Chapter 108

Sunday-Monday, Aug. 5-6

Arturo was again working the host stand and again had a comment for me as our party of 10 descended upon him.

“I thought you only had one sister, not five,” he said, earning the appreciation of my aunts.

“Mis tias y primas, amigo,” I responded, giving him a bro hug. “But it is kinda hard to tell them apart at times.”

I introduced my coworker/teammate to my aunts and cousins and he grabbed 10 menus while some of his cousins moved enough tables together to accommodate us. Once we were seated, another member of the Benavidez family brought chips and salsa, while yet another swooped in to take drink orders.

Aunt Patty volunteered to join Kacie in serving as a designated driver, even though that probably meant rearranging the seating assignments for the ride home. I figured my sister would drive the X5 with Aunt Patty piloting the Cadillac.

As we considered our menu options, Mom picked an interesting topic of conversation.

“Bethany Metzger tells me you’re considering buying an SUV, Gary,” she said with just a touch of suspicion. “Anything you’d like to say?”

“Just that Bethany Metzger wants me to consider buying an SUV,” I said. “She thinks I need something that can carry that whole gang and has wifi. I told her I’d have to look into it, but that you’d have to approve me pulling that kind of money out of the investment account.

“I guess you could say I’m thinking about thinking about it. I haven’t even begun to look at what models have such an option.”

“That’s not a bad idea, really,” Grandpa chimed in. “It’d be nice to have something that could carry the rest of us to Gary’s road games. He’ll be on one of the team buses and Kacie will be on one of the band buses. That’d leave eight of us if we all go together.

“It’d be nice to have a smooth ride for that first road game and having wifi would keep the girls entertained.”

The first road game, our second game of the season, was a nondistrict game about five or six hours west, almost in the next time zone. Coach Tucker liked having one long road trip early in the season to give guys a chance to see what it’d be like if the team advanced deep enough in the playoffs to face an opponent from another part of the state.

As Jed had once explained to me, Coach actually had a whole philosophy regarding how he structured his nondistrict schedule and being in an eight-team district fit into the scheme almost perfectly. Out of three nondistrict games, we should be considered a solid favorite in one, a decided underdog in another with the third game being rated a tossup. The whole idea was to see how the team reacted to varying levels of adversity.

The first road game would be the tossup just because of the travel involved. Our opener, at home against a traditional rival that was now in the classification below us, had been penciled in as the win.

Our final nondistrict game would be the one we were supposed to lose. It was against the reigning state champs and was scheduled for a Saturday afternoon as part of a weekend extravaganza at the NFL stadium. In addition to high school games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, there would be a major intersectional college game Saturday night that would be televised nationally. The NFL team would cap the weekend on Sunday night with its home opener.

I’d have to see what it would take for Coach Tucker to allow me to stay behind after our game to watch that college game. I’d just have to figure out how to get home.

Mom, of course, had to play bad cop. It’s what Mom does.

“Couldn’t you just use Patty’s Suburban?” she asked.

“That thing’s about ready for the scrapheap,” Aunt Patty said. “I’ve had it since the girls were toddlers. It’s got nearly 200,000 miles on it. I’ve been thinking about trading it in for a while, now. This seems like as good a time as any to upgrade.”

Grandma took over from there.

“I know Chevy and Ford have a couple of SUVs with wifi,” she said. “But if you’re looking for a smooth ride that seats eight, I think I’d rather go with Mercedes or Land Rover.”

OK, that officially took the matter out of my hands. I never seriously believed my mother would approve me spending $50,000. There was no way in hell she’d let me spring for a Land Rover no matter what my net worth was.

“We could always put it under the corporation, Hon,” Grandpa said. “Hire Gary and Kacie as our drivers, on paper at least. That’d give us reason to have them on the insurance.

“I’d feel better about Kacie driving something a little more substantial than that Bug, anyway, especially if she’s going to be running Kinsey and Kirsten around for Patty.”

“Then I could get something a little more practical,” Aunt Patty said. “Some sort of midsize sedan.”

“I need to start looking for something, too,” Aunt Karen said. “Just a little compact to get around in. There’s not the same level of public transit around here as what I’m used too. Maybe I can take Kacie’s Bug.”

Mom wasn’t giving up without a fight.

“And where are you going to park all these vehicles?” she asked. “The garage at the new house won’t hold them all.”

“There’s enough room out back to put in a parking pad,” Grandpa said. “Looking at what Dougie had done at your place, it shouldn’t be too hard. We could get going on that this week and have it done by Labor Day weekend.”

I just sat back and watched the craziness unfold. It seemed unlikely that my sister and grandmother could easily share a vehicle. Grandma would have to keep the Cadillac here and let Grandpa use one of the farm trucks to commute. And I didn’t see Grandpa doing that more than once. Those pickups were anything but a smooth ride.

It was amazing what Bethany’s off-the-cuff remark had led to.

The matter was tabled for further discussion as our meals arrived. Arturo’s abuela came out to make sure everything met Grandma’s approval and the two matriarchs immediately fell into a conversation about nietas bonitas. I think there may have also been a little recipe swapping in there.

After sopapillas, seating assignments were discussed for the ride home. Kirsten was again the key to the whole deal as she wanted to ride with Kacie and Grandma. Dad was sent to the Caddy with his siblings and we all prepared to depart.

Kinsey was getting buckled in while I made sure the radio was turned off — I’d endured Radio Disney long enough — when she turned to me.

“Gary, can I ask you a question?”

“You just did,” I snarked, earning a swat on the arm.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“Whaddaya wanna know, kiddo?” I asked as I cranked the car and pulled out of the parking spot.

“Well, last night, me and Kacie and Kirsten were watching TV in your family room,” she said while I waited for an opening in the traffic so I could pull out onto the street. “Momma came out of your room and told us to turn it off and get some sleep, then Aunt Karen came through and said she had to see Uncle Doug about something and would be back in a little bit.”

My cousin looked like she was trying to come up with the perfect wording for what she wanted to say.

“And?” I prompted, turning into the lane to head back to the house.

“Aunt Karen never came back,” Kinsey said. “When I went into your room this morning to get some clothes out of my bag, I noticed the rollaway bed hadn’t even been set up. When I asked Momma, she just said we’d talk about it later.

“I was just wondering where Aunt Karen spent the night. Her and Aunt Claire kept looking at each other and smiling. I never saw Uncle Doug. Aunt Claire said he left early to play golf, but Grandpa didn’t leave until after breakfast. Somethin’ was goin’ on and none of the adults would tell me what it was.”

I had a hard time not jumping to conclusions here, especially after what Grandma and Grandpa had told me about how their youngest child felt about her big brother. I just had a hard time accepting that my mother would have allowed, let alone facilitated, the conclusion to which I was trying not to jump.

“I asked Kacie about it,” Kinsey said. “She just turned real red and said I wouldn’t understand because I don’t have a big brother. Why wouldn’t I understand?”

“I really don’t know,” I said, “but you probably shouldn’t worry about it too much. I bet she just wanted to talk to him about moving to this area. She’s been back east for a long time. They do things differently there, ya know.”

I could tell my cousin wasn’t satisfied, but I wasn’t about to speculate any further on the matter. She instead took up another topic that was bothering her.

“You shouldn’t let Kirsten have her way all the time,” she said. “She thinks she can do whatever she wants just because she’s the baby.”