She turned to her pad, scribbled something down. When I sat up straighter to see it, it read 3.5 min a must? She kept the pen in her hand and, as if it were a problem thrown to the class that she’d already solved but wanted us to puzzle out, asked, So why are they that low?
My hands sat curled in my lap. I thought of blaming Ariel Hernandez. I knew I could formulate a version of things where it really was his fault, and using him would make the grades seem more like a triumph than a mediocre showing. If other people could use him, why couldn’t I? And maybe it was true: maybe I knew he was on his way over, could feel or hear, because of the salt water in my blood, his mother making plans from across the Florida Straits. The daughter of the president of Thailand was a student at Rawlings—surely she had big things on her mind, and surely those things got in her way of studying for an exam, and surely she got a pass here and there for it. For the past six weeks, I’d worked hard at being less Cuban, at trying to pass as anything but Cuban. I’d refused to be an ambassador, but to get this internship, maybe an ambassador was what I needed to be: I needed to play it up to explain away the grades. I could say I was the daughter of someone important and legitimately connected to the whole affair—a judge, a congressman. I could even play along with my mom, claim Caridaylis as a sister. I had to try; Jillian had just landed her dream summer in entertainment law through her mom’s friend. It was my turn to hustle.
—There were some things. Going on back at home, I said.
She didn’t budge, just sat there staring at me, holding her pen.
—There’s this boy, I said.
I couldn’t face her as I lied. I focused on the thumbnails I’d obliterated with my teeth, a habit I shared with Leidy and one I couldn’t control, as it happened while I read and studied: I was in no way conscious of it. I’d drawn blood from the right thumb the day before, and that had stopped me—the sudden taste of iron.
I closed my eyes. I shook my head no—let her think what she wanted to think, but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t pin the bad grades on Ariel any more than I could explain to her why I didn’t think of them as bad grades.
—Oh, it’s OK! she said, too loudly. You know, things happen, with boys.
I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand before raising my face. She looked around the room, searching for an escape.
—But you must not be together anymore, correct?
She nodded, leaned forward as if to make me nod, too.
—This semester? she said. Because you’re better now. Your work. No distractions, no boyfriend, so now everything’s better.
I must’ve looked as stunned as I felt, because she said, Oh, I didn’t mean – don’t worry! There are more fish in the sea! Perhaps you don’t even need a fish!
I laughed, not knowing what else to do, and she watched me laugh and joined in a second later, one moment past natural. I raised my shoulders, then let them fall.
—So you have no reason to say no, she said.
—But my grades –
—It’s fine, she said. She crossed out the note she’d written. Just remain focused this semester. You’re doing super so far. Everything will be better. There is no boy?
—There’s no boy, I assured her.
She took the folder from the bench, held it out to me. I took it from her slowly to hide the true electric thrill running down my arms and legs at what her handing it to me really meant. I said thank you. I told her I’d let her know soon, after I talked with my parents, but that I couldn’t imagine anything I’d want to do more.
Returning to my dorm room that afternoon—the folder in my bag, slapping against my back with every step—I whispered my half of a theoretical conversation into the evening air, the mist of my breath taking the place of any answers. I couldn’t really afford a flight down for spring break, or maybe for Easter, to talk to my parents in person about the internship offer, but I also couldn’t imagine asking over the phone: the phone would make it harder to explain that they could trust this kind of program, that it wasn’t a scam or a trap or a disguise for a prostitution ring. This sort of mistrust, which had come up with my financial aid, only got worse with every document I’d signed and mailed back. They’d drawn the line at my social security card: my dad forbade me from mailing a copy of it and instead made me call to see if I could just bring one to the registrar’s office during orientation (the registrar said that would be too late, and so I managed to get copies sent through a high school guidance counselor). But at least my parents had been in the same physical space when I’d had to argue for something—I didn’t have to make all my points twice, because we all still lived in the same house. I shoved my ungloved hands deeper into my pockets and kept moving, wiggling my fingers to keep them warm.