Page 42 of Wild Pitch
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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 satisfiedhahonce 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?”
