I can’t ask Mom to join me—she has too much on her plate as it is. But Grandma would not have let me give up this easily! So I’ll find a new partner. Maybe Cintia or Victor would agree...

For now, I try to figure out what my entry dish will be, and I spend the rest of the week studying Grandma’s old recipes. I’m sprawled in bed, recipes stacked up all around me in Grandma’s handwriting, when someone knocks on my door.

I bolt upright, hiding the recipes under my bed.

Isabel pokes her head in. Just from her face, I can tell something’s wrong. “You should go talk with your mom,” she says.

“What happened?”

“She was taking everyone’s orders and then she got a phone call, started yelling, and locked herself in Dona Julieta’s office.”

I run down the stairs two steps at a time, my heart beating out of my chest. The atmosphere in the bakery is tense. A few customers stand uncertain on the other side of the counter.

I hurry to the office door. “Mom? Everything okay?”

After what feels like an eternity, she opens the door.

“Tell everyone to come back another time,” she whispers before closing it again.

When I turn around, shaking, the customers are still looking at me. “S-she’s not feeling well,” I stammer.

“We understand,” Isabel says in the back, already opening the door to usher everyone out. She mouths “call me if you need anything” before she leaves.

Alone in the bakery, I head back to the office. “Mom, they’re gone. Can I come in?”

The door clicks open and I step inside. Mom sits at Grandma’s old desk, bills assembled in front of her like a tarot card reading. And judging by her expression, our fortune is bleak.

I sit down in front of her.

“Dona Fernanda just called to fire us,” Mom says, blunt, and it’s like all blood drains from my body. “They’re hiring Deals Deals instead.”

“What?!” I shout. “No. No. She can’t—”

“She can and she did,” Mom cuts me off. “It’s very unprofessional, but it happens. She’ll pay for whatever I had already prepared, and that’s it.”

“But the party is in two days!”

“I know. But Deals Deals has been feeding her rumors that we’ve been having sanitation problems at Salt all this time and hiding it from her. That Eulalia and I could ruin her special day with one of our ‘infamous fights.’ That we’re unreliable and won’t deliver in time. And...that I personally don’t have experience as a party planner...” Mom smiles sadly. “Now that last rumor isn’t a lie.”

“You did an amazing job! You worked day and night!” I say, my voice rising with indignation. “Deals Deals said all that about us?!”