Meanwhile, that whole time, Joe was looking for me. All by himself. Like he had any idea where to start. But he’d been warned to keep it on the down low, and under no circumstances could he involve the cops unless it became necessary.
So Joe went to my school, which was closed except for the gym for a basketball game. He checked the South Miami library and the park where my father first told us he was going to be a senator. He came back to the house, went into my bedroom, texted Papi for the password on my laptop and FaceTimed Vivi, who told him she hadn’t even been to school in two days, and then he called everyone in my history from the last two weeks, even random kids who aren’t my friends at all, but who I’m doing a group project with in biology. Joe swears it’s one of those nosy little jerks who opened their big mouth to the press.
“I’d bet anyone a million dollars it’s Dania,” I tell Gloria when Joe leaves to use the restroom. “Her mom works for Channel 7. And Dania hates me. Last week she told me there’s no way her dad’s voting for mine because he’s ‘morally bankrupt.’ What does that even mean?” I don’t know how to say ‘morally bankrupt’ in Spanish, so I say it in English instead.
Gloria shrugs and says, “No sé, nena. ¿Bancarotta? ¿De morales?” She turns away from me to wash her hands at the sink, but I see her reflection in the window right above it.
“Gloria?”
“Hmm?” She still won’t look at me.
“I really liked meeting Amarys.”
“She really liked meeting you too.”
“Did I . . . did I get you guys in trouble?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“There were a lot of cameras outside your apartment when Joe and I left.”
“Yeah. But they’ll get over it. They’ll move on to some bigger story soon. Ya verás.”
“Did they ask your names?”
She sighs real quick and turns around. “No te preocupes. Amarys didn’t open the door. They went away eventually.”
“Pero ¿y mi papá?” I’m careful with how I ask because I’m afraid I’ll sound just like him. “Did he know about you two?” I hate how it comes out. Know about you two, like there’s something wrong with them.
“He never asked, so I never told him. Of course, Amarys didn’t want me working for him, you know?”
I nod, remembering what my father used to say before gay marriage became legal, that marriage was a holy thing between a man and a woman. He hasn’t talked about it in years, but there it is. Of course, Gloria would hide it; he’s always saying he doesn’t care what people do with their lives so long as they don’t do it in front of him. Looking at Gloria, the way she leans back into the counter with her elbows jutting out casually, pretending that all these years, it has been no big deal to live and work here, I feel the part of me that has always made excuses for him begin to sink into a pool of shame. Not caring isn’t the same as supporting someone. Not seeing is the opposite of accepting them.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no, no . . . none of this is your fault. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I’ve made everything worse.”
“You dared to be honest,” she says slowly, “and it only feels like you made things worse because you’ve made it harder for others to keep telling lies.” Her lips press together and her face turns red. “And anyway, you’ll see. This will all be forgotten before you know it. Como si nada.” She snaps her fingers and giggles, but I’m not convinced.
“Will you and Amarys be okay?”
“Yes. Eso sí lo sé,” she says, nodding. She looks like she’s about to say something else, but just then Joe comes back into the kitchen.
“Vámonos,” he says. I don’t appreciate his mocking accent and tone. Gloria presses her lips together and raises her eyebrows at me as she hikes up her purse. I wonder if she wishes she could say something to him, but worries like I do it’d make things worse. We decide to stay quiet, but it doesn’t sit well with me. It feels like we have no other choice.
fourteen
On Sunday, I call to check in on Vivi. Abuelo gave me back my phone and said Mami told him it’s for emergencies only, but the situation with Vivi is urgent. Her mom still hasn’t gotten back the keys to their house, and she’s worried soon it won’t even be theirs.
“It’s already up for sale. My dad says they’re staging it. He hired a realtor and everything.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means we have to get out so it looks like other people could live there. My mom and I are moving here, as soon as we can get all our stuff.”
“To your aunt’s? In Miami Beach? But that’s super far.” It’s at least a forty-five-minute drive from the beach to Grove High. “How will you get to school?”
“You’re not getting it, Mari.” She pauses as if she’s waiting for it to sink in. “I’m transferring.”
“What? Starting when?”
“Monday.”
“But why—why so fast? Why not wait till you find a place closer?”
“I’m not sure we’ll be able to. It’s the worst, Mari. Everyone talks like living on the beach is paradise, but my life is literally shit right now. Some sewage pipe burst in the ocean the other day, and now you can’t even go in the water, and the second you get on the sand, it smells like caca everywhere.”
“Oh my god.”
“I know. My aunt says at least now we can help her take care of my grandmother, but we’re all apretadas. My mom’s sleeping in my aunt’s room and I’m on the couch but the living room is stuffed full of cases of bottled water because my aunt thinks our drinking water’s contaminated.”
“She’s probably just being paranoid, Vi.”
“I don’t know. I just wish I could get out of here. My mom’s running errands by your house. Is it okay if she drops me off?”
“I say hell yes, but let me check with my abuelo real quick and I’ll text you.”
