Pai, I owe you $30, you’ll see a random charge on your credit card.
CHAPTER 8
My dad had us take the next two days off. I was excited about it until I realized he wasn’t going to talk to me. He didn’t make Mr. Ramirez check in on me, and he didn’t make me breakfast.
I went out with Patrick and Felix, but I couldn’t enjoy it. I’d never gotten the silent treatment from my dad before.
I tried to butter him up with pizza and ESPN Classic, but he ignored me and went straight to bed.Without eating dinner.The only time my dad skipped meals was when he had mad diarrhea. And eventhatdidn’t stop him sometimes.
On day two of silent treatment, I wore clown makeup and an orange wig, then waited for him to come home, sitting on the sofa in the dark. I knew things were serious when he didn’treact and instead walked straight up to his room. My dad did not kid around with clowns.
I called my mom the second night of the deep freeze, needing sympathy from someone who would understand.
I had to FaceTime because my mom refused to do anything else. When she picked up, raucous laughter rang out before she could say hi to me. The video on the phone was wobbly and I winced. “Mãe!”
“Clara, one sec!” I heard her laughing, the camera on her face but also moving wildly. I turned my head away to avoid feeling nauseated.
Finally, she steadied the camera on herself—all tousled hair and perfect brows. “Hey, filha, sorry. We’re in the middle of this shoot for Whimsy.”
“What’s Whimsy, and where are you?” I was already annoyed at not having her full attention.
A flash of sunshine from the window behind her blinded me for a second. “Whimsy’s a new online styling service, and I’m in Brooklyn!”
“You are?” I felt myself cheer up, just knowing she was in the same country as me. “For how long?”
“Leaving in a couple of days, actually. Have this trade show in Italy.”
I flopped down onto my bed and stared at the dusty yellow light streaming through my threadbare curtains. “Oh, this little ol’ thing in Italy.”
She laughed, her teeth white and recently veneered by somefancy dentist who sponsored it when she live-Storied the procedure. “We’ll go together one day and stuff ourselves with pasta.”
My eyes closed, imagining a day when I wasn’t stuck in LA all summer, desiccated as the plants.
“So what’s going on?” she asked, interrupting my brief daydream of eating gelato in a cobblestoned alley.
“Pai’s pissed at me.”
“Uh-oh. What did you do?”
“Why would you assume it wasme?”
Her sharp bark of laughter made me cringe. “Give me a break, Clara.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Well, my first day on the truck with Rose didn’t go so great.”
“I can’t help but think that might be an understatement.”
It was hard to fool my mom because we were so similar. Every time I tried to gloss over something or play it cool, she called me out instantly. “We just got into a fight. What else is new? Rose and I have never gotten along.”
“You’re going to have to, though. You’re working with her all summer, right?”
Flo decided this was the perfect time to hop onto my chest, her sturdy paw digging into my boob painfully. I winced but let her stay there because I was always at her mercy. “Yeah. But don’t worry! I’m going to try and make it to Tulum, no matter what.”
A low voice on the other end interrupted before my mom could respond, her gaze drifting somewhere to the left of her phone. Suddenly, Brooklyn seemed light-years away.
“Clara, I have to run. But don’t worry about Adrian; you know he always gives in. Wear him down!” With that, she gave me, or the phone rather, an air-kiss and was gone.
I went to bed that night still feeling unsettled and craving a giant bowl of spaghetti.
