“I still don’t get why they keep saying six, seven.” I groan when Maricela doesn’t answer me.
She looks up from the menu, her brows pinched together.
“Why is this menu so fucking big? Who has time to read this many options?” Maricela gripes, ignoring my travesties for her own.
“You like options when it comes to men.” Vivian, my other friend, responds, waiting with a notepad and pen to take our order.
“Tu ya cállate. We’re here to see you. Otherwise, we never would,” Maricela narrows her eyes on Vivian.
This has been my trio of friends since we all met in middle school. We were all busy and at different places in our lives, but since I moved back, we were trying to make more time forone another. Vivian has been working multiple jobs. Who wasn’t these days? She was trying like hell to utilize her journalism degree, but her podcast was failing, and the coffee shop was her only solid string of income right now.
Chismewas one of the newer coffee shops in Corpus. Vivian was worried it was another one of those gentrified spots when the owners requested to be anonymous, so she got a job thinking she could expose them on her podcast. She was disappointed to find out it was far from that. In fact, the coffee shop hired a lot of felons coming out of jail who needed second chances and wanted to return back into society.
When she finally met the owners, she found out they were a young, hardworking mexican couple with a dark past who ran into some money and wanted to do something to give back.
“Elote latte?” I say with a grimace.
“It’s good,” Vivian replies.
“It’s fucking diabolical,” Maricela says, and I couldn’t agree more.
Maricela asks for a plain latte, which the menu calls El Gringo, and churro pancakes. I order an Abuelita’s Chocolate Mocha and stall before settling onhuevos divorciados.I can’t even go out to eat without being traumatized by my life choices. The dish displayed on the menu showed two eggs split by beans, one in green salsa and the other in red salsa. Divorced eggs.
“What’s happening with the Marcos case?” I ask Maricela to keep my mind from going down that path.
She lets out a big sigh. As a legal aid, she was stressed all the time. She rarely had time for herself, making her the queen of non-commitment.
“I don’t want to think about it. Let’s talk about you. You said Manny was at the practice? How was seeing him?”
“I mean, he’s had a glow up.” I shrug.
By glow up I mean he looks like he could audition for Hunk-O-Mania. I would spend the last of my ones to... never mind. Since I had seen him on Sunday working out, my mind has replayed the image of him shirtless far too many times than I wanted to admit.
“He has been on a health kick the last two years.” Vivian interrupts, setting down our drinks and speed walking back to the kitchen.
“When was the last time you saw him?” Maricela asks.
“At my father’s funeral.”
That had been well over five years ago. I didn’t have time to process what was going on, much less the grief related to losing my father.
“So much has changed, I guess,” I say to break the awkward tension.
Talking about someone you loved in the past tense was the hardest thing to do. I got good at swerving any talk about my father or my feelings in relation to life without him.
“Change. Ugh. I hate that punctual bitch.” Maricela reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “One thing about Manny, though, is he’s always been Team Isabel.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Mari nods at Vivien.
“Everything okay?” Viv asks.
“Tell her what you told me about your primo, Berto.”
Vivien looks down at Maricela, her eye twitching the way it does when she’s mad. Her face softens when she returns her gaze to me.
“Okay pues, I got two minutes,” she says, squeezing in next to Maricela. “So, I put this on the Bible that I would never tell you, but since I’m a born-again atheist now?—”
