All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

the bottom, it would need to be mixed for longer, adding in broth little by little until it was ready for a second try at the float test.

“Good. We’re going for a creamy peanut butter texture with the masa. The dough needs to be slightly sticky to spread on the corn husk, but also smooth. You probably have about a minute more, and then we’ll start layering the husks with the masa and then the chicken. Good job on the chicken, by the way. I tasted it.”

“Thanks. I followed your recipe.” I’d slow cooked it overnight in the Crock-Pot and added the green chilies halfway through, then stuck it into the fridge first thing today, but not before I’d tried a piece. Mouthwateringly good.

“And then all we have to do is roll and tie.”

I smiled at Glo’s youthful energy. This was definitely her element, though she was fantastic with the residents, too. Stern yet always gracious. Which made me wonder about her thoughts on Sasha. Maybe she had some tips on how to get the girl to respond to . . . well, anything for starters. Today’s mentor group had been a challenge at best. While I’d seen huge strides in Wren and Monica, Sasha couldn’t have been more closed off. And it was becoming more and more difficult to look past her cutting glares and eye rolls.

“You can’t make it personal,” Clara had told me once after Sasha huffed at one of my blatant attempts to draw her in to conversation. But the thing was, it did feel personal, considering the way she’d crossed her arms and spouted off robotic-like responses whenever I asked one of the questions from the study guide. She seemed to be sending me a message. And it wasn’t the thumbs-up kind but rather the kind involving a different finger altogether.

Sasha had a way of telling a person off with her eyes even when her mouth said exactly what you’d hoped to hear.

Glo set her hand on mine, switching the mixer off. “I said creamy peanut butter, not puree.”

“Oh, oops.” I tapped the mixer on the side of the bowl and reached for the wooden spoon on the counter. “Is it okay?”

“Should be,” she said, balling up a handful and testing it out in a glass of water. It floated. “Where’d your head go, Kitten Heels?”

I sighed. “Sorry, I was just thinking about group today. It didn’t go so well.”

“Don’t apologize. What good are two women in the kitchen together if we don’t use it to sort our issues out? Or someone else’s issues.” Glo laid out the soft corn husks, then scooped a tablespoon of masa on one, covered it with plastic wrap, and then pressed the sticky dough over the glossy husk. She gestured for me to do the same. “So? Let’s hear it.”

I followed her movements, careful to apply the right amount of pressure to each tamale. “It’s just that Sasha . . .”

Glo side-eyed me, saying nothing.

“She doesn’t seem to like me much.” I grimaced at how incredibly middle school I just sounded. Teacher, teacher, the girl with the winged eyeliner is giving me dirty looks.

Glo laughed. “Sasha doesn’t like most people.”

“I’m sure that’s probably true, but . . .”

“But you’re not usually disliked by anybody.”

The heated humiliation that crept up my neck indicated just how right she was.

“That’s not a bad thing, Molly. Most girls here have taken to you extremely well in such a short period of time. It’s not always like that, you know. Look at Wren. She was completely curled into herself, and somehow you coaxed her out of her shell, something neither Clara or I had managed to do before you came.”

Then what am I doing wrong with Sasha? She was a puzzle I couldn’t figure out. “So how do you suggest I connect with her—Sasha, I mean?”

Glo set her spoon down and studied me for several long seconds. “By continuing to try. That’s all we can do.”

For all her wisdom and obvious life experience, I’d been expecting something a bit more profound—a poignant proverb maybe, or at least some kind of recipe parallel. But instead, Glo seemed to operate on the same wavelength as Silas and his twenty years of dart practice. The whole slow-and-steady-wins-the-race mentality. A mentality that certainly didn’t come naturally to me. I understood that trying had its place, but things had not been progressing for the better with Sasha the way my dart game had. It actually seemed like the more I tried with her, the worse things became.

“You seem disappointed by my answer.”

I shook my head, pasting on a cheery expression that had Glo chuckling and bumping my arm.

“You can’t fool me with that pretty smile, kiddo. I know it’s not the flashiest advice around, and maybe there’s some well-educated therapist somewhere who can say it better. But in my experience, showing up after a rough day or a hard meeting is worth more than the fanciest words in the universe to these kids. That said, you can do everything right and still be rejected in the end. We don’t get to control how someone else chooses to respond.” Her cheeks lifted into a knowing grin. “About the only thing you have control over is your attitude and your heart.”

I reached for the shredded chicken, adding a small scoop to the masa layers one at a time while Glo started the rolling and folding process. “Well, then I think I might be failing as a mentor, because today my heart was full of eye rolls when she spouted off the same rote Bible verse for two different questions before anybody else had a chance to answer.”

Glo pressed both palms on the counter, bent at the waist, and belted out a laugh I wished I could record as a cure for depression. “Molly, some days my heart is full of eye rolls, too, and I’ve been working with these types of kids longer than you’ve been alive. Just keep showing up. That’s the only difference between a good and