Even the kids at school were upset. In the halls, I counted four girls who walked by me popping their gum in huge, loud bubbles.
“Ignore them,” Vivi said. “They’ll be over it by tomorrow. They’re so full of shit, pretending they care about politics.”
But it’s been five days and things have only gotten worse. I click on the hashtag and scroll. People accuse my father of turning his back on his own community. A headline from the Miami Herald reads RUIZ BURSTS OWN BUBBLE AMONG HISPANIC VOTERS. An opinion piece is titled HERE’S WHY SENATOR RUIZ’S COMMENTS PERPETUATE WHITE SUPREMACY. One of the most popular tweets (a thread shared twenty-two thousand times and counting) is by Jackie Velez, a senior at our school. She has a huge following because she’s the editor of the school paper, and she interned at Teen Vogue one summer. The only person in a bubble is @SenAnthonyRuiz. He seems to have forgotten that Latinx people are Americans too. What makes him think we’ll support him at the polls when he so easily turns his back on his own community?
Jackie’s avatar is a picture of her leaning against a mural of the Puerto Rican flag, screaming. Half her head is shaved and the rest of her hair is dyed bluish-black. It cascades diagonally over the left side of her face, accentuating her cheekbones and dark brown eyes in a way that makes her look like some sort of postapocalyptic Disney princess. I take a screenshot of her tweet and send it to Vivi.
Did you see?
I watch for the “Delivered” notification under my text to switch to “Read,” but Vivi must have gotten distracted, because nothing happens. Instead, a follower request pops up on my screen, and I almost drop my phone into the toilet when I see who it is.
Jackie.
The Jackie Velez.
Requesting to follow me.
It’s like she knows we were just texting about her. I take another screenshot.
WTF?
Still no reaction from Vivi. I dim the screen on my phone and tuck it into my back pocket, ignoring Jackie’s request. Or at least, trying to. For once I’m actually glad my parents made me set all my social media accounts to private at the beginning of Papi’s campaign. What could Jackie possibly want with me, and why now?
I take a deep breath and brace myself for whatever fresh hell awaits in the living room. Judging by the way Joe hovers over his phone, shaking his head, he’s seen the latest tweets too. “It’s not good,” he says to Papi. “But it’s still fixable. On the bright side, it’ll only help the ratings for the interview on Friday.”
My stomach clenches. Three days ago, my dad’s PR guy booked us all for a Meet the Candidates: Home Edition interview. It’s this new thing where one of the major news networks doesn’t just interview the candidate and the family—they get a tour of their whole house. Even the kids’ bedrooms. When I asked my parents if they were fine with millions of strangers knowing where their kids slept at night, they agreed to leave me and my brother’s rooms out of it. But then last night, one of the other candidates’ Home Invasion interview aired. He has five-year-old twin daughters who wore identical yellow dresses. The whole family sat in their living room while the little girls took turns sharing stories of how their father plays hide-and-seek with them on weekends and never misses an imaginary tea party. Then they went into the girls’ bedroom and poured pretend tea for the host. Now the news won’t stop commenting on how cute and well-behaved they are. How the congressman should be so proud of his daughters. I think the part that got to Papi the most, though, is that they keep saying the congressman is such an involved father. So my dad decided the full home tour was back on, our rooms included. He insisted I was overreacting and that it’d be too risky for the campaign not to do it.
“You have to understand, sweetie,” he said. “We can’t have people thinking we’re hiding something. And you and Ricky are ready for this. Or was all that money we paid Jamie for nothing?”
I wanted to tell him that yes, in fact, all my twelve weeks of training sessions with a media coach have accomplished is that I’m now hyperaware of how many ums and you knows I say when I talk, making me so much more insecure than before I started. And it’s different for Ricky. An eight-year-old could do nothing other than blink on national television, and he’ll be cute and endearing. Just look at the congressman’s twins: they sipped on air and people lost their minds over their natural charm. Meanwhile, I have to be perfectly composed, enunciate every word, and make sure I sound smart but not robotic, sophisticated but not elitist.
