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I was fishing a spare waitressing apron out from under the counter along with an extra order pad when a soft voice called my name from the cash register. I glanced over and caught sight of my tiny, gray-headed grandmother perched on a stool watching me.
I’d totally forgotten Big T had said she was here tonight...if that didn’t tell you how scattered my brain was after my auditions.
“Abuela.” I hurried to her to give her the dutiful granddaughterly hug. “Te extrañé.”
Abu
ela had been my legal guardian since I was nine, when enough drugs had fried my mother’s brain to the point she’d been put away in a mental institution. But since Abuela had lived with Tío Alonso ever since they’d come to the US on work visas two years before I was born, I’d been raised pretty much under his roof...and his rule. And even though my grandmother could be sassy when you crossed her, she was still the sweetest soul and usually compliant to her eldest son’s authority.
“Mi linda nieta,” she murmured, cupping my face and looking into my eyes. “Te ves triste.”
I forced a smile and shook my head. “I’m not sad,” I tried to reassure her in Spanish, all the while biting the inside of my lip and hating that she could always see so much in me. I couldn’t tell her about my failed audition either; she loathed my kind of music just as much as Tío Alonso did. “Just...upset about having to wait tables.”
Shaking her head, she swatted me away, telling me to get to work before commanding me to stop by more often to visit her. With a quick kiss to her cheek, I was off and catching a table of waiting customers that my younger cousin Luis didn’t seem to have gotten to yet, since he looked busy trying to clean up a drink spill across the room at another table.
“Hola. Buenas noches,” I greeted with a smile to the family of three I approached. “Have you guys gotten your drinks ordered yet?”
Castañeda’s boasted authentic Mexican food, despite the fact that the crunchy tacos here were nothing like a true taco back in México, where my family had migrated from. Tío Alonso called the tacos we served the locals chingaderas, aka pieces of shit, but they were one of our most popular orders, so we continued to supply them.
Other than that, everything else we served was a true Latino dish. And everyone who worked here was of true Latino descent. I was nearly the exception, since my blood was diluted. My father had been American with German-Irish ancestors, and he’d stuck around long enough to marry my mom and get me the Curran surname before he’d taken off to parts unknown. But I looked Mexican enough and my mother had been a Castañeda, so I guess that gave me my “in” to work at the family restaurant.
And gave me the enjoyment of having the kid at the table in front of me spray my pant leg with queso-gooped snot as he sneezed on me.
Nice.
I smiled through clenched teeth at his parents as if everything was bien, even though I wanted to strangle their brat who was currently singing about Bob the Builder at the top of his lungs and tossing his tortilla chips onto his seat so he could march them into crumbs as they studied their menus, oblivious. Gritting back my irritation, I took their order and escaped before I unloaded my frustrations of the day onto them.
Six hours later, I trudged into my apartment and flopped onto the couch, where I moaned out my misery and slapped my hands over my face.
This—this—was my life. And it looked as if it was going to remain my pathetic existence for the next long while. No drumming position. No new band membership. Nothing but serving asshole customers who wrote LOL on my tip line instead of providing a single penny of gratuity after my damn fine waitressing, if I did say so myself, despite how much I wanted to curl into a ball on my sofa and cry while killing things on video games...and maybe stuffing my face with chocolate and ice cream. And piña coladas. God, and drowning myself with so many piña coladas! And maybe singing really sappy, sad love songs like “My Heart Will Go On” as I envisioned all the zombies I slaughtered were Fisher...or that bassist for Non-Castrato and the way-too-hot lead singer, Asher Hart.
Work had somewhat helped distract me from my melancholy all evening, but now, not even the half a dozen smelly grease stains on my clothes or my sore feet could keep my mind off those stupid auditions and that bastard group of band members who’d laughed in my face. Actually, my greasy smell and sore feet only helped highlight how awful it all was.
I was never going to be accepted into any band. I don’t know what I’d been thinking to audition today. Not even dating the lead singer of Fish ’N’ Dicks had gotten me into their band. Why had I been so certain someone else would accept me? I was the biggest failure I knew. I’d never gotten anything I’d truly tried for or dreamed of obtaining in my entire life.
A father who stuck around and a sane mother who loved me? Denied.
Finishing college and showing my uncle I wasn’t worthless? Nope.
Marrying Braden Fisher—who was supposed to be the great love of my life—and creating the best band ever with him and his crew? Hells to the no.
Finding any man to love me? Nada.
Becoming a drummer in whatever band took me in and playing in front of a live audience? Not even a freaking audition.
Hating how miserable and sad and dejected it made me, I focused on the rage. I balled my hands into fists of fury and muttered to the room at large. “I’m never listening to your stupid music again, Non-Castrato.”
I really didn’t expect the room to respond. So when it said, “I had a bad feeling you didn’t get it,” I yelped out a startled scream.
Whirling toward the doorway of the kitchen, I scowled at my roommate for scaring the crap out of me. She’d piled her flaming red hair into a mop on top of her head and sported a green cami and shorts that barely covered her crotch—her usual around-the-house gear, regardless of whether it was summer or the middle of winter...though it happened to be November.
Cradling a steamy mug that smelled like cappuccino with both hands, she carried it into the front room and curled onto the couch beside me to give me the ultimate sympathetic sigh. “You would’ve called hours ago, screaming and ecstatic, if there’d been good news.”
My lower lip trembled. I never could handle pity well. “Fuckers wouldn’t even let me audition.”
“I’m sorry, puta.” I have no idea why Jodi always used the Spanish word for whore as a term of affection for me, but ever since I’d taught her the translation, that’s what she’d affectionately called me. Today, it only made me cry harder though, because it reminded me how much she loved me, and I really-really needed some love right now.
Damn ovaries.
