“Hey, hey, listen to me. Don’t. Don’t say that. You’re not an asshole. You’re not. You’re really not. There’s only a handful of people who know. Five people. You make six. And now that I’ve told you, I feel like I’ve given you just one more burden you have to carry. And I don’t want that. I don’t. I know that all the gay activists are saying that silence equals death, but my silence, at least right now, equals my survival.”
She just kept looking at me. She was studying me. She wasn’t crying anymore. She tried to smile—and then she said, “Stand up.”
“What?”
“I said stand up.”
I looked at her with that almost cynical question on my face. “Okay, if you so say so.” So I stood up—and she hugged me. And she cried into my shoulder. And I just held her and let her cry. I don’t know how long she cried, and as far as I was concerned, she could have cried on my shoulder forever—if forever was what it took for her to let out the hurt she held inside.
When she stopped crying, she kissed me on the cheek. And then she sat down and she looked at my plate loaded with food, and she said, “Are you gonna eat that?”
“You can have it.”
She grabbed the plate. “I’m starving,” she said.
And I gotta say she really dug in. And I couldn’t help it, I just started laughing.
“What? What’s so funny?”
“Such a pretty girl, wolfing down food like a guy.”
She gave me a kind of dismissive look, almost kind of playful. “I can do a lot of things like a guy. I can throw a baseball as well as any boy, and I bet I’m a better batter than you are.”
“Well, being that I don’t play baseball, that’s a pretty low bar.”
She smiled. “I have an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t you be a gentleman and—”
“I thought we’d established I wasn’t a gentleman.” Yup, I was smiling.
She returned that smug smile of mine. “That’s true. But apparently the rules of the game have changed, and I see now that you have real potential. This calls for new strategies.”
“New strategies?” That really made me smile.
“Exactly. So, as I was saying, why don’t you be a gentleman and grab us another couple of plates of food?”
I shook my head and headed toward the house. As I opened the back door, I turned around and asked her, “Are you always this bossy?”
“Always,” she said. “It’s one of the things I’m best at.”
“Well, the more we practice a virtue, the better we get at it.”
I could hear her laughing as I stepped into the house.
* * *
Cassandra and I talked for a long time. She told me about her abusive father and how he’d beaten her brother when he’d come out to him—and how that had ended her parents’ marriage. She was twelve years old when he left.
She laughed when she told me that her mother had been able to take him to the cleaners, courtesy of some information that he was having an affair. The information had come from none other than Mrs. Alvidrez.
She’d had a lonely life. But as I listened to her, there wasn’t any hint of self-pity. She hadn’t wasted her time feeling sorry for herself. Me, that was all I’d ever done.
* * *
“So you have a boyfriend named Dante.”
“I do. That word, ‘boyfriend,’ still sounds so strange. But I don’t know what else to call him.”
“You love him?”
“I’m crazy about him. I’ve figured out that falling in love with someone is a form of insanity. Have you ever been in love?”
“Almost. I almost fell over the cliff.”
“What happened?”
“He was older. He was in college. I saw myself as a woman. He thought of me as a girl. He thought of himself as a man. I thought of him as a boy. I knew I was headed for disaster, so I told him to lose my number.”
“Good for you, Cassandra Ortega. Good for you.”
* * *
As we were leaving the Ortegas’ house, Mrs. Ortega and Cassandra walked us out to the car. My parents were talking about some last-minute details about the funeral, and I took it that my mother was involved. Cassandra and I followed behind.
“Cassandra, do you have a good memory?”
“Nearly photographic.”
“I had to ask, didn’t I? Then I’ll give you my number and you can write it on your photographic brain.” As I gave her my number, I traced it in the air with my finger. She repeated the number.
“Got it,” she said.
I could see that my father had gotten into the car, but my mother and Mrs. Ortega were still talking.
“I take it you haven’t said anything to Gina or Susie.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Ari, you should tell them.” There was a real pleading in her voice. “They would never betray you. And they care about you. And I get that you’re a private person and you don’t think you need to tell anybody—for your own survival. But I promise you, Susie and Gina—and me, too—we’ll help you. Sorry, that sounded condescending. It’s a habit of mine. Gina and Susie, they’re loyal, you know. You should trust them.”
I nodded.
“I will. I mean, it’s like we’ve made a game of them bugging me and me being annoyed and we’ve all sort of gotten used to playing that game. They always kinda knew that they didn’t bug me half as much as I made out. But I honestly don’t know what to do or say when I’m around them.”
“Time to learn.” She kissed me on the cheek. “It’s time to learn, Aristotle Mendoza.” She just kept shaking her head. And then she turned away. I watched her walk back toward the sidewalk that led to her front door. And I whispered her name. “Cassandra Ortega.” Whatever that name had meant to me, now it meant something completely different. Her name had meant something frightening. Now it sounded like an invitation to visit a new world.
Two
BEFORE I WENT TO BED, I wanted to write something in my journal. So I took it out and grabbed a pen and thought a moment. I wasn’t quite sure what I needed to write down—but I knew I needed to write something. Maybe it was a way of becoming a cartographer. I was mapping out my own journey.
Dear Dante,
When my mother told me that my sisters were moving, she said they were moving in three days. And she said that sometimes life turns on a dime. I know what that expression means, though I don’t know where that expression came from and I don’t remember when and where I learned what it means. It means a sudden turn. One moment you are going in one direction and another moment you are suddenly going in another direction. Something you never expected happens and suddenly everything has changed and you find yourself going somewhere that you never intended to go.
Dante, you changed my life and changed its direction. But that change wasn’t sudden. I had a conversation with Cassandra Ortega tonight, and I don’t remember if I’ve ever talked about her with you before. Because I hated her with a hatred that was almost pure. But tonight, a part of my life turned on a dime. And suddenly, a girl I hated became a girl I admire. A girl who was a true enemy became a true friend. No one in my life has ever become an instant friend. But just like that, she has become important to me.