Read Online From Barcelona, with Love by Elizabeth Adler - Free Book Online Page B

of Paloma. Then she really told her off, but later she burst out laughing and it had become a whole big joke—one Paloma often heard Jassy repeat to her friends—about Paloma polishing her boots with Jassy’s pricy Crème de la Mer. Everyone thought Paloma too funny for words. Quaint little kid, was how she heard someone describe her; a bit odd, another said; and Are you sure, you know, like, she’s all right?
    Paloma was outraged. It was like asking was she nuts ? When all she was, was missing her mom and trying most of her time to figure out how to find her, and wondering if she would ever come back.
    I mean, a girl was entitled to worry about her mother, who just happened to be the best mother in the world. And her mother was the reason Paloma had stalked Mac Reilly’s Malibu beach house, trying to get up the courage to actually speak to him and ask him if he could help find her.
    She had never met a detective before, only seen them on TV and in movies—but somehow she’d known Mac Reilly was the only one who could help because on his show he seemed like a real person, and she just knew he was totally, absolutely honest. Which unfortunately Paloma herself was not. Sometimes she fudged the truth because it sounded better, and anyhow the truth was not always fun, especially when other kids asked about Bibi, and all that Hollywood stuff.
    â€œOhh, she’s just gone on a long trip,” she would lie airily, while inside her stomach clenched into about sixty-five knots and her mouth went so dry it was hard even to speak.
    And that’s what happened when she finally met Mac Reilly and Sunny Alvarez, and almost drowned and that funky, darling, three-legged, one-eyed dog she fell instantly in love with, leapt into the Pacific Ocean to try to rescue her. And so did Mac Reilly. And the words got stuck in her throat and she’d almost died all over again of shyness, and all she could manage to say was thank you, because she was so choked up with saving her long story about Bibi and about how she simply had to find her mother and could he help her or she really would go out of her mind. Truly out of her mind this time—you know out there in space somewhere. But she just could not get the words out.
    Mac even asked her what was up, and she’d said, oh nothing. Now it was too late, and anyhow there was this big family meeting, here at the house in Las Ramblas she had never even seen before, and somehow she got the feeling it was going to be about her. Right now, she would like to be anywhere but here. She’d much rather be at the Ravel bodega with her friend Cherrypop, who, anyhow, she couldn’t wait to see.
    But then she spotted Buena, peeking her head out the kitchen door, smiling at her, and she left Jassy to it, and ran to see her old friend.

 
    Chapter 9
    Buena had a big welcoming smile and her gray hair was straggling out of its bun in the way that always sent Paloma’s fingers itching to put it straight, and she’d run right to her.
    â€œI’m off to talk to Buena,” she’d called over her shoulder to Jassy, racing down the hall and into Buena’s welcoming arms.
    She’d settled on a high stool at the marble island with its stainless steel prep sink and a rack of copper pans floating somewhere over her head and with a tidy row of colorful bowls arranged down the center.
    â€œDo you know why we all are here, Buena?” she asked. “Nobody ever comes here.”
    â€œNot since Don Juan Pedro passed on.” Buena’s face was solemn, remembering times past as she took milk from the refrigerator, poured some into a tall glass, and pushed it over to Paloma. “Your grandmother Lorenza couldn’t bear to be here alone, when she had been so happy here with Juan Pedro.”
    She handed Paloma a little basket full of cookies. “ Polverones, ” she said, smiling. “Remember? The kind you like.”
    â€œDust