JULY 1
“Such a fucking creep, right? I can’t believe he sang,” Annabelle says. “And that dumb guy with the Mickey Mouse stuff. There oughtta be a law about grown men wearing children’s cartoon stuff.”
“Right?” I say. “It’s like he’s wearing that stuff to relate to kids or something.”
“No one’s buying it, dude,” Annabelle says. “That court reporter is a shero, though.”
“I wonder how many girls she’s given that note to,” I say. “I kind of feel like I should tell her that no one at the flea market carries Cytotec anymore. I mean, she could lose her job.”
Bea doesn’t say anything. She’s scrolling through her phone. “You don’t know that for sure,” she says. She looks up from her phone. “You don’t know that lady from Adam, Camille.”
“We won’t stay long. We’ll be all right,” I tell her.
“I still say—”
“You don’t have to go!” Annabelle glares at her. “You can stay on the border, how about that?”
Bea presses her mouth, like she’s physically holding her words in. She looks over at the dancers. A little girl holds her frilly skirt in one hand and swishes it back and forth to the music. Another man holds his little girl and dances with her, smiling.
“You’ve been to Mexico before,” I say. “Why are you so scared now?”
“Yeah, Cancún and Puerto Vallarta! The border towns are different. Even the State Department website says so.” She holds her phone up. I catch a glimpse of the American flag on the screen before she puts it down.
“I know you’re worried, Bea,” I say. “But I have to do this.”
“We’re too close,” Annabelle says. She’s fuming. “Besides, it’s Camille’s choice to have an abortion, not yours. I told you that on the phone.”
A man next to us at the table lifts his head from his tacos when he hears her say abortion. A few people stare at us.
“What? Does that bother you? Abortion! Abortion! Abortion!” Annabelle says, looking pointedly at him. “Not exactly something you would know about since you don’t have a uterus.”
“Okay, I think we’re done.” I stand up and toss my cup into the garbage can. “Jeez, Annabelle.”
“Sorry,” she says, not looking sorry at all.
Bea shakes her head, mutters something under her breath, and stands up.
“Where are you going?” Annabelle asks.
“I’m going to get more horchata,” she snaps.
“Wait a second. I’ll go with you.”
“Suit yourself,” Bea mumbles.
“Chica!” Over at a nearby picnic table, an old woman with two little girls in braids and matching Frozen T-shirts waves to me. She says something in Spanish, and I start to walk away because I think she’s going to shout at me about Annabelle, but she calls me again.
The older of the little girls rushes over. “My abuela says not to go to Matamoros. She says there are bad men there.”
“We’re only going for a little while. Maybe an hour.”
The girl translates to her grandma, who clasps her hands together and waves them, a pleading look on her face.
“Abuela says don’t go. She says to go to Nuevo Progreso. We go there all the time. It’s not very far away.”
The girl’s grandmother says something else and the girl smiles. “Abuela says she hopes that you listen to her.”
The woman’s kindness reminds me of my own grandma. She used to take me to farmers’ markets and stuff before she moved into the nursing home. My grandma would have bought me a Frozen T-shirt to wear, too. “Tell your grandma that we won’t go to Matamoros. I promise.”
The little girl tells her grandma what I said, and she smiles.
Bea and Annabelle come back with three horchatas, and we leave the market.
We pull out onto the highway and follow the directions on Google Maps. It’s not very far, about a half hour away.
“So, we’re going to Mexico,” Annabelle says. “Just like in that movie Thelma & Louise.”
“I don’t think they ever got to Mexico,” I say. “Didn’t they drive over a cliff before that happened?”
“Oh god, don’t! Don’t say that’s the next thing coming our way.” Annabelle starts to laugh.
“Now, you get a grip, Louise,” I say, quoting the movie. “Just drive us to goddamn Mexico.”
Annabelle speeds up. “I’m drivin’.”
“I never saw that movie,” Bea says to herself, but Annabelle hears her.
“You should see it, Bea,” Annabelle says. “It’s a classic.”
“Is it rated R?”
“I think so.”
“I don’t need to see it.”
Annabelle studies Bea in the rearview mirror for a moment and then returns her attention to the road.
“You know that part in Thelma & Louise?” I ask Annabelle. “Where Thelma asks Louise what’s the one thing that scares her the most?”
Annabelle thinks for a moment. “Oh, and she says getting old and living with a little dog by herself?”
“Yeah. I used to be afraid of not getting the part I wanted at the Globe, but that’s not exactly a long-term fear. But now, I have so many fears I can’t settle on the one thing that scares me the most. Right now, it’s this big-ass mistake I made. I’ve lost so much already. How many friends and opportunities did I miss at Willow? And then there’s Léo. Maybe something good would have come out of that.” Sadness sinks over me, thinking of being with Léo on that bank, and how that will never happen again. “What’s your biggest fear?”
Annabelle doesn’t say anything for a long while. And then she speaks: “I’m afraid of letting people down.”
I’m surprised by her answer. “You could never let anyone down, Annabelle. Look how you’ve helped me. Look how hard you worked to get to RADA and how proud you’ve made Mr. Knight and Tracy. They’re already getting international students because of you. You’re, like, his best advertisement.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” She puts on her turn signal and gets into the next lane.
“Well, I think so, even if you don’t,” I say.
“If you say so,” she says.
“I do say so.”
I watch her for a long while, waiting for her to say more, but she doesn’t.