion that clouded her eyes when she looked at me. From the moment Tonio brought me to the restaurant to meet his adored abuela…
Tonio.
I sucked in a breath, then blinked away bitter, unexpected tears. What was wrong with me? How many times had I stood in this kitchen over the years, feeling only the love of the woman in front of me and the joy that came from being where I belonged? I never visited my hometown without dropping in to spend time with this very special friend. Usually our conversations brought me peace. Never before had a deep, frightful melancholy—part guilt, part desperate grief—settled across my shoulders like a smothering cloak.
She spoke softly, intently, into my misery. “You cannot flee forever, Julieta. The road is only so long.”
Sharp, blinding pain surged through my body. Julieta. Tonio’s private twist on my given name had begun as an affectionate reference to our unlikely courtship, a post-English-class whimsy on a warm spring afternoon when anything seemed possible. Later, it became a horrible reminder of man’s capacity for viciousness and hate.
I shook my head hard, determined to throw off my uncharacteristic dark mood and lock the memories back in my mental treasure chest where they belonged.
“No, mija! You must stop this.” The usually gentle woman gripped my upper arms with surprising force.
“Stop what?”
“Hiding your heart away. Shutting out the world.”
“I haven’t shut out the world.”
“You’ve shut out love,” she insisted.
“I’ve dated lots of men since…” I swallowed another swell of anguish and it settled with a nauseating thump in the pit of my stomach.
“Those boys, when they killed my Tonio, they killed something in you too. You must fight to resurrect it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You date men. You date a lot of men. But they never touch your heart.”
I looked away, unable to argue. She was right. They touched the rest of me, sure. But never, ever my heart. That was Tonio’s, first and always, and he’d taken it with him to the grave.
She sighed and tried a different tack. “Sex isn’t love, mija.” My inner shock must have shown on my face. The barest hint of a smile lit her eyes. “I have seven children. You think I don’t know sex?”
“Uh…”
“Uh? What is ‘uh’? You live in the big city and you watch the trash they call movies today and you blush when an old woman says ‘sex’? Well, I’m going to shock you more. I know you never slept with my Tonio and I know you loved him with everything you were. Since then, you sleep with everyone and love no one.”
Horror washed over me. She knew about that? “I don’t sleep with everyone,” I protested, trying not to think about the actual number.
“Enough of them. When you were in college, sure, that’s what kids do. I didn’t worry. But it didn’t stop. You’re twenty-six and still today, you go from one man to another. Like maybe the next one in line will give you the orgasm that finally erases the pain.”
“Abuela!”
“It will not work. Orgasms are wonderful. Who doesn’t love a good orgasm? And they are important, even after sixty years of marriage. But even the best cannot be as wonderful as love.”
I stared at her, speechless, and she threw her hands into the air. “Okay. Talking isn’t going to work. I didn’t think it would, but now you can’t say I didn’t try. Back to plan A. You remember what I said?”
As though I’d be likely to forget. “Which part?”
“About blessings and curses.”
“Oh! Yes. It’s all in how you look at it.” How sane and normal that statement suddenly seemed.
“Good. Promise me you will remember always.” Her face and voice were deathly serious.
“But I don’t understand.”
“You will. Now promise.”
I hesitated, baffled by her intensity, then capitulated, unable to resist the urgency in her tone. “Okay. I promise.”
“Good.” She crossed the room to dip her fingers into a small bowl and placed a pinch of something in her right hand. Her lips moved rapidly as she returned, but her words were inaudible. She stopped directly in front of me and held out her palm. Red and orange powders blended with crushed green leaves and tiny clear crystals sparkled throughout the familiar mixture. The scent of the spices wafted up, reigniting my appetite.
“Close your eyes,” she instructed. Without thinking, I obeyed. Her voice came again, weirdly deep and eerily grave. “Never again full pleasure with an empty heart.”
She blew out a gentle puff of air. A split second later, I stepped back, sneezing as the zesty powder hit me full in the face. She waited calmly while I brought a coughing fit under control. I wasn’t sure which shocked me more—her words or the fact that I had dried cumin up my nose. When my windpipe finally cleared enough for me to speak, incredulity tinged every word. “Did you just put a sex hex on me? With chili powder and paprika?”
Her warm laugh bubbled out and she patted my powdery cheek. “A hex? No. Though it may feel that way sometimes.” A timer beeped and she clapped her hands. “Our lunch is ready.” She tossed me a towel and bustled to the stove, intent on dishing up our meal. The moment, it seemed, was over.
I shook oregano out of my hair and followed her into the dining room. Surely she’d just been trying to make a point. Surely she couldn’t really hex someone with taco seasoning.
Could she?