“I’m great,” I say, somewhat struck by guilt by how quickly I say that, and how long Mom is quiet for. “How are you guys?”
Another pause. This is why I don’t like phone calls. You shouldn’t be able to tell through a pause in a phone call that the mood is about to shift, but you can, and there’s nothing to do but to sit there and just wait for it to fucking happen. I sit back down on the crate and wait.
“It’s your dad,” she says after a while, and I’m preparing my retort for whatever Dad’s complaint is when she adds, “he’s not doing well.”
I feel my stomach drop. I lean my head back against the wall, closing my eyes to the sun. “What’s wrong?” Felix appears in front of me, the afternoon sun dropping behind him, flaring over his shoulder. He’s more silhouette than person.
“He’s been getting tired easily, stressed. He says it’s work but I’m worried about him. His blood pressure has been high.”
I breathe easy. “I guess he’s gotta take it easy on the quesadillas then,” I say with a forced chuckle. At first, I want to complain to Mom for making it sound so scary at the start. But I can kind of see what she’s trying to do. With a son in the grave, it’s probably hard not to want the other one near you, where you can keep him safe.
“What’s this about dropping out of school, Carlos?” she asks, just as Lourdes opens up the back door, and motions for me to come back inside. “How long is this going to go on for?”
I hesitate. Does she really want to make me say the words out loud? Then the side door opens up and Lourdes pokes her head out, looking around. “Roberto te necesita,” she says.
I nod at her.
“Mom, I have to go.” I get up, brush myself off. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m doing great here. You could even come visit in a while, maybe.” A pause on the other end again, no sounds of traffic, though. I wish there were, because I think I can hear her stifling a cry, maybe moving the mouth piece away. And for some reason, even though I don’t know for sure whether Mom is stifling a cry or just ordering the check or something, I feel like I’m suddenly having to suppress a cry too.
“Send my love to Dad,” I say, and hang up before my voice can break.
CHAPTER 21
PLAIN OMELET
3 eggs
Who the fuck knows?
METHOD:
Alright, so, I don’t know what an omelet is supposed to taste like. That’s the only conclusion I can draw as Chef pushes away another plate. The omelet I just served her is so perfectly yellow that it’s the first image you’d see if you looked up the word online. It’s so fluffy that a cloud just passing by felt threatened and scurried away. An egg in the fridge just wrote a blog post about how it aspires to be an omelet just like this one when it passes into the afterlife.
Felix’s face appears on the omelet, takes a big bite out of itself, shrugs to the best of an omelet’s shrugging capability. “I don’t know, man. I taste pretty good to me.”
Since the other day, Felix hasn’t been showing up as often. It makes me feel a little saner when he’s not around, especially when Emma’s around. He gives me space with her, which I’m happy about, even if, more than once, I expect him to chime in with a comment and his absence feels like the whole world has been muted. I expect him to try to guide me toward doing the right thing with Emma, convince me to be up-front with her. But he offers no advice there.
Matt, on the other hand, seems supernaturally ubiquitous, appearing at every turn at work and already on the couch at home when I arrive. He accuses me of bribing Chef for the lessons, of having cartel family members threaten her into letting me work in the kitchen. “You’re a moron,” I say.
“A moron who knows how to make an omelet and works on the line,” Matt says and smirks back. At work, he’s constantly doing that towel-whipping thing that only assholes in locker rooms on TV do. To be fair, a lot of the other cooks do it too, but he seems to take special pleasure in snapping at my arms and in the stinging red welts that show off his good aim.
As Chef disappears to her office again, throwing another insult my way, I sigh and spoon some salsa on the side of the plate. I chew carefully, trying to find the flaw, begging the omelet’s faults to speak to me.
“Seriously, no idea,” Felix says.
I finish the omelet, clean up after myself. I go outside to wait for my shift to start, walk a few blocks away, looking to intercept Emma before she arrives to take reservations. Cup of coffee in hand, scanning the street for her, I realize how quickly I’ve gotten used to this. The early mornings, coffee, watching these tourists jogging toward the boardwalk, the soreness of my body. Just being here, not in the grips of my life in Mexico.
Emma appears from around the corner, her work shirt folded over her forearm. When she spots me, she pulls her earphones out, wraps the cord around her phone. We kiss hello, and I’m in awe that she’s part of my day. That I’ve found this place at all.
“I think you’ve conditioned me to think of you every time I taste coffee,” she says.
“Yup, that’s been the plan all along.”
“I guess if that’s as scheme-y and evil as you get, I can live with it.” She smiles and takes a sip of my coffee. A knot of guilt forms in my stomach. I look around for some wispy version of Felix to give me that nudge I need, to push me toward action. That’s when I see Matt and Elias round the corner. Matt spots me at the same time, and he shouts out halfway down the block, “Hey there, lovebirds.”
I wince, looking around to make sure no one heard him. Elias rolls his eyes. “Why are you always such a tool, man?”
“What?” Matt says. “I’m just congratulating my friend Emma and our roomie here on their budding romance. Is that so wrong?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Emma says. I know it’s directed at Matt, but I can’t help but feel I’ve put myself in the words’ path.
“Come on, man,” Elias says. “Leave them alone.”
“Is this a secret or something?” He smirks at me, and I know right away. He’s practically waving it in front of my face. Chef doesn’t know about me and Emma and he could tell her at any moment. If he feels I’m getting too far ahead in the kitchen, if he’s getting sick of seeing me around, if he just feels like it.
I’m gripping my coffee cup, envisioning throwing it in Matt’s face. Emma picks at something on her bag’s strap, looks at the ground. No one says anything for a second, until a silver-haired couple walks through our little semi-circle on the sidewalk.
“Sheesh, fine,” Matt says, raising his hands up. “I’m late anyway.” He gives me one last smirk, and then he and Elias head off in the direction of the restaurant, leaving me and Emma alone.