"What do you mean you're going away?"
Audrey Durant, Ixchel's cousin and the official denmother of the house, hadn't exactly taken the news well. And who could blame her? Maintaining a townhouse wasn't exactly the cheapest of endeavors, and Ixchel's med-tech job did more than its fair share of keeping the lights on and the fridge fully stocked. In a place like this, where Audrey seemed to be the only one capable of holding down a full-time job, Chel could understand just why her paycheck was so important to her cousin.
"It's only for a little while, okay?" she said calmly, lowering her hands in a (hopefully) calming fashion, "I'm still gonna send you some money every month to help out around here. But I'm making a lot of money from this project, and I can't really afford to say no."
Audrey honestly looked like she might break out into tears. Not because of any familial connection between them (despite them being cousins, Chel had always been closer to Phoebe and Reagan) but because of the fact that her paycheck meant so much to the townhouse. There was no way that they'd be able to get by without it. At least, not unless a certain freeloader started pulling her weight. And for that matter, the young ones too—
Ugh, why did this have to happen now?!
"Look, I'm just as stressed out about it as you are." Ixchel said in a calm, professional manner. The same tone that her bosses had taken with her. And presumably, the ones that their bosses had taken with them. "I'm gonna be sending back about half as much as I have been for my part of the rent. Hopefully that makes a difference, since you're not feeding me and the lights will all be off in my room, but you might want to start cracking the whip around here, okay?"
It was almost like a breakup. Like some family member had suddenly died, and now Audrey was a frontier woman, trying to live on her own in the harsh and forgiving world. For so long, Ixchel's medical technician's paycheck had meant that they household could afford to skirt by (not really, but it had helped!) and now that it was getting kneecapped, the designated worry-wart of the group seemed to be the only one concerned about where the money was going to come from!
"They need someone who speaks Spanish, and they need me on-site." Ixchel explained in her best "please don't shoot yourself" tone of voice, "I'm only going to be gone for as long as my contract holds. It's going to be oka—please, stop crying!"
When Chel had been offered the position, she could hardly believe it.
Her job was hardly glamorous to begin with, clicking and clacking away on her keyboard. But when her boss had approached her for the Huevo Mundo project, she had barely been able to withhold her excitement. And that high feeling had lasted as long as her boss further stating that she would be assigned Lead Technician, and therefore responsible for the entirely Hispanic staff located in Ciudad Juárez.
Was it a little racist that she was being selected for the job? Sure.
But at the same time... this was a payment opportunity that she couldn't afford to turn down. Literally. They offered to pay off her student debt in its entirety. Opportunities like this didn't come around very often. Chel would have been stupid not to take it.
Plus it was still far away enough from her family that she didn't have to go see them for the holidays. So really, it was the best of both worlds.
All joking aside, Chel still hated it.
Mexican servers did not offer her the high speed connections that she needed for gaming. The lab techs were rude, and treaded her like they would any other American. She was housed in a dinky apartment on the company's dime, and everything around her was shit. She fucking hated Mexico. Holiday visits to her Tita's had taught her that from a young age, but it was really living through the constant power outages, the pollution, and the incessant insistence on in-person banking that reminded her why she'd hated visiting relatives for the holidays.
If she had only paid less attention to her dad. Then maybe she wouldn't have known so much goddamn Spanish...
Nevertheless, Chel persisted.
After all, it was easy to hold strong when your contract was only for...
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