“How are you so bad at this game?” Aura’s date asked. If he was kidding, it was lost on Aura.

Aura rolled their eyes and focused on the task at hand: winning. The arcade lights and beeping had nothing on the victory screeches of the teenagers around them. Sometimes, Aura felt they were too old to be dealing with that level of obnoxiousness, and sometimes they reveled in it. “Finally,” they huffed, as Chun-Li did her victory dance. Blanka and the date were KOed.

Aura took the bus home. They opened the door to find their dad watching hockey a little too close to the TV. Their mom was drinking a margarita on the back porch. Aura went to the fridge to grab a root beer—one of the ones their dad got from working at a major soda supplier for decades—and joined their mom Eliza.

“How’d it go?” Eliza asked, looking at Aura out of her corner of her eye as she sipped her margarita.“Another day, another date,” Aura shrugged. They looked up at the stars. “I remember trying to find constellations while we were on the ship,” they smiled. “So much more peaceful than an arcade.”

Eliza reached out to Aura for a hug. “Come here, kiddo,” she said, smoothing Aura’s hair.

“On the bright side, you kicked his butt at video games, right?

”Aura looked up at their mom, smirking, “Of course. Did you expect anything less?”

“Come on,” Eliza said, patting Aura’s head, “I have some new fruits from the farmer’s market I want you to try. Let’s see if we can peel your dad away from the TV.”

“A gnarled tree loomed over Aura, its roots braided above ground. They watched a woman walk past it, carrying a basket of fruit—presumably into the town’s market or maybe home or maybe both. One of their guides, Mary, tapped their shoulder. “Just letting you know I’m coming up behind you. Not trying to be fresh, but your skirt got tucked into your shorts,” she said.

“Thank you,” Aura blushed. But there really wasn’t anyone around to see.

“Did you want to try making pupusas, dear?” Mary asked, “The others won’t be back for a while.

”Aura nodded and followed Mary up the cobblestone pathway. A woman met them at the top. They entered her home and Aura mustered up the courage to say one of the few phrases they knew in Spanish, “¡Mucho gusto!”

“Igualmente,” she grinned as she kneaded the masa until it looked like Play-Doh. “¿Lista?” She asked, balling up some dough for Aura. Aura nodded and fixated their eyes to the woman’s hands as she made a well in the masa and put equal parts beans and quesillo.

“And close,” the woman said, pinching the dough around the filling, taking any extra masa off the top.

"This is the fun part,” Mary said without taking her eyes off her own perfect not-quite-a pupusa, as if she had also done this hundreds of times.

The woman wet her hands, flattened her dough a bit, then clapped it between her hands, back and forth to make it even and round. Aura was mesmerized. They thought, “I need to make these at home,” but they knew they never would because they wouldn’t taste nearly as good as they were about to taste. The woman put their pupusas into her comal to crisp them up. And the trio sat down, mango trees in the background, to eat their well-earned lunch.