The Ricci Home was never cold. The Ricci Home was toasty and crackly, and smelled like candied prunes that were sickly sweet and stuck to the roof of your mouth. The Ricci Home was summer rain, with rainbows so long you could never find the pot of gold. But this year, the snow came down on the tiled rooftops and ice splinted from the cracks of the concrete. It made its bed on the flimsy swing sets, and shooed the squirrels from their nests. As she watched the sparrows brush off the powder from their tired wings, and the old ladies walk out in fuzzy boots instead of clacky pumps, that's when Emilia knew; the aliens were coming.
"Don't be silly!" her mother told her. "The aliens won't take you."
"You don't have enough meat" her older brother David added, words muffled by the lollipop he was sucking on. Emilia's head spun to meet David's so fast she looked like an owl.
"Why do they need meat?" she asked. David pulled the lollipop from his mouth with a big slurp, carefully twisting the wand so that his saliva wouldn't get on his fingers.
"They're hungry," he told her, grinning like a Cheshire Cat. Emilia, suddenly understanding David's little crack, found herself offended.
"I'm sure they wouldn't want you either," she spat, and turned her nose up and walked back over to her mother.
"Bless the poor, unknowing alien that tries to get either of you, with all your bickering," she said, as Emilia tugged on her apron. She turned away from the stove and faced Emilia, bending her knees and pushing her face as close to her daughter's as possible. "I'd be surprised if he didn't drop you back into your beds after the first two minutes!" Emilia giggled at her mom's silly expression, and both their cheeks turned rosy as they smiled. Emilia looked back at David, who was sitting on the counter, lollipop back in mouth.
"See?" she said definitively, crossing her arms and leaning back a bit. David rolled his eyes, and focused back on the Yahtzee game he was playing against himself. Emilia tugged at her mother's apron once again, who was already back to stirring a pot with two hands.
"Yes, Mimi?" she said, not looking up from the pot.
"Is that the masa?" she asked, standing on her tippy-toes to get a better look.
"Yes. And this year, you two have to eat your whole plate, or else the aliens are going to stop by for leftovers."
Family started to pile in around 9 o'clock, each person carrying a different plate that was wrapped in plastic or tinfoil. Emilia would secretly tear small corners off of the tinfoil before they threw it away and try to smooth out all the wrinkles with the flat of her fingernail. Each platter smelled of something different; the glistening ham of sticky-icky honey, the ensalada rusa of pungent dill and cucumber, and the roasted vegetables of so much garlic, you couldn't kiss anyone for weeks! But no matter to the Ricci family, who would plant wet, loving kisses on the lips and cheeks of anyone around.
"Mimi!" Tía Elena would cry, her voice high and sugared. "You've grown so big!" She let out a playful gasp when Emilia straightened her posture and clasped her hands behind her back, like a toy soldier sitting under the Christmas tree they had yet to take down. "¿Cuántos años tienes, Mimi?"
"Seis años," Emilia replied, tall and proud, with her belly button sticking out from under her favorite t-shirt- it was bright pink. "You saw me two days ago!"
"Sí, but you just keep growing and growing, I can't keep up!"
One after another, each relative would marvel at Emilia and David, and all the other little and not-so-little cousins. Primo Luigi was still short a stocky as he was the year before, but Primo Antonio had been stretched thin like a tower- he also didn't have enough meat for the aliens to want them, Emilia thought. Primo Mateo and David were playing Tetris, with David trying to shove his body onto the straw chair Mateo was rocking in.
"No, no move it there! No! You don't know how to play," David squealed, before shoving himself onto the chair and tossing Mateo onto the ground with a thunk.
"Aye! Papi!" Mateo cried, and scampered off to Tío Tomás, who was a lean giant, and who's neck bones would jump through his glossy skin whenever he looked down. Emilia wondered if Tío Tomás was a hungry alien.
It wasn't until 10:30 that all the family had crowded themselves into their little living room, eating from the tantalizing spread of dishes thrown onto the kitchen counter in a messy yet organized fashion. The cousins piled their plates with meats, potatoes, and tamales, and reluctantly ladled two or three vegetables onto their plates after a cautionary stare from their parents. Emilia, failing to snag a spot before the older cousins plopped themselves down on the couches, squatted on the carpet, bouncing her knees. David joined her on the floor a few moments later, spilling a little bit of salad on the carpet.
"David, I better not smell mayonnaise lingering on the floors after tonight!" their mother's voice yelled from the couch. Then she continued to laugh and tell stories with the other aunts and uncles. David quickly scooped up the salad from the floor, rubbing any visible mayonnaise into the carpet until it was gone.
"It's still there, David," Emilia said.
"Quiet Mimi!" he retorted. "Mami won't be able to tell."
Emilia sat, still bouncing her knees, puzzled. Wouldn't she be able to smell Tía Martina's homemade mayonnaise? Emilia usually assumed that David knew better than her, but just didn't quite sit right with her. She rubbed at the slightly dark spot on the carpet.
"Don't you see?" she said, waving her finger in David's face. "Sticky mayonnaise. Smell."
David pushed her finger out of his face.
"Ew! You clean it, then."
Emilia frowned. She pushed herself up from the group, gently leaving her plastic spork on her paper plate. She walked over to the kitchen and stood tall on the step stool, barely being able to reach the handles of the faucet. She tugged on the first she could find and stuck her fingers in to wash off the mayonnaise.
"Aye!" she yelped. It was boiling hot water. She fell off the step stool, hitting her bum hard on the tiled floors, and began to cry.
"Mi vida! What happened?" her mother cried, with a little twinge of laughter in her voice, running over to scoop up Emilia in her arms. "Oh, did you slip?" Her mother's lack of concern was upsetting. How could she be laughing when Emilia was this hurt? Didn't Emilia's pain deserve a little bit of her attention?
The tears kept coming down, rolling down her rounded cheeks and staining her favorite shirt. She wanted to point at David, tell her mother that he didn't clean up the salad, but oh, how she would have. She wanted to tell her mother how it wasn't fair that she had slipped and not David. She was so frustrated, but didn't have the words to say so. But as her mother sat back down on the couch in between Tía's and Tío's, cradling her daughter's small-but-mighty limbs in her lab, Emilia realized that she didn't have to. Her mother understood- somehow, through some magic, her mother was able to understand Emilia only with her cries, was able to calm her only with simple glances, and was able to make her laughs with the elegant teasing of her index finger. Emilia suddenly looked up at her mother.
"Mami?"
"Sí, mi amor?"
"Are you an alien?"
At first, Emilia didn't understand why the room exploded with laughter. She didn't understand why her mother suddenly hugged her tight, the curls of her hair enveloping Emilia's face in the most gentle way, and her smile expanding so wide you could see every one of her teeth. But as her mother held her, as her cousins rolled around on the floor, as her Tía's and Tío's pinched her ears and tickled her elbows, she could see their love. It was floating in the air, it was the honey on their ham, the cheese in their tamales, the buzz of the ceiling fan, the warmth of her mother's embrace, and the symphony of their laughter. Emilia found herself smiling along with them. A large cheesy smile, with all her crooked or missing teeth, inhaling the sweetness of her company.
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1 comment
I admit that I didn't really understand all that was going on, but I LOVED the energy of this piece! It reminded me of hectic family dinners growing up. I didn't get the alien part, but the idea of family gathering together against the unknown is very familiar. Looking forward to more submissions from you!
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