I resisted the urge to hit my head against the steering wheel. Once the barriers were up again, there was no getting through to my mother. Reluctantly I slung my purse over my right shoulder and climbed out of the car.

I slammed the car door, only to make myself flinch. Sighing with frustration I marched past my mother and across the shell strewn parking lot towards Ms. Higgins.

“Hey there Miss Mia,” Ms. Higgins shouted. “How you doin’ today?”

“Not too bad Ms. Higgins.” I forced a smile that lasted all of a second and hoped my mood wouldn’t pull her down. Ms. Higgins was beaming at me, so I tried to sound upbeat. “How was your week?”

“The Lord is good to me Miss Mia.” She gestured with her hands gleefully. “My son Andre, he bought me a scratch off the other day. Guess how much I won?”

I thought about it for a while then guessed, “Fifty dollars?”

“Nope,” she said with barely contained excitement.

“Eighty?”

“Try again!”

“One hundred?”

“Two hundred American dollars!” Ms. Higgins yelled triumphantly.

My jaw dropped.

“Holy crap Ms. Higgins! That’s amazing!”

Ms. Higgins began to laugh then stopped dead and gave me a harsh look.

“Don’t be saying that, ‘holy crap’ now.” Ms. Higgins shook a finger at me. “You’re in a place of the Lord. I thought I taught you better than that.”

“Sorry Ms. Higgins.” I leaned back with a sheepish grin.

But Ms. Higgins gave me a sly smile in return.

“Hmmph, the only time you should be saying Holy crap is when you see the Holy Ghost in the bathroom.”

We both laughed uproariously and I was grateful for it. I needed a good laugh and Ms Higgins always knew how to give me one.

“Ohh lordy forgive me for I have sinned,” Ms. Higgins said while wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “Come on now into the kitchen girl. We got work to do.”

                                                                  ***

Ms. Higgins was one of my favorite people in the entire world and my personal hero. Ms. Ruth Higgins was a ninety-five year old African- American woman who lived through not only the Great Depression and World War II, but the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war. She had managed to work two jobs while raising six kids single-handedly and, as she would often declare, not a’ one of them took to the streets.

Ms. Higgins always liked to recount, with tears shining in her eyes, the day she met her idol, the poet Maya Angelou. Maya had been the commencement speaker at her eldest son’s college graduation. Being the outspoken, confident woman that Ms. Higgins was, she walked right up to Maya and introduced herself. Maya admired Ms. Higgins’ spunk and the two had a long conversation that Ms. Higgins would happily retell to anyone who would listen.

“We gonna be cooking spaghetti and meatballs today,” Ms. Higgins walked with me down the hallway to the kitchen. “Larry’s got his recipe for that special marinara sauce he’s always boastin’ about.”

“Well I guess now we’ll know if he’s telling the truth about how good it is,” I had a bit more of a bounce to my step.

“Ha,” Ms Higgins laughed derisively. “If it’s bad y’all know I’m never gonna let him live it down.”

I chuckled and shook my head. Ms. Higgins and Larry Thompson had a chef rivalry that had spanned two decades. Both claimed they were the best cook in town and whenever one had the chance to cook something for the other to eat, the other always hated it.

“Oh by the way, Anne made her chocolate chip cookies again,” Ms. Higgins gave me a knowing look.

“Oh no,” I groaned. “We can’t keep doing this Ms. Higgins. This is the fourth week she’s made them. I know Anne is the sweetest person on the planet and none of us want to hurt her feelings. But someone has to tell her they’re terrible!”

“Mateo tried once,” Ms. Higgins opened the door to the kitchen. “But you know that boy can’t even stand up to a Pomeranian.”

The wonderful smells and sounds of garlic, basil and tomatoes simmering over a hot stove greeted us the moment we stepped into the kitchen. It was a decent size for a church. There were three ovens with stove-tops against one wall and a long counter-top that spanned the wall opposite it. The large kitchen sinks were against the back wall with gigantic cabinets above them that held all the cookware.

Larry was hovering over the simmering sauces on a stove staring intently down at each pot, giving each a stir in turn. I gasped with delight and was about to go over to him when Ms. Higgins took my elbow. “Aren’t you forgetting something Miss Mia?” She raised her eyebrow at me and I blinked.

“Oh, right.” I grinned under her stern gaze and hung my purse on a nearby hook before washing my hands at the sink and donning a hair net. Turning to face Ms. Higgins, I stood like a soldier at attention. She eyed me up and down then gave me a nod of approval and waved her hand to say ‘go on now’, all while holding back a smile.

