CHAPTER 14

“Last chance,” I warn Eduardo just as he raises his hand to knock on the door of my parents’ condo. “I can text them right now and say that you got stuck in a meeting or came down with a really severe case of the hiccups.”

He lowers his hand and turns toward me. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint your mother now, would we?”

“It wouldn’t be any skin off my nose if we did,” I grouse because I’m still pissed that Mamá went behind my back to set up this little dinner with Eduardo.

Things have been going so well between us, and I don’t want this introduction to mi familia loca to make him rethink our relationship. I tried to tell Mamá that it was too soon for Eduardo to have a sit-down with the fam (we’ve only been dating six weeks for Cristo’s sake!), but then she found out that I’ve been spending time with Eduardo’s folks (Pilar and her loose lips!) and she decided to circumvent me.

Eduardo smiles affectionately. “You’re very pretty when you pout, do you know that?”

“I might have heard that before, but a good compliment always bears repeating.” Taking a step forward, I slide my hands up the lapels of his suit jacket. Mmmmm, the fabric feels so silky and expensive and the broad expanse of chest underneath ain’t too shabby either.

“Then, I’ll tell you again how sexy I think you look in this dress.” He wraps his arm around my waist, his fingers slipping under one of the Xs that form a band around the bottom of my ribcage and expose diamond-shaped slivers of bare skin.

As he softly traces circles on my back, I say, “I’m glad you like it,” then twine my arms around his neck and press the full length of my body against his, marveling at how well they fit together. When I wear a shoe with a medium heel, we’re exactly the same height, which means our mouths are now just inches apart.

“Oh, I like it,” he assures me in a husky voice. “In fact, I can’t think of anything about you I don’t like.”

“How about the way I kiss?” I press my lips to a sensitive spot on his neck that I know drives him wild and feel his pulse quicken. “Do you like that?”

“I do,” he murmurs, his eyes appearing to grow darker with desire. “I’d like it even better if you put those gorgeous lips right here.” He touches his index finger to his mouth.

“Just my lips?” I query, with a naughty gleam in my eye, then tease him by lapping at his lower lip with my tongue like it’s a scoop of Rocky Road that’s melting.

Not being able to resist such an enticement, Eduardo captures my lips with his and devours them hungrily while his hands skim down my back. When they reach the swell of my butt, he cups the generous curves and pulls my lower half closer so that our pelvises connect and I can feel the arousing effect our kisses are having on him. I’m just about to suggest that we take the elevator back down to the parking garage where we can finish this in the privacy of his car (sex in a Ferrari > breaking bread with the Alvarezes) when I hear a door fly open and Mamá screech, “They’re here!”

Mr. Happy, whom I had such big plans for, immediately deflates and Eduardo pulls away from me, looking guilty. Thanks a lot, Mamá! I spin around to face her, with a scowl.

I really do think it’s my mother’s mission in life to ruin my fun. Under other circumstances, I would probably tell her that I think the zebra print jumpsuit she’s wearing looks amazing (not many women her age would have the guts or the figure to pull off something so bold and bodycon!), but seeing as how she just orgasm-blocked me, there will be no compliments forthcoming.

Totally oblivious to my irritation, Mamá says, “Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds, but we’re all just so excited to meet Eduardo and when I saw the two of you out here, I just couldn’t wait another minute!” She claps her hands together and gazes at him expectantly.

Gathering his composure, Eduardo replies, “Es un placer conocerla, Señora Alvarez,” then takes her beringed hand and places a kiss a few inches above her long, red, acrylic nails.

“The pleasure is all mine.” She gives his hand a squeeze before dropping it. “And I insist you call me Luisa. We don’t stand on formality around here.”

“Muchas gracias, Luisa. And I hope you’ll forgive me for staring, but I’m just so taken by the resemblance between you and Isidora. You are like mirror images of one another; and it is truly awe-inspiring to be in the presence of so much beauty.”

Eduardo is playing my mother’s song now, in the key of mi, mi, mi, and she is loving every minute of it. Beaming, she smooths back her silky, black hair, which is perfectly arranged in a French twist. “Isidora did get her looks from my side of the family; she comes from a long line of women celebrated for their beauty and allure. Did she tell you that I was Miss Miami in 1977?”

I groan inwardly as she loops her arm through Eduardo’s and ushers him inside. I may run screaming out to the terrace of my parents’ fifteenth floor condo and hurl myself off if Mamá is going to relive her beauty queen days for the zillionth time. This was my bedtime story every night for the first ten years of my life. Even as a child, I never understood what the big deal was. It’s not like she was crowned Queen of the World forty years ago; she just won some rinky-dink local pageant. Whatever.

