“Okay, thanks for this.” He holds up the iPad. “I really wanted one, but my parents said I’d have to save up and buy it myself.”
“Good thing you have a rich and generous aunt then.” With a smirk, I trot off to the kitchen, where I make a grand entrance, sweeping into the room with arms open wide, saying in a singsong voice, “¡Hola, mis hermanas! Did you miss me?”
Ana looks up from the KitchenAid mixer where she’s adding spoonfuls of sugar to the egg whites that are being fluffed up inside the glass bowl. “Not really,” she mutters.
“Oh, don’t listen to her. Of course, we missed you. It seemed like you were gone forever.” Pilar sets down the cookie sheet she was removing from the oven and shuffles over to me, with her oven mitt-clad hands outstretched for a hug. She’s wearing a chili pepper apron that used to lie nice and flat over her mid-section, but now it’s just sort of perched on top of her beach ball-sized baby bump.
I return her embrace with one hand, being sure to keep my left one discreetly tucked behind my back so as not to spoil my surprise.
“You’re so tan!” Pilar says when she pulls back from the hug.
“You’re sooooo . . . swollen.” I grimace because seeing my sister’s puffy face up-close like this is kind of disturbing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she went crazy with fillers. Her legs aren’t much better; her ankles are as big as her calves!
She smiles good-naturedly. “Yeah, I’m retaining a lot of water. The doctor has banned salt from my diet. At least, he didn’t say anything about chocolate.” She swipes her finger through a bowl of melted chocolate that’s sitting on the island and sticks it in her mouth. “We’re making torticas de coco for the church bake sale tomorrow.”
“Yeah, they smell good.” These are the coconut cookies my mom always made when we were kids. They taste amazing and have the most incredible texture that’s both chewy (because of the coconut which adds moisture) and crunchy (because of the corn flakes); a drizzle of chocolate on top is the perfect finish to this sweet treat. I wander over to the table where a couple sheets of cookies are cooling and help myself to one even though it’s still too hot to actually put in my mouth. I blow on the cookie to try and cool it off.
“Why don’t you put on an apron and help?” Pilar suggests as she joins Ana at the island and starts chopping walnuts. “We’ve got to make three hundred of these and we could use an extra pair of hands.”
“I would love to . . .,” I say, moving to stand behind my sisters, “. . . but I’d hate to get cookie goop all over my ring.” With a dramatic flourish, I flick my hand down over their shoulders. The princess cut diamond catches the light overhead just right and reflects it so that the ring sparkles like a disco ball.
“¡Ay, Dios mío!” Pilar instantly drops her knife and grabs my hand, gaping at my bling. “That ring is stunning! I can’t believe Eduardo proposed while you were in Santo Domingo.”
“That makes two of us,” Ana says, pursing her lips with irritation. “You’ve only been dating the guy for a couple of months. Your chocha must have cast a powerful spell on him. You know that will wear off eventually, right? And when he comes to his senses . . .”
“Don’t be a hater, Ana, just because my engagement ring is twice,” I shove my hand in her face, “the size of yours.”
“This isn’t a contest.” Pilar pushes my hand down just as Ana was baring her teeth at it.
“You’re right. It isn’t,” I say with seeming indifference, then take a bite of my cookie and prance around to the other side of the island to plop down on one of the stools. “Lawyer.” I point at Ana. “Doctor.” I point at Pilar. “COO of an international company that’s worth a trizillion dollars.” I thump myself on the chest. “I win! I’m the best husband-catcher in the family.”
Ana shakes her head with disgust and grumbles, “She’s going to be insufferable now.”
“Just like you’ve been since the day you and Raymond got engaged and you lorded it over the rest of us. Payback’s a puta!”
“All right, you two, let’s not fight. This is a happy occasion. You are happy, right?” Pilar squinches her eyes at me with sisterly concern. “You didn’t accept Eduardo’s proposal just to prove something, I hope. Marriage is serious business, and you can’t go into it for the wrong reasons.”
“How could there be anything wrong with me marrying a man like Eduardo? He’s handsome—”
“And rich,” Ana adds.
