Pride and Preference

Pride and Preference

  Copyright 2014 Mia Rodriguez

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  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Preface

  Losers need not apply.

  That was the iron clad rule the jovial but lioness with protecting her cubs Doña Chona Longoria had concerning boyfriends for her four lovely daughters. At her age, she had seen way too much ridiculousness, too many of what she called bad carambas (for goodness sakes) of girls and women ending up in the most horrid and harmful relationships.

  So she had compiled a list of loser boyfriends prohibited to her daughters:

  *Giggy gigolos only wanting a free meal ticket.

  *Lazy leeches sucking the very lifeblood from their victims.

  *Domineering dreadfuls obsessed with manipulating and dominating everyone and everything around them.

  *Lying lascivious lumps of wasted human flesh.

  Also:

  Absolutely not permitted—sidewalk spitters, constant farters, avid nose pickers, commitment phobes, toilet missers, bellowing belchers, and smelly burp competitors.

  Definitely no males with—work allergies, roving eyeballs, spend-the-last-dollar-on-a-beer malignancy, and stomach like a potbellied pig but you shouldn’t have an ounce of fat attitude.

  And especially no condescending fellas who didn’t like her family! It was of colossal importance that any suitors join the whole family and not just one member of it.

  Doña Chona kept adding to the list as she saw fit. Because she had all those disasters in her extended family and her poor deceased husband was no longer around, the heavy load of making certain her daughters ended up in healthy relationships fell squarely on her shoulders. With her firm and fierce determination, her daughters had to end up with hardworking, upright males with very bright futures. There was just no two ways about it. She would make absolute certain of it!

  No bad caramba fellows for her precious daughters!

  Just good caramba boyfriends!!!

  Chapter 1

  Once upon a long time ago, Doña Chona had prayed fervently that God give her only sons. But God had fooled her and given her only one son, the eldest, and four daughters. She had foolishly thought that having sons would guarantee devotion to the mother since boys were generally closer to their mothers and girls to their fathers. Nowadays Doña Chona looked to the heavens with a big sigh of relief and gave thanks for an all mighty who knew what was best for her.

  As it had turned out, her only son had gone off and wed when she had needed him the most. To make matters worse, Balbino Jr. never helped her with a single cent even when he married into a wealthy family and made a huge salary working in his in-laws' prosperous shoe manufacturing business. Instead, she was left to forge on with only scarce resources when her husband had died while falling from the roof as he was trying to patch it.

  It had been her eldest daughter, Eloisa, who had given up so much to help her since Doña Chona would never have made ends meet with her scant salary from the Southwest Cannery. Once Carmela, her second eldest daughter, had graduated from high school, she too brought home her paycheck from the Happy Kids Daycare. Then there were her two youngest daughters, Lola and Marta, sixteen and fifteen respectively, two giggly girls, but nonetheless so full of life that they were the apple of their mother's eye.

  Doña Chona often admired her girls as they watched television. She looked at each, one at a time, and smiled. Her heart swelled with pride as she remembered the compliments she often received.

  “Your girls are so responsible.”

  “Your girls are absolutely beautiful.”

  “Your girls are exemplary.”

  The eldest ones received the most compliments. In fact, through the years many of the parents in the neighborhood would only allow their daughters to go out if they were in the responsible company of the eldest Longoria sisters. These parents knew that Eloisa and Carmela never partook in trouble making activities and were always home on time, without complaint.

  If Doña Chona had one tiny lament though, it was that Eloisa was a bit too harsh on the younger girls. She was the one who had implemented a strict curfew and limited their outings. Even at this exact moment, Eloisa was making certain the younger Longoria sisters finished their homework.

  “Mama, why do we have to do this now?” grumbled Lola. “It's Friday. We have the whole weekend!”

  Doña Chona looked at her eldest daughter. “Caramba, Eloisa, maybe they can finish their homework later.”

  “No, Mama, it's better if they get it out of the way, I'm not asking them to do anything I'm not doing. I'm finishing my college homework too.”

  Doña Chona nodded. “Your sister is right. Do as she says.”

  “Finish your homework,” Eloisa stated.

  “Okay, you’re Majesty” retorted Lola, grimacing.

  Eloisa ignored her sarcasm. “Besides, there's no time to do it tomorrow. We're going to the christening.”

  “The christening!” exclaimed Marta.

  “A big fiesta!” expressed Lola excitedly. “With lots of food, music, and fun!”

  “We won't go if you don't finish your homework,” remarked Eloisa. “And you know I mean it.”

  “Whatever!”

  “Lola! Don't talk to your sister like that,” scolded Doña Chona.

  “But, Mama, she never lets us have any fun,” grumbled Lola.

  “Never!” burst Marta.

  Eloisa eyed Marta and Lola sternly. “You can have fun when you finish your homework.”

  After Lola and Marta eyed each other with an exasperated look, they returned to their books. Doña Chona smiled at Eloisa knowing that she didn't actually want to go to the christening of Balbino Jr.'s newly born son. Eloisa had complete distaste for her brother's high living ways. But Doña Chona had her own special motive for wanting her daughters to attend. Yes, Balbino Jr. was a snob. Yes, his wife thought she was the queen of El Paso. Yes, it would probably be a boring, lifeless get-together with no piñatas or mariachis anywhere to be seen. It would be a bad caramba party in that way.

