Chapter 13
Alex
About ten minutes later, Aurora returns with our food. She carefully places Alonzo’s plate on the table, eggs in a pool of red salsa and a side of hash browns. She gives me an indifferent glance and slides my plate in front of me.
“Thank you, Aurora,” Alonzo says.
Aurora smiles at him but gives me another icy stare before looking away. She leaves to serve a group of men who just came in and sat at the table behind me. She addresses them with a friendly voice, making me wonder what I did to piss her off.
“I like to have breakfast for dinner sometimes,” Alonzo says. “It’s my comfort food. My mom used to make us breakfast for dinner when there wasn’t money for meat.”
“We weren’t well off either,” I say. “I grew up in Harling. It’s a small nearby town. Just my mom and me.”
As we eat, Alonzo tells me he grew up in a border city called Laredo. I hadn’t heard about it before, but it turns out it’s one of the largest cities in south Texas.
I probe a little here and there, trying to see if he’ll mention anything about his time working for the mafia. But that’s ridiculous. No mafia person will ever publicly tell you about their crimes.
During high school, the father of one of Alonzo’s friends became his mentor. This friend’s father taught Alonzo everything about business and growing wealth. I can’t tell for sure, but I suspect by “business” he means “mafia dealings.”
Soon, the conversation turns to me. I tell him a bit about my upbringing, about the father who walked out on his wife and 10-year-old daughter, and about the poverty that ruled my childhood.
I have no reason to hide my past. Nothing there will hint at my actual intentions with him. Besides, it’s almost cathartic to rant about my rough upbringing with someone who shares a similar past.
I stop short of telling him Mom has MS because it feels more current and personal. Talking about the past and distant memories is almost like talking about another person’s life. But my current struggles feel more like my life and are much more intimate.
Throughout our conversation, I study Alonzo, trying to figure out who he really is. All I have heard about him is that he used to be a dangerous mafia enforcer. Yet, all I have seen so far is a guy who is a little rude sometimes and perhaps a player, but not a terrible person.
As I tell him about my major and plans for the future, I have to raise my voice to speak over the group of guys sitting at the table behind me. They got their food a few minutes ago, and I guess that re-energized them because they got loud at some point.
Alonzo has grown visibly upset. He keeps looking over my shoulder, silently tearing away at the paper wrapper my straw came in. He looks like he’s fighting the urge to say something, so I do my best to keep his attention on me, slowly moving my head to block his view of the guys behind me.
Suddenly, there’s a loud clack behind me, and my chair propels me forward, causing me to spill the coke I’m holding. It spills onto the table and my pants. In an instant, I lift the soda cup in the air and rise to my feet to stop any more coke from spilling on me.
Alonzo rises with me. “What happened?”
“I think he bumped into my chair,” I say softly, turning to look at the man sitting behind me. Sure enough, the backs of our chairs are touching. The man keeps talking to his friends and pushing himself back, unaware that he’s colliding with my chair.
“Hey, asshole,” Alonzo growls. I turn to look at him. His face is red with rage. His eyes are fixed on the man who bumped into me, who still hasn’t noticed what he did. “Asshole, I’m talking to you.”
A few of the men at the table stop talking and look up at Alonzo with confused faces. The rest continue to speak, including the one who bumped into me.
“It’s okay, Alonzo,” I say, placing the cup of soda on the table and grabbing a few napkins. I tap them over the wet spot on my thigh. “See? It’s only a little.”
“Asshole, I’m speaking to you,” Alonzo calls out again.
The men at the table finally quiet down, and the man who bumped into me looks over his shoulder at us.
“You spilled her drink all over her,” Alonzo says. “You need to apologize.”
The man looks us up and down and scoffs before returning to his conversation like nothing happened, and soon the rest of his friends follow his lead, ignoring us.
When Alonzo takes a step toward the man’s table, I grab his arm and pull him back. I’m stunned by how hard his arm feels, and I remember he is made of pure muscle.
If I don’t do something, he’ll tear the men apart.
