“What’s up?”
“Remember…” He stalls and tries again. “Can you please just… not mention this to anyone at school?” His eyes are glowing under the streetlights, feline and wide.
“I see nothing wrong with this. I’m just going to your parent’s house for a small dinner. I mean, it’s not like we’re fucking,” I tell him, feeling a little hysterical.
He stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk.
“Who’s a mess, now?” I mutter under my breath.
“Just… please,” he pleads.
“Fine,” I say. I mean, he did save my life, or whatever.
It’s still strange, seeing him like this again. Wearing a pair of worn-in boots, jeans, and a flannel, covered by a totally nondescript jacket, he’s just another regular guy in Brooklyn, instead of a suited city official. His normally well-kept head of hair is mussed by a full day of being rustled by an autumn breeze.
This powerful, confident man is reduced to ash by his mother, a very terrifying, very miniature archangel, harbinger of hellfire and glory. Who, by the way, is my new favorite person.
We walk no more than ten minutes into Fort Greene, to a block I frequently pass on my walk home from school, when we approach a nondescript brownstone teeming with the buzz of conversation and yelling and music.
“I thought this was just a small family dinner,” I say out loud.
Izzy grins at me. “Thisisa small family dinner. For our family, at least.”
Another tiny woman version of Oliver slams open thefront door of the first-floor apartment, shrieking. Two little girls, miniature versions of the woman in front of them, follow her, also shrieking, impossibly louder.
The woman dashes to me, and I suddenly find her in my arms. She is just as small as the other two Flores women. “Georgia!” she yells, voice muffled by my breasts. “It’s so nice to meet you. Ma and Izzy have been texting me all day about you.”
She pulls away to hold me at arm’s length, hands squeezing my arms. “You’re so brave, standing up to that man like that. I’m a flaming homo. Thank you for standing up for my people and their kids.”
She hugs me again as I stand there, off-kilter. “I’m Tala, Ollie’s big sister. Welcome to our house. Well, the house we grew up in. But sorry I can’t show you Ollie’s old room. Ma made it into her crafting room after she retired.”
I look over to Oliver, again attempting to projectS.O.S., but he is busy being tackled by the two little girls, screaming, “TITO OLLIE!”
His earlier reticence has disappeared. He has transformed, from the serious Oliver I know, to someone entirely different, someone loose, relaxed, free. His face is glowing now, wearing an unfiltered and unabashed grin shining with love.
“Hey, girls,” he laughs, picking each of them up in either arm. “Let’s go inside.Ang lamig.” He bends to kiss the top of Tala’s head.
Gloria is standing just behind me, dabbing her eyes. “It’s just how I imagined it would be.”
“Christ, Ma,” he says, using his body to shove her and the other Flores women inside the house.
I stand there, frozen. “I… we… How is it like this already? We’re not even in the house yet,” I tell him, not making any sense.
He stands there, incandescent, looking comically likeFilipino Superman indeed, as he holds one little girl in each arm. He is comfortable now, around his family. Grinning, he lets the girls jump down and run into the house after the matriarchs. “Get ready,” he warns me.
The moment I step through the door, I am assaulted with warmth, the smell of garlic, and a raucous cheer.
“HEYYYYY!” the voices of what sounds like a million people yell. Someone starts scream singing ‘Happy Birthday’, in a rhythm I am unfamiliar with, and the whole room chimes in. Inexplicably, someone in the back of the room provides guitar accompaniment.
I look at Oliver, horrified that I’ve come empty-handed. “Whose birthday is it?”
“No one’s,” he shrugs. “It’s just a weird thing we’ve always done.”
The next thing that happens is that I trip over approximately seventy-two pairs of shoes in a pile just inside the door. Oliver darts out to catch me, my entire upper arm cocooned by the heat of his large, powerful hand. He lets me catch my feet, then lets go, my arm feeling sad and bereft after he releases me. “Shoes off,” he smiles at me, gesturing to the pile.
The room we enter is small, a common space that seems to hold both the living room and kitchen. It seems even smaller, maybe because of the sheer amount of people currently inside it.
It feels like I dive headfirst into an ocean of people then, a never-ending stream of hugs and cheek kisses and introductions, ‘Tito and Tita Somethings’ and ‘cousin This’ and ‘cousin That’s.’ My cheeks hurt with how my smile stretches across my face, everyone seemingly genuinely happy to meet me. I’m passed along from person to person, followingOliver, who is doling out an equal amount of kisses and bro hugs.
