“Hey, what’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“Oh, I’m at Ramón’s.”
Tiburón grunted.
“What, Tib? He’s wonderful. I’m crazy about him. You need to stop talking shit.”
“Really, Julieta? Well, why don’t you talk to Señora Flores, and she can tell you how great he is.”
“Why? What happened to Señora Flores?”
“You don’t even know, do you? You are too wrapped up in your delusional world with your millionaire boyfriend. I don’t care how strung out you are on him, the guy’s a fucking Coconut Ken doll.”
“He’s not. He’s just as Mexican as we are.”
Tiburón cackled like the coyotes Julieta often heard running around at night through her neighborhood. “Whatever you have to tell yourself, prima.”
“What are you talking about?” Was this about the rent?
“Why don’t you ask him?” Tiburón hung up.
Julieta looked around the room. She considered calling Ramón but didn’t want to interrupt his meeting. She wanted to figure out what Tiburón meant on her own.
She quickly got dressed and wrote a note for Ramón. She was grateful that his front door automatically locked since she didn’t have a key.
She went to the lobby, called an Uber, and headed back to Barrio Logan.
But instead of getting dropped off at her place, she went straight for the café next door.
There, she found Señora Flores.
“Señora Flores—what happened? Tiburón said—”
Señora Flores scowled at her. “Like you didn’t know. You and that pendejo boyfriend of yours.”
“Señora, I don’t. Please tell me.”
Señora wiped the tears from her eyes. “The rent. He raised it.”
“How much?”
“Triple.”
The wind was knocked out of Julieta. Clearly, that must have been a mistake.
There was no way Ramón would do that.
But it wasn’t up to Ramón. It was up to his father.
“Triple the rent?”
“Sí. Six thousand a month. You know I can’t pay that. None of us can. We will all close.”
Yes, they would. Mari’s panadería, Señor Pérez’s pharmacy, and even Yesenia’s bookstore.
Julieta loved Barrio Books. That place was one of a handful of bilingual bookstores left in the country. They had story time for kids and taught SAT classes on the weekends. There was even a romance section that Mamá loved. What was he going to put there?
