Stan grabbed a spatula in each hand and flipped two burgers in perfect unison. "The boss man has been listening to the Dead all day," he answered.
"Cool." Liz and everyone else at the Crashdown could tell how Mr. Ortecho was feeling by what kind of CDs he played. You couldn't get better than the Grateful Dead on her father's musical mood scale.
Liz hurried into his office. She couldn't help smiling at the sight of her papa's compact beer belly pushing against his tie-dyed T-shirt.
"I think for your birthday I'm going to have to replace that shirt with a bigger one. You know, eating Cherry Garcia ice cream isn't the only way of expressing your love for Jerry," she teased.
"Not the only, just the best," Papa answered. "And don't even think about replacing this shirt. I bought it at the concert where you were conceived. Uncle John's Band was-"
Liz slapped her hands over her ears. "I don't want to hear any more, thank you." She did not need the details of her parents' sex life.
Her father laughed. "What are you doing here, anyway? You're not working today."
Liz lowered her hands. "I have to talk to you about something important."
His expression turned serious. "Is it something with school?"
"No, it's nothing with school." Liz sighed. "Why do you always think it's something with school? It's never anything about school, all right?"
Sometimes Liz felt like throwing back her head and screaming, "I am not Rosa." Because that's what this whole thing was about. It was about Rosa. She'd been dead almost five years, but in so many ways she was still the most important member of Liz's family. She was there in the things they said to one another and in the things they never said.
Liz knew exactly why her father was always on her case about school. The year before Rosa died, her grades started slipping. Liz's parents got Rosa a tutor and stuff, but they didn't realize that the grades were only a tiny part of the trouble Rosa was in.
Liz glanced over at Papa. He stared down at some invoices on his desk, but his eyes were blank. Liz knew that expression so well. He was doing it again. Wondering what if. What if he had paid more attention. What if he had put Rosa in private school. What if he'd read more about teenagers and drugs. What if, what if, what if.
"I'm pretty sure I'm going to be valedictorian," Liz said, trying to pull her papa out of his dark thoughts. "You'd better start thinking about what to wear to my graduation because everyone is going to be looking at you and Mama, parents of the girl making the brilliant speech."
"Make sure you mention the cafe," Papa said. He shoved the papers away and looked up at Liz. "If it's not about school, what is this something important?"
"It's our uniforms. The seventies Star Trek rip-offs we wear have a certain kind of cool retro thing going, but Maria and I would really like to move into the future." Liz held up a photo of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in their Men in Black suits and shades. "We were thinking something like this."
Mr. Ortecho shook his head. "You want me to spend money on new uniforms when there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old ones? That's not good business, Liz."
Liz pouted for a second. Then she went in for the kill. "Oh, well. The guys do seem to like looking at us in those short skirts. Our tips would probably go down if we switched to the suits."
"Wait, who is looking?" Papa demanded. "Who, exactly?"
Mrs. Ortecho opened the office door and inched her way in, a huge baking sheet balanced in her hands. Flour dotted her baggy overalls and her short brown hair. "I just brought over my latest creation, and I had to show it off," she told them.
Ignoring her papa's frown, Liz grabbed one side of the baking sheet and helped her mother lower it to the desk. She gave a snort of laughter as she studied the cake. "An alien riding a horse?"
Mrs. Ortecho shrugged. "It's for Benji Sanderson's birthday. He loves cowboys, and this is Roswell."
"At least you didn't have to do another spaceship," Mr. Ortecho said.
Liz's mama loved coming up with new designs for her cakes and wanted challenges from her customers. But she kept getting orders for spaceships and aliens, aliens and spaceships.
Mrs. Ortecho had to settle for creating her own masterpieces for the birthdays of each of Liz's billion relatives. She'd made an amazing 3-D cake portrait of Abuelita's favorite dog, and everyone had been blown away by the Dracula cake she came up with for cousin Nina's eighth birthday. She molded a coffin out of chocolate and put a strawberry-jam-filled vampire cake inside.
Stan popped his head into the office. "Liz, you're not going to believe who is out front to see you-Elsevan DuPris."
Liz's heart jumped to her throat, but she tried to keep calm in front of her parents.
This was not good. Elsevan DuPris published the Astral Projector, Roswell's answer to the National Enquirer. Every story in the Projector had something to do with aliens. It was a pretty big coincidence that DuPris wanted to talk to Liz two days after she got absolute proof that aliens exist. A big, scary coincidence.
"You coming?" Stan asked.
"Yeah. I'm interviewing DuPris for a paper I'm writing," she lied to her parents. Then she slipped past Stan and headed for the front of the cafe.
"Get me some costs on those new uniforms," Mr. Ortecho called after her.
It was easy to spot DuPris lounging against the counter. If he's not here to ask me to be his personal shopper, he should be, Liz thought. He was wearing a rumpled white suit with a lime green shirt, a white Panama hat, and white lace-up shoes, and he carried a walking stick with an ivory handle. His blond hair was slicked back with a little too much gel, and his smile was a little too oily.
Liz felt herself relax as she strolled over to him. Anyone who went out of the house looking like that had to be a total buffoon. She could handle DuPris, no problemo. "You wanted to see me?" she asked.
"Yes, if you would be so kind as to spare me a moment. Could we sit?" DuPris started toward a booth in the back without waiting for an answer.
Liz followed him. "What can I do for you?" she asked as she slid into the booth across from him. She figured a friendly, I've-got-nothing-to-hide-here approach was the way to go, at least until she found out what he knew.
"I've been hearing some interesting things about you, young lady," DuPris drawled. He sounded like a Scarlett O'Hara wanna-be.
I could do a better accent, Liz thought. And I'm about as far from a Southern belle as you can get.
"What kind of interesting things?" she asked. She made sure to look DuPris straight in the eye. She wondered if he wore colored contacts. His eyes were almost as green as his shirt.
"I heard that you almost died a couple of nights ago. I heard you got shot-and that a young man healed the wound simply by touching it," DuPris said.
He got the straight dope, Liz thought. Those two tourists must have blabbed. She decided she needed to get a little creative.
"It probably looked like that guy healed me. But that's not what happened." Liz leaned across the table and lowered her voice. "See, the uniforms we wear here are made of RosWool. That's wool made from sheep that have grazed on the crash site. People say it has powers, and after what happened to me, I believe it. I'd be dead if I had been wearing polyester when I was shot."
DuPris raised his eyebrows. "RosWool?"
"Yeah. There's a company that will make anything you want out of the stuff. I'm thinking of ordering a ski mask-in case I get shot in the head next time."
DuPris was silent for a moment.
"I like you, Ms. Ortecho," he finally said. "I'm a great admirer of a lively sense of humor. Now would you like to tell me what really happened?"