Didier doesn’t bother looking for a spot on the first floor. He heads straight for the spiral-shaped driveway at the edge of the parking garage.
I spot a couple of empty spots and point them out, but he doesn’t slow down.
“You’ll see,” he says. “We always go to the top.”
When we get there, the lot is packed full of black and gray SUVs with dealership stickers on their windows. Didier parks in an empty spot by a yellow partition in the corner.
“This is the lot the dealership across the street uses . . . but look,” he says, nodding at the windshield with his eyes fixed on the sky. In the few minutes it’s taken us to get here, it’s turned bright orange. I get out of the car and feel a cool, strong breeze against my neck and shoulders, the kind you usually get when you’re closer to the beach. We’re higher up than I’d realized. When I look over the edge of the building I can see the terra cotta–tiled tops of houses in South Miami, the clumps of tall, lush trees I didn’t even notice were there, and bursts of palm trees everywhere. From this high up, the canal looks as calm as an empty street after the rain, curling through the backs of homes and under bridges.
“It’s so peaceful,” I say.
“My ex-boyfriend used to bring me here to watch the sunset,” Didier says. “It’s too pretty not to come back. Now I bring just the three of us.”
“And then Jackie and I cross the street to take the Metro home,” Crissy says.
I nod like this is the most natural thing in the world, like I wasn’t completely clueless about riding the Metro before the night I snuck away to Gloria’s apartment. Papi always talks about it like it’s too dangerous, but maybe like everything else he does, I see now it’s just another way of controlling me. I envy their independence, how easily they seem to get around town whenever they want.
“We should go look at the sound systems. I have to pick up my mom from work in an hour and a half,” Didier says.
When we turn and begin walking toward the elevator, I notice there’s one more car parked in the lot than there was before. It’s impossible to miss. A bright orange Subaru with the engine turned off and the tinted windows rolled up.
I squint as I walk closer, my breath accelerating with each step.
It can’t be. It has to be a coincidence.
Through the dark glass I see that the driver’s side looks empty. I hear Jackie and Crissy calling after me, asking what’s wrong, and I’m about to tell them it’s nothing when I notice someone stirring.
The driver’s side looks empty only because the seat is pulled all the way down.
Lying on his back, looking right at me and trying to stay perfectly still, is Joe.
thirty-one
“You had me followed?!” I scream so loud into the phone when Papi answers that my voice bounces off the concrete walls. I pace back and forth. The elevator arrives and the doors slide open, but Jackie, Crissy, and Didier stand with their arms crossed, staring down Joe in synch.
“Cálmate, Mari. Cálmate.”
Is he serious right now? Who in the history of the world has actually calmed down by being told to calm down?
“You sent Joe to spy on me. Do you know how creepy that is? Do you know how creepy he is? One time, he asked me if I had body piercings in places he couldn’t see.”
“Stop exaggerating, Mariana. You read too much into things,” he says. “You’re always being too sensitive.”
“And you’re never sensitive enough!”
He takes a deep breath. I don’t know if that means I’ve gotten through to him, or if he’s just preparing himself to berate me. I don’t wait to find out.
“You said you wanted people to respect our privacy, but you only care about yours. My privacy doesn’t count to you.”
“You’re fifteen, hija. You don’t get to make decisions about things you don’t understand.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I don’t understand.”
“That’s enough. I made a decision. I don’t have to defend it to you or your mother.”
I gasp. “Does Mami not know you did this?”
“I can’t talk anymore. I’m going into a meeting.”
“Does she know?” I ask again.
I’m not surprised when he hangs up without answering. Joe inches toward me with his hands tucked in his pockets.
I call back the elevator and signal to my friends.
“I’m taking you home,” he says.
“I’d like to see you try.” No sooner have the words left my mouth that Jackie, Didier, and Crissy gather around me. They don’t say a word and they don’t have to. We step inside the elevator and the doors slide closed with a loud, high-pitched chime, encasing us in glass. I keep my eye on Joe as we descend, and soon all I see is his torso, then his knees, then his worn brown leather shoes.
It’s Crissy who breaks the silence. “You okay? We can go somewhere else if you want.”
I shake my head. I wave my hand over my face and start pacing back and forth, three small steps at a time. They all press their bodies against the rail to give me space.
“He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. This is all a huge ego trip for him. It’s all about power, and staying in power, and no matter how many times he says it’s for the people, it’s only for one person—him. I feel like such an idiot.”
I dash out of the elevator the second the door opens and the three of them follow. I only know because I can hear their hurried steps keeping up.
“Get the hell away from her!” I hear Jackie say.
Joe’s riding toward us on the escalator, breathless.
“We’ll make a scene,” Didier says, holding up his phone. He shakes his head and pouts, sucking the air in through his lips. “Please make us make a scene. I’m begging you.”
Already, there are people stopping and staring. Joe slows down and reassesses the situation. He shakes his head at me and puts his arms up, revealing navy sweat stains on his baby blue shirt.
