Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  2

  Pen

  Cocoa powder

  Cinnamon

  Condensed milk

  Whipping cream

  Strawberries

  Blood

  ONE DROP FALLS ON the strawberries I’m slicing up, another trying to fold itself into the whipping cream. I’m not sure where I heard that getting blood in the pancake batter is bad luck, but I know it’s an omen the moment I see it.

  I reach for the dishrag hanging over the sink, still soapy. Then I toss out the batter, starting from scratch with my one good hand.

  “Did you cut yourself?” My little brother, Hugo, comes to stand next to me, tugging on the towel.

  “It’s just a scratch,” I say, pulling away.

  He grabs my elbow instead, and that’s when I realize the loud thumping sound isn’t my pulse but the whisk against the side of the bowl.

  “Are you okay?” He cocks an eyebrow the way our father does, nose wrinkled as if he’s trying to sniff out the truth.

  But I don’t tell the truth these days, so I just shrug and say, “Fine.”

  “Pen, can’t we just have Froot Loops?” My little sister, Lola, has her head in her hands. “Please?”

  “I’m sorry, but did you just say you’d rather have Froot Loops?”

  She whines, still clutching her chubby cheeks. “Everything you make takes too long.”

  I move back to flip the cakes on the griddle. “Maybe because what I make is real food and not from a box.”

  “But I don’t want that.” Her bare feet slap the legs of her chair. “I want Froot Loops.”

  I grip the sides of the counter before taking a few deep breaths. Then I wave over my shoulder. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”

  The room goes quiet, the only sound the sizzle of the batter as I pour the rest onto the griddle.

  “Did you just say what I think you said?” Hugo asks.

  “What?” I glance back at them. “Yeah. She can have whatever she wants.”

  Lola jumps down from her chair and rushes over to the pantry, keeping one eye on me as she reaches for the box of cereal. She hugs it to her chest, taking slow steps around the kitchen as she grabs the milk and a bowl. She’s still staring at me as she begins to pour, slowly at first, testing me. When I don’t say a word, she pours the entire box into her bowl and smiles.

  I lean over her. “And you better eat every last bite.”

  When the pancakes are finished, I wrap them up and carry them over to our neighbor, Mrs. Nguyen, with Lola and Hugo following behind me. Her son, Sang, has worked at the restaurant almost as long as I have. He’s saving up to transfer to some fancy university, and as a thanks for hiring him, Mrs. Nguyen watches Lola and Hugo on Saturday mornings when both of my parents are at the restaurant. And when I’m supposed to be at the community college.

  I’ve been watching them for the past few weeks, but now that winter break is over, it’s time for things to go back to normal, which as far as my parents are concerned means that I’ll be attending labs every Saturday morning—something they believe I’ve been doing since the start of the fall semester.

  But today’s a new day. A fresh start.

  Who knows? Maybe this time I’ll actually make it inside the building.

  “Pen, what have you got for me today?” Mrs. Nguyen is already sitting on her porch, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.

  “Pancakes.”

  “The ones with chocolate and strawberries?” she asks.

  I nod and she takes them, already peeling back the foil so she can tear off a bite.

  “I just love these.” She pats my hand. “Have you convinced your father to start selling them at the restaurant yet?”

  “Thanks. And not yet.”

  Compliments usually make me uncomfortable—I’d rather watch the way my food makes people feel—but Mrs. Nguyen has been my official taste tester since I was in elementary school. In fact, she was my first customer, spending twenty bucks on pralines every time I opened up a lemonade stand. At eighteen years old, I’ve finally come to accept her enthusiasm. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm hasn’t quite rubbed off on my father. He’s let me tweak the menu at the restaurant, but when it comes to my desire to take over the place, or even to open up one of my own, he hasn’t exactly been supportive.

  “You tell him he’s losing a fortune,” she says.

  I shrug my backpack onto the opposite shoulder, letting the weight of all those unopened textbooks drag me to the car. “Thank you for watching Lola and Hugo today. I better get going, you know… to class.”

  “Oh yes, yes, Em. Have a nice day.”

  The parking lot hasn’t changed; the science building looks the same as it did that first day of school five months ago. But as I sit in my car, watching girls I met during orientation skip up the steps, excited to play nurse, I try to convince myself that something inside me has changed. That today I’ll actually go inside. That today I’ll stop lying and be the person they want me to be.

  Class starts in approximately seven minutes—the class I should have taken and passed last semester, moving me one step closer to a degree in nursing.

  Six minutes.

  I sit in the parking lot, watching the clock tick down. The car is in park, but I can’t bring myself to turn off the engine.

  What’s the point?

  I turn off the car, reminding myself how much I’ve already spent on tuition and books.

  You’re a failure, Pen. A liar. A waste.

  I reach for my bag, trying to stuff down the voice, begging myself to get. Out. Of. The. Car.

  It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late.

  And then I can’t breathe.

  My mother’s shoes.

  All I can think about are my mother’s shoes.

