Chapter 6
The following Friday Amy waltzed into Carlos’ office mid-afternoon, already changed into a pair of jeans and a Sharks jersey. Her silky blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail that was stuck through the back of a baseball cap. She was cute as hell.
She frowned at him. “You’re not wearing that are you?”
He couldn’t help but laugh as she looked with disapproval at his grey pants and white dress shirt topped off with a dark blue tie.
“Don’t worry.” He stood and pulled his backpack up over one shoulder. “I’ll stop at the restroom on the way out of the building and change. I don’t want the kids to give me a hard time.”
The first part of the ride to his brother’s house in Alameda was occupied with Amy mulling over how different Carlos looked in jeans and a Sharks hoodie. But by the time they were moving through Oakland she switched to asking him about the kids.
“Nieces or nephews?”
“Nieces. My two youngest,” he replied.
“How old are they?”
“Eight.”
“Both of them?”
“Yep. Twins. Identical. So don’t feel bad if you can’t tell them apart. Half the time their own parents can’t tell them apart.”
“So, the youngest ones are eight?” she asked.
“Yeah. I told you I was the youngest of five boys. Well, I’m the youngest by a lot. My next oldest brother is forty and the oldest is fifty-five.”
“So, your parents are kind of…elderly?”
“They would be. Dad died of Cancer almost ten years ago and Mom had heart problems. She passed last year.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “How many nieces and nephews do you have?”
“Each of my oldest three brothers has two kids and Daniel tried to do the same, but then they had the twins so they accidentally ended up with three.”
“And you? No kids, right?”
He tried not to let the disappointment bleed through in his voice. “No. Thank goodness. I spared any kid the trauma of Kim as a mom.” He bit his lip. “Damn. I did it again. I keep saying shit about her in front of you.”
“Don’t worry. With any luck I’ll never have to work for her again.” She looked ahead at the road for a while, watching the traffic as they wove through Oakland. “How did you end up with her…um, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He often felt as though Amy could get him to say just about anything. “I met Kim when I worked at an up and coming tech company. I was twenty-six and it was the third company whose profits I’d doubled. People expected great things from me. People ‘watched my career.’ It was intense and I felt like I always had to be in control of everything all the time. It was as if the whole world was just waiting for me to screw up at any moment.”
Carlos took a sharp turn to head to the Posey Tube that would take him to Alameda. “And then here came Kim. She was so demanding, so bossy. She kicked my ass every day. There was nothing about her I could control. And it…I don’t know. It was just what I thought I needed at the time. Looking back, I realize I was making a mistake because I couldn’t figure out what was really happening with me.”
Amy’s tone was certain. “I get it.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. Life can be traumatic sometimes. And when we’re in the middle of something, like a bunch of career stress, like you were, we make choices that almost seem…repressed later. It’s hard, in hindsight, to remember why we did certain things.”
A deep dread settled in his stomach. He remembered in vivid detail their conversation in his office a few weeks ago. Hell, he hadn’t ever forgotten. When I was four years old, I was kidnapped….in the sex offender database…got released today.
Carlos’ mood dropped a thousand degrees and he felt like shit. “My stress at work…it doesn’t even compare to what you—”
“Don’t start, Carlos. You were doing so well,” she said sharply. “I told you before, I don’t have any memories of that time. And I don’t like pity.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He turned onto his brother’s street. Unable to stop pushing his luck, he asked, “But…do you think maybe it had some effect on you?”
She answered in a confident voice. “Yes. I do. But since it appears that we’re about to pick up two small children, we’ll have to talk about it later.”
He nodded quickly as the car stopped in a steep driveway. Did that mean she was willing to discuss it with him? Before he could get his wheels spinning on that line of thought, Carlos pulled himself out of the car.
By the time he got to Amy’s side she was outside already, standing on the concrete and staring at his brother’s quaint Victorian. “Nice house.”
“It is,” he agreed. “To be honest, I’d trade my condo for a place like this any day.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Doesn’t make sense. Not now.” He knew the statement was cryptic, but he couldn’t explain it to her at this moment any more than she could tell him about her issues.
Instead they both walked up to the door. Before they could even reach the small square porch, the door swung open and two lanky girls flew out of the house.
****
Amy watched as Carlos pulled the squealing girls into his strong arms, one sixty-pound kid balanced easily in each limb.
“Hey there, monsters.” He set them down and gestured to Amy. “Say ‘hi’ to my friend, Amy.”
“Hi,” the girls said in unison.
