I was still moping over the Grandma plan—not only that it had failed, but also that she was yet another adult who was on board with the possible move. Meaning she was another adult who didn’t seem to care what Peter and I wanted! I thought for sure she’d say to Dad, “Think of your children!” and Dad and Louie would realize they’d left out us key players. But no. The kids didn’t even get a participation ribbon.
My pity party was in full swing when Peter knocked (a funny thing: since I’d made a point of saying he was welcome in my room, he actually knocked more often).
“Are you coming to quit on me?” I asked. I wouldn’t blame him.
“No,” he burst out. “I know what we can do! We’re going to dinner tonight with Grandma!”
“Yeah, but the Granny Never Let You Go play was already a big zero,” I reminded him.
“But we’re going to a special restaurant that Dad loves.”
“Casa de Mayo?” I said, suddenly excited.
“They almost picked Gus’s Steakhouse,” he said. “But I asked if we could go there instead.”
“YES! Your thinking reflexes are on fire!” I held up my hand for a high five, and when Peter slapped my palm, I tried to remember if we’d ever high-fived before. I didn’t think so. I’d tried to teach him when he was a baby, but even back then, we had trouble connecting.
But now, Peter and I were on the same wavelength. Casa de Mayo is Dad’s favorite restaurant. He loves everything about it. And the family that runs it loves everything about Dad. He wrote a feature story on it when they first opened that really bumped up their business, and the Rodriguezes have always been grateful. The restaurant is a second home to our family. A second home we wouldn’t have in Seattle.
Dad has always said that someday he’s going to go work in the kitchen just to learn their secrets. And the Rodriguez family promises he only needs to say the word and they’ll get him an apron.
It was perfect: Casa de Mayo is part of our history. A history we don’t have in Seattle. No one can show up in a totally new city and make it have history.
Anyway, here’s the Casa de Mayo story: The Rodriguez family had moved here from a small town outside Mexico City, and when they opened the restaurant a few towns over from Peach Tree, they’d taken special care to replicate every detail of their old family business. They’d even had the same little workshop from their hometown make them tablecloths just like the ones at the original restaurant. When Dad wrote the story, he had even tracked down the weavers in Mexico to interview them.
He’s like a king over there. The Rodriguezes call him Mr. Food. He can’t leave his food family!
THE MENU TO A PLAY:
Be on our best behavior.
Bring up other times we’ve had a great time at Casa de Mayo. HISTORY POINTS!
Ensure the Rodriguezes know that Dad may take a job in Seattle. YOU-CAN’T-LEAVE-US POINTS!
Dessert: Celebrate Dad with the famous dulce de leche cake. EVERYTHING-TASTES-BETTER-IN-PEACH-TREE POINTS!
(Time for dinner)
There’s one problem: Louie and Dad suggested I bring a friend. Not just any friend. Louie suggested JOHNNY. Normally, this would be exciting (in a slightly nervous way), but now it’s just an extra detail I really can’t handle.
But I’d asked him, since Louie had said “call him” and watched while I did it. And he said yes, and what should he wear, and I blurted, “You always look really nice,” and then blushed because I temporarily forgot the All-Pros Play and that Louie was watching me on the phone with her hand over her heart like this was a really sappy scene in a movie, which I guess to her it was.
“You don’t have to come,” I added to Johnny, because I was worried I’d be putting so much energy into the play, I’d leave him feeling awkward. Also, wasn’t it rude to invite him at the last minute to a dinner where he’d meet my WHOLE FAMILY?
“Are you kidding? I want to go,” he said. “When I saw you were calling instead of texting, I thought you were going to break up with me. So I’m really happy you asked me to dinner.”
A million thoughts cruised through my head, the top one being, “I’m not going to break up with you!” followed by, “But I might move thousands of miles away from you.” I couldn’t say either of these things, so I croaked, “It should be fun.”
As we hung up, I gathered all my focus for the plan. Peter and I looked like the kind of children parents would order in a catalog. We’d both even put on shoes without laces! And, because we were getting along, no less than three times on the drive over, Dad and Louie and Grandma each said, “Isn’t this nice?” I told myself that if we could stay in Peach Tree, I would never be crabby about sitting in the backseat with Peter ever again.
