No One Knows Us Here(46)

I shook my head, as if I was having trouble believing his confession but was nonetheless thrilled to hear it.

“It’s all I could think about, every time I was away—being with you. Not for a night, not for a ride to the airport. For real.”

“I want that, too,” I murmured.

He smiled then. “Really?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Because I’ve cleared my schedule. I don’t have to be anywhere for at least a month. I mean, I’ll still go to the office. I still have to run the place.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “But no more trips for a while. We can get to know one another. Hang out.”

“I’d love that.” I tried not to think about what this would mean. This was how I did it—how I saved my little sister. It wasn’t working down in the coal mines, it was “hanging out” with Leo Glass! I was lucky. Very, very lucky.

For an awkward moment we just stood there, unsure what to do next. We seemed to have reached an agreement.

“We’ll start tonight. First we’ll make my favorite dinner and chocolate cake for dessert. My mom gave me the recipes, the ones she used to use when I was a kid.”

If a real boyfriend had just announced that on the occasion of his thirtieth birthday, we were going to wear matching sweat suits and re-create his childhood favorites using his mother’s recipes, I would be eyeing the emergency exits about now. But I was getting paid for this.

“Let’s do it.”



Two hours later we stood over the kitchen island, marveling at our creation. The cake was lopsided, covered in thick swirls of chocolate icing. I’d done the best I could with the equipment we had at hand. Leo lacked the little luxuries of an accomplished home baker. We’d measured out the flour with a teacup, whipped the egg whites into stiff peaks with a cheap wire whisk. We’d baked each layer in a different-size pan and trimmed the edges of the larger one with one of Leo’s flimsy IKEA steak knives.

I started to enjoy myself. This was fun. This could be fun.

You should get a few basics, I had told him. Especially if we’re going to do a lot of cooking together.

He’d liked that.

I’ll get whatever you want, he’d said.

Take this knife, for example, I’d said. See this? See how shiny it is? It was stamped out of a sheet of metal. A real knife is made out of forged steel. The metal runs all the way through it. Look at this knife—the blade is just glued into the plastic handle.

It’s junk, he admitted.

We’d worked well together, though. Better than I had expected. You never know how you’ll get along with someone in the kitchen.

“We did this.” Leo was smiling down at our cake with the goofiest grin on his face, like he couldn’t believe how well it had turned out.

I put my hand on his right forearm. “You put some real muscle into that whisking.”

He leaned across the island to kiss me.

My eyes fluttered closed, but then the kiss was over and Leo was cutting the cake with a butter knife.

“Well,” I asked, “as good as Mom used to make?”

Leo ate his piece in what seemed like a few bites.

I took one tentative nibble. We hadn’t eaten dinner. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. The frosting stuck to the roof of my mouth. The cake itself was dry, disintegrating on my tongue. I chewed and chewed, opening the cupboards in search of a cup. With a glass of water, I washed it down. “Delicious.”

“I’ve got to show my mom,” he said.

Before I could say “show your mom what?” Leo pivoted around to face the stove. He looked at his own reflection in the mirror above the cooktop and grinned. It was a wide grin, spanning ear to ear. I could see every one of his teeth in his reflection. Narrow teeth, spaced ever so slightly apart. Little white fence posts. “Hola, Consuela,” Leo said. “Llama mamá.” Nothing happened, leaving me to wonder if Leo had lost it, grinning into the mirror at an imaginary friend.

“Corrección.” Consuela’s voice echoed out into the apartment. Her accent seemed pure. Authentic. “Llama a mamá. No olvides la preposición.”

“Gracias, Consuela,” Leo said. “Llama a mamá, por favor.” Then to me: “We’re releasing a beta version of Consuela next year. A household assistant who teaches Spanish. What do you think?”

It didn’t seem like he actually wanted my opinion. A ringtone sounded out as we waited for his mother to pick up on the other side.

“I mean—Consuela?” I whispered. “Isn’t that a little . . .” I wasn’t sure how to phrase my objections. I settled on “culturally insensitive.”

Leo opened his eyes wide, as if this thought were brand new and surprising. “Why would it be insensitive?”

He was making me spell it out. “She’s basically a maid who speaks Spanish? It’s a stereotype—”

“You think all Spanish speakers work as maids?”

“That’s the opposite of what I’m saying—”

“And what’s wrong with being a maid? It’s important work—”

“Hellooo!” Another voice trilled out into the kitchen.

On the edge of the mirror, Leo’s reflection shrank down to a small bubble, and another face took its place, a woman’s face. At first all we could see was her nose and lips. The lips opened up in a huge smile. White tiles of teeth, just like Leo’s. “Happy birthday!” she trilled, and then she sat back so I could make out her whole face.