What to Eat by Rosa Lemus

What to Eat

By Rosa Lemus

After walking for hours, Imelda stopped to catch her breath. Once her daughter Rosa started shopping, nothing could stop her. They had skipped breakfast in order to arrive at the mall early in the morning before 11:00am. Imelda was already in a bad mood because her husband wouldn’t stop teasing her about the way she looked. She was wearing a pale yellow blouse with denim jeans, and brown boots. Her husband mentioned that she looked darker with the pale yellow blouse, but Imelda alleged that it was the makeup she had recently bought, which was too dark for her skin tone. However, Rosa didn’t care about how her mom looked. All she cared about was finding her new pair of boots. They had been to every single store in the mall, but yet they couldn’t find a pair of brown boots for Rosa.

Imelda kept on rubbing her stomach and making facial gestures. Her eyebrows looked sad and she held her head with the tips of her fingers and looked at Rosa with a strong eye contact. Everything seemed to spin around. She couldn’t find the correct words to tell her daughter to hurry up.

“Rosa,” said Imelda, losing her temper, “me estoy muriendo de hambre.”

“Ok Mom, this is the last store, promise,” said Rosa.

“Lo dudo, duras como veinte horas en una sola tienda.” Imelda couldn’t think of anything else but eating a carne asada burrito from Rubios. She started losing control: her mouth was like a river and she was becoming desperate for food. Finally, Rosa and Imelda left the store and walked toward the food court.

As they were approached the food court, Rosa was bragging about her new brown boots, but Imelda really didn’t care at that point. Her nostrils were wide, she was glowering.

“We are going to eat Rubios!” Imelda said.

“Yeah right, said who?”

“Aquí se come lo que hay, no lo que quieras.”

“Well, I want pasta,” said Rosa.

Imelda was furious and looked as if she wanted to slap her daughter. “When can you stop being a pest? And for ONCE do what I ask!”

“Uh, just once Mom?” asked Rosa.

“Me la llevo todo el día aguantándote en las tiendas y todavía te pones chipilona para la comida,” said Imelda. 

“Blah, blah, blah!” said Rosa, looking like she was about to cry. “You’re the one who offered to come to the mall, so don’t complain Mom!” Now tears really were running down Rosa’s blushing cheeks. 

Imelda turned and began walking towards the pasta restaurant. Still, she couldn’t seem to make up her mind and ended up sitting at a dirty table with scattered napkins. Her head fell into her hands.

In a very innocent tone, Rosa asked, “So is it pasta?”

Imelda stood up carefully from the table and didn’t say a word.

“Que le gustaría ordenar señorita,” asked the cashier. “Can I get the pasta combo,” said Imelda.

Rosa stayed behind at the table waiting for her mom to order her food. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and smiled to herself.