Corina, the narrator of this story, tells this story from her past. She recalls the day that her grandmother called her while she was working at the Macy’s makeup counter. Her grandmother told her that Sabrina, her cousin and purported best friend, had been strangled and killed.

Corina drives to her grandmother’s house after her shift is done. She walks past children playing in the front yard, and her father and uncles lounging listlessly in the living room. None of the men greet her. She finds the women gathered in the kitchen. Her grandmother is tending three pots full of the food items that are habitually prepared during moments like this: green chili, pinto beans, and menudo: “Deaths, weddings, birthdays—the menu was always the same,” Corina says (26).

Some cousins sit at the kitchen table. They pass around pictures of Sabrina, covetously remembering her beauty. Corina’s grandmother tells her that she is the one who knew Sabrina best. Corina, who hadn’t seen Sabrina in months, does not correct her.

Corina recounts a time when she was 11 and Sabrina was 12. They were on the roof of their grandmother’s house. Sabrina pressed Corina to recount her first memory. Corina remembers a time when their mothers took them on a trip to a mountain lake.