I turn and lie on top of him. “Me too.”
20
I’m coming down from a major life high and the reality—that I’m still semihomeless, that my missing assignments are piling up, and that I can hear Monster High and my dad screaming on the front porch—makes me feel like I’m landing flat on my ass. For once, I just want to stick the damn landing.
Monster High is standing her ground in front of the flat screen. “Why doesn’t she have to go?”
I open the door and enter the living room, stage right. “She is home. And go where?”
My dad is center stage sitting on an enormous armchair. Simone is knitting on the couch.
“To a church retreat.” Monster High rolls her heavily made-up eyes. I mean, she looks good, but how can she blink? I start blinking for her, it annoys me so much.
Monster High throws her hands up in the air. “Instead of my drama club’s party.”
I plant myself on the freshly vacuumed carpet. “That does sound harsh, Papi.”
“Verdad!” I get a you’re not helping look. “We’ve been planning this for weeks. And we need this family time to reconnect—”
“Weeks, huh? My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.”
Simone throws my dad a what did I tell you look. I never knew knitting could be—loud.
Monster High: “You want to go?”
“Yeah no. Just sayin.”
Simone, who I wish was meaner so I could hate her, says, “You are always welcome.” She turns to my dad sitting across from her in that armchair like it’s a throne.
“Veronica,” my dad proclaims from his armchair, “Veronica, you will be going on retreat. Or you will not be going anywhere else, including drama club, for the rest of the year. Get your priorities straight—”
“Priorities, straight,” I mutter. “That is interesting.” I pause, surprised at their attention. “Why are priorities always straight?”
Simone smiles with her mouth, but her eyes throw me a look like, Maybe I should lock up the silverware so she can’t sell it for crack. “Anyway. In this house, God first.”
Monster High: “It’s not fair that whenever I disagree, you make it about God!”
Me: “Good point!”
El Rey is displeased.
Simone: “This is an opportunity for us to work through some stuff, honey.” And OMFG she starts rubbing her belly the way women do when . . . “The retreat might be a good place—to talk.”
Monster High folds her arms. “Talk about what?”
“Whatever is going down is going down here.” I fold my arms, joining in the protest.
Simone: “I’m pregnant.”
Monster High: “Ew!”
I laugh. To my dad: “You’re telling Ma.” To Monster High: “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Verdad!” My dad pounds the arm of his throne. The ice in his seltzer water jiggles. “It does not suck!”
El Rey is angry.
Me: “So when are you all leaving?”
My dad: “Tomorrow. The neighbors will be looking in on you. I expect a call from the school office indicating you are AT school, Verdad, before and after school. Then straight home.” El Rey downs the seltzer water like a shot of brandy.
“There’s that word straight again.”
Simone asks me, “Have you been drinking?”
Ha! “Keep that sort of thing coming, Simone.” Because I can’t like her. My mother would kill my ass. “And no. Just drunk on life, I guess.” My head is swimming, though. I want Danny to dive in my pool. There is no way I’m gonna be able to sleep tonight. Blanca got herself off all the time. I think I’m gonna have my first time with . . . myself—I snort-laugh—or implode.
I head to the guest room while the arguing continues over where the future kid will sleep. No way is it gonna be Monster High’s room and so, obviously, it’s gonna be this room. A few months from now the only space I’ll have in the house is gonna transform into a pullout couch.
I fantasize about sneaking Danny into my room—and realize with a shiver that other than a pop-in from an eighty-year-old neighbor, I’ll have the house to myself tomorrow night.
……
After school, Danny and I meet up by my locker. “I have something to show you.” He slips his arms around my waist. “I don’t want you to feel ambushed.”
“What do you mean?” With just one comment, I feel like the whole day is going to avalanche. It was actually going fine—I’ve been catching up on assignments, nobody was giving me shit. But there’s always a catch.
“I’m not making sense.” He runs his fingers through his silky blond half-a-hair. I run my fingers over the shaved part of his head, my heart leaping that I have permission to touch him like this. “Can you just come with me to homeroom?”
