THREE
Lina
I’ve spentthis entire summer trying to craft New and Improved Real Life Lina.
There are typically two different Linas at one time—Work Lina, and Real Life Lina.
Work Lina is a boss-ass bitch who fucking crushes it at her job. She manages the safety and well-being of a building full of one thousand (actually, nine hundred and ninety two, at last count) humans—adults and children. She’s on her feet hustling from seven a.m. to seven p.m. and eats bad school ratings for breakfast with a shark-like smile on her face.
New and Improved Real Life Lina just wants to take an edible and sit on the couch in her underwear and watchBridgerton, knit, or tend to all the tomatoes she’s growing on the roof of her building. And then later, maybe snack on said tomatoes when she gets the munchies from said edible, all while knitting and watchingBridgertonin her underwear.
We failed at New and Improved Real Life Lina this summer.
Instead, we had Actual Real Life Lina. Actual Real Life Lina signed up for summer school again, turning into Work Lina from eight a.m. to twelve p.m. Actual Real Life Lina also told the superintendent’s office that she would handle PS 2’s summer budgeting and finance and organization for the new school year, since she was already in the building for summer school, and they hadn’t yet found a new principal. Which means Work Lina hung around until around four p.m. Then, when Actual Real Life Lina finally had a chance to take that edible, she went home to care for her elderly mother or volunteered at the church soup kitchen instead.
But at least none of this included coming home to care for her forty-year-old toddler. Anymore.
Oh well. I have three more weeks to try. It’s probably too late to grow tomatoes, but I can probably do everything else. I could take an edible at Oliver’s aunt’s place on the beach. That sounds like ideal edible circumstances.
There’s only three more weeks until I have to report back to the building for the new school year, and I told the new PTO president I’d meet with him and his daughter in an hour, so for right now, I’m trying to wrangle School Year Work Lina back for a bit, shaving my legs and actually doing my hair.
Superintendent Daniels called me yesterday to tell me they are still working ‘diligently’ to find a new principal, but after the fiasco that was Courtney Thomas, the district office wasn’t willing to take any risks. They had to be absolutely sure.
Which really meant “fuck you and all the extra work you’ve put in for the last year or so, Ms. Sanchez. Keep doing it until we make sure we don’t fuck up again.” It almost makes me want to throw my hat in the ring. Do it all and actually get paid for it.
But New and Improved Real Life Lina wouldn’t do that.
But here I am anyway, replacing my razor cartridge and putting product in my hair and mascara on my lashes. Putting on a Professional Tank Top and Pants—linen, because it’s still a thousand degrees out. I look at myself in the full-length mirror in my room. I put on some weight over the last few months, so busy that I didn’t have any time to go to the gym or run or anything. I like it. I look good. I turn around. My ass won’t quit. Too bad it’s on aluxury yachtbreak.
I stop by my mom’s on the way out. She lives downstairs, on the first floor of the building my family has owned since the sixties, when Park Slope was inhabited by Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Latin American families before becoming the playground for upper middle class white families and their strollers.
“Hey, Mai,” I yell on my walk through the door.
She’s sitting in the kitchen doing a Sudoku. “¿Qué lo qué?” she answers, tilting her head up to accept my cheek kisses. “You look nice. I didn’t know school started already.”
“It doesn’t start for two more weeks. I’m just meeting with someone.”
“Mmm,” she says, while going back to her Sudoku. “I hope you’re getting paid for that.”
I ignore this. “What groceries do you need for the week? I’ll grab them on my way home.”
She puts her Sudoku down and takes her glasses off, eyeing me. “I have legs and a cart, you know. And the grocery is half a block away. Also, I don’t know if you know this, because you’re always so busy doing things for everyone, but grocery delivery has become a thing. All my friends use it.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s my job, Mai. I do things for people. I’m literally a public servant. But anyway, I’m already gonna be out. And you have to pay a fee and tip for delivery. And then you’ll have to carry all the bags from the front door to the fridge?—”
My mom tilts her head, pointedly eyeing the ten feet of distance between the front door and her refrigerator. “Relax,mija. It’s fine. Stop hovering. I’m fine. Let me be.”
“I know you’re fine, Mai, I just want to help?—”
“Why don’t you help yourself by going out and doing something for… oh, I don’t know.Yourself?”
“I want to do things for you, Mai, you deserve it—” Our voices are getting louder and louder.
“Enough,” she says. “I made my own choices. I want you to make your own. For yourself. Not for me, not for Mike, and not for your school,” she says firmly.
I check my phone. I’m going to have to Uber now so I’m not late. I order one. “I love you, Mai, and I’m going to help you and take care of you until one of us drops dead. So get used to it. I’ll grab stuff for that chicken you make. Oh, and sancocho. Maybe mac and cheese?”
My mother mutters a string of Spanish curses under her breath. I only recognize a few.
