The Senator's Hispanic Bride

by Gold, Alexis

  “We came to share our good news with you,” she said, growing breathless as her heart raced. Her mother looked at her carefully and reached for her hand, holding it tightly.

  “What news is that?” her mother asked with a suspicious look.

  “We are engaged. We’re going to get married!” Isabella grinned excitedly and Michael felt like his heart might just escape his chest, it was beating so rapidly.

  Shouts and cheers went up all around them and Savannah and Ramon hugged Michael and Isabella closely for a long moment before releasing them to the rest of the family. It was all arms and loud voices and hands and kisses for several minutes before Michael felt like he surfaced from all of them and was actually able to get a breath.

  Isabella disentangled herself from her family and began to introduce all of them to Michael. She first introduced him to a couple of women who were standing beside them. The two ladies were a little shorter than Isabella, quite a bit rounder, and very happy to meet him.

  “This is Nayeli and this is her sister Joselyn. They are my cousins.” The ladies hugged him and kissed him. He was getting used to the hugging finally, and kissed each of them back on their cheeks.

  “This is my cousin Priscilla, her brother Reynaldo, and her husband Tino.” She indicated another woman and the two men beside her. They all hugged him and kissed his cheek warmly.

  Isabella motioned for a few other people to come over, and Michael was introduced to more of her cousins. “This is Pablo and his brothers Orlando and Enrique, but we call him Ricky, and you already met their sister Selena.” More hugs and kisses, and Michael felt like he was on a merry-go-round of affection.

  “That’s everyone except my sister.” Isabella shot a disappointed look toward Marisol and her sister walked over to them.

  Michael felt intimidated by her and didn’t reach out to hug her, but rather, he extended his hand and did his best to smile at her.

  “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  She shook her head at him. “You should have come right away. You should have come the first week. I can’t believe that you are coming here three months after you started seeing my sister. Three months! No one is busy for three months.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he swallowed hard.

  “Now you think you’re going to marry my sister,” she said in a low voice.

  “I am going to marry your sister,” Michael said firmly but politely. “She said she would have me, so I am not letting her get away.”

  Marisol lifted her chin and looked skeptically at him. “We’ll see,” she said and turned around to walk back into the kitchen.

  Ramon grimaced at her treatment of Michael and placed his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “We have a new son in the family! Let’s eat!”

  The rest of the cousins cheered and all of them busied themselves moving about quickly, and in no time at all, the table was set and seemingly endless plates of food were being passed from hand to hand as everyone talked and laughed with each other.

  Michael watched them in wonder. He’d never seen anything like it and it was incredible to him. They operated as a unit, each one doing a part, and that part contributing to the greater good of the whole. The thought occurred to him as he sat there motionless in the flurry, that he was looking at what families should be. His family had never felt like that, and it didn’t negate his family, but he did see for the first time what it was like to grow up with so many people around, and he realized that he liked it.

  Orlando, Pablo and Ricky came to Michael and huddled around him. “Come over here to the bar. We want to have a shot with you.” They pulled Michael to his feet and as they walked to the bar, Reynaldo and Tino joined them without a word. Michael felt his nerves snap to attention as all the men surrounded him. Pablo, Ricky and Reynaldo were about average height and fairly well built, but Tino and Orlando were enormous, both of them tall and thick, stocky men. They circled him, and Michael’s back touched the edge of the bar.

  “What are you drinking, brother?” Ricky asked with a half smile.

  “Scotch?” Michael asked more than said.

  The men laughed at him. “We’re drinking rum. No scotch.” They poured shots of old rum and toasted him. “To Michael, our new cousin.” Their shot glasses met, and they all drank.

  Tino leaned close to Michael and lowered his voice. “You have a big family, Michael?” he asked.

  Michael shook his head. “No, no I don’t really have any family left at all. I think I have a second cousin in…” He looked around at all of the men’s eyes on him, and stopped. “No. I guess I don’t.”

  Reynaldo slapped his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “We want to help you fit into the family, so we thought we better explain to you how it works.”

  “We’re going to help you.” Pablo smiled at him. Michael felt his stomach drop to the floor as Ricky put another shot of rum in his hand. His nerves were on high alert.

  “Help me? Thank you. That’s…” He stopped again and looked around himself at them.

  Orlando leaned close to him and clapped his hand down on Michael’s other shoulder. “Here’s how it works. You’re marrying our cousin, and that means that you’re going to be one of us. You’re going to be our primo, our cousin, but you’re coming from the outside, so there are some rules.”

  Michael focused intently on Orlando’s dark eyes. “Rules?”

  “You’re our primo now, so no one messes with you. They mess with you, they mess with all of us. We always have each other’s backs. Always. You got that?” Orlando said with a serious tone.

  Michael had been on sports teams in college and he knew about brotherhoods. This felt like a brotherhood, but not like one he had ever been a part of before. “I think I got it,” Michael answered with a smile.

  “We’re always going to look out for you,” Pablo said with a genuine tone.

  The men all nodded in agreement. Orlando, who was the oldest of all of them, looked directly into Michael’s eyes. “But primo, we’re going to warn you right now, you better never do anything to hurt Isabella.”

