Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Pen squeezes my hand. “What did you do?”

  “Before my father left, he gave me his lucky rock. It was black with sharp edges. I used to squeeze it in my fist when no one was looking, trying to break the skin.” I open my palm and show her the scar, deeper than the ones on her arms.

  “I’m so sorry.” Pen looks up at me, barely breathing.

  “I’m sorry too.”

  We’re both quiet for a long time, listening to the water trickle between the rocks.

  “I take something,” Pen finally says. “After my abuelita died, my parents took me to the doctor. It helps. But when things change, when bad things happen that are out of my control, it’s hard.…” She looks up, admonishing the moon or maybe God. “But maybe that’s how it’s supposed to happen.”

  “What?”

  “Growing up,” she says. “Maybe it’s supposed to hurt this much.”

  I think of my father. Childhood hopes still burn between my ribs, but what if it’s time to put them out? What if Pen’s right? That growing up, that growing out of your old self, is supposed to hurt like hell.

  “You’re stronger than you think you are,” I say, for both of us.

  “I am strong.” The resolve has returned to her voice. “Except when you’re around.” She looks away. “I like to keep people at arm’s length. I like to be in control.”

  Our noses touch, my fingers brushing back her hair.

  “You are in control,” I promise. “Always.”

  Then I lean down, letting her close the space between us. This time when our lips touch, it’s soft and tired and it feels like giving up. In the best way. Like giving up on a life of just surviving. Pen kisses me, and life isn’t about just surviving anymore. It isn’t about searching. It isn’t about fighting. It isn’t about being let down. It’s about this. Needing someone who needs you back. Even if it’s just in this one moment, Pen pressed against me, her hands fighting for an even stronger hold, a deeper kiss. I can feel that she needs it just as much as I do, and every cell in my body just wants to give it to her.

  17

  Pen

  CITY LIGHTS HAVE SCARED off most of the stars. Two bright spots are all that’s left to remind me that despite what Xander says, despite what I’ve been trying to convince myself and everyone else of my entire life—I’m not actually in control of anything.

  I’m not in control of how Xander makes me feel, of the finiteness of this moment, of the fragility of my own fear. I stare up at those two bright spots, Xander’s eyes closed as he unloads every burden onto our kiss, and I am not in control. And for the first time, it doesn’t feel like the end of the world. It doesn’t feel like an end at all.

  Xander carries our leftover pizza back to the car, the sound of idling engines slowing our steps as we approach the street. Lights flash against the side of the house, red and blue racing across my skin. There’s an ambulance up ahead, and four police cruisers.

  Xander stops.

  In the other direction is a dead end, the creek running south and cutting off the road.

  We’re at least ten blocks from Nacho’s Tacos, the cruiser license plates unfamiliar. I don’t know if these cops know my father, if they know our neighborhood, or if they believe it belongs to someone else.

  “I’ll drive,” I say.

  Xander sinks into the passenger seat, staring straight ahead.

  As we approach the scene, lights swell against the windows. A cop lifts a hand, slowing me to a stop. I can hear Xander hold his breath.

  I roll down the window, try to seem relaxed. Between my ribs, my heart pounds.

  “We’re unable to clear the street. Watch for my signal and then you’ll need to maneuver onto the sidewalk.”

  There are two men facedown in the front yard adjacent to the ambulance, both in handcuffs. My stomach tightens as a child is carried out by one of the paramedics, her Tweety Bird nightgown ripped at the knee.

  “What happened?” I say before I can stop myself.

  The officer examines me more closely. “Do you live in this neighborhood?”

  My face warms. Why the hell did you open your mouth?

  When I don’t answer, he says, “It’s late. Do your parents know you’re out here?”

  I try to force out a sound, anything to get him to back away from the car. But suddenly I can’t open my mouth. Because he’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at Xander.

  “I’m just on my way now.” My knuckles blanch around the steering wheel. “I should get home before they start to worry.”

  He narrows his eyes, head tilted. “Put the car in park.”

  My stomach drops. “If I could just pass—”

  “I said put the car in park.”

  My skin crawls, remembering the officer who slammed my father against the hood of our car. His voice was just as cool—the kind of unnerving placidness one wears when there’s a gun strapped to their hip and a get-out-of-jail-free card stuck to their chest.

  He yanks the passenger door open, Xander cowering under the glow of his flashlight.

  I can’t move. “Please, don’t—”

  “Step out of the car.”

  “No.” It’s barely more than a whisper, air desperately fighting its way to my lungs.

  Xander’s frozen too.

  Gravel crunches, another uniform appearing behind the glow of the officer’s flashlight. “Everything all right over here?”

  The officer with the flashlight shines it from my face to Xander’s. Sweat trickles down Xander’s brow.

  “Penelope?” the second officer asks.

  My mouth quavers, “Yes?” as his face comes into view.

  Officer Dunne. He and Officer Solis eat at the restaurant every Tuesday night.

  He forces the other officer’s hand down, the light no longer burning my eyes. “It’s late and your father’s probably worried. Go ahead on home.”

