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animal,” Emília replied, shaking her head. Sprinkles darkened the dirt floor. “I refuse to smell like one.”
    Aunt Sofia grabbed a tangled chunk of Luzia’s hair and held it to her face. She crinkled her nose. “You smell like a tacaca! Stop chiding your sister and wash up, too. I won’t have you go to your sewing lesson dirty.”
    “I hate those lessons,” Luzia said, pulling away from her aunt’s grip.
    “Hush up!” Aunt Sofia said. “Be grateful.”
    Luzia flopped onto a wooden kitchen stool. She cradled her bent arm in her good one, a habit that made them both look normal, as if Luzia was exasperated and was simply crossing her arms across her chest.
    “I am grateful,” she mumbled. “I only have to watch Emília fawn over our professor once a month.”
    “I do not fawn!” Emília said. She felt her face flush. “I’m respectful. He’s our teacher.”
    Aunt Sofia would never approve of the perfumed letters, the secret smiles. Their aunt believed that holding hands in public was shameful, that a kiss in a public square meant marriage.
    “You’re jealous,” Emília said. “I can work the Singer and you can’t.”
    Luzia eyed her. “I’m not jealous of you,” she said. “Balaio butt.”
    Emília stopped drying her hair. The children at the priest’s school had called her that name when her body changed and she began to fill out her dresses. Emília couldn’t even look at the massive, round balaio baskets on sale at the market without feeling a pang in her heart.
    “Victrola!” Emília yelled.
    For an instant, Luzia’s eyes widened, her pupils like holes cut into those bright green circles. Then they narrowed. Luzia grabbed the nub of perfumed soap and flung it out the window. Emília rose, nearly knocking over the washbasin. She undid the bolts on the kitchen door. Her lavender soap lay near the outhouse, in a scattering of dried corn. The guinea hens pecked at it. Emília rushed outside, kicking them away.
    “Two donkeys!” Aunt Sofia shouted. She followed Emília and flung a towel over her wet curls. “I’ve raised two donkeys!”
    Back inside, Aunt Sofia crossed herself and spoke to the ceiling, as if Emília and Luzia weren’t present. “Dear Lord, full of mercy and grace,” she said. “Let these girls realize that they are flesh and blood. That all they have in this world is each other!”
    Luzia left the kitchen. Emília wiped bits of corn from her soap. She tried to ignore her aunt’s voice; she’d heard this prayer a dozen times and each time she wished it wasn’t true.
    3
     
    Only Aunt Sofia and Emília used Luzia’s given name. Everyone else called her Victrola.
    The name had originated in Padre Otto’s schoolyard. Emília had been the first girl in their church class to develop—her hips and breasts filling out so quickly that Aunt Sofia had to rip her dresses in half and sew in new panels. When she was thirteen, a boy grabbed her during recess. He pressed his lips roughly to her neck. Emília squealed. She squirmed from his grip. The boy tugged her back.
    Luzia looked on, her dark eyebrows knitting together. She strode toward them. She was only eleven but already taller than most boys in their class. That winter she’d grown as thin and gangly as a papaya tree. Aunt Sofia had stopped letting out the hems of her dresses and instead, began adding mismatched strips of fabric around the bottoms.
    “Let go of my sister,” Luzia said, her voice low and husky. She smelled of sour milk. Her locked elbow was swaddled in cloth and slathered with butter and lard. Aunt Sofia and the encanadeira still believed they could grease the joint loose.
    The boy smirked. “Victrola!” he yelled. “Victrola arm!”
    Only two citizens in Taquaritinga owned the fancy, wind-up record players. Once a year, during the São João festival, they brought the Victrolas into the town square. The machines’ brass speakers looked like giant trumpet flowers. They blasted forro music, and