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Mãe
The contrast between my mom’s life and my own was never more sharply in focus than when I got a postcard from her travels while the smell of frying fish wafted over me. She was a social media “influencer,” paid to traipse around cool destinations.
“Why is August so far awaaay?” I whined as I tucked the card into my back pocket. My mom had invited me to Tulum this summer, and ever since I got the invite I had been counting the days, minutes, seconds. Because my mom traveled so much, it was really hard to pin her down. The last time we saw each other, she was in town fortwelve hoursat some launch party for a purse at the Chateau Marmont. I’m not kidding.
My dad made a noncommittal noise, not looking up from cooking. While most people thought my mom’s globe-trotting life as an Instagram influencer was glam, my dad had little patience for her. Probably had something to do with the fact that she had left him to follow her dreams. First it was fashion school, which she dropped out of. Then modeling, which my dad persuaded her to quit when she started struggling with an eating disorder. And now it was having four million followers while she traveled the world looking like a babe.
Sometimes I wondered if my dad was so cautious with everything because, if you thought about it, his relationship with my mom was a big failure. And that failure had repercussions that were wide and deep for our family. My dad had been a mess for a while, overwhelmed by raising me when he was almost a kid himself. In my opinion, the level of investment needed to share your life with someone was insane, and knowing the aftermath of how it came crashing down on my young parents? I always viewed it as a cautionary tale.
“Move your butt,” he barked, walking by me with the sizzling pan of fish. Placing it on the worn-out blue trivet, my dad glanced over at me. “Did you make sure your passport’s not expired?”
“No, but I will tonight!” I said as I sat down at my seat.
I couldn’t wait. It was going to be the best two weeks of my life.
CHAPTER 3
I pinned one of Patrick’s handmade buttons onto my prom dress. It was huge, round, and filled with rainbow glitter, and featured a drawing of a tampon with the wordsVOTE WITHYOUROVARIES,VOTECLARA.
We were milking the tampon moment for all it was worth.
It was the night of the junior prom, and the past couple of weeks had been spent hard-core campaigning. There were about one billion other things I should have been focused on as my junior year came to an end, but…
Weren’t therealwaysmore important things you could be doing instead? I chose to livein the moment.
And atthismoment, music was blasting in my cluttered bedroom, pink twinkle lights casting the room in a warm glow. Istepped onto the pukey purple-and-brown woven rug that my dad had bought for me when I was ten years old. The reflection in the full-length mirror bolted to my bedroom door startled me, and I covered my mouth. Ohmy.
I was wearing a floor-length peach satin gown with thin spaghetti straps and a cinched-in waist that I had found at Goodwill. Given that I was a whole five feet two inches tall, I looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. The dress pooled around my feet, so I stepped into my white platform boots. There,muchbetter. My hair was twisted into a bizarre-looking updo with curled tendrils grazing my cheeks. I reached over to my desk—littered with makeup, books, and Sanrio pens—for a tube of drugstore lipstick in an old-lady coral shade. I applied it in two big sweeps.
Perfect.
I grabbed my faux-leather jacket with faux-fur trim and tossed it on before heading downstairs. My dad was sprawled across the sofa watching a baseball game in his lucky black Dodgers cap. He looked up at the sound of my clomping footsteps.
“Meu Deus,” my dad blurted, nearly falling off the sofa laughing.
“O-M-Deus is the effect I was going for,” I said with a twirl. My phone vibrated with a text. Patrick, Felix, and Cynthia were here.
“Enjoy your evening, Father. Wish me luck!” I called out as I grabbed my skateboard by the door.
My dad waved from the sofa. “Good luck, Shorty. Don’t stir up too much trouble.”
I opened the front door. “I will!”
***
The first person I saw when we got to the dance was Rose Carver.
She was greeting everyone at the cafeteria door and handing out little slips of paper. Rose looked every part the prom queen—wearing an airy dress in dark blue with fluttery sleeves and a deep V-neck, showing off her sculpted dancer’s shoulders. The length was short and her legs were endless in her strappy gold heels.
When I reached her, she held up a piece of paper. Her lips pursed. “You’redefinitely going to need this.”
I tilted my head, looking at it for a second before taking it from her. “What bribery are you attempting at the eleventh hour?” When I glanced down, I saw that it was a coupon code for a ride share.
“So people don’t drive home drunk,” she said flatly, giving me and the rest of my group a meaningful glance.
Cynthia let out a snort of laughter. I smiled. “What a helpful citizen. It shall be a privilege to be your prom queen.”