  “Not until I see some IDs.” The first officer motions to Xander. “Come on, kid. What? You don’t speak English?”

  Officer Dunne puts his hands on his hips, looks from me to the passenger seat. “What kid?” Then he shuts the passenger door. “All I see is Ignacio Prado’s daughter on her way home.”

  “What the hell is this, Dunne? Are you out of your—?”

  “Put the car in drive, Pen.”

  I nod, still shaking.

  Officer Dunne motions to the sidewalk on the other side of the ambulance, helping me navigate around the cruisers. Before the first officer can get Xander’s license plate, I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and speed out of the neighborhood. When we reach the access road, flashing neon signs replacing the emergency lights, Xander’s still frozen.

  “Xander…?”

  He doesn’t answer and I feel sick. Then I hear his breath hitch, his body quaking against the seat. I pull up to an empty gas station, parking away from the streetlights. Xander’s hairline is speckled with sweat, and all I can think about is what he must have been thinking about. Getting sent back. Losing everything.

  I reach for him. “Xander, I’m so sorry.”

  He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have—”

  Without a word, he wraps his arms around me. He’s still shaking, and it rattles me too, my hands pressed to his back. His own are clenched. After a long moment, he lets go, and I reach for his hands next, trying to coax his fingers into loosening from their fists. He opens his right hand and I see the scar where it runs from palm to index finger. My fingertips trace the skin, trying to read the memories buried underneath.

  My eyes drift down to my own forearms, to the faint scars I thought were hidden until the night of Angel’s party when Miguel Medrano asked me how I got them and I actually told the truth. For a long time they were a private reminder of the places I’ve been, of the pain I thought I could control. Xander follows my eyes, staring just as closely, and I realize that the scars are a reminder f
or him too.

  He pinches his eyes shut. “No matter how long I’ve been here, there’s still a part of me that doesn’t feel like I belong. Because I know there’s some people who just don’t want me here.” He stares at the flickering streetlight. “I should be used to people not wanting me around.… At least when my mother left me at the bus station, I could watch her go. But my father just disappeared.”

  “Did he come to the States?”

  Xander nods. “I know he was here for a little while, that he talked about going to California.”

  “Do you think…?” I hesitate, not sure how close Xander’s grief is to the surface or if after more than a decade of waiting for his father to come back, he still feels hope.

  “That he might not want to be found?” Xander exhales. “I think about it all the time. Sometimes I choose to believe that he hates me, and for a while, I stop looking.” A faint smile tugs at his lips. “But then I remember how he used to sit me on his knee, his teeth clicking like I was a jockey in a horse race. I’d wrap my small hands around his thumbs while he shook me until I laughed.”

  My chest aches with a million of the same memories—my father teaching me to whistle while the two of us cracked pecans on the back porch, my thirteenth birthday when I woke up to find two tickets to the local theater’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream under my pillow, my first day at the restaurant when he paraded me around, introducing me to every customer, his face full of pride as he told them I was his daughter.

  Xander’s voice wavers. “He loved me once. I know it. That’s why I can’t give up.”

  In that moment, Xander’s resolve is a reminder for me too. That I love my father, that he loves me back, even if it feels like we’re strangers sometimes.

  My father loves me. That’s why I can’t give up.

  Xander holds out a business card with the name and number of a local detective. “I don’t know how much the fee is yet. Probably a lot of money; probably money I shouldn’t be spending on someone who may not even want to see me. But… if he doesn’t want to be my father, I need to hear him say it. I need to see it in his eyes like I did the day my mother left.” He flicks the card, thinking. “Do I sound crazy?”

  “No, not at all.” I lean toward him. “You sound brave.”

  A weak smile breaks through as he says, “You make me feel like I could be.”

  The lone streetlight barely grazing the hood of the car finally goes out, the darkness making it easier to pretend. That Xander’s safe. That I’m strong. But he needs me to be, and I decide in that moment that maybe I don’t have to pretend anymore. Maybe I never really was. Maybe I can be strong for both of us, not because it’s how I survive, but because it’s who I am.

  18

  Pen

  “I NEED YOU ON drive-through. I’m taking my break.” David holds the headset over my bandana, letting it snap against my ears.

  “You just took a break thirty minutes ago.”

  He shrugs. “And now I need another one.”

  The next order is already coming through the earpiece. I can barely make out each item over what sounds like a car full of teenage boys laughing and shouting in the background. I punch in what’s clear, but they roll to the window before I can read it back to them. I slide open the plastic screen, and in the driver’s seat is Miguel Medrano.

  Stay calm, Pen. He’s just another asshole customer—emphasis on the asshole.

  Miguel’s jaw drops as he takes in my getup, including the felt mustache stuck to my upper lip.

  “Penelope Prado.” He whistles between his teeth. “How the mighty have fallen.”

  My pulse ticks up as I register the hushed voices of the other passengers. Penelope got fired, remember? Her dad must really hate her. She looks pathetic. I heard she’s homeless now. I wonder if that mustache is real.

  Miguel frowns. “¿Por qué la trompa?”

