Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe

by Carlos Hernandez

  We nerds got in. Yasmany took shotgun, because chacho’s basically a Cuban American giraffe, and only the front seat of the electric car had any chance of holding a giraffe. Since I am polite, I took the middle seat in the back. Gabi sat to my right, Aventura to my left. After Petunia, the class-six AI in American Stepmom’s car, confirmed we had fastened our seat belts, we very safely putt-putted out of Culeco’s pickup area, took a left, and got on the road, going a few miles under the speed limit.

  “Petunia, take the wheel,” said American Stepmom.

  “Got it!” said Petunia.

  American Stepmom pulled a lever on her left that allowed her to rotate her seat 180 degrees so now she was facing the back. She stuck out her hand. “Hi, Aventura. It’s good to see you again.”

  Aventura took her hand like someone whose parents had raised her right. “Hi, Mrs. Vidón. It’s good to see you, too. Though I wish it were under different circumstances. I hate that everybody is going to so much trouble because I messed up.”

  “Nonsense. You came and helped Sal and Gabi make their costume in their hour of need. The very least we can do is return the favor.”

  Yasmany had never been in a self-driving car with seats like these. He was looking around pretty frantically, seeing as American Stepmom had not only totally let go of the steering wheel but was also now facing away from it. From behind, Gabi helped him out by pulling the lever to the right of his seat. Yasmany spun until he was facing us, too, the expression on his face also doing a 180. Now he seemed as happy as a kid on a roller coaster.

  The second Yasmany caught Aventura’s eye, though, his face went from “kid at the fair” to “sexy beast” faster than you can say, “How you doin’?” And then, like a goofball, he literally asked Aventura, “How you doin’?”

  We all laughed. Yasmany didn’t seem to understand what was funny.

  “I,” said Aventura, “am having like twelve panic attacks at the same time. This is tech week! We shouldn’t be rewriting the whole show this late in the game!”

  I mean, she said she was having twelve panic attacks, but she sounded a lot better than she had in the principal’s office. I’d say she couldn’t be having more than four panic attacks right now.

  Seriously though, she seemed way more under control, way more able to deal with stuff. Having all these people ready to help her so she didn’t have to carry the burden of either success or failure on her own made everything easier. That seemed to be the lesson the multiverse was trying to pound into my thick skull this week.

  American Stepmom took Aventura’s hands in hers. “Principal Torres told me that you wanted to change the show. Is that still true?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Vidón, I’m sure. The cast was pretending everything was fine with the show, but I think we all knew deep down it stunk. When Sal mercilessly told me how bad it was, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.”

  The look American Stepmom gave me could’ve made a goat faint. “Yes, well, it’s clear that Sal needs a little remedial instruction on basic politeness and giving constructive criticism.”

  “In all fairness,” Gabi chimed in, “he wasn’t being rude to Aventura. He didn’t even know she was there. He was being rude to me.”

  “Thanks, Gabi,” I said, stretching my lips as far as they could go.

  “No problemo, Sal,” said Gabi, who knew exactly what she was doing. Was it too late to trade her for FixGabi?

  “He was right,” said Aventura. “I’m glad he said what he said. Because now we’re going to make it better.”

  “Correction,” I said. Then I pointed at American Stepmom. “You are going to make it better.”

  “Me? We’re going to the Reáls right now so we can all work together on this.”

  I dismissed that with a hand. “Yes, yes, Stepmother, everybody is going to help. But you know as well as I do that a problem like this one is right up your alley.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  “Mrs. Vidón,” said Gabi, “with all due respect, this is no time for false modesty. I’ve seen you in action. You have incredible powers of visualization. We need someone of your genius to be our guiding light.”

  “Are you sure you’re in seventh grade, Gabi?”

  “Plus, you’re an assistant principal,” said Aventura. “You know all about parent-teacher conferences. You know what works and what doesn’t.”

  “I promise you, Aventura, I’ve never worked at a school that has tried to pull off anything half as ambitious or extravagant as Rompenoche. It’s hard enough to get my admin to pony up for punch and cookies.”

