“Well, I was just so surprised to see you, I wanted to come over and say hello.” Alex felt badly for Eva. He could tell something was wrong, that something had happened between her and her husband to change their plans. He read it on her face, heard it in the tone of her voice. “I’ll be around if you ever want to talk.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the offer.” Eva answered. She didn’t want to talk about her unfaithful husband right now. Her feelings were still raw. She moved the hose to more flowers in another part of the yard, and Alex recognized that was his cue to leave.
“It was nice to see you again,” he said as he walked out the gate and back to his house.
Eva returned to watering the plants and trying to think through her situation in the stillness of the early morning. But Alex kept cropping up in her thoughts. He had disrupted her quiet with his sudden presence, but she had to admit it was not unwelcomed. He was a good friend, and he watched over Sofía, just like he promised. If only she had married someone like him, instead of Richard, she wouldn’t be in this mess. Someone honest and hardworking. But what’s done was done, and there was no going back to change things.
While she pondered her options, she decided she had better get a job to bring in some money. She would need it, she decided, no matter what her next move was going to be.
* * * *
Eva found a job as a waitress at a diner just a block or so from her mother’s house, on Main Street at the bottom of the hill. She worked mostly in the evenings, so Grandma Sofía and Lydia took turns watching her kids as they were available from their jobs at the cannery.
The diner was connected to the gas station next door, and there were plenty of customers. Eva’s boss, Victor, was an older Portuguese man that looked out for her, especially when men came into the café and tried to get fresh with her.
Two or three times a week, Alex came in for lunch or dinner and sat at the counter so he and Eva could visit as she served him his food and refilled his coffee cup. It wasn’t a very private setting, so she was careful not to share anything too personal because others could overhear. Occasionally, he came for a late supper and stayed long enough to walk her home after she finished her shift. It was a short walk, but it was a nice gesture.
The second night he walked her home, Alex asked her about Richard.
“Eva, do you mind if I ask you something?” Alex said casually, as he looked up and down the street before they crossed.
“Sure,” she replied, following him across.
“Something personal?” he pressed.
“Okay,” she responded, with trepidation. They began to walk down the alley to the cottage.
“I know something happened between you and your husband that stopped you from following him to Germany, but you’ve never talked about it.” He looked over at her as she kept up with his gait.
“I know, it’s hard.”
“But I’m your friend, Eva.” Alex stopped and turned to face her. “I hope you feel comfortable enough to tell me anything.” The truth was that he hoped they could be more than friends, but he needed to know what was really going on between her and Richard.
She stopped, too, and looked up at him. “Yes, I do feel comfortable talking to you. You’ve been a good friend.” She could see gentleness and concern when she looked into his deep brown eyes, and she knew he truly cared about her and what she was going through.
“So, what’s the situation with you and your husband? Why did you decide not to go to Germany with him?”
Eva took a deep breath to steady herself before proceeding. “This is hard to admit, Alex, but here it is. Right before I moved into the cottage, Richard sent me a letter telling me he was in love with another woman, someone he met in Germany.”
A rush of tears was very near the surface, but she was determined to hold them back. She didn’t want Alex to see her dissolve into a weepy puddle right there in the alley.
Alex was shocked. He wondered how any man could do this to someone as kind and as lovely as Eva. Though he felt sad for her because of how her husband had hurt her, he was surprised by his own feelings of outrage. He wanted to knock Richard’s head off. Not wishing to make her feel worse than she already did, he attempted to mask how he really felt.
“Oh, Eva, I’m so sorry,” he said, offering his sympathy. “How could he do this to you? That son of a…” Alex was disgusted by the thought.
Eva couldn’t answer that question. She didn’t want to keep talking about Richard. She wanted to tell Alex to stop. But, no words would come. All she could do was look down at the ground, shrug her shoulders and shake her head.
“Are you going to divorce him?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided,” she replied, weakly, raising her head to look at him.
“How could you stay married to a man who admits he’s two-timing you?” Alex asked in disbelief.
“It’s not that easy. We have two children together. I have to think of them.”
“But, Eva…” Alex started to say, but she cut him off.
“As for Richard and me, we’re done. But the children, well, I need to think about what will be best for them. I need some time to work that out.”
“I didn’t mean to press the issue and upset you like this.” Alex reached out and put an arm around her shoulder as they started walking again. His touch weakened her resolve and a few of her tears escaped.
When they got to the cottage, they paused at the door.
“I’m going inside for a few minutes to calm down before I go up to Mama’s to get my kids. Thanks for walking me home.” She opened the door and stepped inside.
“I really am sorry, Eva,” Alex told her as she nodded and slowly closed the door. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked home.
Eva stood just inside the door, leaning her back against it. She knew Alex was just trying to be a good friend, but it hurt to talk about Richard and what he had done to her. She couldn’t go on and on talking about it. Not only was it painful, it was humiliating.
She knew it wasn’t Alex’s fault she was so upset. They were becoming close friends, and it was only natural he would want to know what happened. So, she decided that the next time she saw him she would let him know that she appreciated his caring so much about her.
