Her Good-Luck Charm
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Elizabeth Bevarly
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Prologue
Fifteen-year-old Felix Suarez loved the smell of sofrito in the morning. Or the afternoon. Or the evening. He wasn’t particular. He just loved his grandmother’s sofrito that much. And because his tita owned and operated the most popular Cuban restaurant in southern Indiana—for all he knew, it was the only Cuban restaurant in southern Indiana—and because her sofrito was the basis of so many of her recipes, the little apartment the two of them shared above La Mariposa smelled like sofrito pretty much all the time. Food of the gods, that was what it was. The peppers, the onion, the garlic, the cilantro...
“Holy crow, what smells so good?”
The question came from one of Felix’s best friends, Max Travers, who was just waking up from where he’d been sleeping on the living room floor nearby.
“Food of the gods,” Felix told him. Because that bore repeating, even if it had only been in his head the first time.
“It’s Señora Suarez’s sofrito,” his other best friend, Chance Foley, clarified from his own spot on the floor on Max’s other side.
“Ya know,” Max said, “I didn’t think anything could smell better than my mom’s doro wat, but your grandmother could give her a run for her money.”
“Tita and your mom should have a cook-off,” Felix said. “Cuba versus Ethiopia. We could sell tickets and make a fortune, and I could finally get out of this boring town.”
“I’d buy the hell out of an event like that,” Chance said. “Meanwhile, my mom promised to make meatloaf tonight.” Dryly, he added, “Yay.”
“Hey, your mom’s meatloaf is da bomb,” Max assured his friend.
The three boys had spent the night together at Felix’s place following the Galaxy Ball at Mrs. Barclay’s mansion—the final, crowning event of the Welcome Back, Bob comet festival that happened in their hometown of Endicott, Indiana, for the first few weeks of September every fifteen years. Comet Bob—who actually had a much longer name, but it was one hardly anyone could pronounce—visited Earth every fifteen years, and when it did, it always made its closest pass directly above Endicott, Indiana. No one knew why. Truth be told, at this point, no one cared why. Over the past couple centuries, though, the town had come to claim the comet as its own, and it went all out to welcome Bob back every decade and a half, with events and parties and revelry that went on for weeks.
“Tita uses sofrito in a ton of her recipes,” Felix said. He hesitated a moment before adding, “Except sometimes I think maybe she should use Spanish onions instead of yellow. And maybe go just a little heavier on the Cubanelle peppers and a little lighter on the green peppers. But that’s just me.”
Not that Felix would ever even suggest to Tita that she change a single thing about her cooking. She’d taught him everything she knew—and she knew a lot. Someday, Felix was going to open his own restaurant—and he’d do it someplace way more exciting than Endicott, that was for sure—and then he could experiment all he wanted with what he’d learned from her. Here and now, though, the recipes of La Mariposa were sacred.
He just wished the here and now was anywhere but Endicott and anytime but the present. This town was the most monotonous place on the planet. He didn’t care if there was a major festival going on at the moment. This time next week, all the festivities would be over, and all the visitors would be trickling away. Endicott would go back to being its usual tedious self, where the most exciting things to happen were discovering a forgotten dollar in your pants pocket or scoring an extra couple of Tater Tots on the school cafeteria lunch line.
It was why Felix had made the wish he had on the comet this week. There were a lot of legends that had risen up about Bob over the centuries. That the comet created cosmic disturbances that made people say and do things they normally wouldn’t, or fall in love with people they normally wouldn’t give the time of day to, or make amends over generations-old feuds. But Felix’s favorite was the one about the wishes. He’d heard all his life—and so had every other kid born the year Bob came around last time—that he granted wishes to those who were born in a year of the comet. As in, if someone was born in a year Bob passed over Endicott, and if that someone made a wish the next time the comet came around, when they were fifteen, then on Bob’s third pass, when the person was thirty, he’d make that wish come true.
Felix, Max and Chance were all comet kids, born the last time Bob came around. And they’d all made wishes three nights ago, when Bob was reported to be at his closest point overhead. Chance had wished for a million dollars. Max had wished his crush, Marcy Hanlon, would see him as something other than the kid who took care of their lawn. Blah blah blah. Felix’s wish was one that had real promise, and one that could help out all three of them. Because Felix had wished that, just once, something interesting would happen in Endicott. This town was long overdue for some decent action.
It was just too bad he’d have to wait fifteen years for it to happen. Especially since he had every plan to beat it out of town as soon as he could and go someplace where interesting stuff happened all the time. Indianapolis, maybe. Or Cincinnati. Hell, even Louisville, across the river, would be good. Someplace where people didn’t call it a day as soon as the sun went down.
Yeah, something interesting. Was that too much to ask? Even though Bob was now beating his retreat from Earth and Endicott, Felix sent one more reminder heavenward. He closed his eyes and thought hard. Something interesting, Bob. That’s all I ask. Doesn’t matter how it’s interesting. Only that it is. It can be a person, a thing, an event, whatever you want. Just make it interesting. Please. For the love of all things cosmic, just please make it interesting.
