que_carajo (que_carajo) wrote in summerview, @ 2019-03-05 15:18:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | complete, miguel de la guardia, narrative post, player: anya |
Te Botemos
Who: Mickey and the exposition dump of his own existence (and also his mommy).
What: Narrative post: He was okay and then he was definitely Not Okay.
When: Tuesday night
Where: Mickey's home base (Abuela's house)
Rating: M for Mama's Boy
Status: Complete
November 3rd, 2018
“Wear red this season to spice up your life! A rosy hue on your nails and lips give him the hint that you’re up for doing more than just stopping to smell the roses--this is bullshit,” Miguel declared, tossing the magazine aside. “Absolute bullshit.”
“I’m trying very hard to be hired to write that bullshit, little babiest brother,” Gabriela pointed out wryly. She sighed from where she stood in front of Miguel’s mirror, holding up one top and then another to her reflection before discarding them both (carefully, under Miguel’s hawk-like stare) and picking up a skirt with a hemline that just barely flirted along the line of modest.
“And I’m fully expecting that you’ll do it better, obviously,” Miguel retorted, throwing himself back into his pillows with an issue of Spiderman balanced on crossed ankles. He clicked his tongue and motioned impatiently for Gabriela to hold out her hand, inspecting her ragged cuticles with the disgust of the ages. “When is the interview again?” he asked sweetly, as if he wasn’t very well aware, as if this foray into sibling bonding was not at all meant for practical reasons.
“Tomorrow,” Gabriela moaned dramatically, setting another rejected outfit aside and sinking melodramatically down next to Miguel, one arm thrown across her eyes in a feigned swoon. Miguel sighed as his comic slipped off his ankles and fell to the ground, nudging Gabriela with his hip. There was a moment of comfortable silence as Gabriela turned, throwing an arm over Miguel’s thighs in a half-hug, her face pressed into Miguel’s waist as everything went peaceful, just for a little while.
“Do you think,” Gabriela began, her voice muffled, “it might be better if I went in one of Papa’s suits?”
“No,” Miguel said immediately. “Besides, Papa only has black suits and black does terrible things to people with our complexions, you know.”
“Agony for you then, up north,” Gabriela teased, tightening her arm slightly. Miguel scoffed and lifted his chin defiantly.
“There is not a goddamn thing good accessories and proper makeup can’t fix, even when the outfit is fucking terminal,” he said archly. “Remember that very sage advice, for one of your articles maybe. If the tagline picks up, I want royalties.”
There was another long moment of comfortable silence as Miguel picked up Gabriela’s arm from where it lay across his legs and turned to the easy task of touching up his sister’s polish.
“...did someone say something, Gabriela?” he ventured. Gabriela hummed a negative, more interested in perusing the discarded fashion magazine for a good way to style her dark hair for tomorrow.
“Will you send me that piece of shit along with my subscriptions when you get that job?”
“Like you have a choice, Miguelín. I’ll even autograph it for you.”
“Please spare me the second-hand embarrassment.”
The two of them snorted in unison, Gabriela’s expression amused and Miguel’s faintly annoyed until it softened into fondness.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “that I won’t be here when you get back with the good news.”
“Like shit,” Gabriela replied, holding up her hand to nod approvingly at his work. “You have to go to New Jersey. To live with Abuela. The karmic justice in that will keep me alive and well-hydrated for centuries.”
“Until you need to borrow my shit.”
“--and then I wallow in the pits of despair without you here, hermanito.”
Miguel laughed, quietly, in the back of his throat.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, not quite a statement and not quite a question, but more of the small epiphanies that come when every child is made to grow up, even if just a little.
“I’ll be fine,” Gabriela said, planting a soft kiss on Miguel’s cheek. “I’ll be fine and you’ll be fine.”
March 5th, 2019
“I wanna come home.”
“And like I’ve said close to a million times, Miguelín: you can’t.” The raucous sound of the de la Guardia family in the tumultuous throes of their evening routine echoed clearly over the phone line. Miguel swallowed back a heavy wave of homesickness and focused on the sharp resentment cutting an ache into his temples.
“But you never say why,” he spat, pressing the headset closer to his ear hungrily, as if physical proximity would somehow drag him through miles and space to arrive in his family’s cramped dining room where he always shared half a seat with a younger cousin and engaged in fierce fork battles over the last of the chatinos or wiped messy faces with a feigned scowl.
“You were born with common sense, mijo. I beg you,” she said, wry in the way she always was when her patience was approaching its threshold. “Use it.”
“But why--”
“What, is being so near the city such a trial for you, Miguel?” she cut in mercilessly. “Because trust and believe that your little sister has been doing nothing but whining my ear off ever since she figured out how close New York and New Jersey are to each other.”
