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It’s always a fun little nostalgia trip to see how Rosa’s updated this place. It looks like the mud-colored tiles he remembers have been replaced in the past year or so, though the rusted sign out front is the same one from the 90s, and when he ducks through the front door the same half-peeled stickers from his memories proudly proclaim their opening and closing hours, their no-smoking policy, and the presence of an ATM inside.
The doorbell creaks out its same-old crrr-ang that he remembers as well, and it’s also followed by a voice familiar as breathing: “¡Un momento, por favor! I’ll be with you in a second!”
Tugger smiles, and calls back, “I can part with thirty seconds, I guess!”
“You!” is the responding bark he receives from the back room, and Tugger leans forward to rest his palms on the counter running parallel to one wall, glancing up at the menu above his head lit up in fancy LED. She got that changed at some point a few years ago; right after the Wild Child tour, he thinks. It used to be a chalkboard.
Rosa comes bustling out a moment later, wearing jeans and a beat-up denim jacket that’s probably the same one she wore when he was a kid too. She’s got her hair in some long-ass box braids in all sorts of colors, and she sweeps a few braids off her shoulder as she fixes him with an absolutely nasty look.
“You look terrible and you’ve gotten skinnier. What do you want to eat?”
“Hi Rosa, nice to see you again.” Tugger greets her wryly. The glass display below his palms boats a pretty fucking vast array of sandwich fillings and condiments nestled in little tubs side-by-side, but Tugger doesn’t even need to glance down to know what he wants. “Can I have that turkey thing with the banana peppers you make? With lots of cheese.”
Without a word, she turns to start preparing the sandwich, fetching a hero roll first and slicing it in half- maintaining somewhat intimidating eye contact with Tugger the whole time she wields the knife. He returns her gaze with a cheery smile.
“You look terrible,” she says again as she sets her knife aside. “My daughter told me you were in the news recently.”
“Yeah?” Tugger prompts. “And how is baby Isabelle?”
“Giving birth in three months.”
“Isabelle?” Tugger repeats in shock. “Baby Isabelle? Your daughter Isabelle?”
The last time he saw Rosa’s single daughter had been… admittedly probably a decade ago now, when he’d been in high school. Rosa’d had her in the shop, and she was a chubby-cheeked five-year-old with beads in her hair, passing out stickers from her school workbook with cheer. Tugger had put one of her stickers on his math binder, he thinks. Or maybe it was English.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Rosa glowers while layering pieces of turkey on Tugger’s sandwich.
“How old is she now?”
“Eighteen.”
“Ain’t she got school and shit to do?”
“Exactly what I said.” Rosa pitches her voice up in mockery. “‘But Mama, I want a baby!’ She has her whole life to have a baby. She should be at college right now. I blame social media.”
“And where’s the baby daddy?” Tugger prompts.
Rosa fixes him with a withering look. “Starting a band.”
“Ouch!” Tugger laughs, throwing his head back. “How’s Hernando feel about it?”
“‘Let her live her life, Rosa’,” she then natters in impersonation of her husband, turning to grab a spreading knife from a drawer. “‘You’ll get to be a grandmother’. I am too young and beautiful to be a grandmother!”
“Your braids are sick, by the way,” Tugger tells her. “The rainbow is awesome.”
“They match my shoes,” Rosa informs him, anguish gone in an instant. “I’ll show you in a minute. When is your brother having a baby, anyways?”
“I don’t think Munk’s got that kind of equipment,” Tugger says with cheer, and smiles at Rosa’s unamused stare. “I dunno,” he amends after a moment of silent hilarity. “I’m not sure if Demeter wants any.”
“What a waste of a beautiful couple,” Rosa muses while smearing hot mustard on Tugger’s sandwich. “At least they’re the age for it.”
“You should have another baby, Rosa,” Tugger suggests, lifting a palm off of the counter to gesture. “Then you and Isabelle could raise your babies together.”
