The other…? Oh. Anita. Shit. “Me neither. I don’t think she’ll show up again. She’s probably the reason why I got a migraine today to begin with. Thanks for keeping an eye out though.”
“Sure.” With that, he stood, brushing the back of his shorts with his palms. I made myself keep my eyes on his face. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“I’m gonna be fine,” I confirmed and then used his words on him. “Thanks for… everything.” I wondered if he’d remember that term we’d used when we met for the second time.
He must have because a smile grew out of his laugh. “Yeah, you got it.” His hands went to his pockets suddenly. “I came over to see if I’d left my wallet. Mind if I take a look?”
Chapter Thirteen
“I don’t think you bought enough beer,” my dad commented in Spanish.
I shot him a look over my shoulder as I poured another two bags of ice over the bottles. “Pa, it’s Josh’s birthday. Nobody needs to be getting drunk. Come on. I bought like half the sodas, waters, and juice boxes that the grocery store carried. Everyone can get Capri Sun wasted if they want.”
He shot me back an expression that I had no doubt resembled mine all too well. “Uy. You could have bought some more, or told me and I would have.”
Only in my family did adults come to a children’s party expecting beer.
My dad had already paid for all the meat being grilled. He should have known better than to say something like that. Plus, I’d spent a horrifying chunk of my checking account balance on everything else for the party, and that was considering I’d gotten a discount from a client who owned party rental stuff for the moonwalk, tables and chairs. Luckily, I’d already owned the Slip-N-Slide.
I kept telling myself the only person whose happiness mattered today was Josh’s. And Louie’s. Everyone else could go eat a big pile of monkey shit if there wasn’t enough beer to drink, damn it. What did they think I was made of? Money?
Dear God, I was turning into my mom.
“It’ll be fine,” I mumbled to him, slapping him on the back as I headed back into the house to grab the midnight blue tablecloth I’d been reusing for the boys’ birthdays the last couple of years. Inside, my mom was hustling around the kitchen, preparing trays of vegetables and other easy finger foods I’d picked up the night before. She shot me that tight, distressed smile she always had on her face when people were going to come over.
When Drigo and I were kids and the holidays would come around, we’d hide. My mom, who was normally a very clean, very meticulous and tough-loving human being with a pretty good temper—as long as you didn’t say something she didn’t like or do something that embarrassed her—turned into a walking human nightmare. Not being around when she needed help wasn’t very nice, but the crap that came out of her mouth when she was trying to be perfect was a lot more “not nice.” A few times, Rodrigo had texted me RUN if he’d gotten wrangled into one of her moods.
And in this case, even though this was my house and it was only a bunch of kids, family members, and the nearest neighbors coming… I wasn’t expecting any differently. She’d complained about my lack of baseboard cleaning as soon as she had shown up, and then proceeded to walk around the house with a wet towel cleaning them, before going in my bathroom and the one the boys shared and making sure they didn’t have pee and poo stains all over the walls or something.
So I wasn’t ashamed of saying I had smiled at her and got the hell out of the house and her way as quickly as I could, busying myself with other things outside.
The box of decorations was right where I’d left it earlier in the living room, and I could hear the boys fighting from Josh’s room, more than likely playing video games until everyone showed up.
“Guys, will you help me decorate as soon as you get a break, please?” I called out to them, pausing in the living room with my hands holding the box to listen to their response of “Five minutes!”
I knew better. “Five minutes” was open to interpretation.
“I’m serious! Right when you’re done! The faster you help me, the faster you can get back to playing.”
They might have groaned, but they might have not. I wasn’t positive. All I heard was “Okay!” yelled back distractedly.
A girl could dream.
My mom’s back was to me in the kitchen, and I speed walked as fast as possible through it and back out the door so she wouldn’t catch me. She didn’t. Thankfully.
Surprisingly, only a few minutes later, the boys came outside. Louie immediately asked with a frown, “What’s wrong with Abuelita?”
To which I responded, “She’s a little cuckoo during parties, Goo.” The expression he shot over his shoulder as he glared at the door that led inside the kitchen made me crack up. He looked deceived and surprised. The kid had no idea my mom was crazy beneath the surface.
Between the three of us, we set up the rest of the decorations, the moonwalk looming over the yard, calling all three of our names, but somehow we focused and finished organizing everything about fifteen minutes before the time on the invitations stated the party was set to start.
“Diana, did you invite your neighbors?” my dad asked from his spot at the grill.
“Yes,” I confirmed with him for the second time. My thinking was, if I invited them, they hopefully wouldn’t complain when my visitors parked in front of their houses. Just two days ago, Louie and Josh had walked around, leaving invitations on doorsteps as I waited on the deck with Mac. I’d made them address the envelopes and almost died when I saw how Louie had spelled Dallas’s name.
“Hello!” a female voice shouted from over the other side of the fence.
All of us—my dad, Josh, Louie, and me—all turned to look in the direction we’d heard the speaker.
And sure enough, four different people peeked over the chest-high fence. Three of them were smiling; the fourth one not so much, but they were all well-known and loved faces. At the front, the taller of the two women in the group, was the face I’d just seen on television a month or two ago. Pretty, a hair older than me, and at one point, someone I resented a lot because she was so awesome and magnificent, and I was… not.
But that had only been when we’d been little kids. My cousin was nothing short of amazing, especially because she didn’t think or act like she was too cool for school. Nobody likes a stuck-up, snobby bitch, and she was nowhere even close to that. I was probably more of a stuck-up, snobby bitch than she was.
“Sal!” I yelled, waving. “Come in!”