I understand now what Eva was saying about him; it’s like watching a man try to put a lid on a pot that’s already boiling over.
“What’s the point? There was never a chance, was there?” Marco’s voice breaks, his agony so palpable that I almost feel bad for him. “We were never going to be a family again.”
“You’ll always be Diego’s dad,” Eva says, her voice finally wavering.
There’s only defeat and sadness in Marco’s posture now. He shoots me a look more hate-filled than any I’ve seen up close, and then jumps in his car and speeds away.
The night goes quiet around us.
“I should have handled that better.” Eva’s lip is trembling. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
And that unearths anger I didn’t know was buried. Jude doesn’t think I can manage my life, Eva doesn’t think I can cope with hers. At every turn, I’m underestimated.
“So it’s your f-fault that he has anger issues? Am I supposed to r-run off with my tail between my l-legs now?”
Her eyes get rounder than they already are. “I didn’t say that.”
I put my hands on her shoulders, careful to keep it gentle. “Good, because I’m n-not. Are you d-done with him?”
She nods. “I have been for a long time. But he can’t accept that.”
“And whose p-problem is that?”
“His. I know that. But he’s hurting.”
I keep forgetting that Eva knows every side of Marco, not just the one I see. She understands his intentions and his potential as a person, too, and maybe that’s what she holds onto.
“Even after you stop loving someone, you don’t stop caring about them,” she says.
“Some p-people do.”
She looks at me like she’s about to tell me a secret. “Not me.”
I pull her into my arms again. “Me neither,” I whisper.
I understand why Marco is devastated that he lost Eva. But right now, I’m more concerned about our future than her past. I want to embed myself in this woman’s life, and I’m going to let her do the same to mine.
Chapter 16: Eva
Sofia and Edward Jimenez tried for ten years to have a child before they conceived Marco. Sofia was probably filled with terror every single day of her pregnancy, while faking a smile that would fool the world. Marco’s birth must have been an indescribable joy and relief.
When Marco’s mental issues surfaced, his parents were cut down at the knees. Edward was stoic, turning his sadness inward. But Sofia—she was angry at the world. To her credit, she didn’t like being that angry, so she went into denial instead.
Marco’s arrest gave her clarity—but only for a while. Then again, every mother’s perception of her child is clouded by love.
I try to remember this as she stands in front of me, scowling.
“Hello, Eva. Is Diego ready?”
“Hello, Sofia.”
She doesn’t step a toe into the house, eager to pick up Diego for the night and go. They have him over every once in a while for a grandparent sleepover. Diego enjoys it, but not as much as he likes being with my parents. I’m aware that it makes me petty to be secretly pleased by that.
In truth, I understood a long time ago that it doesn’t matter if Sofia and I don’t like each other, as long as she loves her grandson, which she does.
“I’ll get him.”
I look over her shoulder and see Marco sitting in the car like a child, avoiding me. Maybe it’s better this way—cleaner. He and I are moving into a new phase of our relationship, and we both need time to process it. And yet it’s infuriating that it took another man sniffing around for Marco to accept that we really are divorced.
The minute they leave, I jump in the shower to get ready for my date with Ryan; a real date this time—not just a sexfest at home. Well, not right away, anyway.
When I open the back door and his face lights up, it makes all the ridiculous extra primping I did worth it. But it also reminds me too much of the night he came over for dinner, and I know we better get out of here fast if we’re actually going to get to the restaurant.
“Hello,” he says, nuzzling my ear.
“You smell good.” Like spices and smoke with a hint of Ryan for good measure.
“So do you.” His arms circle me, his hands creep down, my dress drags up.
“I was promised food.” I kiss him anyway.
He pulls back, his brown eyes dazed. “Okay, let’s g-go.”
“You have lipstick on you.” I wipe at the corner of his mouth with my thumb.
“Here, I’ll give it back to you.” He frames my face with those hands—he knows they’re his secret weapon—and gives me a real kiss.
