“I’ll be at your place at two o’clock on Saturday. Is that okay?” asked Liz.
“Two is fine,” I agreed. “See ya.”
I tried not to worry about our apartment that night, although I did tell Lucas that he’d better clean the junk off his bed or I’d never forgive him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Lucas. He made a half-hearted attempt at shoving his baseball, books and action figures into a corner.
Saturday afternoon Mom baked my favorite cookies, biscoito de nata. The smell of butter and sugar filled the apartment like perfume.
Liz arrived fifteen minutes late.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “We got lost. I thought you lived three blocks down. But anyway, here we are.”
I introduced Liz’s mom to my mom and they smiled at each other. Liz’s mom didn’t blink an eye at how our apartment looked. She just said, “I’ll come and pick you up in three hours, Liz. Have fun girls.”
“Hey, this is neat,” said Liz, running over to a wall hanging Mom had brought back from Brazil. “I love the colors.”
“Thank you,” said Mom.
Liz and I plopped down on my bed. “Cool blanket,” said Liz. “Is it from Brazil too?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“So has Karin said anything to you since the watch thing?” asked Liz.
“Not for a week. She’s been weirdly quiet,” I said.
“Maybe she’s over her jealousy,” said Liz. “Maybe she’s accepted the fact that she’s not Maria and you are.”
“Maybe,” I said. “She did give me half a smile on Friday when I passed her in the hall. True, it was like a queen smiling at her lowly subject, but it was better than her usual sneer.”
“Yes. A half-smile from Karin is like a year’s worth of smiles from anyone else,” said Liz. “Maybe playing a nun has improved her personality.”
“Fat chance,” I said, laughing at another one of those goofy English expressions. “What does ‘fat chance’ mean anyway?”
“I have no idea,” said Liz. “All I know is, we’d better start rehearsing. I think I have Karin’s lines down pat now. Although I really don’t want to say them or sing.”
“Down pat? Who is Pat?” I asked.
“Renata,” said Liz, poking me in the side. “Come on. We could spend all day talking about crazy English expressions. We’d better rehearse or we’ll be...”
“Dead ducks?” I said.
“Absolutely. Totally. Completely dead ducks.”
Liz and I rehearsed for the next two hours. We also ate biscoito de nata.
“I love these cookies,” said Liz. “What’s in them, anyway?”
“Oh the usual flour, sugar, eggs, milk.”
“My mom never bakes anything,” said Liz. “She doesn’t want to mess up her oven. She thinks grease and stains are a sin.”
“Your mom’s nice,” I said.
“Yeah. She’s okay despite her neatness obsession. So’s yours,” said Liz, her mouth full of biscoito. “And pretty too.”
My mom pretty? I’d never thought of her in that way. She was just my mom. “Does your mom diet?” asked Liz. “My mom’s a diet nut. She’s always worried she’s gained two pounds. We own every diet book ever written, and my mom’s tried every one of them. You don’t know how horrible it was living with the egg and grapefruit diet. I will never eat another egg or grapefruit again. But the worst diet had to be the hot pepper diet. I think the idea was to burn your tongue so you’d never eat again.”
“But your mom’s not fat,” I said.
“Tell that to her. She wants to be size two. Who wants a size two mother?”
“Come on. Let’s rehearse,” I said laughing.
We read through the script once more.
“We should practice the songs,” Liz suggested.
“Okay,” I said and I began to sing. As I did, Mom came in and listened. After my second song, Lucas banged on my door. “Pipe down,” he shouted. “I can’t hear the TV with all that racket.”
“It’s singing. Not racket,” said Liz.
“And it’s beautiful,” said Mom in Portuguese.
“I care,” said Mom. “And I don’t want to hear another word from you.” Mom shot him an annoyed look. Then she turned to us. “Would you and Liz like some hot chocolate?” Mom asked me.
“Absolutely,” said Liz, after I translated.
“Hey, can I have some too?” said Lucas, opening the door.
“Only if I hear no more complaints,” said Mom.
“No more,” said Lucas, “but I wish Renata would learn rap instead of that dumb girlie music.”
And with that, Lucas popped back into the living room.
“The hot chocolate should keep him quiet for a while,” Mom reassured me.
“For awhile? Maybe for five minutes, if we’re lucky,” I said.