He looks at me puzzled when I ask, a hint of mischief in his smile. “Well . . . your parents said you’re not allowed to go over to friends’ houses. Y bueno . . .” He shrugs innocently. I give him the biggest hug and text Vivi.
Get your butt over here!
* * *
The first thing Vivi wants to do is lie out in the backyard to tan. She says she’s hardly seen the sun in a week because it’s been raining nearly nonstop on the beach.
“Not that anyone can get on the beach by my aunt’s anyways. They’re closing it off so they can plug the sewage leak,” she says as she rubs tanning oil onto her shoulders. “Okay so yesterday, right? The garage in my aunt’s building started flooding. Like, the whole first level below ground. She says it gets like that every full moon. The ocean tide rises so high they have to park their cars up higher. So by this morning, it’s all full of water, which is all full of . . . grossness.” She fake gags and it makes me shudder. “And then my mom and I got in this huge fight, because I can’t believe she’s really okay with me and Abuela and my aunt living like that. And then she was like, if you hate it so much, why don’t you go live with your father? And that’s basically why she agreed to let me come over, she said she couldn’t deal with me right now.”
“Wait . . . how’d you get out of the garage if it was flooded?”
“I told you. It floods every full moon. So my aunt told Mom to park her car two blocks down last night.”
“The builders never planned for that?”
“Mari, you’re not getting it. The buildings are like, decades old. It didn’t always flood. It’s because of climate change,” Vivi says. “And we’re all living in a shithole because of it.”
It’s like in those articles I read about the Everglades, though I have a feeling it’s more complicated than that. There’s no way the city would just let something like this happen. If things were really that bad, wouldn’t the story be all over the news? Wouldn’t Papi be working with the government to fix it?
“It’ll get better,” I tell her. “It ha
s to.”
We grow quiet and lay in the grass with the sun on our faces. No one is outside today, not even our neighbors across the canal, though for a second I think I see a curtain shift.
The grass pokes through my towel and itches my back, but it’s still better than lying on the pool deck because the mismatched bricks file your skin down to bone when you press against them.
“I hope my shoulders burn,” Vivi says. “Not like a bad burn, but just enough to get rid of these tan lines.” I nod like I agree, even though I barely have any tan lines. Vivi’s skin is a much darker bronze than mine; the lighter tint of her palms is the same color as my stomach. She undoes her straps and tucks them under her armpits. You can see the sides of her boobs peeking out, squished like a melted marshmallow between two graham crackers. They’re so much paler than the rest of her, they make me feel like I shouldn’t be seeing them. I flip over and undo my top, too, and wonder if mine look similar.
“Look what Jorge posted,” Vivi says, holding her phone close to my face. Jorge is Vivi’s ex, though Zoey and I both know it’s more complicated than that. They had an ugly breakup at the beginning of the year, but then they hooked up on the bus ride to Key West during our class field trip to the Hemingway House, and ever since, they haven’t gotten back together so much as they get together. A lot. The thing is, Jorge’s only into Vivi when it’s convenient for him, when he has no other girls all over him. I’ve told her this a million times, but she insists it’s no big deal, that the sex is good and the arrangement is mutual, even though I don’t see him hearting all her updates within minutes of her sharing them.
The video is of Jorge at South Pointe, rushing the pier from several feet and jumping over it like it’s an Olympic hurdle. He clears it but nicks his foot against the wood, and everyone ooohs and laughs right before you hear the splash.
“Oof. That sounded painful,” I say.
“He’s such an idiot,” Vivi says. The camera zooms in on the water just in time to see his face pop out, his hair glistening and black. “But a super cute one. I’ll miss his stupid face.” She flips over and switches her camera to selfie mode. Both our heads are in the frame, silhouetted against the summer heat.
“Vivi . . .”
“Sorry, sorry, I forgot.” With the slightest tilt of her wrist, I disappear from view. Her head blocks the sun behind her, so now she’s bright and in focus. Even though I look away, I know she’s using the kitty filter by the noises she’s making. When she smiles, she giggles and it comes out sounding like a mix between a meow and a purr.
“Hey, Mari?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll miss your stupid face too. But you already knew that.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll miss yours . . . eventually.”
Vivi smiles and puts her phone back in her bag and begins rummaging through her things. It’s nearly three o’clock. Inside the house, Abuelo has probably dozed off on the couch watching the Heat play. In a few minutes, the cable news networks will switch to a live feed of my parents in Arizona for Papi’s speech. I’m sure Ricky is propped on their bed, waiting—seeing them on TV has not gotten old for him yet. I know I’m supposed to be grounded, but it doesn’t feel as though I am right now. It’s nice just to be in this moment. There’s no telling what school will bring for Vivi and me on Monday, so there’s no point in talking about it. She’s the only person in the world who makes me feel comfortable in silence.
Eventually I get sleepy. A breeze comes by in lazy waves, and beetles and lizards scurry past us. Everything is fine until a buzzing noise comes over us. I flip onto my side, holding my bathing suit top against my chest, and come up on my knees to see what all the commotion is about.
There, two or three stories above us, a small drone hovers in the air, sounding like a loud, angry hummingbird.
