“Sí pero… ve lo.” She huffed, the tip of her chin pointing at Dallas who had his hands on his knees as he talked to Josh. “He looks like a gangbanger.”
I hated when my mom did that stereotypical crap, especially while she talked about a man who had been pretty damn kind to me and the boys. It was unfair of him to get judged by his buzz-cut hair and a face he’d been born with. I had to grit down on my teeth to keep from saying something I’d regret. “Ma, he’s not in a gang. He’s great with the kids. He’s great with everyone.”
“Ay. Maybe, but why does he have to have all those tattoos?”
“Because he wants them,” I said in a snappier tone than normal.
Her upper body turned to face me, those black, black eyes narrowing. “Why are you getting mad?”
“I’m not getting mad. I think you’re being mean judging him. You don’t know him.”
She huffed. “?Y tú si?”
“Yeah, I do. He was in the navy for twenty years and he owns his own business. He coaches little boys because he likes to be there for them. He’s—” I just about said almost but managed to keep it inside “—always been nice to Josh and Louie and me.” Before I could stop myself. Before I could think about the people sitting around and consider that they might be listening in, I said, “I think he’s great. I like him a lot.”
The long and drawn-out inhale that she sucked in seemed to suck up all the air within ten feet of us. “?Qué qué?” What?
“I like him.” Was I egging her on? Maybe a little, but I hated, hated when she got like this on me.
“Why?”
“Why not?” We seemed to have this argument every time I liked someone who wasn’t Mexican.
“Diana, no me digas eso.”
“Te estoy diciendo eso. Me gusta. He’s a good person. He’s handsome—” She scoffed. “And he treats everyone well, Mamá. You know the day after the party? He came over and helped me and the boys clean for hours.” I really hadn’t believed him when he’d left my house that night, assuring me that I should leave the mess alone because we could all tackle it the next day.
But he had. Time and time again, he’d done things he didn’t have to. We were nothing to him, but he’d done what other people hadn’t.
If that wasn’t friendship, I didn’t know what was.
“Not him, Diana. Not again.”
God help me, sometimes I wanted to strangle my mom. “Oh my God, Ma. Calm down. I’m not telling you to love him. I’m just telling you I like him. We’re not getting married. He doesn’t even like me like that. He’s just… nice.”
The woman who had given birth to me faced forward again. I could see her hands clenching the material of the long skirt she had on. “For now!” she basically whisper-hissed.
Oh hell no.
“You don’t know how to pick them,” she said, her gaze still forward.
I couldn’t look at her either, so I shifted to watch the next batter get a strike. “Mom, I love you, but don’t go there right now,” I whispered.
“I love you too,” she said softly, “but someone has to tell you when you make stupid decisions. Last time I kept my mouth shut and you know what happened.”
Of course I knew what happened. I had been there. I had lived through what I lived through. I didn’t need a reminder of how dumb I’d been. I would never let myself forget it.
Yet here we were again with her telling me what to do with my life and what to do differently. Sometimes I thought, if she hadn’t been so strict with me as a kid, I would take her “suggestions” more seriously, but she had been strict. Too strict. And I wasn’t in the mood for it anymore, no matter how much I loved her. “Mom, Rodrigo had tattoos. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
She acted like I shot her. Her hands went to her chest and her back when ramrod straight. My mom gulped, and I’m pretty sure her hands started shaking.
Jesus. I hated it when she acted like that.
“Don’t talk about your brother.” I barely heard her.
I sighed and rubbed my eyebrow with the back of my hand. Every single time with her. God. We could never talk about Rodrigo. Ever.
With a sigh, I tried to keep my attention on the game, only paying about half my attention to it while the other half bounced back and forth between thinking about Rodrigo and Dallas. I thought my brother would have liked him. I really did.
The game nearly ended before my mom finally spoke again. “You can be friends, but nothing else.” She made this delicate sound in her throat that I don’t think I’d ever be able to imitate.
Why could she never let things go? Why could I never let things go and tell her what she needed to hear? Rolling my eyes, I snuck my hand under the cap I’d put on, Dallas’s, and scratched at this spot that had been itching for a day or two now at the back of my head near the crown. I hadn’t washed my hair in a few days, it was probably time.
“Did you hear me?” she asked quietly.
I slid her a look before focusing on the game again. “Yes. I’m just not going to tell you what you want to hear, Ma. Sorry. I love you, but don’t be like that.”
The breath she let out would have scared me back when I was ten. At twenty-nine, I didn’t let it bother me a tiny bit. At the end of the game, my dad showed up with Louie in tow, sweaty and tired from their time at the playground. I didn’t exactly go out of my way to give my mom space, but it happened. When the next game started almost an hour later, I made sure to sit beside my dad with Louie on my other side as a buffer between us. The Tornado won that final game of the day—which was always bittersweet because that meant the boys would have a game the next day and I’d have to wake up extra early for it since the salon was closed on Sundays.
We followed my parents out to their car to say bye, and my mom and I just gave each other a quick kiss on the cheek. The tension was so thick my dad and Louie glanced between both of us before they got into the car. On the way to our car, I spotted a red pickup parked five spots down from me. By the bed, busy throwing a bag into it, was an even more familiar sight. Dallas.
Standing a few feet away, talking rapidly, was Christy.
Josh noticed what I was looking at because he asked, “Are you gonna ask him to eat with us?”
It was that obvious to him? I lifted a shoulder. “I was thinking about it. What do you think?”
“I don’t care.”
Giving him a cross-eyed look, I led our crew over to the pickup just as Dallas closed the lip. He either heard us coming over or sensed us, because he looked over his shoulder and stood there. Christy, who was facing us, scowled just enough for me to notice, but I stopped paying attention to her. Louie was holding on to one hand and Josh was next to me with his bag trailing behind him. The smile that came over Dallas’s face as he took us in was genuine.
“I’ll get back to you on the fundraising. There’s no rush for it,” my neighbor told the woman to his right without meeting her eyes. “I’ll talk to you later.”