Chapter Thirteen
normal in the aftermath of Dino World. After I blamed my sudden mood shift on an upset stomach, Joaquin dropped me off at home and sped away with stars in his eyes and Tessa on the brain. With just a week until senior skip day, we’ve both got to kick our asses into gear. Him, trying to plan out his picture-perfect promposal, and me figuring out how to stop it.
It’s impressive how much Joaquin is able to get done so quickly. I scan the itinerary he sent over last night, an hour after dropping me off at home. His plan to have Danny’s cousin, Dino World’s resident Diana the Diva Dino mascot, escort Tessa around the park, collecting free prizes and funnel cakes along the way, before ultimately leading her to the gazebo at the center of the light show, is pure magic.
And more importantly, it has plenty of opportunities for sabotage.
I take one last look at the itinerary, committing it to memory even though I have plenty of photos of it on my phone, and approach the boy waiting outside the second-floor bathroom for me.
“Are you Jonathan?” I ask, taking a hesitant step back when I spot the guy taking a hit off a Juul as I approach. That’s definitely not allowed indoors.
The boy—Jonathan—nods and shoves a greasy lock of dark hair beneath his lime-green Aliens R for Real beanie. I quickly hand him the itinerary and an envelope full of the last of Joaquin’s summer job money since Jonathan “doesn’t trust money transfer apps.” Joaquin would’ve delivered the goods himself if there wasn’t a strict “arrive on time or run five laps” policy in place for his remaining baseball practices.
Jonathan quickly counts the stack of bills, nodding in approval before kicking himself off the wall and tossing his spent Juul pod onto the floor.
With the deal done and dusted, I text Joaquin that the plan is in motion and race toward the auditorium to work on what little set design I can now that I’m free from detention.
And almost run directly into a cow.
Standing in front of the staircase leading down to the auditorium is a real, whole-ass cow, decked out in a pink frilly bonnet and a sash that reads I’m Udderly Obsessed With You.
“Promposal,” Anna explains, walking out of the auditorium with an armful of used paintbrushes. I should’ve known.
“What’s it still doing here?” The cow gives me a thousand-yard stare.
“Turns out cows can’t go downstairs, so…” Anna shrugs. “Guess they’re waiting until his real owner comes and gets him.”
I’m sure “no livestock on campus” will be added to the ever-growing student handbook by the end of the year. Right after “No T-shirt cannons or bees.”
“Where were you?” Anna asks with a raised brow. “I thought detention ended ten minutes ago.”
“Just handling some stuff for senior skip day,” I say, convincingly enough that she doesn’t see right through me. I really am getting good at this whole constant lying thing.
Anna nods, and I join her as we walk down the hall to the drinking fountain to clean off the brushes.
“Speaking of which, let me know if you need a ride. My mom’s out of town for some health care conference the next two weeks, so I get the car.” Anna punctuates the statement by pulling the keys out of her vintage blazer pocket, jangling them with a grin.
“You’re actually going?” Not that I’m complaining about having Anna around—she’s so against school-sanctioned events I wouldn’t have put it past her to skip senior skip day and just stay home.
“That’s breaking the cardinal rule of senior year,” she says, as if it’s obvious, while wiping down the last of the brushes.
“Shouldn’t going to prom be the actual cardinal rule of senior year?” I ask as we make our way back to the auditorium.
Anna rolls her eyes. “Absolutely not. Senior skip day is a ‘fuck you’ to the admin while prom is just an excuse to wear overpriced clothes, eat some dry, seasoning-free chicken, and listen to an underpaid DJ play one-hit wonders from when our parents were teenagers. No thank you.”
And here I thought I was cynical about prom. “Well, for what it’s worth, we would’ve looked super cute.”
She leans over to pinch my cheek. “The cutest.” Suddenly, her smile falls. “Wait, is this you saying that you’re not going to prom too?”
After all my prom-related exploits, definitely not. Dances have never been my thing, though Joaquin and I do have a number of them under our belts. The awkward pictures on the front lawn and the shoes that always pinch and the small talk with people from my classes while Joaquin, someone with actual dance moves, parties it up on the dance floor. Even if my nonexistent plan comes together and Joaquin doesn’t go with Tessa, who’s to say he won’t spend the entire night trying to woo her anyway?
Might as well save myself the nausea.