  I bristle, trying not to pounce.

  “We miss you at the restaurant, Pen. But I guess when you get an opportunity like this…” He gestures to my uniform. “… you just can’t pass it up.”

  I lunge for him, dragging him through the window by his shirt.

  “Holy shit!” Behind me, David’s frozen in horror (or again, maybe amusement—it’s hard to tell), his cell phone slipping from his grasp.

  Miguel writhes like a fish. “You crazy bitch! Let go of me!”

  I twist his collar until he’s choking, the other losers in his truck scrambling for his feet as they try to pull him back inside.

  Claudia rushes over. “What’s going on back here?” When she sees Miguel halfway through the order window, me with a death grip on his shirt, she stops. “Pen, let go of him.”

  “Listen to your boss, Pen,” Miguel croaks out.

  I want to make him squeal again, but he’s right. Claudia is my boss and if I want to keep my job—which, let’s face it, is legitimately on the line right now—then I have to do what she says. So I grit my teeth… and then I let go, his friends pulling him back into the front seat of his truck. They call me a puta before speeding off.

  “You’re going home,” Claudia says.

  I expect an obnoxious quip from David, but he doesn’t make a sound.

  I don’t either. I just grab my stuff from the back and storm out.

  “So, wait a minute. Are you fired or are you not fired?”

  Chloe sits at Mrs. Damas’s kitchen table, testing out a few of the new items we’ve made for the women at Casa Marianella.

  “I’m… not exactly sure yet.”

  Mrs. Damas folds some lemon zest into the icing she’s making. “Well, it sounds to me like this Miguel Medrano is one rotten egg.”

  “Oh, he is,” Chloe says. “He even burned off another employee’s eyebrow.”

  I cross my arms, fuming again. “He should have been fired so many times. I tried to do it myself once, but my father wouldn’t let me.” I get back to stirring my chocolate ganache. “It doesn’t make any sense. He’s worthless. And a brat. And I hate him.”

  “Have you ever stopped to consider that your father’s seen something in him you haven’t?”

  “Trust me, he doesn’t possess a single redeeming quality.”

  “Unless he does.” Mrs. Damas smiles. “Unless you just haven’t looked closely enough.”

  “Maybe that’s your problem with David too,” Chloe teases. “You just haven’t gotten to know him well enough.”

  I jab my spoon at her. “Listen, I come here to bake. Not to become a better person.”

  Mrs. Damas passes behind me before drizzling the icing over her lemon-buttermilk pound cake. “You can’t do one without the other.”

  Chloe’s nose wrinkles. “Really? Because Pen’s been baking for years and she still—”

  I shoot her a look. “And I still what?”

  She reaches for another biscochito, raising it in surrender. “You still make the best butter cookies I’ve ever had.”

  “That’s right.” I untie my apron. “I think that’s everything, Mrs. Damas. Same time next week?”

  She nods. “Yes, yes. Thanks so much for your help today.”

  I yank Chloe away from the sweets, crumbs spilling from her lap as we head for the door.

  “You girls have fun.”

  Back in my apartment, Chloe immediately flings herself on my bed. “Okay, I need to hear about this second date, which by the way was less than twenty-four hours after your first date.”

  “So…?”

  “So, you haven’t gotten sick of him yet.”

  I slump down beside her. “We’ve spent almost every day together the past seven years and I haven’t gotten sick of you.”

  She looks up at me, batting her lashes. “That’s because you love me.”

  I shrug. “Sometimes.”

  She digs a finger in my side and I swat at her, laughing.

  “So,” she asks, “do you think you’re falling in love with him?”

  I roll my eyes. “We’v
e only gone on two dates.”

  The truth is, I don’t know how to explain to her that something has happened to my insides at the cellular level, and now he’s all I can fucking think about.

  She senses it anyway. “I think you’re falling in love with him.”

  “Has he said anything?” I pull the blanket over my shoulders. “At the restaurant. Has he said anything to you about me?”

  She’s quiet, whatever joy was just bubbling beneath the surface gone out in a flash.

  “Chloe?”

  She scrapes a hand down her face. “He told me not to tell you.”

  My chest squeezes. “Xander?”

  “No.” She pinches her lip between her teeth. “Angel. He told me not to tell you… that I haven’t been at the restaurant.” She finally faces me. “No one has.”

  “What do you mean no one’s been at the restaurant?”

  “I mean, Nacho’s never reopened. After the pest control people left, your father called and canceled everyone’s shifts. And then the next day he called and canceled them again.”

  “The restaurant’s closed.… But why?”

  Chloe stares at her feet. “Do you remember when El Martillo showed up at your brother’s party?”

  I nod.

  “Well, apparently he showed up at the Johnson catering too. He and your dad exchanged some words.”

  “But that was weeks ago.…” I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know all of the details. I’ve been doing my best to just stay out of the way. Your dad and Angel have had more than a few blowups in his office. I didn’t want to get caught eavesdropping, and Angel won’t tell me much. But I think El Martillo made a few veiled threats, and your dad’s worried he’ll make good on them.”