“Oh my God! I just heard from Lupe, who heard it from Viola, who heard it from Gina that the Montez brothers are in town!”
“¿Quién?”
“Ay! They run the Taco King empire! You know who they are. Like the three hottest men ever. Ramón wasPeople en Español’s most eligible bachelor.”
Carolina was not impressed. “Why do I care?”
Blanca rolled her eyes. “Because, silly. They are allsohot. And rich.”
Carolina shook her head. She adored her younger sister, but she couldn’t fathom how her only goal in life was to marry some rich guy and become his trophy wife.
Sure, all the girls in the Flores family had grown up working on the farm alongside the strawberry pickers. Carolina’s earliest memories were of plucking berries next to her parents. So she could understand that Blanca wanted to have an easier life than they’d had growing up. But there was so much more to her than her looks. Blanca was stylish and sweet and compassionate. And she spent herfree time designing the cutest clothes. Carolina thought she should go to college and then maybe get into fashion design.
But there was no use in lecturing her now.
“I have my eye on Jaime. He’s so fine. You should go for Enrique. I read that Ramón is taken. The rumor is he was asked to be the first Mexican-American guy onThe Bachelor, but he turned it down because he’s in love with this girl who runs a restaurant. Can you believe that? What type of guy turns down that kind of celebrity for true love?”
An honorable one. “One who is not a narcissist.”
“Well, he doesn’t need to be onThe Bachelor. Every Chicana knows about Ramón—and his brothers.”
“Not every one—I didn’t know.”
Blanca took out her phone and showed her a picture of them. “¡Mira!”
Carolina studied the picture from an article. Tall, dark, and handsome. Similar features but each was distinct. Ramón was the most clean-cut, Enrique had a SoCal surfer vibe, and Jaime looked like a pretty boy.
They were all good-looking, for sure, but Carolina knew men like them.
And she wanted nothing to do with them. She hated the way they seemed to abandon their culture and community when they made it big. Some of the wealthiest farm owners in Santa Maria were Mexican, and many of them treated their workers horribly.
And even if she found a decent guy who happened to be rich, she wouldn’t feel comfortable in their world. She liked her life. One earned by hard work and sacrifice. Sure, the couch she had been sitting on was faded, and their house had avocado-colored appliances from the eighties, but they had a good roof over their heads and delicious food on the table, and most importantly, one another.
Blanca clutched the glass of agua fresca that Carolina had left out earlier and drank it.
“This spa water is the best.”
Carolina rolled her eyes. “Don’t start with me.” Restaurants were now serving traditional Mexican aguas and rebranding them as spa waters. It was so ridiculous.
Blanca laughed and took another sip. “Well, I want Jaime.” She touched her sister’s hand and gave her a pleading look. “¿Ayúdame?”
“That’s a hard no.” Carolina refused to help her. Blanca was well aware of Papá’s archaic rules—especially the one that stated that Blanca, who was twenty-one years old, wasn’t allowed to seriously date until twenty-three-year-old Carolina did, which was ridiculous because Blanca was legally allowed to drink but not date. And Carolina didn’t want to date. So that was the end of that story, though it really was Carolina’s duty to help break her father’s iron fist.
Blanca dramatically clasped her hands. “Please! Daddy never lets me do anything. I’m an adult, Cari. You at least got to go to college.”
“Don’t start with me, Blanca. You could go to school.”
Blanca flipped her hair. “Yeah, I could, but not really. I would have to live at home and commute like you did. And then how would I go to parties?”
Carolina never went to parties in college.
Though sometimes, when she left campus late, she’d watched all the other girls heading to the events. They were all so carefree and happy. Carolina had envied their freedom.
But as a first-generation college student, she’d had responsibilities, pressures, and expectations not only to succeed but to return and help her family. And don’t even get her started on all the rules her parents imposed. She still had a curfew, even though she was a grown-ass adult at twenty-three. Her non-Hispanic friends couldn’t fathom that she still had to be home by eleven during the week andby midnight on the weekends. But rules were rules. She owned a farm, and she could technically afford to live on her own—but Papá would never allow it unless she was married. Sometimes, she laughed when she would go online and watch videos made by influencers who talked about toxic families and their advice to just say adiós to them and live your truth. Carolina was Mexican with a traditional family—those freedoms didn’t apply to her life. It was what it was, and Carolina had just accepted it.
“College is for studying, not for meeting men.”
She pouted. “You’re no fun. I don’t ask for anything. Just meet with the Montez brothers!”
