Page 1 of Raspados & Regret

ONE

FABIÁN

The thing about Bay Area summers is nobody prepares you for how disrespectful the heat gets. People from everywhere hear California and think beaches, palm trees, perfect weather, and movie-star bullshit. They don’t think about an East Bay parking lot in July, where the asphalt cooks the soles of your Vans, PG&E acts like air-conditioning is a luxury item, and every metal surface inside an auto shop turns into a personal attack.

By four in the afternoon, I have sweat dripping down the back of my neck, grease under my nails, and a half-dead Honda Civic on the lift refusing to cooperate.

“Fabián,” my tío says from across the shop.

I ignore him. That will usually work… for the first three tries.

“Fabián.”

The Civic’s oil pan bolt gives me attitude. “Motherfuck—” I give it attitude back.

“Fabián Salcedo.”

Oh fuck, the accent means business.

I slide out from under the Civic on the creeper, wrench in hand, crop top stuck to my chest, and Dickies low on my hips because this damn heat has made decency optional.

My tío stands near the office door with his arms crossed over his belly, his reading glasses halfway down his nose, and that face he makes when he is about to ask me for a favor while pretending it is already decided.

“No,” I say.

He blinks. “I didn’t ask anything.”

“You got that face.”

“What face?” He looks back into the office as if there’s a mirror that will tell him all.

“The ‘I volunteered you for something’ face.”

He presses a hand to his chest, offended like he didn’t raise me in this garage after my dad decided being a father had too many responsibilities and not enough applause. “You think so little of me.”

“Tell me I’m wrong then.”

From inside the office, my tía yells, “Don’t talk to your uncle like that.”

“I’m being respectful,” I yell back.

“You’re being you.”

Same shit.

My tío sighs and holds out a folded sheet of paper. “The summer night market starts tomorrow.”

I stare at him, and he keeps holding out the paper.

I don’t take it.

“No,” I say again, firmer this time, in case the first one got lost in the smell of motor oil and bad decisions.

“You don’t even know what I’m asking.”

“The answer is still no.”

He walks closer anyway. “We have the booth permit for the summer series. Fridays and Saturdays and a few Sundays. Your tía wants to sell her aguas frescas and elotes again.”