He pouts and looks like the kid in the frame above him again. So strongly I think it’s no wonder his parents treat him like he’s a baby.
Luckily, the profiteroles are perfection, and the chocolate sauce is the buttery kind that hardens when it hits the ice cream, and the little kids zoom cars over the dining room table like it’s a racetrack. Things here are flawed and brilliant, all at once.
Like love, I think, knowing I’ll write it later on my List of Things to Be Grateful For.
We kiss outside his home and I worry about his family seeing, but he doesn’t seem to be thinking of that. Roxanne sings “I Will Always Love You” when she gets sick of watching us and says it’s time to get to the subway.
“They love you,” Bernardo says.
“Um, hi, what about me?” Roxanne says, poking him in the back while he hugs me.
“Of course, you too,” Bernardo says. “Thank you for helping our girl out.”
I guess I’m their girl. I bury my head in his neck because I don’t know how that’s supposed to make me feel.
It feels a little like belonging.
June 21
The List of Things to Be Grateful For
1 The magic of guac wrapped in a soft tortilla rather than loaded onto a crispy chip.
2 Bernardo’s littlest sister, Maria, who dresses exactly like her big brother—complete with winter scarf and a pink wig. So I guess she dresses like me too.
3 The subway ride back to Manhattan, after the nerves of meeting Bernardo’s family had faded. Roxanne and I rode aboveground and looked out at the city like little kids who were seeing it for the first time. Before the homeless dude with a loaded grocery cart of recycled cans sat down next to us. One sweet moment.
twenty-one
Karissa is taking a bath in my bathroom in the afternoon.
When she finishes, the whole place smells like roses, but I’m miserable.
She comes to my room with her hair in a towel and another around her torso and the rest of her is bare and freckled and too much to take.
“We’ve been missing each other,” she says, leaning against my door frame. Dad’s at work, and Arizona is at her apartment eating peanut butter out of jars and talking with her roommate about who they’ve kissed so far this summer.
I’m here, but only part of me.
I can’t tell if Karissa means we haven’t been seeing each other or that we’ve been pining after each other, but I guess it’s a little of both.
“You don’t have a bathtub at your place?” I say. It comes out biting, and I can’t stop thinking about the ring in my dad’s pocket and the way it’s bigger than all the other rings, and sharper-looking too. Meaner.
“Actually, I don’t,” she says. “It’s something they don’t tell you when you’re looking for an apartment. They don’t all come with baths or intercoms or working doorbells or reliable hot water. So appreciate this place while you can.”
It occurs to me that maybe she’s using my dad for things like fancy dinners and hot baths and endless supplies of toilet paper and the bar down in the basement. It wouldn’t be okay, exactly, but I think it would be better than her actually loving him.
She looks like she’s settling in against the door frame.
“How’s Bernardo?” she asks.
“Awesome,” I say. I can’t stop thinking about his family and that they felt a little like they could be my family in some perfect world. We hung out with Arizona in her apartment this morning. Roxanne brought cigarettes and coffee and I brought cookies from the bakery that Arizona loves so that we could have cookies for breakfast, and Arizona’s roommate told Bernardo and me how cute we are.
Arizona didn’t say too much about that.
“He seems so into you,” Karissa says. “And sort of deep, yeah? And spontaneous. Romantic. So few guys would be deserving of you, but he maybe almost is.”
Karissa adjusts the towel, and I want to pretend we’re in her apartment, not mine. She looks younger than Arizona right now, all naked and makeup-less.
If I’m going to say something about the proposal that’s coming, now’s the time. “What about you?” I say. She lights up.
“Are you asking me how things are with your dad?” she says. Her voice is high and eager and awful.
“Jesus, no,” I say. “I’m asking what kind of guy is deserving of you.”
“Your dad treats me really well,” Karissa says. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but he does. He’s really thoughtful. And gentle—”
“Oh my God, do not say he’s gentle,” I say. I have goose bumps and a cold feeling in my blood. An image creeps into my brain of my father stroking Karissa’s arm and being gentle and I squirm, trying to get rid of it. I’m wondering if I can forget the word gentle even exists. Strike it from my vocabulary.