Nico leads my father and brother around the table and into the backyard where more people are gathered, introducing them, always calling my father Coach and saying Noah is his son and a great quarterback. I’m sure Noah thinks this is all Nico kissing up, but I know better. It’s respect, his way of showing it. By the time they’re sitting near a fire pit on a small brick patio in the backyard with Nico’s uncle and a few of the neighbors, I see my father’s comfort level starting to settle in. My brother’s, too. I leave them, staying at my mom’s side and talking in the kitchen with Nico’s mom and aunt and Mrs. Mendoza from across the street.
While conversation outside seems to have evolved into the easy topic of football and Nico’s potential—inside is another story. The lulls are too many, and I can see my mom struggling to fill them. She’s complimented the house, which I know she thinks is sparse and old, but she’s bluffed well. She’s also praised the scent pouring from the kitchen, not flinching when Mrs. Mendoza said it was the pozole. It’s really coming from Valerie’s soup, but my mom sat up a little taller thinking it was hers.
“Your yard is beautiful,” I say to Mrs. Mendoza after another long moment of silence. She perks up at my approval, and Valerie and a few other women in the kitchen grumble.
“Why thank you, Reagan,” she says, turning her head from side to side, looking at the others.
“Am I…missing something?” I ask.
“Ugh,” says the woman at the far end of the table. “She was featured in the Southwest Gardener magazine last month and ever since, her head. Oh my God, I mean…I can’t even.”
“I have not had a big head,” Mrs. Mendoza says, which only ignites a round of laughter from every woman in the kitchen other than her, me, and my mom. My mom eventually bites her lip and giggles because it’s contagious.
“Let me just show you,” Valerie says, pulling open a drawer and taking out something that looks like a poster. She walks over to the table and unrolls a laminated copy of the magazine spread, holding the ends down so it doesn’t curl up. The main photo is of Mrs. Mendoza in her front yard with a pair of shears and a bright-green watering can. “Just look. It’s laminated. She made one…for all of us!”
“I only thought you would be proud of your friend,” Mrs. Mendoza says as she begins to get up. I can tell her feelings are a little genuinely hurt, but I also get the sense that she’s not about to get great sympathy from this group.
“Oh, Maria…stop. Sit down and just autograph it for me already,” Valerie says, holding out a marker, her other hand on her hip.
Mrs. Mendoza stops only a step or two away from her chair, her lips pursed and her perfect lipstick slightly smeared by her pouting.
“Are you just going to sell it?” she asks, holding a serious expression in her face-off with Valerie. The quiet lasts for a few seconds before they both finally break into a laugh.
“Absolutely,” Valerie says. “I’ll put it on eBay, become a millionaire, and hire my own damn gardener for my house in Malibu.”
“Pssshhh, Malibu is overrated. You want to go to Santa Fe,” Maria says, taking the marker and actually signing the copy of her magazine article. “That’s where all of the new rich people are going.”
Valerie takes it and pins it to the front of the refrigerator with four mismatched magnets.
“Reagan, have you heard about Nico and the roses?” Maria says, taking her seat again at the table.
“No,” I smirk, my mouth twitching in curiosity. I scoot my chair closer to hear her better.
“When he was a little boy, he used to sneak into my front yard with his kiddie scissors, the kind that barely cut paper, you know?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I answer.
“Well, he would cut a rose on his way to school. Only, I didn’t know he was doing this. And every morning I would inspect my roses, feeding them and watering them, and always there would be one or two missing, almost ripped from the bush. It was the ugliest cut, and the petals would be sprinkled around the yard. I thought maybe it was someone’s puppy, or a cat. So one morning, I got up extra early, and I lay down by my back fence, real low so no one could see me. And here comes little Nico with his school bag over his shoulder. He pulls out his sad pair of scissors and cuts a red one from the bush, sawing at it and eventually ripping it free, and I jump out and scream, ‘Aha!’”
I jump a little in my chair, and the women laugh at me.
“You know what he was doing?” she says.
“No,” I smile, shaking my head.
She leans forward in her chair, her arms folded on the table.
“That little stinker was taking the flowers to school to give to some girl he liked. He would bring her one every day. Of course, after stuffing it in his backpack and dehydrating it for most of his trip to school, it was always sad and pathetic-looking by the time he handed it to the poor girl, I’m sure. But he still did it.”
“That’s…” I sit back. “That’s…really sweet.”
The rest of the women all have the same expression, even my mom.