I sit down across from my mother, still in my pajamas and smelling like tacos. She smells like gardenia and hairspray—the essence of practicality, which is exactly what my parents want me to be. They want me in a pair of scrubs, studying dental assisting or nursing, and they want me to smell like gardenias and hairspray. But I don’t want that. I want this. Sour garlic and all.
“How was work?” She takes a sip of her coffee.
In just those three words, I know she’s angry. My mother is usually careful and considerate—mandatory in her line of work. But instead, she asks me about the one place I’m never allowed to see again, proving that she’s so upset my feelings no longer matter. I no longer matter. Because now all that matters is the lie.
“Busy.” I try to keep the conversation neutral for as long as possible. Which is approximately five more seconds.
Then my mother grips her coffee cup, staring down into the steam as she says, “We’re going to give you a choice.”
“A choice?” And then my stomach sinks.
She keeps her eyes down. “You can either stay in school and live at home or…”
“Or what?” Suddenly I’m standing. “You’re kicking me out?”
“No, Pen. It’s—”
“It’s what? Dad’s idea, right? He can’t stand the sight of me so he’s kicking out his own daughter.”
She finally looks back, eyes wet. “His eighteen-year-old daughter.”
“I didn’t realize I had an expiration date. I can find another job. I can come up with the money you and Dad used to take out of my check for rent. I’ll—”
“It’s not about the money, Pen.”
I sit down again, leaning toward her. “Then don’t let him do this.” I can feel my pulse in my ears. I’m shaking with it. “Please. Mom, I’m not…” My voice catches and I feel like a child. I wish she’d see me that way one last time. “I’m not ready.”
“Oh, Pen.” She frowns. “You’ve been ready since you were five years old.”
I pinch my eyes shut. Running away with a My Little Pony suitcase full of socks and donuts is not the same as being ready. Being bullheaded isn’t the same as being an adult. And I’m not. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next. And not just the next month or the next day, but the next minute. Doesn’t she know that? Doesn’t she know that I hadn’t meant to unravel my entire life? Doesn’t she know that I’m sorry?
“Please. Mom.”
My mother is supposed to be the understanding one. The one who forgives you just so she can sleep, who can’t stand being angry because it makes her feel guilty. The one who can take my father’s hand and reverse the tornado inside him.
“No.” Her voice is strange and hard. “I’ve always been easy on you, Pen. But I was easy on you because I trusted you. Because I trusted that you’d always do the right thing. But you lied to me, Pen. To me.”
She sounds like Angel. Not hurt by my decision, but by the fact that I made it alone. That’s when I realize the real reason they’re making me leave. Not to punish me, but to give me exactly what I asked for.
“Pen…” She exhales. “What were you thinking?”
I feel the answer in my gut, but I can’t tell her the truth. That it was her life I was running from.
“I’m sorry.”
I search for something stronger, less hollow, but there’s nothing to combat the emptiness. Between my ribs. In her eyes. I’m so afraid of it swelling, filling me from the inside. And I can’t help but wonder why she’s not as afraid of me relapsing as Angel was. But then I remember that this isn’t the first lie I’ve ever told her. The first—I’m okay. I’ve been saying it for years, and on a day when it couldn’t be further from the truth, she finally decides to believe me.
“I know you’re sorry, Pen. So I’m going to let you decide. Are you going back to school… or not?”
I grit my teeth, that same sick feeling that kept me from getting out of the car now keeping me from telling her what she wants to hear.
“You’ve been in this neighborhood, in that restaurant all your life, Pen. You know how hard it is, how people have to claw and climb for any kind of opportunity. And you’ve got one.” She shakes her head, anger turning to desperation. “You think your father and I work ourselves to death so you can grow up and do the same? You think I give up putting my own children to bed at night because I’m living my dream?” She quakes. “You are my dream, Pen. You going to school, getting out of this neighborhood, and making something of yourself. That’s my dream.”
For a few seconds I can’t breathe, the sight of my mother’s armor slipping off, piece by piece, making me fall apart just as fast. Because I can’t give her what she wants. Even if it is her dream.
My voice breaks as I say, “But it isn’t mine.”
She looks away, waiting for me to change my mind. I wait too, for the strength to keep pretending. But there’s nothing left.
She stands, face fallen. “Then I’m sorry too.” She carries her coffee into the bedroom and closes the door behind her.
I sit in the kitchen for a long time. Until the smell of the citrus-cleaned countertops is replaced by the smell of cinnamon and green bell peppers and my father’s favorite rum. Until I can hear the sound of stone striking stone; my father’s voice summoning the past.
“This was my great-great-grandmother’s metate.”
The ground corn looks like a bed of snow, my father grinding it by hand on a slab of stone. I touch the craters and flecks of rock and it feels like something ancient. Something magical.
“Can I have it?” I ask.
My father laughs. “Someday it’ll be yours.” He winks. “But not until I’m dead.” He scoops up the ground corn and places it in a bowl. “Now we’re going to mix everything together. Are your hands ready?”
