Fake Married to My Best Friend’s Daddy by Sofia T Summers
Jessica
“Ithink that’s enough, Ramona,” Abuela instructed my aunt. “You don’t want the tamales to burst.”
Aunt Ramona, chatting away as usual, hadn’t been paying attention to the tamale she was filling. It had enough pork filling for two tamales within the masa mixture.
“Oh,” she realized with a sheepish look. “Sorry, Mom.”
In the chili-red kitchen, my aunt stood at the long prep table sandwiched between Abuela and Aunt Ramona’s twin sister, Aunt Raquel. They had formed a little assembly line of three women, while I was the caboose of my production train. My cousin, Caroline, spread out the masa. Her mother, Aunt Beatrice, added the filling, and it was left to me to roll the tamale up into the collard leaves Abuela had washed early that morning.
It was a familiar scene for me. Whenever there was a get-together or holiday, Abuela rounded up whatever cousins she could find, and the weekend was spent making enough tamales to feed the entire Mongol horde. The pile was already growing out of control on the kitchen counter.
This specific feast was in honor of my birthday, so I knew there was no avoiding it. Abuela made her famous coconut tres leches cake. Lively samba music was playing through the speakers of Papi’s old record player. It was a loud cacophony of sights, smells, and sounds, and there was no avoiding it. If I hadn’t made the journey north to Alexandria, I knew Abuela and at least ten cousins would’ve forced their way into my small two-bedroom condo.
After a week like I had, it should’ve been counterproductive to sit in a loud room and listen to my aunts’ gossip, but for me, it felt… restorative. Memories of my childhood came flooding back. I wasn’t the stressed-out twenty-eight-year-old. I was fifteen again. My braces were off, and the world was my oyster. My rowdy teenage cousins yelling in the living room only added to the fantasy.
This four-bedroom townhouse had always been my home. Even when my parents were alive, I spent every Christmas morning in Abuela’s kitchen. My first memories were of me playing in the little grass patch they called a backyard. My old senior prom dress still hung up in one of the closets upstairs, collecting dust like the photographs of me with the boyfriend who I’d sworn was “the one”.
My childhood home didn’t offer the same kind of comfort that Adrian’s hug had, but it was still nice.
“How come we use collard leaves?” Caroline asked the room. “Aren’t we supposed to use, like, corn husks or something?”
Not missing a beat, Abuela smiled. “That’s in Mexico, angel. We traditionally use banana leaves as Costa Ricans, but they aren’t the easiest things to come by here. I got this trick from a woman in a farmer’s market when I first came to America with Papi.”
“I thought it was from a woman in your bible study,” Aunt Raquel remarked.
“She was in my bible study later,” Abuela explained cheerfully. “I met her again at St. John of the Cross after I became the church secretary.”
As she was set to turn eighty in May, my Abuela gave up the part-time secretary position ages ago, but she went in every Wednesday afternoon to fold bulletins and make her confession. Even in winter when she couldn’t get her old station wagon to start, Abuela bundled up her petite plump body and shuffled her way down to the bus stop. Her devotion to her faith was only rivaled by her relentless loyalty to this family.
“We were talking about something else earlier,” Aunt Ramona realized, tucking a dark piece of hair behind her ear. “What was it?” Oh, right, it was Jessica!”
I’d been answering questions about my new citizenship problem when Aunt Ramona started messing up her tamales. All the aunts were curious to know what I’d done so far. I’d reached out to a few different lawyers, but none of them had gotten back to me yet.
“Didn’t that officer give you any advice?” Aunt Beatrice asked as she pushed a tamale in my direction.
Rolling the collard leaf and tucking the finished tamale into the steel pot before me, I sighed warily. I’d been avoiding that question for the last hour.
“Well,” I laughed nervously. “Mr. Noland did say something about me getting married….”
“Married?!” Abuela instantly exclaimed. “Is my little Jessie getting married?!”
“No!” I swore, waving my hands quickly. “I have no plans to get married!”
It was too late. My aunts were already gushing over the idea. It was like a dam had broken, and the flurry of excitement washed over the whole kitchen.
Beside me, Aunt Beatrice fawned, “Oh, you would look so pretty in a lace wedding dress, Jessica. Abuela’s veil is still in that old hope chest upstairs. I bet it would be beautiful on you!”
“We all wore it!” Aunt Raquel recalled eagerly. “Your mother was the first to start the tradition! She and your father had a big garden reception on a Sunday afternoon in spring. I bet we could get a tent and do the same for you somewhere around here!”
“That sounds nice,” I sighed. “I know you all would do a great job, but I think I’d first need to find someone to marry first.”
Caroline giggled at the opposite end of the table, “It’s kind of the most crucial part.”
“Tonterías!” Abuela scoffed, brushing some stray white hair from her face. “I know plenty of young men who would be lucky to have such a smart and beautiful bride! My friend, Irene, has a grandson going to law school in Georgetown. He comes to church with his grandmother once a month, and he has such a nice head of black curly hair!”
“Do you have a picture?” Aunt Raquel asked.
“I bet he’s on that social whatever,” Abuela declared while waving her hands. “Caroline, you could find him for me, right?”
Already pulling out her phone, Caroline replied, “I just need a name.”
It didn’t matter that I had no interest in seeing this guy’s face. The seventeen-year-old easily found him online, and the phone was quickly passed around to admire how Irene’s grandson had run a marathon last year and maintained his nice hair.
Giving his picture one polite cursory glance, the guy had a pleasant face, but I didn’t know him. My brood of aunts were getting their feathers ruffled up over nothing. Though I tried to hide it, I couldn’t hide my grin or my light laughter. It was all becoming just too absurd. This poor law student was five minutes away from marrying me, and he didn’t even know I existed.
