“We’re your parents,” his mother says. “We have a say.”
It’s one of those conversation-stopping sentences.
“Not really,” Bernardo says. The words sound tired, and I’m sure he has said them so many times before that they are reflex more than argument. I don’t know where I fit into this conversation, so I smile and try to seem agreeable and not uptight and into the food.
“Sorry,” he whispers to me while his parents ask Roxanne about college. “They think I’m seven still.”
“You’re not, right?” I say, and Roxanne overhears and laughs. Everyone loosens up.
We spend the afternoon at the table. No one moves to get to work or to vanish into their rooms. The kids sometimes grab toys from their bedrooms or chase one another around in a precarious indoor tag situation. But otherwise there’s the feeling that this could go on forever. There’s simply the changing of light as afternoon moves to evening moves to night.
“You should bring your family here sometime soon,” Bernardo’s mother says. No one so normal has ever liked me so quickly. She keeps asking if anything is too spicy and refilling my water glass, which I’m really only drinking because I’m nervous.
“Maybe!” I say. I want to get off this topic as quickly as possible. I’m not sure what Bernardo’s told them. Hopefully not too much.
“What do they do, your folks?” his dad says. He keeps rubbing Bernardo’s mom’s back, and she doesn’t stop smiling. They are happy in this easy way. Maybe that’s what it looks like to be together for decades. Maybe that’s what it looks like to stay with someone.
Bernardo cringes.
“Don’t interview her, Dad,” he says. I wonder if maybe I’m not supposed to answer.
“It’s a normal question that we’d ask anyone,” his dad says, looking at me with eyebrows raised. “We talked to Roxanne about her teacher parents. Sound like lovely people.”
“Oh, my dad’s a, um, plastic surgeon?” I say. I find if I say it like a question, as if maybe they won’t even know what a plastic surgeon is, I hate myself less.
“Huh. Interesting,” Bernardo’s dad says. He nods seriously, and I try to see how much he’s judging me. “A doctor, then!”
“Yes!” I forget I could say doctor and be done with it.
“There was a very nice plastic surgeon down the street who worked with kids who’d been burned. Very important work,” Bernardo’s mom says. She wants this to be where I come from. I hate lying, but nodding isn’t the same thing as lying. So I nod.
“Totally!” Bernardo says. His face is a mess of emotions I haven’t seen on him before. I’m so used to him one way, it pinches to see him this other way. It’s the first time I realize he hates something about me.
He doesn’t look my way.
“Montana’s father is really respected,” he says. Every extra word that comes out of him hurts me more. I’m allowed to be embarrassed by my father, but I’m not ready for my boyfriend to be covering for him too. Covering for me. Making sure no one knows how shameful I actually am.
I’m That Girl from That Family. I didn’t know Bernardo sees me that way.
“And your mother?” Bernardo’s dad says. He’s so nice it doesn’t sound like grilling me, but that’s what he’s doing. My mouth is dry and not working right. I don’t want to admit any more things about how flawed and broken we are.
“Montana’s mom’s not around,” Roxanne says, saving me from having to say the words myself. “But her sister is a sweetheart, and they’re all very close. They’re a really cool family. I spend, like, all my time there.”
The moment of panic and shame shrinks.
“Montana’s kind of the best,” Bernardo says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Roxanne. Not saying anything more about my family. “We get each other.”
“You’re always saying that, honey,” his mom says, not hearing until it’s too late that she’s said something mean. I keep reminding myself Bernardo and I have something different than Bernardo and Casey did. He said she made him feel like he was supposed to be more. And I know I make him feel like he’s enough. I want his parents to see that. I change my posture and my smile, hoping to make it somehow more obvious.
His mom goes to get the dessert. Profiteroles with ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce.
“I’m in charge of dessert around here,” she says. I like that their family isn’t all one thing or another. That a Mexican feast is followed by French pastries and Ben & Jerry’s. That sometimes his parents say the wrong things.
“I don’t always say that,” Bernardo says a few minutes later, when we should have already let it go.