“You’re costing us everything, you know that?”
I hear my father speak through him, as if Joe just borrowed his words and his voice and threw them at me like spears. I actually stumble back a few steps, and Jackie grabs me by the shoulders and holds me.
“Don’t listen to him,” she says as he finally walks away. “He’s just trying to wear you down.”
If that’s true, it’s working. I’m tired of feeling like I’ve done nothing but fight and argue and plead for things. Like all I’ve really done is stand against a dam and keep it from bursting open, but that hasn’t stopped all the commotion from the other side from wearing me down.
“I keep making things worse,” I say.
“That’s not true,” Jackie says.
“I asked him about Irving. He said I’m making this a bigger deal than it is, and that you all are overreacting.”
“He’s totally gaslighting you, Mariana. He’s just trying to get into your head so you’re too busy doubting your own judgment to question his. So typically toxic.” The way Didier says toxic slices the air in half. Holy crap. This is literally what my father did on the phone just now, when he said I was being too sensitive.
We begin ambling toward the Best Buy. The entrance smells like BO and plastic. Someone in a blue shirt and khakis greets us as we walk past the receptacle for recycled printer cartridges and batteries.
Almost immediately, Didier and Crissy have flocked to the Nintendo display, and they each grab a controller and start a new game.
“We’ll catch up to you in five,” Crissy says.
Now it’s just Jackie and me, walking through the aisles full of sound systems. She grabs one of the mikes that’s next to a speaker. It has a cream-colored elastic cord that keeps it attached to the display, and when she blows into it, it makes no sound.
“How are we s’posed to test them if they’re not on?” She tries several more, and each time, I can tell she’s super disappointed.
“Can I ask you something?”
>
“Hmm.” She nods, not looking up as she reads the back of a box.
“You don’t ever get nervous. About speaking?”
“Well, yeah, but . . . not enough to stop me. Why? Do you?”
I half shrug, embarrassed to admit that it’s always made me freeze.
“But you were awesome just now. With Joe?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It totally is. You spoke up. You didn’t take shit from him.”
“But he’s only one guy. That doesn’t count. I mean, like, speaking in front of a crowd.”
“It’s not that different. A crowd is still made up of individuals. You have to imagine you’re reaching one person at a time.”
“You honestly don’t get nervous?”
She stops in the middle of the aisle, so abruptly I almost bump into her. “Of course I do, Mariana. But . . . how do I explain it? You have to use it. Nervousness is still energy. It can either stop you or it can push you.”
“You sound like Jamie,” I mumble, disappointed.
“Who’s Jamie?”
“No one. Just a friend of my dad’s.”
She crinkles her nose, deep in thought. “Maybe it’s more like, it’s about what you have to say. Like when you believe in something so much, it becomes a part of you. It’s constantly running through you. And when the moment comes, even though you’re scared, you kinda just find strength and trust that the words and ideas that flow through you will also flow out of you. Like water.”
“Like water,” I say.
She gives a satisfied nod and turns her attention back to the sound systems.
“This is all overpriced BS. You know what, fuck the mike,” she says. “We’ll just have to make a ton of noise.”
thirty-two
I don’t want to go home.
I’m in so much trouble it won’t make a difference if I get home in an hour or eight. I’ve ignored five calls from Papi and thirteen texts. Mami’s left six messages every time I sent her call to voicemail.
I don’t feel like listening to them while I’m still with my friends, so I take a quick look at the transcriptions of Mami’s voicemail.
It’s all gibberish. Random sentences like Mary Ana soul carry savor Kate stays vein. This is what happens when my mom leaves a message in Spanish and it gets transcribed phonetically to English. Nothing ever makes sense.
“Are you guys hungry?” I ask, by which I mean that I am.
I suggest the Pan-Asian café off to the side of the entrance. The hostess hands us a modified menu and tells us that if we’d like water, we’ll have to buy it bottled. We all ask for iced tea instead, but she responds that there’s no ice.
“Then can I get a sparkling water?” Crissy asks. “Fair warning: It makes me burp like crazy. I’m not responsible for whatever noises come out of my mouth next.”
Jackie, Didier, and I all lock eyes and start giggling. We’re all thinking the same thing. Crissy set herself up way too easily.
“Very funny,” Crissy says.
Jackie orders the pan-fried noodles while Didier gets the Lemongrass Chicken. I ask for the most expensive dish just so I can charge it on my parents’ credit card. Spoiled rich girl move, I know, but it’s the only one I’ve got right now.
“You’re not eating?” I ask Crissy.
She glosses over the menu and sets it aside. “My mom made arroz chaufa last night. Even her leftover fried rice is better than this stuff.”
“Oh. Well, you can have some of my mine if you change your mind.”
“I don’t get what your father thought he was going to accomplish by having you followed,” she says, ignoring my offer. “What did he think we were going to do? Steal shit? Kidnap you?”
“Or worse,” Didier says. “Turn you into a liberal.”