  But . . .

  And it was a big but, many successful eligible males would be there. If Doña Chona got her daughters interested in the right kind of beaus, maybe they wouldn’t end up with the wrong misfortunes that would surely only serve to break their tender hearts and winning spirits.

  Horrible bad, bad carambas.

  Instead, with her discerning eye—great, great carambas!

  Chapter 2

  Balbino Jr. and his wife, Ivana, stood in one of the private rooms at St. Anthony's cathedral. The English nanny had the baby as Ivana paced nervously.

  “Your family better n
ot embarrass us, Balb,” she demanded, her face in a tight scrunch.

  Balbino Jr. made an anguished face. “I, like you, would've preferred not to invite them, but how would it have looked if the father's family wasn't here?”

  “I know, I know, Balb. They're a necessary evil.”

  “I'll keep a watch on them,” he assured profusely. When it came to what he considered to be his uncouth and horribly embarrassing family, Balbino Jr. felt a profound shame, especially with his mother. He just couldn’t abide that she frequently used what he considered to be an unnecessary, crass, and in elegant word—caramba. It was like always saying yikes or geez, depending on the sentence. How low class in his eyes. He hated the word caramba so much that he tried to ban it from his mother’s mouth, but Doña Chona didn’t see anything wrong with the word and to her son’s horror and chagrin, she kept using it. “Yes, I’ll definitely keep a very close eye on my family.”

  “You do that, My Sweet,” Ivana demanded.

  Doña Chona and her daughters sat in one of the pews as the cathedral started to fill up. Eloisa stared straight ahead wishing this whole uppity ordeal would be over soon. Her mother had made her daughters wear their best outfits. It had taken poor Lola half an hour to pull up Eloisa's waist length, unruly, curly, jet black hair in a knot on top of her head when all Eloisa usually did was run a pick through it, letting it roam free, and head out the door. But her mother had insisted she do something with her wild mop.

  Doña Chona suddenly poked Eloisa and Carmela to get their attention.

  “Look, look,” Doña Chona whispered loudly to Eloisa and Carmela, pointing to the doors. Lola and Marta weren’t paying attention to their mother. Instead, they were excitedly squirming and fidgeting in their seats as they scanned the church to see who was there. They couldn’t wait for the actual party to start after the religious ceremony.

  “What is it?” asked Eloisa. She turned to see two tall, dark, and handsome gentlemen with dark brown hair and eyes and sienna skin tones. Even though they both looked like each other as if they were related, one had a smiling, cute, boyish face and the other stared sternly into the cathedral.

  “That's Dario and Fernando Quintana,” asserted Doña Chona.

  Carmela eyed the younger man of the two. “Who are they?”

  “Who are they?” repeated a surprised Doña Chona. “Caramba! You really don’t know?”

  “Are they famous?” asked Carmela.

  “The Quintana family owns The Sports Store. Dario Quintana took over the family business when his parents died in a car accident and then took the store national,” Doña Chona explained with admiration. “Those stores are everywhere in the country and in Mexico. And Dario Quintana is said to be a whiz in business. He may be a bit prideful, but he's very, very smart and hardworking.”

  “What about the brother, the one with the smile?” asked Carmela.

  “Even though Fernando is not the genius his brother is, he helps with the family business. He’s also smart and hardworking,” declared Doña Chona, pleased that Carmela was taking an interest in him.

  “Mama, how is it that you know all of this?” asked Eloisa.

  “Caramba, I'm a mother of four daughters,” she stated, indignantly. “I've got to know these things.”

  The ceremony started, so they immediately stopped speaking. Under normal circumstances it would take a miracle for Doña Chona to quiet down, but even she felt that talking over the words and prayers of a priest would give her a one way ticket to the most unpleasant place in the hereafter.

  While the bishop was blessing Balbino Jr.’s son, Eloisa noticed that Fernando, who was seated in the pew across from them, kept stealing glances at her sister. When it came to her beautiful sibling, Eloisa was accustomed to this happening. She was all but ignored by the opposite sex when she was with Carmela, but it didn't bother her at all. Eloisa had enough heartache in her background for her to be hungering for a room full of suitors.

  This new conquest of Carmela started to become more and more blatant in his staring. While Eloisa didn't care for his brother, who seemed arrogant and hadn't cracked one smile since he had arrived, Fernando seemed affable enough smiling at everyone.

  After the ceremony, the Longoria family headed out in Eloisa's old but well taken care of car to Balbino Jr.'s new home. Balbino Jr. and Ivana had lived with her parents in their supposed palace when they had first married. When the baby was born, Ivana's father, Mr. Torres, had bought them a home in El Paso's scenic drive area which was on the side of a mountain and had a panoramic view of the city.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Lola when they drove up to her brother’s new mansion. “Isn’t this place mega-awesome?!”

  Even Eloisa couldn't help but have her breath yanked out from inside of her. The house was a multi-story beige home with pillars and a verandah. It had the look of an old southern home. In fact, it had a more than passing resemblance to Thousand Oaks of Gone with The Wind.

