Since getting back from Canada, Carmen had spent the week feeling as though her whole life was a car stuck in neutral.  She couldn’t go back to her life the way it was before being left at the alter or before she met Shane, but, at the same time, she didn’t think she was ready to move forward, to start a new life.  This state of neutrality was epitomized by her living arrangement.  She’d given up her old apartment when Shane asked her to move in and she couldn’t bring herself to go back to that house, but she still wasn’t ready to look for a new place.  So, in the meantime, she was living with her family, staying in her old room at her mother’s house; a house that she’d barely even left all week.  Since she hadn’t really lived in East LA since high school, she didn’t know any of the good places to hang out.  Or, more accurately, she knew some nice places, but didn’t feel like being surrounded by a bunch of high school students.  She’d tried the places that her mother suggested which were lame, and the places that her cousins suggested which were worse.  On the other hand, she could have gone to West Hollywood, but going to any of those places would bring back memories of Shane, or worse, she could run into Shane herself, and that was the last thing she wanted. 

            Being surrounded by her family was exactly what Carmen needed at this point, in some ways.  Over the past week, her mother, aunts, and cousins had dealt with what happened in Canada by doing what they do best: pretending it never happened.  It was certainly better than having person after person sympathetically asking things like “How are you holding up?” and “Are you sure you’re okay?”  It did have its downsides though; specifically the four unsuspecting bachelors Carmen’s mother had set her up with that week.  Apparently, Mercedes was good at pretending a lot of things didn’t happen.  Carmen knew that her mother’s heart was in the right place, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.  The situation might have been improved if Carmen had had work to give her a break from her family.  Unfortunately, the only gigs she’d been offered in the past week were in places she didn’t even want to set foot, because Shane might be there.  Plus, all of her equipment was still in the garage at the old house, and there was no question that Shane would be there.  God, it’s not like it would kill me to see her.  I might kill her, but that’s beside the point.