  How they’ve sat in the same spot by the door for almost twenty years. Scuffed and cracked, the shadow of her foot pressed to the leather even when the laces are loose. I imagine every hallway they’ve ever walked down, every mess they’ve ever stepped in, every second they’ve held her up when all she wanted was to collapse. Because one of her patients couldn’t remember her face or their daughter’s name or how to speak.

  When she lost one, I’d wake to the knock of the rolling pin and the smell of dough warming on the comal. Sometimes I’d try to take the pin from her, but I think there was something about the rhythm that reminded her how to breathe. We’d work in silence. Three dozen tortillas later, she’d wrap them in foil and drive them to the family that only visited once a month. That would accept my mother’s food without acknowledging she was more family to the deceased than they were.

  And then the next day, she would go back to work.

  For almost twenty years. She went back.

  If I step out of this car, if I walk up those steps, if I sit at that desk and pretend… how long will I be sitting there before I realize I’m trapped?

  I stare down at my hands gripping the steering wheel, following where the sunlight lands against my forearms. I trace the lines, remembering all of the times I tried to cut through invisible binds before. All of the times it only summoned new demons instead of snuffing out the old ones. I feel that familiar itch to climb out of my skin. Instead, I imagine myself in a cocoon, tugging it tight around me, trying to ground myself in the here and now.

  I list what I had for breakfast.

  I whisper the ingredients for my signature coconut cake.

  I take a deep breath, the scents of a thousand shifts at the restaurant tucked into the fabric of the front seat. I start listing them too: mango and cilantro and epazote, tomatillos and roasted pepitas and tortillas.

  The truth is, I can’t sleep without those smells tangled in my hair.

  So I have to decide what’s scarier: living a life that doesn’t belong to me, or losing the one I love. If the truth breaks my father’s heart, I know he’ll take it from me. But if it doesn’t, if he understands, if I can make him understand, I can be free.

&n
bsp; I weigh each option, simmering in the anxiety they provoke, in the hope. Because I have to do what scares me. Because, somehow, stepping into my fears is the only remedy I’ve found to ward off that feeling of helplessness. To stay in control. I always have to be in control.

  Which means that today is not the day I go inside.

  My stomach drops, my hand reaching to put the car in drive again.

  Today is the day I tell them the truth.

  My shift at the restaurant doesn’t start until five, but I know my parents will both be in the back having their monthly expenses meeting. Probably not the best time to disturb them, but it’s rare for them to be in the same place at the same time. My dad is always at the restaurant, and my mom works nights at the nursing home.

  When I walk inside, the place is just starting to pick up, tables topped with textbooks and mugs of Mexican coffee. After a long night of partying, the college students at the University of Texas drag themselves here in droves.

  On Thursdays, they come here for the best palomas in town, thanks to my substitution of Jamaican tangelos and blood limes for the traditional grapefruit. And on Fridays, they come for half-price pork carnitas, legendary thanks to my addition of sweetened condensed milk, which caramelizes the meat with a sweet coating.

  All I have to do is think about the flavors, and I taste them on my tongue. But beneath the salt of grease and gristle, I can also taste the lie. The one I’ve been telling for five months. To my parents. To Angel. And I can taste the truth. The truth I’m about to tell, whether my family likes it or not.

  But telling them where I’ve been will be the easy part. Telling my father why will be almost impossible. I already know what he’ll say. That I’m supposed to be the one. Not Angel. Not him or my mother. I’m supposed to be the one untethered. Free. Because that’s what he’s always wanted. For himself—and when it didn’t happen—for me.

  And now you’re going to break his heart.

  The voice inside my head pins me to the doorway. I don’t want to disappoint him or make him feel like a failure. But isn’t that what I’ll be if I don’t fight for what I want? If I don’t tell him the truth? Unless… telling the truth will unravel everything. What if he hates me? What if this is the last time I walk through these doors? The last time I come home…

  And what if, untethered from the one thing that matters to me most, I start to spiral again? What if I can’t stop it this time?

  Hammered into the doorframe next to the entrance is an old prayer card, the guardian angel’s mint green gown faded from where it’s been brushed by countless fingertips. She’s supposed to be on a bridge, sheltering two children as they pass in the middle of a storm. Crossing this threshold feels just as dangerous, and I graze what’s left of the image, hoping some good luck rubs off on me. Praying for safe passage. For strength.

  I told you. It’s too late.

  “Pen!” Chloe’s long blond ponytail whips around the corner. “Are you okay? I thought your shift didn’t start until five.”

  “Oh.” I blink, the room coming into focus again. “Yeah. It doesn’t.…”

  “Well…?”

  “Well…”

  I scan the restaurant, looking for my parents or Angel. My father just made him manager, despite the fact that he’s a total flake. Despite the fact that I wanted the job and could have done it better.

  “Well, what are you doing here?”

  “Have you seen my parents?”

  Chloe freezes. “Wait, aren’t you supposed to be in class right now?” She lowers her voice, pulling me out of the breezeway. “Pen… are you actually going to tell them?”

  Chloe isn’t just the only person who knows about the voice in my head. She’s also the only person who knows all of the things it’s made me do. Like skipping out on an entire semester’s worth of classes and then lying about it.

  A long breath stutters out. “It’s time.”

