“Hi, Mrs. Rivera,” I say, my voice slinking.
“I’ll be home soon,” Oscar says.
“Music to my ears,” she says, and hangs up.
Oscar shrugs. “I tried.”
“Maybe next time,” I say as he gathers up his stuff and heads out.
In the kitchen, Mom eyeballs the frozen lasagna as she pours hot water on it from the tap, trying to get it to defrost. “How is it that frozen lasagna takes over an hour to cook? Who wants to wait that long for dinner?” She turns the handle on the faucet. “What do you say we head to the mall to grab a bite to eat and then shop for your graduation dress?”
“I’d say, ‘Can we get a pretzel after dinner?’ and ‘Let me get my shoes.’”
We settle on tacos and elotes from Taco Regio and agreewe’ll get cinnamon-sugar pretzels after dress shopping. Before we go, Mom wraps her soft brown waves into a low bun and puts on the white linen blazer she wore to work. Dad used to always poke fun at her for wearing her work clothes out around town, like she might be embarrassed if a client saw her without her usual blazer and bun—the true signs that she means business.
After dinner, on our way to Levine’s, Mom says, “I got an email from Coach Jeffers. He said you weren’t feeling well during PE. You look just fine to me.”
“It was just a short stomachache.”
With her eyes still on the road, she touches the back of her hand to my head. “Is it your lady time?” she asks, her voice low.
I roll my eyes. “Mom.”
She throws her hands up. “You can’t blame a mother for wanting to be in tune with her daughter’s body.”
My whole face turns redder than a tomato. “Uh. Yeah, Mom. You can. That’s so weird.”
“We don’t talk about bodies enough.” She rolls her eyes. “A whole country full of people scared of their own bodies. I won’t have it. Not my daughter.”
I started my period last summer, and the worst part is how weird it makes my mom. She talks about it all the time! I wish it was like in spy movies when I see peopleleave stuff, like disguises or emergency supplies, in a secret place for other spies to find. Can’t she just leave “feminine products” in the cabinet under the sink and never speak of it again? A sudden horror claws at me as I realize I’m going to have to tell Dad to add period supplies to his grocery list now that I have two houses.
Mom sighs with a huff as she realizes the topic isn’t really up for discussion. “Did you and Dad read Miss Flora Mae’s column this morning?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“I swear,” she says, “that woman is the only reason people still subscribe to that paper.”
Mom’s not wrong. Miss Flora Mae might be a little nutty in real life, but her advice column is always spot-on. She answers everything from really personal questions to tips and tricks for homemade cleaning products and how to make the perfect peach tea. The woman’s advice is basically the next-best thing to the internet. “The only part of the paper I read,” I tell her.
“That ‘Mom on a Mission’ letter was really something,” she says.
And my heart deflates a little as I realize that this morning Mom didn’t have anyone to read the paper with, because this morning Mom was all on her own.
We park, and as we get out of the car, a gust of warmwind whips through the parking lot—the promise of a desert thunderstorm rolling through.
Mom’s clothes billow in the wind. She always likes wearing all white and lots of flowy linen, because of the heat. Normally something about the way her clothes blow in the wind makes her look so carefree. But not today. Mom’s real good at being positive all the time, but I know her well enough to see that she hasn’t been the same over the last few months.
Inside Levine’s, Mom and I scour every single rack for a dress that I can wear to primary-school graduation. Valentine is such a small town that instead of having elementary, middle, and high schools, we have primary school, which is kindergarten to seventh grade, and then we have secondary school, which is eighth through twelfth grade.
I’m pretty set in my ways when it comes to my wardrobe, but being on the bigger end of the juniors’ department means that I don’t always have the luxury of being choosy, and that’s never more obvious than when I need dress-up clothes. It’s like the universe is trying to tell fat people not to bother looking nice. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a dumpy floral dress or two, but if I wanted to look like wallpaper... I would wear wallpaper.
After endless searching, Mom and I regroup in front of a table of folded tank tops with witty sayings on them in sparkly letters.
“No luck?” Mom asks.
I shake my head. “You?”
She holds up a pair of black stretchy pants and a shirt that I think might actually be a painting smock.