“Señor, dame paciencia,” Rosa mutters. “Why are you in the city, anyways?”
“Had a performance this weekend. Didn’t go right, and now Mac’s doing damage control.”
“Ahhhh, Tugito,” Rosa sighs, shaking her head as she picks up Tugger’s sandwich and takes it over to the oven. “Do you want a cookie?”
“It didn’t go that bad,” Tugger complains, “I don’t need to be cheered up with a cookie like a 12-year-old.” When she heaves the door to the ancient-ass oven shut and fixes him with a look, he shrugs and adds, “But I’d like a cookie…”
She shakes her head at him and heads into the back to grab him a cookie.
When she returns Tugger’s sandwich is done toasting, and she removes it from the oven with a paddle that she uses to deposit it onto a tray. “You need to eat more,” she tells him while fetching a paper cup for him to use with their soda machine. “You’re more of a beanpole than usual.”
She clacks the tray onto the counter right in front of him, and he raises his brows a bit at the two cookies sitting innocently next to his sandwich; Rosa turns to bustle around her space before Tugger can lift his exasperated gaze to meet hers, but he imagines she feels the weight of it anyways. And probably doesn’t care.
Whatever. He takes the tray and crosses the small shop over to the line of two-person tables against the opposite brick wall, setting down his tray before crossing over to the drink station. He sets down his cup and then immediately goes back to the table to take a quick bite of his sandwich while it’s still hot from the oven, and nods to himself, standing there, at the kick of the mustard and the tang of the peppers.
“You’ve done it again, Rosa,” he tells her while chewing.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she responds, though it sounds like she’s smiling.
“What do I owe you?” he turns to add, sandwich still in hand.
She twists away from the oven she’d been turning off to fix him with a withering look. “The sandwich is on the house, Tugger. Like always.”
“Aw, come on,” he appeals, but she doesn’t even dignify the remark with a response, admittedly just as he’d assumed she would.
Temporarily bested, Tugger retrieves his drink and settles down at his little table; he eats while Rosa returns her tools to their places, and as the companionable silence lingers between them Tugger indulges in the view of the street he remembers from when he was a kid and he’d stop by this place after school, backpack slung over his chair and counting out his nickels to give Rosa the exact change she was due for whatever monster sandwich she’d made his growing ass that week.
He pulls out his phone while he’s chewing, not sure if he should be relieved or disappointed he doesn’t have any further texts from Plato. He’s certainly disappointed Misto has yet to call, but he has to imagine it’s going to be a while before he does; Plato made it sound like they were out for some kind of daytrip.
Tugger props up his elbow on the table and rests his chin atop the meat of his palm, bummed. Of course this had to happen right after Misto’s picture got posted at Bomba’s party. Of course this had to happen right after Tugger smoothed over Misto’s picture getting posted, and rather effectively too. Misto’d actually seemed like he was in a more or less good mood by the time Tugger got off the phone with him yesterday, especially considering how pissed he’d sounded at the beginning of that conversation. And now here Tugger goes pissing him off all over again. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.
He sets down his phone on the table and uses his freed hand to pick up one of his cookies. He ought to do something, he thinks, to make up for the shitty weekend he’s bestowed upon Misto. But he has no clue what Misto would like, or what would even cheer him up. He sighs, then peers sideways at Rosa wiping down her massive bread knife.
“Hey Rosa?” he calls over.
“I’m not adding more cheese to your sandwich, Tugger, I can’t re-toast it once it’s been done,” she explains patiently.
“Not the sandwich,” Tugger corrects. “I have a question.”
“What?”
“What do you do…” he starts, and finds with some self-directed surprise that he’s not entirely sure where to go with the question. “When you mess up. With Hernando.”
“Mess up?” she echoes. “‘Messing up’ is not a thing I do. Hernando is the one who messes up.”
Tugger snorts. Relatable in the inverse, he supposes. “And what does Hernando do when he messes up with you?”
