AllFreeNovel
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Ileana and I aren’t particularly close, but I know I can trust her with anything. She’s a motherly, supportive presence at the bar and takes care of all of us in any small way she can. She brings us meals when she cooks something yummy and helps Joe iron his shirt when he shows up to work looking a mess. I know if I tell her about Bren, she will take it to her deathbed if I ask her to. And I really need to vent, to process why I’m feeling so unsettled about the whole situation.
“Ileana, if I confide in you about something, will you promise to keep it to yourself?”
She smiles brightly at me. Ileana is the girl-next-door type of beauty, and when she smiles, I feel like a cat basking in the sun filtering through a window. “Of course. I won’t tell anyone anything you don’t want me to.”
The docking door opens before I can tell her about Bren. Ileana showed up late-morning to help me put away my weekly delivery. While each of us could lift the heavy beverage crates alone, it is sometimes easier to double-team it. Not to mention faster.
While my delivery guy dollies crates upon crates into the bar, Ileana and I busy ourselves with organizing everything. I table the conversation, not wanting strangers to be privy to such personal details.
“Hey, are you busy after this? I’m going to the distillery for some tequila tastings. Would love the company and to talk to someone.”
“Sure,” Ileana says. “Lola’s babysitting. Let me just make sure she can stay a couple of extra hours, and I’m all yours.”
“Great!” I say.
I know Lola moved in with Ileana after Lola’s parents died last year. Ileana claims she needs help babysitting her son while she works, and Lola can stay at her place rent-free if she helps out with that, but everyone at the bar knows that Ileana wants to help. Before her eighteenth birthday, Lola lost her parents and really has no one else. They aren’t the first two people I’d put together as roommates, but they make it work. I’m slowly starting to consider them friends and find myself confiding in them both more and more.
When we finish working, we both make our way to my apartment next door to freshen up before heading out.
I am in the process of putting on a little makeup when the call from Mom comes through.
“Mami!” I all but squeal into the phone.
“Mija, how are you?”
I love when Mom calls. She is the only person I know who speaks proper impeccable Spanish. Ileana and Lola both speak Spanish, but theirs is even more butchered than mine. So Mom and I always keep our conversations in Spanish.
“I’m great, Mom. Getting ready to go out with Ileana.”
“She’s the waitress, the single mom you really like?” Mom asks.
I tell Mom everything—well, almost everything. Nothing about my lovers because she likes to pretend I’m still chaste and saving myself for marriage. “That’s the one,” I say.
“Well, you’re busy. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“No, it’s fine. We can chat while I get ready. How’s Nana?” I ask. She and Mom are the reasons I work so hard. I want them to have everything they need.
Mom sighs long and deep into the phone. “She’s fine, but she won’t stop complaining about her arthritis. The doctors have done everything, prescribed everything—I hate to say it, but I think she just likes the attention and plays it up.”
“Just let her, Mom. At her age, Nana deserves to be pampered a little.”
“I know. You’re right. Anyway, the last prescription they prescribed for her is a bit on the expensive side. I hate to ask for extra this month, but—”
“¡Mami! We’ve been over this. Please, I’m begging you, tell me when you need anything. It’s no trouble.”
“I just hate thinking of you there, in the U.S. all alone. I know it’s expensive—”
“¡Mami! Please stop. I’m really not lying to you when I tell you the bar is doing great. Trust me, if it ever gets tight, I’ll let you know, and we can all start pinching pennies, but until then, things are good. I even have a little left over every month for savings.”
Mom is quiet for a long moment. “You wouldn’t lie to your mother, would you?”
I laugh because she says it so seriously. “No. I’d never lie to you about that. How much is the medicine?”
Once she gives me a list of new expenses for the month, I adjust the monthly amount and make the bank transfer early so she can get the prescription filled.
“Gracias,Mija. You’re an angel. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“I promised you when you moved back to Mexico, I’d take care of you. I meant it. I’ll always take care of you. But . . . I do wish you’d move back. I miss you and Nana so much.”
