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To her surprise her mother smiled. “Grace told me a little bit about that. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.”
Her mother told her she’d explain why she’d always been the way she was, but up until now she still hadn’t. Like the last time, now wasn’t the time. “I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, but I was going to,” Rose lied, not even sure why she was trying to save her mother’s feelings when her mother had never bothered doing the same for her.
Rose noticed Alex who had walked into the kitchen earlier walk back and whisper something to Angel. Then Angel followed him into the kitchen where Sal was. Grace was in there with him now also and looked her way several times, but shook her head adamantly. Rose suddenly sensed something was wrong.
Try as she might to stay with the conversation with her mom, she couldn’t help but continue to look in Grace’s direction. Sofia joined them now, and her hand was immediately at her mouth.
Rose finally excused herself for a moment and walked over to them. They all hushed as she approached.
“Is something wrong?”
No one said anything at first, and then Sal cleared his throat. “No, uh, the alarm went off at one of the restaurants, but it was nothing.”
Rose’s eyebrows pinched as her eyes went from Sal to Grace. Why were they all looking at her so weird? “So everything is okay?”
“Yep, just fine,” Sal said.”
There was something about the way Alex looked at his wife, Valerie, as she approached him. The look was as if he were warning her of something. Valerie barely made eye contact with her. Why were they being so cryptic?
“Maybe you should get your friend, Alison, and her boyfriend something to drink.” Grace suggested, looking behind Rose in Alison and Ezekiel’s direction. Romero was now standing with them, and it appeared he was talking to Alison about her soccer moves, demonstrations and all.
Alex attempted to sound amused. “Yeah, you might want to save your friend from Romero’s bullshit.”
Rose turned to look at Alison who if she wasn’t mistaken was looking at Romero a little dreamy-eyed. If anyone looked a little annoyed by Romero’s bullshit, it was Ezekiel. She turned back to Grace and the rest of the group in front of her. It still felt like she was missing something.
She went and joined Alison’s little circle. Romero’s tips on how to elbow a player good without getting called on it by the refs had her mind immediately off the weirdness of the crowd inside.
Sal left the room several more times to take calls, and then he’d come back and huddle up with his brothers and even his father one time. Though no one said anything, there’d been an obvious change in mood ever since Rose picked up on it earlier. Sal’s parents had even left while she was busy with Alison without saying goodbye, which wasn’t such a big deal, but so unlike them.
After walking Alison and Ezekiel out, she walked back to the kitchen where Grace was now starting to put things away. Rose didn’t miss the worried expression Grace tried to hide as she glanced away quickly.
Sal walked in just then. “Zeke seems like a nice guy,” he said referring to Ezekiel.
“Political science major, huh? Alison says he’s really interested in running for president someday. Wow.” Grace added with a soft smile.
Rose turned back to Grace after smiling at Sal. “Yeah, well it runs in his family. His dad works for the mayor, and his uncle is a mayor of some town up north.” She leaned against the counter still unable to shake the feeling that everyone knew something she didn’t. She addressed Grace first. “Listen is something going on? You guys all seem…I don’t know…tense.” She turned back to Sal. “And your parents, they left so suddenly. What happened?” She caught Grace shaking her head at Sal. Grace stopped as soon as Rose turned to her. “No, what?”
A familiar knot began to form in Rose’s stomach. Something was wrong and for whatever reason, Grace didn’t want her to know about it.
“My mom was just feeling a little under the weather, that’s all.” Sal assured her. “She didn’t want to interrupt you while you were with your friends.”
“Under the weather?” Rose remembered Sofia’s hand going to her mouth earlier as if she’d just been given some bad news. She turned to look at Grace’s eyes that were so telling of how much more serious this really was. In the time she’d lived with Sal, his parents had become somewhat of surrogate grandparents to her. His mother was the sweetest woman she knew. “Is she gonna be okay? Did she go to the hospital?”
“No nothing like that,” Sal said again in as reassuring voice as he could. “It’s just a little cold. She’ll be fine.”
“Rose,” Sofia walked into the kitchen holding Rose’s phone out. “The caller ID says Ben, so I thought maybe you’d want to take it.” She smiled.
Rose took it but eyed Grace as she walked out of the kitchen to answer. “Hey, I heard you won. Congrats, baby! So this is it, right? You go to state finals?”
Smiling, but feeling a little uneasy about his calling her baby now that everything had changed, she responded. “Yeah, finals start next week.”
“Cool! I’ll try to make at least one of the games. I think you guys got this.” He went on to tell her about looking up ranks online and where exactly they stood next to all the other teams that had made it that far. By the time she hung up, her head was spinning with all the stats and numbers he’d thrown at her.