* * * *
Now and then, Alex was invited for dinner at Sofía’s house. There were always lots of people there – family, friends, and their children. Alex wanted a chance to get to know Eva better, but they couldn’t seem to find much time to be alone and have meaningful conversation. One evening at the diner, Alex asked her if she would go on a date with him so they could spend some time alone, just the two of them.
“What do you say, Eva? Dinner Sunday night? At a nice, quiet restaurant? Your pick.”
“I’d love to, Alex,” Eva replied, as she poured him a cup of coffee. “But I’ll have to see if there’ll be someone home to watch my kids that night.” She wanted to get to know him better, too. They’d been friends for quite awhile, but she had always been guarded, wary of sharing with him the brutal details of her life growing up and her bad marriage.
She assumed, though, he must have learned a few things about her stepfather from the night he arrested Carlos. He probably had formed some idea of what her home life might have been like, she thought. But her spilling all the gory details was a different matter.
“If we can’t swing it Sunday night, then you find out when you can get a sitter and let me know.”
“Okay, I can do that.” She was excited at the possibility of there being something more between them than simply friendship.
“Now, what would you like to order for dinner tonight?”
* * * *
The next evening three young men came into the diner about five-thirty, and Victor seated them in a booth. They had obviously been out drinking half the afternoon and stopped in for a bite to eat before drinking more that evening. Eva came to their table and attempted to take their orders.
“How about a date?” one of them said.
“The special tonight is pot roast and mashed potatoes. Does that sound good to you?” she tried to suggest.
“You know what sounds good, honey, is if you slide on in next to me. You look like the kind o’ girl who could show a man a real good time,” another one said, noticeably intoxicated.
“Okay, okay, are you guys going to order any food tonight?” Eva asked loudly, trying to get them to focus on their order.
“Is everything all right here?” Victor asked, as he walked up to the booth.
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s okay, old man,” the third tipsy man said, waving Victor off.
“I’ll handle it,” Eva told Victor.
So, Victor walked away, but he kept his eye on Eva and the men. She fended off their advances and eventually took their orders. As she was walking back to hand their order slip to the cook, Lydia came in with little Rory and Angie. Victor let Eva bring her kids in for dinner sometimes at a greatly-reduced rate, to help her make ends meet.
The young men saw Eva pick up the little blonde-haired girl and smother her with kisses. They overheard Eva call the girl her daughter. Confused why this Mexican woman was saying this little blonde girl was hers, they began speculating among themselves about how she might have gotten white kids. Too much alcohol was clouding their thoughts and leading their conversation down a nasty path.
Lydia and the kids finished eating, and she took them back to Grandma’s house. Sofía would be home by this time from the cannery, and Lydia could put the kids to bed at their grandmother’s house until Eva got home from work.
Eva worked until eight that evening. She said goodnight to her boss and left to walk home. Watching for possible traffic, she crossed Main Street and strolled down the alley a short distance, the back way to the cottage. She didn’t know that one of the flirtatious young men from the diner was lurking in the shadows, waiting and watching her, following to see where she lived.
She picked her kids up from Grandma Sofía’s house and put her sleepy little ones to bed in the cottage. Leaning over to turn off the lamp, she was startled by a forceful knock at the door. She heard several male voices talking and laughing outside, which scared her. They had clearly been drinking and were looking to make trouble for her. The young man that followed her home had gone and gotten some of his buddies and showed them where she lived.
“Hey, let us in!” one guy hollered, staggering around. “You know what we want. Come on! Open up!”
Eva left the children to sleep in the bedroom and closed the door. She stood in the living room, frozen with fear, hoping the children could not hear the men from the bedroom.
“Go away,” she cried out frantically.
“We saw the little white kids you have, honey. We can tell you really go for us white guys.”
The young men were laughing and drinking outside, yelling out the graphic sexual details of what they would like to do to her. They thought she was a Mexican whore with illegitimate white children.
“Go away, I said,” she repeated, “you’ll wake my babies!” But they would not relent. They continued pounding on the door. Each of the men was inciting the others, urging them to break the door down. Eva heard a beer bottle crash against the cottage.
She was near hysteria, her body trembling. The ruffians outside continuing to beat on her door, spewing out sexual and racial slurs.
“You know you want it, chiquita,” they kept taunting.
“Mommy, Mommy!” Rory cried, standing in the doorway to the bedroom. They woke him up with their hollering and pounding on the front door.
“It’s okay, honey. Mommy’s right here,” she tried to soothe him, without much success. She checked on her daughter and found her surprisingly sound asleep. She carefully closed the bedroom door and sat on the edge of the sofa with Rory and put her arm around him. Stroking his soft brown hair, she tried to stay calm. She hoped her brother Mateo would come home soon.
Eva yelled at the door again, “You guys better get outta here! The Gonzalez brothers are coming!”
Either they were yelling too loudly to hear what she said, or they were too drunk to fully understand what she meant. The Gonzalez brothers were known in Hollister for sticking together and protecting their own, ever since grade school, and they weren’t afraid to fight to do it.
