“Rey, you remember my cousin Diana,” she stated rather than said.
“Hi,” I kind of giggled for a second before catching myself and extending my hand out toward him. I couldn’t be too greedy and ask for a hug; the only person I’d ever seen him hug other than Sal had been her immediate family and my mom. She’d talked about that hug for three months afterward.
“Hello,” he stated evenly, shaking my hand firmly.
Switching my gaze back to my cousin so I wouldn’t get caught ogling the hottest forty-two-year-old in the world too long, I grinned back at her as if a man worth over three hundred million dollars hadn’t just been touching me. “Are you hungry? We have water.”
“I’ll take some water and some food,” Sal said as Reiner reached up to place a hand on her shoulder. “Di, where’s your mom? I need to tell her hi before—”
“Salomé! Mija!” my mom cried out from the back door at the top step.
Mija. Her daughter. God help me.
I just barely held back an eye roll. She didn’t even call me that. Since Sal had gotten married, everyone in the family acted like she was a celebrity instead of the kid who had fallen out of the tree and broken her arm at our house in El Paso. My mom was probably the worst about it; it really got on my nerves. And maybe just maybe made me a tiny bit jealous that she was more affectionate and proud of my cousin than me.
It wasn’t Sal’s fault.
“Brace yourself,” I whispered to her.
She elbowed me with a snort.
The next two hours went by in the blink of an eye as a few friends of Josh’s from school and their parents showed up, mixed in with the family we had in San Antonio, and the young couple from next door and their kid. There must have been at least fifty people in the backyard and the birthday party was still going in full swing. We still hadn’t cut cake, socked the shit out of a piñata, or opened presents.
“You need help with anything?” my cousin asked, coming up behind me with two used royal blue party plates in her hands.
I was squatting by one of the coolers, trying to rearrange more drinks inside. “That’s okay. I’m done.”
She watched me as I stood up, her pretty face beaming. “There’re so many people here.”
“I know. I’m pretty sure I don’t know ten of them,” I huffed, zoning in on the group of adults I really was pretty positive that I’d never met in my life. “Anybody bothering you guys?”
“No.” She shook her head. “When he has his hat on, no one pays attention.”
That was the thing with Sal: she didn’t say no one knows who I am. She didn’t care. My mom had shown me pictures that Sal’s dad had posted online of her face on a billboard in Germany, for God’s sake.
“Good, because if they are, tell them to fuck off, or tell me and I’ll tell them to fuck off.”
Sal laughed and tapped her elbow against mine a little too hard, but I kept my wince to myself. “The boys look great.”
For probably the third time in the last couple of hours, that all too familiar knot formed in my throat. The first time had been when I’d overheard Louie in the moonwalk shouting, “This is the best party ever!” The second time had been when one of Josh’s friend’s moms came into the backyard and referred to me as his mom. Neither one of us had objected to the title, but I’d felt every inch of it. How could I not? I shouldn’t be the one throwing the party. It should have been Rodrigo.
“Josh has grown a foot since I last saw him,” she commented, her gaze on the moonwalk like she could see him through the net walls. “And Louie’s still the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I know. He really is, and he’s the sweetest kid in the world.”
“Josh isn’t?”
I kind of gave her a side look. “When he wants to be, but he’s just like Rodrigo, a smart-ass.”
Her chuckle had me glancing at her, frowning.
“What?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know you’re the smart-ass in the family.”
“I am not,” I scoffed.
“Sure you’re not,” she laughed.
“Diana?” a male voice asked from behind, pausing our conversation.
I was too distracted to piece together why the rough, male voice sounded so familiar, but I was about to turn my head over my shoulder when it clicked. He’d come.
“Hey,” I said to the voice I recognized as Dallas’s from the rough texture it had, fully turning around to find him a few feet away with Miss Pearl on his arm. Well. I had no idea they even knew each other, but that was pretty damn cute he’d brought her. “Miss Pearl, I’m so happy you’re here.”