“It’s looking a lot like that.”
Anna nudges her shoulder against mine. “Maybe we can do something else instead. Order pizza and binge something laughably terrible.”
The thought is a bright spot in the storm clouds that have hovered over me this whole week. “It’d be an honor to eat pizza and binge something laughably terrible with you.”
Anna grins, tossing a loc over her shoulder. “It’s a date.”
With our prom night plans in place, we focus on bringing the town of Padua to life onstage. Now that there’s just over two weeks left until opening night, all six of us keep our heads down and get to work. The Emilys don’t even ask me about Joaquin—a first. We’re able to make a decent amount of progress in the hour we have before breaking for the night, enough that I’m no longer feeling like we’re in a desperate race against time to do the impossible.
“Need a ride home?” Anna asks as we grab our bags from backstage.
“Nah, I biked here so I should be…” I trail off as I take in the flurry of notifications waiting for me on my phone.
Tío Tony: 3 missed calls, 1 voice mail.
Mami: 4 missed calls, 2 voice mails.
Joaquin: 2 missed calls.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I yell, slamming my foot in frustration. In the madness of running off to Dino World and trying to brainstorm potential skip day sabotage, I’d completely forgotten to tell Tío Tony that I’d be at tech crew today instead and wouldn’t be able to make it to my closing shift tonight.
“Scratch that, can you drop me off?” Based on how pissed Mami sounds in these messages—and I haven’t even opened the voice mails—I can’t waste time biking home.
Anna nods, spotting the worry written all over me, and we book it for the parking lot.
“You’re amazing, I love you and owe you my firstborn!” I shout to Anna as I pull my bike out of her trunk and run toward my house.
“Hope you don’t die!” she calls back, waiting until I’ve tossed my bike onto the front lawn and busted through the front door like an FBI agent on an arrest mission before driving away.
“Nice of you to finally join us, Ive,” Mami says as I trip into the house. She’s lingering by the doorway with her arms crossed, still wearing her purple scrubs. Nurse Oatmeal comes racing to the door, barking louder than ever thanks to my graceless entrance.
“I’m so sorry, I—”
Mami holds up a warning finger before I can finish. She crosses over to Nurse Oatmeal, scooping her into her arms and petting her head until she finally stops her tirade in favor of licking Mami’s fingers.
“Where have you been?” Mami snaps as soon as the barking subsides.
I’d called and attempted to explain myself during the car ride over, promising that I was safe and heading home, but I guess I’ll have to start over again. “I’m sorry, Mami. Our rehearsal schedule got switched up and I forgot to tell Tío Tony.”
“What has gotten into you lately?” She plows right past my explanation. “You don’t answer my calls, you’re replying with one-word answers to my texts. Then your tío tells me you have three weeks of detention? You’ve never had detention before, Ive!”
So much for keeping that from her. Annoyance surges through me like an electric current, my fingers clenching into fists, my teeth grinding together as I use every ounce of my energy not to unload. Telling her that this is only the second time she’s been around when I got home in a month isn’t going to help my case. Though the fact that she might only be here because she thought I’d disappeared does hurt enough to make my eyes start to burn with unshed tears.
“I’m calling your tío,” she says before setting down the dog and grabbing her phone. “I can’t have you working until ten o’clock at night when you’re distracted like this. School comes first.”
The threat of losing my only source of income creates the first crack. “Mami, please, I need this job,” I plead, rushing to stand in front of her, anger cooled now that I have to beg her for mercy. I’m not above getting onto my knees if I have to. “The detention thing was just a misunderstanding, I swear.”
She raises a micro-bladed brow. “Oh, so they’re giving out detentions for misunderstandings now?”
“It’s not…” I exhale sharply, willing my voice not to crack despite the tightness in my throat. “I took the fall for a friend so they wouldn’t get an even harsher punishment.”
The explanation softens her expression slightly, but her mouth is still pressed into a tight line. “You shouldn’t be putting yourself in those types of situations in the first place, Ivelisse.”
How the hell was I supposed to know Joaquin’s innocent promposal was gonna catch on fire?
“You can’t start getting into trouble this close to the finish line,” Mami continues. “What if Rutgers heard about this? You don’t just have a free ticket to act up; there can still be consequences.”
“I don’t want to go to Rutgers.”
