“It’s Dad’s pride and joy,” Mayra snickered. “He talks about the TV like it’s my little brother or something. He and Brad will spend hours and hours watching baseball on it.”
“Brad?”
“My uncle,” Mayra said. “Brad Conner, my mother’s brother. He’s my dad’s best friend. They got close after my mom ran off, and they both tried to hunt her down, for whatever good it did. Brad’s the chief of police in Oxford.”
“Oh, yeah.” I didn’t think I had ever met the man, but I had heard his name before. “What happened to your mom?”
“She got fed up with being an adult and left.” Mayra shrugged. “I was just a baby, and I don’t really remember her at all. They found her in Mexico or something. Dad’s convinced she’s involved with some drug cartel, but he doesn’t know I heard him talking about it.”
“I’m sorry.” I was pretty sure that was the appropriate response. It was all I could think of to say.
“Not a big deal.” She shrugged again. “You can’t really miss someone you don’t remember, and my dad is awesome.”
I looked around the room a bit more. There was a Cincinnati Reds pennant on the wall and another one for the Kansas City Ro
yals. There was a signed baseball under glass on the mantle of an inoperable fireplace, but it was too far to see the signature.
“Your dad likes baseball,” I said, a statement more than a question.
“Almost as much as fishing,” Mayra confirmed. “I can’t believe you like both of those things, too.”
“Baseball is okay,” I said. “I have a hard time watching it on television, but I liked going to the games with my father. There was a lot to watch. I think the game doesn’t really move fast enough to hold my attention when it’s not live, but when we were at the stadium, there was a lot of other stuff to focus on as well.”
“Well, you impressed Dad, that’s for sure.”
“I did?”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I don’t think I ever dated anyone who wasn’t dragged on a fishing trip with him. They all hated it.”
“Oh,” I said, and I frowned. I was reminded of Justin Lords and didn’t want to be. Thankfully, Mayra found one of our favorite shows, and I settled down with my head in her lap.
She wound her fingers in my hair, and though I felt myself immediately relax in a way I couldn’t recall feeling outside of either my own or Travis’s house, I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking about everyone Mayra had ever dated.
“How many boyfriends have you had?” I heard myself ask. I cringed at the same time, and Mayra’s hand stopped moving across my scalp.
“Three, I guess,” Mayra answered, her voice low.
“Who were they?” Sometimes my mouth just kind of went off on its own without actually consulting my head to see if I wanted to know the answer to my question.
“I went out with Sean Michaels freshman year,” she told me. Her voice had a bit of a sharp tone to it. “We went out maybe two months—nothing serious at all. Then I went out with Ian Pennington for a little bit at the beginning of last year and then Justin, which you already know.”
For a while, I didn’t ask anything else, and Mayra went on playing with my hair while I thought about the three guys she had dated before me. I didn’t really know much about Pennington—he was kind of quiet and played trombone in the marching band. Sean Michaels and Justin Lords though—they both fell into the category of people to count on to be generally nasty when given the chance.
It occurred to me that Mayra had lousy taste in guys.
What exactly did that say about me?
I probably would have asked the question if Mayra’s father hadn’t come home right about that time, completely scaring the shit out of me.
“Oh, hey there,” he said as he walked into the room.
I quickly sat up and scooted to the other side of the couch, wondering what he would think of me having my head in Mayra’s lap. Mayra gave me a weird look and just shook her head at me a bit.
“Who ate half the cake?” Mr. Trevino asked, and I quickly looked to the floor.
“I made it for Matthew,” Mayra said simply. I could hear her snickering under her breath. “I bet he would share if you asked him nicely.”
“Well, Matthew?” Mr. Trevino asked. “Do you think you can spare a piece?”