“Flowers,” she tells him instantly. “Carnations for small things, roses for big things. Why do you ask, Tugito?”
“I might need to invest in some roses,” Tugger tells her, turning over the idea in his head as he speaks it. He doesn’t know if Misto would like flowers. He knows lots of guys don’t care for anything that might seem girlish, but Misto’s a fucking ballet dancer, he can’t possibly be lame like that.
Rosa lifts her head to eye him, arched brows high on her forehead. “You’re messing up with someone?”
“Pretty spectacularly, yeah,” Tugger admits.
“…Someone special?”
“Yeah.”
She pauses for a moment, then asks, “Is this new or is Isabelle not keeping me as up to date on the news as I should be?”
“It’s new.”
“Hmmm,” Rosa says, nodding a bit. “So you’re messing up with this special someone, then? What foolishness did you do to her?”
Tugger returns his gaze to his mostly-eaten sandwich. “Him.”
“Hm?”
“Him,” Tugger repeats. “Not her.”
Rosa doesn’t say anything for a minute there, and Tugger tries not to cringe in the silence. She’s got religion, he knows, and she’s never complained about him coming into her shop at seventeen in eyeliner and tight jeans, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be cool with this. He knows perfectly well he can’t help or change anyone’s opinions of him, but there are plenty of happy memories in this sandwich shop that he wouldn’t care to have defiled by an unpleasant conversation today.
But eventually, she speaks up. “What foolishness did you do to him, then?”
Tugger’s mouth quirks up a little, more relief than joy. “I’ve pretty much been doing everything wrong since the moment we met.” He picks up the phone again. “He hates the media and the paps and the lifestyle and my house. And my attitude.”
“He sounds very reasonable.”
Tugger snorts. “Yeah. It’s fine when it’s just us, usually, but everyone else on the planet just has to be a fuckin’ problem…” He heaves a sigh and looks over at her. “Long story short, I keep making promises and the world keeps breaking them on my behalf.”
“Is it the world, or is it you?” Rosa prompts with skepticism.
“It’s the world!” Tugger insists. “Paps and leakers and shit; nothing I have any control over. I’ve been trying… I don’t know. To give a good impression.” He sets his phone down. “But everything keeps getting boned up, and now he’s not talking to me. He said he’d think about calling later. I’ve gotta come up with something to make it up to him; I don’t know if he likes flowers.”
“And how long have you known this boy?”
“A few weeks.”
“Then you barely know him at all.”
“I do know him!” Tugger protests. “We have a thing.”
“Then use your thing,” she suggests with more derision than Tugger thinks is necessary, “to ask him how he’d like you to make it up to him.”
“That would be lame,” Tugger grouches, picking up his cookie again.
“Teenagers.”
Tugger’d been about to take a bite of his cookie, but he has to laugh instead. “I’m nearly thirty!” he reminds her in amusement.
“Don’t make me feel old, Tugito,” she warns him sternly, then props her forearms up on the counter. “So what is he like?”
“Perfect,” Tugger says immediately, eyes on the cookie in his hand. “Smarter than me. Cares about everything. Mean when I deserve it. Nice when I don’t. Doesn’t take shit from anyone.”
Rosa is silent for a long moment; he looks over at her and finds her smiling his way, head cocked a bit.
“What?” he prompts.
“You really like this boy,” is all she says, in the sort of way one may note that the sky is blue or that water is wet.
“Yeah,” Tugger says.
Still smiling, she pushes up off the counter and retrieves a rag from somewhere. “I remember when you were still in school,” she tells him as she starts to wipe down the spot she’d made his sandwich. “You came in one day complaining about a safety lecture you and your classmates had to listen to, about prom coming up. I asked you who you were taking, and you said you weren’t taking anyone, and that was why you were annoyed about the lecture.”
Tugger does vaguely remember sitting through some sort of sermon-ass assembly about prom back in senior year. Don’t use drugs, do use condoms, etcetera etcetera. Nothing worth listening to; if he’d known it was going to happen he’d have skipped class that day.