  “Our brother is so full of money!” blurted Lola.

  Marta nodded energetically. “Yeah!”

  “He's full of something alright,” retorted Eloisa.

  The parking attendants looked at Eloisa’s car strangely as the family stepped out. Eloisa gave them an irritated glance. Her form of transportation may not have been the grandest amongst all the Mercedes, BMW's, and expensive type of vehicles there, but they could all lump it because she loved her dependable car.

  Outside, in the sizable back yard, a symphony played classical music and caterers were about to serve dinner on elegant tables with striking flower centerpieces. The Longorias were seated at the main table with Balbino Jr. keeping a watchful eye on them.

  “You've met my sister, Jacqueline, haven't you?” asked Ivana to Doña Chona.

  “Yes, we've met her,” said Doña Chona as Jacqueline gave them a sneering glance that sized them up in one sweep of her eyelashes.

  “The gentlemen next to her are Dario Quintana and his brother Fernando,” explained Ivana. “Dario and Fernando, this is my mother-in-law, Doña Chona, and her daughters, Eloisa, Carmela, Lola, and Marta.”

  “I'm so pleased to meet you,” blurted Fernando, gazing at Carmela who in turn smiled at him. “Please call me Fernie.”

  “Hi, Fernie,” murmured Carmela, her face flushed.

  Chapter 3

  Eloisa wished with all her might that she would have been able to stay home. This snobbish christening party was just not to her liking at all. AT ALL!

  “The Quintana family is in business with my own,” stated Ivana with a nasal voice. “We make sports footwear and they sell them.”

  “Caramba, I hear you sell a lot of shoes, make tons of money!” burst Doña Chona. “Are you billionaires or just ordinary millionaires?”

  “Mother!” admonished Balbino Jr., horrified.

  Dario raised one eyebrow. Ivana glared at Balbino Jr. with a scrunched face and shook her head. Eloisa swallowed hard.

  “This is a beautiful home,” Eloisa expressed quickly.

  “Yeah, beautiful!” asserted Marta. “How big is it? Big enough for all the ritzy people in El Paso to admire?”

  “Your garage alone must've cost as much as our whole house!” burst Lola.

  “Girls!” chastised Balbino Jr., very upset.

  “Caramba, they're just admiring your home, son,” assured Doña Chona.

  “Yeah!” Lola burst. “Your house is sooo beautiful!”

  “It's the best house we could find in El Paso,” informed Ivana. “In fact, Dario lives next door.”

  “Oh,” Eloisa murmured. Since there was a tall wooden fence, Eloisa couldn't look across the yard to see the home.

  “You don't live around here, do you?” questioned Jacqueline, sniffing.

  “No, they live in Gran Estrella,” answered Ivana, scrunching her face in distaste.

  “Gran Estrella? Where's that?” Jacqueline questioned, her nose in the air.

&nbs
p; “It's a suburb of El Paso,” said Balbino Jr. “A no nothing place.”

  Eloisa's upper lip started trembling. “It's not a no nothing place. Gran Estrella is a town with a homegrown feel to it. A nice town,” she stated, annoyed.

  Dario's gaze sat on Eloisa. While his blatantly inquiring look put her on edge, she kept her chin up.

  “I personally love Gran Estrella,” asserted Fernie, gazing at Carmela.

  “So it has a homegrown feel? How quaint,” remarked Jacqueline with light sarcasm underneath her tone. “What do you think, Dario?” she asked as she put her perfectly manicured hand on his arm.

  “I prefer the city to living with chickens and pigs,” he announced.

  “We don't have any chickens or pigs,” snapped Eloisa. “But I would love to have them if I could.”

  Dario gave her another unnerving stare.

  “It would be so cool to have chickens and pigs!” Lola burst, giggling happily.

  “You really think so?” Jacqueline snickered.

  Eloisa eyed her coldly. “Definitely yes, but unfortunately we don’t have them.”

  “But we have ducks,” Lola announced proudly. “And a pond for them.”

  “Ducks?” guffawed Jacqueline. “Do they look like Donald Duck?”

  “Vieja tonta!” burst Lola, growling under her breath.

  Eloisa stared at her sister in disbelief. Hopefully, Lola had said it so fast that nobody caught that she had called Jacqueline a stupid old hag in Spanish.

  “Lola!” exclaimed Balbino Jr.

  “What did she say?” asked Jacqueline.

  “Nothing important,” rushed Balbino Jr.

  “Caramba, can't you speak Spanish?” asked Doña Chona.

  “No, of course not,” retorted Jacqueline.

  “We're in America,” smirked Ivana. “We speak English.”

  “We're in El Paso and in the state of Texas,” declared Eloisa. “Our family has been on this land since before it became the United States, and we speak both English and Spanish.”

  Eloisa wasn't positive, but she thought she had caught Dario's lips almost curl up.

  Thankfully, the food was served, and Ivana went on to speak about how she came upon the caterers. Eloisa's appetite was completely lost even when she caught a glimpse of the perfectly roasted pheasant.

  “What is this?” whispered Marta to Eloisa. “Is it okay to eat it?”