Spreading out masa on a collard leaf, Aunt Raquel added, “If you don’t like this one, Jessica, I bet Alexander knows some nice single men.”
“Alexander is twenty,” I reminded her. “Everyone he knows would probably be a little too….”
“Young?” Caroline suggested as she took her phone back.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I was going to say immature, but that works too.”
“You’ve always been an old soul, Jessica,” Aunt Beatrice remarked with a serene smile. “You deserve someone who can appreciate that.”
I never said it aloud, but Beatrice had always been my favorite aunt. She was much more reserved than my mother’s bold twin sisters. Raquel and Ramona were wonderful. I didn’t want to change a single dark hair on their heads, but Aunt Beatrice and her two daughters were like water cooling down the fiery Serrano family. Without question, Beatrice had her passionate streaks that matched her cinnamon-red hair, but she had much better control of her emotions than anyone else in this family.
“Be sure to add that to my match-making profile,” I joked with her. “And tell my suitors I’ll be able to receive them for coffee in the parlor.”
“Oh, Jessie,” Abuela began to fret. “Don’t mind us! Here, have a taste of cake as you work.”
Handing me a slice of the tres leches cake, Abuela kissed the top of my head.
“Thank you, Abuela,” I offered back.
I’d never spent much time planning out wedding receptions or dreaming up dresses, but my family did make it all sound nice. I could imagine wearing the same lace-trimmed veil all the other women in my family wore. I’d have a coconut cake instead of something boring and coated in fondant. There would be tamales and Latin music, and all my family would be there… except my parents.
The realization didn’t hurt me like it once had, but there was a wistfulness I couldn’t deny.
There were so many things I wanted in life, and being a wife was never at the top of that list. Weddings and marriage just seemed almost unnecessary and maybe even contradictory to my goals. Taking a bite of the sweet coconut cake, comforting nostalgia washed over me. I didn’t need a husband to be happy, especially when Abuela and her cakes made me feel so loved.
Hours ticked by as the house became filled with my brother, the three pairs of aunts and uncles, and our ten cousins. Teenage boys were packed on the living room sofa, while the youngest ones ate around the coffee table. As the birthday girl, I was given the rare chance to sit at the dining table only big enough for ten. It was a nice change from eating by the kitchen counter and sitting on an old wooden stool.
“How many tamales do you want, Jessica?” Abuela asked as she began to load up leftovers for me. “Twelve?”
Sipping my cup of coffee, I grinned and reminded her, “I’m just one person!”
“So… more then?”
“Twelve will be plenty,” I laughed lightly. “Thank you.”
She packed up tamales, a container of cilantro rice, and a few extra slices of cake into brown paper bags. It was enough food to keep me stuffed for days.
“Are you sure you want to drive back this late?” Abuela asked me. “It’s so late, cariña. I can make a bed for you in fifteen minutes, no trouble!”
“I’ll be alright,” I assured her. “It’s just a four-hour drive. I’ll be back at my place before one o’clock, and I will send you a message when I get there.”
She didn’t look entirely satisfied, but my grandmother relented. As she shuffled to find more food for me, I remembered I was supposed to get an agenda emailed to me for my ten o’clock departmental meeting. It wasn’t like me to check my work email on the weekends, but I wanted to glance over the topics of conversation. I’d be too tired when I got back to Norfolk that night to remember.
It was only going to take a minute, but then I noticed an email from none other than Adrian Davis. My eyebrows knitted together in confusion, but curiosity swelled in my chest. Eager to see what he’d written, I quickly forgot about the agenda and tapped his name on my phone.
The message wasn’t long. He wanted to talk to me again about my citizenship dilemma, but one line stood out among the others.
I think I know a way to solve your problems.
Did he have some lawyer friend who might be able to help? Had he done some research and found a loophole himself? My heart leapt at the possibility of some meager hope. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was all I had.
Quickly hitting reply, I opened a fresh email and got to writing.
Adrian,
Thank you for reaching out. I’d be happy to meet with you sometime in the coming week. I’ll add my phone number to the bottom, so you can contact me there from now on.
Hope this finds you well,
Jessica
It sounded so formal, but I didn’t know what else to say. We weren’t old friends or even casual acquaintances. Honestly, I didn’t know what to call Adrian Davis, but it didn’t matter. Adrian was kind and smart. He probably knew something or someone that I didn’t.
With a problem like this, I couldn’t afford to be picky, even if that offer sent a strange shiver down my spine. My desperation had me feeling vulnerable to Adrian’s kindness, and the memory of my vivid dreams hadn’t gone away. They lingered around me like a shadow I couldn’t lose.
My better judgment knew he was just being nice, and maybe he cared about me because of Nicole. Regardless of his motivations, Adrian was playing with fire, and he didn’t even know it. I tamped it out each time, but something inside me sparked when I thought of his blue eyes and charming grin.
Shoving my phone back into the back pocket of my jeans, I reminded myself that it was just one simple meal in a public place. Adrian was simply a good man trying to be helpful. I needed to be gracious about it, even when being gracious wasn’t what I wanted.
I couldn’t allow such feelings to flourish and then burn me up. It created complications that I didn’t need in my life. Still, it was all too appealing. I’d go back to the memory of his cologne and the feeling of his embrace. His phantom touch would wrap around my body, and I’d start melting in the wonderful heat Adrian’s mere memory provided.
It was starting to become a guilty pleasure of mine, and it was one I needed to take to my grave. Otherwise, the catastrophic effects could ripple across my life and make a mess of my relationships. Adrian Davis would probably never look me in the eye again, and I doubted Nicole would forgive me.
It didn’t matter how much I burned. Adrian just wasn’t worth the risk.
