a work in progress

Chapter 2 - Tuesdays with Morrie

"Buenas m'ija. ¿Cómo estuvieron tus sueños?"

"Bien Papí. ¿Dónde está mama?" I asked, joining my dad as he sat in the sunroom reading his newspaper and drinking his café con leche.

"Maaaaa...where's my sock? The one with the blue stripes?" My baby brother JJ whined, trailing behind my mom moving past us.

"Jamal Joaquin...I," mom began.

"JJ"

"JJ...if you put your socks in your drawer then you'd...."

"Ahh...I don't wanna hear it."

My brother JJ, a lanky 5'8", with his curly brown locks, brown skin like mine, with beautiful charcoal eyes had the youngest sibling role mastered. He was habitually looking for the mate to his sock while trying to run out the door to catch the bus. One day maybe the concept of pairing will pop into his head and all will be right with the world.

I chuckled at my brother and resituated in the kitchen to make breakfast just in time to have my hair mussed. Only two years my senior my older brother, Jackson, is completely opposite JJ, and will forever be a pain in my you-know-three-letter-what. He towers well over everyone, except my dad, standing robustly at 6'5". He's quite fair-skinned, with long sandy brown hair. He has eyes of blue – which is weird because no one in our family has them...and it's also annoying as it seems every girl in the world is madly in love with him. Jackson is what you'd call a...a, wh...er, um...oh, who am I kidding; he's a pompous a-hole, who thinks himself an irresistible Adonis who should be worshipped and waited on hand and food, which is incidentally why he lived at home.

"Thanks jackass. Shouldn't you be gone already? Pass me the eggs."

"Love you too," he said with a smarmy grin. "One day, my darling sister, you too will enter into a final year of school and know how it feels to not have class every day. Right now MC, I just woke up from siesta time. You want bacon too?"

"Siestas happen in the middle of the day, not before 9:30 in the morning. Yeah bacon. And Mr. Muscles, I'll have you know that I am being cultured by my many travels and my knowledge base will be far greater than the likes of yours nincompoop. Gimme some jugo."

"Oh wow, nincompoop? So fictitious words count as the knowledge you've supposedly amassed? You're even more delusional than I thought."

"Nincompoop is a word. Look it up."

"Whatever. Oh and I was up this morning at 5 to work out then I returned for my siesta if you must know. Anyway, I'd love to stick around some more and chat, but the time is now like you said, 9:30 and my chariot awaits."

"Who is it today? Jennifer? Mandy?"

"Actually her name is Melanie if you must know," he added, sticking his tongue out at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Right, as if her name makes a difference."

"Never know she may be your future sister-in-law," he finished grabbing his bags and with a kiss on the cheek he added, "Tell mama I said bye."

Upon his departure I joined mama and papí in the sunroom, bringing mama some tea and mentally preparing for an unavoidable life chat as I made my attempt to leave and drive to campus.

"Mama, Papí, Jackson said goodbye and I'm on my way out too," I said as quickly as possible trying to make it to the door before my ears met my mom's tut tuts.

Like clockwork as soon as my foot hit the doorframe she got started. "Marie Cortes, did your brother tell you he's got a job lined up at NASA after graduation this year?"