She didn’t have to say it, the regretful look on her face was answer enough.
“I’m sorry, baby. He came by like fifteen minutes ago. We tried to call you, but it went straight to voicemail.”
I turned around and slammed my hand against the side of the truck. “¡Mierda! Did he say if he’ll be back?”
She shook her head again and with that all my hopes for this weekend went up in flames.
“What did he say, Mamí?” I snapped, but the look she gave me made me check myself. “Sorry, but this really fucking sucks.”
“Ernesto, watch your language. He didn’t say anything. Just that he was looking for you and when I said you weren’t here, he left.” She moved to reach for me and I let her, but I couldn’t even hug her back. I was so mad at myself, the opportunity of a lifetime squandered. Because at the end of the day I knew. No matter how much I killed myself, I would never be able to take OuNYe to the next level on my own.
My mom pulled back and looked up at me, her face fierce.
“This is only a stumble, papí. A setback. You’re on your way. You can still do this.” I didn’t have the energy to reality check her right now. I felt defeated, the only thing I wanted was to put this whole fucking day behind me.
Then I looked around and saw my friends and Ari and Yin hustling to get everything ready. They were here for me, to push my business forward. I couldn’t sit here and mope.
“Let’s get to work, Mamí.” She tightened her arm around my waist and nodded. As I glanced around again I noticed there was still no sign of Jude. It was past eleven and he was nowhere in sight. “Did Jude go somewhere?”
My mom shook her head, looking confused. “He’s not here. I haven’t seen him. We figured you went back to get him and that’s why you were late.”
“No, the plan was for him to come straight here. He was supposed to be here like an hour ago.” I got my phone out of my pocket and remembered I still hadn’t charged it. “Mamí, do you have a charger? My phone’s dead.”
She nodded and moved to grab her purse from somewhere in the tent.
“Here you go.” I grabbed the cord and started moving to the truck where I could plug it in.
“I’m going to see if I have any messages from Jude, then I’m going to go get started with the grill. We might be able to start serving in like thirty minutes if we hurry.”
“Okay, m’ijo.”
As soon as I powered on my phone I saw I had a voicemail from Mr. Sheridan. My stomach dropped and I almost trashed it without listening to it, because I knew what he would say, and knowing it and actually hearing it were two completely different things. Once I’d heard the message, then it would be real.
I tapped on the screen and closed my eyes; I could hear the background noise of the festival as his voice came on. “Ernesto. Looks like we missed each other.”
That was it. No, “I’ll stop by later,” nothing. He just hung up. For the second time in three days, I felt like crying from frustration. I’d done this to myself. I lost my focus, prioritized other things and I missed a chance I would probably never get again. I looked around wanting to talk to Jude about it, and then remembered he wasn’t even here yet.
I scoffed as I jumped off the truck. He was late, and now we’d be shorthanded. I needed to remember what I was here to do, and it wasn’t to chase after Jude. I was here for OuNYe, I seemed to have forgotten that in the last twenty-four hours, but that stopped now.
This day had to be a test on how much stress I could handle before I finally lost my shit. On top of blowing it with Sheridan, we’d now been serving food for almost an hour and Jude was still MIA, and we needed him here to help. Despite everything, the truck was still doing great business after the boost from the food critic, and we were shorthanded.
It wasn’t like him to drop off like that, but he knew how much I had riding on this day. I was seriously wondering if something had happened to him when I finally saw him walking toward the tent. I reminded myself that it wasn’t Jude’s fault everything had gone to shit today and tried hard not to scowl at him as he got closer.
He looked up at me and instead of his usual shy smile, he stared at me blankly, like he could see right through me. Still I told myself, I needed to chill out, because Jude was here as afavor. Before coming into the tent, he stopped by the truck where Yin was working on preparing food and leaned close to tell him something. His already serious expression turning into a frown from whatever Yin told him, then he came toward me. I put down my spatula for a second.
“Hey, did something happen to you? I was worried.” My tone wasn’t exactly warm, and Jude took a step back when he got a look at my face. He seemed sad, and when he spoke I could barely hear him.
“I’m sorry about Mr. Sheridan.” He looked down then and there was something definitely off. “I hope it wasn’t because I made you late.”
But I was deep in self-loathing and acted like a complete asshole. I shrugged off his concern for me, and turned around as I answered him, “It is what it is.”
He stiffened and moved away, then tried to smile, failing completely. “I’m really sorry, I’m late, I?—”
I barely acknowledged what he was saying and spoke over him, “Well there’s a lot to do, so if you’re ready to help, go and see if you can give my mom a hand. She’s been running the front on her own all morning.” His face had paled in the last few minutes, but I didn’t make a move to reach for him. In the back of my mind something niggled at me about how Jude was acting, but I was too caught up in my own misery to ask. I turned my back on him and started working the grill again. He just stood there looking a little lost, as I flipped meat with a scowl on my face.
“Hey, Jude. You made it!”
My mother. I cringed at the thought of what she’d do if she knew the way I was treating him. But at this point the people who were disappointed in me today could just take a fucking number.
