Page 8 of Guava Flavored Lies

CHAPTER3

It took nearlyan hour in afternoon traffic for Sylvie to drive five miles from Miami International Airport, where the King of Pastries had just opened a coveted spot, to the flagship store in East Hialeah.

The strip mall where the bakery acted as the anchor on the end, had seen better days since the 1970s when the area was new and growing to meet the huge influx of migrants fleeing Castro’s Cuba. Sylvie’s grandparents were among the masses who showed up in the mid-60s with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

From there, Sylvie’s family rebuilt the hugely successful bakery business they’d had in Havana. First by selling their creations out of the back of a van, and then by opening their first store in Hialeah. All while dodging the Machados’ attempts to undermine them.

When Sylvie arrived at the bakery, she carefully traversed the packed parking lot where cars routinely double parked and trapped others in. After several failed attempts, she bulldozed her way into a spot.

Too slow, she thought as she whipped around and into a space before another driver could get to it.

Outside, she smiled at a little old lady hobbling out of Berta’s Unisex. The hair salon had been there since the shopping center was built. The octogenarian clientele inside was as old as Berta herself.

All day, old ladies moseyed over to the bakery with a head full of rollers or stinking like toxic fumes with towels clipped around their shoulders as they waited for their hair dye to set. It was usually black, but some old gals would go for a spicy burgundy.

She walked past the other storefronts on her way to the bakery. The shady medical supply store. The place that sold burner phones and lottery tickets. The botanica where the overwhelming stink of incense wafted from the door propped open by the waist-high statue of Saint Lazarus and the creepy dogs licking his wounds. Sylvie smiled. The East Hialeah store wasn’t new and fancy like all their other locations, but it was where they started and that made it special.

As soon as she opened the door to the bakery, Sylvie was assaulted by salsa music cranked up to the max and a dozen people waiting to be helped. The chime above the door that would’ve announced her arrival was swallowed up by the noise.

Behind the glass cases full of pastelitos, the Cuban term for the phyllo dough confections, her godmother was working the enormous machine that halved oranges and squeezed them into fresh juice. The King of Pastries had changed very little since it opened in 1970.

Sylvie clenched her jaw and resisted the urge to snap. She reminded herself that this store had its own rhythm. That the people chatting amongst each other as they waited weren’t expecting to run in and out in an efficient manner. It was a gathering place. An important fixture in the community.

Over the sound of people shouting their orders and blaring music, Sylvie called to her godmother and signaled for her to meet her in the back. She inhaled the scent of fresh-baked Cuban bread being flung over the counters as she made her way to the office.

Officewas a generous term. What used to be the multi-million-dollar-business’ corporate hub was essentially a glorified closet. These days there was nothing but a desk, two chairs, and a dock for when she brought her laptop. It used to be packed to the ceiling with boxes of papers and all the other evidence of her parents’ terrible record keeping.

The first thing Sylvie did when she started modernizing two years ago was go paperless and move the operation to her house. There, she had an entire room dedicated to the business, complete with secure servers and a three-screen setup so she could comfortably compare spreadsheets.

“I’d ask you how your weekend went, but I can see it in your sunburn,” Regina, her godmother, a cherubic woman in her fifties, said with a laugh as she appeared in the open doorway.

Having only been a kid when her family moved from Cuba, Regina’s accent was mild and merely cushioned the edges of her words. With Regina’s naturally blonde hair, people didn’t expect her to speak Spanish at all until she opened her mouth.

“It was fine,” Sylvie said as she pulled her thin laptop out of her purse. “Can we go over this morning’s deliveries? I want to make sure—”

“What do you mean fine?” Regina plopped down on the chair across from the desk. “I thought when you called me back here you were going to give me some good gossip about meeting a cute girl.” She wiggled her brows.

Sylvie pursed her lips. “Girl? Madrina, I’m thirty-two. If I were dating girls, I hope you’d be calling the cops.”

“Aye, you take everything so seriously, mija.” She crossed one plump leg over the other. “My question is the same, okay? Did you make a love connection?”

“I was there to work,” she replied stiffly, eager to get back to important matters.

“What’s the point of sweating your butt off all day if you weren’t going to use the opportunity,” Regina lamented with a sigh and shake of her head.

“I’m the face of the bakery, Madrina. It’s important that I do these things. I’m part of the brand.” She hesitated and added the real reason. “Plus. . . Lauren Machado doesn’t send employees.”

Her godmother rolled her eyes. “Los Machados. I don’t know why you carry on such a stupid rivalry. It’s gone on about two generations too long if you ask me.”

Sylvie scoffed. “What do you suggest? Should we just forget that they stole our proprietary information and tried to screw us out of our livelihood?”

“We? Us? At the time of the split, you weren’t anywhere near born and my grandmother couldn’t tie her own shoe laces.” Regina laughed. “You know, I dated a Machado once. Your grandfather had an epic fit about it. That boy was a damn good kisser.” She smiled, still satisfied with her rebellion.

Disregarding her godmother’s details about a Machado she dated thirty years ago, Sylvie fixated on what she said earlier. “You’re right,” she decided as an idea began to form.

“I’m right about so many things,” she sighed, exhausted by her own genius. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“This has been going on too long between us and the Machados.” She sat up straight, excited at the prospect of ending the feud. “It’s time to settle this and prove that they betrayed us and stole our recipes.”

---