“If any of you apologizes one more time,” Cole says, “I’m signing each of you up for the Christmas pageant decorating committee.”
That shuts all of us up. We’ve each witnessed Mrs. Kendall berating teenagers and little old ladies alike for putting the wrong kind of tinsel in the holly garlands.
Uva speaks next. “I heard Simon Alter saying Lita set this whole thing up because she knows how close Kendra and Cole are, and she just wanted to rattle Kendra.”
“Oh, brother,” Cole says under his breath.
“What?” I ask.
Cole runs a hand through his hair. “Kendra.”
“What about her?”
Cole takes a breath deep enough for me to see him pulling it in and blowing it out, like he’s trying not to get angry. “If there’s anyone who’s helping to blow this out of proportion, I’m betting it’s her.”
He starts walking off.
“Are you okay?” Uva asks.
“No, I’m not okay.” He turns back. “I’m gonna fix this.”
“Cole,” Cereza says. “It’s not your job to fix anything.”
“Maybe no one cares what I have to say about the rumors,” he calls back, but doesn’t stop. Now he’s walking backward. “But I am not letting my sister feed them.”
He turns back around.
And with that, with one boy off to squabble with his sister and one boy refusing to come near Chicky, it’s just me and the four Quintanilla sisters standing among my cactus friends.
“This isn’t over,” Cereza says, and I wonder if she’s wearing out those words on me.
I try to rise to Cereza’s faith. “At least the meet and greet doesn’t require a talent. And it’s somewhere we all know.”
All sisters cringe at once.
“It is at Selena’s,” I say, “isn’t it?”
“Try was,” Fresa says.
Uva’s look is almost pitying. “The pageant voted to change the location.”
“Those fuckers,” Fresa says. “It wasn’t enough to deny me the crown, now they move the one event we have this week to a car dealership?” She puts disgusted emphasis on those last three words.
My stomach drops.
Our small town has one car dealership, owned by a family with enough power and enough money for countywide ad space.
“No,” I say.
“I know,” Chicky says.
“NO,” I can’t help repeating.
“I know,” Chicky says. “What are we gonna do?” She’s asking her sisters more than she’s asking me.
This morning I found the stardust continuing its spread over my stomach and hips. I couldn’t wear a two-piece right now even if I wanted to. But right now, with what I’ve done to the Quintanillas and to Cole, I feel like my bones themselves are turning into stardust. I will crumble at any second.
“We have to figure something out,” Chicky says. “I don’t care if we have to start catering at the hospital. Fresa, I don’t care if you have to flirt with a skywriter. We have to do something.”
Cereza holds up a hand. “One problem at a time.” She turns to Lita. “Yes, the meet and greet is gonna be somewhere you don’t know.” She turns to her sisters. “Yes, it is going to be at the business place of the family who is probably our mortal enemy now.” She looks at all of us. “But we are going to conduct ourselves with the elegance and class befitting our places in Miss Meteor’s history.”
“Speak for yourself,” Chicky says under her breath.
Uva snaps her a look that shuts her up.
Chicky kicks at the dirt in protest. Fresa folds her arms at her older sister rejecting her dreams of revenge. Uva’s weariness is so obvious it makes my own shoulders feel heavy. And I probably look nauseated at the thought of putting on a pair of borrowed heels and walking through the freshly Windexed doors of the Bradley Dealership.
“If they’re our enemies”—Uva’s stare stays on Chicky—“what better chance to keep an eye on them?”
Chicky
MY PARENTS DECIDE to keep the diner open the night of the Fiftieth-Annual Meteor Pageant and Talent Showcase meet and greet, even though there’s absolutely no way anyone will be ordering tostada burgers and yucca waffle fries tonight.
“Good luck,” my mom tells us as my sisters crimp and curl and apply false lashes and generally transform Lita into something that won’t look out of place at the southernmost outpost of Meteor proper: the Bradley Dealership.
Mom still hasn’t said anything about the reason for the change of venue, but she knows we know, and we know she knows we know, and it’s all really awkward and sad.
No one else hears her say goodbye over Cereza’s order-giving and Fresa’s backtalk and Lita’s occasional yelps of pain, but I hug her for all of us. For the sorry I can’t say because we’re not talking about it.
She lets go sooner than I do, and it’s maybe the worst I’ve ever felt in my life.
Well, second worst.
When she’s gone I try to focus. This is just a step on the road to fixing this, and I have to believe we can. I have one job tonight—even if I know it’s just one Uva made up to make me feel better—and I won’t rest until I’ve discovered something about the sleazy Bradleys that will prove useful in the battle ahead.
Sue me, I was watching a Viking show this morning, I’m full of war metaphors tonight.
At loose ends until the beauty portion of the evening is over—I let Cereza put mascara on me, and I’m wearing jeans with no holes in them, but that’s as far as I’ll go—I wander into the kitchen and engage in my familiar battle of wills with the phone on the wall.
To call, or not to call, I ask it for the hundredth time since my fight with Junior.
The phone still doesn’t answer. Because it’s still an inanimate object that doesn’t know whose fault the fight was or who’s supposed to apologize first or if it’ll even work.
“Ten minutes!” Cereza shrieks from upstairs, and my nerves start to jangle.
The Bradley Dealership is basically the underworld. Lita will be busy trying to prove she’s not some kind of barbarian, my sisters will be watching (and hopefully correcting) her every move, and sure I’ll be doing recon but everyone knows that’s not a real thing. I’ll just be the outcast of an outsider family, walking around completely out of my element.
I pick up the landline, Fresa’s the only one of us with a cell, and she pays for it herself. Priorities, she says.
My fingers dial Junior’s number by memory, and it only rings twice before I hear the click on the other end.
“Hello?” My stomach sinks. It’s Mrs. Cortes.
“Hey, Mrs. Cortes,” I say.
“Oh, hi, Chicky. Junior’s not here tonight and he left his phone.”
I can’t tell by her tone whether she’s heard what happened between us or not, but I don’t press the issue. “Oh, okay. Do you know where he went?”
“I think he said he was going to that pageant meet and greet.”
My sinking heart is suddenly afloat. “Thank you,” I say, with real relief. “Have a good night, Mrs. Cortes.”