Chapter 2 #2
I pushed the door open with my key, excited for a home-cooked meal. Today was Carlos’s fourth birthday and my mom was no doubt making papa rellena, his favorite dish.
As soon as I opened the door, I was tackled to the ground with an oof.
“It’s my birthday!” Carlos announced, throwing his hands around my neck.
I carefully stood up with him still clinging to me. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Today is Maya’s birthday. Yours is in July!”
“No it’s not,” he protested, hugging me tighter. “I’m four years old today. Remember? You called and sang happy birthday.”
I smacked my head against my forehead. “Oh duh, how could I forget?” I hugged him tightly and said, “Happy Birthday, hermanito.”
He wiggled out of my grasp and grabbed my hand. “Mamí said I don’t have to help set the table because it’s my birthday.”
“Lucky duck,” I said affectionately, squeezing his hand.
I liked to say Carlos and I were twin flames since we were both accidents.
My parents had me too early and Carlos too late.
They had Maya when I was twelve and Jorge when I was thirteen.
At twenty-seven now, I’d been well out of the house by the time my mom was pregnant with my little brother, but I didn’t want that to change our relationship.
Carlos pulled me into the kitchen, and to my surprise, Maya was standing at the counter, potato all over her hands as she mashed it into shape.
“Where’s Mamí?” I asked, placing a quick kiss on her cheek. “And since when do you cook?”
“She’s working late,” Maya mumbled, placing one of the potatoes onto a baking sheet. “Papí, too.”
“That’s weird,” I said, frowning. “Has this been—”
“Estoy aquí,” my mom said, rushing into the house. She tossed her bags onto the couch and beelined toward the kitchen. “Hijita, I’ll do it.”
“I’m almost done,” Maya argued.
“Your homework,” she chided gently, nudging Maya out of the way with her hip. Maya hesitated before shooting me a nervous look. Without another word, she turned to go upstairs.
“Who’s going to set the table now?” Carlos cried, sitting at his seat at our dinner table.
I smiled at him and said, “I’ll take care of it.” At the sound of my voice, my mom jumped out of her skin and turned around.
“Carmelita, I didn’t know you were here,” she said, sighing deeply. “Can you grab the champagne flutes?”
“Good to see you, too, Mamí,” I said flatly, reaching up into the cabinet next to her.
My mom laughed softly and said, “I saw you two days ago, I don’t always need to act like you’re coming home from war.”
“Carlito does,” I argued.
“Carlito doesn’t know what war is.”
I laughed, pulling down the flutes and setting them around the table. My parents didn’t often use fancy place settings, but for our birthdays, they tried to make the house feel as regal as possible and pulled out their wedding china.
I cleared the table of some papers and mail, but my eyes snagged on some envelopes. They had an “overdue” stamp on them in red from the gas, electrical, and phone companies. I studied them for a second before stacking them up and glancing at my mom.
“Work ran late today?” I asked.
“Ay, siempre,” my mom said lightly. “Work is never done!”
I frowned. My mom worked as an interpreter at Mount Sinai while my father was a manager at the Whole Foods on the Upper West Side. They moved together from Peru to the United States when they were young and found their home here in New York.
“Well, where’s papito?”
“He’ll be here in a little while,” she replied. “Start of the new year and all.”
“It’s March.”
“The fiscal year.”
“He’s a manager at Whole Foods, not a Wall Street idiot.”
My mom waved me off, then placed the baking sheet in the oven. “You ask too many questions, Carmelita.”
Before I could press her for more information, my father stepped into the house holding some birthday balloons. Carlos tackled him in a hug, then took the balloons, requesting that I tie them to his chair.
“Did work run late for you, too?” I asked him. My father stilled and nodded once.
“It took too long to close up the store.”
“I thought Whole Foods closed at—”
“It smells good, mi vida,” my dad interrupted me, giving my mom a kiss. “I bet Maya and Jorge come down in five, four …”
“This smells much better than what I would’ve made,” Maya said, slipping into her seat next to Carlos.
