Big Chicas Don't Cry(56)

I told her that we were voting on some important issues, and Sister Catherine had already said that Friday’s meeting was mandatory.

“Fine,” she said after a while. “Then we can meet after the meeting. What time will it be over?”

The meetings never went past seven, but I didn’t want to miss out on a possible dinner with Tony. Again, I told her the meeting would probably go late because of all the things we were voting on. She seemed convinced and said she’d ask Erica to go out with her.

Then this morning, she called me again.

“All right, fess up. Mom says you didn’t get home until after eleven, and I know that there is no way Sister Catherine and all those old fogies on the fiesta committee would stay that late, no matter what serious decision-making had to get done. So, what’s going on? Where are you sneaking off to on Friday nights?”

“I’m not sneaking off anywhere,” I’d whispered into the phone. I was in the living room when I answered, and the entire family was there watching a soccer game. I walked into our backyard and tried to convince Selena that I wasn’t hiding anything.

“Gracie, you are such a bad liar. That’s what makes you Gracie. So give it up because you know later you’re going to feel guilty and call me back and tell me anyway.” Selena sighed.

“All right. All right. I really am going to those fiesta committee meetings. What I have not told you is that Tony Bautista is also on the committee, and sometimes we go together or have dinner afterward,” I rushed that last part out, hoping that Selena didn’t hear me. And at first I thought she really didn’t because there was complete silence on the other end. Then she screamed, and I nearly dropped my phone.

“I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! I totally knew there had to be some guy. You’ve been wearing mascara and skirts! I told Erica you must have some secret boyfriend!”

“He is not my boyfriend. We’re just friends, colleagues. We happen to be on the same committee, and sometimes we have to do research, so we do it—well, not it—we work after or before the meetings.”

“Whatever. I know you, big sister, and even though you may say you’re just friends, I know you have a crush.” Selena laughed.

“I do not have a crush on Tony Bautista.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I do not.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I . . . forget it. Forget I said anything. I’ve got to go now. Mom and I are going to Abuela’s.” Then I hung up on her before she could say anything else.

Turned out my mom was also suspicious.

“All I’m saying is that it’s nice if you are seeing someone, but I don’t understand why you are keeping it a secret,” she explained after my umpteenth denial. We had come over to visit my grandparents and Welita.

“Ay, Olivia, déjala en paz,” Welita told her.

“Yes, Olivia, leave Gracie alone. When she wants to tell us about her novio, then she will,” my abuela added.

“But Abuela, I do not have a boyfriend. I just, I just have a friend. He’s also a teacher, and we are on the committee together for the fiesta. That’s all. There’s nothing going on,” I vowed.

“Is that all, really?” my mom asked, and I tried to ignore the sound of disappointment in her voice.

When I nodded, my abuela reached over and patted my hand. “Well, then, that is nice, too, mija.”

“And, who knows, maybe one day you will be more than friends,” my mom suggested, and again, I tried to ignore her tone. This time it sounded a little too hopeful.

“Please do not say that, Mom. Besides, I’m pretty sure all he wants from me is friendship,” I admitted—both to myself and to my family.

“?Basta! That’s enough,” my abuela said. “Gracie, you don’t know the future, so don’t think like that. Things never happen the way we think they are going to happen. Look at my mother and father. They met when she was just a girl. She didn’t think she was meeting her husband that day. No, of course not. But that is the way life is. If God wants it to be, then it will be.”

Then she asked Welita to tell me the story of the day she met my great-grandfather.

Like always, a wistful smile spread across her face, and she began talking. I had heard the story many times before, but I did not interrupt. Not just because I enjoyed hearing it but because I knew she enjoyed telling it.

She was fifteen, and a young police officer had stopped by her father’s shop to repair a hem to his uniform. She offered him water, and he asked if they’d met before. My welita said they hadn’t.

“Because I would have remembered him,” she told me in Spanish.

A few years later, Francisco Martinez came back to the shop and asked her to be his wife. She was only seventeen. Her parents gave them their blessing, and within ten years, they had five children. My great-grandfather used to tell her that he recognized her that first day from his dreams.

Even now, it made her blush. “Qué tonto,” she said after a while, wiping her eyes with a tissue. Because as much as the memory made her smile, it also made her sad. My great-grandpa was killed in the line of duty. At the age of thirty-four, she became a single mother of five kids. Eventually, she came to the United States to find work. But she never remarried.

My mom jumped from her seat and told Welita that she wanted to show her the blanket she’d been crocheting. I knew it was my mother’s way of trying to distract her.