It made me wish Jamie had trained me in how to tell my dad no. How to speak so he would listen. By then, though, nothing I could say would have made a difference.
Mami had been oddly quiet. Now she stands behind him and rubs his back in small, firm circles. “Are you sure this won’t backfire?”
Joe sends off a quick text. “Juliana, trust me.” He always says her name with a hard J, like it’s a longer version of Julie, instead of the soft J our family uses. “Even the people who hate-watch it won’t be able to resist your charms. Let alone Ricky and Mariana’s. You show some Miami pride, get back in touch with your local roots . . . convince them you’re just like any other American family.”
We are like any other American family, I want to say. At least, I thought so until we started visiting Papi in DC every spring break. But other American families don’t roast entire pigs in a hole dug in their abuelo’s backyard on Christmas Eve. They don’t make their ringtones play Celia Cruz or get their son’s portrait painted for his first communion. Mami feels guilty that we never got mine painted when I was Ricky’s age because we didn’t have as much money back then, but you’ll never see me complaining—it’s creepy the way his eyes follow you down the hall and his little fingers clutch at the rosary.
Joe looks my way like he just noticed I’m here. “Mariana! Why don’t you show your parents what we’ve been practicing? For the interview?”
I should have stayed in the bathroom longer. Joe’s been writing out these notecards with lines that he thinks will make my dad sound good. He wants me to memorize them without seeming too rehearsed. Papi looks at me wide-eyed with his mouth half-open, the same way Ricky looks when he’s playing video games, like he’s expecting something spectacular. Mami sighs and says, “Go on, hijita.”
I feel every muscle from my stomach to my toes tense, and I take a deep breath.
“I know my father will make a good president because . . .” I pause. It’s hard for me to get the words out. They’ve been shoved down my throat for so long now, saying them feels like regurgitating. Even worse, Joe thinks I’ve paused because he taught me to. Said it makes me appear more genuine, like the thoughts are just occurring to me. “Because he’s my hero and he’s never let me down.”
My parents look like they’re about to cry. I feel like I might too. It’s not that that the words are a lie, it’s just that, who even talks like that? When Joe originally asked me the question, I answered, because Papi works super hard. Like, night and day, he’s working his butt off. And yeah, I know that’s not exactly presidential daughter material, but it could’ve been finessed. Joe didn’t even bother. He didn’t even butcher what I said. More like he took an order for ham and offered up sliced cheese. And now I’ll be humiliated in front of 2.5 million people. That’s the show’s viewership, one of the highest, if you ask Joe. Or even if you don’t. He’ll still brag about it to anyone who’ll listen.
“That’s excellent. Excellent,” Joe says. “Just don’t be afraid to be yourself, okay? Just act natural.”
He’s always saying that. Joe talks like we’re close friends, when in reality he barely knows me. He just thinks he does.
We shoot footage for another hour and a half. If this shoot and the interview go well, Papi and his staff plan on launching a livestream of his campaign. There’ll be cameras everywhere he goes, which means everywhere we go when he’s with us. I can’t imagine anything worse. Our lives are being turned into a cheap presidential election version of The Bachelor. Would Jackie start writing
about me then, too, with so much fresh material to pick through? I pull out my phone and hit decline on her request. Whatever it is she wants with me, it can’t be good.
Joe scribbles another line on a pink notecard and hands it to me. It’s about how much Papi loves Miami—real subtle. I fold the notecard in half, then into quarters and eighths until it’s a tiny wad so thick it won’t bend any further. Papi glances at my hand, but I hide the paper in my palm before he can see what I’ve done to it.
“You’ll be perfect,” he says.
Perfect. No pressure or anything. Just perfect.
two
My father has been a politician for as long as I can remember. It’s not something I ever had to get used to. It just was.
When I was in kindergarten, Papi led my whole class on a field trip to Parrot Paradise. It was just a few blocks down Old Cutler, so the teachers got a long rope and had each of us hold on to it as we walked down the street, which was lined with so many trees, their roots cracked open the sidewalks.