“So why am I the only one here?!” he burst out, clutching the phone tightly. “If Alina wants to come too--”
“Miguel, don’t. Don’t do this to me right now. I can’t--” she sighed and the noise in the background faded, as though she were moving to another room. “You know we can’t just send her up there to be with you. She has school, and dance, and--she’s just a teenager, Miqui.”
With extreme effort and no small amount of bitterness, he bit back the retort that he had only been a teenager when his family had shipped him here lying poisonously on the tip of his tongue.
The silence lay thick and tense between them for a long moment before his mother sighed again, sounding more tired than she ever had.
“You’re just special, Miguel. You were always going to be special. This isn’t--this isn’t a safe place for you anymore.”
“Oh, but everyone else but me can stay there, no worries, it’s just that I’m the magic freak among freaks--”
“Miguel Léandro Javier de la Guardia!” she shouted.
"I don't want to be fucking special!" he yelled back. "I just want to come home! I hate it here! I'm the youngest cabrón here by like eighteen centuries and everything here can either eat me or thinks I'm a lesser life form! Even the water here hates me, Mama--" his voice broke and he stared at the wall in mute horror at the burning in his eyes that heralded coming tears. "Please," he tried again, voice helplessly pitchy. "Please, Mama, please can I come home, te prometo que no volveré practicar la magia--"
"Miguel..."
"I won't! Really, Mama, I promise I won't do it, nobody will know I can so why can't I come home if I won't--"
"You can't not," she said gently. He heaved a shaky breath as he scrubbed angrily at his eyes.
"I can so," he croaked. She hummed, a sound that meant nothing, promised nothing, and doomed him to a continued existence within Summerview's barrier.
"Your abuela said you met a nice boy."
"Met. Once. Singular." He accepted the topic change will ill-humored grace and rolled onto his stomach to press his cheek against one of his pillows. "But then, like, your genetic estupidices came spilling out all over the place and I made a fool of myself, so it'll probably remain a singular meeting, like ships in the night, except his ship is a mail cruiser going off to tell the whole-ass world what a disappointment I am and I'm the Titanic in this metaphor, sinking because I hit an iceberg named Social Awkwardness."
"Wow, ta tocando el cielo con las manos," she replied. Miguel made a face and groaned loudly; she laughed, like any mother might, at her son's emotional suffering. "Look at you."
"...I'm having someone try to teach me sign language," he admitted quietly. "Like I looked up some youtube videos for beginners and stuff, but I don't think it's the same, probably."
"But is he cute?"
"Mama--"
"Listen, this is very important, okay, I have to know that Potential Future Mr. de la Guardia has the swagger to join our family."
"God, did you just try to use swagger unironically? I'm divorcing this family."
"We support your decisions," she said breezily, "Even when they're wrong, and you're wrong, and we will welcome you back with open arms and punish you with dirty dishes. Answer the question."
"Yes--" ("I can hear you rolling your eyes at me, mijo.") "He's--adequate."
"Estoy tan orgullosa de ti," she said solemnly. Miguel snorted and choked back a laugh and missed, for a moment, how easy it used to be to drape himself over his mother, the two of them exchanging and bartering for chismes as easily and naturally as breathing, like a language just between the two of them. How she would reach up to pinch his earlobe, her nose wrinkled with the width of her smile, and then cup his cheek with her small, soft palm.
"Mama," he began softly. She hummed an affirmation, almost distractedly--he could almost see her bent over the kitchen counter, brow lightly furrowed as she wrote out another weekly checklist, wrote in another appointment on the overcrowded calendar, spelled out another nonsensical poem with the refrigerator's magnetic word collection that always ended in a sarcastic reminder to do their chores. "Could I...come back? Like, just for a little while? For Alina's dance performance?"
"...I'll think about it," she allowed and huffed with laughter at his sigh of relief.
"Who's replacing me as her partner?"
"Why do you think I'm even going to consider it?" she shot back. "You two and your pinché tiki-tiki music."
"Mama..."
"¿Qué fue? I should let some strange boy lay hands on my daughter? What kind of brother are you?"
"Claro, the kind that hasn't done this routine with her in like...five months?"
"I'll think about it," Her voice raised at the end; Miguel could hear the vague sounds of his youngest sister's voice, already whining a campaign for his triumphant return. He couldn't help but grin into his pillow. "For now, just--skype your sister and practice a little, mijo."
"Okay Mama."
"No promises."
"Okay Mama."
"I meant it when I said I was proud of you, mi cielo."
His breath hitched painfully in his chest.
"...I know, Mama."
"Okay amor. It's late. I know your abuela keeps to the witching hours, but you are going mimis."
"Oh my God, I'm not five--"
"I'll say mimis if I want, I'm grown! Keep your disrespectful mouth shut if you don't like it!" He laughed, hearing the smile in her voice.
"Okay Mama. Buenas. Te quiero."
"Y te amo también, bebé. Te deseo dulces sueños."