Zoila leaned back, her fingers now hinged around the metal arms of her lawn chair.
—He’s not going anywhere, Zoila said. He’ll get asylum with or without all those tears for the cameras. So cálmate, please, que you’re making a fool of yourself, like those why-too-kay people on the TV.
—?Qué tu qué? an uncle’s voice howled.
The circle of cousins and tíos around Zoila and my mom crashed into mean laughter, the men slapping their knees, some of them laughing so hard it made them cough. Zoila turned to Tony in the commotion and said, The only reason she gives a shit about ese ni?o is because she’s lonely and has nothing better to do.
My mom kept her eyes on her cousin and said, You know, Zoila, go fuck yourself.
Tony lunged to the edge of his seat but Zoila, without breaking my mom’s stare, flung out her arm and blocked him from getting up. He held himself on the chair’s edge.
—No, come on Zoila, Mom said. Let your grandson come over here.
—Mami, I shouted this time.
She snapped her chin toward me, her face and neck red under her streaky foundation, some cream a shade too light on her skin.
—What do you want now, she barked at me.
As if I’d been asking her questions all night rather than hanging close to Leidy and fending off stupid questions myself. As if she wasn’t about to get smacked after spending the whole night trying to convince her drunk and largely uninterested relatives to join her on New Year’s Day at a rally in support of Ariel’s political asylum request, one she’d told us about (instead of asking about my fake Omar meeting where one of us may very well have dumped the other) while we got dressed. The corners of the card with Omar’s name dug into my palm. My jaw tightened and I felt my words come out through my teeth.
I said, I need to talk to you. Now.
One uncle said, Oooooh shit! And another said, Lourdes is getting beat tonight by somebody! He flapped his hand like he’d burned his fingers on something.
As my mom stepped over to me, Zoila said an exaggerated Thank you. Then, to Tony and the other family, Let’s see how la profesora handles her.
Zoila lowered the barricade of her arm from Tony’s chest, but they both seemed to be waiting for me to say something back. I knew she meant the profesora thing as an insult to my mom more than to me, but I was thrilled to have some sort of acknowledgment of what I was doing. It meant they knew. They knew what me going away signified but hadn’t said anything because they just didn’t know what to say. Then I remembered the woman from the airport shuttle on Thanksgiving, my imaginary profesora, how much I’d ended up hating her for her accidental insult. And maybe Zoila was implying something like that instead, that I gave off the stink of thinking I was better than everybody. But that was fine right then. I needed it. I smiled at Zoila, but my mom grabbed the top of my arm—her nails digging into the extra-white skin of my arm’s underside—and pulled me away. Omar’s name card almost fell from my hand.
She dragged me back into the house, where no one outside could hear us.
—Who do you think you are, talking to me like that in front of people?
I pried her hand from my arm and said, Nobody.
She jammed four fingers, hard, into the muscle right above my left breast and said, That’s right. She pushed me back—the side of my head bumped against the edge of a shelf bolted into the wall. She said, Maybe you forgot that up there. Maybe it’s time you remember better.
I leaned my head away from the shelf and took the card from my palm, smoothing it out in the space between our faces.
—I just want to know, I said, why this was on the table.
She didn’t even have to look at it. She knew what I meant.
—So Zoila forgot to take out Omar. So what?
She went to grab it and I snatched it up higher.
—She forgot? I said. Or you told her to leave it there?
—Maybe you needed a reminder, to remember what’s really important.
—Omar? Are you serious?
—You think you don’t need anybody. Four months away and all of a sudden you’re too good for him?
—You don’t even know what’s going on with us! You haven’t asked me one fucking question since I’ve been back. About Omar or college or anything.
She grabbed both my shoulders and slammed me against the wall for good, pinned me there. If I’d turned my head to the left, I would’ve caught the edge of the shelf in my eye.
—I have to ask you questions now? I don’t need to ask you shit.
She let go of me but stayed in my face. Even though I should’ve kept quiet, I squinted and hissed, Don’t you want to know what happened this morning? Who I was really with while you were out distracting yourself?
Her hand swept up—for sure she was about to slap me, and I would’ve deserved it—but instead she went for my fist and tore Omar’s name away.