I looked at what I had so far. “I don’t really know that I want to go to Columbia University. I don’t really believe that I’d measure up to your other applicants. That’s the truth.” No bueno.
The problem was that I didn’t have special gifts or anything like that. And apart from the fact that I seemed to be going through a phase that was confusing the hell out of me—?which was at least interesting—?I didn’t think I had a particularly compelling reason why any expensive university should accept me. Yeah, my dad had gone to Columbia—?but he is gifted. Maybe if he’d been my bio father, I’d be gifted too. But I wasn’t. I was applying to Columbia because? Because I was sentimental. Maybe my fists weren’t, but I was. Columbia. Yeah. For Dad.
I took a deep breath. If Mima was dying and she wasn’t despairing, and if Sam could write her essay even though she was still reeling from her mother’s death, what the fuck was my problem? Maybe I was ambivalent about college. Ambivalent. A Sam word. Yeah, I was ambivalent. Maybe I was going through a phase. And maybe phases were important. Maybe phases told us something important about ourselves.
I texted Sam: Wftd = ambivalent.
I turned off my phone.
I wrote the first sentence of my essay. I looked at it. And then I started writing some more. I wrote and wrote and wrote.
When I glanced up at the clock, it was 2:30. My essay was finished. I read it aloud. I made a few changes. I wasn’t so sure it would get me into college, but I thought, Mima would like it. So what if she wasn’t on the admissions committee?
Friday
WELL, WE DIDN’T quite get to the Christmas tree during the week.
We got busy with school. At least I’d finished my essay—?though I hadn’t gotten around to telling anyone I was done. But there was still that other letter waiting to be read. Is that what my dad meant when he said Be patient with yourself? Sometimes you put things off. And you get addicted to putting things off. That’s stupid, I know. And then the thing you put off seems overwhelming.
Sam texted me: Wftd = stasis.
Me: Stasis?
Sam: As in not moving. As in you have a letter from your mom As in finish your essay. As in NO MOVEMNT
Me: Thanks for lecture
Sam: Ur welcome
I was going to tell her that my essay was done—?but she’d just want to read it, and I didn’t want anyone to read it. Nope.
After Fito quit his second job, he came over most nights and we all sat and studied together. He said it was weird not to work all the time. He went to visit his mom. “She was high as a kite,” he said. “She looked at me with her dead eyes and said, ‘You got any money?’ So I just walked out the door.”
“Why’d you go back?” I asked.
“She’s my mother.”
Sam put in her two cents. “She’s toxic. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Fito said. “Doesn’t change the fact that she’s my mother.”
“I know,” Sam whispered. “I know, Fito.”
We left the conversation at that. I mean, there was nothing any of us could do. Dad said there came a time when we had to be in charge of our own lives. I guess that time came a little early for Fito. Dad also said that sometimes things happen that are bigger than we are, because life is bigger than we are. Like Mima dying. Like Sylvia getting killed in a car accident. Like Fito’s mom. Like my mom, who died when I was three.
Our kitchen table at night was like a study hall. We asked each other questions sometimes and helped each other out, and Fito said, “I died and went to fuckin’ heaven.” That’s a quote. Fito, he liked the F word. But he also liked to read. Sam said he had a heart as big as the sky. And it was true.
Fito said he learned how to escape from the hell around him by reading all the time. He said he liked The Grapes of Wrath because “it’s about poor people. That’s way cool.”
I thought Fito and Mima would’ve really liked each other. I was sad that they’d never have the chance to be friends.
Fito came over, and since it was a Friday and we hadn’t gotten around to putting up any Christmas stuff, we dragged the Christmas tree out from the garage and put it together. Dad and Marcos did the lights thing, and Sam kept going through all the boxes marked Christmas. “You guys have a lot of Christmas stuff.”
“We’re all about Christmas,” I said.
She really liked the wreath we always hung on the front door. “I remember this.”
It was nice, the whole thing, everyone decorating the tree. Dad had gotten around to making the pumpkin pie he promised, and it was in the oven.
The house smelled like pie.
But really, the best part, the best part was that Dad was steaming up the tamales. I was finally going to get a taste. I looked at Fito. “I’m giving you a limit on the tamales.”
He laughed. “I kinda have this thing with food. I’m always hungry. What do you think that means?”
Sam rolled her eyes. “It probably means you need sex. You’re just compensating. You should start running with us. It’s called sublimation.”
My dad looked at her, trying to suppress his grin. “What?”
“Yeah, it’s a gay thing. Gay guys just have to have sex.”
Dad looked at Sam and shook his head. “Where exactly did you come by this information?”
I had to insert myself into the conversation. “She just makes it all up.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do, Sam. You surf the Internet and read about a topic and learn a few things—?and the rest, you just make up. And then you believe the things you make up.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. That’s why you’re going to be a great writer someday.”
She gave me a look and shifted her gaze to Fito. “Do you or do you not want to get laid?”
Marcos started laughing. “He’s seventeen years old. We all know the answer to that one. I don’t think it has anything to do with being gay.”
“You got that right,” I said, and I knew I was blushing, and I sort of wanted to crawl under the couch.
And my dad, who is really a smart guy, said, “Why don’t we talk about something else?”
Sam rolled her eyes, “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s talk about Santa Claus.”
Marcos
FITO GOT A TEXT around ten, and all of a sudden he said he was headed for home—?which meant Sam’s house. But I thought that maybe he was going to hook up with some guy. I don’t know, maybe I’d been chumming around with Sam for too long. Maybe I was projecting. That’s another Sam word. Ever since her mother died, she’d been turning into a therapist. Hmm.
Sam and I ate two pieces of pumpkin pie each as we listened to this group called Well Strung. They were kind of dorky musicians who played classical music and put it together with pop. Sam said they were way gay, and I said I didn’t like that expression, and she countered with, “Well, sometimes that’s a compliment.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”