Peeking at him quickly, I lowered my gaze back at the food below me. “Thanks. You didn’t have to, but I know he’ll love it. He thinks he’s getting too old for toys.” I passed him over a wad of napkins, his light-colored eyes meeting mine dead on. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, too. Not just Lou.”
“Sure. I don’t have anything to do till later. I’ll give Josh his thing when I see him,” he said, continuing on as I led him back to the table where we’d left Miss Pearl, only to find my mom and Sal sitting alongside her.
“Diana, you never told me who your cousin was.” Miss Pearl gaped as I set the plate in front of her.
“Sal?” I asked, taking the seat on the other side of my mom and leaning forward to be able to hear the woman. I’d spoken to Miss Pearl a handful of times, if that, since I had moved in, so I wasn’t surprised there was something she didn’t know about me.
“Yes.” The old woman had those milky blue eyes on said cousin. “She just won the Altus Cup,” she practically whispered. “Dallas, she won the Altus Cup. Can you believe that?”
I learned something right then: I still stereotyped other people even though I knew better, because the last person I would have expected to know anything about soccer would have been Miss Pearl. And to keep digging the dagger of shame in, the older woman kept going.
“She scored five goals!” she said to no one in particular.
I didn’t even remember she’d scored that many goals in the tournament.
My cousin, who was sitting next to Miss Pearl, caught my gaze and grinned, obviously as surprised as I was by her unexpected fan. Here I’d been trying to save her from the people around our age and the one person who knew who she was was somewhere in the ninety range.
“Sal is the star in the family.” I shouldn’t have been surprised those words came out of my mom’s mouth as she sat up a little straighter in her chair, reaching out to touch Miss Pearl’s forearm. “We’re all so proud of her.”
I winked at my cousin, letting my mom’s words go in one ear and out the other. “Yeah, Sal, we all yell for you every time we watch a game.”
“Diana never liked playing sports. She didn’t like getting dirty, but Salomé always knew she wanted to play. Didn’t you, mija?”
“Diana plays outside with the boys all the time. She doesn’t mind getting dirty.”
I stopped breathing for a moment and stared at the man who had just spoken up. Dallas was standing behind his grandmother, looking as calm as ever with his arms crossed over his chest.
If Sal shot me a look, I wasn’t sure because I was too busy staring at my neighbor, but she quickly answered, “I did, Tia Rosario.” Before my mom could make another barb, she leaned toward the older woman, catching her eye. “Thank you for watching. We need more fans.”
“Oh, I love soccer. Especially women’s soccer. The men? They’re good for nothing. Now the foreign players…”
I swallowed and let my mom’s words run down my back. I wasn’t going to let her bother me. But somehow Dallas happened to meet my eyes and we both just stared at each other. I smiled at him tightly, and I was surprised to see him smile back just as tightly.
*
I wanted to cry.
Looking out on the mess in the lawn, I felt a sob that consisted mostly of me being extra tired, fighting its way up through my insides. Somehow, someway, I managed to keep it down.
The backyard was a fucking mess. God help me. But I wasn’t going to cry over it, no matter how badly I might want to, and that was really, really badly.
The party had moved into the house when the mosquitoes had come out hours ago, and I hadn’t bothered turning on the outside lights after the moonwalk had been picked up. I hadn’t wanted to see the damage and not be able to do anything about it, and I was suddenly regretting sending everyone home without forcing them to stay and help clean.
Now seeing it… it honestly looked like Woodstock after everyone had trashed the place. The yard had shit all over it, one of the trash bags had been torn open by possibly Mac, the grass was trampled… even the tree… there was something hanging from it, and I had a feeling it wasn’t a streamer.
It was awful.
“Diana?” Dallas’s dark head of hair was sticking out of the back door of the kitchen.
It startled me, and I forced a tense smile on my face that was 95 percent fake. “Hey. I thought you left.” Hours ago, I remembered seeing him take off with Miss Pearl and holding up a hand when he caught me looking from across the yard where I’d been busy talking to the neighbors next door.
“I did,” he confirmed, closing the door behind him as he paused on the stoop and swept his gaze over the yard. His eyes went wide and his “Oh shit” seemed to come straight out of my own mouth.
“Uh-huh” was all I could answer without bursting into tears.
It was a mess.
It was a fucking mess.
I thought I might have choked a little as I took it in one more time.
“You okay?” he asked.
I couldn’t even look at him. The yard had me in a trance. “Sure.”
“You’re not okay,” was the statement that came out of his mouth, dry and serious and so, so, so true.
I opened my mouth and swallowed the thick saliva that pooled in my throat. “It’s terrible.” I gasped. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
He started to shake his head before stopping the motion and nodding instead. “Yeah.”
Well, at least he wasn’t bullshitting me.
I wouldn’t cry over grass. I wouldn’t. I just couldn’t. At least not in front of anyone.
A hand briefly touched my shoulder, nearly enough to get me to turn away from the aftermath of a nuclear bomb my beloved backyard had turned into. “Hey. It’ll still be there tomorrow. Don’t worry about it tonight.”
The little bit of neat freak in me sobbed that I couldn’t leave it until the next day. I didn’t want to wake up knowing what lay outside the door. But as I stared at it, I was fully aware that it would take hours to clean up. Hours and hours and a few more hours. All the swallowing in the world didn’t do enough to help my suddenly swollen throat get any smaller.
“Diana?” Dallas kind of laughed. “Are you about to cry?”
“No.” I didn’t even believe myself.
Obviously, he didn’t either because one of those rare, belly laughs of his escaped him. “I don’t have anything to do tomorrow. You, me, and the boys can knock it out.”
I couldn’t look away from the destruction, no matter how hard I tried. “It’s okay,” I mumbled, swallowing an imaginary golf ball again. “I got it.”
There was a pause. A sigh. “I know you got it, but I’ll help.” There was another pause. “I’m offering.”
He’d used that soft, smooth tone that seemed so… inappropriate on his raspy voice, and it made me glance at him, sniffling. Since when had I become this person who was the annoying kind of stubborn and didn’t accept help? I hated people like that. “I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you,” I admitted.