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“What about Vin de Table, on 85th?” Rachel suggests, naming a nearby wine bar. “We love that place. It’s close, it’s quiet, and it’s small.”

If I think too much, I’m going to lose it, and I already promised Rachel.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

6Agustín

“So, you’re actually getting published in The New Yorker?” Carolina asks. “Like, for real?”

I adjust my phone on the desk so I can better see her face on the screen. “Well, not if I can’t get access to Ricardo. Then I’m screwed.”

Caro sits back and tilts her head. We have the same thick black hair, but hers is cut short on the sides, with a thatch that curls across her forehead. She recently dyed it with streaks of electric blue. I think it looks great—Lupe nearly had a heart attack when she saw it.

“You’ll find a way, big bro, don’t stress it.”

Caro has always believed in me fiercely.

“Thanks, hermana,” I say, turning my attention to my laptop. “I wish I had your confidence.”

I’m multitasking, typing away on my next article for The Brooklyn Daily News: a public interest story about a middle-aged woman who donated her kidney to her best friend of forty years. It was nice talking to them—they were quite a funny pair. Told me some great stories about Brooklyn in the eighties.

It’s been two days since drinks with Nico and Eva and no word about a wedding date. Maybe Eva was right, and the plus-one list is going to be a strike. A strike out? I don’t understand baseball.

“You aren’t mad?” I ask Carolina.

“At you? No.”

“Lupe won’t talk to me.”

“Lupe always has a stick up her butt about something.”

“Aren’t you mad at Abuelo?” I insist. Why do I feel like I’m the only member of my family having a normal reaction to this? My mom won’t talk about it or let me talk to Abuelita at all. My dad pretends like he’s suddenly got some pressing issue in his garden any time I bring it up, and Lupe acts like I’m the one who’s betrayed the family.

“Mad at him for what? I hate to say it, Tín, but Abuelo ain’t unique. Color me shocked—Mexican man moves to the US and starts a secret second family. It happens a lot, dude.”

“So that makes it okay?” I demand. “That he lied? That he cheated on Abuelita?”

“No, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed that Abue seems pretty okay with it? When she told us, it wasn’t like she broke down crying.”

I’m positive that’s not true. Abuelita is strong, that’s all. I’m sure she didn’t want to show her heartbreak to her family. I wish my mom would let me talk to her. She and Lupe and my tías have all gone into protection mode, only passing along messages from me, never handing their phones to her when I call.

“There’s no way Mom isn’t pissed about this too,” I say.

“Mom doesn’t get pissed. She cooks. A lot. Which is great for me. I could eat her lasagna every day.” Caro’s septum piercing glints in the sunlight streaming through the high windows of her apartment in Colonia Juarez. “Don’t worry about Lupe. She’ll call you the minute she needs your help with the Minions.”

That’s what we call our nieces. Four girls, all under the age of twelve. Going to visit is like heading into a war zone. I always come armed with presents. Candy, crayons, stickers, whatever it takes.

I slump back in my chair. “It isn’t just the cheating,” I say quietly. “It isn’t even the second family. You know when Abuelo became El Rasca? When his name first started appearing in the papers here? At the exact same fucking time we got evicted from the house in Coyoacán.”

Caro shifts uneasily on her chair. We were just kids then, only ten and eight, but that memory is imprinted in our brains forever. We were forced to leave our home, the house I had grown up in, and squeeze into a tiny apartment. And why? Because the Mexican government made some backroom deal with a shady contractor. No one spoke up for my family, or the many others who were affected. No one gave a shit about us.

It’s why I wanted to become a journalist in the first place. The only way to make change, to give power to the powerless and a voice to the voiceless, is to get loud. As journalists, we have to grab people by the shoulders and shake them and say Look! Look at what is happening.

Abuelo was fighting for people he didn’t even know, while leaving his family to fend for themselves.

I swallow back my anger.

“Enough about Abuelo,” I say, cracking my knuckles and leaning back in my chair. The cramped office on Court Street is pretty quiet—the rest of the small news team is out covering stories or getting their afternoon caffeine boost. “How are things going with the new job?”