“Intelligent, hard-working—”
“And rich,” Ana interrupts again.
“Thoughtful. Fun to be around.” I glare at Ana, daring her to pipe up again. When she doesn’t, I continue, “Great in bed—”
“And rich,” Ana interjects, with a smug smile.
“Okay, fine, he’s got money, which is an attractive quality in a man, but that’s just one of the many wonderful things Eduardo has to offer. He’s the whole package. Oh, and did I mention the impressive size of his package?” I wiggle my eyebrows at them.
“No man is that perfect,” Ana, aka “The Buzzkill,” declares. “Eduardo’s flaws just haven’t revealed themselves to you yet because you’ve only known him for a minute and a half.”
“She does have a point,” Pilar says while scooping up a handful of chopped walnuts and dumping them into the bowl with the cookie dough. “You and Eduardo haven’t had much time together. Why the rush to get married? Oh, wait,” her eyes widen in alarm, “you’re not pregnant, are you?” Her gaze drops to my flat belly, which is on prominent display in my cropped, billowy camisole and hip-hugging shorts.
I guffaw. “Like I’d ever be that stupid! I use two forms of birth control at all times, thank you very much. I’d never let some baby wreck this rockin’ bod.” I gesture at my big tetas and run my hand down the side of my lean, stretch mark-free torso.
Pilar frowns. “So, you don’t ever want children?”
“Hard pass,” I dismiss the idea out of hand as I lean forward to steal some walnuts off her cutting board.
“And you don’t think Eduardo will want to have children to pass his family name and company on to?” Ana queries as she drops spoonfuls of dough onto a greased cookie sheet.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I toss some more nuts in my mouth and mumble while chewing, “We’ve never really talked about it.” Although now that Ana’s mentioned it, I do seem to recall Eduardo saying something about a wife and kids being in his future when he gave his speech at the Clásico party.
“Izzy!” Pilar exclaims in a chastising tone, the same one she uses on her offspring when they’ve made some tragic mistake like throwing a jacket with a pocketful of glitter glue pens in with a load of wash. (True story: Gabi did this recently.) “You can’t marry a man you haven’t discussed an important issue like children with.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Whatever. We can work it out later. I mean, if Eduardo is really dying to have a kid, we can always hire a surrogate to carry the baby and a team of nannies to take care of it once it’s born.”
Ana nudges Pilar in the ribs with her elbow. “You should probably go ahead and pencil Eduardo Junior in for his first of many therapy sessions ten years from now.”
“Very funny,” I retort. “You should worry about your own perpetually out-of-control children. I’m sure there’s already a group of beds reserved for them at Dade Juvie.”
Ana flings a spoonful of cookie dough at me before I have a chance to duck, and it hits me square in the center of the chest. Assuming she meant to either hit me in the face or get my expensive top dirty, I taunt, “Your aim is as bad as your parenting skills,” then scrape the blob of dough off my skin and hurl it back at her. It lands on her forehead with a satisfying splat, and I guffaw.
Music suddenly blasts out of my purse, and I hold up my hand, yelling, “Cease fire!” so that Ana won’t try to retaliate while I answer my phone. “That’s probably my fiancé.” God, I love saying that word! It makes me tingly all over.
“Ugh, it’s Mamá,
” I inform my sisters when I see her name on the Caller ID. “I guess I should tell her about the engagement before Papá breaks down and does it. Eduardo called and asked him for my hand before proposing,” I explain, “but he told Papá to keep it a secret from everyone else because he thought I’d want to announce it.”
I accept the call and put it on speakerphone. “¡Hola Mamá! I’m here with Pilar and Ana.”
“Ay, Isidora! Gracias a Dios, you’re back home! Since you haven’t been answering any of my calls or texts, I thought for sure you had been kidnapped by los bandidos down in the Dominican Republic. I’ve been jumping out of my skin every time the phone rings because I thought it was a ransom call.”
“I was on vacation with my boyfriend. I didn’t have time to chat on the phone with my mother.” Truth is, I had plenty of time; I just didn’t feel like dealing with her when I was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying myself.
