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“There are no neighbors out here. Not for miles.”
The lights get closer and closer, and the sound of banda music blasting from the car becomes increasingly louder. Abuela marches furiously to the middle of the gravel driveway and plants her fists on her hips. As a person trying to stay on her good side for weeks, I’m a little terrified, even though her fury isn’t directed at me, thank goodness. Abuela’s wrath is a sight to behold. A terrifying, put-the-fear-of-God-into-you sight.
The car comes to a stop right in front of her, the headlights beaming light on her Wonder Woman power stance so that from my vantage point, it looks like a horror movie poster.
With the car still running, Abuelo stumbles out and slaps his hand on the roof, saying his goodbyes to a rowdy bunch of old men. They blubber their drunken responses and the car backs up, still blasting the banda music—if you can call it music. It’s basically just horns blasting to off-tempo drums, and maybe an accordion.
When Abuelo notices Abuela and the rest of us watching him, he hiccups, and that’s when Abuela takes off one of her new Crocs and chucks it smartly across the face. He blinks as it bounces off his head and watches where it falls.
Abuela spares no words as she rips him a new one.
“Donde andabas? Con quien estabas? ¡Viene no mas como llegas! !Borracho nada menos!”
She’s on a roll, yelping a string of expletives like nobody’s business, and throws her other shoe at him. For some reason, the lead musician considers this his cue, and directs the other mariachis to pitch once more into ‘Las Mañanitas’.
Memo and Dad go to help Abuelo walk upright before he falls flat on his face. Mom’s trying and failing to calm Abuela down. Nate is still holding up his iPad with the ongoing Zoom call, and I get a glimpse of Enrique laughing his head off. Mateo, also finding this extremely hilarious, sings along with the mariachis, encouraging Sebastian and Tío Enrique to join in. And Bernadette emerges from the kitchen with the box of pan dulce. Suddenly, it’s a true Precio party—with someone drunk, someone on the warpath, everybody eating, obnoxiously deafening music, and a cacophony of disorderly chatter. Francesca just shrugs and smiles sweetly at her boyfriend, who has a petrified expression on his face.
Olive nuzzles into me, wrapping an arm around my waist.
“I’m glad you got me up for this. You were right. It is fun.”
Eventually we move the party inside—the mariachi never ceasing as we drink the hot chocolate, dipping our pan dulce in it, and basically get a sugar rush. I don’t feel very well afterward. Before Nate shuts down the Zoom call, I tell Enrique to call me later today. I’m not one to interrupt his honeymoon with work stuff, but I have a couple of questions about the spreadsheets he made for the restaurant. I would have asked him last week, but the guy is ridiculously difficult to get a hold of. Besides, how long of a honeymoon does he need?
Abuelo passes out almost immediately after Dad and Memo help him into bed, and Abuela’s pretty much gotten over it after she got all her feelings off her chest, cursing at Abuelo all the way into the bedroom. We were all relieved to learn Abuelo took an Uber home, and was not at a nudie bar as Abuela had assumed, but at a friend’s house, playing poker all night to celebrate his birthday.
Everyone is slaphappy by the time the musicians leave. Olive and I are slumped on the couch, discussing if we should stay up at this point or go back to sleep, when Abuela comes over to sit right next to us.
“Cuando van a tener la boda?” she asks point blank.
Olive looks up at me for the translation and I sigh, flopping my head back on the sofa.
“She’s asking us to set a date,” I say. “For the wedding.”
Olive blushes. “Oh! No mucho. Es… no mucho tiempo.”
“You just told her it will happen in not much time. At least I think that’s what you said.”
“My Spanish too choppy?”
“A little.”
Abuela claps her hands. “¿Por qué no se casan hoy? Es un día festivo y tenemos un sacerdote en la familia.”
Memo, who I thought was sleeping on the recliner, perks up when he hears her talking about him—the priest in the family.
“They can’t get married today, Abuela. They need to go through classes first and the banns need to be read…”
Abuela raises one silver brow. “Puedes concederles una dispensa especial.”
“That’s not how dispensations work. The bishop would have to get involved, and there would have to be dire circumstances. They don’t just pass these things out, even if the woman is—”
His eyes flash to Olive, darting from her face to her belly.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, we don’t want a rush job,” I cry.
Olive finally realizes what we’re talking about and pulls a face. “Why does everybody think I’m prego?”
“Nobody thinks you’re prego,” I say.
