I lingered in the doorway, intrigued by my mother’s interest. She’d never shown any zeal for global affairs, and she was right about us; even by Southeastern European standards, Montenegro was such a tiny country, a little kingdom of mountains. All of five hundred thousand inhabitants hemmed in by Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Albania, with the Adriatic Sea lapping against our western coast.
My mother seemed to remember herself then, and the usual mantle of nonchalance settled back over her shoulders. Her face took on that lazy, indulgent look I knew so well, the one she used when men swaggered into her shop and bent over backward to pretend that she didn’t fluster them. Some of them cursed too much, while others were so stilted and formal it was as if each time they met her was the first. Others plied her with current events, as if the doings of the world held enough mass to offset her gravity.
“I don’t know, Jovan, really,” she said with a languid shrug. “These mountains have kept us for thousands of years; even the Turks couldn’t take them from us. What use do we have for the rest of the world? No matter what, my little café will still be here, won’t it? And as long as I’m here, so will be your burek. What more can any of us ask?”
She gave him a sweet, close-lipped smile, and I could practically see his blood pressure spike. It infuriated me that she did this even to ?i?a Jovan, who was almost family, as if she couldn’t restrain herself from showing off. He didn’t deserve to be plied with her tricks just for sport.
Jovan cleared his throat. “True enough, true enough.” He backed away from her reluctantly, clutching the little package so tightly grease began to seep through the waxed paper, and nearly ran into me. “Ah, Iris, good morning! Didn’t mean to trample you, sweetheart.”
I smiled at him, giving him a quick, tight hug before tucking myself into the corner to let him by. “All limbs intact, old man. And make sure to eat that while it’s hot.” I gestured to one of the two iron tables at the opposite corner, arranged beneath my little bougainvillea glasswork sculpture; our other four tables were outside in the square. “Maybe take a seat with us and enjoy it here today? We love the company so early in the morning, don’t we, Mama? It’ll be hours before anyone else comes by.”
She gave me a quick, flicking appraisal, from toes to temples. I’d been getting the Arctic blast of her silent treatment for two weeks now, since I accidentally stirred salt rather than sugar into a meringue and ruined a whole batch of her snowdrop kiss cookies. It would have been only a day’s worth of fury if Malina had done it, but Mama’s deep freezes were traditionally reserved for me. An offense was the best defense, as they say—whoever “they” were, I felt like we understood each other well—and I could see by the pretty flush rising along her cheekbones how deeply my clothing choices offended her.
My insides turned over with the queasy, ambivalent sense of victory I felt every time I scored a point.
“I could make you some of my white coffee to go with it, Jovan,” she finally said, face warming as she shifted her gaze to him. “Only a dash of coffee and sugar in the milk, exactly as you like.”
As if inviting him to stay was her idea. As if I hadn’t even spoken.
Watching her, I felt a flutter from the weak, shameful part of me that never stopped straining toward her. I clenched my teeth and stamped the longing down, grinding it like a cigarette butt beneath my heel. There was no room for it here. There was no room for it anywhere.
THREE
JOVAN GLANCED FROM ONE OF US TO THE OTHER, SIGHING heavily. Better than anyone, he knew how things were between Mama and me, and knowing how it pained him only made it that much worse for me. “Who can say no to such a pair of beauties?” he finally said, lowering himself carefully onto one of the little chairs. His arthritis was flaring up, I could tell by the overly cautious movements, the strain in his jaw, the entire air of indignation at old age daring to befall him. “Iris, will I see you later today at the studio?”
“Maybe, but if not, tomorrow for sure.” Patting his shoulder, I squeezed by him to slide behind the counter and into the kitchen, making sure I didn’t accidentally brush Mama in passing. In the back, macarons were rising in one of the ovens, their delicate shells bright yellow. Dandelion clocks today, then. I could tell just by looking that they were still too soft to be taken out, so I joined Mama’s pastry apprentice, Nevena, at one of the stainless steel counters, perching my chin on her shoulder as she whipped the creamy white base that would become the macaron filling.
She nudged her cheek against mine in greeting, smiling in profile.
“Morning, sunshine,” I said to her. “How do you look so damn sprightly? Watching you take body shots off Filip might be the last thing I actually remember from last night.”
Nev was two years older than Lina and me, bright and appealing as a freshly cut marigold—tall and lanky like so many Montenegrin women were, and blue-eyed and blond as a Scandinavian. Her fine hair was cut into a chin-length bob, one side tucked behind a neat little ear. Today she wore a pale-green, pin-up halter dress with gold unicorns prancing around the billowy hem, the neckline dipping low over her freckled cleavage. The shimmer of the fabric nearly made me drool with envy; none of my clothes even threatened to be that gorgeous. Nev was a councilman’s daughter, and so sweetly gracious about coming from money it’d have made my teeth ache if I hadn’t liked her so much.
“By God, I really committed to those,” she agreed, flourishing her wooden spoon with such flair that creamy droplets splattered on the wall. Out of reflex, both of us glanced back at the front of the shop to see if we’d been caught—baking was like prayer to Jasmina, meant to be hushed and holy as a ceremony—but there was no sign of her. “I didn’t have any of that lethal weed that new boy brought, though, maybe that’s it. Speaking of which, come closer. You kind of reek, dollface. Maybe I’ll catch a contact high.”
“So I’ve heard. What new boy?”
Nev arched a wispy eyebrow and whistled low. “You really don’t remember him? I’d never seen him at Filip’s before, and he didn’t look like a local. No idea who he knew. He was fucking gorgeous, though, I mean, damn. You were passing his joint back and forth, and saying something about how you could make a galaxy out of the ceiling for him if you had just enough.” She snorted. “The way he was looking at you, I think he thought some kind of big bang was nigh, for sure. Whatever you were talking about, wanna teach me your ways? Always room for more boy-finagling tricks in the lady arsenal.”
For a moment, I almost did remember something: the Christmas lights on Nevena’s ceiling swirling like a nebula at the behest of my own twirling finger, and a tattooed arm alongside mine as we traced the whirlpools together.