The older woman smiled. “Thank you for inviting me, last minute and all, Miss Cruz.”
And she went there. Okay. I barely held back a laugh at her brutal honesty. “Diana, please. You’re welcome. Come on in and let’s get you a seat and something to eat and drink,” I said, walking around to take her other hand. “I’ll find you later,” I said to my cousin who simply nodded, head bobbing a hello at the two newcomers. Miss Pearl seemed to eye her for a second too long but followed after me.
I made eye contact with two of my other cousins who happened to be sitting at the table closest to us and mouthed, “Move it” while cocking my head to the side. Luckily, they were polite enough to move, taking their trash with them.
“You didn’t tell me with enough time about the party,” Miss Pearl started. There we went again. “I couldn’t buy your boy a present,” she apologized as we settled her into a chair at an empty table.
“Don’t worry. He has so many presents already. What can I get you both to drink?”
She requested a Diet Coke and Dallas a beer after I told him what we had.
I was surprised he was here. With a beer and a red cup filled with soda in hand, I made my way back to the table, dodging a horde of kids walking through the yard with their cell phones in hand, not paying attention to where they were going.
“Here you go,” I said to both, passing Dallas his can, skipping his gaze in the process, and handing Miss Pearl her cup of diet. “Are you hungry?” I asked her. “We have fajitas, chicken, Mexican rice, beans, nachos…”
“I can’t handle spicy. It messes with my digestion. Is any of that fine?”
“Yes, ma’am. None of it is spicy.”
“I’ll take some chicken and Mexican rice, whatever that is.”
My lips quirked. “Okay. I’ll bring you back a plate. Dallas? Anything?” I made myself ask before my mom caught me not asking and demanded to know where the hell my manners had gone.
But my neighbor turned toward the older woman instead of responding to me. “I’m gonna grab my own plate. You’ll be fine, Nana?”
Wait a second, wait a second.
Nana?
She lifted those thin, gnarled fingers as I stood there and tried figuring out what the hell was going on. Nana? “Boy, I was born fine,” the woman answered, oblivious to the questions bouncing around in my head.
Dallas raised his eyebrows but grinned that grin I’d only seen him give Louie. “If you say so.”
“I say so,” she confirmed, raising her entire hand to wave him off. “Go.”
Fucking Nana? Dallas was related to Miss Pearl? Since when?
“I can get whatever you want,” I started to say before he stood up, my gaze bouncing back and forth between the man and woman who lived across the street from me.
“I know you can, but I got two hands. I can help.”
Nana? Focus, Diana, focus. I gestured toward the grill where one of my uncles was currently manning it, but really, I glanced at Miss Pearl one more time. I didn’t see the relation. I really didn’t.
We made it three feet away from the table when he asked, “Why don’t you tell her your last name isn’t Cruz?”
I eyed him as I snickered. “I don’t know. I’ve told her my last name before, but she keeps calling me Miss Cruz or Miss Lopez. I just let her run with it.”
He
sighed and shook his head, sliding those hazel eyes toward the table. “She doesn’t forget anything. Don’t let her fool you. I’ll talk to her about it.”
Was it my imagination or were things already less awkward and more comfortable between us? I didn’t think I was imagining it. Then again, nothing could bring people together quite like seeing a person bawling their eyes out and sharing stories about people who had been loved and lost.
He’d already more than proved to me multiple times he was a good man. A really good man.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s fine. I know what my last name is.” I glanced at him just as we stopped in front of the grill. “I’m glad you came. Louie will be happy to see you.”
Freshly showered and wearing clothing that wasn’t wrinkled or stained for once, it brightened up everything about him. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and I could see the hint of a smile on his pale pink mouth. Dallas squinted a little as he asked, “Did he write my name on the invitation?”
I couldn’t hold it. I burst out laughing. “Yes.”
