Then Mom grabbed onto my arm again and we nearly both went to the ground as I staggered slightly with the weight she transferred to me. Blanca’s eyes moved to Mom’s hand on my arm and then to me. They were questioning. I shook my head in the barest hint of “no” and she immediately turned her attention to Trixie and Ada while I steadied Mom and myself.
“Jet made you cookies!” Ada announced and shoved the cookies at Blanca.
I turned to Eddie, leaning away from Mom as best as I could while stil holding her up.
I got up on tiptoe, put my free hand on Eddie’s bicep and said into his ear, “Mom needs a chair, like, now.” Our eyes caught, he nodded, then he touched his lips to mine.
I could swear I heard a col ective sigh from our audience.
Wonderful.
“Nancy, do you want a drink?” Eddie asked and pried her hand loose from my arm and guided her away.
I watched them go, Mom leaning heavily into Eddie’s body.
Okay, so, I could love that guy.
There you go, I admitted it.
Shit and damn.
*
I spent the next two hours shuffled between Blanca, Elena and Rosa being introduced to Eddie’s family; aunts, uncles and cousins. And there were a lot of them.
In this time, Eddie semi-disappeared. He was there but wasn’t there. I saw him with Lee. I saw him with Hank. I saw him with Lee’s Dad, Malcolm and Indy’s Dad, Tom. I saw him with some of his male cousins (needless to say, there was definitely a male/female divide). I did not see him anywhere near me.
I also had more food shoved at me than I’d eaten in a week (al of which I consumed so I wouldn’t appear rude) and I seemed to be carrying a mystical bottomless margarita glass.
Bottom line, no matter how ful I was, I was also quite drunk.
I kind of needed to be drunk because I found out the reason behind the big bash that included Christmas lights and tables groaning with food. In Eddie’s thirty-three years (yes, I learned that too), I was only the second woman he’d ever brought to meet “the family”.
Worse than that eek-worthy fact, I was the only one Blanca liked.
I also found out a lot about Eddie. Maybe too much.
See, there’s a reason Eddie seemed dangerous. Eddie had a chequered past. In fact, everyone, al the way down to the cousins, were stil saying rosaries in grateful thanks to the Holy Trinity that Eddie chose to enter the Academy rather than embark on a life of crime.
Though, from the many, many accounts of his escapades, he would have been pretty good at a life of crime.
I was listening in a drunken stupor-esque glaze of horror to one of Eddie’s aunties talking about one particular time (there were several) when Eddie stole a car, when a hand (there were several) when Eddie stole a car, when a hand wrapped around my arm.
I turned, then looked down to see Eddie’s sister, Gloria.
She said something in Spanish to the auntie and then led me away.
I looked over my shoulder.
The auntie seemed somewhat perturbed to be interrupted while scaring the bejeezus out of me, so I turned back to Gloria.
“I think that might have been rude,” I said.
“You should thank me. I’m saving you,” Gloria replied.
“They’re trying to scare you. See if you got grit. Any girl of Eddie’s has to have grit. You looked ready to bolt.” She wasn’t wrong, I was ready to bolt.
“You need another margarita,” Gloria decided.
That was the only thing I didn’t need.
“I’m already two sips away from blotto.”
In fact, I was finding it difficult to walk straight and could no longer feel my tongue.
Gloria laughed, “You need to be two drinks into blotto to deal with my family.”
I was thinking she wasn’t wrong about that either.
She led me to Indy and Al y and I col apsed in an unoccupied chair. Gloria whisked away my margarita glass and headed toward the nearest ful pitcher.
“You okay?” Indy asked. She was smiling.
Drunk or not, I didn’t find anything amusing.
“My life sucks.”
She laughed.
“This is the new definition of trial by fire,” Al y remarked, glancing around.
“You got that right, sister,” I said, Gloria handed me a fresh drink and sat down with us. “I’d rather be shot at,” I finished.
“The night’s stil young,” Al y said.
I wished she wasn’t speaking the truth.
A peel of female cackles tore through the crowd and I looked over to where Mom, Trixie and Ada were sitting with Al y’s Mom, Kitty Sue, Blanca and some of Eddie’s aunties.
“Your Mom’s having a good time,” Indy said.
“You meet her?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’s sweet,” Indy replied.
“She’s the devil,” I said.
It was our turn to dissolve in peels of female cackles.
It was when I stopped giggling and was brushing a tear of hysterical hilarity from the corner of my eye when I noticed Eddie’s gaze locked on me. He was standing with his brother, Carlos, and Lee and Hank and he had a beer in his hand.
He looked hot.
“Eddie’s hot,” I said to no one in particular.
Everyone looked at Eddie, his lips twitched and he turned away.
“You got that right, sister,” Al y said.
I sighed a dreamy sigh. “He’s so out of my league. What am I doing?” I asked, again, to no one in particular.
Everyone looked at me.
“You’re joking, right?” Gloria asked.