That night at Salt, the Deals Deals cars are once again on our street.

We watch them go up and down, up and down, like they’re scouting the region. Every time they swarm like this, one of my neighbors packs up and leaves the next day. There are so many empty storefronts now, like snuffed out candles. Without their store lights, the neighborhood just gets darker and darker.

Now that we’ve entered June and the deadline the lawyer gave us is approaching, I feel like the shadows are longer. If we show vulnerability now, any at all, they’ll swoop in. Is the catering gig Mom’s getting ready for even enough to keep them away? Why does she still look so cornered?

I see her shudder, walking away from the window display like she’s thinking the same thing. She goes behind the counter and turns on the TV. I’m still watching from behind the window display when I hear the journalist on TV mention the Gastronomic Society. I whirl around to look at the screen with a gasp.

He’s interviewing the winner of last year’s cooking contest, mentioning how winning has impacted her life. I rush to the counter, nearly tripping. The winner goes on explaining that her restaurant got starred reviews and attracted more customers with the investment money and new contracts. She’s now a world-famous restaurateur!

“If Julieta were here, she would show all these fancy chefs what traditional, good food is like,” Dona Clara says from her stool at the counter beside me. Isabel, who’s squeezing a lime wedge over their shared plate of quibe, nods in agreement.

Mom scoffs, looking away from the TV. “She wanted to bake her favorite corn cake, and she would’ve won!” she tells Dona Clara, and for the first time I hear clear resentment in her voice. I thought that being the practical woman that she is, she just didn’t like these types of contests in general. But it looks like Mom actually holds a personal grudge against the Gastronomic Society. She gets a second wind. “Had they not slighted her, the best baker in this whole city, she would’ve won! But my mother didn’t fit their profile. They enroll these rich, well-traveled kids who barely know a thing about cooking and tell everyone they’re genius chefs making art. I see their photos on the internet, where it’s more about them and less about the food they make. Of course my mother never stood a chance. She’d make them all look bad with how good she was!”

“Opportunities like that don’t come around at our neighborhood,” Isabel muses, getting a rare look of approval from Dona Clara.