Page 15

CHAPTER 15

HOPE

I have no idea what I’m doing.

While the team is out playing for their lives, I’m home staring at my wardrobe in my underwear. Basically the entire top rack is covered wall-to-wall by sweatshirts, windbreakers, hoodies, and jackets. Why do I even own so many jackets? It’s only chilly like two weeks out of the year.

The bottom rack is taken by leggings of all colors—especially black—joggers, sweatpants, and a handful of jeans in black and different shades of blue. Not a single dress in sight.

I wish Cade Starr was here so I could tell him that his great plan of making me more dateable by wearing more feminine clothes has a huge hole already. Fortunately, he’s not here to witness me in my boy short panties and training bra. That’d be hella awkward.

“Hmm.”

I run my fingers down the tips of my freshly blow dried hair. I was pretty sure I had at least a couple of dresses. I recall a teal one and a floral thing. Didn’t I wear them to go clubbing with the girls not that long ago?

“Oh!” I step into the mess to rummage through the shelves where I keep my linen and smaller gym clothes. There, under a pile of undershirts, I find the two dresses all balled up.

I guess Starr’s plan continues ahead. However, a new little problem has been unlocked. The two dresses are more wrinkled than a raisin. At least they smell clean.

Feet bare, I pad out to the living room. Rose sits on the couch with her Mac, and by the look of concentration in her face I surmise she’s in the throes of editing videos for social media. Meanwhile, Audrey’s in the kitchen, her back turned to us while she waters the serpent’s tongue plants by the kitchen window. Beyoncé is the final member of the household, singing a country song in the background.

“Does anyone have an iron?” I ask, interrupting the quiet.

The two of them turn my way. No one’s shocked at my state of undress—we’ve all seen worse at one point or another. But what captures their attention right away is the two dresses that hang in a crumpled cascade from my hands.

Rose points at them. “Whoa, what is that?”

“Dresses?” Audrey narrows her eyes, mouth open wide enough to let flies in.

“No need to be so shocked,” I retort in a deadpan.

“Since when does Hope Garcia wear dresses?”

I shift my weight to one foot. “Since she’s trying to make a bare minimum effort.”

“Fair.” Rose grins. “I can lend you some more interesting pieces.”

“Please, I’m not a million-feet-tall former beauty pageant, I can’t pull off anything in your wardrobe.”

“I’m sure I have an iron somewhere.” Audrey sets the watering pot down on the counter and pats her hands dry with her sweatshirt as she makes for the stairs.

Rose continues as though uninterrupted. “You can definitely pull off whatever you want. But I hope you have cuter underwear?”

I snort. “Literally no one’s going to see it so what’s the point?”

“The point is for you to feel like a million bucks, not to show it to anyone at all if that’s not what you want.”

Steps echo behind me. “‘Kay, it’s not an iron. It’s a steamer.”

“I’m sure that’s fine,” I say, turning to receive the device. It looks like some kind of tiny kettle and I immediately know that I have no idea how to even make sense of it. “Er, help?”

The two of them fully abandon what they were doing to help me get ready. I end up going for the teal dress because it’s a simpler number—I’d describe it as a tight, short-sleeved T-shirt that reaches down to the middle of my thighs. With white sneakers, and a light coating of mascara and lip gloss, I feel like I’ve tried enough that it shows, while not making myself uncomfortable.

“How’s this?” I ask the girls as they surround me in front of my floor length mirror.

“Not bad. Simple but cute.” Audrey nods.

Rose hums. “I wish there was more cleavage or something.”

“Just for the record, I’m wearing it to go to my brother’s for my sister-in-law’s birthday. There’s literally zero need for cleavage there.”

“Oh, okay.”

Audrey side eyes me, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. “What if one of your relatives brings a hot friend over?”

“In that case, having my boobs firmly secured under fabric will make me less nervous.”

“Pfff.” Rose shakes her head and leaves my room with the air of someone who gives up. All Audrey does is pat my shoulder before walking out too.

I grab my mini backpack, one of the jackets haunting my wardrobe, and blow kisses at them on the way out the door.

*

My brother, a whole grown man, father of two children, and five years older than me, spits out his beer when I walk into his backyard.

“Qué carajo?” he wheezes the question out between hacking coughs.

His wife calmly tears a square off the kitchen roll on the plastic table where the enormous Publix birthday cake sits, and passes the tissue to her man. Her name is Virginia Hernandez and she is a saint. Also a very smart woman for keeping her last name so she can pretend like she doesn’t know Eduardo when he acts like a fool. Such as the present moment.

She leaves him behind to come give me a bone crushing hug that I return. “Ignore the little pest,” she says.

“Been doing that since I was born.” I lean away to offer the gift I got her. “Happy birthday, I hope you like them.”

“Oh, thank you! Can I?” I nod at her to open the baggy and hold my breath. But her eyes light up when she sees the box containing my favorite earbuds for exercising. They clip over the ear shell as well as staying firm inside the ear, and one time she saw me wearing them she mentioned that she needed them for her morning runs. I knew she’d like them, but I didn’t know if she had already bought them for herself and it seems like I knocked it out of the park. “This is perfect, thank you so much, Hope!”

“You’re welcome. I hope they help you ignore my brother more effectively.” We both have a good giggle about that, but then my baby niece starts the little gurgling sounds that precede fierce wailings. Virginia makes a move for her but I stop her. “Let me get her. Consider it another birthday gift.”

