The Offering (2 page)

“A hobby?” I dropped my jaw. “I work my tail off at this place, just like the rest of you. So don't tell me I don't work hard.”

If Amelia had been a cartoon figure, steam would be blowing out her ears. “Okay, you work,” she said, shrugging. “But working part-time means you breeze in whenever you feel like it and take off whenever the mood strikes you.”

“That's not fair. I'm not that erratic.”

“But this isn't the first time you've been late. If you're going to open the store, you have to be here before seven. You have to get everything ready, turn on the lights, set up the coffeepots.

I closed my eyes. “I know what I have to do.”

“I don't think you do. Because somehow you've managed to reach adulthood without learning how to take responsibilities seriously. It's about time you grew up.”

Anger flared in me. Amelia and I were the same age, but sometimes she acted like a worried old woman and seemed to think I behaved like a child. I wanted to tell her that I could be as responsible as she was, but just then the bells above the double doors jangled and Claude Newton, one of our regular customers, shuffled in wearing his usual costume: a Hawaiian shirt, a denim kilt, and bright pink flip-flops.

I covered my smile while Amelia turned and called out a welcome. “
Hola,
Claude.
¿Cómo estás
?”

“Muy bien.”
He moved slowly toward the canned goods. “Looking for goat's milk.”

“Over there, right under
la leche de coco,
” Amelia told him. “You can't miss it.”

My anger evaporated as I watched Claude navigate the aisle. How could I stay mad when our one and only resident nudist had popped in for his daily snack run? Working in a Cuban grocery might not be the most exciting job in Tampa, but it had to be one of the most interesting.

“Look.” I folded my arms and transferred my gaze to Amelia. “I'm sorry I forgot about opening the store. I'll do better. I promise.”

Amelia drew a breath as if she wanted to continue arguing, then she blew out her cheeks. She never could stay mad at me for long.

“From now on, let me know if you're going to be late, okay?” she said. “Mama wants to retire, so she needs to know she can depend on us. If you or Gideon needs to call about store business, call me, not Mama.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Her gaze softened. “Well . . . did you get the job?”

“I'm pretty sure I didn't.” I pulled my apron from beneath the counter and tied it on. “I don't have a college degree, so I shouldn't even have bothered applying. I was hoping they'd be desperate enough to overlook my lack of education, but apparently I'm unqualified to oversee a middle school lunch line.” A bitter
laugh bubbled to the surface. “I guess my experience here at Mama Yanela's doesn't count for much.”

Amelia stepped back to let me move toward the register. “Why did you drop out of college when you were so close to finishing? You invested all that money and time—”

“I didn't plan on quitting in my junior year. I didn't plan on falling in love and getting married, and I didn't plan on getting pregnant—” I stopped when Amelia's face twisted.

I could have kicked myself. I kept forgetting that after four years of marriage Amelia and Mario had no children. I'm sure they had their reasons for remaining childless, but I didn't want to pry.

I shifted my gaze to the front window, granting her a measure of privacy.

“I'll get out of your way now.” Amelia backed out of the narrow space behind the counter, then caught my eye and gestured toward the office at the rear of the store. “I'll be at the desk. Mama and Uncle Tumelo are coming in later to go over the new order.”

I nodded. “Don't worry. I'll handle things up here.”

“If you need a translator, come get me.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Though I didn't speak Spanish nearly as well as Gideon or his family, I'd been working at the grocery long enough to get a sense of what people were saying when they talked to me. Or I could at least guess what they wanted.

“Go on.” I waved Amelia away. “I know what I'm doing.”

Now, as I look back, I think that may have been the last day I could say those words and even come close to meaning them.

At two, after making sure Amelia had everything under control at the grocery, I drove to the Takahashi Early Learning Center and sat in the carpool lane. The teachers had already begun to lead their students to the front walk, and as soon as a bell chimed two fifteen they began leaning into cars and buckling in their students for a safe ride home.

