“Everything’s changing,” Grace says. “Every single thing in my world is changing.”
“I know,” Mom says. “I know. But I’m here. I’m still here. I promise.” And she rocks Grace in her arms, and she is something Grace can hold on to, something solid and familiar and hers.
“Can we do something?” Grace says. “Just you and me.”
“Let’s have a dinner date,” Mom says.
“When?” Grace sniffles.
“Tonight. I’ll cancel my meeting at the church. Anywhere you want to go.”
Was it always this easy? All that time missing her mom, all she had to do was say something? All that time wanting, all she had to do was ask? Grace wonders how much of her life she has wasted waiting for things to come to her, too afraid to take chances, too afraid to make herself and her desires known. As if it is everyone else who knows things, as if they are the ones who hold the secret to God’s will for her. As if God doesn’t speak through her, too.
Grace decides she is sick and tired of waiting. Her fear is not gone, but it is wavering. It is love that did that, love that gave her the need, and then the faith, to open her mouth and risk speaking. Maybe that was her prayer. She spoke to her mother, she asked for help, and God answered through her.
ROSINA.
Rosina sits in the front passenger seat of Melissa Sanderson’s car. Right next to her. In her car. Their legs are inches apart.
“It feels weird, like, just hanging out while Margot, Elise, and Trista are in such big trouble,” Melissa says as she pulls out of the school parking lot.
And while my best friend and my mother both hate me, Rosina thinks.
“I wish there was something we could do for them,” Melissa says.
“Do you want to cancel?” Rosina says. “We could do this another time.” For a moment she hates those three girls for potentially ruining her first maybe date with the girl of her dreams. She hates Mami and Erin for infiltrating her thoughts.
Melissa looks at Rosina and smiles her intoxicating smile. “Of course not.”
“Keep your eyes on the road, lady,” Rosina says, mostly so Melissa will not see the goofy grin she cannot keep from forming on her face, despite the toxic sludge of gloom swirling around in her chest.
“What should we do?” Melissa says. “Where should we go?”
“We could go to my house,” Rosina says. “No one’s there.”
“Great,” Melissa says. “I happen to know exactly where that is.”
The few seconds of silence that follow are too much for Rosina. She must fill them. “So, um, you like football, huh?”
Melissa laughs. “I love it. You probably think that’s really stupid.”
“I think it’s surprising,” Rosina says. “I like surprising.”
“Can I tell you something and you promise you won’t laugh?”
“I will try not to laugh. I will promise to try.”
“What I want to be someday, more than anything in the world, is a professional sportscaster. I want to do Monday Night Football.”
“Wow,” Rosina says. “That’s so . . . surprising.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I have no idea,” Rosina says. No way she’s going to admit to her dream of being a rock star.
“I think I’m so into football because my dad is,” Melissa says. “I’m an only child so I’m the one Dad watches games with and takes to Ducks games. Football’s our thing. Always has been. There’s a series of photos of me in the stairwell at different ages since I was born, and I’m next to a football in all of them. Newborn me. Three-month-old me. Six-month-old me. It goes all the way up to ten years old.”
“That is both adorable,” Rosina says, “and a little insane.”
“I know,” Melissa says. “I kind of love it.”
“I think cooking was supposed to be my thing with my mom,” Rosina says. “It’s the thing she loves to do, what she’s really good at, and she’s always trying to teach me. But I hate it. I hate Mexican food. I hate Oaxacan food. I hate beans and corn. I hate tortillas. I refuse to go to church, and I like girls, so basically I’m like the worst Mexican daughter ever.” Why does she feel like crying all of a sudden?
“Probably not the worst,” Melissa says.
“No?”
“Maybe the second worst.”
Rosina smiles. As nervous and full of self-pity as she is, talking with Melissa is so strangely easy.
“What do your parents do?” Rosina asks. “Like as a job?”
“My mom’s a kindergarten teacher,” Melissa says.
“That must be why you’re so nice.”
“My dad does something with pencils.”
“Pencils?”
“Yeah, like the distribution of pencils.”
“Wow.”
“He manages a pencil distribution office.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“That’s fascinating.”
“Tell me about it.”
They ride the rest of the way to Rosina’s house with grins on their faces.
It’s been a whole week since cousin Lola took over babysitting duty, but it’s still a shock to Rosina every time she enters her empty, quiet house after school instead of the chaos of her aunt and uncle’s place next door. Despite having not a single shred of faith, she can’t help but say a silent “Thank you, Jesus” as she closes the door behind them.
There was significantly less bloodshed involved in Rosina getting out of babysitting than she expected. Her aunts didn’t care who did it as long as they were dependable and—most important—free. At least there is one perk of her mother’s silent treatment—Mami didn’t get involved. All it took was Rosina promising to pay Lola fifteen dollars per afternoon to take her place, which is almost all her tips from a night of work, but that is a small price for freedom.
And right now, what Rosina’s new freedom looks like is Melissa Sanderson standing in her house, unsupervised, the whole afternoon in front of them until Rosina’s shift at the restaurant, when she must pretend like she did not just spend the past couple of hours with the most beautiful girl in the world.
“Where’s your grandma?” Melissa says. “She’s such a sweetie.”
“Next door, at my aunt and uncle’s house. My cousin is watching her. Used to be my job, but I quit.”
“You have a lot of jobs.”
“That’s the understatement of the year.”
They stand in the entryway of the house that is identical to the one next door, the living room open on the left, the dining area and kitchen on the right. Their coats are still on, their bags still on their shoulders. Rosina realizes she has no idea what to do. “Um,” Rosina says. “Are you hungry? Do you want something to drink?”
“I’m okay,” Melissa says, looking at the brightly colored print of la Virgen de Guadalupe hanging above the dining table.
“Don’t judge me,” Rosina says.
“About what?”
“That.”
“Why would I judge you?” Melissa says. “She’s beautiful.”
“It’s so . . . Catholic,” Rosina says.
“What’s wrong with that?”
Rosina searches Melissa’s face for a hint of sarcasm. Is she really like this all the time? This open? This positive?
“They don’t exactly have the highest opinion of people like me,” Rosina says. Or like you? Rosina wants to say. There is so much she wants to say.