I could see the corners of his mouth twitch up a little more. “It said Dal-ass on it. That’s how he wrote it. D-a-l-a-s-s. Dalass.”
Just thinking about Louie’s bad handwriting spelling out his name again made my eyes tear up. I’d let myself lose it once he and Josh had made it across the street. He wasn’t picking up on the spelling thing very well, but he was trying. Who was I to knock down his best effort? Especially when it amused me to no end. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was wrong.” I gasped. “So wrong.”
“Sure,” he said, his mouth quirking up that much more until it was 75 percent of a grin. “It made me laugh. Don’t worry about it.”
I grinned at him and gestured toward the food. “You okay with Mexican food?”
“I don’t know anyone who isn’t okay with Mexican food.”
That distracted me. I raised both my eyebrows at him, impressed. “Tío. ¿Me das una pierna de pollo, porfa?” I asked my uncle who had taken over the grill, before turning back to the biggest man at the party standing right next to me. “What do you want to eat?”
“Fajitas,” he said in his unforgiving, inflexible English that I barely managed not to smile at.
“Y un pedazo grande de fajita, por favor,” I translated, even though my uncle spoke and understood English pretty well. He wasn’t much of a talker and handed over one plate after another with the meat I’d requested.
“You all right?” Dallas asked as I led him over to the table with the sides.
“Yeah.” I glanced at the hand he had loose at his side. “I never asked, how’s your boo-boo?”
I’d swear on my life he laughed a little, even flexing his hand, too. “Fine. No gangrene, no nothing.”
That made me snort and look up at his face. His facial hair had grown in again lately, and I couldn’t say it didn’t look nice. “You’re welcome.”
Dallas’s smile was this grudging thing that only made mine grow. The more he fought being friendly with me, the more aggressive it made me. The more I wanted it. I’d never been good with people telling me I couldn’t have something.
“I invited Trip, but he said he already had plans, so you’re on your own today.” I’d also invited Ginny, but besides her having to work, I noticed that she and Dallas weren’t close for whatever reason. He probably wouldn’t care that his older cousin wasn’t going to show up, why bother mentioning it?
Trip’s name had barely come out of my mouth when the expression on his face fell just a little, just a little, but he nodded. “He left for Houston.”
He’d explained that to me. I gestured to the trays of food set up on the table. “Grab whatever you want from here. Like I told Miss Pearl, none of it’s spicy, except the salsa and hot sauce over there on the end.”
Dallas’s eyes lingered on me for a moment before he reached over to scoop rice, beans, and even the small bowl of squash my mom had insisted on putting out, onto his plate. Coming up next to him, I did the same for Miss Pearl’s plate, unsure of what she’d want. His elbow brushed mine as he said, “I got Josh a gift card.”
Peeking at him quickly, I lowered my gaze back at the food below me. “Thanks. You didn’t have to, but I know he’ll love it. He thinks he’s getting too old for toys.” I passed him over a wad of napkins, his light-colored eyes meeting mine dead on. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, too. Not just Lou.”
“Sure. I don’t have anything to do till later. I’ll give Josh his thing when I see him,” he said, continuing on as I led him back to the table where we’d left Miss Pearl, only to find my mom and Sal sitting alongside her.
“Diana, you never told me who your cousin was.” Miss Pearl gaped as I set the plate in front of her.
“Sal?” I asked, taking the seat on the other side of my mom and leaning forward to be able to hear the woman. I’d spoken to Miss Pearl a handful of times, if that, since I had moved in, so I wasn’t surprised there was something she didn’t know about me.
“Yes.” The old woman had those milky blue eyes on said cousin. “She just won the Altus Cup,” she practically whispered. “Dallas, she won the Altus Cup. Can you believe that?”
I learned something right then: I still stereotyped other people even though I knew better, because the last person I would have expected to know anything about soccer would have been Miss Pearl. And to keep digging the dagger of shame in, the older woman kept going.
