FEBRUARY, Chabela Wedding Cake
- It's a big day in the De la Garza house and Tita and Nacha are making the cake for Rosaura and Pedro's wedding.
- As if that task weren't difficult enough, Tita also has to castrate and prepare 200 roosters for the guests. Talk about torture…
- Tita gets emotional (understandably) while (gulp) pulling out the roosters' testicles.
- Mama E is not sympathetic to her daughter's plight—in a rage she gives "Tita a tremendous slap that left her rolling in the dirt […]" (2, 83).
- Tita beats the cake batter but stops when she hears a baby chicken in one of the eggs.
- Mama E thinks she's crazy and cracks the egg to reveal an…egg.
- Is Tita going crazy? Or is she just overworked? We never find out.
- Cry me a river… When they're finally left alone, Tita and Nacha cry together "until there were no more tears in Tita's eyes. Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more, like dry labor" (2,100).
- It's filling time. As soon as Tita opens a jar of apricot jam she has a steamy flashback to when Pedro catches a glimpse of her exposed leg.
- In the heat of the moment, Pedro tries to explain his motivations for marrying Rosaura.
- Tita runs away from Pedro only to find Chencha and Gertrudis working on the virginal sheet for the wedding night.
- Since Tita is unable to concentrate on making the fondant icing, Nacha tells her to go to bed.
- Nacha fears that Tita's tears may have affected the taste, the flavor is delicious.
- Oops. Nacha is suddenly overcome with an "intense longing" for lost love.
- One is the loneliest number and Nacha cries all night and in the morning she's too weak to help with the wedding.
- People love to talk, and the guests are in frenzy over the not-so-secret love triangle between Tita, Pedro, and Rosaura.
- Tita puts on her best happy face and when she congratulates Pedro, he confides that he only has eyes for her.
- Caught in the act. Mama E swoops over and warns Tita to stay away from Pedro.
- Tita's tears strike again. The guests eat cake…and feel intense longing, which leads to an intense session of group vomiting.
- Natch, Mama E blames Tita and she gives her a beating that leads to two weeks in bed recovering from bruises.
- When Tita goes looking for Nacha she finds her dead, "medicinal leaves upon her temples, a picture of her fiancé clutched in her hands" (2,154).
- "TO BE CONTINUED…"