The words slip out without me even realizing I’ve said them, so quiet I wonder if I just imagined them. But Mami’s expression is definitely real.
“What?”
Immediately, I regret saying anything. Especially now. This is a conversation I knew we’d have at some point, but did I really have to blurt it out while she’s already pissed as hell?
“I…I don’t want to go to Rutgers,” I choke out. I urge myself to calm down before continuing, my voice surer this time. “Because I got into Sarah Lawrence.”
Days of confusion and guilt fall away when I say the words out loud. I don’t want to go to Rutgers. I’ve known that since the day I got in, but I was too afraid to face it. For once, I want to take a risk. It could be lonely, and hard, and not at all what I pictured, but I’m willing to try. Because I’m tired of fading into the background.
Mami appears completely perplexed. Which, fair. I definitely threw a curveball at her. “That’s great, Ive, but why are you just telling me about this now?” She rubs her temples. “Isn’t the deposit due next week?”
“I tried to tell you, but…” I can’t find the right words to soften the blow.
“But what?” Mami snaps when I take too long to respond.
“But you’re never here!” I finally say, the words pouring out of me like water through cracks in a dam. “You’ve been blowing me off to go on dates for months, and then when you’re actually home you spring this Rutgers merch on me, so I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get into a fight the one night I had with you!”
Mami takes a step back, as if I pushed her, her face a mixture of shock and anger. Nurse Oatmeal attempts to keep the peace, standing directly between us.
“You don’t understand how hard I work,” Mami spits out, voice low and hard and bitter. “To pay for this house, for food, for you to be able to even go to college. I have always put you first in everything that I do.”
“I never said you don’t work hard,” I reply quickly. And I never would. Mami has always been the hardest-working person I know but that doesn’t change what the real problem is. “If you weren’t home because of work, that’d be one thing, but I’ve been eating dinner by myself for weeks because you’re meeting Doug or Paul or whoever the hell it is this month. I’m not distracted. I’m tired, Mom. I’m tired of running around every day, trying to make everyone happy, and feeling like I’m failing instead. I’m tired of wondering if I’m ever going to see you. And I’m really effing tired of coming home to an empty house. That’s why I don’t want to answer when you call. Because you’re just gonna tell me you’re not coming home. Again.” She opens her mouth, probably to scold me, but I plow through to my next thought. “And even if I was distracted, how would you know? It’s not like you’re ever here to find out anyway!”
My body heaves, loaded with all the things I haven’t said yet and the weight of the things I have. I half expect her to whip a chancla out of thin air and throw it at me like every Latina matriarch, but Mami stays quiet, stunned. Staring down at me with something in her eyes that I can’t read. Something far worse than disappointment.
“Don’t ever speak to me that way again. I’m your mother,” she spits, literally, and points a pink fingernail at me.
Common sense tells me to play nice and beg for forgiveness. I can’t take back what I’ve already said, but I can stop myself from saying anything else I regret. But I don’t, I just let out another bitter, hollow laugh. “Yeah, well, it definitely doesn’t feel like you are anymore.”
I regret it the second the words leave my mouth, my shoulders hunching forward as if to snatch them back and swallow them down. But it’s too late, they’ve left their mark on Mami like a slap across the cheek.
And the worst part is, a part of me likes it.
“You get back here right now!” Mami shouts at me when I turn on my heel and head for my room. I don’t stop. I just need to close the door and she’ll leave me alone. I don’t even process the squeak of her sneakers against the floor until she grabs me by the arm and whips me around. “You don’t walk away when I’m speaking to you!”
“No!” I wrench my arm out of her grip. Tears cloud the shape of her, but I can picture her clearly. Red in the face, wavy flyaway hairs breaking free from her bun, her lips slightly parted like she’s going to break out into a scream. “You don’t get to decide you want to bail on being a parent five nights a week! That’s not how this works. It’s not a part-time job.”
“Enough!” she shouts so loud her voice makes the ceiling lamp rattle. “You don’t understand what it’s been like for me since your father left. How lonely it’s been.”
“He left me too!” The tears fall freely now, streaming down my cheeks, clinging to my chin. “And I always thought things were fine because I still had you. But these days it feels like you can’t wait to leave me too.”
With that, I close the last of the distance between me and my room and slam the door with all of the anger I have left.