Read Online The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice - Free Book Online Page B

setting the toaster for her, she blackened every piece of bread. I wondered where my cooking abilities came from. Not from her.
    I sat up and called Frankie on the telephone.
    â€œCan you come over?” I asked him. I could hear Luis in the background chopping something on the counter.
    â€œI’m helping Luis this morning. We got a big order of tacos for a party tomorrow. Someone’s birthday. You sound weird. What’s wrong?”
    â€œIs that Groovy?” I heard Luis ask Frankie. “Tell her to come in if she wants. I could use another pair of hands today. Tell her I’ll pay her for her help.”
    â€œLuis says—”
    â€œI heard him,” I told Frankie. “I’ll come there.”
    â€œSee ya,” he answered.
    I hung up the phone and thought how people were still celebrating birthdays and ordering food platters, and how things went on at their own speed no matter what sort of terrible news just got told.
    I told myself, Don’t think about cooking school. But as soon as I thought it, wouldn’t you know my mind would think up all sorts of things about cooking, just because I told it not to.
    But the worst thing was thinking that Frankiehad been right all along about my daddy. I was wrong and he was right.
    Frankie, Luis, and I sat at the back counter next to a plate of forty chicken–black bean–green onion tacos before the Swallow opened up for business. We ate cinnamon toast and drank coffee con leche with mostly leche and actually only a little coffee out of tall Styrofoam cups.
    I told them everything.
    Â 
    Frankie listened with a look on his face that said, See, I knew you couldn’t trust your father.
    Luis let the party order wait. He kept refilling our drinks, even though they didn’t need refilling, while saying things like, “I can’t believe it,” and “I never would’ve thought.”
    When I got to the end, he sat down right next to me. He looked me in the eyes. Then he said, “Groovy, I’m very sorry about your father.”
    I nodded.
    â€œAnd I’m sorry about you not having that money for cooking school. You know it’s still along way off before you’re old enough to go, but in the meantime, I’ll tell you what. I can teach you everything I know about food. It’s mostly Mexican dishes and all, but I’ve got at least twenty more secret recipes. Ones you don’t even know about.”
    I smiled at Luis. I’m here to tell you he would’ve given me his shop if he thought it would help.
    â€œPlus, I’d be proud to sell your chocolate-covered strawberries.”
    â€œYour mom called about it early this morning,” Frankie said.
    â€œWhen she ordered a whole case of strawberries, well, I naturally asked what they were for,” Luis told me.
    â€œYou think people would buy them?” I looked at Luis, feeling slightly hopeful for the first time since the news about Daddy.
    â€œLet’s try it out,” he said, smiling big.
    A soft knocking on the glass door in front of the shop interrupted us. Because of the SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED sign being in the way, we couldn’t make out who it was. So Luis walked over andunlocked the door.
    Frankie checked his watch. “It’s not opening time yet,” he told me, and I wondered who it could be.
    The smell of the sea drifted inside as a black-haired lady made her way toward us. She took miniature steps, like she wasn’t sure she should really come in. She seemed familiar to me, but by the way she wouldn’t look me in the eye, I decided I didn’t know her.
    Her long hair was held in place by two butterfly-shaped crystal barrettes. Her eyes were dark, like the asphalt on the fishing docks. And her face was perfectly round with a rich girl’s forehead, the kind Mama always pointed out to me in magazines.
    â€œBuenos días,” she said to Luis in perfect Spanish.
    â€œGood