Eva got up from the sofa and carefully peeked out the window from the corner of the curtain. She recognized a couple of the young men as sons of the owner of a large farm outside of town named Williamson.
“Get out of here!” she cried again. “The Gonzalez brothers are coming, and you’re gonna wish you’d gone!” Over and over she kept yelling the same warning. Finally, what she was screaming sunk in to some of the men, and they convinced the others it was time to beat it out of there.
Shortly after they left, Mateo came home. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Eva relayed the frightening events she just experienced. She tried to tell him in a soft, muffled voice so she didn’t scare her children, but the details and tears just spilled out uncontrollably.
Red-hot anger began to boil in her brother. He told Eva he would round up the other brothers and they would take care of this. It was their duty to protect their sister, he said. He promised her they would find those white devils and make them pay for what they’d done.
Before he left, Mateo helped his sister gather up her children and go up to Mama’s house until she was sure the men were not coming back. Eva tried to telephone Alex, but there was no answer. He had gone in to work early that evening.
After searching different bars and hangouts, Eva’s brothers caught up with the Williamson boys at a bar on the outskirts of town. Blind with pent-up rage, the Gonzalez brothers went in. They scanned the dimly-lit, smoky room for the Williamson boys and found them clustered at the end of the bar. Their eyes zeroed in on their targets, and they rushed in to deliver the first of many blows to the Williamson boys and their friends.
A huge fight broke out and the bar owner called the police. He had no alternative but to tell the police that the Gonzalez brothers started the brawl. The policemen handcuffed Eva’s brothers and put them in the back of the squad cars and took them to the county jail.
In the morning, the Gonzalez brothers were released from jail. Mr. Williamson, the father, told the authorities his sons were not going to press charges, once he learned why the brothers beat up his sons. He was a hard-working, honorable man, but his success had made life too easy for his boys, and their irresponsible behavior time and again brought disgrace on his name. He wasn’t going to let his sons hold the Gonzalez brothers responsible for their beating. He hoped this would teach his boys a lesson.
Eva didn’t sleep a wink that night. Pacing the cottage floor, she wondered how much more drama she could take in her life.
There was a soft rapping on her door. She pulled the curtain back a little to see who it was before opening it. She was relieved when she saw it was Alex. He had heard about the incident at the police station and came over as soon as he got off duty.
She quickly opened the door for him. In a moment his arms were around her, and he held her close. Eva felt safe in his arms, and she laid her head against his strong chest.
“Mommy?” a little voice said.
Alex and Eva quickly released their embrace and felt a little embarrassed.
“What is it, Rory?” his mother asked, as she sheepishly flashed Alex a quick, guilty grin.
“I had a bad dream. I dreamed there were mean men pounding on the door and trying to break in.”
Alex got down on one knee. He reached out and put his hand on Rory’s shoulder. “It’s okay, big guy. There’s no need to worry. I’m here now.” Alex looked up at Eva, hoping she understood he was there for her, too. She gave him a little smile and mouthed a silent thank you, confirming she understood, letting him know she was glad he had come.
/> Chapter 22: A Second Chance
Alex and Eva settled on a Tuesday evening for their first date because it was one of her nights off. Sofía agreed to babysit her grandchildren while her daughter went out with “a really nice young man”, as Grandma Sofía put it.
Little Angie excitedly watched her mom get ready for her date in her grandmother’s bedroom. Eva had chosen a short-sleeved sheath with a small floral print in various shades of red that was strategically fitted to show off her curvy figure. She wiggled into the dress and asked Angie to stand on the bed and help her zip it up the back.
Then Eva went into the bathroom to finish her makeup. Angie stood next to her mother at the bathroom sink and looked on with rapt attention while Eva applied her lipstick and mascara.
Sofía came fluttering past the bathroom. “Aren’t you ready yet? Alex is almost here.”
“I’m almost done,” she replied, fingering her hair into place.
There was a crisp knock at the front door, and Sofía quickly opened it.
“Hello, beautiful,” Alex said to Sofía.
“Oh, Alex.” She giggled and feigned embarrassment. “Come in, come in. Eva is almost ready. Sit, sit,” she said, motioning to the sofa.
Before he could sit down, Eva and Angie walked into the room, and Alex’s eyes lit up.
“Wow, you look beautiful!” he said to Eva.
“You don’t look so bad yourself, mister.” Eva replied. She hadn’t seen him in a sport coat and slacks before. He really looks handsome, she thought. “Just let me grab my coat.”
Alex took Eva to an upscale steakhouse in the nearby city of Gilroy. He wanted their first official date to be memorable. A valet parked the car and the doorman courteously opened the large wooden door for them. The maitre ‘d checked the reservation list and found Alex’s name. He grabbed a couple of large maroon and gold menus and escorted them to their table.
Eva looked around, taking in all the finery. She had never been to any place this elegant. The deep maroon carpet felt plush beneath her feet and the golden candlelight danced off the linen tablecloths and the rich wood paneling. She wanted to ask Alex if he could afford this place, but she stopped herself, not wanting to offend him.
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