“This is a huge mistake,” Bernardo’s dad says. “You’re always in love. You have to get ahold of yourself, mi hijo. Not everything is one and only and forever and the biggest and best. You’re a kid. You’re not able to make these sorts of decisions. Look at you! Look what you do!” He says words in Spanish that I can’t understand, and his mother tries to make everything quiet and calm again.
“Not that we don’t love Montana!” his mother says. “You are a sweetheart, honey. You seem really wonderful, and I know Bernardo is so happy to have met you.” She pours me a cup of coffee without asking if I want it or how I take it. She loads it with sugar and milk like that may make this whole conversation go down easier.
“Yes. You’re a good girl,” his dad says. “It’s not about that. It’s about being real adults. And responsibility. And college. And growing up. And knowing the difference between love and love. And what were you thinking, doing this to yourselves? What if you change your mind next month?”
“That’s the whole point,” Bernardo says. He is indignant. “This is about us not changing our minds. I mean, you can see, now, how permanent this is. How serious we are. I’m not a kid. I’m not being ridiculous. I’m being very, very serious.”
I cringe.
When it’s me and Bernardo alone, the things he says sound true and wise. But with my throbbing finger and post-fainting brain, I hear him through his parents’ ears, sounding impetuous and impulsive and intense.
“No,” his mother says, “this is about you rebelling or trying to prove something. I don’t even wear a ring. I don’t need to. You see?”
I see.
His brothers and sisters write Bs and Ms on their fingers, to match our tattoos.
“Look what you’re doing,” Bernardo’s dad says. “Look at the example you’re setting. We should never have let you sit in that room and read poetry all day long. Did something kooky to your head.”
“Raul!” Bernardo’s mom says, smacking her husband on his shoulder. “Poetry is fine. Loving Montana is fine. But the rest of it. We can’t support. We can’t let you do this. Okay? We can get this all undone. It’s not too late. Okay?” I have never heard anyone sound so desperate. Whereas Bernardo’s dad is filled with a controlled anger, his mother is eager and trying so hard to stay sweet.
“You didn’t know what you were getting yourself into,” she says to me, like she has a world of knowledge about her son and I do not. “I’m sorry.”
“This can’t be undone,” Bernardo says. He puts a hand on his mother’s shoulder and looks her right in the eyes so she can’t pretend it’s not happening or that it’s something else.
I bury my nose and mouth in the coffee mug and wish everything were as simple and perfect as the smell of coffee.
forty
We don’t talk much on the way to my place.
I don’t want to storm into the house and announce our engagement to the angry masses. I don’t want to have another terrible conversation today. I’m exhausted from Janie and fainting and Bernardo’s parents. And my father already disapproves of the most basic things about me—my fucking face, for instance—so he won’t like this newest complication.
“They don’t get us,” Bernardo says.
I’m desperate for him to stop staying stuff like this. I don’t want him sounding like some broken record of misunderstood youth. It makes me feel stupid. I try to think of a way to tell him so.
Instead I shrug. I’m losing my words.
“They’re always like this,” Bernardo says.
“Always?”
“They didn’t want me even dating Casey, so I guess this is an improvement.”
He says Casey with a little whistle on the s, like he’s used to saying it in a whisper, in her ear. We are still so, so new.
“I thought they’d be happy,” he says. He wraps his scarf tighter around his neck, like he’s hanging himself in protest.
“Really?” I say. We weave through the park and I buy myself another coffee at a cart near the exit. It’s the crappy kind, but it still smells exactly like coffee always smells. What I actually want is to get drunk, but getting hopped up on coffee is going to have to do for now.
“Let’s tell Karissa first,” he says.
“That’s random,” I say. I’m sweaty and pink and wishing I hadn’t worn my cutoffs to announce our engagement. I should have gotten dressed up for his family again. I should have worn something with a trim or a ribbon or a patch of lace or a polka-dot pattern.
“I think she’ll approve,” Bernardo says. “I think I need to hear someone approving. I need to hear a congratulations. We haven’t heard congratulations, you know?”
I beam at him. My fiancé. He sounds like the person I love again. It’s so true, what he’s said. So right. So exactly what we need. I trample on all those doubts and focus on how often he says the perfect thing.
Karissa’s on the stoop. She’s drinking green juice and smoking a cigarette.
She has a new face.
Not a new face, but a new chin.
“Holy fuck,” I say, because that is what you say when someone looks like themselves but like someone new. It’s what you say when the thing you hoped would stay is gone.