I snuck up next to Larry. “This smells amazing.”

“Ah, Mia.” He looked surprised to see me right beside him. “Here give it a taste. I need to know what you think of the sauce.”

Larry was a sixty-five year old man from Queens, New York. We didn’t know much about his past, since he was tight lipped about it. All we knew about Larry was that he loved to cook, he was Italian, and he lived in Queens, New York before moving here. 

I was under the impression that he was an ex-gangster, and he was living here under the witness protection program to hide from the Mafia. To prove my theory, I often asked him leading questions such as, “So Larry, let’s say I wanted to get rid of someone, do you know a guy who could ... help with that?” Or, “I wonder what it’s like to go to jail.” But no matter how hard I try to get information out of him, he wouldn’t budge. I’d prove my theory right one day.

Larry handed me a spoonful of sauce and I sipped it slowly.

“So?” Larry stared at me with wide eyes under bushy gray eyebrows. “What’da ya think?”

I paused for dramatic effect, savoring the taste of the sauce. Finally I raised my chin. “It’s delicious,” I replied and Larry beamed proudly at me. Across the kitchen, I heard a disbelieving ‘huh!’ from Ms. Higgins. She had been listening in and eyeing us from a central counter, opening packets of spaghetti.

While Larry looked back at Ms. Higgins smugly, I glanced at the sauce pots and got an idea.

“You know Larry.” I leaned over conspiratorially. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say that sauce looks like pools of blood.” I looked pointedly at Larry for any kind of a reaction. When he didn’t bite I tried a different tack and leaned away. “Of course, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen pools of blood before. But what about you? Do you think it looks like the real thing?”

Larry chuckled and shook his head at me. “I don’t know where you get these crazy ideas Mia.”

Dammit. I was going to try a few more questions but was interrupted when the kitchen door leading to the dining room opened. I turned to see Anne and Mateo walk in, both wearing hair nets identical to mine.

“Mia,” Ms. Higgins scolded. “Stop harassing Larry about such gruesome things. Makes my blood run cold.”

“Oh dear,” Anne’s perfectly curled white hair bounced in the hairnet as she shook her head. “What’s Mia badgering Larry about now?”

Anne was the quintessential Grandmother. Which was ironic because Anne was very sensitive about people asking about her age. She always wore pastel colored cardigans that she crocheted herself, her white hair looked fit for a hollywood starlet, and she wore thick glasses that took up half of her face.

“I’m not badgering.” I batted my eyes innocently. “I’m just curious.”

Anne gave me a disbelieving look. “Well if you have time to be curious, you have time to help Mateo prepare the garlic bread.” She then turned to help Ms. Higgins start boiling the pasta.

Mateo laughed and we both walked over to the counter where a number of french bread loaves were lined up, ready for slicing.

“You sure do have spunk chica,” he said. “Do you ever think about becoming a detective?”

“No.” I took a cutting board and one of the bread loaves. “I’d rather be a writer.”

His eyebrows went up and he nodded, grabbing a cutting board as well. “Ahh yes. With that imagination, you’d do very well as a writer.”

I turned away and rummaged for a bread knife nearby to hide my smile. It was easy to hide since Mateo towered over me.

Mateo Márquez was a Twenty-year old man from Cuba. His wavy, black hair and dark brown eyes made him very attractive indeed. I had befriended him the fastest, since he was closest to me in age. Because we were close, I came to know a lot of his backstory.

Mateo was born and raised in Cuba; he had eight siblings and his father was his biggest role model. But something happened there that made Mateo’s family cast him out, which was why he had recently moved to America. I tried to get the reason why out of him a few times, but whenever I asked, Mateo got super defensive.

“Alright everyone!” Ms. Higgins clapped her hands to get our attention, twenty minutes later. “That’s enough chit chat. We got a lot of hungry people out there and we need to get a move on.”

All of us sprang into action like a well oiled machine. As Ms. Higgins and Larry put the cooked pasta into the sauce pots, Mateo and I cycled through the ovens, baking the fresh garlic bread. Anne grabbed the serving spoons, Styrofoam plates and plastic silverware.

“All together now,” Ms. Higgins lead our group and the rolling serving tables out the kitchen doors and into the brightly lit church dining room. For a short while, I got to forget about all the troubles at home and get to work in a place where what I did actually made a difference.

                                                                  ***