And so we kept being nice. Hands in laps, eager to listen, not complaining about the ancient rock music on the radio. An umpire would have declared us definitely nice.
Our perfect sibling-dom left time for the adults to notice the beautiful foliage (grown-ups really love leaves) and to talk about how we didn’t do this nearly enough. (How could we do it AT ALL if we left Peach Tree was where I hoped they’d go with that thought!) And Grandma turned to me in the minivan and said, “I can’t wait to meet Gabby’s beau.” Then she said to Peter, “What? You’re not going to tease your sister about her boyfriend?”
And Peter, realizing he should have done this, said, “I didn’t know you were talking about her boyfriend. Does beau mean weirdo in French?” I gave him a secret thumbs-up, because if we’d been acting too perfect, everyone would have suspected something.
Once we arrived, I had to battle a near case of the yips because there was Johnny. And Johnny’s mom, who was what Louie would call very chic. I gulped as she introduced herself to my parents and then said to me, “Gabby, I’ve heard so much about you.” I stared into Johnny’s mom’s face for too long, until finally Grandma poked me.
“I, um, hi, um, it’s nice to meet you,” I finally said, forever making Johnny’s mom’s first impression of me as “that girl who forgot how to talk.”
We were saved from more awkwardness by the hostess, Maria, the oldest Rodriguez daughter, who was in high school. She saw us approaching and squealed with glee. “The Garcias! Hold on, let me get Dad!”
Mr. Rodriguez came out of the back and opened his arms extra wide to bring us all in for a huge hug. “My favorite family,” he said. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“It’s the best restaurant in the world,” Grandma said. “I can’t come to Peach Tree without eating here!”
We headed to the really neat round booth tucked in the back of the restaurant, right next to a small fountain with flower petals floating in it. It’s an unspoken rule that this is OUR booth when we come in. And there were already warm tortilla chips waiting, with two kinds of salsa and guacamole. Does anything say “NEVER LEAVE” like fresh chips? I don’t think so.
“Remember when we came here for my sixth birthday and the mariachi band let me go to each table with them?” Peter said, making his eyes extra puppy-like so he looked younger than his almost-nine years.
I nodded encouragingly. He was breaking out the good stuff.
“Oh, Peter, you were so sweet and little,” Louie said. “I remember one let you hold his guitar and you almost tipped over.” She sighed a proud mom sigh and I felt like I did when I had only one strike left to throw to win the game: this was definitely going to work out for us.
“We couldn’t stop you from thinking big then, and we never will,” Dad said, ruffling Peter’s hair. Ooh! A wistful dad quote! The points were adding up!
“I always thought it was the neatest thing that Casa de Mayo was our Little League sponsor all those years,” I said, absolutely wanting to lay everything on extra thick. “Everyone else had muffler shops or insurance agencies and we had a FANCY restaurant.”
“That was your father’s doing,” Louie said and looked at Johnny to include him in her story. “Gabby’s dad suggested the restaurant sponsor the team because he
wanted an excuse to hold the team dinner here.” She smiled and poked Dad’s arm with a little grin and Dad blushed. They were being all couple-y, which would definitely work in our favor.
“Your team photos are right there with my story,” Dad said, pointing across the room to the Wall of Fame, where the Rodriguezes had tons of photos hanging—photos of different local celebrities and my teams (and Peter’s teams) and, in one of the biggest frames, Dad’s story mounted on a red background.
Johnny got up to look at the story and when he came back, he said to Dad, “Gabby told me you did a lot of sportswriting but I didn’t know you did features, too.” My dad beamed at Johnny’s newspaper talk. I wanted to say, “How am I supposed to find a boyfriend THIS great in Seattle?” but that wasn’t how this play was meant to work.
We kept going around the table, sharing all our favorite times and times that weren’t as great but were funny now, like when, at age eight, I insisted I could eat a whole King Burrito that even Dad has trouble finishing. I was so stubborn about it that our entire family waited until closing when I took my very last bite (and got sick in the car).