Adopting a wounded tone, she says, “I understand. What does it matter if your mother is crying herself to sleep every night because she’s so sick with worry—”
“Mamá!” I shut her down mid-whine. “Something major happened while I was away. Do you want to know what it was?”
“I’m surprised you want to tell me since I’m always the last to know what’s going on in your life. I didn’t find out you’d left the country until days later when your sister mentioned it.”
“Thanks a lot,” I mouth the words to Pilar, and she whispers back, “You should have told her yourself.”
“Unlike my travel plans or whether or not I’ve been putting raw potato on my eyes so that I won’t get dark circles, this is actually headline-worthy news. Are you ready for this, Mamá? Are you sitting down?”
“Ay, so dramatic! Just tell me already.”
“I’ll do better than that.” I pull up a picture of me flashing my ring while cuddled up with Eduardo (it was taken by the concierge at the hotel after we returned from our little interlude on the beach—and yes, it took me days to get all the sand out of my hair and the various nooks and crannies of my body, but I wasn’t complaining), then send it to my mother. I hear a ding on her end followed by a shriek and the sound of her phone clattering to the floor.
“Congrats, you finally did it. You killed her,” Ana deadpans.
Pilar smacks her on the arm and grabs my phone. “Mamá? Are you all right? Say something! Do you need us to call 911?”
“No, no,” she says breathlessly a few seconds later. “Estoy bien. I just got so excited when I saw Isidora’s ring that I flung my phone across the room. That ring is real, isn’t it? This isn’t some trick you’re playing on your poor mamá, I hope, because that would be cruel. You know I have a weak heart.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your heart!” all three of us shout.
“And Izzy’s diamond is definitely real and very large,” Pilar confirms.
“I can see that. Four carats if my eyes don’t deceive me, and a Tiffany’s design. I can’t wait to tell my friend Judith! She’s been bragging about her daughter’s engagement ring for months, but it’s nothing compared to Isidora’s. My baby is getting married . . . and to such a handsome, successful man! This is the happiest day of my life!” she all but squeals.
“You do know that I’ll be the one walking down the aisle, not you, right?”
“Of course, but I will be the mother of the bride, which is a very important role. And I’ll be planning the wedding . . . oh, I need to call Father Ramirez as soon as we hang up so that I can reserve the church—”
“Slow your roll, lady. I am not getting married in a church.”
“But you have to! Getting married at St. Patrick’s is a family tradition. That’s where your father and I had our wedding, it’s where your aunts, your sisters, your cousins—”
“Since when have I ever followed in anyone else’s footsteps? No church; I want to have a destination wedding, somewhere exotic like Bora Bora or the Maldives. Eduardo and I got engaged on a beach, so I think it only fitting that we get married on one.”
“I don’t even know where the Maldives is!” my mother wails in protest. “And we have a perfectly good beach right here in Miami. You can have your reception there after you get married at St. Patrick’s, although I really don’t think it’s a good idea because the heat and humidity will ruin all the women’s hair and make everyone sweat, so people will look wilted in your wedding pho—”
“I don’t care! I’m getting married on a foreign beach, and that’s the end of it.” I haven’t actually discussed this with Eduardo yet, but I’m sure he’ll go along with my venue of choice.
“Your father isn’t going to pay for a wedding that doesn’t take place in a church, so you need to stop being so selfish and—”
“It’s my wedding, which means I can have it wherever I damn well please. If I want to get married underwater or on top of a volcano, then that’s what I’m going to do! And it doesn’t matter if you and Papá won’t pay because Eduardo’s parents are loaded and they’ve already offered to foot the bill for everything; all we have to do is ask!” I yell at my phone.
Mamá gasps in outrage. “How dare they! We are perfectly capable of providing our daughter with a first-class wedding and for them to imply otherwise is highly insulting.”
“They were just trying to be nice, Mamá, and take the financial burden off your shoulders.”
“It’s nice to deprive a mother of her God-given right to throw her own daughter’s wedding?”