  “Pen…” She shakes her head. “What if you try again tomorrow? Double up on classes in the summer to make up for all that lost time. You can do this.”

  “I won’t.” Being firm with Chloe is my first test. Because I haven’t just decided to stop lying to my parents, I’ve decided to stop lying to myself too.

  “Have you thought about this? I mean, really thought it through?”

  “What do you mean?” She’s making me nervous. “Of course I’ve thought it through. Dad’s always said that I’m the smart one, the responsible one. But then last week he suddenly decides to give Angel the manager’s position just because I’m the one in school.”

  “But you’re not in school.”

  “Exactly. Which is why I should be manager.”

  “Or why you shouldn’t.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Chloe’s voice softens. “It means you were the responsible one. Past tense. Once they find out you’ve been lying, do you really think they’re going to reward you with a promotion and a raise?”

  “It’s not about that anymore. I just want them to take me seriously. To see that I really want this. That school just isn’t for me.”

  “They’re not going to like that.”

  “I know, but I can’t keep lying to them. It’s making me sick.”

  Chloe pauses at the word sick. Then she reaches for my hand like it’s something delicate. She looks me up and down as if searching for wounds beneath my clothes, in my voice, and all of the other places they like to hide. I let my eyes well up. I let her see. And it’s such a relief to not have to hide the scars in front of her, to know that she doesn’t judge me for giving them to myself in the first place.

  “Whatever happens,” Chloe says, “it’s going to be okay.”

  “You really think so?”

  She grips me tighter. “Whatever happens, we’re going to make it okay.” She looks me up and down again before reaching for a napkin. “Here…” Then she traces my bottom lip. “It was smudged.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Good luck.”

  I find my parents sitting around the table in one of the storage closets that has now become a makeshift office. They’re thumbing through receipts, my mom’s hair in a frizzy mess on top of her head and my father’s reading glasses slipping on the perspiration painting his nose. They look stressed.

  I linger in the doorway, almost taking their ignorance as a sign that I should leave. That maybe the universe is giving me a second chance and I have approximately five seconds of invisibility left to run out of the restaurant and back to my car.

  But then my mom says, “Pen, you’re here early,” and my heart starts to race. She looks up at me. “Is everything okay? Are Lola and Hugo—?”

  “They’re fine. I dropped them off at Mrs. Nguyen’s.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” My father doesn’t even look up from the receipt he’s holding.

  “Class. Right.” My hands are slick and I stuff them into the back pockets of my jeans. “Well, I…”

  “Was it canceled today?”

  More like indefinitely.

  “Or maybe Pen’s playing a little hooky.” Angel squeezes into the doorway next to me, bright yellow earbuds hanging over his shoulder, the faint sound of an electric guitar floating in the air like a gnat.

  He looks exactly like our mother, every inch of him stretched and pressed.

  “You’re the only delinquent in this family,” my mother teases him. “So, Pen, did you need something?”

  Oh God.

  I swallow. “I just wanted to talk to you…”

  “About what?” My mother blows a strand of hair out of her face, still examining the receipts on the table in front of her.

  I wait for her to look at me, for both of them to look at me. For them to use their parental superpowers to see the lie all over my face so I don’t have to say it.

  Suddenly, the noise of the kitchen grows louder: the scuff of shoes, knives on cutting boards, laughter bubbling beneath the overhead vent
s.

  “Pen.” My mother waves a hand.

  “Sorry.”

  The doorway shrinks another inch, Angel eyeing me.

  “You wanted to talk,” she says, nodding.

  “I… I did. I…”

  Angel nudges me. “Spit it out, Pen.”

  I shoot him a look. I mean it to be snarling and terrifying, but I can see by his reaction that it’s more pathetic and panicked. I brace myself for what’s coming next, and so does he.

  “I wanted to talk to you and Dad about school.”

  “Is that why you missed class today?” she asks.

  “Sort of.” Stop lying. “No. I mean…” Deep breath. “I didn’t just miss class today.”

  My father finally looks up. His eyes settle on my face, unblinking and impatient.

  “What do you mean you didn’t just miss class today?” my mother asks.

  “I’ve missed a few,” I say, voice quaking. You’re doing it again. “No. Mom, Dad, I’ve missed more than a few. The truth is, I haven’t been going to school. At all. And—”

  “No.” My father’s voice is low and drawn and knocks the air from my lungs.

  He crumples the receipt in his fist as if forcing down a yell. But my father doesn’t yell. Instead, he guts you with all of the things he doesn’t say, with sighs and silence. With shaking his head and kneading his hands and making you stew there in your own fear.

  My father takes off his reading glasses. I stew.

  “Since when?” he finally says.

  “Since… never.”

  “But last semester…” My mother shakes her head, confused.

  “I didn’t go.”

  “But you said—”

  My father looks at my mother. “She lied.” Then he looks at me. “You lied.”

  “I did. But… I’m…”

  He stands, pushing past my brother and I before heading for a shelf across the kitchen. He carries back an apron, handing it to me without looking. “There’s a rush.”

  “Dad.”

  “No!” He slams his hands down on the table, the metal legs squealing. “Tonight’s your last night.”