From Barcelona, with Love Read Online Free

struggled to change under the towel, the way she’d seen bathers change out of their swimsuits on the beach without anybody so much as catching a peek of anything important. Not that she had anything really “important” yet; not even a hint of anything, but she still didn’t want anybody to see. Not even Aunt Jassy.
    â€œOkay,” she said, when she was ready.
    Sunny turned and inspected her critically.
    The pants were huge. She knelt to roll the legs up, then took a multicolored scarf from a peg behind the door that Paloma—who knew about such expensive designer things because of her aunt Jassy, who was a clotheshorse if there ever was one—realized from the bold zigzaggy colors must be Missoni.
    Sunny hauled up the yoga pants and tied the scarf around the child’s skinny waist. “That should do it,” she said, smiling up at her.
    Paloma was momentarily dazzled. She thought she’d never seen anyone more lovely than Sunny, in quite a different way from Aunt Jassy, who was also a beauty but much more glossy. Sunny Alvarez seemed to Paloma to have a golden glow about her, a simplicity combined with something else—an earthiness. She wondered if that was the right word. Whatever, Paloma thought Sunny was lovely, and impulsively, she told her so.
    â€œWell, thank you, sweetheart.” Sunny hugged her and Paloma could tell she was pleased. And then Sunny took an apple green J. Crew cardigan from a drawer and helped stuff Paloma’s arms into the sleeves, and buttoned it up over her chest.
    She took a step back and regarded the girl seriously. She said, “Paloma, what happened to your hair?”
    She asked the question very gently but even so Paloma was mortified to have to explain that she’d been having a bad day, that her hair was too wild and curly and she had cut it all off on an impulse because she’d simply got fed up with it. “Besides, it’s red, ” she added, unhappily, because the other kids all teased her about her carrottop, and besides she knew it looked terrible and that she would have to live with the results of her action for a long time.
    â€œIt’ll grow,” Sunny said, encouragingly.
    â€œAre you Spanish too?” Paloma spoke Castilian Spanish, which was different from Sunny’s Mexican. The “s” sounds were pronounced “th”—as though with a slight lisp. The reason Spaniards came to speak that way was because in the old days their king at the time had a bad lisp. Out of respect his courtiers, and later all his subjects, copied their king’s lisp so he wouldn’t feel bad about it. Paloma knew that from history. But then Sunny replied in the Mexican Spanish accent Paloma knew well from living in California.
    â€œMy father is Mexican,” Sunny said. “He’s a rancher out near Santa Fe. And my mom’s a blond hippie flower-child he met on vacation, so I’m kind of half-and-half.”
    â€œI wonder if I am too,” Paloma said, looking thoughtful and puzzling Sunny. Still, Sunny could see the girl had been traumatized and knew better than to pry right now.
    No questions asked, she took Paloma by the hand and led her back into the living room and out through the sliding glass doors and onto the deck, where Mac was sitting with Pirate right next to him. Tesoro had taken up a cocky stance at the top of the steps to the beach. The bottle of champagne listed in an ice bucket on the old white wicker table; the ice had half melted by now, leaving a puddle around it. The two flutes Sunny had dumped there before she ran to help were next to the now wilted grilled-cheese sandwich. Still, the sandwich made Paloma’s mouth water, in spite of the fact it looked well after its sell-by.
    â€œCome and sit here.” Sunny pulled up a chair for Paloma, then catching the girl’s hungry glance, she handed her the plate with the sandwich and a fancy blue linen napkin she’d