“Where’s Jorge?” I asked Maya.
She shrugged. “He’s talking to some girl on the phone. Dad basically had to drag him down the stairs for dinner last night.”
I raised my eyebrows and turned to my mom. “What do you know about that?”
She waved me off. “He doesn’t tell me anything. Help your sister set the table.”
As we finished placing the china on the table, the room filled with the smell of papa rellena. It was a fried potato filled with ground beef, olives, raisins, and a hard-boiled egg. Peruvian food was the best cuisine out there and my mom’s cooking was the finest.
“Vamos a cenar,” my mom called, wiping her hands off on her apron. She went to the staircase in our living room and called, “Jorge, hang up. We’re eating now.”
After a moment, Jorge pounded down the stairs as we all sat around the table, sitting in the same seats we always have. Carlos was sitting next to me but pushed his seat so he was close enough to touch.
“Thank you for coming all the way up here,” he whispered.
I scoffed. “As if I’d miss Mom’s cooking.”
“And my birthday,” he insisted, tugging on my arm.
I ruffled his hair with a smile. “Well duh, that, too.”
He smiled up at me before diving in. In Peru, missing a birthday was a grave sin.
When I eventually moved out of my parents’ place, I vowed to come back for every birthday.
Tradition was important to us. Every morning, even before school, we had breakfast together as a family, then ate dinners after school that often lasted hours into the night, pretending not to see the clock tick way past our bedtimes.
“Well, hijita,” my mom said before she even sat down. “Have you heard anything more about the store?”
“Isn’t it bad practice to be nosy at the dinner table? Hermanito, what do you think?” I nudged Carlos.
“I think I want to know, too,” he said matter-of-factly. “And it’s my birthday so you have to.”
Everyone laughed as I broke into the papa, shoveling food into my mouth. “I think we should talk about Jorge’s new girlfriend.”
Jorge turned red and shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Maybe her name?”
“Liz,” Maya supplied.
“Dude,” Jorge said, widening his eyes at her. “What happened to bro code?”
“I’m not a bro,” Maya said, lifting her nose. “It doesn’t apply to me.”
“Carmella,” my mom said sharply, drawing my attention back to her. “Any news?”
I sighed, relenting. “Not yet. I should be hearing from his lawyers any minute, though.”
My mom shook her head. Her hair was pinned neatly with a hairclip, making the discontent written across her face obvious. “You should know by now. It’s been three months! What’s taking this lawyer so long to read a piece of paper? Isn’t that his entire job? To read pieces of paper?”
“Amor,” my dad said gently, placing his hand over hers. “It’ll happen when it does. No need to push Carmelita about it. Look at her, she’s already stressed out.”
“I’m not stressed out!” I said, my voice a tad too high. “I’m fine. I’m easy breezy.”
“Isn’t that the CoverGirl slogan?” Maya asked my mom quietly.
My mom snorted as my dad and Jorge shared a look. Carlos continued to eat, oblivious.
“Everything is going to be fine,” I said soothingly. “Now enough talk about The Last Page. It’s Carlos’s birthday dinner. We should be celebrating him.”
In Peru, it was customary to wear black clothing for at least a year after someone had died.
And each of my family members was doing that.
My mom was wearing black pants, my dad a black tie.
Jorge had on black basketball shorts while Maya always had some sort of accent piece, like a scarf or headband, in black.
My sweet little Carlito wore nothing but black for a week after Leo died.
He only had one black shirt at the time and would ask my mom to wash it every night.
So I knew these conversations about the store were done with respect for Leo and his life. But I wished I could talk to someone about Leo and his life more. Someone who’d known him the way I had.
I had a lot to thank Leo for, even in his afterlife. Because once I took over the store, I’d be able to leave my own legacy behind. The Last Page would always be Leo’s, but now my name would forever be part of its history.
I just had to wait for a stupid email to confirm it would all be true.