Lena nodded.
“You should fix your hair,” her mother said. “Brush your teeth.”
Before Lena could say she didn’t think she was ready to meet Miguel, her mother had turned and headed back to her bedroom. Lena went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth. Tried to ignore the dark circles under her eyes.
In her dream, she had been on a playground. Kids had been throwing dodgeballs and plastic ponies at Lena. Every time one hit her, she died. Exploded. And then was re-formed slightly different. The kids laughed every time it happened. Didn’t care when she tried to talk about the excruciating pain or tried to get them to see her as a person.
Lena moisturized her face. Tricked her hair into getting into a low side bun.
Out in the living room, her mom was excited and buzzy. She must really like him, Lena thought, and told herself to be cool. What if he was gross? What if he was too hot—so attractive as to make her uncomfortable all the time? What if he was super-young or super-old?
There was a knock at the door. Deziree opened it, and in walked Tanya, Kelly, and Stacy. They were holding bags of Chinese food, bottles of wine. “Surprise,” Deziree said. All three of them were grinning.
21
It would have been easier if Lena’s friends held grudges. But every time Lena apologized for how distant she had been or asked a question to catch up on the missed time, they smiled. Tanya said stop apologizing. Kelly talked about how he sent money home to his family. Said things that should have been corny, like “Family takes care of each other,” that made Lena look at the ground and feel tears gathering. And Stacy was laughing and dishing out plates of food for everyone, pouring wine, telling a story about being at a recent drag show that made them all laugh and gasp. He was clearly exaggerating to make them all comfortable, but it worked.
And Lena was drinking wine, glass after glass. Tanya kept pouring. “You’re on vacation.”
Kelly told her, when they were alone, that he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He leaned forward.
“Then why haven’t you said anything?” Lena asked, spilling drops of wine on the table as she gestured with her glass.
“I was being smooth.” Kelly pulled out his phone, took a picture of Lena and showed it to her. She was laughing and her eyes were half-closed. Lena’s impulse was to take his phone, delete it. The photo wasn’t unflattering; it was too intimate. It was a photo you took of your girlfriend, not the girl you sent pictures of sneakers or Chinatown or a sunrise.
“I look drunk,” Lena said.
And then she and Tanya were laughing and talking in the living room while the boys put the food away, wiped down the kitchen. Lena noticed she was occasionally saying the wrong words: camping instead of work, list instead of missed. Tanya didn’t comment on it. Lena hoped it was because of the wine, how exhausted she was. It was something that happened to people all the time.
“I might be in love.” Tanya sounded embarrassed. Her lips were wine-slapped.
“You should be happy,” Lena said, adding five extra A’s to the word.
“I’m twenty-one. It’s a year of my life and then we’ll have a fight, or we’ll get bored and one day it’ll be embarrassing that I ever loved him.”
“Do you really feel that way or do you want to feel that way?”
Tanya put her feet up on the coffee table; her toenails were painted antique gold. Her hair was flat-ironed. A small hoop earring in one ear, two diamonds in the other. She was wearing a light-gray tank top and her hot-pink lace bra kept announcing itself. Lena set her wineglass down on the floor. It felt important to take all of Tanya in, make her a real person again. I missed you and who I was around you too, Lena thought.
“I’m not sure,” Tanya said.
“Why not try?”
“Well, what about you?”
“He’s in California and I’m. . . .” I’m in a government-sponsored research study that I have to keep secret. Lena cleared her throat. “I’m in Lakewood.”
“Let’s play a game.” Stacy plopped onto the floor next to the couch. He took a sip out of Lena’s wineglass. “If you could make a movie about anything, what would it be?”
“I would make one, a good one, about Marian Anderson,” Tanya said. “My dad can’t stop talking about her.”
“I would do one based on the life of Janet Jackson,” Stacy said. “Rhythm Nation era.”
Kelly said he was making a movie right now for an exhibition. It involved paint, and light, and this really cool DJ he had met. He put his legs over the side of Lena’s grandma’s chair. His socks were tie-dyed, green-yellow-blue. Kelly said he was really into textures right now. Like crushed ice. Cement.
“Stop, you’re making me hate you,” Stacy said, clawing at his brother’s feet.
“Don’t. Touch. My. Feet.” Kelly rearranged himself in the chair, tucked his feet away.
“I think I would make a movie about . . .” Lena picked up her wine, drank it in one long gulp “research studies in America. Like, I would make a movie about Tuskegee, or I read about this one in the 1950s that was about mind control. People love mind control.”
The front door swung open. Her mom was back from her date.
“That sounds like a Chadwick Boseman movie. They make him take LSD and he has a psychotic break. Something about civil rights. He wears a suit.”
“I would watch anything with Chadwick.” Lena held her wineglass out to Stacy. He poured more.
“It could take place in Russia now. Have you been following the news?” Tanya said. “It’s wild.”
“What are y’all talking about?” Deziree kicked off her shoes. Her lipstick looked smudged.
“Research studies,” Kelly said.
“Oh.” Deziree frowned.
“Movies,” Stacy said. “Your daughter wants to make a movie about a research study.”
“I would make one.” Deziree put a hand on her hip. “That’s just a nice comedy. No gross stuff. A comedy with manners. No pee or poop or vomit or butt stuff. Just funny black people.”
Her eyes were on Lena’s face, but Lena couldn’t tell what her mother was thinking. Lena raised her eyebrows to ask if she was okay. Her mother tilted her head to the left. That meant don’t worry. But there was thoughtful concern on her face. Maybe Miguel had done or said something.
“Let me get you a glass of water.” Deziree looked around. “Let me get you all a glass of water.”
They ate more, put on a movie. Deziree excused herself, saying she had to work at the church early tomorrow.
“We’ll keep it down.”
Lena woke up halfway through the movie. Went to her room to get blankets, pillows. Her bag was on the floor, the contents spilled. Someone had gone through it, looking for something.
“I’m being paranoid,” she whispered. No one here would go through her bag. The house was too small and loud for someone to have broken in without them hearing. Lena shook her head. Took all the bedding out to her friends. Covered Tanya’s feet where she slept on the couch, gave Stacy a pillow, paused by Kelly. Looked at him in the white light from the television, his face gentle with sleep. Kelly’s eyelashes were long, his lips looked—were—soft. She put a blanket on him. He took her hand, laced his fingers between hers. Lena exhaled. She relaxed, tried to focus only on his warm hand, how much bigger it was.