“You think he’s cute,” I say, taking a guess.
“I think he’s…interesting,” she says, with a grin. “I’ve never seen so much tweed on a teenage boy in my entire life.”
I laugh and laugh. Of course she would notice the way he dresses.
“How come you never went for him?”
Her smile dims. “He’s your friend. I didn’t think you’d like it if we got together.”
She’s right. I wouldn’t have liked it. I would’ve been afraid of what a relationship between them would mean for my friendship with Martin. We wouldn’t be as close anymore. I’d be on the outside.
But as much as I want to, I can’t stop the world from changing. Time passes. People change. Lives move on.
“I think you and Martin would be great together.”
“Really?” she asks.
“Really, truly,” I say.
She scoots closer and lays her head on my shoulder. Her hair tickles my nose. “Can I ask you something without you getting mad at me?” she asks.
“I can’t predict the future,” I say.
“Come on, promise me,” she insists.
“Fine, fine, I promise.”
“How come you changed your mind again about going to Dad’s wedding?”
I don’t have an answer for her, not really. The wedding just felt like too much, too many complicated emotions to deal with on top of everything that happened with X.
The last time I saw Dad was at graduation. Afterward he took me to Mariscos Chente for lunch. He decided our valedictorian was a genius and riffed on cheesy puns until my sides hurt from laughing too much. He even managed to combine a Mexican-food pun with a cheese one.
Q: Why should you always bring a bag of tortilla chips to a party?
A: In queso emergency.
He didn’t ask me again to go to the wedding and he didn’t call me sweet pea. For the first time I saw what our relationship could be like at some point in the future.
Danica picks her head up from my shoulder. “At least tell me why you’re so mad at him. Is it only because he left?” she whispers.
“What do you mean?”
She stares at me for a long time, scared of something. “You don’t think he and Shirley got together before—”
I know what she’s asking. She’s asking if he had an affair. I think about what knowing the truth has done to me. I think of what it would do to Danica.
Some illusions don’t need shattering.
I shake my head and hold her eyes. I am completely and totally convincing. “No way,” I say. “Dad would never do that.”
Her relief is acute, and I feel like a good big sister.
“You should come to the wedding,” she says again.
“Why?”
“Because he’s our dad and he loves us and he’s getting married to someone he loves and we should celebrate that withhim.”
