Maya was not amused.
She finally got his response while she was at home. She was always at home these days, since she had gotten grounded for sneaking out to see Claire one night when her dad was out of town on business and she had thought her mom was asleep. And by asleep, she meant passed out, but it didn’t really matter because her mom hadn’t been asleep or passed out when Maya had snuck back in downstairs at two in the morning. They had just looked at each other before Maya’s mom pointed at her and said, “Grounded. One week,” and then went upstairs. Maya suspected that if she had been dating a boy, there would have been a much bigger scene involving yelling and threats and being found dead in a ravine somewhere and teenage pregnancy statistics. Like Maya would have ever been stupid enough to get pregnant, anyway.
She guessed that dating a girl was a lot less threatening to her parents.
Lucky her.
Maya opened Joaquin’s email.
Hey Grace and Maya,
Sure, that sounds cool. Let’s meet up next weekend? I’m working that day at the arts center, but I’m free after 1 p.m. Cool to meet up with you and talk.
“That’s it?” Maya said as soon as she got Grace on the phone. She was using her parents’ landline. Part of her punishment was the surrender of her phone. She felt like someone in an eighties movie. It was humiliating. “‘Cool to meet up with you’? What does he think this is, a date?”
“God, I hope not,” Grace said. She sounded like she was doing something in the background, which bugged Maya. She had only met Grace once, and Joaquin never, and already her siblings were annoying her. Typical.
“We’ve got even bigger problems if he thinks it’s a date,” Grace added. “Hey, why are you calling me instead of texting?”
“What, I can’t call you and talk, voice to voice? Have a human connection?”
“Nice try. Are you grounded?”
“Yep. My parents took my phone. I can only use the computer for school.” Maya sighed heavily as her mom walked past the kitchen, then one more time for good measure. “My jailers let me use the landline for five minutes. The fucking landline. Like I’m on the Oregon Trail or something. I told them I had a question about homework.”
“So how did you get the email from—you know what, never mind. I don’t want to know. So do you want to meet him?”
“Hell yeah, I want to meet him.” Maya wrapped the phone cord around her finger. It was oddly soothing, being able to do that. The tip of her finger started to turn red, and she loosened the cord, then did it all over again. “You have to drive, though,” she told Grace. “Shotgun.”
“There’s not even going to be anyone else in the car. Why do you have to call—”
Maya felt bad for Grace sometimes. Imagine being raised without a sibling and not understanding the importance of yelling “Shotgun!” at every single opportunity. Grace was really missing out. Maya wondered how she played Slug Bug on car trips.
Maya’s mother came back through the kitchen this time, and Maya immediately put on her most innocent face. (She had practiced it in the mirror. It was sort of necessary when she snuck out as much as she did.)
“Oh, is that the quadratic equation?” Maya’s voice suddenly changed into a sweet and dopey imitation of herself. “Oh, that makes sense. Okay.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Are you having a mathematically based stroke?”
Sweet, innocent, na?ve Grace. Maya was definitely going to have to toughen her up.
Maya’s mother widened her eyes at her, then pointed at her watch. “One minute,” she mouthed.
“I know, I know,” Maya said, and her mom gave her a warning glance before she left the room.
“Do I even want to know why you’re grounded?”
Maya could hear Grace tapping on a keyboard in the background. How dare she? “I snuck out last week to practice devil worship with these kids I met in a cornfield.” Maya wrapped the phone cord around her whole fist this time. “They’re not the best conversationalists, but they’re pretty nice once you get past all the ritual sacrifice.”
Grace laughed this time, which made Maya feel pleased. Her family was so used to her weird brand of humor that they had stopped acknowledging it a long time ago. Hearing Grace laugh made Maya feel like a comedian who had finally found her perfect audience.
“Okay, I’m going now,” Grace said. “I’ll pick you up at noon on Saturday. Don’t be late. Good luck with the ritual sacrifice.”
It warmed Maya to hear Grace tell her not to be late. She felt like she had spent her entire life watching out for Lauren, herding her from place to place, telling her to hurry up. It was nice to have another person take the reins, even if that person was still basically a complete stranger.
“I’ll put in a good word for you with the cornfield kids,” Maya said, then hung up before Grace could respond.
Maya didn’t tell her parents much about going to meet Joaquin, mostly because she didn’t want to answer questions about it. Her parents were super into discussing everything. It made Maya feel anxious, the way she was supposed to put her emotions into words, like it was an easy thing to do. Lauren was good at it, being able to say whatever was on her mind so that other people could understand, but for Maya, it was like describing colors: the sunset pinks and reds of first love, the stormy blues that clouded her brain when she was hurt or angry.
Claire had always seemed to see the palette of her brain, had been able to sort the colors through a prism so she could understand how Maya felt without Maya having to say a word. The night she had gotten caught sneaking out, she had met up with Claire in the park, smoking a joint that Claire had stolen from her older brother, Caleb. (They also had two younger siblings, Cassandra and Christian. Their parents were Cara and Craig, but Craig had taken off five years ago, so he didn’t count. It was the first time that alliteration had made Maya feel like barfing.)
They had smoked in silence for a while, which was one of Maya’s favorite things.
Afterward, they had lain down in the damp grass, Maya’s head pillowed on Claire’s stomach. “I think the stars are moving,” she told Claire. Her own voice sounded syrupy to her, like she could pour it out.
“We’re moving, not the stars,” Claire pointed out. Her hand was soft against Maya’s hair. “That’s how the world works.”
“Do you think Joaquin even wants to meet me and Grace?”
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “He’s the only one who can answer that.”
“I wouldn’t want to meet me,” Maya said. “I’d hate me if I were him.”