Um, sure, right. Nobody cares that Connie has been on her phone since I sat down, or that Dad couldn’t even be bothered to get here. But my phone? Ruining dinner.
“How have you been?” Dad asks me, his head tilted and his face unnatural, trying to engage me, trying to force me to interact. It’s a fake question.
I give a fake answer. “Fine.” My phone buzzes again. I fill my mouth with iceberg lettuce.
Dad tries again. “How are Melissa and Xiumiao doing?” His face is still stiff, his gaze too direct. Anything to communicate that now—right now—he gives a fuck.
“I don’t know,” I say with a fake-patient smile. “I can’t read my texts.”
Connie clicks her tongue. Dad’s eyebrows twitch into a tiny frown before settling back into interested-parent face.
He turns to Yasmín. “How’s math going, kiddo?”
“Good,” Yasmín answers, explaining how she got the highest score in her class on the most recent test.
“That’s great, mija,” Connie says. She and Dad glance at each other, and their smiles don’t look forced.
“Mrs. Sorgalla said we’re going to start multiplying fractions next week, and then it will be our last week, and then I just have swim lessons and writing camp, and then summer will be over.” Yasmín only sounds the tiniest bit wistful.
“Good, good.” Dad nods. Face relaxed now, he accepts the platter of chicken Connie passes to him and slides two grilled and seasoned chunks of meat to sit next to his salad. “Keep up the good work.”
I know this is horrible, but sometimes I almost wish Yasmín were my half sister, Dad’s biological kid, instead of my stepsister. Because if Connie and I had the only stepkid/stepparent relationship in the house, I wouldn’t have to compare it to anything. I could watch Dad love Yasmín as much as I do, as much as everyone does, and it wouldn’t feel so unfair that Connie and I don’t have the same bond.
“Ellen, how’s your quidditch going?” Dad asks once the chicken’s circled the table and I’ve retrieved my vegan burrito from the microwave.
“Oh.” I hesitate, but Dad half ignores me as he digs into his chicken, no fake sincerity in his eyes. A real question, and it makes me want to give him a real answer. I swallow my last bite of salad. “Quidditch is going really well, actually.”
“You were late on Sunday,” Connie says.
“I wasn’t!” I protest too quickly and too loudly. “I told you, we were eating dinner.”
“I just mean it went later than usual.” Connie shrugs.
“It was a tournament. We had a lot of games to play.” I breathe and will my face not to flush with the memory of my ride home. “We played all day, and the games kept running late. The tournament directors weren’t very organized. They’re from UH.” I can tell I’ve given too many details. Despite my best efforts, my cheeks start to heat up.
“Tournament?” Dad asks. “Do you have other teams to play?”
“What? Yes, of course.” Dad’s question jars me so much that I forget to keep blushing. “We have— I think there were six or eight. From all around: Katy and League City and everything.” My voice gets a little squeaky when I’m defensive, but come on. Do you have other teams to play? How did he not know about the League City scrimmage? How did he totally miss that I was going to a tournament?
Dad chews his chicken. “Huh. How many quidditch players are there?”
“Do you mean in the greater Houston area or, like, worldwide?”
Dad’s laugh is a single grenade of sound exploding across the table: “Ha!”
“Not joking, actually,” I mumble, but Dad doesn’t hear.
“They do all know they can’t really fly, right?” he teases.
I have no answer besides a suppressed eye roll and sigh. I get it. The sport is based off a fantasy novel. Clearly all the players must be living in a fantasy world. I wonder if Dad’s ever heard the theory that soccer was invented by kicking around a skull.
“They don’t fly. They run with brooms or little sticks.”
I can’t tell whether it’s me or Connie who’s more surprised when Yasmín speaks up. We both stare while Dad smiles and asks, “What, between their legs?”
Yasmín nods. “And the snitch is a person,” she says. “And the seeker has to catch his tail.”
“Their tail,” I correct her, but it comes out sounding like a question.
“And people tackle each other so they fall down.”
“Wow.” Dad nods. “Why haven’t I gotten a good look at this sport before now?”
He says it casually, but the question stings.
“We should go watch the big summer tournament coming up in Austin,” Yasmín says. “You’re going, right, Ellen?”
I blink at my little sister. Sometimes I still catch myself looking down at knee level for her, or reaching to help her open her juice boxes. “How do you know so much about it?”
Yasmín’s whole body rolls in a shrug. “I looked it up.”
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows how to use the internet, but I still am, and more than that, I’m surprised that she bothered looking up quidditch.
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah. Did you watch any of the YouTube videos? There are some full matches—” Yasmín’s already nodding. “Okay, that’s cool. And the tutorial videos, is that how you—?” Yasmín nods again and glances at the ceiling in the world’s most polite eye roll. “Wow. Okay. That’s awesome. I didn’t know you’d done all that.”
Yasmín shrugs. “You made it sound cool.”
I snort to cover up the sudden lump in my throat. “Cool. Thanks.”
Dad watches our exchange with a bemused smile. “Austin, huh?” he asks. “Were you going to let us know?”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s coming up the weekend after next, but I hadn’t really gotten around to planning it yet.”
He shrugs. “I might be able to get the weekend off, if you don’t mind having us tag along. I mean, it seems like I have a lot to learn.”
Yasmín beams. Dad beams. I even manage a quick grin, but my phone vibrates in my pocket, souring the moment. Still, all three of us turn to Connie with the same hopeful question.
Connie sucks in her breath.
“It seems like short notice,” she says.