With a groan, I drop my head to the granite top of the island.
Stepping in to try and smooth things over, Pilar says, “Nothing has to be decided about the wedding right now. So, why don’t we just stay focused on the engagement and how wonderful that is for the time being? You haven’t even told us how Eduardo proposed, Izzy. You said it happened on the beach, which sounds very romantic. Why don’t you fill us in on the details?” she encourages.
I perk up, lifting my head. “It is a great story . . .”
CHAPTER 22
“And then he said those three little words I’ve been fantasizing about hearing ever since we started dating . . . quit your job.” I sigh dreamily, feeling just as happy now recalling my post-engagement, post-beach shag conversation with Eduardo as I did when it originally happened. “I didn’t even have to raise the subject; he did that all on his own.”
“So, that was a stipulation of him marrying you?” Topaz queries, with a furrowed brow.
“Oh, no.” I shake my head and feel my high ponytail brush the back of my neck. “Eduardo would never make demands like that. He just said I didn’t have to work anymore if I didn’t want to because he’d be covering all my expenses moving forward. He even made me an authorized cardholder on his AmEx account.” Pulling my wallet out of my purse, I remove the brand new credit card with my name emblazoned across the front and show it to my friends.
“Oooooo, a platinum card.” Nacho gets a rabid look in his eye. “¡Dámelo!” He extends his hand and makes a ‘gimme’ gesture with it.
“All right, but don’t get your greasy paws on the magnetic strip.” I hand over my most prized possession.
He and Topaz regard the card with the appropriate amount of awe and reverence for a few seconds, then Nacho brings it up to his nose and takes a whiff. “Smells like money,” he determines.
“As good as,” I say. “There’s no limit on that card. I could go buy a yacht with it if I wanted to.”
Although Nacho passes the card back to me, he continues to eye it longingly. “So, Eduardo just gave you carte blanche with that thing?”
“More or less, but he expects me not to be frivolous with it. I’ll mostly be using the card for house stuff. That was another reason why Eduardo thought it would be a good idea for me to put my modeling career on hold. He wants me to work with the contractor and interior designer who are getting the place on Bayshore set up for him, well, for us actually since I’ll be moving in there after we’re married. Oh, and
here’s something else this AmEx is good for . . .” I smile at the waitress who’s just appeared tableside with the chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot I ordered when we first sat down. I’ve never in my life been able to afford a bottle of champagne, so it gave me quite a thrill when I told the waitress to bring one out to us.
She places a flute down at each of the place settings on our four-top, then uncorks the yellow label-adorned bottle and fills three of them with champagne. “Mmmmm, worth every penny,” I declare after taking a sip of the golden, effervescent alcohol that costs a hundred and thirty-five dollars.
“Especially when they’re not your pennies,” Nacho snarks, and we all chuckle.
“We can’t have champagne without making a toast,” Topaz says, lifting her glass in the air. “To Izzy, may this marriage to Eduardo be everything you hoped for and more.”
Nacho raises his glass. “Kudos, chica. I don’t know how you pulled this off, but you did and I bow down to your craftiness and chutzpah.”
“Thanks, guys. I’d like to say that I couldn’t have done it without you, but this was really all me. So, cheers to my awesomeness.” With a smirk, I clink glasses with them.
“What are we celebrating?”
I almost choke on my champagne when I hear Zane’s voice, not that I’m surprised he’s here, I did invite him after all. It’s just that I’m not exactly jazzed about sharing my news with him. Up to this point, he hasn’t been a huge supporter of my relationship with Eduardo, so I can’t imagine this latest development will get his seal of approval. I’m expecting a variety of pained and/or disapproving expressions, along with a lecture on how crazy it is for me to marry a guy I’ve only known a few months.
There’s a prolonged silence while Z plops his camera bag down on the wooden boards of the deck where our table is. (I called ahead to Lique and dropped the Sandoval name before requesting seating outside where we’d have a view of the Intercoastal Waterway, which did the trick.) “Well?” Zane asks again after he folds his long, lean body into the chair next to me.
Izzy As Is Page 21