“Sure, yeah.”
I’ve never been broken up with, but I feel like maybe this is a taste of that when I put my (annoying) heels on and walk out the door, a weird pit in my stomach. I climb into Connie’s car, relieved when she starts talking about the new curtains she’s considering without asking anything about graduation.
That’s it for high school. And other than a summer of trying to fly under the radar with Connie, and I guess playing quidditch with Melissa, I have no idea what comes next.
2
“Thanks,” I say, holding back my building eye roll, “but I’m not even that hungry.”
It’s six o’clock and Dad still hasn’t made it home from work, so we’re starting graduation dinner without him.
Connie draws a deep breath in her trademarked reverse sigh, pulling Styrofoam out of the brown paper bag from Tortillas a Go-Go. “Try a fish taco.”
“Vegan,” I remind my stepmom for the twelve thousandth time since last semester.
“That’s why I got fish.” Connie grabs my empty plate and heaps it (aggressively) with piles of rice and beans and guacamole. Mexican food—sorry, Tex-Mex, which is nothing like real Mexican according to Connie—was one of the hardest things to give up, and watching the glazed blue ceramic plate disappear under globs of sour cream makes my traitorous mouth water. Theoretically there are plenty of vegan tacos I could be eating, but the problem is that most of them are in the cool parts of Houston and none of them are my family’s favorite takeout choice. Being Mexican American and vegan (well, Mexican American on my dead mom’s side and white Irish American on my dad’s side, which is basically the Tex-Mex of heritage) is not easy.
“Fish isn’t vegan.” My stepsister Yasmín plunks into the seat across the table. She must’ve been messing around in the mirror again, because her normally neat ponytail has been attacked by a swarm of sparkly plastic butterfly clips. “It’s pescatarian. You’re not a pescatarian again, are you?”
Connie and I share a surprised expression. Why does a ten-year-old understand my diet better than the adult who does most of the grocery shopping in the house?
“Nope,” I say, “I’ve decided that ethically and environmentally I can’t justify—”
“Hungry, mija?” Connie cuts me off and gives me her Not in front of my baby! look. I don’t know how she imagines that hearing about a vegan diet is going to cause a ten-year-old emotional distress, but I stop talking.
My stomach won’t stop growling, so I grab a tortilla while Connie removes Yasmín’s butterfly clips (“What did you do to your hair?”) and wrestles her curls into their normal slicked-back ponytail. Because God forbid the kid eats dinner while looking slightly goofy instead of picture-perfect.
For someone who isn’t into social media, Connie’s big on keeping things picture-perfect. She’s like that with the house, always making improvements, always clicking around on Pinterest, changing the curtains or the accent pillows. Her latest ambition is to turn my room into a studio after I move out so she can dedicate more time and storage space to her decorating.
“How was math camp, Yasmín?” Whenever possible, I try to talk to my little sister about something other than physical appearance.
Yasmín unrolls her taco and picks at the insides with her fork. “Mrs. Sorgalla hates me.”
“What? Why?” Teachers love Yasmín. Thanks to Connie’s helicopter parenting, my little sister is a total goody-two-shoes.
“She doesn’t hate you,” Connie scolds. “I’m sure she doesn’t hate you.”
“She made me check my answers three times before I could turn my paper in, even though I told her I already checked.” Yasmín scowls at her plate.
“Sounds like she’s teaching you a good lesson.” Connie pats Yasmín’s smoothed hair.
Yasmín shrugs. “She was mad because I finished too early. She doesn’t believe that I already learned adding fractions.”
“Do you want me to beat her up for you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ellen.” Connie either misses or dismisses the fact that I was obviously joking. “You have to respect your teachers, mija.” Which is an expected reaction from a former kindergarten teacher, I guess. I’m sure she deserved lots of respect or whatever, but that doesn’t mean every teacher does.
“Well . . .” I stretch out the word as I try to soften my knee-jerk reaction to authoritarianism. “Sometimes people in power can abuse their power, and at that point you don’t really owe them—”
Connie’s lips press together. Not in front of my baby.
I turn to Yasmín. “What did she say when you tried to turn your paper in?”
Connie sighs loudly. Yasmín shrugs. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“If the teacher is being unfair or singling you out—”
“The teacher isn’t singling anyone out,” Connie hisses. “She’s doing her job. You don’t need to put any of your dramatics into my daughter’s head.” She stalks back to her side of the table, glaring at me.
“I’m not—” Connie’s glare intensifies as I try to protest. “I’m just saying—”
Deciding it’s not worth it, I stuff my mouth with a second tortilla, determined to let Connie’s face defrost before I speak again.
Plain tortillas are not dinner. I wonder if there’s any possibility that the beans are vegetarian, until I spot the chunk of bacon floating in the sauce.
“Ew.” Yasmín reaches into her dissected taco with two fingers and pulls out one, then two, then three thin white bones. “What are they?”
Connie—who only sat down two seconds ago—jumps up so fast her fork flies off the table. “Fish bones! Mija, don’t eat it—you could have choked!” Her eyes flick to me just for a second. “Here, have mine. It’s chicken.” She switches her plate with Yasmín’s, then starts sorting through the pile of tacos, pulling out all the ones with a sharpie-scrawled “F” on their foil wrappers.
“Dad will eat them,” I tell her. Assuming he ever gets here, I don’t say out loud.
But Connie is shaking her head, her bangs swishing across her eyes. “No, no, definitely not. Greg eats so fast; I’m not risking it.”
“You’re not just going to throw them away, are you?”
“Yes, I am.” Connie gathers the tacos in her arms and makes for the trash can next to the stove. “I shouldn’t have bought them.”