CHAPTER EIGHT

Well-educated people can seek help for themselves. They can help others.

—LAURA BUSH

The sky has turned pinkish orange by the time we get back. Nana is dicing tomatoes at the kitchen counter.

“You just missed your dad, mija. Why don’t you call him back? Dinner won’t be ready for another fifteen minutes or so.”

I look at the phone. “I better start my homework first. Then I’ll call him.”

But after homework, it’s time to eat.

Later, I glance at the clock as I’m clearing the dinner plates. I could call him now, but Mom will be back any minute, and I need to talk to Maribel without her hearing.

I find my sister in our room, sitting at the desk and lining up a row of Alma lip glosses. I close the door, stand next to her, and one by one, turn over the boxes to read the names of the colors: Waltz With Me, True Love’s Kiss, Enchanted Castle.

“What are you doing? Leave those alone.”

“Just looking. Can I have a few more of these?”

Maribel looks up at me and rolls her eyes. Then she goes back to her boxes.

“You’re not even wearing the lip gloss I gave you yesterday. What do you want more for?”

I take a deep breath. “To sell it.”

She stops, puts the boxes down, and looks up at me again. “To what?”

I pull the Fresh New Face entry form out from my back pocket and unfold it. I’ve filled in all the blank spaces—except for the one where a parent’s or guardian’s signature is supposed to go. “Sign this for me?”

She takes it and reads. “Five thousand dollars?” she mutters. She keeps reading, and I almost think she might go for it.

Then she hands the form right back. “Nuh-uh. No way. I’m not your parent.”

“But you’re an adult. That counts. They’ll never know.”

“And you’re not twelve.”

“But I will be by the deadline.”

“Do you have any idea how freaked out Mom would be if she found out?”

“That’s why we won’t tell her. That’s why I need you to sign it.”

Maribel shakes her head. “You’re at school all day. When, exactly, did you plan to sell”—she pauses and glances down—“five hundred tubes of lip gloss?”

I grab her elbow. “That’s it. That’s the point. I’m going to sell it at school.”

I explain to her about Kennedy and how I sold my first lip gloss almost without even trying. How Ava would have bought one, too, if I had more. How if girls like Kennedy and Ava are wearing Alma lip gloss, everyone will want to buy some.

Maribel doesn’t say anything. She just scrunches her eyes at me as if she’s trying to see things clearly but can’t quite pull it all into focus. So I keep talking.

“I’ll split the profits with you, fifty-fifty. You’ll make extra money without even trying.”

That gets her attention. “How much did you say that girl paid for the lip gloss?”

“Four dollars.”

Maribel groans. “Oh, Geez. Come on.”

“What?”

“It’s not enough.” She drums her fingers on the desk, then pulls up the calculator on her phone and starts punching.

“The lip gloss retails for eight dollars,” she says, but not exactly to me. “Alma associates buy everything at fifty percent off, so there’s normally a four-dollar profit on each tube. We could drop the price to five or six dollars and still come out ahead. Seven would be better.” Tap, tap, tap. “But that’s probably too expensive for a bunch of schoolkids.”

Maribel sets her phone down. “How much does lunch cost? If you pay with cash, I mean.”

“Depends. Three or four dollars, I guess?”

“And how much does Mom give you?”

I look down at my shoes and don’t answer.

“Geez, you know what I mean. How much did Mom used to give you? Or, like, in general, how much money do kids usually get for lunch?”

“Mom always gave me five dollars, if I was buying that day.”

“And I bet she never asked you for change back?”

“No,” I admit. I always felt a little guilty about keeping Mom’s money, but change from lunch was how I paid for teacups when I went to the thrift store with Nana, or packs of marigolds and snapdragons when Dad took me along to the nursery.

“So, say you saved the change every day. You’d have enough to spend six dollars a week on lip gloss, right?”

“Definitely.”

Maribel starts stacking lip gloss boxes again. “Fine. I’ll give you fifty cents a tube.”

“No way, a dollar.” Even if I don’t win the contest, five hundred tubes of lip gloss means five hundred dollars; that’s enough to buy a costume for the Living History Museum project, at least, and maybe even help Dad with the truck repairs.

“I’m taking all the risk.”

“And I’m doing all the work.” Arguing with Maribel is almost always hopeless, but I’ve made it this far, and I can tell she’s at least a little interested.

She takes back the entry form. “Say I do this for you. It says here you also need to send in forty dollars for your starter kit of Fairytale Collection lip gloss. Do you even have forty dollars?”

“Not exactly, but…” I kneel down, reach under my bed, and pull out the box of teacups. “I have these. They’re antiques. I thought if I sold some of them…”

The thing is, I don’t know which ones yet. I hate to give up any of them. But it’s worth it, I tell myself. It’s the only thing I can do to help us find our way back to normal.

Maribel looks at the box and then quickly away again. Her mouth tightens. After a long pause, she says, “Better idea: I loan you the forty dollars, and all the profits are mine until it’s paid off. Deal?”

My fingers twitch as I work out the math in the air. Selling the lip gloss for six dollars each leaves a two-dollar profit. Forty dollars divided by two is…

“Twenty tubes, and I’ve paid you back.” I jump up and wrap my arms around Maribel’s neck. “Deal!”

“Geez, relax.” She lifts my arms off her neck and gives me her hand to shake instead. Then she counts out ten boxes of lip gloss. “Let’s see how long it takes you to sell these.”

I turn them over to check the colors. “Do you have any more Once Upon a Time? That’s the one Ava wants—the same as Kennedy.”

“Free piece of business advice: She’ll want it even more if she can’t have it. Trust me.”

What choice do I have? I take the boxes and zip them inside my backpack, hoping Maribel is right.

The sky is inky dark behind Mom’s old lavender curtains. The day is almost over, but in some ways it feels like a beginning. Full of possibility, like a first day is supposed to be. I fall asleep looking at my Lady Bird Johnson teacup, wondering what shade of lipstick she used to wear.