To hell with my lipstick.
By the time we stop kissing, we’re both a mess.
“We have to leave if we want to make our reservation.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
His grumpiness is mostly bluster. It’s worth it when we get to the restaurant, which has rooftop seating and an outdoor fireplace. Downtown San Jose is spread out before us, with the orange and purple dome of the Tech Museum standing out from the other buildings.
“I like this spot.”
“Me too, b-but I’ve only been here once. For prom.”
I picture Ryan in an ill-fitted suit holding a corsage. “We had mine at a weird club that isn’t there anymore.”
The waiter brings us fresh sourdough bread as we look at our menus.
“I bet you were p-popular in high school.”
I grab some bread and spread a liberal amount of butter on it. “Hell no. I did okay, though. I had friends, was on the school newspaper. Dated Tommy Fitzgerald because he looked good in his basketball uniform. But most people didn’t know my name.”
“Jude made m-me go to prom. My girlfriend had broken up with me so I asked a friend. Poor girl. I tried to be a good d-date, but I was filled with too much teen angst. I was probably c-composing love poems to my ex in my head or something.”
“I always wanted to date a guy like you in high school. The sensitive quiet type. I think I was too lazy to do the work.”
He leans forward, his orange sweater bringing out the warmth of his eyes. “And now?”
“I’ve learned to apply myself.”
The night is chilly, but I barely notice as the oversized fireplace and the conversation keep me warm. Being with Ryan is effortless.
“It’s nice that you’re f-from here,” Ryan says. “It seems like no one is anymore.”
“People born here are trying to get out while everyone else is trying to get in.”
Even though I’m full from dinner, I order chocolate lava cake to share and another glass of wine. Somehow, I seem to end up eating most of the cake.
“How l-long has your family been in the Bay Area?”
“We go way back. We have a sprinkling of family in Mexico, but almost everyone was born right here, and some of them were Californios. They were heavy into agriculture. My grandparents owned a small almond orchard near Milpitas until they got too old to manage it. My Mom always says the only way we’ll leave California is in a pine box.”
“My family originally came from the Midwest. Although I hardly know anything about my father’s side.” He plays with his spoon, tapping the end of it to make it rock up and down.
Ryan is struggling to come to terms with his past. He wants closure with his father, but isn’t sure how to get it. I’m tempted to press him for details, but can tell this is something he needs to mull over for a while.
Instead, we go for a walk through Plaza de César Chávez, which is filled with people coming and going, even at this hour. Every year, I take Diego to Christmas in the Park here to look at the decorated trees and animatronic exhibits. I buy Diego a sword that lights up and eat a bacon-wrapped hot dog off of a food cart. He begs me to go ice skating in the outdoor rink that circles the palm trees, and I usually agree.
Except maybe this year, Ryan will do all of that with us.
No use getting ahead of myself.
“It’s weird we grew up so close to each other but n-never met,” he says.
“When you’re a kid, your neighborhood is your whole world.”
“When we m-moved to my uncle’s it felt like another country, even though it was about seven miles away.”
“Well, your life had just upended.”
“Completely. It was surreal m-moving in with Rob, even though we’d been over to his house lots of t-times. He must have c-cleared out his gym and office in record time, because our bedrooms were totally empty. He hadn’t even had t-time to get furniture, and there were these faded squares on the wall, where he’d taken down posters and pictures. I remember wondering how I would ever f-fill the void. I’d never felt so small.”
“But you did.”
He kicks a rock with his toe, aiming it at a bench. “Yeah. That first night, we slept on the floor in s-sleeping bags, and I crept into Jude’s r-room to sleep with him. I d-did that for months. Long after the room was d-decorated.”
He comes to a stop in front of an outside lamp that backlights him in a warm glow. “Maybe that’s why I want t-to stay here. It’s where all my memories of my mom are.”
The back of my throat burns and my eyes sting. I really don’t want to be in love with this man. Already.
