“I don’t know,” I finally admit as I fill each square of my waffle with butter and syrup. “It’s kind of like waking up and not remembering what foods you like. So maybe I just have to try a little bit of everything?”

She pushes a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Find the things you love and do them every day, even if it means failing. That’s all there is to it.”

I shrug. “I was good at being on the dance team. What if I’m not good like that at anything else?”

“If you only love what comes easy for you, you’ll find you don’t have much to love. Work for it, girl.”

My dad rolls his eyes. (Maybe that’s who I get it from?) “You make it sound so easy, Ma. Life isn’t as neat as your little nuggets of wisdom.”

She crosses her arms. “Your dad is going to miss my nuggets of wisdom when I’m not here to give them.”

“All right, all right,” he says. “Enough with the death guilt. Last week she told me her one dying wish was to see me married again.”

“But she’s not dying,” I tell him.

“We’re all dying,” says Abuela. “It’s just a slow process.”

I laugh, and the three of us finish our dinner. We pile the dishes in the sink and leave them until morning, because we’re too stuffed to move.

We all crowd together on the couch to FaceTime Claudia.

“My Claudia!” Abuela shouts, as if she can’t hear her.

“I can’t believe we caught you so late,” my dad says.

Claudia’s face is lit by the glow of the phone. She yawns without bothering to cover her mouth. “I was just finishing up here, resetting the stage before tomorrow’s matinee. Is that Callie?”

I wave. “The one and only.”

“Mom give you your phone back yet?” she asks.

“Finally.”

“And you didn’t call me?” she demands.

“I don’t see you rushing into my missed calls either.”

She nods. “Fair enough.”

“Give us a tour of the opera house,” Abuela says.

“I gotta make it quick. I’m one of the last people here, and this place is definitely haunted. I promised Rachel I’d call her before I went to bed.”

“When do we get to meet this Rachel?” my dad asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I gotta scope out my sister’s first real girlfriend.”

Claudia laughs. “Uh, not with that attitude you don’t.”

She gives us a brief tour of the Semperoper and tells us a little bit of the architectural history, which is a snooze fest, but Dad is eating it up. I’ll admit, though, with the ornate gold-gilded interior, elaborate paintings, and velvet seats, she’s probably not wrong about this place being haunted.

After we hang up with Claudia, my dad falls asleep almost as soon as he pulls the lever on the recliner. I spread out on the couch with my head in Abuela’s lap as we watch a rerun of one of her favorite telenovelas, Corazón Salvaje. I can pick up on enough of the dialogue to sort of follow along, but soon enough the three of us are all dozing, and it’s a few hours before any of us even bother heading to bed.

I spend the morning and afternoon helping my dad paint the barn he and Abuela use for storage. Abuela tested every shade of turquoise before settling on mint green. When I asked why she wanted to paint her barn mint green, she said because she’d never seen a barn that color before.

While I sit on the ground with her, mixing paint, she says, “It’s nice to see you have girlfriends over.”

I shrug. “They’re okay.”

She taps the wooden stick against the side of the canister and sets it down before pouring it into a paint tray. “What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t speak teenager.”

“I don’t know. I guess the more I think about it, the more I’ve realized that I’m not very good at having friends who are girls.”

She tsks. “Don’t fall into that trap.”

“They’re nice. I just . . . I’m not.”

“Girls don’t have to be nice,” she says simply. “But they should stick together.” She shakes her head. “The wider world wants you to think other women are drama . . . or catty. But that’s just because when we work together, we’re unstoppable.”

“But you have Aurelia. She’s, like, your ride or die. I don’t have a lifelong BFF like that.”

“You will. One day you’ll wake up and find that there’s a woman, or maybe a few, who have outlasted every changing season in your life.”

That evening, everyone arrives in Millie’s minivan. I’m almost expecting to see that Willowdean is missing, and Ellen by association, but they prove me wrong when all five of them spill out of the van like it’s a clown car. Well, there’s no turning back now.

Amanda pours a half-eaten bag of Corn Nuts down her throat, then, with her mouth full, says, “The best road trip food. Ever.”

“The drive is barely an hour,” I tell her.

She grins, showing off half-chewed bits of food. “Any excuse for Corn Nuts.”

Millie turns to me, her cheeks flushed from unloading bags and pillows, but still buzzing with excitement. “Lead the way!”

Hannah, Amanda, Millie, Willowdean, and Ellen all follow me inside my room, where they leave their stuff on my bed. For a minute there, Willowdean looks like she’s walked into the lion’s den, until she finds Ellen smiling at her. “I’m not stealing your best friend,” I almost say. Trust me, she doesn’t want to be stolen.

Out on the screened-in porch, Abuela has set up a full spread of chips, homemade salsa, guacamole, and anything else you might want, including warm corn and flour tortillas. The screen door swings shut behind my dad as he carries in a huge flank steak on a bed of peppers and onions to cut into fajitas.

“Ladies’ night!” he says.

“Dad.” I shake my head.

“Too much?” he asks.

Millie giggles, and so does Ellen.

“Being the cool dad is a lot of work.”

I try my best to hold back my smile. “Yeah, it shows.” I quickly introduce everyone, and we all take a seat at Abuela’s long table.

At first everyone is quiet while we devour the spread. I sit between Millie and Ellen and across from Dad and Abuela.

Millie, with her relentless parental suck-up abilities, says, “Thank you both so much for having us all here tonight and for welcoming us into your home, Mrs. Reyes.”

Abuela waves her off. “Callie hasn’t brought girlfriends over in years.”

Dad nods. “She used to all the time back in grade school. But it’s been a while now.”

For a moment, a wave of guilt hits me. I would never want them to think I’m embarrassed of them. The truth is, my time here is precious to me. Coming here is like a chance to be a new person without all the Clover City drama back at home. Even if it’s just for a weekend.

“Dad would set up tents outside,” I say. “For slumber parties. Claudia’s friends would get one tent and mine would take another.” A big smile creeps across my face. “And I remember, Abuela, you had these amazing tents that felt like mansions.”

Abuela’s eyes light up with memories. “The property really is wonderful.” She sighs. “We’re a bit of a fossil hot spot, too. During the summer, kids from town come out here with pails and shovels and go nuts. Especially down by the creek.”

“Whoa,” says Amanda. “What about, like, dinosaur bones?”

“We think we’ve found a few. Or at the very least someone’s bones.”

Amanda shakes her head, eyes wide. “That’s like some Jurassic Park stuff. Do you know Jeff Goldblum?”

Abuela chuckles. “No, but that movie got one thing right.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

She grins. “God created dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.”

Everyone bursts into laughter.

Hannah and I both shout “Amen!” in unison.