“Homeroom? Now?” All I want to do is take Danny home to my room.
But I head upstairs. I don’t like how quiet Danny is being or how his palm is sweaty. My senses go on high alert. Through the glass window of the door, I can see my whole homeroom sitting in there. Frida, Rudy, and Penelope are talking with Ms. Moore at the board.
Everything gets quiet, and being that my homeroom has not been thrilled with me of late, I am wondering if I should run.
Frida opens the door. Straightens the flower in her hair. “Verdad, please, please come in.”
She’s calling me by my name. “What is going on?”
Danny nudges me over the threshold, steps behind me, and closes the door. He lays his head on my shoulder and hugs me from behind.
I scan the room past Frida. The first thing I see is the desk. Blanca’s desk. “Ay Dios Mio.” Her whole desk is painted with sky blue. Intertwined around the back, the arms, and the legs of the chair are paper flowers.
“They didn’t know,” Penelope says. “The other day Rudy was saying he thought maybe you’d lost somebody, and that’s when I realized nobody here knew. Blanca and I weren’t close, but I knew her. I was at her funeral. My hair was black then. I couldn’t imagine losing my best friend like that. I’m so sorry.”
I cannot move. I stare out at the class—people who are enemies at worst, strangers at best.
“I talked to Danny to make sure I wasn’t gonna make things worse for you. Then to Ms. Moore,” says Penelope, “who talked to the counselor, who made sure we got the extra desk back in here.”
I think of a heartbeat. The clench, a closing in and off, a retreat against pain and hate. But the exhale, a full bloom, a proud opening up to love and everything that comes with it.
“I painted the desk,” Boricua 1 says all proud, linking her arm through her friend’s. “My girl Jessie did the paper flowers.”
Jessie—Boricua 3, the one with all the shirts for Latinx metal bands like Tierra Santa. It’s about time I learn people’s real names.
Even with a gun, the shooter couldn’t stop Blanca’s heart. The love that she gave me is in the room right now.
“I had no idea that’s why you were acting so cray,” Rudy says, almost talking to himself. “I mean, I’m sorry.”
Danny hugs me. Frida hugs me.
“Oh damn, I’mma cry!” Rudy tackles us, and we practically tip over. Everything’s all warm and fuzzy until Rudy realizes he’s hugging Danny.
“Sorry, dude. I don’t hug on dudes.”
Danny rolls his eyes before turning away. At least Rudy acknowledged that Danny’s a guy—that’s progress, I guess.
“Verdad, tomorrow evening, in honor of the anniversary of Blanca’s death,” Frida says, wiping tears on a handkerchief, “we would like to hold a vigil. I know we’re late, but can we consider it POC Standard Time?” Every POC laughs. Nobody else does and nobody else should.
I nod. I have no words.
“We’re thinking four o’clock in front of the theater,” Frida goes on.
“Christina already got Perla’s to donate a whole bunch of teddy bears,” Boricua 1 says, all proud, beaming at Boricua 4 with the dope cat eyes.
“And,” Boricua 1 aka Gloria continues, “my Tío William is going to donate all these flowers from his shop. We know what you’re going through. I lost my cousin to guns.”
Everybody starts talking about all the godforsaken miserable shit they and their families have been through, and I start to feel like I belong less than ever.
“Are you okay?” Danny asks, brushing away a tear from my cheek.
“All these people and all their baggage,” I whisper back. “The weight. And I’m all wrapped up in myself.”
“I’m here to remind you of what you said to me. You need to feel what you need to feel.
“All of us get wrapped up in ourselves. You have to. You have to heal. The baggage never goes away. But that doesn’t mean other people can’t help carry it. Or that you can’t help carry other people’s. You’ve helped me carry mine.”
I lean on Danny’s chest. Pause a beat and then take a deep breath. “Listen. Everybody.” Nobody listens. “Hey! Don’t make Maquina get to eighty percent.”
The class simmers down and laughs. Faces me.
“Thank you. But I don’t deserve this.”
Rudy, folding his arms and leaning back: “You don’t, but—ouch!” Frida pinches Rudy’s arm.
