Page 60 of The Plus-One List

“Mom wants to meet her.”

“Mom is going to be disappointed.” This trip will be overwhelming enough for Eloise as it is. I don’t need to toss my family into the mix.

“What’s she wearing?”

“Who, Mom?” I ask.

Caro rolls her eyes. “No, you idiot, what’s your not-girlfriend wearing?”

“What’s with all the questions? You suddenly get a job with Quién?”

“I work in the fashion industry, dude. These are the details I live for.”

I sigh and turn to Eloise, switching to English. “My sister wants to know what you’re wearing to the wedding.”

Eloise looks up from where she sits on the floor of her apartment, holding a pair of nail clippers and Charleston’s front paw, a piece of clingwrap wrapped around her forehead with a smear of peanut butter on it. It’s the best way to trim nails, she told me.

“A dress,” she says.

“Un vestido,” I say to Caro.

Caro huffs as Sofia finishes another tiny electric-blue-and-black braid. “You two are the worst. The worst! How am I meant to live vicariously when you’re both so fashion-averse?”

“It’s the cross you have to bear, I guess.”

“Are you at her place right now? Show us the dogs!”

Suddenly, all four of my nieces’ faces fill the screen. “Perritos! Perritos!” they chant.

Eloise looks up, smiling. She recognizes that word.

“Can I show them?” I ask her.

She nods. “Not me, though,” she warns.

“No, I know.” I switch the camera on my phone so the girls can see Hazelnut, shaking out her glossy coat. I scan to the rug where Pip is licking his butt, and they shriek with laughter. Then I show them the Colonel, lounging on the couch next to me.

Eloise goes back to trimming Charleston’s nails as he greedily licks peanut butter off her forehead.

“Done,” she pronounces him, with a scratch behind his ears.

I catch sight of the time.

“Shoot, I have to run,” I say. “Besitos!”

“Besitos, Tío Tín!”

They blow me kisses, and I hang up the phone.

“Ready to go?” I say, standing.

“Ugh, what are we doing now?”

“You’ll see.”

“You know I hate surprises,” Eloise says.

I grin. “Yes, but if I told you where we were going, you might say no.”