24

EARLY JANUARY

I wait until everyone’s asleep except for Dad. I pad down the stairs quietly, my pajama bottoms soft against my legs. He’s sneaking a massive bowl of ice cream from the carton he hid in the back corner of the freezer behind the frozen chicken that’s been sitting in there so long it’s crusted with ice.

“A little hungry?” I tease.

He startles, then smiles a guilty smile and holds out the spoon. “Want a bite?”

“Okay.” I take it from him, and for a second it feels like we’re doing something really taboo, like sneaking a smoke. It makes me want to laugh. I want to ask him how a man who runs an entire police investigation has to sneak a bowl of pistachio ice cream in his own kitchen. But I don’t. Instead I hold out the two sitting-duck cards.

His face changes instantaneously. He sets down the spoon. “Where did you get these?”

I lie. I don’t know why. Something about the way he asks me makes me wish I hadn’t brought them. “In the school parking lot.”

“Where in the parking lot?” He’s in interrogation mode, and now I fumble, afraid of getting caught up in my lie and not sure why I’m lying in the first place.

“On the ground. I just picked them up.”

He turns them in his hands, holding only the edges, and I notice right away how clean they are. They don’t look like they’d been dropping in a parking lot. Does he know I’m lying?

“Did you show them to anyone?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he says, seeming relieved. “Thank you for bringing them to me. I’ll see if there are any fingerprints on them besides yours.”

He turns and heads to his office, leaving his bowl of ice cream on the counter to melt.

Chloe and I veg on the couch. She is painting her nails black. They were purple yesterday. I’m trying to cram for physics, but her T-shirt of the day keeps distracting me. Light yellow with two half-eaten chocolate Easter bunnies facing each other. The bunny with the bite out of his rear says, “My butt hurts.” The other bunny has the bite taken out of his ears. He says, “What?” Every time I look at it, I want to laugh.

“Don’t you ever crack a book?” I grab the polish, wondering if I can pull off black nails.

“Not if I can help it,” Chloe says. “How ’bout you just do my homework for me? I’ll let you borrow my ‘Smile if you’re not wearing undies’ shirt.”

“Tempting.” I spread the polish along the toenail, but the black clumps in the corners.

“Here,” She takes the nail polish from me. “I’ll fix your nails and you do my math.”

“Even more tempting. Go find your math book.”

An hour later, Chloe holds scissors up to my forehead. “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this.” Painting my nails somehow led to cutting my hair.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you do it either. I must have completely lost my mind.”

She wets my hair and combs it straight, then pulls it out between two fingers, measuring it against itself. “I won’t go that short. That way even if I screw up, there’ll be room for a professional to even things out.”

“You’re really boosting my confidence here.” I’m glad I’m not facing the mirror.

Sniiip. Sniip. Sniip.

“You’re awfully quiet, Chloe. It’s making me nervous.”

“Sorry. I’m concentrating.”

“How well do you know Mel?” I can’t help myself.

Sniip. “What do you mean? She’s been hanging with our group since freshman year. You know that.”

“I know. I guess I’m wondering if she’s, uh, stable.”

“Stable?”

“Yeah, like emotionally stable.”

Chloe comes around to my front and lifts my chin. “News flash, Gabi, none of us are stable. That’s why we hang out together. We’re all losers.”

“You are not a loser,” I remind her.

“Says who? Miss perfect AP student and volunteer extraordinaire?”

I start to roll my eyes, but I stop because I don’t want to accidentally move my head and wind up with lopsided bangs. “A loser is someone who has no ambition. Or no morals. Nothing that matters to them. That does not describe you.” Or Janae. Or Miguel, I add to myself.

“Oh, so if I look up the word ‘loser’ on Wikipedia, that’s what it’d say?”

“Come on, Chloe. Please tell me you don’t really think you’re a loser.”

She stops cutting and studies her work. “Mom thinks I am.”

“Oh, stop it. She does not. But we’re not talking about her. We’re talking about you. Do you really honestly think of yourself as a loser?”

“I don’t know. I’m certainly no Gabriella.” There’s a hint of sarcasm there, and it makes me sad.

“Would you want to be me?”

“No, not really. But sometimes I like the things you have.”

“Like what?”

