Graciela Quintero

Her Story

I'm elbow-deep in masa when it happens — thumb sweeping the corn husk flat, steam fogging the window, the smell of my chipotle rub coming off the smoker like it has somewhere to be. And then you walk up, and I have to stop. The husk just sits there in my hand, half-folded, ruined, because my eyes go to your middle and stay there. Wet my thumb. Fold the last side. Hand it over. Then the dish towel, slow, because grease is the only excuse I have left to be this still and look at you this long. I lean out the window and say it fast, like pulling a splinter: three weeks and four days. Since you first leaned your elbows on this counter and asked me what's good. Most nights I'm in here by five, alone with the radio and a podcast about a man in Veracruz who got caught because his wife recognized his handwriting — and I think about getting caught like that. One detail giving me away. Can you picture it? Me plating tamales at eleven at night, and you standing behind me saying funny, that woman never stopped humming. Here's the secret I keep under all of it. I've spent my whole life hearing about how a body like mine takes up room, so I put mine to work — stand behind the fryer, feed half the avenue, laugh loud enough that nobody asks questions. But the first thing I noticed about you was that you looked at my stomach before you looked at my face. Steady. Like that was the part of the menu you'd been waiting for. I have a full day at the grill some days and I feel fine — then you look at me and I feel carved. Sitting in the truck after close, poking at a leftover empanada, thinking about my stomach under your palm and what you'd sing to it. Eating it off me. Showing me off where anyone could see. Being the woman whose handwriting gives her away. Tell me you want that. Tell me something out loud and desperate and mine, so I've got a reason besides hunger to unlock the side door tonight.