“She scored five goals!” she said to no one in particular.
I didn’t even remember she’d scored that many goals in the tournament.
My cousin, who was sitting next to Miss Pearl, caught my gaze and grinned, obviously as surprised as I was by her unexpected fan. Here I’d been trying to save her from the people around our age and the one person who knew who she was was somewhere in the ninety range.
“Sal is the star in the family.” I shouldn’t have been surprised those words came out of my mom’s mouth as she sat up a little straighter in her chair, reaching out to touch Miss Pearl’s forearm. “We’re all so proud of her.”
I winked at my cousin, letting my mom’s words go in one ear and out the other. “Yeah, Sal, we all yell for you every time we watch a game.”
“Diana never liked playing sports. She didn’t like getting dirty, but Salomé always knew she wanted to play. Didn’t you, mija?”
“Diana plays outside with the boys all the time. She doesn’t mind getting dirty.”
I stopped breathing for a moment and stared at the man who had just spoken up. Dallas was standing behind his grandmother, looking as calm as ever with his arms crossed over his chest.
If Sal shot me a look, I wasn’t sure because I was too busy staring at my neighbor, but she quickly answered, “I did, Tia Rosario.” Before my mom could make another barb, she leaned toward the older woman, catching her eye. “Thank you for watching. We need more fans.”
“Oh, I love soccer. Especially women’s soccer. The men? They’re good for nothing. Now the foreign players…”
I swallowed and let my mom’s words run down my back. I wasn’t going to let her bother me. But somehow Dallas happened to meet my eyes and we both just stared at each other. I smiled at him tightly, and I was surprised to see him smile back just as tightly.
* * *
I wanted to cry.
Looking out on the mess in the lawn, I felt a sob that consisted mostly of me being extra tired, fighting its way up through my insides. Somehow, someway, I managed to keep it down.
The backyard was a fucking mess. God help me. But I wasn’t going to cry over it, no matter how badly I might want to, and that was really, really badly.
The party had moved into the house when the mosquitoes had come out hours ago, and I hadn’t bothered turning on the outside lights after the moonwalk had been picked up. I hadn’t wanted to see the damage and not be able to do anything about it, and I was suddenly regretting sending everyone hom
e without forcing them to stay and help clean.
Now seeing it… it honestly looked like Woodstock after everyone had trashed the place. The yard had shit all over it, one of the trash bags had been torn open by possibly Mac, the grass was trampled… even the tree… there was something hanging from it, and I had a feeling it wasn’t a streamer.
It was awful.
“Diana?” Dallas’s dark head of hair was sticking out of the back door of the kitchen.
It startled me, and I forced a tense smile on my face that was 95 percent fake. “Hey. I thought you left.” Hours ago, I remembered seeing him take off with Miss Pearl and holding up a hand when he caught me looking from across the yard where I’d been busy talking to the neighbors next door.
“I did,” he confirmed, closing the door behind him as he paused on the stoop and swept his gaze over the yard. His eyes went wide and his “Oh shit” seemed to come straight out of my own mouth.
“Uh-huh” was all I could answer without bursting into tears.
It was a mess.
It was a fucking mess.
I thought I might have choked a little as I took it in one more time.
“You okay?” he asked.
I couldn’t even look at him. The yard had me in a trance. “Sure.”
“You’re not okay,” was the statement that came out of his mouth, dry and serious and so, so, so true.
I opened my mouth and swallowed the thick saliva that pooled in my throat. “It’s terrible.” I gasped. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
He started to shake his head before stopping the motion and nodding instead. “Yeah.”
Well, at least he wasn’t bullshitting me.
I wouldn’t cry over grass. I wouldn’t. I just couldn’t. At least not in front of anyone.
A hand briefly touched my shoulder, nearly enough to get me to turn away from the aftermath of a nuclear bomb my beloved backyard had turned into. “Hey. It’ll still be there tomorrow. Don’t worry about it tonight.”
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