“You’re such a girl,” one of them says as the other withdraws his hand in pain.
“Boys?” Mom says. “Did you hear me? Time to wash your hands.” But they act like she’s not even there.
“Rob, can you help me here?” she implores her husband.
“Calm down,” he says. “They’re fine.”
Rosina fights the urge to strangle the little shits. “Are you ready to order?” she says between clenched teeth.
“I want a number fourteen with beef,” Dad says.
“Number eighteen,” says Eric. “Pork.” Rosina does not look up, but the tone in his voice as he said “pork” suggested he was going for a double meaning.
“The boys will both have the kids’ tacos, with beef, please,” says the mother. “I’ll have the taco salad with chicken. But just on a regular plate, not that fried tortilla bowl. And no cheese or sour cream or guacamole. And dressing on the side.”
Rosina heads to the kitchen as fast as she can without running. She is relieved when two more parties enter the restaurant, even though they look like assholes too. Everyone around here looks like an asshole to Rosina. But there are gradations of assholes, and the new customers couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as Eric’s family.
As she seats the first new group, she can hear Eric and his father whispering. She can feel their eyes on her.
What can Rosina do? Storm over there and give them a piece of her mind? Make a scene? They’d just laugh at her. The other customers would freak out. Mami would freak out. It’d be bad for business. And if something’s bad for business, the whole family suffers, the whole damn stupid family. The customer’s always right, isn’t he?
Rosina is immobilized, powerless. She is nobody, nothing. A waitress, a daughter, a body, a girl.
One of the twins knocks the basket of chips on the floor.
“Can we get some more chips over here?” the father says.
Just say yes. It’s her job to always say yes.
She sweeps up the mess. She brings over a new basket of chips. She pretends not to notice the boys stabbing holes into the pleather booth with their forks. She pretends not to notice the fire in Eric’s eyes as he looks at her, a mix of desire and violence, a sense of entitlement that Rosina will never come close to knowing, an entitlement so effortless these men don’t even know it’s there. The privilege of always getting away with it. The privilege of getting to raise more sons just like them.
But worse, worse than anything, is the fact that Rosina, outspoken bitch extraordinaire, does nothing to stop them.
Rosina hears the bell ding in the kitchen announcing their order is ready. She sets the hot, glistening plates on a platter.
She spits a little bit of her rage into each one.
The Real Men of Prescott
All women are insecure and longing for male validation. The fact that they hate themselves is our most powerful weapon, and one of the most important tools of the game is to learn how to use that self-hate to our advantage. This works especially well for superhot girls, whose whole sense of worth comes from their ability to control men with their looks. Show them that you aren’t being controlled, by knocking them down a notch.
Ignore them. Tease them. Point out their little flaws. Use their insecurities against them, then they’ll do anything and everything to get your approval. You will be the one they want because they’ll be so afraid you don’t want them.
—AlphaGuy541
GRACE.
Mom and Dad are still giddy from Mom’s sermon yesterday. They hover over Dad’s laptop at the breakfast table as he shows her the websites of different publishers and literary agents he’s been researching. They don’t even notice Grace enter the kitchen.
“I think it’s finally time to finish my book,” Mom says with a huge grin. Dad hugs her, holding her in his arms for a long time.
“It feels like the right time, doesn’t it?” he says as he lets go. “God’s calling us.”
“He is,” Mom says earnestly. “I just hope people want to hear my message. I hope they’re ready.”
Grace won’t tell them how she spent all night on the computer, scouring the Web for any sign of Lucy Moynihan. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr—everywhere, every sign of her, gone. Her old e-mail address bounced back. Her family seems to be unlisted, wherever they are. Lucy is invisible. She’s been erased.
“God sure works in mysterious ways,” Dad says with a laugh. “I hate to say it, but people know who you are because of what happened in Adeline.”
He didn’t seem to hate to say it at all, Grace thinks as she pulls a carton of orange juice out of the fridge.
“As much as it hurt,” Dad says, “it got us to where we are now.”
What does he know about hurt? Grace thinks.
Mom sighs. “Who knew doing God’s work would involve having to think about marketing angles?”
Dad hugs her again. “God will guide us in getting our message across, every step of the way.” He chuckles. “Even Paul did ‘marketing’ in the early church. All of it matters. Every bit is holy.”
They look at each other with a love that had always been a comfort to Grace growing up, when none of her friends’ parents seemed to even like each other all that much. But now she’s starting to find her parents’ devotion annoying. The house is full of their positivity and faith—it’s stuffed with it—leaving no room for what Grace is feeling. Their plans and dreams are so big and so complete, but Grace has no place in them. She does not matter.
She matters so little that her friends back in Adeline could just throw her away. She is no one. She is nothing. A girl no one sees. A girl no one remembers.
Grace grabs an apple and a granola bar for breakfast and walks out the door to head to school early.
She is so tired of being invisible.
Grace will have to make her own plans, then. She will have to find her own way to matter.
If you’re already nothing, you have nothing to lose.
*
Grace prepares herself all morning for the speech she will give Rosina and Erin at lunch. She uses several pieces of notebook paper over the course of her first four classes, jotting down points she wants to make, retorts to potential objections. By the time she sits at their table, she is almost confident about her case. Almost.
Lord, give me strength.
Erin pulls out her bento box with its usual bird-food contents. Rosina plops down with a banana, a carton of chocolate milk, and some cheese crackers from the vending machine.
“That’s all you’re having?” Grace asks.
“Today’s school lunch is tacos,” Rosina says. “I hate tacos.”
“Do you think an android could be programmed to enjoy sex?” Erin says while spooning a mysterious green substance out of one of her box’s compartments. “And if it could, would there be a practical reason for it to have that ability?”
“Wow, Erin,” Rosina says. “How about you start with something like ‘how was your weekend?’?”
“But that’s small talk,” Erin says. “You know I hate small talk.”
“Now you’re just being contrary.”