“Mom!”
“Let me call Doña Carmen and tell her you’re here and that you’re okay, but, mija, tomorrow you two have to get this sorted out.”
Jade nodded, tipped her head back against the couch cushion, pressed the ice against her cheek.
Mom left. I could hear her on the phone. Jade and I moved to my room. “You want some Cup O’ Noodles?”
“Yeah.”
I made us soup, then set one of the containers down on the rug beside Jade. She held a pillow on her lap.
“Thanks, girl.”
“No problem.”
My clock said it was almost midnight. I was going to be mad tired tomorrow morning. But Jade was my girl, mad tired or not.
“Liliana?”
“Yeah?”
“You still writing?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Could you, like, read me something? It’d make me, I don’t know, maybe feel better?”
“For real?” I hadn’t done that in so long. Come to think of it, I hadn’t written anything in a while.
She slurped up a long curly noodle. “Yeah, for real.”
“Okay.” I grabbed my purple notebook. Who cared about mad tired?
“Liliana?”
I searched for what to read. “Yeah?”
“You hear from your dad lately?”
I looked up. Shook my head. “I know he’s trying to come back, though.” A quick prayer in my head: Please let him be safe, God.
“That’s whatsup,” Jade said, and crisscrossed her legs. “Okay, so whatcha got for me?”
I cleared my throat and began to read.
26
On the way to school on Thursday I sent Jade a billion texts. Mom said she was going to make breakfast for her and her grandmother at the apartment and then, you know, make Jade return home after school. I crossed my fingers, legs, and arms. I would have even crossed my toes, if I could! Just before lunch, Mom sent me a gracias a Dios text with a picture of Jade and her grandmother hugging. Good work, Mom.
* * *
At our first official METCO support group meeting or whatever it was called, we brainstormed a bunch of “issues” and “concerns”: vending machines not being refilled that often, SAT prep classes on the weekends vs. weekdays, jobs.
A guy named Biodu brought up that last one. He crossed his arms and announced, “Mr. Rivera, what I need is money.”
Others quickly nodded.
“My sister’s in college, and she does this thing called work-study. And she gets paid. Why can’t we have something like that?”
Mr. Rivera threw the question right back at us. “Why not?”
“I asked you that!”
“Biodu, if you want to start a work-study program, write up a proposal and we can look into it. Bring it to me by next Monday, and we’ll put it on the agenda for our next meeting.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Word.” Biodu took out a notebook and started working on it right then and there.
Then, crickets. But then, timidly, we brought up deeper stuff—color-blindness, insensitive teachers, Rayshawn. Apparently the district was going to give Rayshawn a home tutor while things calmed down.
There wasn’t time to get into all the issues we brainstormed, at least not in one meeting, but it was a start.
By the next METCO meeting, miracle upon miracles, Brianna had stopped rolling her eyes at me. So, that was something. We weren’t talking or anything, but at least I didn’t think DORITO GIRL every time she walked into the room. Mr. Rivera made us partners in some activity called two truths and a lie. I learned that she played the violin and she had been in METCO since first grade. That was a long-ass time! It made me wonder how long Rayshawn had been in METCO. It was a bummer that he was missing these meetings; they weren’t so bad. Plus, it felt weird not to have him there. So I sent him a text telling him I was thinking about him. He texted back a brown thumbs-up and a smiley face, but that was it.
Not a minute later my phone buzzed. It was Dustin. He asked me if I wanted to come over to his house after school, and what the hell, I replied yes.
So a few hours later, there I was, breaking like eighteen of my mother’s laws—walking with a boy, walking on a street without a sidewalk, not going where I said I was going, and oh yeah, going to a boy’s house. Which was why I’d borrowed Holly’s blue hoodie. I zipped it up to my chin, and I even wore the actual hood and tied it tight at my neck. Paranoid? Yes. It was clearly in my genes.
“So what’s it like being the youngest?” I asked Dustin as we walked to his house—ten minutes away, he said.
“Not too shabby,” Dustin said. “I get to do a lot more than my brothers ever did. And my oldest brother is already married. Did I tell you his wife is pregnant?” Then I swear he blushed.
“No,” I said. “That’s exciting.”
“Yeah. I’m going to be Uncle Dustin. Anyway, I’m not just the youngest. I’m also the smartest. And the coolest.”
I laughed. “It’s a good thing you don’t lack confidence or anything.”
I tried to memorize the area as we walked by. The neighborhood didn’t have blocks exactly, more like winding streets with looming trees that shaded the lawns and driveways so that it seemed later than it actually was—I was going to come back this way to catch the METCO late bus. But maybe Dustin would walk with me?
Dustin poked my arm. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you look like you’re in a witness protection program?”
I laughed again.
“Look at you. All I see is your face. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s a cute face. But you look like you’re wanted for murder.” Now he laughed. “Which would make me an accomplice.”
“Oh… I’m just cold.”
Dustin reached for my hand, pulled it out from my sweatshirt pocket. “Well, your hands are on fire. You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
Dustin’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, then put the phone back in his pocket. “Just Steve,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” I asked.
“Shoot.”
“Why— How come— So how long—”
“Let me guess: Why are we such good friends if he’s kind of a dick?”
I almost tripped. “I didn’t mean—”
Dustin laughed. “It’s all good. I get it. He can be… obnoxious. But I’ve known him since preschool. Our parents basically put us together in every sport possible, since like, T-ball.”
What the heck was T-ball? But before I could ask, Dustin veered up a driveway, and my mouth fell open. Daaaaang. I could barely take it all in as he was whisking me through huge double doors, past a chandeliered foyer, and straight to the living room—not beige, like Holly’s, lots of blue tones instead. The furniture was all real leather—I ran my hand along the top of a chair as Dustin led me through the room. My brothers would rip that chair in a hot minute!
The wall on the far end of the room had a huge map of the United States on it. A bunch of stars marked different cities and a hand-drawn line connected the first half of them, from Massachusetts to Kansas. Dustin bounded over to it. “My brother Pete is driving cross country with his college buddies. We’re mapping out his trip.” He pointed to the stars, as if it wasn’t self-explanatory. I stepped closer to the map. Squinted. Dad was definitely on a different kind of trip.