My mom laughed.
—That’s the kind of thing people worry about when they don’t have real problems, she said. Then she put her fork down, looked right at me, frowned and said, Speaking of problems.
She then asked if this would be my first Noche Buena as Omar’s ex-girlfriend. He’d gone to our party the year before, his very presence a welcome distraction from Leidy’s pregnant body and the silver band she’d bought herself to wear not on her left but on her right ring finger (You can’t outright lie about it, my mom had said exactly a year ago). All night, Leidy told people before they’d even asked, Roly wanted to be here but couldn’t get off from work. Papi had warned her: The fewer details you give, the better.
—I haven’t really talked to Omar, I said.
Leidy bobbed between the table and floor, piling now-dirty rice onto a paper towel.
—He called here today. Like three times, she said.
—What? When?
—Why didn’t you say something sooner? Mami yelled as if Omar were her boyfriend.
—Jesus, relax, Leidy said. He called around six? Then when you were in the shower, around seven. But he didn’t say it was him. I was like, Hello?, then he hanged up on me.
That didn’t sound at all like Omar, who always made a point of being charming with my mom and sister.
—Did you talk shit about me to him? Leidy said.
—What? No, why would I talk about you to Omar?
—?Pero Lizet! Mami said. Go call him back! Right now! What is wrong with you?
—Mom, it’s not a big deal.
—Of course it’s a big deal! He loves you, he hasn’t seen you in how long, he’s calling here and you – She sputtered like she’d run out of words, then found one more: Please?
—Fine! God! I said.
I pushed my plate away and stood, then said to my mom’s smile, I’ll be right back.
I grabbed the cordless, dashed over Dante’s toys and around our overstuffed furniture, and locked myself in the bedroom. I sat on Leidy’s bed just after I pulled the torn page Rafael had given me—folded into a tiny square—from the very bottom of my front pocket. I smoothed it out and rested the page on my knee, then dialed.
He picked up on the first ring. He even said, playing it off as one word, Hellolizet?
I had to keep my voice down, but I still couldn’t help but say, Dad!
He paused and said, Yeah?
—Hey! Hi, sorry, hey.
I tucked my hair behind my ear, passing the phone between hands, the sound of a television show whirring on the other end. I said, Have you – did you call here before?
—What? he said. Then he coughed for a good five seconds.
—Never mind. Just that, Leidy told me someone was calling here before.
—But a few hours ago, he said. Right?
This was the closest he came to admitting the calls had been him. Right, I said.
—No, right. So, he said, you happy to be back?
There was an enthusiasm—a cheeriness even—that suddenly came to his voice. I heard a door shut on his end, the TV sound gone. He said, It was cold there when you left?
—Yeah, it was. Really cold.
I looked at my suitcase, still sort of packed, my clothes flopping out of it and over the edges like guts.
—So, he said. It went okay?
—What did?
—School! The semester! Did it go fine or what?
It was the first time anyone had asked me this in the three days I’d been home. I’d thought that Leidy and my mom were pretending they didn’t care so as to hurt my feelings or to put me back in my place, but the conversation with my cousins at Fito’s apartment showed me otherwise: it wasn’t that they didn’t want to hear; it’s that they didn’t even know to ask. That their idea of me had no room for what I was doing with my life made me want to fold in half—I told myself the pain was from eating nothing but salad for dinner.
—I think so, I said.
—Because I wouldn’t know, because you never call me from up there.
—But you never gave me –
—Listen, he said. Do you have time tomorrow before your mother takes you to that stupid fucking party happening at her cousin’s house?
I said yes, and in the other room, Dante began to whine.
Papi coughed some more, then said, Listen, I hate the phone. You know I hate the fucking phone, okay? You know the Latin American Grill we used to eat at?
The we meant the four of us. I said of course.
—The one by the old Publix, not the one by the new Publix.
—Dad, I said. I know which fucking Latin American Grill it is.
—Oye, he said. Watch it.
When I didn’t say anything, he said, I thought people in college didn’t talk like that. That’s vulgar, no? Isn’t that what you’d call it?
I was deciding whether or not to say, You’re right, it is vulgar, when he said, Oh come on! Don’t get so sensitive! I only say it because there’s like fifty-five Latin American Grills all over fucking Hialeah.