“Oh my God, Rudy!” Frida scolds Rudy, then turns to me: “Verdad, Blanca didn’t deserve what happened to her. But she deserves to be remembered. Maybe one day you can tell us about her, and then we’ll remember her too.”
Immortality.
“That’s what I want for her,” I find myself saying. “And for Fernando and Bambi, and the others too. For them to be remembered. And for the people who loved them to carry on. Like the theater. I was thinking, what if we could do something with it? It’s sitting there empty right now. If we could raise the money, get the right people to sign off on it, maybe we could turn it into someplace where kids can go to be safe. To just be themselves.”
“Hold up,” Frida says, fingers flying on her phone, “we got to get Nelly in on this.”
Nelly waves to everyone as Frida holds up the phone. “Well, I guess they couldn’t kick me out completely, now could they?”
There is major applause. Ms. Moore finds something else to do at her desk. Frida catches Nelly up on the vigil and on my idea for the movie theater.
“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” Nelly says after a minute. “I’m supposed to have an interview with the local news tomorrow. Film crew and everything. I’ll ask for them to meet in front of the theater, right as the vigil’s starting. That could be a chance to plug this idea to the public. We could ask for community support to renovate the theater, organize a cleanup.”
“Man, cleanup? That place was cleaned out. My cousin”—Rudy pauses—“I mean I heard some dude even made off with that big-ass popcorn maker on foot.”
“Some dude, huh?” Frida gives him side-eye and a neck roll. “Anyway, Verdad, text me privately. My mom is on the board of advisors for Revitalize, Not Gentrify. I could talk to her about this.”
Ms. Moore clears her throat, her tappy shoes bringing us back to reality. “If everyone is going to catch their bus, I’m afraid it’s time to go.” To me: “Verdad, I’ll be there tomorrow too.”
Danny comes over after school, but we are both greeted by my dad’s neighbor, who looks like Grandma Moses and is actually waiting for us with milk and freakin cookies. She even sits with us at the table like we’re eight. I down my milk like a shot of vodka and bitterly eat the chewy goodness.
Danny holds up a cookie like a judge from Sugar Rush. “These are good, ma’am. I mean really. The texture is spot on. I can taste the brown sugar and toffee, but you managed not to make them oversweet.”
“You sound like a baker yourself.”
“Sort of.” Danny reaches for another cookie. “My dad. He owns his own shop. Every morning we had fresh homemade bread on the table.”
She nods. She’s picked up on the tone in had.
“Our pies had fresh berries we picked from our own property.”
Property? Was he a rich boy? Ay Dios, my default is to stereotype. I need, like, a mind cleanse. A freakin exorcist.
“I head the church baking committee,” Neighbor Lady says. “We make pies and cakes for charity. Maybe you can stop by sometime and give us the benefit of your expertise.”
I send a volt of psychic vibes to Danny: Don’t. Do. It! First it’s pie. Then it’s communion. Then barbecue. Of your soul.
“Thank you. Maybe. I got a whole crew who would love to be tasters.”
“Oh, that would be delightful!”
What would be delightful is the look on her face when Jane and Baldwin are hand-feeding each other pie. Less delightful? The look on my dad’s face.
How will he react when he sees Danny? I don’t think I can take another rejection right now. Estrangement is like a little death. I already feel like I lost my dad, not so much after the divorce, but after Monster High was born. And now another sibling is coming. Maybe by coming out I’m just going to give my dad yet another excuse to stay away.
“Thank you for the cookies,” I say to Neighbor Lady. “I’m about to bust out some prayers, then do my homework, so—”
“Oh! Well. I guess—”
“We better head out,” Danny says. “I’ll walk you out, ma’am.”
What? No! His ass better be coming back.
I stuff another cookie into my face. I’m in a mood.
Two cookies later, I hear a scratch at the back door.
“Took you long enough. Did she convert you?”
Danny closes the door behind him. “If my dad couldn’t do it with his threats, she’s not gonna do it with baked goods. Even her baked goods.” He licks his thumb. “They’re extraordinary.”