  Michael shook his head. “No, of course not. I’d never do anything to hurt her!”

  Then men around him laughed and smiled. “That’s good, cousin!” Reynaldo said, tossing back a shot of rum and laughing softly. “You better keep to that word, Michael.”

  A shout came from the table where the family was all gathered. “Boys! What are you all doing at the bar? Come back over here.” Ramon was standing at the head of the table, waving at them. They finished their shots and headed back to the table. Michael wondered if it was the rum or the nerves that were making him nauseated.

  “I want to propose a toast!” Ramon said, pulling his younger daughter close to him and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “To my beautiful baby girl and my new son-in-law to be!” The family stood and lifted their glasses. Michael was guided over to stand beside Ramon, and Ramon smiled warmly at him.

  “Congratulations to you both! I wish that the road that you follow will be one of happiness, deep love, honesty, prosperity and good health, all of your lives.” He raised his glass and the family toasted, then he drew them both into a hug against his broad chest. “Congratulations to you two.”

  He kissed the tops of their heads and when he did, Michael felt tears sting his eyes. It had been many long years since a man had acted as a father toward him, and he hadn’t realized how much he had missed it. He closed his eyes for a moment and let the feel of it soak into him, and then he opened his eyes again and looked at the faces around him. They were filled with love and happiness, and it cocooned around him.

  They sat and ate some more, and Isabella gave him tastes of all the different dishes of food on the table, explaining what each one was and how it was significant to her culture. He found it fascinating, but not as fascinating as watching the light and joy in her eyes as she told him about all of it.

  When lunch was finally finished, he stood up and looked a
t Isabella with disappointment in his face. “I have to go to the office. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” he leaned over and kissed her, and she nodded.

  “Thank you so much for all that you did in Washington and for coming with me to tell my family. That was really important to me.”

  He nodded and hugged her close. “This was wonderful. I loved being here. Thank you.” He kissed her cheek and let her go, and then hugged through her family on his way out.

  When he had gone, Isabella looked at the boys and scowled at them suspiciously. “What did all of you talk to him about at the bar?”

  They laughed at her and surrounded her, hugging her and kissing her face. “Don’t you worry about it little Prima. We were just welcoming him to the family.”

  She looked up at each of them. “You be nice to him. I love him.”

  They laughed and nodded, and walked away from her. Selena came up to her and hugged her tightly. “He’s so gorgeous! You are a lucky girl.” She kissed her cheek and bounded off to help clear the table and go back up to the other staff at the front of the restaurant.

  Isabella took an armful of dishes back into the prep room just off of the kitchen and found Marisol slicing fruit at the counter. She walked up to her sister and hugged her around the waist from the back, laying her head on her sister’s back.

  “Mari, aren’t you happy for me? Don’t you like him?” she asked quietly.

  Marisol continued to slice and chop. “I don’t trust him.”

  Isabella pouted and let go of her sister, pulling a lemon meringue pie from the refrigerator and setting it on the counter. “Why not? You haven’t even met him until today.”

  Marisol pushed the strawberries off of the cutting board and started slicing bananas. “That’s the first red flag right there. You’ve been dating him for three months and this is the first we see of him? Today? He was hiding. I don’t trust him.”

  Isabella scowled and sliced a big piece of the pie, placing it on a plate. “He’s been busy. He told you that. I asked him to come with me to tell my family that we were engaged and he did. He’s a good man, Mari.”

  Marisol sliced harder and faster. “He should have already been coming here. He should have known Mama and Papa and he should have asked for permission to marry you, not being a sneak and going behind everyone’s back. That’s not right.”

  “Mari! Can’t you be a little understanding? He’s been busy! He’s running an election and he hasn’t had time to come with me to visit here. He’s going to be my husband, Mari, he’s going to be your brother! You could show a little more love!” Isabella pulled chocolate syrup from the refrigerator and proceeded to cover the lemon meringue pie in it.

  Marisol gritted her teeth and then started chopping a coconut. “That’s just the thing, Isabella, here it is only three months along, and no one has met him yet and all of a sudden he wants to marry you! Don’t you think there’s something wrong with that? Aren’t you the least bit suspicious?”

  Isabella shot her sister an irritated look. “Suspicious of what? He loves me and he wants to marry me!”

  Marisol turned and glared at Isabella. “Suspicious that he doesn’t really love you! Suspicious that he’s using you! You’re Puerto Rican, he’s white, he’s running for office and maybe it makes him look good to be with a brown girl! Who ever heard of getting engaged after only three months? Nobody in our family knows anything about him at all and all of a sudden here he is and we are supposed to just take him in and accept him?”

  Isabella had heard enough. “He loves me and he wants to be with me! Why can’t you just accept that I’m happy and leave it at that?”

  Her sister shot her a harsh glare and raised her voice. “Because I have loved you all of your life and he’s only known you three months! I want what’s best for you and I don’t think he is what’s best for you!”

  “You’re just jealous!” Isabella shot back weakly.

  Marisol shook her head at her, walked over to her and picked up the pie that Isabella had just doused in chocolate syrup and smothered it on her sister’s face. Isabella stood there in complete shock, her face dripping with lemon, chocolate and meringue.