Her shoulders slump in relief. “Oh, thank you. I was really hoping to get drunk off my rockers tonight.”

“I got this.” Nodding, I bypass the jerk I share half of my DNA with and reach for the baby. “Ohh, look at you, Emma! You’re huge already.” Carefully, I wrap her in my arms and hold her against my chest, bouncing her slightly and shushing her.

“Tía!” Eduardo Jr, a.k.a. Junior, a.k.a. my nephew, spots me from within the bouncy castle among other little kids, and waves frantically at me. I free one hand to wave at him, but that disturbs baby Emma and I have to seriously focus on the shushing now.

“Mija.” Dad appears in my field of vision with a cold Polar in his hand. He might’ve left his homeland of Venezuela well before I was born, but Polar is still the only beer brand acceptable to his palate. Dad frowns at my mostly bare legs. “I was hoping you’d join my pickleball team against your cousins, but not wearing that.”

And all at once I recall why I just don’t do dresses. My life revolves around too many activities where I don’t need to be flashing anyone.

Sighing, I mumble, “Should’ve told me in advance.”

“My bad.” Dad grins.

“Don’t worry, sis. I can lend you my sweatpants.”

I grimace and stick my tongue out. “No, thanks. Who knows when’s the last time you washed them.”

Eduardo rolls his eyes. “Fine, a pair of my wife’s sweatpants then.”

“Oh, now we’re talking.”

My girly look lives on for all of ten more minutes, as long as it takes us to find Virginia by the coolers full of Venezuelan beer bottles, and then for her to fetch a pair of well loved sweatpants for me to borrow. The dress turns into a T-shirt after that and I join Dad’s team against my brother and one of our one hundred boy cousins. My hair also starts getting in the way and I use a hair tie permanently housed around my wrist to gather it into a bun atop my head.

Dad and I win the game because of freaking course. He did come to this country to play professional baseball after all, and out of his two kids, I’m the one who took the lion’s share of his athletic genes. The other team had no chance.

“Okay, I’m ready for a drink now,” I declare to my dad, and he hooks my arm and steers me to the goods. He grabs two ice cold bottles for us and uncaps them with his bare hand, like I’ve seen him do since I was a kid. I’ve tried, but maybe my hands are still too soft for it.

I wonder if Starr would be able to do it. His hand sure is calloused enough.

Dad exhales a satisfied hah once we take a couple of chairs by the back fence. A gaggle of kids run dangerously close to the cake, but literally no adult makes any move to protect it. There are groups of people chatting around a grill that my brother’s manning. A few of my younger cousins have brought dates. And Virginia is laughing it off with her friends who were part of her wedding party years ago.

She and my brother were two years younger than I currently am when they got married, and my age when they had Junior. They were high school sweethearts too—a truly sappy and perfect love story like the kind I always dreamed of.

A sigh escapes from my lips. Why does everyone get this but me?

“What’s troubling you, Hope?” Dad asks before taking another swig.

I debate what to say, not because I’ve ever been a daughter who hides stuff from her dad, but because I don’t even know how to explain myself without dying of embarrassment.

“I’m trying something new, but I’m not sure how it’s going,” I start tentatively.

He rests his elbow on the armrest of the plastic chair and props his chin with the heel of his hand to observe me up close. “Dresses?”

I cringe. “Yeah.”

“Why’s it not going well?”

“It’s just… too obvious that it’s not me.”

“Because of how your brother reacted?”

“Kinda.” I’m pretty sure guys will see right through whatever dress I wear to my real tomboy self. But I’d rather not get into those details with Dad because I’d have to explain why I’m doing all this in the first place.

“He’s just not used to it.” Dad pats my hand, then adds, “Also, he doesn’t have enough braincells to appreciate your beauty.”

“Facts.” My chuckles fade away as another thought enters my mind, and I dare voice it. “What do you think Mom would’ve thought?”

He’s had a lifetime to get used to being without his soulmate, but even from the beginning, Dad never shied away from talking to us about her, sharing memories, showing us pictures and videos. Mom has never been a stranger to me, even if she never had the chance to get to know me.

Dad doesn’t grow sad or quiet. Instead, he ponders quietly for a moment until he says, “I know she would’ve loved you just the same in sweatpants and dresses.” My heart squeezes and I’m glad he keeps talking, because that way he doesn’t notice the lump that has settled in my throat. “But she was a really girly girl. She talked about how excited she was to dress you up when you got older, you know?”

“I didn’t know that,” I whisper.

“I never said it?” His eyebrows rise, surprised at himself. “Shame on me. But yes, she wanted all girls from the beginning because of this.”

I smirk. “Eduardo will love to learn that.”

We laugh a little at my brother’s expense. As if on cue, he pulls his attention away from the grill to give us a look like he knows exactly what we’re up to.

Dad grabs my hand between his and claps it gently, as if he was making an arepa. “You can be whatever you want, Hope. I’ll also love you just the same, no matter what, and believe it or not so will your brother.”

“I know.” I blink hard, my eyes glued on our hands. “I know.”

And it strikes me right then that maybe the cowboy was right. I’ll still be the same sporty, take-no-nonsense person whether I’m wearing sweats or cute clothes. Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of that, at least.