“Doesn’t matter if you say it in Spanish too, Ox. Either way, it’s clear you get to pick and choose who you want to be a good brother to,” I said.
“Alta!” Amá’s appalled tone shot to me. “Basta mija, qué te pasa?”
“She’s been really mean lately, Ama,” Melissa said out of nowhere. “We don’t know what’s going on with her.”
“Mean?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah, and you’re an expert on that, huh, Lis?” Ceci grumbled into her water glass.
Lis ducked her head dejectedly.
“It’s probably the company she’s been keeping,” Ox said, glare still intact.
“Are youserious?” I asked, my voice keening high. “You are such a hypocrite! It’s a tattoo shop not a freaking strip club, Oaxaca! If it was Ceci going there you wouldn’t even bat an eye.”
“And the brute you let boss you around?” he asked. “I thought you knew better than that, Alta.”
The laugh I let out was incredulous. “Harper is not abrute. He’s probably the nicest guy I know. You’re the only one who thinks he can boss everyone around.”
“Um,” apprehension rolled off of my brother Mateo’s tone as he spoke up hesitantly. His tone was joking and light, though something in his eye held that same tracking quality Ox possessed. I suspected he was taking this at least a bit more seriously than theothers, but Mateo liked to hide himself behind his quips and jabs allowing him to blend in more than even me, so I knew not to count on him to oust himself for me. “Don’t make her mad, Ox. Remember the last time she got mad?”
Fifteen years ago. Some girl at school called Melissa a slur and my older sister came to me crying. I hit the girl so hard, she lost a tooth. Sometimes I wish I could stay that version of me, but sadly I’d reverted back to the sweet Alta after I calmed down, even back then.
Ox didn’t back down. He would never. And especially so when his wife was mysteriously missing from this week’s gathering. “No, if she wants to throw a fit, let her.”
“A fit!” I dropped my utensils. “Am I the one who’s throwing a fit because he didn’t get what he wantedonce? No! Want to know how I know? Because I never get what I want.Never! I just wanted you to read one email, Ox! One, and you couldn’t do that! But you can rent out the whole shore for Ceci or clear out an entire floor so Melissa doesn’t have to be social at work. I’m so done with this!”
I stood, abandoning my half-eaten meal. “I have to go.”
“Al,” someone said from the table, I think it was Ceci. She was probably the closest to knowing what I was going through, though she was off in her own world lately. Off building the life she wanted for herself.
It reminded me that this wasn’t what I wanted for myself. I didn’t just want to be some brat who reacted badly and then left. I wanted to be strongandkind. Not one or the other.
So sighing, I paused in the doorway of the dining room.
Be both. You can be both. I told myself.
“I’m having a Halloween party tomorrow, Ceci knows where. You’re all welcome to come, but only if you can be nice. Because I’m done being the nice one.”
Chapter Sixteen
ALTA
“What the hell am I looking at right now?” Mateo asked as he peeked at my sisters and I through the cracks of his fingers.
“You sound like Ox,” Ceci laughed. “Where is he by the way? I told everyone to be here.”
“I’m here,” Ox’s voice chimed in. Coming around he waved something half-heartedly. A camera. “Amá asked me to take pictures of your costumes—um, where the hell are the rest of your clothes?”
“See,Mateo?Thatis what you sound like. And nobody wants to sound like that,” Ceci poked. Turning to Ox with her hands on her hips, she shook her head like he was buta helpless older brother who would never understand. “We’re angels and demons, Ox. The important part isn’t the clothes, it’s the horns. Or lack thereof.”
“That doesn’t make them unnecessary,” he grumbled, eyes glued to his wife as he frowned. “It’s not even accurate.”
Considering the fact that us girls barely had more than a few pairs of patent leather booty shorts, and matching skintight corset tops between us—I had to admit, he wasn’t wrong. Ceci dressed us, of course, and naturally she’d made herself and Melissa the angels dressed in white and blue and Clementine and I as demons in black and red. She thought it would be ironic.
“You’re smart, Ox, but you really never know when to shut up.” Ceci flipped her hair as she turned away from him and faced the rest of us. “Everyone, ignore Captain Buzzkill and look alive. We’re not fighting anymore. You all made Al yell yesterday. You should be ashamed. We’re family and we’re going to be here for her like she’s always there for us…right?”
For a group of supportive parties they sure did look miserable, the only ones who even seemed excited to be here were Ceci and Clem. Melissa was too busy pulling on her white latex booty shorts uncomfortably to be paying anyone any mind. And Ox was too busy staring at his wife to even blink in another direction.