  “I can’t believe you just did that!” she said in a low tone, reaching for the bananas that Marisol had just cut.

  She grabbed two handfuls of them and smashed them in Marisol’s face, and after that, the fight was on. Any kind of food that either one of them could get their hands on was flung at the other as they screamed and laughed, covering each other in a disgraceful mess. The food fight soon turned into a wrestling match and they both wound up on the floor in each other’s arms, laughing and crying as they tried to get the better of each other. Finally, they realized that neither one of them would win, and they gave up and Isabella laid her head in Marisol’s lap, looking up at her. They were both completely covered in food and utterly unrecognizable.

  “Mari, please just be there for me and be happy for me. I need you to be my maid of honor, and I need your help. I can’t do it without you. Please?” Isabella begged her sister, holding her hand in hers.

  Marisol slumped her shoulders and looked around the disastrous prep room in defeat. “Alright. I’ll help you, but I don’t like it, and I don’t like him. He doesn’t deserve you.”

  “Thank you, Mari. I love you,” Isabella said with a wide indiscernible grin.

  Marisol leaned down and kissed her sister’s meringue covered face. “I love you, too.”

  Just then their mother walked in and her jaw fell wide open. “What in the name of the holy… get this mess cleaned up right now! Just what do you two think you’re doing! That’s a waste of food! It’s a waste of money and resources, and just look at the mess you have made of this prep room! Get up now and clean it!” She glared hotly at both of them and turned and stomped out of the room.

  The girls burst into giggles and pulled each other up off of the floor. “This is all your fault,” Isabella said snidely to her sister.

  “My fault? How is it my fault? You’re the one who brought him in. You started all of this!” They argued and laughed, picking up their mess and cleaning the prep room until it shone better than it had when Marisol had first entered it, then they cleaned themselves up and walked out arm in arm.

  ***

  Michael arrived at his office and called Glenn in to talk with him. Glenn walked over to Michael’s desk, watching him the whole time, and sat down expectantly.

  “Well? How did it go?” he asked with impatience.

  Michael leaned back in his chair and smiled, thinking of the incredible lunch he had shared with Isabella and her family. “It went really well! We had a wonderful time. I asked her to marry me and she said yes!”

  Glenn’s face widened with his smile, like a frog swallowing a fly. “Good! That’s very good. Let’s look at dates.”

  *

  The newspapers carried the story of the engagement the next day, and it caught like wildfire over the state. The stories varied from the white candidate for the Senate seat marrying a Puerto Rican woman, to lower shelf pieces touting sad news to masses of disappointed women who would not be finding favor with the gorgeous dark haired hero that they all loved.

  Glenn was ecstatic. He carefully combed all of the media, reading it all while Michael had his assistant prepare an engagement party for a few hundred of the people that most needed to be there. He made a personal call to Ramon and Savannah’s restaurant, La Cocina Criolla.

  Selena answered the phone and was only too happy to discover her new cousin on the other end of the line. She put him on hold and a moment later, Ramon was on the phone with him.

  “Michael?” he asked happily.

  “Hi, Ramon, how are you doing?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Michael. You must not call me Ramon. You must call me Papa,” he said with a kind smile in his voice. Michael felt his heart skip and tears threaten to sting his eyes.

  “Yes, sir. Papa. I’ll do that. Thank you. How are you doing?”
he asked, genuinely interested to know.

  “I’m good! I’m very blessed,” Papa said in a happy tone.

  “That’s good. Listen, we’re going to have an engagement party, and I wondered if you would want to cater it? I’d love to give you the business, if you want to do it.”

  “Oh! That’s wonderful!” Papa replied. “I’m so glad to hear it. Let me ask Mama what she thinks. Hold on a minute.”

  There was silence and then Savannah came on the phone with Michael.

  “Michael?” she asked.

  “Hello, Savannah.” He caught himself right away and realized he would probably have the same conversation with her. “Mama. Uh, did… Papa… tell you about the engagement party?” he asked. It was strange to call anyone by those names, particularly people he had only met for the first time the day before, but it didn’t feel wrong.

  “He did!” she said excitedly. “You listen to me, Michael, we are going to take care of you and all of your guests. This is going to be such a wonderful party! We will make it better than anything you’ve ever seen! This, I promise to you.”

  Michael smiled and leaned back in his chair. “I’m sure you will.”

  “Michael! How many people will be coming to the party?” Mama asked happily.

  “Probably about four hundred,” he answered nonchalantly.

  She gasped dramatically. “Ay Dios Mio! Why so many?”

  He worried that he might have given her too high a number. “Um, well, it’s everyone, you know, family, friends, business associates. People who should be there.”

  “Are you going to invite all of those people to your wedding?” she asked in horror.

  “Well, probably not all of them, but part of them, yes.” He answered, beginning to be concerned.

  “Michael, if you invite them to the engagement party, then you have to invite them to the wedding. Are you sure you want that many?” she asked with a worried tone.

  He sat up and looked at the guest list that he and Glenn had worked out. It wasn’t really one that he could or should alter. “I… uh… I guess so. Is that too many for you to cook for?”