Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

husband.
¿Entiendes?
”
    “¡No! ¡No entiendo!”
She looked up to the ceiling, waving her spoon at God. “
Ay,
this one will send me to an early grave. Why does my daughter torment me?”
    She jabbed a fistful of dried pintos at me. “No man wants his woman to be a—” She made another face. “—detective.
No es apropiado
.”
    It wasn’t appropriate to her. To me, it was essential. But Ifrowned anyway. Maybe she was right. Men probably didn’t want someone who could kick ass. If I had to choose between being a detective and being married, which would I pick?
    Tough one, although I didn’t buy my mother’s theory that the two were mutually exclusive. Still, the question stumped me. I suspected a man like Jack Callaghan would want a Cinderella chick, one he could love and leave easily.
    But who knows. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he craved a warrior princess. And here I was: Xena, in the flesh.
    I held my palm up to my mother, not willing to let her guilt me into doubting my career choice. “Mami,
es mi vida
.” Then I chugged another glass of ice water. It
was
my life. And I could drink ice water if I wanted to.
    So there. I know, so mature.
    “
Sí, sí.
It is
your
life.
Pero,
you came from my womb.”
    Oh, no. I sighed. I couldn’t argue with her about the womb.
    She dropped the beans and moved to the stove, flinging her hand back and forth in the air as if shooing away a fly. “We are running out of time on the
quinceañera.
”
    My shoulders slumped. “I know. I’ll talk to Chely.”
    “Hey.” Antonio sauntered in from the back door. Mami’s kitchen was always his first stop, too—mainly because he lacked the grocery-shopping gene and needed to fill his belly before he went upstairs to our sparse refrigerator.
    Why was it men seemed inherently unable to stock a refrigerator? Antonio was genetically incapable of shopping for anything except beer or stuff for the restaurant. Aside from the fact that Abuelita’s was his passion, I still hadn’t figured out how he managed the place without running out of food.
    He crunched on a
chicharrón,
grabbing a second piece of crispy pork skin before planting a kiss on my mother’s cheek.Abuelo popped them into his mouth one after another, stopping only when Antonio leaned in to give him a hug.
    My mother finally noticed.
“¡No más, Papá!”
she said, slapping his hand. “Leave some for the rest of us.”
    Abuelo stamped his cane on the floor.
“Tu no eres mi madre, Magdalena.”
He reached around her and snatched another
chicharrón
before she could slap his hand away again. Then he raised his lip in a victorious smile.
    They began a tug-of-war over the bowl, and I seized the opportunity to start backing out of the kitchen. Mami was in a foul mood. Definitely time to escape.
    I turned the handle on the utility room door, ready to make a dash for the back door. Slowly. Quietly. I was almost through when she flung her arm out and pointed at me.
“¡Basta!”
    I stopped short. “I’m tired.”
    “We are not finished talking.” She poured the beans into a pot, added water, threw in half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, and turned on the stove.
“Abrazo, mi’jo,”
she crooned to Antonio.
    Sure, I got lectured and he got hugs. She could overlook the string of vapid women that paraded through his life, as long as she came first in his eyes. I shook my head and tapped my foot impatiently.
    Antonio gave her a quick hug back before crunching another
chicharrón
.
    “You look terrible with that goatee, you know,” she said. “It is not a surprise no respectable girl wants you.” She reached up and squeezed his cheeks together, softening the criticism.
    “Drop it, Mami. I’m not shaving.”
    She shook her head and went back to her pintos, pouring salt into her palm and then adding it to the pot. Enough said for today, but we all knew the topic of Tonio’s goatee was far from dead. His goatee, my career—she’d rant for the rest ofher life and never