Page 165 of Frisco

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s my cousin Trevor, but he DJs as a side-gig. Also, are you ready to eat, because there’s going to be a lot of eating. A lot. There’s going to be dancing all night too. Karaoke. You do know the rule?”

Her smile was wiped clean.

“What? No. What is it?”

“You gotta dance as if no one’s watching. That’s the whole point. And definitely you have to dance if someone points to you. No matter who it is. My niece? Dance. My cousin–”

“You have like thirty-eight cousins! What do you mean if one of them points to me?”

“Dance.” I wasn’t done. “And if my great-grandmother points at you, you really dance. You hearing me? I only got one left. All the others are gone, so Great Grandma Martha is kinda like a goddess to us. I’m not joking.”

Claudia had met my Great Grandma and a few of my cousins from Chicago, but not a ton. A few. And in small doses, but there was a whole event happening tomorrow and a ton of my family flew in to be a part of it. It was enough to make me cry and laugh at the same time.

Love. Laughter. Togetherness. Dancing. And eating. That’s what it was all about.

I patted Claudia on the back. “You’ll get it. Just wait till Great-Grandma Martha gets here.”

“Kali!”

I twisted around, Claudia’s arms still around me. My dad had an apron on, a t-shirt under that said Kali’s Dad, and giant-sized tongs in one hand. He held them up to me. “I don’t have enough spices. We are the spices. This is a big deal.” He barely blinked, waving his tongs. “Hi, Claudia.”

“Hi, James.”

“Your mother coming tonight?”

She nodded, her whole body stiff in my arms. “She and my dad got a divorce. Did you hear?”

He gave a nod, not showing a thing. “I heard. I hope she’s doing okay.”

She gave another nod. “Me too. I think she is. It was a long time ago, just making sure you knew.”

Again, he barely blinked. He was picking up what she was putting down. “Her bar doing good?”

“Yep. It’s doing real good, Mr. Michaels.”

“That’s good.” He flashed me a grin. “She as tight as she always was?”

I dropped my arms from around my sister. “Dad!”

Claudia laughed. “You know Ruby.”

“I do. Oh, boy, do I. Kali.” He waved his tongs back in the air. “I need the seasonings. This food takes hours to properly season!”

I had no idea what he was so stressed about, but then again, I was not a Grill Master.

I headed for him, pulling my phone out. “Okay. Tell me the seasonings you need.”

They were playing Catch Phrase when I walked by, hearing my Uncle Toby saying, “It’s a Southern word for pop.” I was pretty sure he was describing Coca-Cola.

A second later, I heard, “You can’t say soda!”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I said pop.”

---