Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Colin dropped me off at Hernandez’s Hacienda. “My baby!” My mother rarely spoke Spanish. She was Mexican American, with an emphasis on the latter. She hugged me tightly as I stood in the kitchen, barely able to breathe in the delicious scents around me, because she’d cut off my air.
“I can’t breathe.”
She let go. “You’re back for good?”
“That’s the plan,” I told her.
I had skipped my annual Christmas visit in 2014, so I hadn’t set foot in my childhood casaor the restaurantein close to two years, as it was nearly fall 2015 now. My brother took his turn hugging me, begrudgingly, it seemed, and then there was another from some hunky stranger who hadn’t been there when last I was.
“Juan, this is Paco,” my mother said.
Apparently, three men in the kitchen were required. My parents had hired a stranger after I had turned down my father’s invitation to join the family legacy for the one thousandth time.
“Hey. What’s up?” Paco had beautiful deep brown eyes and skin the color of a cinnamon stick. His hair was jet black and straight as a pin. I immediately hoped he wasn’t. He’d turned away from me, and when he came around again he held a plate of nachos. I gasped like Esmerelda. The perfect yellow triangles had to mean Paco was my future true love.
“Can you work a shift?” my brother Manny asked. “I want to go away for the weekend with my girlfriend and—”
“Yes,” I said without listening to the rest. I wanted to spend some time with Paco.
“Papá, I’m going,” Manny hollered toward the kitchen.
“Wait. Now?” I asked my brother in a panic. “I don’t know how to cook.”
“Paco will show you,” Manny said, already partway out the door. “And you’ll mostly be washing dishes.”
“I have a job interview on Monday,” I said to the closed door, with my brother on the other side.
“A job interview?” Suddenly, my father was there, right beside me. He had a way of just appearing somehow.
“Hello, Papá.” I gulped. It was like the villain’s big entrance on some cheesy telenovela. The only thing missing was ominous music.
“Son.” He hugged me—sort of. “Where is this job interview? I thought you were coming home to work in the kitchen.”
I’d offered no indication toward that thought whatsoever. “It’s at the middle school,” I told him. “For a teacher’s aide position. I want to be a teacher, Papá.”
“I see.”
Father still sounded Mexican, even with just a one-syllable word. Manny and I never had much of an accent, except on certain words indigenous to our culture or when pronouncing food.
“This is the first I am hearing of it, Juan.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I was suddenly even younger than the immature teen I had become around Colin. Six, maybe, desperately wanting my father’s approval. “I know it took me a while to buckle down at school, but I finally did…and I finally understand the importance of family, too. I wanted to come back here to be closer to you and Mama again. And even Manny.” I smiled. Papá did not.
“You will make a fine teacher,” my mother said.
“We have customers.” That was my father’s response. “Paco, get back to work.”
“Yes, sir,” Paco said.
“You, too, Juan,” my mother added, and so I followed Paco back to the stove.
We finally got to sit a few minutes after the lunch rush. As I took a moment to look around the kitchen, I realized how much I missed the place, the huge blackened grill top, the long row of worn stainless steel cabinets top and bottom, and spices—Oh! The spices. I inhaled deeply, taking in onions, garlic, Mexican oregano, chili powder, and the pungent aroma of epazote that gringos said smelled like gasoline. I remembered Papá teasing me when I was around ten about how too much of it was poisonous. After telling me that, he had me add it to the black beans we’d be serving the supper crowd. “Hope everyone lives,” he’d said. Though I’d fretted the rest of the night, I had to smile all these years later at the recollection.
“How long have you been working here?” I asked Paco, looking for triangles on his person. He had a thin goatee on his chin. That was one. Another was formed by the way his perfect nose jutted out from his beautiful face.
“Just a few months,” he said. “Your father put a notice on the front door and I came in.”
“Really?” That surprised me. My father had always said the restaurant was a family establishment, no outsiders allowed.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone