It was their due-after all, they were my ninangs, or godmothers (yes, plural). Both the fake palms and the name stuck.Īnyway, the morning clientele at my tita’s restaurant always included a bevy of gossiping aunties, none as loud or nosy as the group of 50-something-year-old women I privately referred to as “the Calendar Crew.” Their names were April, Mae, and June-they weren’t related, but all three of them were completely interchangeable, down to their bad perms, love of floral patterns, and need to provide running commentary on my life. Surprise surprise, they didn’t take, so he replaced them with tacky plastic replicas. Rumor has it, some rich dude from the Caribbean got homesick after moving to the area and tried transplanting a bunch of palm trees along the main street. So instead of grinding my own coffee beans or brewing the delightful loose leaf teas I’d sourced for my dream cafe in Chicago, I now spent every morning preparing mugs of Kopiko 3-in-1 in my hometown of Shady Palms, Illinois, over two hours outside the city.Īnd yes, the town really was named Shady Palms. That was right around the time my aunt sent me a distress signal and here we are. Hence me working at my Tita Rosie’s restaurant rather than running my own cafe, which is what I’d been going to school for before I found out Sam was a cheating scumbag. Heck, I’m twenty-five and still make bad decisions based on those same dumb hormones. You’re dumb when you’re fifteen and hopped up on hormones. Odd behavior from the guy who’d wanted to marry me right after graduating from high school, but what can I say? I had exceptionally bad taste when I was younger. Pretty much tried to shut down my aunt’s restaurant on a weekly basis. Too bad he’d aged into a ridiculous jerk with a puffed up sense of importance and weird vendetta against my family. OK, that last part is a joke, but I really did run into my high school sweetheart. And to put the cherry on top, in the trope of all tropes, I even reconnected with my high school sweetheart after moving back to town and discovered the true meaning of Christmas.

Book arsenic and adobo