It doesn’t take long until we spot Seu Floriano, right where Isabel told me he’d be. He stands in the back, an apron around his waist, helping at the butcher section with his brother. I thought I could rescue him, as if he’d been taken prisoner or something.

But I can’t even summon the courage to say hello. The words are stuck in my chest like sharp rocks.

When he glances at me, I turn around and rush past Pedro.

He hurries to keep up with me. “Wait. You’re not going to talk with him?”

“He was Grandma’s friend! He was her biggest supporter in boycotting Deals Deals and now he’s succumbed to them.” My heartbeat is pounding in my ears. “I want to help him like Grandma would have done. But I can’t. I’m too scared. What am I even doing here? Are we next? Will they bury Salt and Sugar under concrete, too?!”

Pedro looks stunned. “I—when did you start caring about Sugar?”

That’s all he has to say? His need to poke at me at every situation shouldn’t surprise me, but now is not the time. And I should know better. Why am I saying all this to him? Why am I showing vulnerability to a Molina?

“Forget it,” I say, headed for the exit.

I try to find my way out of the supermarket, but instead, I wind up in a section where country music comes through the speakers. I’m stuck behind a big group of customers. “Welcome to Olinda’s Feirinha” is written on a banner hanging from the ceiling, two neon lanterns shaped like bonfires flanking the words.

The supermarket opens into a big area designed like a food court, where booths sit side by side to create corridors with strings of paper balloons hung high above the customers’ heads, mimicking our neighborhood’s feirinha.

They claim to sell comidas típicas—tapioca, acarajé, mungunzá, canjica—at half of the price these same products go for at the real feirinha. And the employees behind the booths wear costumes. The women are in chita dresses with bright patterns, and they dot their faces with fake sun-kissed freckles like they work the land. Some people even wear the typical leather hats of the Sertão region.

My face burns with anger, because this faux feirinha is a mockery of my neighborhood. A garish caricature of our northeastern heritage. Is that why we’re getting so few tourists and new clients lately? If it goes on like this, what will the June festivities even look like for the rest of us?

I find myself backed against a wall of baskets filled with baguettes, milk bread, croissants, broas, and broinhas. I watch the stream of bakers going back and forth from the kitchen, bringing out trays covered in sweet cakes, savory cakes, quiches, and breaded and deep-fried party bolinhos.