I wriggle my fingers, ready.
My father pours the saltwater while I scrunch the mixture like Play-Doh. Only this kind, you can actually eat. The masa begins to take shape like a moon slowly rising.
“You know what I like to do when I’m having a bad day?” my father asks.
“What?”
He makes two fists, an exaggerated scowl on his face that reminds me of the Tasmanian Devil from Saturday morning cartoons. Then he pounds those fists into the masa, hard and fast. He karate-chops the dough, and I laugh so hard I almost fall off the stool I’m standing on.
“Whoa, keep your balance.” My father pushes me upright. “Cooking is all about balance. Remember that, Penelope.” He scoops up a small handful of dough and plops it into my open hands. “Roll it like this.” He works the dough into a ball, perfectly round.
My hands move much slower, the shape coming out lopsided.
“Perfecto,” he says.
Then he takes the dough and places it on the countertop, instructing me to do the same.
“Now we make them flat.” While he uses one hand to spin the tortilla in a circle, he uses the heel of his other hand to flatten the dough.
I try to copy him, but my hands are still too slow, jerking the dough and almost tearing it in half. He’s pressed three tortillas in the time it takes me to do one.
“Why don’t you just grind and press the masa at the restaurant?” I ask, impatient.
He begins tossing tortillas onto the comal, flipping them three times before they puff up like little clouds.
“At the restaurant, we’re in a hurry. We need to cook fast so people leave happy.” He wipes the sweat from his brow. “But at home, we cook to remember.”
“Remember what?” I ask.
“Where we come from.” He pinches the finished tortillas with his fingers and moves them to the tortillero de palma to keep them warm. “We cook to remember the people who came before us.” He places my misshapen tortillas on the comal next. “But most importantly, we cook to remember what love tastes like. That’s why we grind the masa and roll it out by hand. So that when your brother and mother sit down to eat, they’ll taste the time we spent
and how much we care for them in every bite.”
As we gather around the table for dinner later that night, I can’t wait for my mother and Angel to take that first bite.
“Try mine.” I push one of my misshapen tortillas onto my mother’s plate.
Angel takes one too. Then my father.
“Should we count to three?” my mother says.
Angel sits on his knees, almost as excited as I am. “One.”
My mother smiles. “Two.”
My father winks again like the two of us are in on a secret. “Three.”
We all take a bite, but I’m not looking at my mother or Angel. I’m looking at my father, who is savoring my imperfect creation as if it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten. He opens his eyes and there is a light in them that warms me from the inside out. Because he tasted the love. Because he showed me how to put it there.
The memory rips to shreds, along with every smell, every taste, every laugh, and every word. Every second I spent in this kitchen growing up. And even though I don’t want it to be over, even though I didn’t think it ever would be, I finally stand, walking out of my mother’s kitchen, through my father’s front door, and into the blistering afternoon sun.
When I pull into Chloe’s driveway, I just sit there for a long time, clutching the wheel until she taps on my window. I can’t move. She frowns before walking around to climb into the passenger seat.
“You can stay with me as long as you need to,” she says.
“Thanks.” I try to keep my voice from shaking. “Maybe just while I look for a place.”
Chloe still lives at home too, although, since she’s actually going to school to study graphic design, and therefore doing something productive with her life, it’s perfectly acceptable. I know her mom will let me stay. It’s just the two of them, and for almost every Saturday since I was twelve, just the three of us.
“Your dad asked me to give this to you.” Chloe slides over my last paycheck.
I take it, fingers brushing the ink, and it feels like something dead. Final. Like he never wants to see me again.
“Gee,” I mumble, snark hiding the pain underneath, “how nice of him. Maybe now I won’t starve.”
Chloe rolls her eyes. “Come on, you’ve only been homeless for, like, a day. And you’re not even really homeless. It’s not like they threw all of your stuff out on the front lawn.”
“They might as well have. Pretty soon I’ll be one of those bums digging cigarette butts out of a convenience store ashtray.” I bury my face in my hands. “Or worse.”
Chloe laughs. “What’s worse than that?”
“I don’t know. Smoking them?”
Her smile fades. She pokes me in the side with her index finger. “Hey, look at me.”
I groan, spreading my fingers just wide enough to see her eyes.
“What did I say before?” She pulls my hands away from my face. “We’re going to make this okay.”
“How?” My voice breaks, the tears hot at the back of my throat.
“The same way we always do. Together.” She wraps her arms around me. “If anyone can make it on their own, it’s you, Pen.”
I try to let her words sink in, but the worries have already hardened into a thick shell.
What if I can’t find another job? What if I can’t find a decent place to live that I can actually afford?
What if I don’t want to?
“You’re stronger than you think you are, Pen. You always have been.”
I search her voice for even an ounce of inauthenticity. There is none. She believes what she’s saying.
“And you don’t have to do it alone.” She takes my hand. “Promise me you won’t try to do it alone.”
“I won’t.”
