it this morning.
Isabella and her mom prepared coffee and ran to the corner panderia for pan dulce and fresh taleras for the day. Octavio didn’t want them to run out as they had last year. She and her mother worked diligently to pack up the boxes they’d be putting in the truck for the festival.
Lost in thought as she packed, Isabella pondered the conversation she’d finally worked up the nerve to have with Cido a few days ago. They’d been wrapping things up in the truck for the night when she forced herself to just do it.
“Finally got enough saved up for a first and last.”
Cido turned to her, looking confused. “First and last?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, pretending to be utterly engrossed in her cleaning. “First and last month’s rent on an apartment.”
Instantly, Cido’s scraping of the grill had ceased, and Isabella turned to look at him. “You’re moving out?”
Laughing nervously, Isabella glanced away from him and continued wiping down the work bench, glad it was so greasy. “That’s always been the plan, Cido. Did you think my mom and I would mooch off you and your dad forever?”
“Who said you’re mooching?”
“Well, we don’t pay you nearly as much as I know we should be paying.” Again, with the stupid nervous laugh as she allowed herself to glance back at him. “But we need our own place.”
“Why?”
“Cido.” She cleared her throat. “We may not have had the big dreams like you and uh . . . Alejandro always did about coming out here to start your businesses. But we did have a dream, and that was to come here for a better life, but most importantly to make it on our own. When we approached my aunts about taking the leap of faith with us, they were completely against it, said it was way too risky. We sort of have something to prove now, not just to them but to ourselves. Especially because when we first got here it felt like we’d made the biggest mistake ever. You heard my mom mention crying herself to sleep. I want her to feel good about the risk she took and that despite the obstacles we were able to hustle and make it—on our own.” She reached out to touch his arm. “We’ll be eternally grateful to you and your father for giving us that boost we needed when we almost gave up. But we need to do this.” Continuing to stare at her, Cido looked almost hurt. “Oh, come on. It’s not like we’d be moving far away. We’ll have to find a place close by so we could take the bus into work every day.”
He was immediately shaking his head. “Don’t worry about that, Isa. We can still pick you guys up. It’s just . . .” He shrugged before going back to his scraping. “I just thought you were happy here.”
“I am. We are,” Isabella chewed the corner of her lip, determined to not back down. “My grandmother was a very independent woman, and she passed that independence down to both of us. When we agreed to move to the apartment above your garage, we were both adamant that it would only be temporary, and that time has come.”
Maybe it was that the conversation had gone better than she’d anticipated, but Isabella was feeling strangely encouraged. As stunned as Cido had been about her announcing she was looking into moving out of his place, he seemed to understand and accept her explanation about why she needed to. While her looking into moving out so far had only consisted of her circling ads in the paper, she hadn’t actually made any calls or gone out to look at any places, but it was a start. As daunting as it felt to think about taking that terrifying leap of faith—again—she was seriously considering doing it real soon. It’s why she’d decided to put it out there the way she had.
So far, it’d been one excuse after another since she gotten certified for why they had to wait. Isabella wanting to be there for Cido and his family to help out with the festival had been her latest reason for her putting off looking for another job and their move. With this festival upon them now, she knew her reasons were running out. As formidable as the thought of starting all over again felt, each passing day she woke in the Ochoa’s home with a tenuous sense that an imminent shift in her life