I wasn’t lying to Ryan before: Once I love someone, I care about them forever. This tends to make me stingy with my heart. I don’t think I had any choice with Ryan. Falling for him was as easy as tucking my arms in and rolling down a steep hill of summer grass. Except now I’m panicking because I can’t control my velocity.
He squeezes my hand and starts walking again, pulling me in to his side. My heart slows as we fall in step, side by side.
* * *
“So how do you like tutoring?” I ask Diego as he tries to mix the chocolate chips into the batter. The wooden spoon is too big in his hand and he has to use a lot of force, which means some of the batter spills over the side of the bowl.
“It’s okay.”
“And how do you like working with Ryan?” I reach over to help him stir, but my own hands are none too steady. Ulterior motives will do that to you.
“Good. I like his stickers.”
“I’d like Ryan to do more things with us. What do you think?”
Diego scoops batter out with his fingers and licks it off before I can stop him. “Like what?” he asks with his mouth full.
I set the dough away from him and get out a baking sheet. “Well, he and I would spend time alone, but other times he would hang out here. We could go to the movies and to the park.” Diego looks unimpressed. “And I know he wants to go to the zoo with us.”
That does the trick. His face lights up, one dimple appearing in his cheek. I lean over and kiss it, like I always do.
“Can we see the grizzly bear?”
“Of course.” I hand Diego a clean spoon and we start scooping dough onto the sheet. Mine are golf-ball sized, while Diego’s are the size of my fist. I take some from his piles to add to mine.
“Would Ryan be your boyfriend?”
I almost drop my spoon. “Yes. He would be.” It’s so odd having to pretend to be the expert, when I’m in completely uncharted territory and have no idea how to handle this conversation.
He shrugs, more interested in the cookie dough than what I have to say. “Okay.”
With that, he grabs the wooden spoon and runs outside to eat it.
I throw the cookies in the oven and set the timer, wondering if I should have made him talk longer. Then I remember Henry the turtle.
My parents got Henry when I was nine and he kept on living—well past the point that my parents wanted to care for him. When Henry finally died, Diego seemed fine at first. But the week after, he asked me if there was a heaven. The week after that, he wanted to know what happened to our bodies when we die. The third week, we had to have a makeshift funeral for Henry.
I suspect my relationship with Ryan will be another Henry situation. But if Diego needs to process in dribs and drabs, I’ll let him.
Chapter 17: Ryan
“Everyone ready?” Brett asks as we wait at the starting line. Jim and I are flanking him, while Daphne, Katie, and Eva are right in front of us so they can set the pace. I love seeing all six of us together.
The theme of San Jose Bike Party’s October ride is outer space, so everywhere you look there is neon paint and cardboard rocket ships and planets. One guy is even dressed as Saturn. How he’ll ride his bike seventeen miles in that getup, I don’t know. Each month the theme and route for the ride is different. The last one I went to required me to dress as a superhero, but today I’m just wearing a shirt that says “Space Junk.”
“Almost,” Jim says, tightening his helmet. He’s managed to duct tape a giant Styrofoam star to it. Brett is wearing a glow-in-the dark shirt with asteroids on it.
It would have been fun to bring Diego, but thousands of people do Bike Party and crashes and pile-ups are common. A little too rowdy for a six-year-old who still has a hard time riding his bike in a straight line. I’m also not sure how Brett and Jim would have felt about it. Obviously, kids are the furthest thing from their minds right now.
“Oh man, Katie’s giving Eva an earful.” Jim says, pointing at the girls.
“She d-doesn’t mind.”
I’ve never done the couples thing with my friends, but I like it. Since we’re all in relationships at the same time, it won’t be as likely that we’ll lose touch with each other.
It seems like Eva is enjoying talking to Daphne and Katie, but it’s hard to tell. They’re just out of college, excited to start their careers and have fun living in the Bay Area. I wonder if Eva even has anything in common with them?