“I don’t think Mrs. Agustina would appreciate a scene at the restaurant,” I whisper. “Just let it go. I’ll go to the bathroom and clean up, and everything will be okay.”
He ignores me. There is still rage in his eyes. For a brief moment, I wonder if I will finally see the real him, the dangerous mafia enforcer I had heard so much about.
“Alonzo?” I ask, trying to shake his immovable arm.
“You’re right,” he says. “I’m fine. Go get cleaned up.”
I look at the men at the table. They all returned to their conversations, showing no sign of worrying. I tell Alonzo to sit and that I’ll be back in a few minutes.
I glance back at Alonzo as I make my way to the restroom. His eyes are still fixed on the back of the man’s head. I hope he can keep his cool while I’m gone.
While I wash away the coke stain with a paper towel in front of the restroom mirror, the door opens and Aurora steps in. She pauses for a second when she sees me, then walks past me to a stall. By the time she comes out, I’m almost done drying my shirt with the towel.
Aurora washes her hands on the water faucet next to mine. “So, are you his girlfriend or something?” She asks without facing me.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Alonzo. Are you his girlfriend?” she asks again.
“I’m not,” I say, remembering her teenage crush on him. “We’re just friends.”
“Uh huh,” she says. She shuts off her faucet and turns to look at me. “ No sé qué ve en ti, no eres tan bonita .”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. I don’t speak Spanish.”
“If you’re just friends, then why did he bring you here? You’re the first woman he ever brings here, so you must be more than just friends.”
“We’ll, we’re not,” I say, suddenly feeling defensive. I don’t have to explain myself to a teenager, but I feel like I do for some reason. “We’re not,” I repeat.
I toss the paper towel into the trash bin and leave the restroom without saying another word.
As soon as I walk out of the restroom, I notice that something feels different. The entire mood of the restaurant changed while I was in the restroom. The silence stops me in my tracks.
On the way back to my table, a few people at the other tables look up at me from their plates before continuing to eat. Even the men sitting at the table behind me are strangely quiet. It feels like I entered the Twilight Zone or something.
I slide my chair out to sit, and the guy who bumped into me twitches. He turns his head and looks up at me. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.
He turns his head further to look at Alonzo, who is staring him dead in the eyes. Then he turns to me again.
“I’m sorry for spilling the drink on you. It won’t happen again,” he says before turning around and eating his meal in silence.
I sit and look at Alonzo. He eats his food as if nothing happened and asks for my weekend plans.
“What happened?” I whisper. Something happened while I was gone. “Did you do something?”
Alonzo sips his coffee and shakes his head. But I know he’s lying. Something must have happened in the five minutes that I was in the restroom. The mood turned tense.
It feels uncomfortable.
Somehow, we make it through the rest of dinner without another hiccup. When we stand from the table, the man behind me flinches again.
What did Alonzo do?
We walk to the counter, where Alonzo pays for dinner. Mrs. Agustina hugs him goodbye and nods at me in acknowledgment. “Come again soon,” she smiles.
Emilio, who is waiting tables at the back of the restaurant, waves at Alonzo from afar. Alonzo smiles and reciprocates.
“Goodbye, Aurora!” Alonzo yells towards a corner of the restaurant. Aurora lifts her face from her phone. She gives me a cold glance before returning to her phone.
“Don’t take it personally,” Mrs. Agustina tells me. “She’ll get used to it.”
Used to what?
Before I can ask her what she means, she leaves the counter and retreats to the kitchen, letting another person take over the register.
On our drive back to San Marquez, I can’t help but think about how strange the night had turned out. I saw a part of Alonzo I hadn’t seen before. I saw a man who is well liked and who uses his money to help others.
Despite acquiring a new teenage arch-enemy and the awkward mood shift after I returned from the restroom, I enjoyed dinner with Alonzo.
He drops me off at my apartment and asks if I’ll still come by his office tomorrow.
“Yes,” I say, feeling butterflies in my stomach. “I’ll be there.”