I glance at my aunt, hoping she’ll rescue me, but she’s still talking, waving her hands around and laughing.
Someone behind the long pharmacy counter rings a bell for attention. Facundo smiles at me, says he hopes I enjoy the talk and hands me a card. “If you have any more questions about Argentina,” he says.
I feel my face go hot, and I mumble, “Thank you.” I wish I hadn’t come, or at the very least, I wish Facundo were a terrible person who didn’t deserve the family heirloom I know I should be giving him.
NINETEEN
“Inotice you haven’t been spending much time with Sarah this past week,” Jeanette says one morning a few days after the tea talk. She’s spreading a piece of toast with orange marmalade from one of the ancient dust-covered jars of preserves that she found in the basement yesterday. No way am I going to eat anything that old. “Did something happen between you two?”
I stare into my cereal for a few seconds and finally shake my head. “Not really. I’ve been busy with the bandoneón. Besides, we don’t really have much in common anyway.”
“Oh?” Jeanette asks. “You guys got on like a house on fire when you first met.”
“Maybe we ran out of things to say.” I’d rather feel guilty for a white lie than admit to my aunt that I have no idea what to say to the guys Sarah wants to hang out with. I don’t want my aunt to pity me or, worse, try to fix me.
“I can’t imagine either of you ever suffering from a lack of conversation topics.” She takes a bite of her toast, closes her eyes and smiles. “I remember the summer we made this marmalade. It was so sweltering in here that we got a hot plate and did most of the canning outside.”
“You helped with canning?” I ask.
“Hey, don’t sound so shocked. I do know how to do a few things in the kitchen.”
I do a bad job at stifling a laugh, and she throws a tea towel at me. I catch it and throw it back.
“Anyway,” she says, “don’t change the subject. We were talking about you and Sarah. What’s up?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “She’s trying to meet lots of new people.”
“And you don’t want to.”
“Not really,” I say. “Besides, I think she’s figured out I’m not exactly Miss Popularity.”
“She’s ditched you?”
I shrug. “She’s always inviting me to stuff, but she invites these guys we met too.”
“And you don’t like them?”
“They’re fine,” I say, exasperated because there’s no escaping Jeanette when she wants to know something. “I don’t know what to say to them, though, and as soon as they find out I like reading and playing bandoneón, they’ll think I’m weird, and since I’ll be leaving soon anyway, I’m sure Sarah will pick them over me.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jeanette grabs the edge of the table with both hands. “You’ve just written off your entire friendship based on what you’re afraid might happen?”
I slurp the last spoonful of milk and lean back in my chair. “It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”
“Not with her,” Jeanette says.
I shrug. “I should go practice. Frank’s given me a lot of work to do.”
“Give Sarah a chance, Ellie.” She hesitates for a second. “It might be good to have a friend here, you know.”
Something about the way she says it makes me look up. Her eyes are bright, but I see tension in her face too. She snatches up the tea towel and folds it into a tiny, nervous square before meeting my eyes. “I wanted to let you know that you’ll always have a home with me, Ellie, whenever you need it.”
“Thank you.”
“What I’m saying is, you don’t have to go back at the end of the summer, if you don’t want to.”
“What?” I can’t believe she’d take the game of favorites this far, but equally unbelievable is how I’m flooded with images of walking to school with Sarah, doing homework in the friendly quiet of this kitchen and riding my bike to bandoneón lessons for the rest of the year. How can I get mad at Jeanette when I’m obviously so willing to imagine the new life she’s suggesting?
“I mean it,” Jeanette says, leaning her elbows on the table. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now, but I’d like you to think about it. Don’t worry about offending me, no matter what you decide. I promise to back you up, no matter what.”
I could quit violin lessons, self-defense class and French lessons and just read, hang out with Sarah and practice bandoneón. I might get to go to some tango concerts. If I hang out with Sarah at school, maybe I’ll learn to make friends as quickly as she does.