It was a little embarrassing to have Johnny hear all of that until he said, “I once ate a whole box of Froot Loops so I could get the prize before my sister did and then threw up going down the curly slide at the park.” Then he fidgeted with his tie and said, “I hope that’s not too much information before dinner.”
Everyone laughed and Dad said, “You fit right in!” It was like he’d read my mind: How could we leave when so many things are such a good fit?
When Mr. Rodriguez came around, he asked if we wanted the usuals: tamales for Dad, fish tacos for Louie, taquitos for Peter, sopes for me, and enchiladas for Grandma. Johnny ordered sopes, too, because he trusted my recommendation and joked he had a high probability of liking them, which I totally got because I appreciated his math humor. Dad ordered a few more dishes for the table to share, because the special that day was steak picado—“I thought I could smell it when I came in!”—which is braised beef with green peppers and bacon. Dad always overorders because he loves to bring food home. HOME, as in HERE.
Dad was in his element. “I hope someday you kids live in a place where you have a place that feels like yours.” And I saw a little tear in his eye. If he was going to cry, we had this thing in the bag!
“Well, we have this one,” I said, aiming to be subtle. I wasn’t the best at being subtle—I’m a pitcher. What would a subtle pitch even look like?
“We’ll always have Casa de Mayo,” Louie said. There was a line in one of her favorite movies Casablanca where the main couple said, “We’ll always have Paris,” but at the end they split up, so her saying that didn’t necessarily make me feel good.
“Home is where you make it,” Grandma said. “I mean, look at the Rodriguezes: they came so far from their home and they brought a piece of themselves to us.”
I stopped with a forkful of sope halfway to my mouth and caught Peter looking stunned in his seat, too. The whole point was to get Dad and Louie to see that you couldn’t have the things you loved wherever you were. You needed to STAY in the place that you already loved.
If Peter and I were going to win, we needed a push. Being at Dad’s favorite restaurant was like being on base with two outs. We needed a batter to drive us in to score.
I got up to go to the restroom, but I took the long route. In the main dining room, the mariachi band was playing a romantic song for two older women who were holding hands, so I waited patiently. When they finally finished and left a red rose on the table, I said to the singer, “Can you please come by the big table in the back and play ‘Cielito lindo’?”
The song title more or less means “Lovely Sweet One,” and Dad and Louie had danced to it at their wedding.
“Of course, chava,” he told me. “We have one more table before you.”
“Okay, thank you,” I said. “It’s very important.”
“I can tell,” he said, and I felt good, like this would fix everything. Music was supposed to have all kinds of powers, right?
Satisfied, like a spy who’d found top secret information, I nodded at Peter as I slid back into the booth. He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. “I thought you and Peter didn’t get along,” Johnny whispered.
“Let’s just say there are new factors in that equation,” I told him. He still looked puzzled but he didn’t have a chance to ask more because Mr. Rodriguez came by to talk. He and Dad started to talk about the Braves making the playoffs. Then, he asked me and Peter about school and said, “Who is this?” to Johnny. Both Johnny and I started to answer at the same time, him saying, “I’m, um, we . . . she’s my friend, girlfriend” and me saying, “My friend who’s a boy . . . boyfriend.” Mr. Rodriguez tried not to laugh. As he, Dad, Louie, and Grandma chatted, I noticed that no one mentioned that we might move to Seattle. Maybe deep down, being here with all these great memories was making Dad reconsider.
“So are we celebrating anything today?” Mr. Rodriguez asked. “Because Marta has a dulce de leche cake in back if you need help coming up with a reason to try it.”
I seized my chance. “Well, Dad’s up for a sportswriter job in Seattle,” I blurted, hoping that Mr. Rodriguez would be shocked and horrified.
“Wow, Juan, that’s . . . ,” Mr. Rodriguez said.
