Like Water For Sauce

Rosa's emotional cooking reflects her love and heartbreak while working at El Molino.

Rosa Ramirez mixed water in with the sauce and stirred it with the whisk.  As she stirred, the sadness was also being stirred inside of her.  Before she could stop herself, Rosa began to cry uncontrollably into the sauce.  Waves of salty sorrow washed over her and dripped into the water and tomato sauce.  Rosa collected herself and wiped away her tears.

      It had been months since her husband had filed for divorce, yet the pain remained with her.  To make matters worse Rosa had recently had her heartbroken yet again.  This time the heartbreaker was a young man named Eduardo.  Eduardo often played his guitar in the restaurant where she worked.  She’d fallen in love with his music and, in turn him, quite by accident.  And although he claimed to care for her as well, Eduardo had just gotten engaged to someone else.   He told her that it was pressure from his family that led him to propose.  He didn’t love the woman, but it was more or less an arranged marriage.  They’d known each other since childhood and every assumed they’d one day get married and have kids of their own.  He didn’t feel like he had a choice in the matter if he wanted the love and protection of his rather large and influential family.  It was bad enough he wanted to be a musician.  Marrying the wrong woman would surely make him an out cast he explained.

    This news had devastated her beyond what she or Eduardo had either one anticipated. 

    That night, her cooking also moved many other people to tears as well.  For all pizzas made with the tearful sauce made anyone who ate them cry as well.   Nearly a quarter of the city consumed Rosa’s grief, leading to a story on the local news about the sudden onset of tears around the city.   At first no one could figure out the connection, but eventually the trail led back to El Molina. A news reporter came to the tiny, but well known restaurant to interview Rosa and the other workers. 

     El Molino was North of the Mexican border by a good bit, but the city that her family had migrated to some years before her birth had a large Mexican and Latin American population.   It was easy to find a home among the Hispanic business owners and co-workers in her neighborhood. 

    Rosa hadn’t worked there long, but she had made many pizzas during her 30 years.   For the past ten years or so Rosa had spent her time at home with her children, whose favorite food was not burritos, tacos or fajitas, but pizza.  She had an eight year old girl Ana-Maria, a four year old son Sebastio and baby Esteban.  Recently her husband Juan had decided that he wanted a divorce and Rosa was forced to find a way to make money to support herself and her children.  

    Rosa had been a house wife and mother most of her life, but even before she met and married Juan, she did not have a career.  She had once helped her mother clean for extra cash in order to pay for college, but Rosa soon quit helping her mother and dropped out of college when she met Juan. 

    Her father, Julio, was concerned for her.  At first he was afraid of the disgrace that would befall their family for having a divorced daughter, but when no one really gossiped about it, his fear soon turned to how Rosa was going to support herself and the children.  Julio knew the man who ran El Molino, as Julio had gone to church with him and his family for years.   The owner, Jesus, kindly agreed to hire Rosa to help her out in her time of need.

     Jesus had hired Eduardo to cook originally, but found that he was better suited for entertaining.   It wasn’t long before Eduardo and his friends began playing their mix of American, Mexican and Peruvian music in the restaurant on the weekends.   Eduardo still helped close up on busy nights sometimes as a favor to Jesus.  

      One night as Rosa cleaned and closed up shop, she and Eduardo got to talking.  They discussed bands and singers that they liked for the most part.  Before he left that night, he asked her if she wanted to come the discothèque with him.  Happily, she agreed. 

      Eduardo knew the owner and was able to slip past the long line and into the door free of charge.  Once inside, he ordered a couple of drinks for himself and Rosa.  They drank and danced into the early morning hours.  Despite her tendency to be clumsy and careless at work, Eduardo was surprised to find that she was quite a good dancer.  She could salsa, rumba and even pull off a few hip-hop moves.  Seeing Rosa smile and enjoy herself pleased Eduardo very much.  

      At the end of the night, Eduardo walked her to her house and kissed her good night.  Rosa practically floated inside the door of her house and to her bedroom.  Her mother and children were fast asleep, but Rosa was still full of energy.   She couldn’t remember how long since she’d felt that way.  Had Juan even made her feel this good?  She didn’t think so. 

     The next Saturday Rosa could not wait to go to work and see Eduardo. It was as if there were no other reason to go to work other than to see him.  Rosa worked hard that busy night, but she also managed to find time to talk to Eduardo some more.  She learned more about him.                           

      They not only talked about music, but about their family lives that night.  She discovered that Eduardo had a brother and a sister.  He still lived at home, but he was hoping to get a place of his own soon.   He’d been saving up for it for some time so that he could get married and buy a place of his own for his new family.   Though he loved his mother and father and wanted to please them he also longed for freedom and wished that he could spend some time alone in the world.  He wanted to travel and find out who was and where he belonged.  He thought he might travel down to where his family was originally from in Cusco.  

      As Rosa wiped down the tables, Eduardo stood close to her.  He lingered, longing to touch her but afraid to for some reason.   He watched her lean over, sweat dripping between her breasts as she cleaned.   She smelled sweet and salty all once, which made him hunger for her all the more.  He watched as she used the back of her hand to push a strand of hair back into place.   My god, she was beautiful he thought.