“Amy, this is Ellie and Phoebe,” Carlos said.
A man, slightly shorter and significantly heavier than Carlos, appeared in the doorway behind the girls and called out to them. “Hey, little brother. Come on in.”
The man stepped back and the girls and Carlos followed automatically. Carlos looked back at Amy. His gentle gaze erased any hesitation she felt, and she allowed him to pull her through the threshold into a small foyer.
“Girls, go put on your shoes and grab your jackets,” the man said, before turning to Carlos.
The girls scampered off and Carlos introduced Amy to his brother, Daniel.
As Amy placed her hand in his, Daniel’s face lit up. His generous smile preceded his greeting. “It is so nice to meet you.”
“Thanks for leaving work early to pick the girls up from school so we can do this,” Carlos told his brother.
“No problem. They’re thrilled. Besides Tracey was happy to get rid of me. I’ve been under foot all day.”
Carlos turned to Amy. “Daniel and his wife own an office supply store here on the island.”
“Wait…Diaz Office Company.” Amy had seen those words printed on several of the boxes and bags of office supplies at the candle company.
“That’s the one,” Daniel said. “But before you think there’s any nepotism going on, you should know that we’ve been supplying Everett since before Carlos came to work for him. We made a bigger profit back then, too. Then Carlos negotiated lower prices and practically put us in the poor house.” He slapped Carlos’ back in a gesture filled with pride rather than resentment.
The girls ran back into the foyer, both wearing white sneakers, jeans, and Sharks’ jerseys. They each held an identical purple jacket in their arms. “Mateo is going to be so jealous!” one of them cried, looking entirely too delighted.
“Are we leaving someone out?” Amy asked.
“Mateo is their older brother,” Carlos explained. “And he can’t come because he has basketball practice.”
Daniel leaned down and addressed the girls. “We discussed the responsibility he was taking on when he joined his middle school team, including what he might be missing out on.” He straightened up and clapped his hands together. “Okay. Down to business.” He touched one of the little girls on her shoulder and turned her around. “Pavelski sweater is Ellie,” he said, using the old school term for a hockey jersey. Amy could see the name written across the back along with the number 8. When he turned her back around Amy could also see the ‘C’ for captain on her chest. “Couture is Phoebe,” he said turning the other little girl around to reveal the name and a number 39.”
“Perfect,” Carlos said. “Let’s go, girls.” He opened the door and pointed toward the car.
“We don’t need booster seats anymore, Uncle Carlos,” Ellie said.
“I know. I took them out. Go get in the backseat.” The girls ran to the car and he called after them. “And buckle up good!”
“Have fun,” Daniel called as Amy and Carlos followed them out.
Not long after their journey to San Jose began, the girls bombarded Amy with a series of questions. They started with where she was from, if she had brothers and sisters, and what her favorite subject in school had been. Then they moved on to what she did at work and if she was married.
Delighted, Amy answered all their questions without pause until they hit right to the heart of discomfort. “Why aren’t you Uncle Carlos’ girlfriend?”
“Ellie!” Carlos roared, looking at her in the rearview. “We talked about this.”
Unfazed by a tone of voice that would have most people at E.E.R. cowering on the floor, Ellie argued. “You said not to ask her if she is your girlfriend. And I didn’t.”
“You said she was just a friend and you worked together,” Phoebe chimed in.
“So we want to know why she isn’t your girlfriend,” Ellie finished.
“Yeah, she’s pretty,” Phoebe said in a sing-song voice.
Carlos rolled his eyes and put his entire focus back on the road.
“You’re not going to help here?” Amy asked him.
He just shrugged. She chuckled. Fine. She was on her own. She could handle it. “I suppose it’s because we’re friends. And you can be friends or you can be boyfriend and girlfriend. It’s one or the other. And we’re friends.”
Amy peered over her shoulder to see the girls in the backseat. They were exchanging a look Amy couldn’t determine.
“So, if you change your mind,” Phoebe said thoughtfully. “You could decide to stop being friends and be girlfriend and boyfriend.”
“We could,” Amy agreed. “But we might never decide to.”
“You should think about it,” Ellie told her. “We already like you better than Aunt Kim.” She stuck out her tongue and furrowed her brow.
Phoebe copied her. “Yeah. Yuck.”
“Girls,” Carlos scolded. “Don’t talk mean.”
“Sorry. But it’s true. Amy is nice and she’s going to hockey with us,” Ellie said.
Carlos smiled, but stayed quiet.