Cassie looked at her watch. “It’s early,” she said. “Maybe after yogurt we can grab a drink.”
I hesitated.Was Cassie asking me out?
“It’s a school night,” I said. “So. Camila’s bedtime is in ninety-one minutes.”
“So… minutes ninety-two and on… you’re available?”
“Yes.”
“Perf.”
She jumped in the back seat, and we drove to my mother’s place. Got Mom inside and tucked in. Then the three of us—Camila, Cassie, and I—headed to Camila’s favorite ice cream shop. Cassie got a matcha frozen yogurt, and Camila got a mixture of Snickers, Oreo, and peanut butter, with gummy worms buried under each layer. I got a one-scoop vanilla cone. My daughter also conned me into three packs of chocolate coins, which I had seen everywhere at Rosa’s place lately.
We grabbed a table and ate. Camila seemed fascinated with Cassie.
“Can you show me how to do eye makeup like that?” she asked.
I held Cassie’s gaze.
“Nope,” Cassie said.
“Why not?” Camila asked.
“Too young,” Cassie said. Then she changed the subject, picking a candy wrapper up off the table. “You like Monedas Mexicanas?”
“It’s my fave,” Camila said.
“A company just like that had a flavor when I was growing up,” Cassie said, smiling. “Salted chili lime with chocolate. I was the only girl who liked it.”
Camila looked around the ice cream shop. “I’ve never seen that here.”
“This was in California. There were not a lot of kids in my neighborhood who liked chili powder mixed with chocolate. My dad drove me to Oakland to get it.”
“They had Monedas way back then?” Camila asked. “When you grew up?”
Cassie glanced at me, then back at Camila. “How old do you think I am?”
“I dunno.” My daughter shrugged. “My dad’s age, I guess.”
“Well.” Cassie moved on. “They had chocolate coins back then, but not the Monedas brand. What makes them so special?”
“It’s not the taste,” Camila said. “I mean, they’re good, but…” She flipped the packet over and ran her fingers along the back. “See, my friend Sophie and I—that’s my best friend—we’re trying to win chocolate for life.”
“Now I understand,” Cassie said.
“They have scratchers on the back,” Camila continued. “Just like my nana’s lottery tickets. We keep getting the ones that say, ‘Buy one, get one free.’”
“That’s the trick,” Cassie said. “There’s probably only one ‘chocolate for life.’”
“Sure,” Camila said. “But we have a system.”
Cassie chuckled. “Spoken like a true gambler.”
“I told Sophie that therehasto be a way they keep track of the packages.” Camila motioned at a long string of numbers on the back of the chocolate wrapper. “It’s nineteen digits,” she said, “but it’s broken into four groups of numbers. We noticed a couple packages ended in 588. They were all ‘buy one, get one free.’”
Cassie leaned in close to Camila, the grin on her face half-wonder, half-amusement. “So you avoided any that ended in 588?”
“Exactly,” Camila said, “but then Sophie found some that ended in 124 and 763 that were also ‘buy one, get one free.’”