       That night he walked her home again, but instead of leaving her at her door, he leaned in and kissed her passionately once again. Rosa responded and then invited him inside.  They sat on the couch and talked a bit before kissing again.   Neither one of them pulled away.  It wasn’t long before they began peeling each other’s clothes off and covering each other with endless kisses.  Fire filled them up and their love burned brightly.   Rosa felt as if she’d swallowed the sun that night and glowed with an incredible radiance the next day.

      When she returned to work on Sunday, she found herself unable to contain the fire inside.  She made the sauce and the pizzas with such passion, that anyone who ate them was consumed with passion as well.  Though there was a sudden outbreak of incredibly frisky and ardent behavior around the city that day, no one made the connection back to Rosa’s cooking.   They shrugged it off as a normal thing or blamed it on the spring weather.  A few joked that something must have been in the water, but no one guessed it was the passionate pizza that they’d eaten.

        Eduardo and Rosa remained lovers for several weeks, meeting on the weekends to make love.  It was a very happy few weeks for them both.  The love they felt made them feel alive and full of energy.   But it was not to last.

        One Friday night, Eduardo was distant and preoccupied.  There was no joy in his music that night and everyone noticed.   He left early, avoiding the long talks he usually had with Rosa as they closed together.   This upset Rosa greatly and made her all the more determined to discover why her love was behaving so strangely. 

       Saturday night, Rosa cornered him before he took off for the night and asked what was wrong.  That was when he broke the news that he’d proposed marriage to Olivia Martinez. She had been his high school sweetheart.  He hadn’t told her the whole story though.  He didn’t tell her that he and Olivia broken up recently, but under pressure from his parents and hers, they’d reunited at church social.   His mother had given him a ring and told him to purpose.  He hadn’t intended on doing so, but then Olivia saw the ring and assumed it was his intention to marry her after all.  Before he knew what was happening, the joyous news of their engagement had spread like wild fire through the social.  Family and friends insisted on congratulating them even though he’d never actually asked her.  Frustrated and unsure of how to get out of the marriage, Eduardo decided to go along with it for the time being. 

       Rosa didn’t see Eduardo for a few weeks, but he’d seen the story on the news about her magical cooking.  He returned to El Molino to apologize and say goodbye.  They spoke as she dipped her ladle into the sauce and spread it across the dough.   It was late at night and the last pizza to be made before closing time. 

      “I am truly sorry for causing you such pain,” he apologized.  “But I can’t back out of the marriage now.  Olivia, she’s pregnant.”

      “You slept with you fiancée?” she cried, clearly distraught by the news.

      “I know.  It was stupid.”

      Rosa put the ladle back in the container of sauce and turned to Eduardo.  “Make love to me one last time.”

      Eduardo looked around.  “Here?”

     “Si,” she said.

     He took her hand and led her back to the bathroom.  There, in the tiny bathroom, their lips met, tongues touched and hands wandered.  He wasted no time dropping his pants, pushing her up against the door and finding his way inside of her. 

     When they were finished, he kissed her one last time and left her alone in the bathroom.  She pulled herself up and collected herself before heading back out to the kitchen.  Still distracted from the what had just taken place, Rosa forgot to put out the fire in the stone oven.  

       Late that night a fire broke out in the kitchen, spreading quickly and consuming everything in its path.  The firemen arrived and put out the flames, but it was too late.  El Molino’s was no more.   When Rosa saw the destructive power of her love for Eduardo, she was devastated.   She found Jesus, cried on his shoulder and explained how it was her fault for being so careless and that she was more sorry than he could ever know.  Jesus was sad, but not angry with her.  He didn’t blame her at all.  He saw it for a chance at a new beginning, which is was. 

       It wasn’t long after the fire, that Jesus received an offer from Pizza Hut to rebuild his restaurant as part of their franchise.  He could stay on as store manager and keep some of the specialties his restaurant El Molino had been known for. 

       The fall the new Pizza Hut opened with a mixture of old and new employees.  Eduardo was not there for the grand opening, but he returned some time later for a visit.  It was then that he took Rosa aside and told her what he’d been longing to say since the night of the fire�"what he didn’t feel free to say until recently though. 

      “Olivia lost the baby and I broke it off with her.  You’re the one I want to be with,” he told Rosa.  

      Rosa’s eyes lit up and she threw her arms around his neck.  They hugged and kissed, ignoring the fact that others were watching.   Tears wet her cheeks and Eduardo wiped them away affectionately.  “No more tears.  Si.  The city cannot take any more weeping spells.”

      Rosa laughed and kissed him again.

 

     A year later Rosa placed her new favorite dish, lasagna, in front of Eduardo and her three children.  Her new catering business was booming and she no longer worked for Jesus at Pizza Hut.  In fact, Eduardo and Rosa were lucky enough to book many of the same gigs.  She’d cook for a wedding and he’d be part of the band.   Together, they brought much joy to the people of their city.