She searches my voice for the same inauthenticity. I search too. For the truth, or maybe another lie. Maybe the only difference is what I choose to believe. And I want to believe that I’m as strong as Chloe says, as strong as everyone at the restaurant believes me to be. I tell myself that if I just keep doing the things that scare me, I will be. And this is definitely the scariest of all.
5
Pen
THE FIRST APARTMENT COMPLEX is just a few blocks from the restaurant. The rents aren’t listed online, but it doesn’t look too high-end. There are plastic pink flamingos around the pool, for Christ’s sake.
“We do have a one-bedroom available with a great view overlooking the pool. There’s a microwave, and a washer-and-dryer unit. Plus, a great walk-in closet.”
Chloe gives me an excited nudge as we follow the leasing agent up a set of stairs to the model unit. She leads us into a spacious living room that opens into a small kitchen. There’s a shiny white stove, and enough counter space to ice two sheet cakes at once. I don’t even need to see the rest.
“How soon could I move in?” I ask.
“It would take a couple of days for all of the paperwork to go through. But if everything checks out, I’d say you could move in by next week.”
“I’ll do it.”
Chloe shoots me a look.
“It’s perfect,” I say, shooting one back.
“Well, then, if you’ll follow me downstairs, we can get started on that paperwork I mentioned.”
We follow the leasing agent back to the main office, every step making me feel more like a grown-up. We sit across from her as she prints the contract.
“Pen?” Chloe clears her throat and pushes the top sheet closer to me.
“Is this the…?” I’m not sure what it is. Surely not the…
“Price,” the leasing agent finishes.
“Of the apartment?” I’m sweating.
“Yes.” Her voice drops. She knows I’m broke.
“And this is the cheapest you have available?”
She nods.
“And there aren’t any promotions going on right now? No student discounts or anything?”
Chloe digs a finger into my side, but I ignore her. I lied about being a student before and I can do it again. If it means getting my dream apartment, I will.
“No.”
The walk back to my car feels like a mile long. I wrench the door open and throw myself inside.
“It’s the first place we’ve looked,” Chloe tries to reassure me.
I press my forehead against the hot steering wheel until it burns. “But it was perfect.”
“Obviously not.” Chloe tosses her cell phone into my lap. “Where to now?”
I scan the web page for our next destination. “Golden Oaks.”
“Hey, that sounds fancy.”
It isn’t fancy. Golden Oaks is a series of efficiencies facing the Strip, which is a busy highway lined with liquor stores. There is a man standing on the corner with a sign that says:
NO BULLSHIT HERE
I JUST WANT A BEER
“At least they’re honest folk around here,” Chloe says.
I pull into the parking lot, which is really just a patch of oil-stained dirt in front of a small office building. We idle for a few minutes before a plump woman opens the door and spots us. She waves a hand, trying to lure us out of the car.
“Listen,” Chloe starts, “at this point I feel like you should just face the reality of the situation, and if this is the type of place available in your price range, you should at least see it.”
The first unit we see has four walls. That’s it.
The woman hacks up something wicked and says, “Definitely a great starter place.”
Chloe huffs. “Yeah, you can start with a toilet.”
Luckily, the second unit has a toilet, plus a sink and a microwave. All lining the same wall.
Chloe shrugs. “At least you won’t have far to go when—”
I swat her. “Don’t even finish that sentence.”
The third and final unit has a toilet, a sink, a stove and microwave, and a man sleeping in a roll of carpet.
The woman closes the door, backs away. “That one’s still being c
leaned.” She clasps her hands. “So, should we head back to the office and crunch some numbers?”
The next apartment complex is a little farther north, which means that on a good day, the Austin traffic will only be slightly apocalyptic. We pull up to a tall concrete building with bars over the windows.
“At least you know it’s safe,” Chloe says.
“You know, your sarcastic optimism might just get you strangled.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
A man wearing a green tie greets us in the main office. He smells like tanning oil and peppermints. “Now, we do have a small waiting list for some of the bigger units, but our apartments on the higher floors are all vacant.”
The elevator doors open and it’s like stepping into a sauna. My shoulders are touching both the leasing manager and Chloe at the same time, and it takes approximately two seconds before I’m pouring sweat.
When the doors finally ding open we all spill out, the leasing manager leading the way to a tall red door. He fiddles with the key before pushing the door open.
The space is empty, but it’s clean. The floors are concrete, spinning a draft from one end of the room to the other that actually offers a little relief. The kitchen is a relief too. There’s a working oven and a small porcelain sink. Someone has even left a cute paisley hand towel draped over the side.
“And the bathroom’s just through here.”
We’re led across the narrow living area and through a door at the far end of the room. It’s the only door in the entire apartment. I expect to see an empty bedroom first, but there’s just a toilet and a shower.
“I thought this was a one-bedroom,” I say.
“This is a flat,” he corrects me.
“Wait, so there’re no one-bedroom units available?” Chloe asks.
“Walls are extra,” he says. “This is our cheapest unit.”
Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet Page 5