I eased off the brake and let my car roll forward. Gideon and I had been fortunate to find this educational program for Marilee. Not everyone understood that we had been blessed with an exceptional four-year-old, but ever since we discovered our daughter's musical talent, I knew we had to do our absolute best for her.

I smiled as her teacher opened the rear door and reached for the seat belt. “Hey, sweetheart,” I said as Marilee climbed into her booster seat. “Did you have a good day?”

Marilee responded as she always did—with a simple “Uh-huh”—then leaned back and looked out the window as I drove away.

“Did you learn to play any new songs in your piano lesson?”

When Marilee didn't answer, I glanced in the rearview mirror to see if she was paying attention. Her eyelids were half closed and her head nodded like a puppet on a string. Poor kid. Gideon often wondered if we had involved her in too much too soon, but I thought she'd be fine as long as she remained interested and happy. I wanted her to play and have fun like a normal kid, but we needed to nurture her musical gifts, too. Not everyone was born with perfect pitch and total recall.

Now Gideon worried about what we would do when Marilee entered first grade and her tuition payments gobbled up an even bigger percentage of our income, but I had never been able to see the point in fretting. By then, I told myself, surely I'd have a full-time job, something that would pay far better than a part-time stint at the family grocery.

Yet after today's disastrous interview, I was beginning to reconsider my opinion. People kept telling me I needed to get a college degree to snag any job paying above minimum wage, but where could I find the money to go back to school? We couldn't take out a loan when we were already mortgaged to the hilt.

And I certainly couldn't earn that kind of cash in a Cuban checkout stand.

“Whatcha doing, baby girl?” a man murmured in my ear.

“Gideon!” I turned and playfully swatted his bare arm with the newspaper I'd been reading at the kitchen counter. “You scared me to death.”

He wrapped his arms around me, nuzzled the side of my neck, then planted his cheek next to mine. “Whatcha reading? Looking for yard sales?”

“Not today.” Giving up my search of the classifieds, I dropped the paper and slid from my stool, grateful for my husband's attention. Gideon wrapped his arms around me, his chiseled muscles flexing and bulging in easy rhythm as he drew me closer. I ran my fingers through his dark hair, long now, and curly, a far cry from the buzz cut he'd worn during his early years in the Army. Men who belonged to the elite unit Gideon led weren't supposed to look like they were in the military, but I could spot one of his buddies from fifty yards away. Though they rarely wore uniforms, they carried themselves in a certain way—shoulders squared, backs straight, arms hanging loose, and eyes observant. They were supermen who could survive by eating grass and drinking dew, and they were prepared to take action anywhere, at any time.

Gideon looked around. “Where's our angel?”

“Taking a nap. I put her down when we got home, and she hasn't moved since.” I peered up into his dark eyes. “Good day?”

He shrugged. “We're keeping an eye on a developing situation, so we might be heading out soon. But we shouldn't be gone too long.”

I took a deep breath to calm my leaping pulse and didn't ask any questions. Gideon led a counterterrorism unit under Special Forces Command, and though I knew he did important work, I didn't want to know what his job entailed. He had always been intent on his training, but lately he had also been tense and cautious. I never knew when he would be called away—sometimes he
left in the middle of the night—and he couldn't tell me where or why he was going.

All I knew was my husband wasn't allowed to travel more than an hour away from Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, home to USSOCOM, the Special Operations Command headquarters. He and his sixteen-man unit frequently disappeared for days, then returned to family life as if they'd never been away.

Though I found Gideon's unpredictable departures frustrating—probably because I'd never been good at saying good-bye to people I loved—I was proud of my husband. He and the other secretive special operators were brave, dedicated, and skilled warriors, and I was always grateful when they came home unscathed.