“Look up, Mari. You’ll miss everything,” he told me. He stopped at a crossroad and everyone stopped behind him. He turned his head left, right, left, and we followed. Mami was all the way at the back, walking next to my teacher, who kept reminding us not to let go of the rope.
When we got to the park, the first thing I saw was a man in a khaki uniform wearing thick black gloves, and a bright red parrot, the size of a blender, sitting on his shoulder. Her name was Giselle, and her feet looked like they were made of dried leather and bubble wrap. The man let us each take a picture with her on our heads, but when it got to be my turn, Giselle’s nails dug into my skull so hard, I couldn’t tell if the drops on my forehead were sweat or blood. I was terrified I might cry and humiliate myself in front of the whole class, humiliate my father. But he came over and placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’m right here with you. I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said. “See? Everything’s fine.”
The next Sunday, the picture was published in the lifestyle section of the local paper with the caption: BIG BIRD: COUNCILMAN ANTHONY RUIZ AND HIS DAUGHTER, MARIANA, SHARE A SPECIAL MOMENT WITH THEIR NEW FEATHERED FRIEND. In the picture, I’m grimacing and my shoulders are scrunched up all the way to my ears, but Papi holds me, looking proud. I’d thought we were taking a family photo. Somehow it got sent to the press.
On weekends we’d go door-to-door with Abuelo and Abuela to hand out Papi’s pamphlets. While my father talked to voters, I’d play tag with the neighborhood kids. After my brother was born, I’d help Mami watch after him. I’d change his diaper if she was in the middle of a conversation with someone. I’d carry him in my arms when she needed a break and he’d cry if we put him in his stroller. By the time Ricky learned to walk, we realized people loved seeing us holding hands down the sidewalks. The adults would call us darling, or precious, or model children.
Weekend rallies were like huge family get-togethers. There were the six of us, plus a bunch of people I didn’t really know but felt like I should know, or had to pretend to know, because they’d say things like they’d last seen me at my father’s very first election, and did I remember them? I’d nod and smile even though at my dad’s first election I was like two.
When Papi was done speaking, he would play with us—catch or soccer—and of course, we danced. He’d salsa with Mami first, and then the two of them would bring out my brother and me. Papi knew all the best spins, and he always joked that I was his favorite dance partner because I just went whichever way he turned me. He said letting someone lead requires trust. We’d hold hands and he’d bring his arm over my head, across my back, over my chest, until he’d tangled us into a knot I knew he’d get us out of. Papi’s confidence when we danced was on another level. There was a lightness to it, a spontaneity I never saw anytime else. It’s not that he wasn’t sure of himself when he spoke to constituents or did interviews—on the contrary. But that version of him was always measured, always planned far in advance. For two or three minutes at a time, when the music kicked in, I got to hang out with just him, no matter how many strangers were watching.
Weekdays were different. We never ate out and Mami cooked every meal and we’d eat at the round kitchen table in the apartment while she set aside two plates to reheat when Papi finally got home. On the days he got off work before dinner, we went on bike rides together, down the same road that led to Parrot Paradise. Somehow it wasn’t as exciting. There were no crowds or cameras watching. Everything just felt better when we were in a big group. Whenever it was just the four of us, it felt like something was missing.
The years when my father was a county commissioner and then a Florida legislator are honestly kind of a blur. Like a long road trip, how when you finally arrive you can’t pick apart exactly how you got there. What I do remember vividly is the day he told us he was going to run for the US Senate. I was eleven and Ricky had just turned four. Papi told us to sit on the couch, the beige one in the new house we’d moved into just months before. He stood in the center of the rug in front of us and clapped once.
“Tonio, espera. Help me in the kitchen first,” Mami said. Ricky and I sat waiting, marveling at how the couch seats were so deep, our feet just bobbed over the edge of the cushion.
My parents came out of the kitchen holding two bread bags full of end slices. They told us to tear them into little pieces, and we got into the car. On the way to the park by the canal, Mami said, “You know how Papi’s been working really hard to make Miami a better place for people to live?”