Fortunately, we are saved by the timely appearance of my father who greets us in the foyer. “Hola, hola. Bienvenido. I’m Arturo.” He thrusts a hand toward Eduardo, and they exchange a manly shake.

Placing a hand over her heart, Mamá sighs. “I’m just so happy we are finally getting to meet you, Eduardo.”

“Yeah, I was pretty sure Izzy was making you up,” Ana says as she strolls up to us with her perma-sneer firmly in place. “You’re not exactly her usual type seeing as how you made it past the tenth grade and don’t have a criminal record.”

“See, I told you he was real. You owe me twenty bucks,” Pilar gloats while waddling into the foyer, looking twice as big as the last time I saw her, which was just a week ago. Yikes—is she having triplets?

“Hi, I’m Pilar.” She introduces herself to Eduardo with a smile and a wave.

“She’s the nice one,” I remind him of the primer I gave him on my sisters on the way over. “That’s Ana,” I flick my fingers toward her, “the bitch.”

“At least I’m not a skank. What’s with that dress? Are you going clubbing later? How are you going to sit down to eat without flashing everyone?”

My mother chortles nervously. “These girls and their playful banter! You know how sisters like to tease each other.” She sends a warning glare Ana’s way, then mine.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any siblings.”

“An only child!” Mamá’s eyes almost bulge out of her head with excitement at this news. “So, that means you are the sole heir to Sandoval Spirits?”

“More or less. There are some aunts, uncles, and cousins who all have a piece of the pie, but my father has the largest and that will pass to me one day.”

“Ooooo, such an important man . . .,” my mother trails off, giving me a look I don’t recognize at first because I’ve never seen it directed at me before.

Is it possible that she’s actually proud of me? I never thought I’d live to see the day that happened. I’m so used to both of my parents being disappointed in my life choices and truth be told a lot of those choices were made just because I knew they’d hate them. Being the black sheep of the family has always been my thing, and I’ve had endless amounts of fun fulfilling that role. Doing something that Mamá and Papá approve of might be a nice change of pace, though. If my relationship with Eduardo works out the way I’m hoping it will, I might even bump Ana out of the number two spot in my parents’ affections. (I could never unseat Pilar as number one. She’s too perfect.)

“Why don’t we go into the living room?” my father suggests. “Can I interest you in a drink, Eduardo? I have a really nice bottle of thirty-year-old rum that I received as a gift earlier today.”

I had no idea Eduardo sent a bottle of El Clásico to Papá. What a great way to earn some brownie points in advance! I glance over at him, and he gives me a little shrug and smiles sheepishly.

We all file out of the foyer into the living room, and I’m heading over to the couch when I hear, “Ka-pow, ka-pow, ka-pow!” and my youngest nephew, Theo, crashes into me.

“Woah!” I have to grab the corner of the couch to keep us both from toppling over, and while I’m struggling to regain my balance, I’m hit with a blast of cold water right in the crotch. I look down to see a dark wet spot that seems to be spreading on the magenta-colored fabric. Now I look like I peed myself!

“You’re dead, tía!” David, Theo’s next oldest brother, calls from behind a chair a few feet away, where’s he’s hiding with a water gun.

“Ana,” I grind her name out between my teeth. “I thought you were going to leave the boys at home tonight.” I told both her and Pilar in no uncertain terms that there were no children allowed at this dinner with Eduardo. On a good day Ana’s boys are rowdy and unpredictable; on a bad one . . . well, let’s just say that they’ve been responsible for an inordinate amount of mayhem and destruction through the years, including but not limited to fires, floods, pets dyed a variety of unnatural colors, car-sized holes in both the garage door and the front wall of their house, and too many trips to the emergency room to count (usually to have a strange object removed from an orifice).

With an evil smirk that tells me she did this on purpose, Ana replies, “David and Theo were having such a breakdown about us leaving that I had to bring them. They’ve promised to behave. Right, boys?” Instead of a response, she gets a faceful of water from a trigger-happy David’s gun. Ha! I think Ana’s kids dislike her as much as I do.

“That’s enough. I’m confiscating these.” Ana’s long-suffering husband, Raymond, rips the plastic weapons out of the boys’ hands.

Theo wails in protest, and his father heaves an exasperated sigh. “You know better than to play with these in your abuelos’ house. Now, let’s go back to the den and you can watch a movie until dinnertime.”

Raymond tries to scoop up his son, but the little one is too slippery. “Noooooooo!” Theo screams, running away.

