“Hey,” I said to a girl eating Doritos. She had black frizzy hair, and her eyebrows were penciled in real nice. She looked like maybe she was Puerto Rican. Maybe mixed. Definitely Latina. Whoever she was, she didn’t respond, just kept chewing.
I didn’t know whether that was an invitation to sit down or not, so I just stood there, feeling like an idiot.
“You lost, little girl?” one of the puffy-coat guys asked. Half of the row started laughing. I bit the inside of my cheek.
The girl with the Doritos crunched dramatically.
Now I thought I might actually throw up. No one would remember that or anything.
“Hey,” I said again, trying to recognize someone—anyone—from the bus ride. “Are you guys in METCO?”
“Who wants to know?” So Dorito Girl did speak, after all.
“I’m new.”
“Yeah, we know,” she said, a tiny smile surfacing.
Another girl made room for me, and I sat down. But then they all went back to talking, or not talking, or crunching or reapplying lip gloss. Not exactly the world’s most welcoming bleacher row. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Wow,” I said. “Y’all are mad friendly to the new girl. Whatsup with that?”
A guy in a red hoodie with a silver earring in his left ear laughed louder than I expected. “You’re funny.”
“I’m Liliana,” I said.
“Rayshawn.” He stuck out his hand. “And that’s Patrice, Jo-Jo, Alfonso, Shanice, Kayla, and this here”—he paused and pointed to Dorito Girl—“is Brianna.” Everyone either raised a chin or smiled.
“Hey,” I said.
Rayshawn took a gulp from a can of AriZona iced tea. You could have drinks during school here? Then he said, “So, it’s your first day, huh?”
“Yeah. I’ve been in METCO for, um… like three hours,” I said.
He laughed again. “Yo. You are funny.”
Then, I swear Dorito Girl started eyeballing me. Was there something weird with my clothes? We both had on jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies. My hair was curlier. Longer. Gelled to cement-level perfection. Caramel skin. Except mine was getting redder by the second. When was this stupid meeting going to start, anyway? Why did class always start on time but these kinds of things never did? Three teachers were fussing with the podium’s microphone. Maybe it was broken. And what was a community meeting anyway?
A lady went to the podium and introduced herself as a college counselor. Finally! For the next several minutes she talked about the importance of extracurricular activities on your college application and how after the meeting there would be sign-up sheets for various clubs and whatnot. I tried to listen. I mean, I was interested, but I was kinda shook by Dorito Girl. When the bell rang, no lie, I couldn’t leave fast enough. On my way out I sensed someone staring at me, a guy in an orange-and-black soccer jersey—number thirteen—and sweatpants, long dark bangs. He was cute. Like, ridiculously cute. For a white boy.
So, I smiled at this white boy.
He immediately looked away. My stomach dropped.
I WANTED TO DIE. I would pin this morning as one of the most embarrassing ones of my long-ass life.
* * *
Next on my schedule was lunch. Holy shit! The lunchroom was like a food court! An entire row of food stations lined the walls—a salad bar, an oatmeal bar, and a yogurt bar. And pizza. Even gluten-free. Crazy, right? My brothers would have gone nuts. Me? Uh-uh. Getting food meant having to sit somewhere, and, yeah, total cliché, but I had no one to eat with. No way was I going to go over to the METCO group again. Not today, anyway. I thought about eating my ham sandwich out at my locker; I had packed one real quick right before Mom gave me the ten bucks for lunch; I could use that money for something else. So instead I just roamed down the halls and took bites of my sandwich until the next bell rang. Problem solved.
* * *
It was past four o’clock when the bus dropped me home. First thing I did was knock on my bedroom window; I needed to talk to Jade. No response. I turned on lights in the kitchen and living room. Mom and my brothers would be back in an hour. Mom had signed them up for an after-school program at the YMCA, as I wouldn’t be able to pick them up anymore. I peered into the fridge. Nothing but hardened rice in a pot. Ugh. For the next hour I must have knocked on my window a dozen times. Nada. Jade wasn’t answering my texts, either.
I actually tried to do my homework, but to be honest, I didn’t have the energy to read through each teacher’s course intro packet (syllabus, expectations, rules, and procedures), never mind the actual assignments. So I left a note for Mom—they must have stopped at the store—and tucked myself under my comforter. I was wiped. Outside, the wind pushed hard against the window as I replayed the day in my mind, from the food to the fashion at Westburg. I was not going to think about the METCO kids’ dis. Instead I thought about how most girls wore Converse or Uggs, even if they dressed in skirts or leggings. Some had holes near the toes. For kids with so much money—well, kids whose parents had so much money—I wondered why they dressed so crummy. Super-faded jeans, wrinkled T-shirts, mismatched socks, and sweatshirts. It was totally the opposite at my old school, where, just saying, the first day after Christmas vacation everyone showed up like it was a fashion show, displaying their presents all over their bodies. Crisp new jeans, new sneakers—unlaced, of course—new puffy coats, new nails and jewelry and hair. Weaves especially. Then, after a week or so, everyone went back to dressing how they normally did, the crispness in the jeans having softened, the nails having chipped.
I yawned and glanced at my alarm clock. Only 6:12 p.m.? Man, getting up at five was brutal. I considered not setting the alarm. What would happen if I missed my bus? No way I could get to school. But Mom would flip. I yawned again. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but the image of the METCO kids clustered on the gymnasium bleachers crept in anyway. Dorito Girl and her nasty attitude. What was her issue? I yawned once more. I’d never gone to bed so early, but here I was, shutting off the bedside lamp, and at the last minute, yeah, I clicked the alarm on for the next morning. Maybe Dorito Girl was just having a bad day. Maybe the next day she’d be nicer. Maybe.
6
When the alarm buzzed at 5:10 a.m., I hit snooze so hard that I knocked the clock over, along with the stack of books on my bedside table. Ten more minutes. I needed ten more minutes. Even though I’d gone to sleep at an abuela’s bedtime, I was still mad tired. But when I finally hauled myself up, got ready, and went into the kitchen, I discovered something great—
Mom had gotten me a new phone! She had a free upgrade on her plan! And—wait for it—it was charged and everything. She’d left it with a note explaining that she wanted a reliable way to communicate with me throughout the day. Truth: I was gone for most of the day. And my old phone never charged properly after I’d cracked the screen, so. Yesss!
At school there was no redhead girl scraping gum off her sneaker in the lobby. But there was another girl. She was definitely Latina. Tall. Flaca but with some curves. Hard to tell because she was wearing a Westburg hoodie that maybe belonged to someone else—her boyfriend? It was huge. Her hair was pin-straight like she’d spent the last twenty-four hours getting every single hair to obey her command. She had a blue streak down the right side. I couldn’t decide if she looked cool or like a punk witch.