Miranda
All the tables at Carolina’s Cantina were full again. It didn’t really matter. I didn’t have any money left to order food, and I didn’t feel like eating. The Cantina was just the only place on the fairgrounds I knew I could find on my own. The only place besides the petting zoo, that is, and I definitely didn’t want to go back there.
I thought about going back to my family, but I wasn’t ready to see them yet.
But I guess it wasn’t up to me.
“Randy! Hey, Randy!” Ronnie and Junior were in front of the deep-fried Twinkie booth and coming my way. I wished I had a giant pink gorilla to hide behind. I tried to cover my face, but it was too late. All I could do was wait for them to pelt me with their frustration and disappointment. I knew I deserved it.
Instead, Ronnie ran toward me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into an enormous hug. “Oh my gosh, Randy, I thought you got lost or ran away or something.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“And you’re so annoying,” she said, thumping me on the back of the head. “We were worried. Where have you been all this time?”
“Out here, on the midway. With Flor. She’s with the petting zoo, and she’s my friend. Well, I thought she was my friend, but—”
Junior’s eyes dropped to the ground. Ronnie’s fell on her watch.
“Sorry, Randy, but we don’t have time for this,” she said, bunching up her eyebrows and sounding almost exactly like Dad. But unlike Junior earlier that afternoon, she wasn’t kidding around. Just what I needed. Someone else telling me what to do. “We have to go. Right now. We told Dad we’d bring you straight back as soon as we found you. We still need to do a sound check, you know? We still have to get dressed. No one’s been able to do anything because we’ve all been too busy trying to find you.”
I couldn’t stand the idea of everyone waiting around for me. Everyone angry and on edge, but I wasn’t ready to go back. I wasn’t sure I wanted to sing.
“Not yet. Just a few more minutes. Junior, please?” Junior always found his own rhythm. He sped up or he slowed down. Not like rule-following Ronnie, who wanted every beat to be sure and steady. “I just need a little—”
This time, he took her side. “Ronnie’s right. It’s time to go back.” He rested his hand on my shoulder. “We can still run through the set if we hurry. Listen, Dad isn’t mad, if that’s what you’re worried about. He even said sorry for putting so much pressure on us.”
I shrugged out of Junior’s grasp.
“I’ll come back,” I told Junior. “But first I just need a minute to—”
“No!” Ronnie interrupted.
My ears felt hot. I was getting sick of the two of them never letting me finish a sentence.
“Not in a minute, Miranda,” she went on. “Right now. It’s late. Don’t you know what tonight means for you? For all of us? Don’t you have any idea how important this is?”
My heart thumped faster than Junior’s bass line.
“Of course I know how important this is! I gave up my room for this! I gave up my friends for this!” I could hear my voice shaking, but I kept going. “I spend all week working on my singing and worrying about my singing, and practicing my Spanish so I can be a better singer. And then I spend all weekend up there in front of strangers, smiling so hard it makes my cheeks sore, so you and Junior can hide behind me and never listen to what I think!”
I was out of breath. That wasn’t fair and part of me wished I could snatch the words back. I knew my brother and sister worked as hard as I did. But I always thought they cared about what I had to say. Now they didn’t even care enough to hear it.
Ronnie opened her mouth. Her lip quivered. But whatever it was she was about to tell me, she swallowed it back down.
Junior tossed his arms in the air. “Are you serious? We left our friends too. We miss our home too. We’re not hiding behind you, we’re pushing you forward. Toward this! To a chance like we have tonight, and you’re going to blow it. You’re going to throw away our whole plan.”
It was a good plan. It had taken us from our garage to the church variety show, to the baseball field, to the side stage, and maybe even further. Only, it was Dad’s plan, and as good as it was, it left some things out. Important things like getting so dizzy your legs turned to mush or learning the secret to winning on the midway. And trusting yourself to know what to do, even if it meant folding up your plan and sticking it back in your pocket for a while.
Ronnie used to keep a picture on her desk, over at our old house. It was of her softball team when she was in fifth grade, the last season she played. It was the same year, not long after Nana and Tata’s anniversary party, that Dad strapped an accordion over her shoulders and bought Junior a hand-me-down bass guitar from one of his old band buddies. The same year we started staying up late for music lessons after they finished their homework. I was still in kindergarten. I didn’t have any homework yet.
Ronnie’s team made it to the semifinals that spring, but their big game was scheduled for the same weekend as this talent competition up in Kingsburg that Dad had entered.
Ronnie said she wouldn’t play in the talent show.
Her team needed her, she said. She was the shortstop.
Dad tried to persuade her. He said there’d be other games, that we needed to practice playing in front of an audience. The show could be our first big break.
He promised her new cleats and a new glove if she performed.
He threatened to take away her old ones if she didn’t.
Then he said we were going and that was that.
She told him he could make her go, but he couldn’t make her play.
And I guess he finally believed her, because we never did go to Kingsburg.
“Ronnie?” I waited until she was looking me in the eye. “I know how important the show is. I don’t want to let you down. Please. Give me five minutes.” I would go back. But I wanted Dad to know it was because I decided to, not because he said so and not because Ronnie and Junior had dragged me.
Ronnie’s arms hung at her sides. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Fine,” she said, so quietly I almost wasn’t sure I’d really heard it.
“But Dad said—”
“It’s fine,” Ronnie said again, interrupting Junior but looking at me. “You’ll come straight back to the arena?” She took off her watch and fastened it around my wrist. “Five minutes?”
“I promise. Five minutes,” I told her. “Cinco minutos.”