“The six of us should take a trip,” Brett says. “Maybe Napa?”
Jim shrugs. “Eh. We just went for a wedding.”
“What about Tahoe?” I ask.
“Been a million times,” Jim says. “What about Sedona? I know a guy who has a house there. He’d probably rent it to us for cheap. We could go for a week.”
I’ve never been to Sedona, but it’s the hip place to go right now. I’d love to go hiking there. I wonder if Eva’s ever been? A week in the desert with her would be incredible. I’ve always wanted to do a couples massage with those hot rocks.
“That sounds g-good. Maybe in mid-December. I’ll b-be on winter break.”
Eva throws me a quasi-concerned look over her shoulder, and I realize she’s been listening in. Maybe she’d rather go somewhere else?
“Cool. I’ll let you know.” Jim pulls his bike up even with Katie, who flicks the star on his head. He pokes her dangly Earth earrings before whispering something in her ear. She lets out an ear-piercing laugh.
She tends to do that a lot when Jim tells a story or a joke. This makes me think both more and less highly of Katie, because Jim’s sense of humor is notoriously bad so she obviously must be into him.
Daphne, Brett’s girlfriend, is much quieter. She has a calm, unassuming personality that makes her easy to overlook. But once she gets talking it’s hard not to be absorbed by what she says. I wouldn’t have pictured Brett with someone so brainy—he rolls his eyes when I use a word with more than four syllables—but they’re a good balance.
I wonder what Brett and Jim think of Eva? Do we seem like a natural fit?
I pull up next to Eva. “It’s n-now or never. You ready?”
“Let’s roll.” She kisses me on the nose, her glitter facepaint probably leaving a mark.
“Your b-bike has a wicker basket on it. That doesn’t give me c-confidence.”
Her whole bike is surprisingly whimsical, from the red flowers painted on it to the matching tassels.
“Diego helped pick it out.”
We finally set off on our ride, everyone finding their own pace. Just past the starting line is the Children’s Discovery Museum, a funky purple pyramid-like building that has an inflatable twenty-foot Cu
rious George perched on top of it.
“Diego would love that,” I yell to Eva, pointing to George. She gives me a thumbs up.
All six of us keep a steady pace, intending to ride all the way into Mountain View, about ten miles away. Chances are good we’ll bail out early and only do half the route.
We all stay together as we head out of downtown, but Brett slows down to stay even with Daphne, and Jim with Katie, so Eva and I end up in the lead. Eventually, I stop worrying about it and try to enjoy getting lost in the crowd.
A guy passes me riding a tricked out three-wheeler with flames painted on the side. He rings his oversized silver bell and waves at us. I wave back while Eva honks her horn. My own bike is plain blue, but flame guy has me rethinking my choice.
The air is frigid against my cheeks as we ride, which makes me wonder what the weather will be like in Sedona in December. It’s supposed to be a beautiful place, and it would be a nice break for me and Eva.
I guess the trick will be convincing her to take a whole week off of work. What about Diego, though? Forgot about him. I’ll be on break, but he’ll still be in school. Who would watch him and take him back and forth every day? His grandparents could swing that, I suppose. Can Eva be away from him that long? And right before Christmas? That’s probably when they’re getting their tree and gearing up for Santa. But we’re really only talking about a few days.
My head starts to ache thinking about the logistics.
We’re too far ahead of the others, so we slow down to let them catch up. Eventually, Brett’s green street-bike comes into view. The street is clogged with bikers passing too close to one another, but everyone finally makes it through the log jam until we’re riding together again.
As I thought, the ride gets even hairier mid-way through, but Eva hangs in there. She looks great on her girly bike, using those long legs to pump faster and avoid collisions.
Brett, Jim, Daphne, and Katie have been able to stay together for a while now, while Eva and I are off on our own. The four of them are starting to spend a lot of time together, and I wonder how Eva and I will fit in.
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