Rosina tries to think of a witty defense, but Mami interrupts her thought process: “Stack those glasses,” she orders.
“Grace’s mom’s a priest. That should make you happy, right? She’ll be a good influence on me and you can stop getting Erwin to spy on me at school.”
“Women can’t be priests.”
“Pastor, minister. Whatever. Her family’s a bunch of Christians.”
“Christian is not the same as Catholic.” Mami squints at Rosina, suspicion and grease smoke in her eyes. “What is her church?”
“That big brick one on Oak Street. Grace’s mom is, like, the boss of it or something.”
“The Congregationalist Church?” Mami’s laugh hurts Rosina’s ears almost as bad as the tinny music that pumps through her neighborhood out of cheap radios. “That place is not even a real church,” Mami says. “Full of communists and homos.”
“No one says ‘homo,’ Mom.”
“Whatever,” Mami says, her favorite Americanism. “Venga. You need to learn how to cook. A woman must know how to cook.”
“You’ve made your opinion abundantly clear,” Rosina says. “But like I’ve told you five million times already, I don’t want to know how to cook.”
“But one day you will have your own family. You will need to feed them. No one will marry you if you can’t cook.”
“Do you even realize how horrible that sounds? You are so oppressed,” Rosina says, her voice rising above the sizzle of the frying chicken. “I don’t even like Mexican food.”
“Oh, you think you’re so much better than me? You’re so much better than your family?” Mami says, her eyes squinting the way they do right before she blows up. “If you’re so sick of us, why don’t you just leave? One less big mouth to feed.”
“Then you might have to actually pay someone to do all the shit I do for free.”
Mami takes a step forward but knocks her metal tongs on the floor in the process. As she leans over to pick them up, she shudders and lets out a tight squeal. Rosina rushes to her side.
“?Chinga!” Mami curses between clenched teeth, holding her back as Rosina helps her slowly stand up.
“Your back again?” Rosina says, arm around Mami’s shoulders.
“It’s nothing,” she says, cringing.
“You have to see a doctor,” Rosina says.
“I did,” Mami says, turning back to the stove, fishing a new pair of tongs out of a tray of clean cooking utensils. “All he did was give me a prescription for pain pills. He wants to make me a drug addict.”
Rosina sighs. How is it possible to love and hate someone so much at the same time?
The restaurant’s front door chimes. The frying chicken smokes. Mami flips the chicken, lips tight, blinking back tears of pain.
“You have a customer,” Mami says without looking up from the stove.
“Are you okay?” Rosina says.
“Get out of here.”
What if I just left? Rosina thinks. What if I took my apron off and just walked out the door?
But where could she go? With what money? With what skills?
All Rosina can think to do is go back to work.
*
“Surprise” is not the right word to describe Rosina’s feeling when Eric Jordan and his family walk into the restaurant. Neither is “shock.” It’s more like surreal disbelief. If she was anyone besides Rosina, perhaps even a little bit of fear. Is it possible for this night to get any worse?
“Hey, can we get some service over here?” the father says as the family crams itself into a booth without waiting to be seated. Eric hasn’t noticed Rosina yet. He’s busy, facedown in his phone, ignoring his mother’s pleas to please-put-that-down-we’re-having-a-nice-family-dinner. It’s hard to hear her over the identical twin younger brothers’ screams and yelps as they take turns punching each other in the shoulder. The men and boys wear crew cuts; the mother’s hair is a mess of old perm and surrender.
Rosina takes a deep breath, grabs a stack of foggy plastic-coated menus from the front counter, and reminds herself she is the girl no one can shake.
“Hi there,” she says as she approaches the table and hands out the menus. “Can I get you anything to drink while you look at the menu?”
“Aren’t you supposed to say hola or something?” Eric says, leaning back that way young men do when they feel entitled to take up as much space as possible.
“Hola,” Rosina says flatly.
“Nice to see you, too,” Eric says. He looks at Rosina like she’s already naked, like she’s already caught.
“Oh, are you a friend from school?” his mom asks.
“Something like that,” Rosina says.
“I’d love to be your friend,” Eric says. “I can be a really good friend.”
His mother is oblivious, haggard and worn. Father and son have the same animal eyes, like everything is a potential meal. They both stare at Rosina, partners in the hunt. The longer Rosina stands there, the smaller she feels. The more like meat.
“What’s all this stuff on here?” the dad says, looking at the menu.
“Traditional Oaxacan cuisine,” Rosina says. How many times has she had to explain this? “It’s our specialty. We have seven different type of moles.”
“I thought this was a Mexican restaurant,” he says. “I just want some tacos.”
“The more familiar Mexican dishes are on the next page,” Rosina says.
One of the young boys says, “I want pizza.”
For once, Rosina wishes they served chapulines. Grasshoppers. She would recommend they order that. “Would you like something to drink?” she asks again.
“I’ll have a beer,” the father says. “Whatever’s cheap and in a can.”
“Boys, do you want Cokes?” the mother asks. They ignore her. “Boys? Do you want Sprite? Root beer?”
“Just order them something,” the father says.
“Two Sprites,” the woman squeaks.
“I’ll have a Coke,” Eric says. “One of those fancy Mexican ones in the glass bottle.” Rosina doesn’t look up as she writes down the drink orders, but she can feel his eyes like sharp teeth tearing into her breasts.
As she walks away, she can hear father say to son, “That one’s pretty cute, huh?”
“Yeah,” Eric says. “Too bad she’s into chicks.”
“Maybe she just hasn’t met the right guy yet.”
Rosina rushes into the walk-in fridge. She pauses after she grabs the family’s drinks, looks out the fridge door’s narrow window into the kitchen, where her mom is sweat-drenched and in pain, slaving away at the hot stove, cooking her sweat and anger and years of disappointment into the food she makes every night. Mami is the head cook, manages the kitchen, and even does the bookkeeping, in addition to housing and taking care of Abuelita, but still it is called José’s restaurant. Still, he controls the money. Still, Rosina’s mother is the daughter in a family with two sons.
“I fucking hate people,” Rosina announces to a crateful of cabbage.
She returns to the table with the heavy tray of drinks and a basket of chips and salsa. The family ignores her as she places the items on the table. “Boys, let’s go wash your hands, okay?” the mom says to the feral creatures, but they are too busy seeing how far they can bend each other’s fingers back before they cry.