I, on the other hand, was not an ideal military wife. I wasn't good at saying good-bye, I wasn't brave, and I didn't feel an innate need to be all that I could be. Worst of all, I couldn't sleep when I knew the pillow next to mine would be empty, so Gid had developed the habit of slipping out without telling me he was going. When I woke without him, if his duffel bag lay on the floor of the closet, I knew he had only gone out to the base or to run an errand. But if the duffel bag had disappeared, so had Gideon.

He tightened his arms around me, then nodded at the newspaper on the counter. “Why were you reading the want ads?”

I sighed and stepped out of his arms. “You know I adore your family, but I need a bigger paycheck. I could have had that middle school lunchroom job if I had a college degree. I could do a lot of things if only I had a degree, so I need to go back to school. I was looking through the classifieds and hoping to find some way to pay for it.”

Gideon's brow furrowed. “I could talk to Dad about giving you a raise.”

I shook my head. “I already make more than the hourly employees. If Tumelo gave me a raise I'd be making as much per hour as Amelia. Considering that I'm only a cashier and she practically runs the place, that wouldn't be fair.”

“I could see about earning some money on the side—”

I brushed my fingers across my husband's lips. “You can't do that. I'm sure there's a regulation against it, and even if there isn't, I don't want you worrying about things at home. This will be my way of contributing to the house fund.”

“You already do plenty.” His arms slipped around me again. “You're a great mom and a good wife.”

“Only
good
?”

His eyes twinkled. “Okay, you're a fantastic wife. And we'll get our own house, I promise. We just have to be patient.”

“But being patient is
hard
.”

“My team has a saying: The path of least resistance is the path of the
loser
. Good things usually hurt.”

I smiled, only slightly amused at his he-man humor. “Have you always dreamed of being Captain America?”

He tipped his head back and laughed, the warm sound filling our small kitchen. “Maybe I have. America is a great country, you know? My grandparents may talk about Cuba all the time, but they wouldn't want to leave Tampa. Neither would my parents.”

“Neither would I.” I settled my head against my husband's chest, reassured by the strong and steady sound of his heart. “But I'd follow you anywhere.”

¿C
ómo está,
Claude?” I smiled at our quirkiest and best-tanned customer. “Did you find everything you need?”

The old man dropped a bag of beans on the counter, then scratched at his grizzled white beard. “You don't carry suntan lotion. You should order some.”

“Mama Yanela's is a Cuban grocery. We don't carry everything.”

“But this is the only place I like to shop. So be a dear, will you, and ask your boss to stock some suntan lotion? I like Hawaiian Gold.”

“But this is Florida, not Hawaii.”

I waited, expecting him to chuckle at my little joke, but he only crinkled his brow. “Hawaiian Gold, okay? When you tan all over”—he winked, reminding me that he lived in the local nudist colony—“you need the best.”

“I'll ask about it,” I promised, dropping his beans into a bag. “And, um, then you can tell everyone at the colony that we have the good stuff. Suntan lotion, I mean.”

He grabbed his bag and turned for the door, twiddling his fingers in a backhanded wave as his pink flip-flops slapped the floor.

From the canned goods aisle, Amelia snickered.

“
Hola,
Mandy.” I looked up as Mario, Amelia's husband, entered the store wearing his butcher's apron.
“¿Está bien?”

“Bien,”
I called as he hurried past. “Hope you're good, too.”

Gideon's family spoke Spanish almost exclusively at home, making an exception only when they had to stop and translate something for me. Even Gideon's mother, Elaine Lisandra, had learned to speak Spanish fluently, though she was as much a
gringa
as I was. I tried to learn Spanish, honestly I did, but I couldn't see much point in learning when they all spoke English as well. And they lived in America—shouldn't they adapt to us instead of the other way around?

But some of our older Cuban grocery customers apparently believed in the adage about old dogs not learning new tricks. So I tried to maintain a working vocabulary in Spanish, practicing how to meet and greet and count back change, along with reciting the names of fruits, meats, and delicacies such as octopus salad (
ensalada de pulpo
), our special of the week.