Free Umami by Laia Jufresa Page B

and planting a kiss on your cheek (and if you don’t know her, and if you’re as dumb as my brothers, you might think she’s going in for the mouth). From this angle, I can see her black bra. Maybe I need me one of those. Thirteen is definitely the age for one’s first black brassiere. It’s too embarrassing if Dad takes me, but maybe Pi will want to come along when she gets back. I go into Bitter. It’s always a surprise when you step through the door. Firstly, because it’s different every time, and then because there’s something over-the-top about it. Something bubbly. The décor consists of piles of cushions on a chicken-yellow sofa, the only constant in the whole place. Some of the cushions have tiny little mirrors that twinkle depending on where you stand. Marina donated me some cushion covers, which now take pride of place on my chaise longue. I filled them with plastic bags, just like she showed me. Luz would say Marina is the queen of recycling. She gets all those clothes I like second-hand. With her hands on her hips she says, ‘Yes, miss?’
    Before they clashed, my mom used to teach Marina English. She tried to teach Dad too, back when they met, but his pronunciation still sucks. According to him, on principle you should distrust any language that uses the same word for libre and gratis . When he’s around she speaks to us kids in Spanish. He says she doesn’t want us to turn out like foreigners, which is exactly what we are. Or, at least, we have two passports. Even Luz had an American passport. She’s a baby in the photo, just a few months old. Mom is holding her in her arms and Luz looks serious, sort of startled, as if even then my sister foresaw the gravity of the trip she would come to take. Four by five centimeters of portentous ID.
    *
    The only thing I tell Marina is that I designed a garden. I don’t feel like explaining that my parents still feel the need to send me to the epicenter of the tragedy each year to wallow in seaweed and memories under the now obsessively watchful eye of Emma, and that to avoid going, I had to make up some form of tangible compensation. She wouldn’t appreciate the word milpa either: too native for her liking. Design, on the other hand, is one hundred percent her thing, I think.
    â€˜And now I’m actually ready to build it, so I need tools,’ I go on.
    But before I’ve even finished my sentence I realize how absurd my request is. The most useful thing I’m likely to find among all this velvet is a spoon. And if there is a spoon then it’s probably from the cutlery set my mom gave her the day she discovered Marina ate exclusively out of recycled yogurt pots.
    Marina puts her hands on her hips, raises her elbows and curves her spine, her breastbone backing away from me. Her collarbones stick out. She always does this when she’s thinking. She looks like a mandolin. Then, quick as a flash, she straightens up again and leaves the room. I don’t know what this means, but I stay put. There’s a new lampshade above my head. It’s made of a series of solid, sheer droplets which hang in semicircles around the bulb, like a ghostly spider. The correct word would be ‘ethereal’. It must be made of plastic because Marina doesn’t use glass. My mom explained that this is because Marina saw her father break a glass of wine with his teeth when she was a little girl. It gives me goosebumps just imagining it. In fact, when I want goosebumps I think of exactly that: my mom calmly biting her wine glass and chewing on it.
    Marina comes back, takes a little bow and hands me the prettiest, tiniest, most ridiculous hammer I’ve ever seen. It’s half the size of a normal hammer and has an elaborate, flowery, leafy pattern printed on it. Marina unscrews it and shows me how, inside the handle, it has a spade hidden on one side and a brush on the other. I laugh.
    â€˜The land,’