Page 13 of Serving Bunt

“Dios mío! Macaroni and cheese inside an empanada ?" Abuelita waved her half-eaten pastry like it was evidence in a courtroom. “This is a crime against our people.”

I grinned, popping a handful of pickle-flavored cheese curds into my mouth. “Well, you’ve had two already, so it can’t be too bad.”

Her eyes narrowed from behind her tortoiseshell glasses. “I’m an old woman, Peter. I’m allowed to be contradictory. And this cheese . . .” She moaned around the mouthful of food. “Like velvet.”

“Velvet?”

“Si. Sinfully delicious.” Her gold hoop earrings swayed every time she leaned over her plate for another bite. “I will repent later.”

I shook my head and reached for my drink. “There’s the abuelita I know and love.”

She closed her eyes and made the sign of the cross over her chest, murmuring a quick prayer under her breath for forgiveness over her . . . dairy transgressions? I nearly choked on my mango limeade trying not to laugh.

God, I loved this woman.

This telenovela-obsessed, five-foot-nothing octogenarian who matched her rosary beads to whatever pair of glasses she wore that day. We couldn’t be more different, and yet, she was so much more than just another relative; she was my best friend.

Abuelita was the one who’d attended every one of my games, from T-ball through high school, always with a bag of knitting at her side. Because Abuelita didn’t go anywhere without her knitting—not even her own daughter’s funeral. She’d knit half a scarf before they’d closed Mami’s casket.

Abuelita was the one I’d come out to at fifteen, after she’d caught me messing around with Carlos—my high school teammate and first real boyfriend—out back by the garden shed.

Man, the stories that shed could tell.

First, Abuelita’s encounter with El Chupacabra, and then, forty years later, two queer boys awkwardly trying to jerk each other off.

Sounds like one of Abuelita’s telenovelas.

To her credit, she hadn’t yelled when I’d come out. She hadn’t cursed or cried or dropped to her knees and prayed. She’d simply pulled me into a hug that smelled like jasmine and Vicks VapoRub and whispered, “I love you exactly as God made you, mijo. Now, go take off those dirty shoes before you ruin my floors.”

She was the one person I never had to pretend with.

Even when everything else in my life was chaotic, sitting here with her somehow made the world feel safer.

I took another sip of my mango limeade, savoring the way the tart flavor cut through the richness of the food.

“Quit hogging the empanadas,” I grumbled, though there was no heat behind the words. “Try one of the wings.”

“Spicy?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Just the way you like it.”

She nodded with approval, already reaching for the paper boat full of wings at the center of the table.

We had been at this for nearly an hour, chowing down on a robust sampling of eats and treats from my favorite food cart pod off Alberta Street.

The table was a glorious mess of cardboard containers full of offerings from half a dozen different trucks: Al pastor tacos with pineapple-glazed pork shaved straight from the vertical spit from Taco the Town, a pumpkin yellow curry from Tikka Chance on Me, mac and cheese empanadas courtesy of the cheese-shaped truck called Mac Daddy, and the daily special, Korean fried chicken wings, glossy with gochujang glaze, from Cluck Norris.

They were actually vegan wings, but I wasn’t about to tell Abuelita that. As far as she was concerned, veganism ranked somewhere between skipping Sunday mass and committing tax fraud.

She had been staying with me for nearly two weeks now and in that time, we had eaten our way through three food cart pods, two street fairs, and one Michelin-star restaurant.

And that was just the start of it.

In between wining and dining across Multnomah County—because Abuelita could knock back a bottle of wine faster than most bachelorette parties—we’d visited the International Rose Test Garden, taken the aerial tram across the city (twice), and ridden the alpine slide at Mt. Hood.

That last one had shocked the hell out of me. Apparently, somewhere in between turning eighty and getting her second knee replaced, Abuelita had turned into a fucking daredevil.

Such an icon.