22

"You couldn't have told me ahead of time that you had found an assistant?" Laura asked as she punched her brother in the arm.

"Ow!" Ricardo whined, rubbing his arm, grinning from ear to ear. "And miss a reaction like this? Of course not!"

"I looked like an idiot!" Laura complained. "Out of nowhere, this tall-dark-and-handsome guy shows up and tells me that he's going to follow me around! Seriously, Ricky, I could have used some warning. You didn't even have to tell me he was hot - just that he existed!"

Ricardo laughed. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad," he said, reaching across Laura to grab a roll from the basket on the table.

"Ricardo! Where are your manners?" his mother scolded.

"Sorry, Ma," the director replied sheepishly. "Laura, could you pass me the rolls, please?"

Their mother smiled as Laura passed the basket over to her brother. "Much better. But enough of this work-talk!" she said. "I know you're very important, Ricardo, but there is more to life than work. You need a wife. She would teach you that."

Laura barely hid a smirk at her mother's comment. The only thing that kept her from laughing out loud was the fact that she was probably next on her mother's list to harangue.

"A handsome, successful man like you should have no trouble finding a wife!"

"Ma, I'm not ready to settle down yet," Ricardo tried to explain, looking to Laura for support. She just shook her head.

"Ricardo! You're thirty-six years old! By your age, your father had already given me four babies!" Maria Jarvis threw her hands up in despair. "And you, Laura! Twenty-five and still unmarried... When I was your age, I was married AND a mama!"

"Mama, I just finished school last year," Laura told her, knowing that nothing she said would make any difference. "Give me a little time."

"A little time, a little time! If I give you more time, I'll never see any grandchildren!"

"Ma, you've got seven grandchildren." A shriek from the other room punctuated Ricardo's words.

"Don't my kids count for anything?" Elena asked, laughing as she said it. The oldest of the girls, Elena was two years older than Ricardo and already had three children of her own. Juliana and Reya, both younger than Ricardo but older than Laura, had each contributed two grandchildren, and joined in their older sister's laughter.

"Fine, fine. But I want more!" their mother cried.

"Time, Mama," Laura repeated, shaking her head. Ricardo just laughed.

"We'll talk later, Lolo," he said, still smiling. "Pass the corn?"