Page 3 of Valor on the Move
Low lights under cabinets cast shadows over the counters and huge island, and he could see well enough to keep the overhead lights off. As he opened the door to the walk-in fridge, his pulse raced. Goosebumps immediately spread over his bare arms, and the light automatically came on over his head. He surveyed the shelves quickly, scanning the containers for what he needed. He was sure Magda would keep prosciutto on hand, and hoped he’d luck out on the goat cheese. She never minded if he borrowed a few ingredients.
Okay, it was technically stealing, not borrowing. His parents paid for all the food the family ate that wasn’t for an official state function or party, and he knew the ingredients he snuck out were added to their tab. In the early days, Chris had had his college friends over for a party while their parents were out of town, one of his rare displays of rebellion. He’d ordered a ton of snacks from the kitchen, and their parents had made him pay back every penny. Rafa would happily buy the prosciutto and cheese himself, but then there would be the inevitable questions. He couldn’t just drop into the ShopRite. His detail would know, and if his mom asked them, he didn’t want them to have to lie. Besides, it was a dumb thing to even ask them to lie about. It was easier to just make do.
He grabbed a log of goat cheese and moved to the walk-in freezer. He kept the door open, shivering as he surveyed the shelves for prosciutto. “Come on, come on…” He went through what little meat there was, hoping Magda kept some emergency ham on hand. Most ingredients were fresh, and it looked like he was shit out of luck.
Over the hum of the industrial fan, heels clacked a moment before he heard, “Darling, shouldn’t you be in bed?”
He jumped despite himself, blinking into the blank darkness of the kitchen as he tucked the goat cheese onto the shelf by his hand. His mother’s tall silhouette moved into the freezer doorway, and Rafa forced a smile. “Just getting a snack.” He reached for the nearest carton of ice cream. Had she bribed Brent to narc on him? Not that First Lady Camila Castillo needed to grease the wheels—she only need ask, and most people were too terrified not to comply immediately.
“Good idea. Still need to put some meat on those bones.” She said it with a smile, but a hot rush of embarrassment washed over him. He’d grown to almost six feet during college, and though he’d put on muscle over the years, he still felt like he had knobby knees and elbows. He hunched his shoulders as he closed the freezer door.
Rafa went to one of the many cutlery drawers for a spoon, feeling his mother’s eyes on him. When he glanced up, she raised her hand to the string of pearls around her neck. Even in the low light, they shone. She wore an unwrinkled pencil skirt and white blouse, and her black hair was sculpted into an up-do. Sometimes he suspected she slept in a hermetically sealed tube especially designed not to muss her hair.
“Still working, Mom? Shouldn’t you be in bed too?” Camila Castillo had many rules, one of which was to always dress appropriately for the task at hand. If she was working, she was dressed for success, no matter how late or early it might be.
“Touché. But yes, I have quite a bit of foundation business to take care of before my next trip.”
“Why don’t you let your staff do it? Isn’t that what they get paid for?”
She smiled, her lipstick shimmering. “Sometimes to have a task done right, one must do it oneself.”
Since he’d likely done plenty of things wrong lately, Rafa changed the subject and asked, “How’s Aunt Gabby?”
“She’s well. Visiting her cousins.”
His mother had a habit of talking about her extended family as relations of her sister and brother, but not her own. “In Mexico City? How long is she there?” Rafa twirled his spoon. His grandparents had all passed away by the time he was old enough to really know them, and he hadn’t seen his Aunt Gabriella since Christmas. Granted, he didn’t see her much. She’d never gotten along with his father, and he felt like his mother thought her family was simply far too…ethnic. “Maybe I could—”
“Darling. You know how dangerous it can be there. It’s not a good idea.”
“But I’ve still never been. It can’t be that dangerous. I mean, you lived there when you were little.”
His mother’s full name was Camila Castillo de Saucedo, but after his father had quit his law firm and gone into politics full time to make a run at the Jersey governorship, she’d dropped the traditional Mexican naming convention. Rafa and his siblings had always just been Castillo, his father’s name. His parents had worked hard to make them into the whitest, most non-threatening Hispanics Republican money could buy while still courting the Latino vote with great success. He still wasn’t sure how they’d pulled it off, but here they were.