I wrap my arms around Danny. He wipes cookie crumbs off my mouth. Kisses them off. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
“He can’t threaten me now. I don’t believe in God anymore. He has nothing left he can take from me.”
“Don’t let him take God from you.” I surprise myself with that comment. Shut up, Ma.
“Huh?”
I wince. “I’m just saying—God loves you. God loves us. Don’t know who the hell everybody thinks they’re praying to.”
Blanca: You’re going to give him a headache. Just kiss him.
I do. Danny’s tasting my brown sugar and toffee tongue. He walks me toward the kitchen table and sits me on it. If Neighbor Lady is on surveillance, she’s getting the R-rated version of me and my purple push-up bra.
“I do have a bed, you know. And considering I don’t know how much longer I’ll have one—”
“We might as well take advantage.”
We take advantage.
“I need a smoke so bad.” Danny sits up. “What do you think your dad is gonna do? Since you said you weren’t sure how much longer he’ll let you stay.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. My dad opened the door. But he didn’t realize what he was letting in.”
“No kidding. But”—he lays some major puppy dog eyes on me—“now that you’ve got the door open, might I make a suggestion?”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Baldwin mentioned an offer you made. The shower . . .”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.” I remember what I said to Nelly, what I felt in homeroom when I heard bits and pieces of other people’s heartbreak. Maybe everything needs to stop being about me for a while. “You know what. Let’s have the whole crew over. We’ll cook a big dinner. You can bake cookies. It’ll be dope.”
“Really! Oh God, after I shower and steal some more of your toothpaste, I’m going to kiss you so hard!”
“I can’t wait.”
21
I make sure to lock Veronica’s room so it’s off limits. Text my dad that I’ll be having a few girlfriends over. Unlock the door. “Sup, Underdogs.” They are all barefoot. This time on purpose. Prisha, cr
ouched on the porch straightening a row of sorry-looking shoes, stands up and smiles. A carnation is pinned to her billowy teal blouse.
Prisha hands me flowers. “For you. As a thank you.”
I hold the slightly crispy brown-edged petunias. “They are—For Henry? May he always be rem—”
Baldwin snatches the plastic card holder out of the bouquet.
Jane points at my T-shirt and jeans. “That outfit looks better every time you wear it, honey.” She and her enormous feet stomp into the house like a T-Rex.
“Yours too. No one could work overalls better than you!” I rewashed the clothes I last wore the night my mother threw me out. I don’t expect Simone to buy me new clothes, my dad hasn’t had time to offer yet, and I sure as hell couldn’t borrow anything from Veronica.
“Oh.” Jane winces, scoping out the area. “It’s so Better Homes and Gardens in here.”
Baldwin, who appears to be wearing an octogenarian’s glasses, consoles Jane and rubs her back. “Breathe, honey.” To me: “Jane is a bear. We love the bear. But she will break all your shit. The harder she tries to be careful, the more she breaks.”
“I’m in that genre too. It’s all good. Come on into the kitchen. I’ve laid out some ingredients on the island. I thought I’d play head chef and you all could be sous chefs. And Danny will be Rachael Ray.”
Jane claps and faces Baldwin. “There is an island in her kitchen. Hold my hand.”
Danny holds my hand. Each of my fingers feels like a note being perfectly played. I am a charmed snake and want to wrap around Danny’s whole body. I smile like an idiot.
We move slowly like we are kids crossing a street. Danny walking forward, me backwards, our fingers intertwined.
“Oh God. It’s a refrigerator.” Baldwin releases Jane and flings open the fridge door. “And look! There are eggs in an egg compartment. Fruits and veggies in the fruit and veggie drawers. Holy. Jesus. There are Rice Krispie Treats in here. Homemade! Please tell me there is Kool-Aid . . . Yes!”
“Don’t be rude,” Prisha scolds, tugging on Baldwin’s ear. “You didn’t even offer her the food we brought. Where is it?”
Baldwin stands up like a guilty dog and closes the fridge. Pulls a banana out of their pocket. “Here?”
The Truth Is Page 17