“He didn’t want me to come out with you guys, but my mom let me anyways.”
“Really?” Jackie asks.
“She hasn’t been acting like herself lately. Not that I’m complaining,” I say.
“Honestly, I used to think your mom was kind of a sellout, but now that I’ve met her, I don’t know. She looked nothing like the pictures and video I always see of her with your dad. Kind of the opposite. Maybe she still has a little bit of fire left in her.”
I always thought Mami’s public persona was a way of protecting us, so we could see our private lives and campaign lives as separate things. It never occurred to me she might’ve been protecting herself too. I change the subject and ask about the walkout on Friday. So far, none of them has asked me outright if I’ll be joining them, though I’m guessing it’s because they’re assuming I will.
Crissy pulls out her phone. “You haven’t checked our stories?”
“I’m not really supposed to be on Instagram,” I mumble.
Didier waves his hand in the air. “It’s nothing you don’t already know. Oh, and we were trending on Twitter today. And also twelve other schools in Miami agreed to walk out too.”
Oh, and also Jackie decided she’s running for president, he might as well have said. I’m missing everything because of my parents’ dumb rules.
The food comes too fast. Even before I take my first bite, I try to think of things we can do next.
“Do you guys want to go see a movie?”
They look completely uninterested. Didier reminds me that he has to pick up his mom soon.
“They’re just playing the same tired movies anyways,” Crissy says.
If Vivi were here, she would already be getting tickets for whatever rom-com or action movie was playing next. She loves going to the movies because she says they’re either awesomely good or epically terrible—the only ones that suck are the in-betweens. I wish she were here now. Things seemed simpler when she was still going to Grove High.
By the time we’re done eating, Jackie and Crissy have to run or they’ll miss their train. Jackie kisses me and Didier goodbye, but Crissy just smiles and grazes my cheek with hers. We watch them cross the street toward the Metro station.
“Do you think she’ll ever not hate me?” I ask.
“Who? Crissy? She’s getting there. Slowly. You haven’t noticed?”
We head back toward the parking garage and I step onto the escalator. “For what it’s worth, I wish my dad would do more to help people like her brother.”
“Yeah, but he won’t. He doesn’t feel the need to. It’s different when your community isn’t directly affected.” He puts both arms on the railings and lifts up his body, letting it sway over the escalator steps.
“He’s a son of immigrants. He does care.”
“Yeah, but . . . when his parents came over from Cuba, they got their green cards fast because they were political exiles, because of Castro. And even up until a few years ago, Cuban refugees who touched land got to stay. Nobody did that for Haitians. We had dictators and coups too. We got on boats and risked drowning, and we still got sent back.”
“You did?”
“Not me literally, Mari. I was born here. But . . . how do I put this?” He brings his fingers to his lips and squeezes. “You ever notice in your dad’s speeches, how he only says ‘exiles’ when he’s talking about your family, but ‘immigrants’ when he’s talking about refugees from Honduras or Haiti or Mexico?”
I step off the top of the escalator, embarrassed to admit I’d never paid attention.
“Crissy just hates that he doesn’t use his privilege to help others. And I’m not saying I wish Cubans had it as hard as Haitians do . . . I just wish we could’ve all gotten the same opportunities. But you know, now it’s just a shitshow for everyone. So maybe your dad will come around one day. Or maybe not. Who knows.”
We walk across the parking lot with just the sound of Didier’s keys clinking in his hands. It’s only now that I realize we’ve never hung out alone together. It’s always been him and Jackie and Crissy, the way that Zoey and I were never together without Vivi.
Crap. Zoey. I forgot that she texted
me to ask if I’d go to the pet store with her.
“Where am I dropping you off?” Didier says. “I have a feeling not at your house.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Kinda. Just make it someplace close. I only have like fifteen minutes.”
“Where does your mom work?”
“At Publix. She’s a floor manager there,” he says, nodding in the direction of US 1.
“Oh my god. I know where you can take me.”
Didier doesn’t ask whose apartment it is when we pull up to Gloria and Amarys’s a few minutes later. He simply puts the car in park and leans in close to the steering wheel to get a better look at the second floor.
I thank him for the ride and he fist-bumps me. “I’d say anytime but . . . it’s probably the last time I’ll have the car in a while.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mom flipped when she found out I’m skipping class for the walkout. She said if I still do it, I may as well kiss using her car goodbye.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you shared it.”
He nods. “As long as I keep my grades up. Not like I ever haven’t. If I get so much as a B she starts threatening to ship me to Haiti. You know how it is. When your parents sacrificed everything to come here, the least you can do is make it worth it.”
I’d never thought of it like that, but hearing Didier say it out loud, it feels true. I used to think Mami and Papi were trying to make me feel guilty whenever they brought up all the things my grandparents left behind in Cuba when they emigrated. But what if they were trying to repay their parents somehow? What could be more overachieving than becoming president and first lady of the United States?
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