“No! Lita! Don’t close your mouth!”
“The Vaseline!”
But it’s too late. They all groan before whirling on me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. With maneuvering skills I’ve had a lifetime to practice, I dodge their swatting hands and offer Lita an apologetic shrug. “You know I don’t get this beauty pageant crap,” I say, tugging at my own DIY haircut. “And I didn’t think your regular smile needed improvement.”
She rewards me for this with exactly the smile I mean, like a beam of light through a dark sky.
“Your posture, Lita!” Uva groans, shoving me aside just as Cereza swoops in with another glop of Vaseline on the tip of her finger.
“Reza, get a Q-tip or something!” shrieks Fresa as she sticks the offending finger right in Lita’s mouth, spreading the fourth coat of slime across her teeth.
“Ha! You think this is gross,” Cereza says, “you should spend a day in the Meteor Clinic.”
“Hard pass,” Fresa says with a withering glare.
They’ve just got her Barbie smiling again when a voice from behind me freezes me in my tracks.
“So, is now a bad time, or . . . ?”
Junior Cortes is standing at the end of the driveway, his face halfway between alarm and amusement.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, a little more harshly than I should. It’s just that I can’t stop seeing this through his eyes. How ridiculous we must all look.
His eyes say he’s a little hurt, even though he’s trying not to show it.
“It’s . . . Wednesday.” He shrugs. “But I can come back another time.”
“Don’t be silly,” Uva says in that high voice she always uses around company. “Chicky, visit with your friend, we can take care of Lita for a little while.”
Lubricated teeth shining in the afternoon sun, Lita gives me the double thumbs-up.
“Come on,” I mumble, leading the way into the kitchen, still too embarrassed to meet his eyes.
On Tuesdays Selena does mac and cheese, with the nacho cheese and the little green chilies in it. My dad keeps making it even though Junior is the only one who likes it—and he works at the museum on Tuesdays.
The compromise they worked out is this: Junior comes over every Wednesday, and my dad makes sure there’s a plate of leftovers waiting for him. Usually we do homework while he eats it, but today, with Lita, with the pageant, I forgot all about it.
“I’m thinking of getting my schedule switched just so I can eat it fresh,” he says, obviously trying to get me out of my head. “Your dad never lets me pay for the leftovers, and plus there’s a certain Meteor landmark I’m dying to visit . . .” He raises an eyebrow, and I sigh because I know he doesn’t mean the life-size statue of Vice President Hubert Humphrey on the downtown plaza.
Although if I were picking landmarks, Hubert would be way above the one Junior means on the list.
See, there’s a gross, sagging, dingy, grease-stained wall in the usually empty second dining room of Selena’s, and Junior’s been offering to paint something on it since eighth grade. It’s one of our longest ongoing disagreements, and with Junior and I that’s really saying something.
“Still no,” I say, trying to hide how sad it makes me. His art is amazing. It deserves a bigger stage than Selena’s failing diner. Bigger than the cornhole boards, even. Bigger than anything this sorry place has to offer.
He shrugs as I uncover the plate of mac and cheese and put it in the microwave, like he was expecting it.
“You know,” he says, “centuries from now, they’re gonna find a fossilized can of Ortega chilies beside a bag of elbow noodles and this will be venerated as a sacred ancient dish.”
“I keep telling my dad this stuff is an abomination, but he doesn’t care.” Despite my grumbling, when the microwave beeps I get two forks.
“What’s not to love?” he asks with his mouth full. Even though it’s ridiculous, I think he means it.
I can’t help it. I smile back. He pokes me in the cheek, where I have a dimple that makes me look about five years younger than I am.
“So, are we gonna talk about what’s going on out there?” he asks, careful to look at the plate and not my face, which I appreciate. It’s easier to talk when both people are looking straight ahead. It was Mrs. Cortes who told me that, which is probably why Junior knows. She’s the only shrink in town.
“Lita’s entering Miss Meteor,” I say quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“I see that,” he says, taking another bite. “But . . . why is she doing it here? You guys cool again?” He asks this like it’s no big deal. Like it wouldn’t be the second-biggest cosmic event in Meteor for Lita and I to make up.
“It’s not about that,” I say, deflecting because I don’t know. “It’s about . . . you’re gonna think it’s stupid.”
“Chicky, when have I ever thought anything you said was stupid?” His amber-brown eyes are too big when he asks, and he’s turned them on me, like he’s asking something without really asking.
This makes me nervous enough that everything just spills out, with what Mr. Hamilton would call “a disappointing lack of punctuation.”
“It’s because I want Kendra Kendall to lose Miss Meteor so she knows what it’s like to feel humiliated and Lita’s wanted to enter the pageant since we were kids so for a second it seemed like it made sense but now it seems crazy and they’re putting Vaseline on her teeth and I—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down,” Junior says.
I do him one better. I stop completely.
“What?” I ask when he doesn’t respond right away, and it sounds snappier than I meant it to but I don’t apologize.
“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “Forget it. It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” The mac and cheese is only half gone, but he stands up anyway, and suddenly I’m panicky.
“I have nothing figured out!” I say, feeling bad for the snapping, and for my less-than-warm welcome. “I’m floundering in my own life! And I can tell by that thing you do with your forehead that you have an opinion about it, so let’s just have it already.”
Junior smiles grudgingly, sitting back down. “Look, I just think if you want to hang out with Lita you could probably just ask. You don’t have to go all elaborate destructive plan about it. I never really got what happened with you guys anyway.”
“That’s not what this is,” I say, sticking my fork in the congealing cheese and leaving it standing there. You know, in case I have to flee. “I can’t explain what happened. And this Kendra thing isn’t a ruse, it’s for real. She and Royce are the worst, and I want them to pay for it, and I didn’t have any better ideas and—”
“Okay, okay!” Junior holds up his hands, but he’s laughing. “Look, they’re flawed, no question. I just think if you happen to get your friend back in the process, it’s not the end of the world, right?”
For a minute, I picture it. Lita and I. Friends again. It’s something I haven’t let myself wonder about—not further than reminiscing about our outside-town pretend pageants anyway.