“Thanks for listening,” I say.
He gives me a tired nod.
On the walk over to the Kendalls’ house, I keep trying to think of something that might have changed Junior’s mind, words I could’ve said.
But I learned a long time ago that Chicky closes herself off against anything she doesn’t want to let in, like desert ground gone hard during a drought.
I breathe in and tap on Cole’s window.
It slides up.
“Wow,” he says, leaning on the sill. “I can’t figure out if you’re brave or have a death wish.”
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing since I entered this pageant,” I say.
“Sorry about earlier,” he says. “About you having to climb out a window. If it makes you feel any better, my mother tends to have that effect on people.”
“Look.” I hold my hands up between us, to get him to hear me out. “I know the Quintanilla sisters and I apparently threw a bike at your head . . .”
“Except that didn’t actually happen,” he says.
“Exactly. So . . . we’re . . .” I know I’m not making sense even as I say it, but before I can keep rambling Cole stops me.
“Just let me get my shoes on,” he says.
I lead Cole to the stretch of desert with the cactuses I know best. The rainbows. The beehives and king cups. The purple and tulip prickly pear.
For half of the way there, I wonder if we’re gonna have to go looking for Chicky. It’s been years since she came to one of the cactus birthday parties. She probably doesn’t remember the way anymore.
But then I see her, her cropped hair and her tall frame against the post-sunset sky.
She’s there, among the cactuses, turning to them one at a time like she’s greeting them each by name.
Chicky
MY SISTERS DON’T believe me when I say I know, without being told, exactly which part of the desert Lita wants to meet us in.
“The cactuses?” Fresa says. “We live in New Mexico.”
But with the entire town of Meteor likely cursing the day I was born and a literal evil villain trying to destroy my family’s livelihood, I don’t have the energy to explain what I know about this particular part of the desert, or the way it holds everything remaining of my friendship with Lita like drops of water after a rare desert storm.
Instead of all that, I just say, “I need you guys. Please.” And I must look pretty bad, because they just follow without giving me any more grief.
All the way to the little patch of dirt Lita and I staked out as our own when we were eight years old, I wonder why it’s always so hard for me to say those words.
When we get there, I panic for a minute. Lita isn’t here. Fresa is already rolling her eyes, and I pretend not to see Uva pinch her arm to keep her quiet. I walk a little ways away from them, and—probably also thanks to Uva—no one follows me.
Any uncertainty I felt about this being the right place evaporates when the twilight glow backlights the only friends Lita and I had in elementary school. Hell, they may be the only friends I have now . . . If they’ll even have me after all this time.
Then I realize this is my life now. I’m wondering if a group of spined succulents still want to be my friends. “Pull it together, Quintanilla,” I say under my breath.
But it’s been a hard day, and I can’t help laying a hand on the tallest of the bunch, right in the spot where some animal rubbed off her spikes years ago. “Hey, Señorita Opuntia,” I say, quiet enough that my sisters won’t hear. “And you, too, Señora Strawberry. Sorry I missed your last birthday party.”
Her blossoms, their color fading a bit in the lavender glow of a waning desert sunset, seem to glare accusingly at me.
“Fine, fine,” I say, chastised. “I guess I’ve missed more than one.”
But as their long shadows melt into the dusk, I realize I’ve missed a lot more than cactus birthday parties over the past few years. Almost like praying, I walk between them, speaking their names in low voices. Lady Barbara Fig, Violeta Prickly Pear, and her cousins Tortita and Señorita Tulipan. The rake of the bunch, Graham Cholla, was always trying to flirt with the pretty primas until Lita told him it wasn’t polite.
When she got it into her head to give them all birthdays, Lita begged me to borrow Cereza’s astrology book and figure out their signs.
“They can’t tell us who they are,” she said. “But don’t you think they’ll be thrilled if we find out for ourselves? They’ll have to stay our friends after that, right?”
So we sat on a striped blanket, with my dad’s homemade churros in a paper bag and prickly pear lemonade in a glass bottle, and for many nights just like this one we read their charts and told their stories to each other.
But that seems like a lifetime ago.
I walk back toward my sisters, feeling heavy and sad and slow. There’s still so much to do to fix what we broke, and right now, I’m not the least bit sure we can do it.
Lita and Cole’s silhouettes are just visible as they walk toward us, shoulders nearly touching. I try to focus on the fact that I have five people on my side tonight, rather than on the fact that a tall, long-haired silhouette is notably missing.
And that I’m not sure if it’s his fault or mine.
Lita
I CAN TELL Chicky doesn’t want me to catch it, her face falling when she sees Junior isn’t with me and Cole.
“He really wanted to come,” I blurt out. “But he was mixing the perfect sunset color, and he was at just the moment of finding the right balance between orange and pink.” I let out a nervous laugh. “And you know he can’t go anywhere in the middle of that, right?”
Chicky gives me a weak smile, and I can tell she appreciates the lie.
But she doesn’t believe it.
“Just so you know,” Uva says. “Apparently we’re all half of West Side Story.”
“Sharks or Jets?” I ask.
“Not important, Lita,” Cereza says at the same moment Fresa says, “Um, Sharks, obviously.”
“Well, I heard,” Chicky says, “that we surrounded Cole with our motorcycles behind Selena’s.”
“And then cast an evil spell on him?” Uva asks, squinting into the last of the light. “Yeah, I heard that one too.”
“I heard we had an evil plan to make sure Meteor Central High has no chance at this year’s championship,” I say, toeing the dirt.
Cole groans. “This would be funny if it weren’t so not funny.”
I cringe. “What are we gonna do about Selena’s?” I ask. “And the Bradleys, and—”
“Stop,” Cereza cuts me off. “That’s not for you to worry about.”
Uva crosses her arms and shoots Fresa a look. “Well, you were right about one thing. They are gonna be talking about this for years.”
“Okay, not helping,” Cereza says. “Cole, if we’ve done anything to . . .”
“Stop it,” he says. “This was an accident. I just had the same conversation with this one.” He shrugs toward Lita.
Cereza sighs. “But if there’s anything we can do . . .”