“It’s good to be here. How’s Pri doing? I haven’t seen her in a minute.” At the mention of my cousin, my aunt’s face shone with pride.
“She’s great. She may be here tomorrow. Hopefully you can see her.”
“Definitely.” I nodded and looked over at the guys who were lounging on my mom’s furniture. Juanpa’s stank face told me he probably heard us talking about Priscilla.
He was ridiculous.
Those two had a love/hate thing going on since we were kids, and apparently they were back to hating each other again.
“Yo, are you bums just going to lounge over here all afternoon? We got shit to do!”
Juanpa squinted up at me while he sipped some kind of Frappuccino looking thing.
“I’m taking a break, son. I just drove five hours hauling all your shit out here. Let me enjoy my independent coffee shop beverage, pa.” He lifted his cup. “They got a drive-thru barista situation in town. This shit is fire. They need to open one of these places in the city.”
He looked so happy sucking down on that straw.
“Okay, man, drink your sugar bomb first, but we need to unload your truck before you leave tonight.” Juanpa went back to focus on his drink and doing something on his phone and just nodded, already distracted. I looked over at Milo who was hunched over, staring at something on Patrice’s laptop.
“What did I tell you about calling people while driving my car, man?”
Patrice shook his head and grinned as he typed but knew better than to try and make a joke about Camilo’s driving. Milo flipped me off and opened his mouth—clearly about to curse me out—when I saw my sister Minerva coming up the path to the house.
She was so tall and was looking more like Mamí every day. She was just a few inches shorter than my six feet two by now. We didn’t have the same dad, but everyone said we wereidentical as babies, same light brown skin with a tint of red. Whenever we ran or laughed too hard our whole faces flushed. Her hair was straighter than mine, and my eyes were a lighter brown, but we both had our mom’s face. Full mouth, broad nose and thick eyelashes. Minerva’s were so long they looked fake.
She was gorgeous, just like Mamí.
I went to meet her by the door and as soon as she walked in, I picked her up and twirled her around a couple of times.
“You’re getting too pretty, baby sister. It’s a good thing I’m here, Mamí!” I yelled over my shoulder. “We can start working on the electric fence around the house this weekend. Got to keep the boys away!”
“Stop it! You’re so extra, Nesto.” She hit me on the shoulder, laughing. “What’s wrong with you? Put me down.”
“What, you’re too big for your big brother to pick you up?” I asked, squeezing her tight. “So, are you dating? What’s his name?”
I crossed my eyes, making her laugh again.
“Stop it.Loco.”
“She had this gringito following her around like a puppy all winter,” my mom said, walking out of the kitchen.
“He was here all the time, hanging around with a mopey face, and Justin Bieber hair, trying to read poems in Spanish.”
She clicked her tongue and gave my sister her patented“pobrecita” face, which was half “I feel bad for you” and half “but really I should be mocking you.”
“I didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop coming over,” she teased Minerva, who was giving her a death glare with the intensity only a sixteen-year-old could produce. My mom kept going, though. “He sabotaged himself enough with that haircut and bad Spanish.”
We all cracked up while my baby sister silently gave me and the guys the finger as she sat on the couch. Before my mom andMinerva got into it I decided to get people back on track, because the clock was ticking.
“Okay, mi gente,” I said clapping my hands together. “Here’s the plan. We have a lot to get ready for the first lunch service in town tomorrow.” I flashed a smile at my mom who was standing at attention.
“Mamí, I stopped by the gas station and that spot is going to be lit.” She beamed with pride at my comment. “You said you had all the food at the kitchen, right?”
“That’s right. Everything’s there ready to go.”
The “I told you so” face Camilo was flashing my way did not go unnoticed.
I looked at my watch and saw it was only 2:30 p.m. “Excellent. We have plenty of time to get all the night before food preparation done. Milo and Juanpa, since you guys are driving back tonight we should go to the kitchen and get all the stuff in J’s truck unloaded now.”