  “Right,” I said. “You can’t do anything like this at your school. So this is your chance to throw the parent-teacher conference night you’ve always wanted.”

  Her smile had a fishhook at each end. “You know I’m going to say yes, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Gabi and Aventura and I sing-said.

  American Stepmom turned to Yasmany. “What do you think about all of this?”

  He shrugged. “I’m skipping dance practice for this. I don’t skip dance practice for no one.”

  See, Yasmany? That’s how you get Aventura to notice you. See how she flittered like a candle flame when you acted so decently? Good show, old boy.

  American Stepmom grabbed his knee and shook it with love. Then, looking at the roof of the car, she said, “Petunia, how long do we have until we arrive at the Reáls’?”

  “Approximately twenty-four minutes, give or take two hours, because Miami,” said Petunia. I couldn’t tell if it was trying to be funny, which made it funnier.

  “Twenty-four minutes minimum. We can get a lot done in that time.” American Stepmom clapped her hands together and rubbed them. “So let’s get to work.”

  Thirty-seven minutes later, we pulled into the Reáls’ driveway. We stayed in the car another six minutes to finish our discussion. So all told, forty-three minutes.

  That’s all it took to fix Rompenoche: forty-three minutes.

  I’m telling you, American Stepmom really is a genius. Now, she’d say that we came up with the solution together. That was true enough. But she was the one who got us started, kept us on track, asked all the right questions, and said a magic phrase none of us had ever heard before. That phrase was “site-specific interactive theater.” It solved all our problems.

  We walked out of the car giddy and excited, running around and climbing all over each other, dying to explain to everybody what the pants “site-specific interactive theater” was. But once I actually saw the Reál house, I slowed to a stop and put my hands on my hips. I tilted my head one way, then the other.

  The Reál house just wasn’t what I’d been expecting. It was, well, small.

  I mean, Gabi had a mami, a baby brother, seven dads at least, and the occasional cat. And even though becoming a Gabi dad was less like being someone’s father and more like being knighted because you’re an awesome person, I still had this fantasy that they all resided in a great big house and had adventures together. Not to mention huge dinners.

  But this house. I mean, it was nice: a rose-colored ranch-style home, trimmed in gold and green, hearts cut out of the shutters. In place of a lawn, the front yard was artistically landscaped with plants and bushes. According to a little sign sticking up from the dirt, the plant nearest to me was native to Florida, good for the wildlife, and good for the soil. And okay, I’m probably spoiled by the Coral Castle. It wasn’t that small. It was pretty darn wide, really. Just not eleven-people-and-a-cat wide.

  Ah well. The Gabi dads probably had their own houses and apartments all over Miami. Guess it was a little dreamy of me to think they’d all live together as one big happy chosen family.

  “Welcome to Casa Reál,” said Gabi. “Everyone’s probably out back, so follow me.” She steered us to a wooden gate in a wooden fence.

  Yasmany and I went through last. “You ever been here before, Sal?”

  “No.”

  “Better get ready, then.
There ain’t never been a backyard like these people got.”

  Yasmany tried to prepare me. But, people, I was not ready.

  The Reáls didn’t have a backyard. They had a village.

  “WHAT IN THE WORLD?” asked American Stepmom.

  “What is this place?” asked Aventura.

  “Told ya,” said Yasmany.

  “You sure did,” I replied, eyes astonished, mouth astounded, ears…just being ears.

  “Welcome to Reáltown,” said Gabi, opening her arms, going full showwoman. “It’s our own little utopian society.”

  For once, Gabi wasn’t exaggerating. The yard itself was the size of a football field—if kaiju played football—and was surrounded by a “privacy hedge” that was as tall, dense, and impenetrable as a rain forest. Sprinkled all over the yard were eight and a half more houses.

  They were those tiny houses, like the ones I’d seen at a SuperDuperFuture Festival back in Connecticut. Inside, they are itty-bitty: like, the size of the padres’ master bedroom in the Coral Castle. But what they lack in space they make up for with secret drawers everywhere, fold-away everything, the kitchenettiest of kitchenettes, loft beds, loft storage, loft closets, loft shelving for loft tchotchkes (two tchotchkes per shelf maximum, because shelves in tiny houses are also tiny), and a bathroom so minuscule you have to oil yourself up to get through the door. Basically, tiny houses have everything you need (if you don’t need very much) and not a single inch extra.

