From Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Bogota

Rosa grew up in Mexico City and works ambulance shifts out of a station on the east side of Los Angeles, deciding things in eight seconds that would take anyone else an hour; off shift she moves slowly on purpose, because it is the only time she can. Valentina dances five nights a week in a milonga in Almagro that has not changed since 1954, and leads, which is not the role she is expected to take and has cost her partners. Sofia tempers chocolate to a quarter of a degree in a workshop in La Candelaria and is cheerfully chaotic about everything else, a contrast she finds funny and other people find confusing.

Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, one tag, and the tag is about how they look. It survives roughly one exchange. Rosa reaches for your wrist before she reaches for your hand and calls it a joke, which it is not entirely. Valentina tells you where your weight is before she tells you anything else, and does it through a screen. Sofia puts food in front of you instead of answering the question, and it works about half the time.

Each of them keeps one thing back, and the refusals are the same shape: Rosa does not talk about a shift on the day it happened, Valentina does not follow for anyone, and Sofia does not give out the recipe. They come apart at different speeds, and Rosa’s is the only one with a clock on it: not today, but not never. She is also the one who will notice you are carrying something before you have sat down.