I frown. “Really? I have a test coming up. And it’s on all those impossible little cosine and tangent and whatever graphs.”
“Ooh. Yeah. You really are helpless with those.”
“Hey.” I throw an extra straw her way.
“Stop!” she shrieks. “Okay, I’ll let Sam know. We’ll adjust the schedule, okay?”
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I owe you.”
“You do. Don’t forget about First Communion, now, Sia.” Rose is pointing at me with a french fry.
“I won’t.” I put a hand on my heart. “Even if all I want to do is forget about anything church-related, forever.”
Rose pouts. “Hey. You’re talking to the church choir assistant, remember?”
“Except for you,” I amend.
We smile and I think how much worse everything would have been without Rose. But I shudder. I don’t ever want to consider what a world like that would look like.
22
FRIDAY’S MY DAY TO GET Rose for school. I put the car in park and send her a text. Usually, she comes running out after a minute, ready to model whatever groovy bit of fabulousness she’s got on that day, but today, five, seven minutes pass without a response. I’m about to turn the car off and walk up when she finally comes out, head low.
She gets in. We don’t say anything for a bit. Her eyes are red.
“What’s up?” I finally ask.
“My dad.” She flips the passenger’s mirror down and fusses at her makeup. “He almost murdered me this morning.”
Most of the time, Rose and her dad fight about her appearance. I glance at her outfit. She’s wearing a floral-patterned baby doll top with distressed bell bottoms covered in vintage patches. “Too much cleavage?” I guess.
“Nah. My hair.”
When we reach a stop sign, I look over. I hadn’t even noticed her gorgeous and symmetrical Afro puffs. “Really?”
Rose sighs. “He’s come to term with the curls, but he can’t handle any other style. Says he’s going to make an appointment for a perm as soon as possible. Like my mom would let him.” She bites her lip. “And, to top it off, he…” Tears river her face again. “He said the devil can hide in my hair now.” Then she’s laughing hysterically. I grab her hand. “I know it’s ridiculous. But it still hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. We’re at the parking lot of the school, watching groups of kids talking.
“Everything he fears or hates is the working of the devil. Automatically.” Rose snaps her fingers.
“Well,” I say. “I think he should write a book. Since he’s such a devil expert.”
Rose snorts. “And call it what? How to Avoid the Devil by Cruz Damas. It would have one page, which would say, ‘Stay at home and pray the rosary always. Oh, and perm your hair once every three months.’ ”
“Or how about, The Devil is Hiding in Your Afro Puffs: How Perms Repel the Enemy of Jesus.”
Rose laughs again, me along with her. I put a hand on hers. “Rose, your hair looks beautiful. You always look beautiful.”
“I know,” she says, smiling. She turns her palm over and squeezes my hand. “Thanks, Sia.”
I glance at the clock. “We better get going.”
“Yeah.”
We stroll across the parking lot, her arm thrown over my shoulders. Before we walk into the homeroom building, Rose says, “We should light candles at the desert tonight. I haven’t gone with you in forever.”
“Sure. Wanna do dinner at Maude’s beforehand?”
“Mmm. Can’t push my dad like that. He’s been in a bad mood all week. But I’ll come over at dusk, okay?”
I smile. “Perfect.”
23
“SO, EXPLAIN TO ME THESE saints again?” Rose lifts one of my candles.
“That’s Saint Kateri. She was Mohawk. And something else, I think.” Kateri’s one of my favorites, because when I see paintings of her with her long hair and brown skin, she reminds me of my mother.
“Oh, right. She converted after smallpox killed her whole family, right?”
“Yeah. That’s her.”
Rose and I sit between the two humanesque saguaros, the wild sky open all around us. It’s my favorite kind of night, with the weather so clear, it feels like you can see every star that was created. All draped and dazzling like silver and gold crystals on a cosmic Christmas tree.
“She must’ve had Stockholm syndrome,” Rose says, placing the candle back between Saint Theresa and La Guadalupe. “I can’t imagine willingly converting to a religion like that.”
“Am I hearing this right?” I say. “Miss Church Choir Assistant Director thinks you need Stockholm syndrome to convert to Catholicism?”
Rose gives me a look. “Okay, Sia. You know I love Jesus. It’s”—she makes a face—“all the other stuff. You know?”
I nod. “Right. The you’re-not-and-will-never-be-worthy attitudes—”
“The confessions—”
“The million sacraments.”
Rose snorts. “And the extra-credit bible studies—”
“Oh, you mean like that one we had to go to when Father John invited that medical examiner to go into vivid detail on the crucifixion injuries—”
“So we’d all know how hard Jesus suffered for us heathens. Yes.” Rose takes a breath. “Plus, you know. All the ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ talk.”
I place a hand on her palm and she squeezes me and smiles before letting me go. It’s a sad smile, tight on her eyes.
“She might still be out there, you know.” Rose’s voice is all soft.
I exhale slowly. She knows how I feel. That I can’t believe that anymore. But Rose, like Abuela, has always refused to say that Mom is for real gone. And I don’t know why, but knowing that Rose has that hope? It makes me think sometimes, only sometimes, like in the middle of the night, when all I can hear are the creaks of wood and crickets, when everything feels blue and fuzzy, like a dream. Then I think Rose might be right.
I don’t say this, though. I just stare at the sky, trying to trace constellations, and Rose, her eyes closed, I think as she prays. I know coming out here is holy for her, too.
After a while, I glance at the candles. It’s now so dark that all I can see are the flames, dancing like orange spirits, and the faint outline of Rose’s legs.
“Maybe Kateri didn’t have a choice,” I say. Like us back then, and like you now, I don’t say, but Rose nods like she hears anyway.
Out of the corner of my eye, there’s a blue flame. At first I think a candle has thrown up a spark, but when I turn—
“Holy. Hell.” I jump to my feet as three blue lights swerve in the sky, a zillion stars twinkling behind them like spilt quartz.
Rose jumps up next to me. “I’ve never seen a plane with lights like that.”
“Me, either.” We watch as the blue orbs do a little spiral. And then right before our eyes, they disappear. Like someone just decided to turn the lights out before bed or something.