HARPER O’CONNOR | E IS FOR ENCHILADA

E IS FOR ENCHILADA

The night Peg arrived, she went to bed at whenever-the-hell-I-want o’clock. She did not set her alarm for 5 AM and did not leave for the bus at 5:20.

She stretched and grinned upon waking at 8:30, and took her sweet time making a cup of tea and peanut butter toast. She went to lunch with her best friend Mark, the one who drove the moving van with her and the cats for three and a half days across four states. She gorged on messy soft tacos cooked by Ramón (she heard the waitress yelling at the cooks) and drank a Mexican CocaCola straight from the bottle. There was nothing left of the two sopapillas on her plate afterwards.

Mark took Peg shopping. She bought bathroom rugs at Walmart, a big blue vase at Thrift City, and a dried chile ristra to hang on the porch. Technically, Mark paid for the big blue vase as a housewarming present. He didn’t care if she patted the scratchy blue and gray wool blankets at the talaveras shop or ran her fingers over terra cotta suns on the walls. She touched everything at the stores and only washed her hands once when she got home. She relished sweating in August and still being able to breathe. “But it’s a dry heat,” Peg said to Mark right before giggling. Her phone came out to snap pics of the real roadrunner on the sidewalk.

Mark took her to the grocery store and smiled when she caressed rough birch bark-like skin, saying, “I really missed jicama.” Fresh tortillas jumped into her cart along with mac and cheese, honey vanilla Greek yogurt, 12-grain bread, and not one damn frozen corn dog at all. Fig jam, avocados, and Brie snuck in as well. Mark actually asked her where she wanted to go for dinner. He offered several options when she froze while trying to decide. A local chain won the coin toss. “Do they also have sopapillas?” Mark just laughed.

The swamp cooler rumbled from the dining room window. She sat on the merlotcolored couch and sighed, full of enchiladas, sunlight, and lightness. Peg drew deep breaths of alpine desert air that wafted in through the barred screen door and cleared the dregs of humidity from her lungs. Six desperate voicemails blinked in blue light on her phone on the end table.

Mark was sprawled in the red leather recliner. “Are you going to listen to those?”

Peg petted the tabby cat on the couch beside her and shook her head. “Nah. I know what he’ll be saying, and I’m free now. I’ll delete them later so the blinking doesn’t keep me up.”

Mark grinned. Peg and her BFF shared a brain, after all. “When you going to kick me out and go to bed?”

“Whenever I damn well want to.”

Harper O'Connor is a nonbinary disabled quirky Albuquerque-based writer owned by one or more cats. Their inspirations range from Stephen King to Audre Lorde. Drawing on a complex and occasionally traumatic multinational past, Harper creates stories which speak to heart and mind. Off the page, they are also a passionate crafter in the arts of ink, watercolors, and textiles.