“Like the grades. The skills. The body. The sexy Latino boyfriend.” Chloe nudges me with the back of the scissors. I introduced Miguel to her last week at lunch.

“Chloe, you can have all of those things. Except for the boyfriend. You can’t have mine. Besides, what about the guy you’re dating? The older, but-not-illegal-older mystery man?”

“Don’t want to talk about him.”

“Why?” I press.

“You’re irritating me,” Chloe warns me. “Don’t forget I’m holding scissors to your head. All I need is one little oops and half your hair is gone.”

“Very funny. I don’t mean to come off like I’m lecturing. I’m just saying the only difference between you and me is the choices we’ve made.”

“And, um, like our entire genetic makeup. What about our personalities?”

“But you win on the personality,” I tell her. “I’m so boring. I hardly ever have an opinion on anything. You have an opinion on everything.”

“True.”

“And look at our rooms.”

Chloe smiles. “Yeah, I guess my room has a tad more personality.” Chloe’s room is overloaded with random memorabilia, while my room, on the other hand, is totally devoid of any personal touches. Mom designed it for me. I had no opinion, just agreed with everything she suggested. Tiny green-and-peach flowers on the walls, antique desk with roll-up cover, peach rug, and a wall of collectibles.

“Maybe we can invite Mel over sometime,” I suggest. Chloe goes to the back of my hair, apparently satisfied with the bangs.

“You’re spending way too much energy worrying about a girl you hardly know. You ought to spend more energy worrying about whether you’ll like your hair.”

I’d forgotten about my hair. I hold my breath while I use the handheld mirror to check out the back.

It looks pretty good, actually, but I fake-gasp to freak her out.

“What’s wrong? You don’t like it?”

I stand up, and little bits of my hair flutter to the floor.

“Relax. I like it.” I toss it over my shoulder and watch how it falls in the mirror. “If Mom and Dad ever disown you, you can work your way through college by cutting hair.”

“I’m not sure whether to say ‘thank you’ or hack off the rest of your hair out of spite.”

The next day I bring Miguel over for the first time. “Are you sure your parents won’t be home?” He hangs back as I step through the front door. “I hear your daddy has a gun.”

“He’s at work,” I promise Miguel, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward. “And my mom is hiding from the cleaning lady.”

“Okay, explain that one to me.”

“I would if I understood it. Just one more example of how my mom is completely nuts.”

“Try me.” Miguel glances at the row of shoes by the door and slips his own off his feet, carefully rolling up his socks and stuffing them inside.

“Okay. So my mom used to clean herself when I was little, and she’d be a raving neat-freak lunatic for hours after. Finally my dad convinced her to hire someone. But it’s like she can’t admit she needs help. So she leaves these notes out for the cleaning lady. Notes and a check. And then she hides. Usually in her office or something. But today she’s volunteering at the free clinic. So the coast is clear.”

I drag him up the stairs. “God, what are you eating these days? Lay off the tamales, okay? I can’t believe I’m trying to get you alone in my room, and you’re dragging your feet.”

“This feels so wrong.” He hangs on to the banister. “Especially now with your new haircut. It makes you look even more innocent.”

“Just because I’ve never brought a guy into my room doesn’t mean I’ve never wanted to bring a guy into my room.”

“You’re talking me into it.”

Lucia is wiping down the counters in the bathroom between my sister’s and my room. I call to her back, “Hola, Lucia.” Lucia has been coming to clean our house for the last two years. Before that we had a husband-and-wife team.

She waves the back of her hand toward me, barely looking up from the counter. “Hola, mija.”

But Miguel freezes at the top of the stairs. I’m about to question his manhood, because, come on, how hard should it be to get the guy in my room for a little tongue twister?

“Well, that just killed my mood,” he grumbles under his breath.

Apparently he has issues with hired help too. Lucia looks up this time, really looks up, and her eyes brighten.

“Hola, Mamá.” Miguel starts toward the bathroom. “Te quieres ayuda?”

We spend the next two hours helping Miguel’s mother clean my house. Miguel tells me it’s nothing personal. That it’s about respect. He can’t very well roll around on the bed with me while his mother is slaving away with Lysol and disinfectant. I tell him I understand. I do, but I’m definitely bummed.

And our relationship just got a whole hell of a lot more complicated.