“Okay, you almost got me that time,” Adam says.
“All right, boys,” I say. “Ironically, I’ve got to go to geography.”
Freddie grins. “At least you know the capital of Thailand.”
I roll my eyes but can’t hold back a laugh as I head in the opposite direction. I don’t think anything saysjust friendslike watching Freddie punch another guy in the nuts. Everything is going to be fine.
“Hey!” Adam shouts. “What about Freddie’s Star Wars deflowering?”
A few heads turn. I grin. “I’m in.”
TWENTY-ONE
That night Freddie picks Ruth and me up in Agnes’s Cadillac to take us over to Adam’s house for the Star Wars deflowering.
Adam’s house is still as breathtaking as I remember it being.
“Adam’s parents know we’re coming over, right?” asks Ruth.
“This place is so big they might not even notice we’re there,” I tell her.
It blows my mind that the person who lives in this house isn’t an asshole. I know not all rich people are jerks, but you would look at this house and think that the most popular kid in school lives here.
Adam swings the front door open as the three of us file up the steps. He hands us each a plastic toy lightsaber upon entrance.
“Did you go out and buy these just for tonight?” asks Ruth.
“Oh, no,” a woman’s voice says from the neighboringroom. “That’s from his personal collection.”
We all peer around the corner to see a woman with bouncing chestnut curls and a perfectly round face sorting through piles of receipts as she sits behind a polished, commanding desk. When I imagined Adam’s mom barking orders at the car wash, this is not the woman I had in mind. The wall behind her is a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, with a set of French doors leading into the foyer and another into the kitchen. On the other wall is a large picture window that fills the room with natural light from the setting sun.
Something about this house makes me feel like I can breathe. It’s different from the McMansion where Viv’s birthday party was. I’m not intimidated by this house. I just never want to leave it.
“Way to rat me out, Mom,” says Adam.
Ruth side-eyes me from where she stands on the other side of Freddie. Ruth and Saul’s parents are southern and formal. Well, I guess you could call them stiff. I can see she doesn’t quite know how to react.
The French doors leading into what I’m guessing is the kitchen open and a petite woman with glossy black hair swept into a loose ponytail enters with a beer in each hand. “For my queen,” she says, and hands Adam’s mother one.
She takes it but eyes her suspiciously. “Don’t think this makes up for the mess of receipts you threw on my desk this afternoon.”
She holds one arm up innocently. “I am but a simple woman who needs her wise and patient wife to sort through the graveyard of her finances every quarter.”
I gasp. Audibly. I don’t mean to. But oh my God. Adam has two moms and never told us. I look to Ruth and find that her eyes are just as wide as mine. Freddie grins, and I can’t tell if he knew too or if he’s just making an effort to be polite, unlike Ruth and I. But of course he knew. He must have.
Ms. Garza, the first one, with chestnut curls, turns to Ruth and me. “Children, a lesson to you: never marry down.”
Ms. Garza, the second one, assaults her wife’s cheek with kisses. “Or,” she says, “marry your accountant. Especially if she’s pretty. Looks and brains, I tell ya.”
“By the way,” the first Ms. Garza says, “you can call me Pam, and my wife here goes by Cindy. Having two Ms. Garzas under one roof can be a little confusing.”
Cindy laughs. “Or when Adam would call for Mommy when he was scared to go to the bathroom by himself in the middle of the night.”
“When was that?” asks Freddie. “Last week?”
Pam and Cindy both laugh, their heads knocking together.
Adam rolls his eyes, but I feel so taken aback. I look to Ruth again, the shock on her face finally dissolving. The Garzas really do keep to themselves, and they live on the outskirts of town, so I guess this isn’t so huge of a surprise, but I feel weirdly cheated to just now find out that two women married to each other live right here in my tiny town and I never even knew.
