A note from Adriana: I love that I get to finish the Dreamers series with a strong Dominican woman at the center of the story. Of all the characters, Priscilla is the one closest to me and the hardest to write. One of the things that I’ve tried to do with these Dreamers is to have nuanced conversations about the realities of immigrant lives, but without extracting the joys of who we are. Women of Color in fiction sometimes get cheated out of softness, and because we have so much to prove. The paths that we take to follow our dreams sometimes are so riddled with obstacles, we are not allowed to be. And then it can be hard to look for our own soft landing. Priscilla fights hard to stay in control. To feel self-sufficient until little by little Juanpa shows her that she can lean on him without losing herself because he’s done the work of becoming strong enough to be that for a woman like her. I love their story, and I’m so proud that it’s with these two that we say farewell to these Dreamers.   *** Priscilla The smiles and whoops of joy were already…

Chapter 7 Of Love and Pies “So, Isa, dish out the details. What’s the deal with Diego?” Pippa asks. I shrug and bite into the best fraisier cake I’ve ever had. I chew slowly, hoping they’ll find something else to talk about—something that isn’t “the hot Spaniard.” It’s finally Friday. Week one in Chef Grattard’s kitchen has come and gone and all I have to show for it is a bandaged finger and spoon thirteen sitting at the bottom of the rack. Not exactly what I had in mind. To celebrate this grand accomplishment, Pippa invited us to Pâtisserie Lulu, her favorite spot in Lyon, where we’ve been sitting outside, watching people walk by on the street. The only good thing to came out of this week is my new uncanny ability to memorize Chef Troissant’s instructions. It turns out fear is a great motivator. Take yesterday, for example: she was teaching us about French cheeses and opened a wooden box containing a small wheel of Époisses de Bourgogne. It has a sticky orange rind and a smell reminiscent of sweaty gym socks and filthy barn animals that’s led to it being called the stinker of all cheeses. While everyone…

We started to plan our escape. Exactly what prompted our decision, I wasn’t sure, only we didn’t like that the old black and blues on our bodies didn’t fade completely before new ones were pressed on top of them. We started to fear that if we stayed, our skin would eventually turn a dark purple, an ill-fitting shade for us both. Boyfriends would be nearly impossible then. The beatings, different in the way they were administered and in the reasons why, looked the same on our skin. After having gone out with my soldier, I confirmed to the little girl that our camp wasn’t completely isolated. When we broke out of the camp, we would follow the river upstream to town. There was a market and a shack with a mean boy as a guard. I didn’t think he would let us stay there. We would have to beg or sell lottery tickets until we had enough for a bus pass to the city. Unlike in our usual games, we didn’t think about the what-ifs, the endless ways we could fail. Failure to make it out of the camp: get caught, get lost, or starve. I feared a great number…