Dear Mama, Ines wrote on a perfect rectangular off-white sheet of paper on her vanity. Every day, I look more like you! That's what Father keeps telling me every day. We really miss you. La Crȇperie is going great. It's quite fun too! I'm hoping to make enough money from it to go to Mexico and meet your people. I would love to hear about the most famous young lady from Bernal. I can't wait to meet my 20 cousins and all of your siblings.
It's about time I should be going to bed. I have two exams tomorrow. I love you!
P.S. A lot of my customers at the pastry shop love my coffee. Father taught me, and he learned from the best!
Ines slowly folded the paper horizontally four times and opened the royal white drawer under the main desk to find a small rope for writing letters. She picked one up and folded the paper, tying the beige, small piece of rope around it and tied it bunny-ear style. She held the scroll between her fingers and let the rope sit against her rolled-up palm wore her fuzzy brown indoor slippers and walked across her carpet toward her comfy queen bed, pushing away the beaded ropes she tangled on the ceiling to enhance her sleeping atmosphere. She put her elbows on the white mattress and pulled one of her many red heart-shaped pillows in the corner and pulled it into her sweatshirt as if it were a hug. She looked up at the wall right next to her bed, which obtained multiple photos of her family and friends. Her mother in Bernal stood out the most. She was a beautiful, tall woman - with the same olive tan complexion as her daughter. She was standing next to a large sequoia tree. Her smile was truly enchanting, but Ines had received her father's, but everything else that Ines's mother had is mirroring her 15-year-old daughter.
Ines snapped back into the present with a blink of an eye, her curled lashes intertwining with each other but immediately separating after a millisecond.
She reached underneath her bed for her deepest possessions - her box of love is what she would call it. A large, brown box that contained picture frames, music albums signed records, small items she crocheted, books, and most importantly, her mother's old letters combined with Ines's responses.
Ines sighed and placed the scroll next to the other 20 of them. She saw an envelope with a wax stamp buried underneath a few picture frames and spheres of red and green yarn. She slowly pushed everything else cluttered in the box to pull it out gently.
She tore the wax stamp and opened this one.
November 1st, 1999, the heading read. It was exactly 3 days before Mama's death. Dear Ines, all my life I have wished to have a daughter, so I could help her when she grows up. I'm so sorry, Sweetheart. I wish you the best and I want you to have all the advice you will ever need - and you will have these lists all of your life.
Remember that you are a mixture of hundreds and thousands of people who had once fallen in love. Never hate yourself for your uniqueness, Ines. You are just absolutely beautiful. I hope you will grow to understand your purpose in this generous world.
Some people become unlucky, like me. But you have the entire world in your grasp and I want you to live your life to the fullest.
I love you.
From Mama Belle
75 Hospital Saint Louis
Slowly setting the paper down, her eyes gaze down at the date when this letter was written. A bare teardrop falling on the date: November 1st, 1999.
Ines's parched hand covered her mouth and her chin. This was written exactly 3 days before Ines's mother had passed away. It's already been 11 years since the incident, Ines thought to herself as her bedroom door was slowly opened from across the room, near her vanity.
Her father entered her room, in his business suit and with her French bulldog, Lola.
He immediately noticed her tears and he walked over to her bed and kneeled down, giving his teenage daughter a warm hug.
"It's going to be okay," Daddy said sincerely, "You're going to be to Bernal, yes? How is the bakery shop going?"
Ines shared a smile with him. "Yeah. It's going good, I've made more than 300 dollars actually."
"That's a great start. I don't regret buying it for you." Daddy peered over Ines's shoulder and saw all the letters and photographs.
He laughs softly and takes out one of the photographs in the cardboard box. It was a photo of a younger version of her parents; when they were around Ines's age. Their hair colors were much brighter than the present, and they looked beautiful. Ines's mother looked beautiful in her quinceanera layered red gown and silver tiara. It made her beautiful brown curls stand out.
Daddy lived in Bernal when he was 15 when he met Mama Belle in his new school.
"...We were always planning for you to have a quinceanera, Ines," Daddy was explaining, but Ines was half-heartedly listening to him while placing everything she took out of her box of possessions back inside its little brown den.
"It would feel wrong if your mother wasn't- Ines, Ines. You look very tired. Get some sleep." Daddy exclaimed, "I have a night shift, layoffs are being discussed today, remember?"
"Oh, of course," Ines massaged the front of her scalp and got up from the carpeted floor. "I'll keep Lola on my bed before I sleep."
"Alright. And listen, Ines." Ines was about to go into the hallway to brush her teeth in the bathroom. She paused her feet and turned around.
"The rest of spring break won't be as boring, I promise." Daddy checks his watch. "Alright, I do have to go now. I love you!" He blew a kiss at both Ines and then a lazy Lola climbing on Ines's white mattress.
"I love you too, bye Daddy," Ines said as the door closed. She turned to her snuggled-up Lola, her large black eyes wavering in her direction.
"I'll be right back, Lola. I have to brush my teeth," She yawned, patting her hands against her skin, and closed her bedroom door behind her, carrying her two matte moisturizers from La Roche Posey in her arms.
As she crawled into her comfortable bed, she held her small Lola in her arms stared up into the dark ceiling, and thought about her first day of Spring Break.
Crawling through her entangled willows of thoughts, she thought about how her subject exams were coming up in her girls-only school, her productive mornings, the smell of her brand-new pastry shop and her coffee... and the blonde boy who requested it. Ines pushed her wavy hair behind her ears as they tickled it.
The American boy's name was Jackson, Ines could easily recall. He looked quite new to the area - scratching his blonde hair and his brown eyes wandering everywhere, looking out of place. She wondered whether she would ever see him ever again.
Ines figured that that was how her father looked, acting all awkward when his family moved to Bernal and he first started to explore his environment.
YOU ARE READING
La Crêperie
Любовные романыJackson Shaw is not one for love. With a background of getting bullied and having his parents be divorced, how could he? Jackson and his younger brother have to move to Paris with their divorced father, while his mother has it all in Colorado, USA...