We smiled and nodded. I didn’t understand much about his job, but I knew enough to know that he helped a lot of people, and that’s why so many of them liked him. People were constantly telling me how I must be so proud of my father, and I was.
“Well . . .” Mami reminded me of soft-serve ice cream, the way she was sitting in the front seat, twisting around to look at us. She leaned her head toward my father.
“Well, I’m going to try to help even more people now.” he said. “I’m going to run for the US Senate. Which means I’d represent all of Florida.”
“Cool!” Ricky said. “All of it?”
“The whole thing,” Mami said.
“Even the tippy-top?”
“Yes, papito. Even the panhandle.” Papi laughed and glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “What do you think, Mari? Do I get your vote?”
I’d been busy looking at the crumbs in our bags, trying to guess how many ducks we could feed. “Always,” I said.
He stopped at a red light and looked right at me. “This is a really big deal for me.” Maybe he didn’t think I was excited enough, or fully understood. “I’d represent our whole state. In Washington, DC.”
“We’re moving?” Ricky asked.
“No. I would just work there. And here, too, sometimes. It’s exactly like when I go to Tallahassee.”
“So you’re moving? Out of Florida?” I said.
“You know that where I work and where I live are two different things, Mari. This will always be home. And I’ll visit every week.”
“You’d visit Washington?”
“He’d visit home, sweetie,” Mami said.
I didn’t understand. I thought visiting a place meant going somewhere that’s not home. But we’d gotten to the park, to the edge of the canal, and by then the conversation seemed over. Papi filled each of our hands with breadcrumbs and we took turns sprinkling them into the water, waiting for the ducks to come, one by one, to peck at the pieces before they got soggy and sank. My brother tossed in his entire fistful, and out of nowhere, the ducks swarmed us. It made Ricky laugh about as loud as the ducks were quacking. Maybe that’s why my parents thought I wouldn’t hear them as they stepped away from the water’s edge.
“I’m scared we’re losing sight of the things we stand for,” Mami said.
Their voices grew lower, but even though I could only make out Papi’s every few words, I’d heard some version of them enough times to fill in the b
lanks. “I’m just trying to make this a better world for all of us. For all the families that started out like we did, with nothing.”
“We never had nothing,” Mami said, raising her voice. “We had each other.” Ricky turned around.
My father smiled like nothing had happened and rejoined us. “How’s it going? Where’d the ducks go?”
The ducks had lost interest a while ago when we ran out of crumbs, but we hadn’t wanted our parents to know. Instead, we watched the sunset ripple over the water’s surface as the ducks swam farther and farther away.
three
We’re spending fourth period in the library because the guidance counselors are preparing us to write our community service project proposals for next year. We sit at tables in the center of the room with rows of computers all around us. Even though they split the sophomore class into four groups to fit us in, it feels like everyone in the school is here. They’re all staring at me, but not like they did in the beginning of the year. Back then, I was the new girl whose father was running for president. Vivi would post clips from his speeches online, with little arrows pointing at me clapping and smiling. I’d walk down the hall and overhear students’ excited whispers. Nobody bothered covering their mouths or looking away because they weren’t saying anything bad. Now, though, they all do these subtle double-takes. I feel people’s stares wash over me the way a warm undercurrent brushes against your knees in the ocean. It leaves me with the same uneasy feeling of suspecting someone peed in the water.
This morning, all anyone can talk about is the op-ed Jackie Velez published in the school paper. She basically turned her tweet into a five-hundred-word manifesto about how Miamians represent the best of what our country has to offer. “Not a bubble, but a sea of diversity,” she wrote. “Our voices are a current, strong and unstoppable.”
Maybe it’s just like Joe had feared—people are blowing Papi’s one misspoken comment out of proportion. It hasn’t even been a week but the situation completely snowballed and spiraled out of control like some sort of viral tornado, he said. Which kind of made me wish he would calm the eff down, and maybe learn not to mix his metaphors while he’s at it.
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