This girl headed straight for me, stuck out her hand like she was a teacher, not another teenager. “Good morning. I’m Genesis Peña.” Ah, my METCO buddy.
“Hi,” I said, hesitantly shaking her hand.
“You’re Liliana, right? From JP? Welcome to Westburg. About yesterday—sorry I wasn’t here. I had a college interview. Anyway, I’m from Roxbury. I spend Monday through Friday here in Westburg, though, with my host family cuz I have so many after-school activities. So I’m only ever on the bus on Monday mornings or Fridays after school, unless I stay after on Friday for theater club or prom prep.” She paused only long enough to take a breath, then barreled on. “Don’t look so scared. And yeah, I’m a fast talker. At least that’s what they say. Thing is, I’m kind of nervous. Not to talk to you! It’s just, I’m working on my Single-Choice application to Yale, and it’s got me kinda rattled.”
“Single-Choice?” I interrupted at last, wondering how she had so much energy so early in the morning.
“Single-Choice Early Action program. It’s like early decision.”
“Oh, right.” Say what? I was thinking.
“Anyway, I really hope I get in, because I don’t want to have to go through the whole general college application process, you know? I mean, I guess I already did. SATs, SAT IIs, the essay, interview, and don’t even get me started on how long it took me to put together my CV.”
“CV?” My throat went dry.
“Curriculum vitae. It’s another way of saying ‘résumé.’ ”
I’d never heard someone like me—Latina, I mean—talk like that, like she was white. But not completely. It’s hard to explain. I was barely following what she was saying. It was as if she was talking in English but in an alternate version. At least she wasn’t throwing me dirty looks like I was going to take away her Doritos or something. Genesis started moving down the hall, so I just trailed behind her as she pointed in different directions—the computer lab, dance studio (there was a dance studio?!), library, Writing Center. Hold up. A Writing Center? A whole room for writing? So I had to ask, “What kinds of things do they do in the Writing Center?”
“Liliana.” Genesis slowed down. “You for real?”
“I mean… besides the obvious.”
Now she nodded. “Well, you can also sign up to tutor other kids or help them with their English papers.”
“Oh.” I had imagined beanbags and dim lighting and gel pens in mugs.
“Don’t look so disappointed. It looks great on your CV.”
Genesis waved at every single teacher who passed us. One actually stopped to say, “Just to reiterate, I really urge you to apply to my alma mater. They’re well endowed, lots of financial aid,” and another asked, “Hey, Gen. How’s the Yale application coming?”
“It’s coming,” she replied.
“What did she call you? Gen?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
Genesis sure was a talker, kinda like my dad, actually, and she knew every corner of the school. She did ask me about myself for one second—like, literally. “So, tell me about yourself. What makes you you?” Is that what a college admissions officer sounded like? What was I supposed to say? I hate funerals. I am afraid of cats. After my class read Night by Elie Wiesel last year, I vowed never to get a tattoo. I could tell Gen how I love making buildings and houses and stuff out of cardboard—how I used Styrofoam peanuts for loaves of bread for the bakery—about the building that’s a Pentecostal church by night and a carpet store by day. But would Genesis really want to know any of this?
“I love writing,” is what I landed on.
Genesis raised an eyebrow. “Guess you should check out the Writing Center, then.”
When it seemed she’d shown me everything but the plumbing, she led me down some basement stairs to see “the best bathroom in the building.”
As soon as she pushed open the door, Genesis completely changed her script.
“Move, people!” she practically yelled. The girls who looked like freshmen immediately scrammed. The rest just shifted out of the way until she passed, then reclustered by the mirror. She shooed away two girls standing beneath a small window up by the ceiling. They rolled their eyes but stepped away as Genesis climbed on top of the heater and shoved the window open. Back down, she pulled a big purple bottle of hair spray and a JUUL from her backpack, then passed the JUUL to me with a “Hold this.” Whaaa? I slipped it up my sleeve fast in case a teacher walked in. Just what I needed, to be the girl who got kicked out of METCO on her first (okay, second) day. Mom would KILL me.
Genesis, pulling her skirt up at the waist, making it two inches shorter, shot me a look. “Don’t be so paranoid. Teachers never come in here. They have their own bathrooms.”
Who was this girl? One minute she was parading down the hall like the next class president, and now she was unzipping her hoodie and… oh. She wasn’t so flaca after all. Her black top was so tight, it had to be a kid’s size. Her waist was tiny. I looked at my own reflection in the mirror: magenta cardigan over a white V-neck and jeans. Sleepy face. My gold necklace that said Liliana sat crooked on my chest.
Genesis blasted the hair spray at a few stray hairs. “See ya, Gen,” a girl called out as she left the bathroom.
“Listen,” she said suddenly, voice low as she aimed the hair-spray nozzle at me.
I ducked. “Hey! Watch out.”
“Don’t make any friends here.”
I gaped at her. “What? That’s your welcoming advice?”
Genesis laughed. “You’re funny.”
“Thanks.” I straightened my necklace.
“It’s just—you seem smart.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“But for real, you know what I mean. Girls here will be nice to you to your face. You know, ‘Hi. Oh, you’re so lucky you speak Spanish. You must get straight As in that class’ or ‘Can you teach me how to put on eyeliner like that?’ But then behind your back they’ll be all, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe she wore that’ and ‘Why does she even come to school here?’ ” She pressed hard on the aerosol button, and a cloud of grape-scented spray filled the space between us.
I coughed.
“Trust me. Don’t trust anyone.” She lowered her voice even more. “Especially the white boys.”
Wow. Okay. Immediately I thought of the guy in the auditorium, the one wearing the soccer jersey. White. Boy. I switched the conversation to METCO, fast.
“So, we have meetings? With someone named Mr. Rivera? What’s he like?”
“Yeah, he’s the METCO faculty adviser. He’s all right. And yeah, you missed our first meeting, probably our only meeting. He’s one of two teachers of color at the whole school, so he’s pulled in a million directions.”
“Oh.”
“Here’s the deal. Just stick with the METCO kids,” Genesis said, her gaze back on her own reflection.
“About that… Well—” I coughed again. Man, that hair spray was lethal! “Anyway. Yesterday I tried to sit with them, but they froze me out.”