It takes me a moment to register because of how it floats side to side. But when I finally get a good look, I realize I’m staring straight at a camera, straight into the lens.
fifteen
At first I freeze. I can hardly breathe, let alone move, but thank god for Vivi. She grabs her towel and starts swatting the drone away. It’s a good fifty feet above us but she jumps up and down like it’ll make a difference, cursing at it to go away.
“Comemierda. ¡Vete p’al carajo!”
“Nosy piece of crap!” I add, still blinded and dazed from the sun.
All this does is make the drone zoom in closer. With my one free hand I grab my towel and swing it at it, swapping it away like it’s a mosquito out for blood, but it hovers just beyond my reach, eerily still and focused. I give it one more try, flinging my towel so hard it escapes my grasp and falls into the pool with a splash. Drops of water land on my feet and calves, and a sudden rush of cold travels against my skin.
My skin. “Vivivivivivi!!!!”
Vivi’s on me, towel and arms wrapped around my shoulders, so fast I nearly stumble into the pool.
“Just run. Go, go, go,” she says, over and over as we make our way across the yard and into the bathroom at the back of the house. It’s dark and dank and it smells like chlorine, because no one ever uses this bathroom unless they’re coming in from the pool.
“What the hell was that?” Through the door, I can hear the drone is still out there, and it makes me wish I’d thrown a rock instead of a towel—just one perfect, forceful blow to its pathetic plastic mechanisms.
“Oh my god, Mari. You okay?” Vivi asks.
I nod because I’m breathing so hard I almost choke on my own spit. My hands won’t stop shaking and every hair on my body feels stiff, cold, and exposed.
“They can’t just . . . fly over my house and take pictures, can they? How is that even legal?” I want to scream but I’m scared I’ll wake up Abuelo.
“I know. It’s bullshit. Your dad should—”
“My dad’s not going to do anything but blame me. I can just hear my parents now. You should’ve covered up more, Mari. You need to be more responsible. But here, put on some more makeup for this TV show.”
“They can’t possibly put this on you. We’re the victims here.”
Only then do I realize I’m still holding the two triangles of my bathing suit top against my chest with my forearm, pressing so hard my ribs hurt.
“I just wanted one afternoon. One hour left alone.”
“I doubt it’s that bad,” Vivi whispers. “It’s probably just some kid who doesn’t even know how to use that thing. I bet he doesn’t know who you are.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
* * *
It takes sixteen hours and thirty-seven minutes. The next morning, I’m on my way to school in Joe’s Subaru when his phone, which is mounted onto the a/c vent, dings and lights up with a Google alert. I can only see the first few words of the subject line, which reads Senator Anthony Ruiz’s daughter caught.
Joe’s eyes dart between the road and the screen. Mami’s warned him about texting and driving when we’re in the car with him, so he looks like he’s having a mild panic attack.
“Can you just read it to me? The code’s oh-six-oh-three-nineteen.”
The day my father announced he was running for president. Wow. This campaign really is his whole life. I can’t decide if that’s nice or sad. Probably tragic, considering what the notification says.
I read it to myself first. It’s not from one of the major news networks—it’s from a celebrity gossip blog, the kind that doesn’t even pretend to be real journalism. But still. They have pictures. “In the near-nude,” is how they describe me. They say it looks like I’m “recovering just fine” after missing my father’s interview on Friday. The fifteen-year-old, who was supposedly feeling under the weather, just needed to get a little sun.
They don’t share the whole video, just several still images.
The first is of me and Vivi lying on our stomachs in my yard. Our backs are completely bare, and it looks like we don’t have tops on, because the untied strings b
lend into our beach towels.
The second is of me getting up. I’m on one knee, my back still to the camera, but my face is turned enough to identify me. I look older. For the first time in my life, I think I look like Mami. Our noses and shoulders curve the same way.
I keep scrolling until I get to the third image. The air catches inside of me, hard as an ice cube slowly pushing its way through my chest. There are pixels—so many pixels—across my torso. In that flesh-colored blurry blob, everything is lost. You can’t see my bathing suit top. You can’t see my hands trying to cover up. It looks like I’m not wearing anything at all.
What’s clear is my other arm, waving in the air, right at the camera. And my face. Oh my god. My face.
As every tiny muscle contorted itself into a look of horror, they captured the one millisecond when it looks like I’m smiling. I was grimacing. I was shocked. The sun was in my eyes, but none of that is the story these blogs will tell.
Here is the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Florida Senator running for president, waving and smiling at the camera in the near nude. Wanting the attention, welcoming it. It’s clear as daylight, but it’s a lie.
The notifications on Joe’s phone start going off again.
“What? What is it?!”
I can’t bring myself to tell him. I put the phone face-down on my thigh, shaking my head no.
“It’s nothing,” I croak. My face is burning, my throat still frozen. I feel everything and nothing. Shame and numbness. Rage and sorrow.
“What do you mean, nothing?” For the second time this week, Joe bombards me with questions I don’t answer. The car begins to slow as he makes his way into the drop-off line at the front of my school.
Running Page 10
