When I get home, the smell of paint hits me as I climb the stairs. A rustling, crunching sound, like packaging paper being stepped on, is coming from my room.
“After this room is done, I left some blue paint in my son’s room down the hall.” Mami’s voice sounds rushed but focused. Even before I walk in, I picture her texting with one hand while the other points in the direction of Ricky’s room. It’s exactly how I find her, along with two men in work clothes. One of them kneels on the floor, running tape over the edges of the walls. The other pours a can of pale purple paint onto a tray.
“Mami, oh my god! What are you doing?”
My bed, my desk, and my dresser have all been pushed to the center of the room, huddled together like they’re chatting. My bookshelf has been shoved a few feet off the wall, and my vintage Lucille Ball Barbie is tipped over, facedown, on the floor.
“Mami! A little respect for my space, please.” The doll is protected in its box, but that’s not the point. Mami should understand my I Love Lucy obsession better than anyone—she was the one who got me hooked on Lucy’s boxed set of DVDs years ago. I’ve seen all the episodes, even the one-hour specials, multiple times. “You know I don’t let anyone touch this.” While she’s still turned around, I check the space on the shelf where the box used to be. My journal’s dark wooden cover sits face out, totally exposed, in the same spot I’ve been hiding it since freshman year. I feel my face get hot, blow up like a balloon, as I casually place the box back in front of the journal.
“I’m so sorry, Mari. I told you, we’re doing touchups around the house.”
“You never said that included my room.”
“Of course I did. It must’ve slipped your mind.” A look of dread sweeps over her. “Ay dios mío, or did it slip mine? I’m so sorry, I thought I . . .” her phone beeps and her voice trails off into Spanish.
There’s a pile of folded clothes on my bed that Gloria probably left there—bras and panties are lined in colorful, neat stacks next to a bunch of notebooks and picture frames that the painters must’ve taken off my desk when they moved it. Everything’s just clustered together like it’s nothing, like no boundaries exist anymore. “How could you just let people go through all my stuff?” I gather as much as I can into my arms and walk into my closet, shutting the door behind me.
Through the white wooden panels, I hear my mom’s voice grow soft and singsongy. “Mari. Don’t make this bigger than it is. It’s just paint. It’s the same color.”
“It’s Purple Majesty,” one of the painter guys says in a deep, croaky voice.
I remember. I picked it out when I was eleven, thinking the name would make Papi happy. It reminds me of those mystery ice cream flavors they pump full of food dye. It’d look so ridiculous on television.
“It’s not just paint,” I shout as I begin stuffing my underwear into its drawers. Out of habit, I check the very back for the glow-in-the-dark thong that Vivi bought for me online as a joke. It says “angel” and then “devil” when you turn off the lights. “Because you’re the pure and innocent one, get it?” she said. I wore it once, and then I washed it by hand and hung it to dry underneath a hand towel in my bathroom so that Gloria wouldn’t find it in my laundry basket. The next day after school, I found the hand towel on my bed, washed and folded with the thong tucked into it. It was weeks before I could look Gloria in the eyes again.
“What do you want me to do, Mari?”
I groan loud enough so she can hear me. “Can you at least make it an off-white?”
Mami whips open the closet door, startling me. “Fine. You’re lucky we have Cinnamon Oatmeal in the garage.” She turns to the painters and adds, “She grows out of everything so fast. Acaba de cumplir quince.”
Even though I turned fifteen last month, my parents decided against throwing me a quinceañera in the middle of election season. Papi suggested waiting until next year instead—What could be more American than a sweet sixteen at the White House? Mami warned him not to get overconfident, but in the end she agreed. She’d been planning on helping me shop for my dress and choreographing my court dance. She’d even saved a bunch of YouTube videos for ideas. To be honest, though, I was relieved. Where was I going to find fourteen girls and guys to dance at my quinceañera? I would’ve been too embarrassed to ask anyone but Vivi and Zoey.
Mami regretted it the day of my birthday, though. After I blew out my candles over an ice cream cake that was partly melted because Papi was late from work yet again, she pulled him into the hallway, pretending they were getting my gift. Of course I got up to eavesdrop.
“We’ll never get this moment back,” she said to him. “How much more of our lives will we give up before it’s no longer worth it?”
I think of that question constantly. Like right now, when Mami looks super tired but also super wired, as if she’s afraid that if she stops moving, she’ll never start again. She takes a deep breath and signals for me to walk with her into the hallway. “Your father wanted you to have these. For your room.” Resting against the wall are a couple of framed pictures of our family—the day we all went to the beach for Father’s Day, and the four of us backstage before he announced he’d be running last year. There’s also a giant, red-rimmed photo of a sunset over a lake and the words WISH ON THE SUN. ONLY THE BIGGEST STAR FOR YOUR BIGGEST DREAMS.
Where does my father find these things? I hope this was another one of those personal errands he sends Joe on when he’s too busy to make “thoughtful” family gestures. I can live with Joe being unoriginal and cheesy. ¿Pero Papi? Please. Just, no.
“Seriously? Just tell them to skip my room,” I say. “Tell them to skip me. I beg you.”
“Mariana. You know how important it is that every step of his campaign go smoothly.”
“Me not being there is not that big of a deal.”
“We have to do what we can to help his chances . . .”
“Even give up your kids’ privacy? Honestly, Mami, is it even worth it?”
Her head jolts back a little, like she’s dodging a punch, and she begins to blink. “Please don’t make me seem like the bad one. It wasn’t my first choice, but it’s our final decision.”
“His final decision. Why does he always get to make them? Why not you?”
Mami looks stunned. Seriously hurt to the point that I almost apologize. Then I remember that even if she agreed with me, she’d never go against my father’s wishes to say so.
“You know what? Tell them to hang these up wherever you want when they’re done,” I say. “It’s not like you care what I think.”
“Hijita . . .”
The painter comes back upstairs with the can of paint and asks her if it’s the right color.
“That’s the one,” she says, way too cheerfully.
“Yeah. Go to town.” I step into my room one last time, grab my laptop and leave them to it.
* * *
There aren’t a lot of places in my house you can go to be alone. Everything is exposed, and one room kind of flows into the other. “Open-spaced floor plan” is what the real estate people call it. Sunlight everywhere. Columns and arches instead of doorways. I used to love it because the house felt cheerful and warm, like summer, but lately it just leaves me with the sense that I’m on display.