—There’s no need to get like that, she said.
I put my hand in her face and said, Right, except that’s not your fucking mom on TV right now, so just get the fuck out of here.
—Jesus Christ, she said, and the girl behind her said, You don’t have to be nasty.
Tracy, standing farthest from me and wearing a wide mint-green headband, said, That’s your mother? Really?
I felt the spark then—the flare that shoots up at being challenged—what Weasel must’ve felt and had thrown in my face before Christmas when I went looking for my dad, the rage with which my mom once fainted but that she now channeled into a microphone over a thousand miles away.
—Yes, that’s my mom, I said to Tracy’s headband, to her restrained hairline. You want to say something about it?
Tracy and Caroline and another girl drew together, their shoulders touching, instinctively clinging to the pack to avoid being picked off one by one. But the fourth girl, who had yet to say a word, crept backward, her eyes on the carpet the entire time, as if willing me to notice she wouldn’t be able to identify me in a lineup later if it came to that. She slinked out of the room, her hands shoved in her pockets as she turned in the doorway and all but sprinted down the hall. No one but me noticed she’d left.
Caroline held her head at a practiced angle and said calmly, Don’t get so upset, OK? Take a second to just calm down.
Why did she have to say that? Why did she try to step in and help me when the smartest thing those girls could’ve done was what their friend did and just walk away? I stepped closer to them, to her, and felt taller, stronger for the high-school-born pride and fear—the adrenaline churn of some hallway fight an accidental blow sucked you into. I scanned the room for a chair, for something light but significant I could eventually throw.
—Calm down? I shouted. Are you shitting me! Out of nowhere my mom is on national television, this whole fucking spectacle obviously way outta hand –
—No, exactly, Caroline said. That’s why his dad’s coming, to end all this –
—Come on, Tracy blurted. The man just wants his son back.
—That’s not the fucking point! I yelled. Besides, the guy knew they were coming, he knew their whole plan, they had his blessing! His dad caring now is just some propaganda shit on the part of Castro and the Cuban government!
I’d heard all this while in Miami—was hearing it again behind me now, part of my mother’s bullet points—but I didn’t know, when I repeated it, if I believed it: it was easier to feel rage about Ariel than regret about not being home to have stopped Mami myself, so it’s possible I wasn’t really convinced of what I’d said until all three of those girls rolled their eyes like a reflex. There is nothing like the whites of someone’s eyes to convince you how very true what you believe is, how very much you must act on it.
—Are you really too stupid to see that? I said.
I stepped over my book, the soaked toe of my sneaker hitting Caroline’s boots.
—You want to tell me I’m wrong? You want to tell me I’m lying?
—OK, she said, putting her hands up. Wow, OK.
She stepped back and almost fell down into the seat of the couch, but she only wobbled, watching me the whole time like I was some animal she’d just failed at taming.
I shoved the beak of my fingers into the embroidered pattern of letters on her vest—The North Face, it said—and she let herself sway with the force.
None of them pushed me back. They were afraid of me, and I couldn’t believe it. There were three of them, three of them, all taller than me. In high school, this was a no-brainer: I should’ve been the one avoiding physical contact, the one looking for the fastest way around them and out of the building. I should’ve been the one ready to duck. Instead, I let them keep this nonsense switch; I widened my stance and stepped right on Caroline’s boot. I leaned all the way on it. She should’ve smacked me for it, or at least pushed me off—I even closed my eyes, ready for it in a deep-down way—and when she didn’t do it, when my sneaker collapsed her boot’s toe, I knew we were from very different places, and I could push her, push all three of them, as far as I wanted, as far as they expected me to go.
—No one’s saying they don’t believe you, Caroline said slowly.
I slid my foot off her boot.