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THE evening had started out normally enough. They were eating at a fancier place than Emilio was used to and Spencer was unusually worked up, even for him, but both of those things were because they were with Jim and Alicia. No big deal. And then somewhere between starting the get-to-know-you game and paying the check, they had made a sharp turn and veered straight into the Twilight Zone.
In his entire life, Emilio had never seen his sister talk that much. Sure, she was friendly and sometimes even chatty, but not nonstop gabby. He didn’t even have a clue what she was saying half the time. And when she took a break to eat a bite of food, which wasn’t frequent, she seemed to put Jim on the case, insisting he relate some story or another. At first he didn’t seem to notice that his wife had gone off the rails because he was so focused on shoveling down his food, but by about halfway through the meal, when Jim’s plate was empty, he started giving Alicia strange looks. The only person who didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary was Spencer, but that was only because he had never met Alicia so he had no point of reference.
“Should we get dessert?” Jim asked once their plates were cleared.
“There’s a great ice cream place next door,” Alicia said. “Let’s go there.”
“Sounds good. Let me just get the check,” Jim said.
“Please let me,” Spencer jumped in excitedly as he reached for his wallet. “It’d be my pleasure.”
“Why don’t we split it?” Alicia said as she hopped up from the table. “Emilio, let’s go find an empty table next door while they figure out the bill.” She had her purse over her shoulder and was marching away from the table before anybody could respond.
“What the fuck?” Emilio mouthed to Jim.
He shrugged and shook his head, looking after his wife wide-eyed.
“All right.” Emilio sighed deeply. “I better go with her before she explodes or something. We’ll see you guys in a minute.” He gave Spencer’s knee a squeeze and then jogged off to catch up with his sister.
“Alicia!” he called after her. “Yo, Alley, hold up.”
She kept walking until she reached the patio and then she stopped and waited for Emilio. “Hurry,” she said and waved her hand toward herself quickly.
“You’re the one who ran away.” He caught up to her and then said, “What’s going on with you?”
“Let’s go over to one of those tables,” she said, pointing at the metal tables outside the ice cream shop next door to the restaurant. She stretched her neck and tilted to the side, trying to see behind Emilio. “They’re still at the table, right?”
“Are you stoned?” Emilio asked. “Is that what you were doing when you disappeared into the bathroom for so long?”
Alicia grasped Emilio’s elbow and started tugging him toward the table. “I am not stoned! I have three children, for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t know what one thing has to do with the other, and it’s the only explanation for why you were gone for so long and then started acting like an insane person on speed.”
They reached the tables and Alicia sat down. Emilio took the chair next to her and she leaned forward.
“I didn’t go to the bathroom to do drugs, hermanito, honestly.” She shook her head like the suggestion was completely outrageous, which would have been true if she wasn’t acting twenty-five different kinds of crazy. “I followed Spencer and eavesdropped on his conversation.”
“What?” Emilio shouted.
“Shhh,” she hissed and darted her face around. “Not so loud.”
“You snuck after my boyfriend and listened in on his conversation?”
“Yes! Now, we don’t have much time, so if you want to hear what happened, stop talking and listen.”
“No. This is nuts. If Spencer wants—”
Alicia cut him off and said, “The guy he ran into was his ex-boyfriend.”
Emilio stopped talking.
“I figured that’d work.” She smirked for a second and then seemed to remember they had time constraints. “The guy is a total douche.”
“Douche? Really? Who says douche?”
“Do you want to hear this or not?” she snapped.
He wasn’t sure, actually. He had as much curiosity as the next guy, so, yeah, he wanted to know about Spencer’s ex, wanted to know what had his sister in a tizzy. But it seemed wrong to get the information that way.
“Anyway, so Peter, that’s the ex-boyfriend’s name, was being really nasty. I guess he thought Spencer was going to meet him here for dinner and—”
“Why would he think that?” Emilio barked. “They broke up months ago.”
“I don’t know. It’s not important.”
Emilio disagreed with that assessment. He found the idea of Spencer meeting any guy for dinner was important, let alone one he had dated. But he wanted to hear the rest of the story, so he didn’t correct her.
