Chapter Text
"So," Linda started, looking up at Marta standing on the balcony, wrapped in a blanket and holding a white mug. She could just barely make out that there was lettering on it, and she had a pretty good idea exactly which mug it was. "Now what?"
"You can pack your things, but I want you out of here by the end of the day," Marta said simply.
Linda scowled, but held her tongue. Her brother, on the other hand...
"You're going to throw us out on the street?" Walt shouted. "After everything we've done for you!"
Marta raised an eyebrow and took a pointed sip from the mug. "You mean threatening to throw me out of the country?" she stated simply. "Besides, you all have your own money, and roofs over your heads. Even Joni."
Walt scowled. Linda would find it endearing if he weren't in the middle of digging their graves. Well, deeper at any rate.
"That threat still applies!" Walt shouted, still digging, and waving his cane around. "ICE works quickly, and I don't care how much money you stole from us, it will never be enough to get her back here! All I have to do is make one little phone call, and she's shipped off to Mexico or Columbia or--"
"Oh for f-cks sake," Jacob cut in, "She's Cuban!"
That stopped Walt short, his wildly waving cane dipping a bit as he turned to his son. "Wait, what? Since when?"
"Since birth?" Marta replied. "I mean, I was born here, as was my sister, but my parents are from Cuba."
Linda sighed in frustration. There goes that idea.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Meg asked. "Why didn't you tell me?" she amended, clearly wounded by the apparent betrayal of her so-called friend. Serves her right, the bleeding heart.
"You never asked," Marta replied, another simple statement.
"But you told him?" Meg countered, pointing at Jacob, the smug little turd smirking like it was some sort of achievement.
"He did!" Marta replied.
"And you answered?" Meg shot back yet again. "You're illegal!"
Linda rubbed a hand over face, knocking her glasses askew. It was all well and good for Meg to be hurt, but did she have to be such a Thrombey about it?
By the time Linda fixed her glasses and looked back up, Marta was scowling. "First off," she started, her voice strangely hard and cold, "I am not here illegally. I couldn't be a registered nurse in this country if I were. Second, there are plenty of Latinos in the country legally. Most of us, in fact, were here first. Or did your fancy--ss private school skip over the Mexican-American War? Third, Jacob never asked about my immigration status, and if he had I'd probably have smacked him for being impertinent. Why didn't you follow up, anyway?" she asked, looking at Jacob.
"'Cause Cubans are the only w-----ks that don't get thrown back," Jacob said, dropping that slur like the little neo-Nazi turd he was. Linda sighed again. Where was that boy getting these things?
Meg, of course, shouted in indignation and said some nonsense about how words hurt, but conceded the point. "If they're not caught on their way in," she explained, "Cubans don't get sent back when they do get caught. They're considered refugees from the Castros. Did you seriously not know?"
"No-one told us," Marta replied, simply again. "English isn't my parents' first language, and western Massachusetts doesn't exactly have a thriving Latino community. And Papa said that if anyone asked, we were from Puerto Rico."
"But..." Meg started, "Your stomach?"
"That's when I found that out, yes," Marta said, then sighed. "Tell them all my secrets why don't you?"
Meg had the decency to look chagrined, but it wasn't like they didn't all know already. If the artful dodging around complimenting their occasional gifts didn't tip them off, that mafia game sure did. Not even Joni was that dumb.
"Did Meg tell you she told us after she called you begging for a bone?" Jacob cut in.
"You little sh-t!" Meg cried, and the family erupted into chaos again, Meg diving for Jacob's throat as each side's respective parents tried to get them to stop. Ineffectually, of course. Walt's leg was still broken, and his wife - what was her name again? Nina? Nora? Something with an N - was entirely too meek. And Joni was on a pacifist streak at the moment, so all she did was shout from the sidelines. Or at least that would be her excuse when this was over, Linda was sure.
In the end it was down to Linda and her cheating Dick to break up the fight, as it usually was in this madhouse. Say what you will about the bastard, he did know how to take control of a situation. Probably why he went off with those hookers, Linda didn't like to be controlled.
When everyone had calmed down - and Joni had confirmed her suspicions - Linda looked back up at the balcony and the symbol of all their failures. Even after all that, Marta wasn't smug. She looked... pained. And sad. Did she... pity them?
Linda shuddered. She'd much rather this little gold digger behaved like one. Like Joni. Or her own cheating Dick.
But that was the problem, wasn't it? Marta never played the game. Or at least, she never played to win. She made her own beautiful patterns, and the rest of them were left to scrabble for the crumbs around the edges.
"I meant what I said," Marta began again. "You can retrieve your things, but you must be out by tomorrow. I'll even let you take a few keepsakes, but they must fit in your bags. And I helped Fran stow them, so I know what and how many they are. Anything that remains in the house after today I will consider of the house, and therefore mine. Now get started. And Meg? That includes you."
"But--!" Meg tried
"You made your bed," Marta cut in. "Lie in it."
Jacob snickered, Meg and Joni both glared at him, and Linda rolled her eyes at the whole debacle. She was really going to have to explain to the little troll that Meg had been their best way in. But that would have to wait until Marta wasn't present.
The game was afoot, and Linda was intent on winning.