  When I first saw the ones in Gabi’s yard, I was dazzled and overwhelmed. It took me a while to figure out that each tiny house had been customized for each resident. But no need to confuse you the way I was confused. The first house—

  Wait. Let’s play a game. Can you guess whose house belonged to whom? Here’s what they looked like, starting with the one closest to me, and going counterclockwise around the yard. Check your answers below:

  1. A small log cabin, complete with a wooden bear statue to the left of the front door and a firepit to the right, where fake flames made of pieces of cloth were being blown upward by a solar fan. Around the “fire,” three plush toy jackalopes were posed to look like they were roasting marshmallows.

  2. A bright white first-aid cabin, like the kind you’d see at a summer camp, with a red cross painted above the door. In front it had a raised garden full of floppy pink flowers as big as cupcakes, and its own carport, under which rested a Tesla.

  3. A blue mini A-frame with the tallest lightning rod I’d ever seen. It also had a small windmill, a windsock, six different kinds of weather vanes, rain collectors, solar something-or-others, and metal boxes with lights and dials and digital numbers that did who knows what.

  4. A gingerbread house. No, really. Well, not really really: It was made of wood and concrete, but it had been painted to look exactly like the sort of place a witch might build to lure kids into an oven. It featured candy-coated shingles, windows with piped-frosting frames, candy-bar shutters, and a candy-cane chimney. It had its own tiny fence, painted to look like red licorice, lined with fake bushes that looked like cotton candy—both the blue and pink kinds—and a gumball pebble path snaking to the front door.

  5. A tall, skinny house, almost like a square tower, made of unpainted wood. It had a balcony on the second floor that looked like it’d been stolen straight off the set of Romeo and Juliet, complete with three medieval pennants draped over its railing. Below the balcony was one of those huge cushions stuntpeople use when they’re jumping out of windows. I had never wanted to jump off a two-story balcony so much in all my life.

  6. A mini red barn that was so small you couldn’t even fit a decent-size tractor inside it. Bigger than the barn was the two-story greenhouse to its right. Because of Miami humidity, I couldn’t see into the greenhouse very well—its windows were fogged—but bunches of round red fruits and leafy green branches pushed up against the glass.

  7. A square house made of shiny black stone that sparkled like it had trapped all the stars in the sky. Hanging from a pole in front was a mobile made of long pieces of the same black stone strung on invisible threads. The reflective slabs had etching on them that, when they all faced you at just the right angle, combined to form an image. I waited several seconds for the face of Martin Luther King Jr. to emerge. Dr. King looked at me for a little while, wise and serene, until a breeze blew and he disappeared, the slabs once again becoming random floating stones that didn’t mean anything. So cool.

  8. A library. Specifically, THE GABRIELLE REÁL MEMORIAL LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES OF THE ROTTEN EGG, AMERICA’S #1 MIDDLE-SCHOOL NEWSPAPER, according to the beautifully carved wooden sign in front of the tiny house. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of this modern-looking tiny home, I saw bright pine shelves packed to bursting with books, but also a computer station, a huge printer, a copy machine, and a table with a paper cutter big enough to use for executions if your guillotine was on the fritz. Outside the door was a big bin with a sign that read: ALL BOOK DONATIONS ACCEPTED! NO BOOK TOO WEIRD! and, under an awning, a whiteboard labeled with a sign: WRITE YOUR FAVORITE QUOTES HERE! DON’T FORGET TO TELL ME WHO SAID THEM! It was full of quotes in all different colors, and at least eight different people’s handwriting.

  Okay, #8 was obviously Gabi’s. But can you name the owners of the other seven? I’ll give you a hint: They’re all Gabi dads, no Ms. Reál, no pets. Take a second to collect your thoughts.

  Ready? Here are the answers, in the order I presented them:

  1. Grizzly Dad’ums, aka giant, hairy José, who worked for the American Heart Association and apparently was also a great wood-carver, since he sculpted the bear outside his house.

