When a knock sounded on her apartment door at five forty-five, Pao tried to beat her mom to it, in case it was Dante. She didn’t quite make it in time, so all three of them ended up in the living room together, their eyes watering from candle smoke and incense.
“What are you two up to tonight?” Pao’s mom asked, sliding in a hoop earring as she prepared for an early shift.
“Nothing much,” said Pao quickly.
Too quickly. Her mom’s face lost its dreaminess and focused in on her immediately. “Paola…”
“We’re using Emma’s new telescope, okay? It’s practically homework.”
“As long as you’re not going anywhere near the river.”
“No, ma’am.” Pao put on her best innocent act and willed Dante to do the same. It wasn’t her fault the riverbank was the only place where it was cool enough to hang out and dark enough for stargazing.
“Good,” said her mom, now distractedly searching the living room for her other high heel. “Because you know La Llorona haunts the Gila. There have been sightings. You don’t want to get caught out when she’s searching for her lost children—”
“Mom!” Pao snapped, embarrassment making her cheeks hot.
“I know, I know, you don’t believe in ghosts,” she said, like she hadn’t just humiliated her only daughter. “But they’re saying there’s a murderer in Mesa, so you stick close to home, you hear me?”
“Mesa is miles from here,” Pao said dismissively. “And, according to the news, those kids are being abducted, not murdered.”
But her mom didn’t hear—she was too busy digging out her other shoe from under a couch cushion. “Aha! Found it!” She slid the low-heeled shoe onto one foot while hopping on the other, her purse strap in her mouth. When she finally had herself together, she swooped in, smelling like rose oil, to kiss Pao on the cheek. “I love you, mija,” she said. “Be responsible, and no river—I’m serious.”
“I love you, too, Mom,” Pao said, discreetly wiping lipstick off her cheek.
“Make sure she stays out of trouble, okay?” her mom said to Dante and, to Pao’s infinite embarrassment, kissed him on the cheek, too. And then, at last, she was gone.
“She’s still going on about La Llorona, huh?” Dante asked when they were alone, his tone forced, their earlier argument still looming between them. “Even my abuela stopped with that one when I turned ten. Now she just threatens me with the chancla. Much scarier.”
Pao had only been on the business end of the chancla—Señora Mata’s petrified old slipper—once, when she’d accidentally set fire to a macramé plant holder while trying to prove that you couldn’t put out an oil fire with water. But she privately agreed that La Llorona was child’s play in comparison.
“I just can’t believe my mom actually accepts that junk as reality.” Pao’s embarrassment was making her mean, she could tell. But she couldn’t stop. “Spirits haunting the riverbank? At least the maybe-kidnapper is an actual person, even if he is, like, three counties away.” She circled the room, blowing out candles. Her mom would have been furious that she didn’t thank the ancestors first. “She says she’s ‘more in tune with ghosts and spirits’ because of her tarot and healing work,” Pao said. “Which is just—”
Dante was getting this glazed-over look. After all their years of friendship, he could recognize a mom rant coming from a mile away.
“Sorry,” she said, grabbing her shoulder bag. “I hope you brought snacks, because there’s nothing here, as usual, and I ate all the Starbursts.”
Dante patted his backpack reassuringly. “Rode my bike to Seven-Eleven earlier. Abuela let me have the couch change.”
Pao nodded her appreciation, glancing up at him and finding him looking back. Their gaze lasted a beat too long, sending Pao’s stomach swooping again as she looked away.
Dante shifted uncomfortably and pushed his hair out of his eyes.
Pao’s stomach swooped yet again.
She told it to knock it off.
“Hey,” he finally said. “About what happened at lunch…”
“No, it’s okay,” Pao said. “She’s your grandma. I know it’s hard to—”
“I talked to her,” Dante said. “After you left. Told her that stuff you said about beauty standards or whatever. I don’t know if she got it for sure, but…”
Maybe it was the seven thousand milligrams of sugar coursing through her veins, or the promise of the telescope, but Pao didn’t let him finish. She stepped forward and hugged him for a long time, his backpack awkwardly knocking into her shoulder bag.
“Thanks,” she said when she finally let go.
Dante was blushing again. “Um, yeah. Sure. No big deal.”
They walked to the river in silence, but it was a comfortable one. Considering the roller coaster their friendship had been lately, Pao held on tight to the feeling.
When they reached their usual spot near an ancient, twisted juniper, Emma wasn’t there yet. Pao pulled the blanket from her bag and spread it on the rocky sand. The water looked almost still, the surface deceptively mild as dangerous currents flowed underneath. Pao shuddered when she thought of her dream—the hand with Emma’s ring, the depths of the river. She pushed the memory away.
Dante and Pao sat with their backs against a rock, Dante flipping through a comic, Pao doodling in her notebook, the comfortable silence persisting. Pao didn’t want to break it. After twenty minutes of waiting, Dante opened his backpack and started shoving peanut butter crackers into his mouth. For once, snacking was the last thing on Pao’s mind. “Emma’s always on time,” she said, more to the ground than to Dante. He wasn’t a worrier.
“Chill,” he said, holding out the sleeve of crackers. “Have one.”
But food didn’t quell the uneasy feeling in Pao’s stomach. Emma was never late. She should have been there already.
“Okay, this is officially weird,” Pao said when it had been an hour and the light was beginning to fade in the sky.
“She probably forgot,” Dante said, but even he was pacing now, his dark eyes darting around the riverbank and to the cactus field in the east.
They both knew that was unlikely, but it was comforting to hope, so Pao played along.
“Yeah, maybe she lost track of time reading comics or something. We can try again tomorrow.”
Dante rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, not meeting Pao’s eyes.
“What?” she asked, a little more snappily than she’d meant to.
“Nothing,” Dante said. “It’s just…I’m supposed to play soccer with the guys at the park tomorrow.”
Pao tried not to react. Because of Dante’s new soccer friends, Emma and Pao had eaten lunch without him more often than not this past year. Pao had thought summer would be a safe time, when they could hang out with Dante like they always had and not worry about him getting too cool for them.
“You guys could come?” Dante offered, but she could tell he didn’t really want them to.
For the next ten minutes, they sat in silence, Pao trying to pretend that this summer would be just like all the past ones they’d spent together. Yet she knew it wouldn’t. Seventh grade was looming, and everything was changing too fast.