Chapter 19 #10
My brother Eric had started early in his career putting a stipulation in his contract about the type of personal information that could be released about him.
I’d followed in his footsteps with my Pipers’ contract and, fortunately, it had paid off to be so secretive.
But if there was one person I could tell, it would be Kulti.
Swallowing, I asked, “Have you ever heard of Jose Barragan?”
“Of course I have,” he said with an insulted snicker.
Jose Barragan was a legendary Argentinian soccer player who had lived as big off the field as he had in real life.
I would know. “He was my mom’s dad.”
The silence in the car was no great shock to me.
“La Culebra was your grandfather?” he asked me gently. The Snake. My grandfather had been called The Snake for a dozen different reasons by millions of people.
“Yup.” I didn’t say anything else because I knew he was going to need a second to process it.
La Culebra had been a star. He’d been the king of a generation way before mine. He’d led his country to two Altus Cups; he’d been a superstar in a time before technology and social media. My mom’s dad had been a sport’s shining star, their flesh and bone trophy.
“Does anyone know?” he finally asked, that creepy calm silence still ringing in my ears.
“Yeah, a few people do.”
Another pause. “No one has ever said anything to me about it.” I could see him out of the corner of my eye shift in his seat. “Sal, why is it a secret? Do you understand how much money you could make off endorsements?”
Cordero had asked the exact same question.
The only difference was, Cordero was an asshole only trying to make himself look better.
La Culebra’s granddaughter on his team? Especially when he came from the same country?
He immediately saw dollar signs, but I wasn’t about to let him exploit me or my family.
I’d never figured out how he’d found out, but it hadn’t mattered. No meant no.
“I wouldn’t want to put my mom through that,” I explained. I squeezed the steering wheel a little tighter. “Did you ever meet him?”
“Yes.”
“So you know he wasn’t the nicest man in the world.”
His lack of a response was more than enough.
“Rey, I met him maybe ten times in my life. I saw him on TV more than in person. He told me once when I was eleven that I was wasting my time with soccer. He said people didn’t like to watch athletes that were women.
He told me I should be a swimmer or a ballet dancer.
Fucking ballet. Could you imagine me in pointe shoes?
When I was seventeen, he showed up to the U-17 game I was playing with the national team and tore apart my game afterward.
When I was twenty-one, he came to the Altus Cup match and asked me why I didn’t play for Argentina instead.
Nothing was ever right or enough for him.
“That was just him. From what I’ve heard my mom say, he was a really shitty father and a worse husband.
Supposedly, he’d hit my grandma when he wasn’t cheating on her.
My mom wasn’t a fan of his, and I know she blamed soccer for his behavior.
I don’t blame her. She met my dad on vacation in Mexico; they got married and moved here.
The last time I saw him, he called my dad a stupid Mexican and told my mom she wasted her life marrying someone so beneath her.
“I love my dad, and I owe my parents everything. They’re the hardest working people I’ve ever met, and I don’t appreciate anyone talking badly about them.
When my mom says something unsupportive, I try to be understanding that my mom hates that my brother and I play soccer. She can’t stand that we took after him.
“Once my agent did try to sell me to a company by telling them La Culebra was my grandfather. You know what they told her? If I was his illegitimate daughter’s daughter, they’d want me.
Or if I were anything but Hispanic, it’d be a story.
They made it seem like I cheated to get to where I was, like his genes and my Hispanic heritage immediately gave me an advantage.
As if I didn’t bust my ass day after day, working harder than my teammates to improve. ”
I took a calm breath and blinked back the tears of frustration. It had been so long since I had made myself feel so small. “I’ve had to work twice as hard as everyone else to prove to myself that I didn’t get here because he’s my mom’s dad.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner but”—I shrugged—“I just… I want to be me. I want people to like me for me, not because of who my brother or my grandfather is, or what I freaking wear. I would have told you eventually. Someday.”
In the five minutes it took from that point until we were pulling into the parking lot of the family-owned restaurant, Germany didn’t say a word.
I was familiar enough with him to recognize when he was pissed off or annoyed, and I couldn’t sense either of those emotions from him. He was simply silent.