Dad grimaced. “I’m still being considered,” he said, cutting off Mr. Rodriguez, who I thought HAD to have been about to say, “That’s an awful idea!” Dad looked at me with raised eyebrows and I knew that he was trying to say that I’d let a secret spill that I shouldn’t have. But if he didn’t want me to talk about his secret plans, he shouldn’t have had secret plans! “I don’t want to jinx it.”
Even though there’s nothing worse than being a jinx—a jinx can make everything go wrong, all the time—I DID want to jinx it. I would go through the rest of my life not being a jinx ever again if I could just jinx this ONE THING.
Mr. Rodriguez had left our table in a hurry, and then returned from the kitchen with his wife, Marta. She was waving her arms toward their daughter Maria and her brother Ruben, indicating they should come to our table.
I looked at Peter. Maybe the Rodriguezes were doing an intervention right now? That had to be it. They were going to gather right here at our table and put a stop to even the IDEA of Dad leaving. Peter’s eyes bulged, like he couldn’t believe our luck. Neither could I.
Maybe the intervention would involve more chips.
Mr. Rodriguez was about to say something right when the mariachis arrived. I thought about telling the band that we wouldn’t need the music now, because Mr. Rodriguez and his loved ones were going to talk sense into my parents, but then I thought a little music could do nothing but good things for the moment. It would add RESONANCE. (Another new word from my English composition class. Really, how could Dad and Louie even consider leaving Peach Tree’s excellent educational opportunities behind??)
The band launched into its song and, for real, everyone began to sing. Dad and Louie had tears in their eyes. On a lot of occasions, tears aren’t ideal. For today, tears were GREAT. Peter and I had to adjust our faces into serious ones. We were both trying not to smile too big. Johnny leaned over and said, “I was really nervous to meet your family, but they’re so nice!” And, because I felt like Peter and I were definitely on the verge of a victory, I nodded and said, “They’re the BEST.”
I couldn’t believe Peter and I were going to make this work. We’d never get a trophy for it, but we’d always know that getting to stay in our hometown instead of risking a move to Seattle was firmly in our life WIN column.
When the band finally stopped, I held my breath, waiting for the Rodriguezes to say, “You know it’s BONKERS to even think about a move all the way across the country when so much that you love is RIGHT HERE?” And then Dad and Louie would exchange a glance and nod slowly, shaking their heads like they couldn’t believe they’d ever even batted the idea around. After all, th
e Rodriguezes were proof Peach Tree was the best place to live: they’d left a place they loved to start a life here.
But then, the Rodriguez family CLAPPED.
This seemed out of order; shouldn’t they clap AFTER Dad and Louie say there’s no way we’re leaving?
But then, Mrs. Rodriguez gestured to the kitchen and a server came out with her dulce de leche cake on a tray. “We are so proud of you, Juan! To the start of your new journey in Seattle!”
WHAT???
“I’ve always said, ‘That Juan Garcia is a world-class talent,’ and now you are taking your talents to the world!” Mr. Rodriguez had a glass raised in a toast. Why were we toasting??? Couldn’t Mr. Rodriguez see how detrimental this was to all of us? Or at least to me and Peter, who were being unwillingly dragged along on the world-class talent world tour? Shouldn’t he wait to toast until he asked how WE felt about it?
My dad held up his hands. “This might be a little premature, because they haven’t made an offer yet.”
Louie squeezed his arm. “But I know they will.”
“They’d be loons not to!” Grandma added.
Everyone agreed to this and they all clinked and clinked and clinked again.
No one even noticed that Peter and I didn’t join in.
Not even Johnny, who raised his glass, too. But he whispered, “Are you okay? You look pale.”
Of course I was pale! I was very NOT OKAY. Also, wondering why no one seemed to care that everything was terrible. Except Peter, who slumped defeatedly in his chair.
I totally understood.
At least when you lost in a game, no one toasted your failure.
Seattle: 3
Peach Tree: 1
THE WE’VE GOT NO GAME
Goal: Rally!
Action: Put All-Pros Play temporarily on hold while Peter and I come up with a new strategy . . . but also, RALLY!
Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook #3 Page 9