“David, catch your brother,” Raymond orders, and the boy gives chase, throwing himself on top of Theo and tackling him to the floor. They knock into a side table on the way down, which causes a vase to go flying off the other side.

“The Waterford!” my mother shrieks as it crashes to the hardwood floor and splinters into a million crystal shards.

We all freeze in place, too shocked to react for a few seconds. Of course, it doesn’t take Mamá long to recover her voice.

“That was a wedding gift from my parents. They’re dead, and now so is this beautiful symbol of our marriage!” With a sob, she flings herself into the nearest man’s arms, which are Eduardo’s, not my father’s. He stares at me over my mother’s head, with a terrified look in his eye, and I wince in sympathy. To his credit, he does try to comfort her by awkwardly patting her on the back.

“Don’t I always tell you to put away the breakables when the boys are coming over?” Ana asks peevishly as she kneels down to check on her prostrate sons, who are now playing dead to avoid getting into trouble.

Twisting her head to the side and leaving a trail of tears behind on Eduardo’s striped dress shirt, Mamá snaps, “I didn’t know they would be here tonight, did I? This was supposed to be an adults-only—”

“What’s all the ruckus?”

I look back over my shoulder and see three middle-aged, stained apron-wearing Latinas standing in a row, their thick black brows knitted together disapprovingly. Groan. The aunts. Three more family members who were supposed to have been excluded from this shindig. I told my mother—immediate family only!—but apparently, no one listens to me.

“The boys just had a little accident—,” Pilar starts to explain.

“Little!” Mamá takes exception to her word choice. “That vase is worth close to a thousand dollars, and it was one of my most prized possessions!”

“What’s done is done, Luisa,” Aunt Drina, who’s never had much patience for my mother’s histrionics, says. “Now, dry your tears and come to the kitchen because we just took the vaca frita out of the slow cooker.”

“And you said we shouldn’t fry the meat because you wanted to do that yourself.” Aunt Brigida purses her lips, clearly offended by this directive from Mamá. Anytime we have a family meal, there’s a power struggle of epic proportions going on in the kitchen, a Game of Chicharrónes rather than Thrones. My mother likes to do things her way, but the aunts always want to “help” because they think their culinary skills are superior.

“We shredded it for you, though,” Solana, the youngest and the nicest of the aunts, adds.

“Thank you.” Sniffing, my mother wipes the tears from her cheeks. Kind of amazing that she could go on a crying jag like that and her makeup wasn’t affected at all—not a streak or smudge to be seen. She must shellac that stuff on!

“If you’ll excuse me, Eduardo, I must see to dinner.” Not surprisingly she doesn’t apologize for her dramatic outburst or for snotting all over him because she expects everyone, even complete strangers, to just roll with her theatrics.

“Arturo, pour me some sangria! I need something to calm my nerves. Ana, there’s a broom and dustpan in the front closet. I expect this,” she stabs a finger at the broken crystal on the floor, “to be cleaned up by the time I return.” Taking the goblet of red wine, rum, and fruit out of my father’s hand, Mamá swans out of the room. In her head, I’m sure she imagines she’s still wearing a tiara.

“I’ll take some of that sangria, too,” Brigida tells her brother.

“Lemonade for me,” Solana places her order.

“The same. I hope Luisa didn’t make it too tart this time,” Drina murmurs cattily as Pilar helps Raymond hustle the children away from the scene of their crime and Ana goes off in search of cleaning supplies.

While we wait for our drinks, the aunts zero in on the fresh meat in the room. “Izzy, aren’t you going to introduce us to your date?” Drina wonders.

I don’t really have a choice, do I? I just hope they don’t say anything to embarrass me. Who am I kidding? Of course, they will.

“Eduardo Sandoval, these are my aunts: Drina, Brigida, and Solana. They’re my father’s sisters.”

“Younger sisters,” Brigida asserts.

“But you’re the eldest of us girls,” Drina reminds her.

“We were born the same year; we’re practically twins!”

Although Drina refrains from making a comment, she does a very exaggerated roll of her eyes. (I had to learn it somewhere, right?)

“I saw that!” Brigida declares.

“Are you sure? Because those cataracts have been clouding up your vision for years now. You really should get that surgery.”

“How dare you! I’m not old enough to have—”

“Solana is the aunt who owns a panadería in Little Havana,” I tell Eduardo in order to stop the bickering and guide the conversation back onto less shaky ground.

“Ah, yes, Isidora often raves about your breads and confections.”

Solana blushes with pleasure. “I hope you’ll both enjoy the chocolate tres leches cake I brought for dessert tonight. It has a dulce de leche frosting.”

“My mouth is already watering,” he assures her.