I didn’t feel like talking about it much anymore either, so I didn’t force the conversation. Talking about that old man always gave me indigestion and a heavy heart. It really nailed home how lucky I was to have the people I had in my life.
We didn’t speak to each other as we met up with my family; they were waiting by the entrance.
We didn’t say anything as we walked into the establishment and took two seats next to each other.
My dad was seated at the head of the table, my mom on one side with Ceci beside her and her friend at the opposite end.
“What would you like to drink?” The waiter had started with my mom and made his way around, getting to Kulti before me.
I’m not positive what I was expecting, but it wasn’t “Water.”
“And you, senorita?” the waiter asked me.
I’d been planning on getting a margarita because that was usually my treat, but I had a possible drinking problem sitting right next to me, and I was driving. “Water too, please.”
My mom started talking about one of her brothers calling earlier to wish Dad a happy birthday and how he was planning on coming to visit within the next month, when the waiter came back with our drinks and to take our orders.
“For you?” he asked Kulti. The jerk off did it.
“Tacos,” he paused dramatically, and I had to be the only one that really caught it, especially when he knocked his knee into mine beneath the table and shot me a side look, “al Carbon.”
I snorted and tapped my knee back against his, curling my lips over my teeth to keep from smiling. I barely remembered rattling off my meal because I’d asked, knowing damn well they didn’t, “Do you have any German chocolate cake?”
Why would they have German chocolate cake at a Mexican restaurant? They wouldn’t, but I was going to be a pest and look like a moron at the same time.
“Umm, no. We have sopapillas and flan?” the man offered.
Before I got a chance to answer, someone pretended to drop his napkin on the floor and, in the process of bending over to retrieve the imaginary item, decided to dig his sharp elbow right into the meaty part of my thigh.
It lasted all of a second, but the squawk that came out of my mouth was so ugly even my dad, the king of ugly noises, made a face at me.
“We don’t know her,” Dad said to the waiter in Spanish.
I laughed and turned to Kulti, way more amused than I was embarrassed. “You’re going to get it later, bratwurst,” I muttered under my breath.
He knocked his knee against mine again, his actions saying so much more than any words right after getting out of the car could have. Where the hell had this playful man come from, I had no idea, but I loved it.
I reached beneath the table and squeezed his denim-covered knee.
“Who wants to give me my present first?” my dad asked once the waiter had walked away.
Mom and I met each other’s eyes from across the table, and we both barely shook our heads. Who asked that? My dad. My dad asked for his presents.
Mom turned her attention back to the brand-new fifty-seven-year-old and winked. “I’ll give you your present at home.”
I cringed.
From down the table, Ceci said, “Mom!”
Then I added, “Gross.”
Our dad laughed, but it was Mom who gave us both a frown. Nasty girls,” she said in Spanish. “That’s not what I meant!”
I balled up my hand and put it against my mouth, pretending to hold back a good retch.
“Cochinas,” Mom repeated, still shaking her head. “Okay. Ceci? Sal? Who wants to go?”
My little sister sighed from across the table.
Sometimes it was weird looking at her. She looked so much like our mom, brown hair, fair skin, brown eyes, fine boned, and slim.
She was the pretty kid. The really pretty one that had had boyfriends back when she was in fourth grade, while I’d been…
not having boyfriends in fourth grade. Back then my only boyfriend had been my imaginary love, Kulti, the guy who happened to be sitting next to me in that exact moment.
“I’ll go first.” She pulled a small box from under the table and had our mom give it to Dad. “Happy birthday. I hope you like it, Daddy.”
Dad tore open the paper and then the box with the excitement of a little kid.
He pulled out a beautiful frame with a really old picture of him and Ceci on a swing set.
He grinned and blew her a kiss, thanking his youngest daughter for her gift.
Then, expectantly he turned his attention in my direction and made “gimme” hands.
Kulti held his hand out. “I’ll get it.”
I grabbed my keys from my purse and handed them over. “Thanks.”
He’d barely left the table when my dad leaned over, a glassy look in his eyes. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”
Mom groaned.
“You think I can take a picture of him here?” the birthday boy asked.