Page 61 of A Dish Best Served Hot

“A fan?” he scoffed. “If he’d given her a chance she would’ve been a groupie. She told me so herself.”

Lola had never met her abuela Mani. She and Benny had separated when her dad was still a kid. She’d moved to New York City with a friend, and she’d died shortly before Lola was born. For everything she’d been told by Benny and her father, the woman had been cold and selfish. She hadn’t wanted a family and had resented her husband and son. Lola knew better than to take those claims at face value considering the sources. However, Lola couldn’t deny that talking about sleeping with another man to her husband, especially when it was clearly not something he was okay with, was inconsiderate at best and purposefully hurtful at worst. “I’m sorry she did that to you, Benny.”

He waved her off, clearly embarrassed to have told her so much. “That’s in the past. No me importa.”

That was obviously a lie. He still cared about the past enough to let it make him hate Papo Vega in the present, so much so that he was making both men miserable. “You know none of that is Papo’s fault, right?”

He glared at her. “I didn’t say anything to you when you dated that girl who was ‘just friends’ with her ex and I didn’t say ‘I told you so’ when she dumped you for him, so don’t say anything to me about my relationship with my wife.” He stalked off.

Lola watched him go and realized that she could’ve been more careful with how she broached the topic. If it was something he could move past easily, Benny would’ve done so already. “He didn’t have to bring up Jessica like that,” she grumbled to herself.

“That didn’t look good,” Saint’s voice said in her ear. “Are you two fighting?”

“As always, Benny wants me to mind my business although he has no trouble being all up in mine.”

“Yeah, I heard what he said about your ex, Jessica is it?”

“Are you fishing for information about my past lovers?”

Saint grimaced. “I wish you wouldn’t use the word ‘lovers,’ but yeah. I guess I am.”

“And do you think that’s fair since you’ve made it clear that you don’t want to discuss your wife?”

Before he could say anything, Papo Vega wandered up to them. “Saint, ask her to dance with you.”

Lola’s heart skipped a beat. She would love to dance with Saint. Anything to get close to him. They hadn’t been alone together since their haunted real estate tour, and Lola understood that anything physical was off-limits in front of Rosie, but dancing seemed like a perfectly acceptable loophole.

“This is karaoke not a dance,” he replied, dashing her hopes.

Papo Vega shook his head. “Tan serio.” He looked at Lola and held out a hand. “Since my grandson is clueless, do you want to dance with me?”

Lola couldn’t help but smile and say yes, even though she felt a bit like a traitor after her conversation with Benny.

The next singer began and Lola scrunched her nose at the song. “Mi Libertad.” She could never hear Frankie Ruiz’s song about how much he desires his freedom from prison and all the things he wishes he could do without thinking of her brother. She would just picture Iván sitting in his cell missing his life and regretting his choices. It was painful.

“This can’t be a favorite song of yours,” Papo Vega said as he led her through the salsa steps. “Who do you think of? Your dad? Brother?”

“My brother,” she replied and then, because he was Papo Vega and he was magical, she shared more. “He’s now been in there longer than he was ever free, and he had nothing to do with the killings. He’s just unlucky enough to be Rafael León’s son.”

“That’s sad,” he agreed.

“Yeah. So much wasted potential and all because my dad wanted to control everything.”

“Do you know that I know your dad?”

“Everyone knows my dad. He’s infamous.”

He shook his head. “Not know of him. Know him personally.”

“Really?”

“When I was in Los Rumberos, he used to come to El Coquí with his mother to see our shows. I introduced him to my boys even though he was a few years older. They played together. I liked him. He was a natural leader. He talked to my boys about important stuff like how the education system was failing them and played a big part in keeping Black and Brown people poor. He was probably only twelve or thirteen. I used to think, ‘Wow. That boy is going places.’ I was so sad when I saw him going down the wrong path. Talk about wasted potential.”

She understood what Papo Vega was trying to do. He was trying to remind her that her father was just a man, a highly flawed man, but a man nonetheless. Like her brother, he’d been made into what he was. If they’d been talking about anyone else, Lola would be able to accept that. She dealt with “troubled youth” all the time and could easily separate the action from the person. But when it came to her father, she couldn’t be objective. He’d done too much. Ruined too many lives, including hers and Benny’s. “My dad was never going to follow anyone’s rules but his own,” Lola said. “Benny ensured that when he drilled it into all of our heads that the rules of this country were designed to keep us subjugated and we have to be willing to break the rules in order to create new ones that are fair for all. Unfortunately, my father is too selfish to want equality for all. He just wants power for himself.”

“If you tell him that I said this I will deny it, but I always admired your abuelo. He fought against the system no matter what. I don’t even know how many jobs he lost because he was always pissing off the management. I didn’t fight back. I wanted safety and stability for my family, so I gave in. I played the game even though I knew it was fixed against me.”

“Sometimes all we can do is survive,” Lola told him, taking a page out of her old therapist’s book.

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