“Liar,” Mario translates.
“I guess you guys haven’t reached the M’s yet in your lessons,” Pa says.
“You do realize we’re not going alphabetically, right?” I say.
“You’re not?” Pa turns to Mario. “We’re going to have to revoke your license.”
Mario holds his hands up in surrender. “Let’s see if I can earn back your trust with some food.”
“Only because I have a big appetite,” Pa says, inviting Mario into the kitchen.
Ma smiles at me and air-claps. “He’s cute,” she mouths.
I nod.
Ma turns on some music and everyone gets busy in the kitchen. It’s crowded and we’re all sweating within minutes, and Mario takes off his plaid shirt. I could spend all night watching him in nothing but his white undershirt and overalls. He’s deep in a conversation in Spanish with my parents. I’m able to decode a word here and there about something involving numbers, but I give up because they’re speaking so fast. I don’t need a translator though to see my parents are genuinely laughing. That makes me really happy. And even a little sad that we haven’t done this sooner.
Maybe there will be more opportunities like this in the future.
While I mix some iced tea, Mario translates his story for me.
In second grade, he was struggling with subtraction. He only wanted to solve addition problems, so he would draw vertical lines into the minus marks, turning them into plus signs. His teacher sent a note back home to his parents asking them to better supervise his homework.
That story is really cute, but I’m still blown away by how he’s able to casually tell a story like that in Spanish so rapidly. More time with Mario should help me get to that level.
Once all the food is ready, we settle down at the dining table. It totally feels like a double date with my parents.
Everyone’s exchanging stories, and as the bridge between Mario and my parents, I kind of know them all already. But I still pay attention when Mario starts talking about how his mother and father are both from Carolina in Puerto Rico and lived a couple towns apart but didn’t meet until they moved here to the States. There are all these new details, like how his mother was shopping for crystals at a flea market in Queens when she bumped into Mario’s father, who was shopping for his sister’s birthday. Mario’s mother helped him out, and after they got along, she asked for his number. They didn’t even know about their Carolina connection until their fourth date. It’s a really sweet story.
My parents ask Mario all about classes, and Mario and I quote our teacher’s most popular notes, stuff like Need? and I would cut whenever something is running long in our works. They want to know why he’s so willing to drop out of college, and he breaks it down for them the way he did with me. But it’s tricky for my parents to understand because they’re not creatives like we are.
“Following your heart can have its consequences,” Pa says.
Mario nods. “I think it’s less about following my heart and more about understanding that my heart is dragging me somewhere.”
I never thought of it that way before. It’s technically a choice to pursue his dreams, but deep, deep down, it’s not. It’s magnetic and inevitable. That’s how it feels for me with telling stories. I didn’t just wake up one day wanting to write—I just started doing it.
This is making a lot of sense to me. My parents are nodding along, too, like they’ve made peace with Mario’s decision. Totally helps that he’s not their son.
Once we’ve devoured dinner, Ma surprises us with churros with caramel dipping sauces. As Mario talks about the stages of getting a TV show picked up, I think back to that time I was out with Arthur and I introduced him to churros. It led to an important conversation between us about what it means for me to be white-passing and Puerto Rican, something I never had to educate Mario on since he’s in the same boat. Arthur was really amazing about all of that moving forward. That’s not a surprise given how big his heart is. And he taught me about Jewish stuff, too. I remember senior year, when we talked for three hours straight on Yom Kippur, because Arthur was fasting and needed me to distract him. He said Yom Kippur was all about owning up to your bullshit and vowing to do better, and I loved the way he laughed when I said it sounded like the ultimate do-over.
Of course, a year later, Mikey was the only distraction he needed.
Mario squeezes my shoulder. “Once Alejo here publishes his book, maybe I’ll be able to adapt it for film.”