“You’ll appreciate this, tía. Eduardo and I were brought together by a coconut flan.”

He chuckles. “I should probably confess that the flan wasn’t what attracted me to that dessert table; it was this mujer hermosa.” Threading his fingers through mine, he lifts my hand to his mouth and places a kiss on the back of it.

“So, the truth is out. You used that flan to hit on me.” I feign outrage.

“I figured it was my best bet since the way to a Cuban woman’s heart is . . .”

“ . . . through her sweet tooth,” the aunts complete the sentence for him.

“I like this one.” Solana casts a vote of approval for Eduardo and Brigida nods in agreement, but Drina still doesn’t look entirely convinced.

Narrowing her eyes at Eduardo, she says, “I understand that you’ve been living in the Caribbean for the last few years.”

He takes a fortifying swig of the rum my father just handed him before answering, “Yes, I worked in our office in the Dominican Republic for four years. It was a wonderful learning experience, but I’m glad to be back home.”

“Four years is a long time,” Solana notes.

Drina’s still squinting at Eduardo, which makes me think she might be the one with cataracts! “A man with your charm and good looks . . . I’m guessing that you weren’t lacking for female companionship on all those sultry island nights.”

“We all sow a few wild oats when we’re young, don’t we, Eduardo?” My father gives him a convivial nudge with his elbow.

“You never had any oats, wild or otherwise, Arturo,” Drina scoffs. “You’ve been under Luisa’s spell since your cojones dropped.”

“To love only one person your entire life is rather sweet, I think,” Solana, ever the romantic (because she’s never been married) says. Brigida and Drina are a lot more jaded when it comes to men as the former has been widowed twice (not a tragedy since both men were total losers) and the latter has a husband who’s so fat and lazy that he’s taken up permanent residence on their couch where he watches the Game Show Network and shouts answers at the TV (always the wrong ones!) while inhaling boxes of king-size Mounds bars from Sam’s Club.

“What about you, Eduardo? Did you have any serious romantic entanglements when you were in the Dominican Republic? Did you fall in love? Get married? Is there a secret family down in the Caribbean you haven’t told Izzy about?” Brigida barks the questions in quick succession as if she’s some hard-boiled detective trying to scare a confession out of a perp.

“N-n-no,” Eduardo stammers, looking a bit rattled. “Absolutely not. I’ve never been married, although I hope to be some day.”

“So, you just have bastardos scattered all over the island then,” Drina accuses rather than inquires. “Children you fathered, but don’t acknowledge.”

Eduardo’s jaw drops, and Brigida pounces. “Aha! He does not deny it!”

Rushing to his defense, I say, “He’s not denying it because you’ve rendered him speechless with your insulting questions and presumptions. Of course, Eduardo doesn’t have any illegitimate children. You don’t, right?” I whisper as an aside to him and am relieved when he shakes his head ‘no.’

“There have never been any bastardos in my family.” He doubles down on the denial.

“What’s this about bastards?” my mother asks, sweeping into the room, her sangria glass now empty and in need of a refill. “Are we talking about Nita’s latest? He’s much cuter than the other two. At least he doesn’t have Diego’s pointy rat face.”

All the color drains from Brigida’s face, and her sisters rally around her, each of them clutching an arm in a show of support.

“Mamá,” I throw her a quelling look, “you know you’re not supposed to mention that name around Aunt Brigida.”

“Which name—Nita or Diego?” she queries innocently while pouring herself another drink.

“Both!” Drina and Solana shout.

“They are dead to me!” Brigida declares emphatically.

“It’s been six years,” my mother takes a sip of sangria and swallows before adding, “and she’s your daughter. Don’t you think it’s time you forgave her?”

“She behaved selfishly and destroyed her sister’s marriage! Would you forgive Izzy if she had an affair with one of her brothers-in-law?”

“I would never sleep with Raymond. No offense, dude,” I say as he and Pilar walk back into the room. “Ford?” I scrunch up my face while I think about it. “That’s not outside the realm of possibility, but only if Pilar was dead, or got amnesia and forgot who Ford was.”

“Gee, thanks,” my sister deadpans.

“Hey!” Ana, who’s been on the floor sweeping up crystal this whole time, rises to her feet and places her hands on her hips, striking a confrontational pose. “Why wouldn’t you sleep with Raymond and try to break up my marriage? He’s just as attractive as Ford.”

Uh, no, he’s not, but I can’t very well say that in front of the poor man.

“Hola! We’re here.” The sound of the front door slamming shut is followed by the rat-a-tat-tat of heels crossing the foyer.

Great! Just when I thought this night couldn’t get any worse . . .