Girl Crush | Alex Alvarez

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄: 𝐓𝐈𝐀 𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀 𝐖𝐇𝐎?

"Everyone shut the hell up!"

The house became as silent as it never was as everyone stared at me. I jumped off the couch I was standing on to demand the attention of the locos who were yelling around. Lydia sighed. "Ay, remind me to tell you about a dramatic entrance."

"Will do." I pulled a confused frown as my mom continued to console Lydi and herself. Elena, Vero, Alex, and I stood by the dining table, watching in utter confusion as they talked about how they were going to miss the lady and more nonsense. Vero snorted. "I'll bet you ten bucks that Mami doesn't have a clue who this Tia Ophelia is."

I scoffed incredulously. "I'll bet you twenty she was best buds with her."

"I'm with Vero," Elena interjected, "I don't know this tia either, and she's supposedly related to me."

"Who, who, who bought one pizza and got two free—that's me. That's me!" Penelope sang as she walked through the door with three large pizzas in her hand and the widest smile I'd ever seen on her—it was better than the time she saved seventeen cents on toilet paper at the dollar store. I mumbled quietly to Alex. "Damn, if I'd known Hot Fresh Pizza was having a sale, Pizza Part Friday would still be on."

"Regular Friday nights with you are so much better than the ones where you inhale mozzarella like it's crack." Alex grinned. I kicked his shin harshly, smiling as he groaned in pain. Pen's smile dropped as she noticed Mami's and Lydia's faces. "What, you hate pizza now—or was it the song? Please say pizza because I feel like that jam really worked."

"Pen, please. That song was fire, but I'm too sad to appreciate any musical talent."

"I played the piano for twelve years, she called me average. Suddenly, she's into improv out of everything? Wow." Vero rolled her eyes. She may have been a few years older than me, but she certainly kept grudges worse than I did—and I shaved her eyebrows off after she convinced goats were secretly unicorns when I was five. "It's your Tia Ophelia. She's dead."

"Oh my God, Mami. That's terrible," Penelope quickly lowered the pizzas as she gasped, "Who is she again?"

"We can't remember either!" Elena, Vero, and I exclaimed in unison. From the past hour, we'd labeled every single member of the Alvarez family who could have possibly been Tia Ophelia. We also racked our brains to figure out how my mother knew her. "Ok, is she the Tia that always wears yellow?"

"That's Tia Big Bird."

"Is she the one that always finds new ways to insult you?" Alex asked. I laughed as soon as the question left his mouth. "That's Tia Bitchy. What is happening to me?"

"You're becoming a part of the family," Alex explained. I rolled my eyes, thinking about how I was more a part of the Alvarezes than my own family. On the bright side, I had been wondering what I would talk about if I went to therapy—the only thing that topped the list was my unhealthy obsession with Lydia's ropa vieja. "So, none of us can remember who she is?"

"Oh, Tia Ophelia, what a tragedy," A teary Schneider barged in as he grieved, "We danced all night at Elena's quinces. She had scarlet fever as a child and lost her right eye."

"Ophelia was the tia with the eye patch!"

Alex and I looked at each other as realization hit us. "Tia Jack Sparrow!"

"Oh! I called her Tia Blackbeard but that got confusing because we have another tia with an actual black beard." Penelope laughed. "I called her Tia Captain Hook, but that didn't work because she was super close with Tia Peter Pan."

Mom grimaced. "Tia Peter Pan must be so busy now that her Neverland buddy's gone."

We laughed at Mami's joke as Lydia tapped the table. We all drew crosses as Alex and I walked back to the couch. "At least we'll get to see the family at the funeral. Everybody will be there—Mimi, Maruchi, Rosita, Tio Juanito, Baby Juanito, and his baby, Gordito Juanito."

"Really thought Juanito would show up when you said it a third time."

"Yes, we Cubans are mucho like escarabajo del jugo," Lydia nodded quietly, "It'll be nice to see everyone, except of course, La Diabla."

I winced at Lydia's devil horns. "I have a tia who has horns—we just call her Margarita Wazowski."

"Tia Diabla sounds hot, and so does Tia Wazowski."

"She's Abuelita's little sister, Mirtha," Elena explained as she walked into the kitchen. The number of times we'd heard the infamous story of La Diabla's thievery was uncountable. Lydia held grudges longer than Vero. "Who Mami's been mad at for twenty years because of a stupid mantilla. Mami, Mirtha said she doesn't have it."

That's because—" Alex tried to reveal the secret the two of us had been keeping all summer when he was faced with Lydia's threatening gaze. "She's a liar."

"But, didn't you—"

Lydia interrupted me too. "Rightfully accuse her of having it all these years? Because she does!"

"Does she?" I scoffed. Lydia's death stare penetrated my soul as I felt her black bruja magic tearing me apart. "Go comb your hair!"

"I don't have to."

Lydia grabbed our heads and messed up our hair in seconds. Alex screamed as he ran to his room in agony, grabbing his precious hair and trying to process what his grandmother had done. I sighed as I followed him dejectedly. "Where are you going?"

"I have to his shoulder to cry on during times of crisis or I'll never hear the end of it."