  2. Cari-Dad, cardiologist and volunteer for Doctors Without Borders.

  3. Lightning Dad, chief meteorologist for the AhoraMismo network.

  4. Dad: The Final Frontier, whom I am sure you remember. She was the hardest one to get right on this quiz. What the pants was up with her gingerbread house? I’d have to ask her about that sometime.

  5. Dada-dada-dada-dada Dadman!, the most recent emigrant from Cuba in the Reál family, who worked as a stuntman and character actor all over Florida.

  6. Daditarian, who, I found out later, had done all the landscaping for the Reál compound, loved nature, wanted to save the planet, and wasn’t actually vegetarian despite being called Daditarian but was always trying to get people to eat bugs instead of mammals for their protein.

  7. Dada-ist, the artist and sculptor, who dressed like a castaway and generally preferred drawing people to having conversations with them.

  Oh, and the half house? On a plot between Daditarian’s and Dada-ist’s homes was a structure covered with a tarp. A sign in front of it said: UNDER CONSTRUCTION. I had no idea whose dwelling that was. Maybe there was another Gabi dad floating around somewhere? Wouldn’t surprise me. There was plenty of room in the yard for more tiny homes to be added, should the need to acquire more dads arise.

  In the center of the backyard stood a pavilion as big as the ones you see in public parks. The raised stage at one end faced five rows of benches that I’d guess could hold maybe fifty audience members. Two lines of eight picnic tables each stretched the length of the rest of the pavilion, interrupted in the center by the outdoor kitchen.

  You could make enough food for an army of allosaurs with a kitchen that big and tricked out. You could flame-broil a whole ox on the grill and still have room on either end for bräts. There was a six-burner electric stove, a brick pizza oven, an industrial fryer, and a bar with three taps. I couldn’t see what two of the taps dispensed, but the third one had the unmistakable green label of Coco Rico on it. Only in Miami would someone have a tap in their home solely devoted to pouring out Coco Rico: the soda that tastes like what space aliens think coconuts taste like.

  Also, the pavilion held all the Gabi dads. They were waving and cheering, and calling us to join them. Papi was there, too, sitting next to Dad: The Final Frontier, with lots of pages spread out on the picnic table in fro
nt of them, and Sweeps propped up between them like just another guest at the table.

  And working the industrial fryer like…well, a Cuban mama feeding her family, was Reina Reál, Gabi’s mom.

  What is she frying? I wondered. But once I knew to pay attention to my nose, I caught the scent of the world’s most perfect food: the empanada.

  “¡Ven, ven!” Ms. Reál said directly to me, above the happy din of the dads at the tables. “¡Antes de que se enfríe la comida! ¡A comer!”

  Did not have to tell me twice. I ran to grab a plate.

  REASONS WHY EMPANADAS ARE the perfect food:

  1. They’re pie, and pie is best food, and empanadas are best pie, amen.

  2. They can have any kind of filling you can think of: beef, chicken, chicharrón, chorizo, bacalao, whatever kind of picadillo picas your dillo, spinach (better than it sounds), mushroom and cheddar, ham and cheddar, ham and pineapple, pineapple hold the ham, cherries, berries, bananas and dulce de leche, any kind of cheese ever. Literally everything tastes good in an empanada.

  Except purple oatmeal.

  3. They’re hand pies, so you don’t need utensils to eat them. Eating with your hands is one of life’s great joys.

  4. They are the exact size of a batarang, so if someone really needs pie, you can sidearm an empanada right into their mouth.

  5. The crust.

  Really, the crust is the thing. A flawlessly fried empanada crust—golden, not too oily, blistered to perfection—is crunchy on top, but a little chewy once you bite all the way through. It’s the ideal taste combo of potato chip and pasta. If the filling’s savory, you add salt; if it’s sweet, you dust with sugar. Either way, the crust multiplies the flavor of whatever’s inside. That’s why the secret to empanadas is to make them a little small. That way, not only can you eat more of them, but you get to eat more crust.

  Reasons why I don’t eat empanadas every day:

  1. I’d die. Crust = carbs = dead Sal.