Big Chicas Don't Cry(6)

Selena rolled her eyes. “No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t need to believe it,” she explained. “I believe it, and that’s all that matters.”

“But that’s the thing, Selena. I don’t believe that you believe it.”

“Then that’s your problem.”

“Nope. I think it’s yours.”

They both stared at each other over their coffee cups in a showdown of wills and last words. It was something they’d been doing since we were little girls. Depending on how stubborn one of them was feeling, they could stay like that for several minutes. At least they didn’t pull each other’s hair anymore while doing it.

“Girls!” my mom barked from the kitchen door, and we all jumped. “What are you doing in here? It’s time to get to work. Clean up your dishes, and go wash your hands. Dale! Dale! We’re already behind.”

The orders were enough to make Selena and Gracie call a truce, and we did as we were told.

A few minutes later, we walked into the patio. It was time to make the tamales.

“Merry Kismas!” a little voice squeaked from below as I felt a tug on my sweats. I looked down, and it was my six-year-old cousin, Araceli. She was still wearing pink fleece pajamas—the kind with the feet—and her light-brown hair was tousled all around her sweet, pudgy face.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” I said, managing a half smile.

“I’m not a baby!” Araceli huffed and then stomped off in the other direction.

“Celi, behave!” my tía Espy yelled after her daughter and then came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Merry Christ . . . ay, mija, you don’t look so good.” She stepped closer and studied my face. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not pregnant, are you?” she asked me.

Tía Olivia, Gracie’s and Selena’s mom, happened to be walking by at that moment carrying a large metal bowl filled with shredded chicken. Hearing the word pregnant, she quickly turned back around and stared her sister-in-law down.

“Espy, how many times have we told you—it is impossible for you to be pregnant? You just gained a few pounds, that’s all.”

Last year, Tía Espy was convinced she was pregnant again, even though she had just turned forty-eight years old. Araceli had been her miracle baby, and even after that difficult pregnancy, Espy had wanted to have one more. She refused to believe that the crying jags and ice cream cravings were because of menopause—not a baby. Espy wouldn’t even believe her own doctor until he did an ultrasound and showed her an empty uterus. We let her grieve for a couple of days, and then Selena and I showed up at her house with a bottle of tequila and a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream and told her to get over it.

My abuela appeared from the kitchen doorway with unopened bags of corn husks. In Spanish, she told Espy that if her cheeks and butt were getting fatter, then she should cut down on the frijoles and guacamole.

“Ay, Mama Garcia, I’m not fat! And I didn’t say I was pregnant,” Espy yelled. “I asked Erica if she was!”





Chapter Three


SELENA


As soon as she said it, I knew she regretted it. Tía Espy’s big brown eyes grew even bigger, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

And Erica’s face went white. Which was quite something to see since she was normally darker than Gracie.

Suddenly, everyone in the patio stopped talking. My abuela’s mouth opened a little, and the bag of husks dropped to the floor. Erica’s mother stood up from behind one of the tables and then quickly fell back into her chair again. Araceli and my other younger cousins continued singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” with Burl Ives, unaware of the potential scandal unfolding right before them. I heard someone clear her throat, and another whispered, “Ay, Dios mío.”

I knew someone had to put a stop to the madness before my teenage cousins announced it on Facebook—or rather “El Chisme Book,” as my mother called it.

“Erica’s not pregnant!” I finally yelled. “She’s just severely hungover.”

The color returned to my abuela’s face as she picked up the bag of husks and walked away muttering in Spanish that “hangovers are God’s punishment for drunks.” Chattering filled the patio once again as everyone returned to what they were doing before they heard the words Erica and pregnant in the same breath. Tía Espy weakly smiled at my cousin and mouthed, “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry, Espy, I don’t think you’re a gordita,” I could hear my mom say from the corner of the room. “It’s not your fault God gave you too much junk in your trunk.”

That made everyone laugh, and the scandal for the day had been discarded as easily as my Louis Vuitton purse from last season.

“Okay, Abuela, I’m ready to count,” I announced as I pulled an apron over my head.

“Selena, we haven’t even started filling the tamales yet,” my mom said as she passed me carrying a stack of plates.

I looked around the patio and put my hands on my hips. “Well, I guess you ladies better get to work then.”

A dish towel hit me in the middle of my face, and cackles of laughter followed.

“Seriously, Erica?” I couldn’t help but laugh, too, especially when I threw the towel back at my cousin, but it hit Tía Espy’s head instead.