“I said, ‘what, there aren’t any girls in your class you have an eye on?’ and you told me, ‘no, Rosa, they’re all annoying’.”
“They were all annoying,” Tugger agrees with the timeless wisdom of his seventeen-year-old self.
Rosa rolls her eyes. “Despite how many times your father told me you’d been suspended for defiling them, yes.” Swiping her braids over her shoulder again, she continues, “I remember thinking, ‘not one for romance, then, Tugito’. But here you are.”
“Here I am,” Tugger agrees. “Waiting for a call.”
“Did he say when he’d call?”
“No. But he’s with his sister and her boyfriend right now, and they’re like three hours behind us, so it may be a while.” He takes a bite out of his cookie at that depressing thought; he has no clue what he’s going to do with himself for the next several hours.
“Well, you have time to figure out what you want to say,” Rosa figures, turning her attention onto the counter and leaving Tugger to his thoughts.
What does he want to say to Misto? Besides ‘sorry’ and ‘please please please don’t be mad’, that is. The unfortunate thing about this situation is that Mac was right the other day, cameras are what all of this is about, and sometimes they end up in places you don’t want them or expect them. Tugger can’t even count the number of times over the past few years he’d been recorded during a moment he would’ve liked to have been private. That kind of shit just happens.
But ‘welp, better get used to it’ isn’t something he wants to say to Misto, not for any reason. Not only because that might scare him off; Tugger just doesn’t want him to be uncomfortable. Not for the sake of the media, not for the sake of the fans, and not even for Tugger’s own sake.
Misto’s clearly gone through enough discomfort. His dogshit soulmate, his unfortunate high school experiences, his mother’s untimely death… god knows what else is always putting a frown on his face and tightness in his shoulders. Tugger doesn’t want to be another source of misery for him. That being said, it’s a little too late to do anything about the song or the picture now.
Tugger can see him here, in this life. Talking circles around interviewers and humoring paparazzi and setting aside time for the most overeager of fans, enchanting each of them with that tell-me-your-secrets smile and dark-eyed gaze of his. He’s not there yet, not anywhere near it, but Tugger can see the potential. He just needs time. Time and a few well-placed nudges.
Well-placed nudges, not more of this bullshit.
Tugger’s sandwich and cookies are quickly lost to his thoughtful mood, and he’s left sitting at that little table next to the brick wall of his childhood. He used to suffer through homework here, with nothing but his CD Walkman and ever-rotating sleeve of his favorite discs to comfort him.
Tugger pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s had enough of musing on the future and the past; he’s got a phone call in a few hours he needs to be prepping for, so there’s no point in hanging around here any longer.
Rosa disappeared into the back at some point a few minutes ago, which Tugger figures is probably his cue to begin heading out.
He visited an ATM on his way here, and his wallet is bursting at the seams with the ridiculous stack of 20s and 50s he’d jammed in there. He fishes out the wad of cash while keeping one eye on the counter; when Rosa doesn’t appear, he stands slowly from his seat and picks his way across the tiled floors. His worn sneakers don’t betray him the way his heeled boots probably would’ve, and he manages to creep quietly all the way over to the counter. Unfortunately though, when he bends over the linoleum the toe of his shoe conks into the glass display below.
“Tugger!” Rosa barks from the back immediately. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing!” Tugger responds while clumsily tossing his wad of cash at the little storage shelf below the register that’s next to his elbow. The bills go everywhere but where he’d wanted them of course, and he watches a couple flutter to the ground with exasperation.
“I don’t want your damned money!” she shouts in return, quickly followed by some kind of clatter that probably bodes poorly for him. Cash sort-of where he’d wanted it, Tugger pops off the counter and scurries quickly towards the door, ignoring the barked “TUGGER!” that follows him right as he pushes outside.
“See ya, Rosa!” he calls over his shoulder right before letting the door swing shut behind him.