Chapter 3
Mayte
THE SYMPTOMS I DEVELOPED WHEN DEALING WITH ABUELITA’S CANCER don’t just go away now that she’s in remission.
The bags under my eyes from not sleeping well.
The nails bitten down, red polish stripped.
The stomachaches. All of which is not helped by the fact that I haven’t said a word to Claire, Leo, or Abuelita about the Mother of All Bad Dates despite their constant text messages asking.
Until he wasn’t.
Until he said out loud, to my face, that I seem like the kind of girl who gets around and then straight up calls me a prostitute for trying to make things less weird by giving him a hat…
Okay, I do recognize that giving him the hat may have made things even weirder. But the whole situation was already weird, and I don’t think it’s my fault that I made it weirder, all things considered.
He was the one who called it “hat prostitution” and rubbed in my face the fact that he had been kissed and I hadn’t, which was such a dick move because obviously I’m insecure about that, which I assumed he’d pick up on, but apparently he didn’t or else he did and just decided to be the worst about it on purpose, which is even more of a dick move.
And I want to talk to my friends about how much of a completely socially awkward, golf-polo-wearing douchebag he was, but that would mean I would also have to admit that I offered him the hat in exchange for his kiss… which is kind of hat prostitution.
But I would never actually say that to someone.
I refill our plastic cups with water and set Aida’s down in front of her on the coffee table. We’re watching a show about cartoon dogs. I don’t know why.
“I’m going to paint my nails,” I say. “Let me know if you need anything.”
She grunts, not giving me a single glance.
I retreat to my room and pull out my plastic bag of nail polish.
I’m pretty sure at least half of them are dried out and clumpy.
I always mean to sort through and throw those ones away, but I still haven’t.
And I still don’t. I toss the gross ones back into the bag (but I’ll sort them next time) until I come across a neon pink that’s nowhere near perfect but probably won’t leave my nails too bad.
My phone buzzes. I swipe away another text from Leo and then press play on a random cooking video that pops up on my YouTube home page, propping my phone up against a pillow.
A woman is chopping onions without a tear in sight.
I paint my left thumbnail like a highlighter.
And then my phone falls over as Aida sits on my bed. She puts her hand on the comforter, fingers splayed out. When I look at her, she won’t make eye contact with me, and only shakes her head.
I smile. “Do you want me to do your nails?”
She groans.
“That doesn’t sound like you want me to do your nails.” I continue painting my own but glance up at her.
She grunts.
“So that’s a no to painting your nails?”
“No,” she says.
My nail polish almost spills on the bed as I throw my arm out to point at her. “You talked! You talked to me!”
She rolls her eyes and splays her fingers wider.
“What color do you want?” I ask. I empty the bag of polishes—which also happens to include an old pack of candy-scented lip balms, a tube of glitter, and used cotton balls covered in old nail polish colors—onto my comforter. “Some of them don’t work, but you can pick what you like.”
She groans and shrugs.
“You don’t have to talk again,” I say, even though I really hope she does. “You can just point.”
She shrugs again, but points at the neon pink that I’m holding between my knees.
“Oh,” I say. “You want to match?”
She shrugs.
“That’s cool. It’s a pretty color.” I take her hand and place it on my knee.
It’s rough and sweaty and her fingernails are picked apart and ragged, her cuticles bleeding in places.
I paint a stroke of pink on one of her pinky nails with some raw skin on the finger, being careful to keep the color on her nail as much as possible. “Does that hurt?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“If it hurts, just tell me. Or say ‘ow’ or something.”
She nods.
We’re silent as I work at first, her eyes on me the entire time, and I feel an immense pressure to do this perfectly, even though I doubt she would be upset if I messed up.
At one point, I slip a bit and scrape away the pink with my fingernail, the color smearing into a rosy cloud on my own nail, and she doesn’t even flinch.
When I finish her thumb, I put the lid on the polish and look up at her.
“I went on a date last night,” I say. “Or not really a date, but it was supposed to be one.”
She looks at her pink nails.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do a second coat and then a clear coat on top,” I say. She shrugs. “But anyway, yeah, the guy was such an asshole.”
And then she laughs.
A smile crawls onto my face. “Are you laughing because I called him an asshole?” She starts to laugh harder, and my smile grows. “His name is Auggie. Like doggy without the d. But everyone at school is calling him Pool Puker because he puked in the pool at a party.”
Aida is laughing so hard that she snorts, and now I’m laughing too.
“And he called me a hat prostitute because I tried to give him my hat in exchange for my first kiss. Sorry if that’s TMI for me to tell my sister or something.
” I start to paint a second coat of pink on her nails.
“And you know what the worst part is?” I wait for a response.
She snorts again, and so I continue. “The worst part is that I can’t even shit-talk him to my friends because I kinda was a hat prostitute. ”
Aida snorts so loud that I jump and paint a pink line across her hand by mistake. This makes her laugh even harder, which makes me laugh even harder, and I have to put the nail polish down so it doesn’t get all over my bed.
“Also, and you’ve gotta swear to secrecy on this one, okay?
” I stick my pinky out toward her and she just stares at me.
I wrap my pinky around her unpainted pinky, shake, and then let it go.
“I thought he was kind of cute at the beginning. I would’ve done it.
Kissed him, I mean.” I roll my eyes and lie back on the bed. “Not anymore, obviously. Nope. Never.”
She lies down beside me.
“Maybe that’s why I’ve never been kissed. Because I like boys and boys are really weird.”
She shrugs.
“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t know either.”
I look over at her and track her eyes to the stuffed golden retriever on my pillow.
“Buttercup?” I say, reaching for the dog and balancing it on Aida’s stomach.
Aida groans and pushes the dog off herself and onto the bed.
“She’s cute, isn’t she?” Aida grunts. “I’ve had her since I was really little.
See?” I turn the dog onto its back. “That’s why she’s got that blue line here.
Mami had to stitch her up because the little balls inside her started coming out.
I wouldn’t take her out of my mouth when I was a baby and bit all the way through. ”
Aida giggles at that one.
“Wanna hold her?” I ask.
She looks at me, then at the dog, then back at me. Then I look down and realize she’s dragged her hand down my comforter, leaving multiple pink smears across it.
“Aida!” I say. She sits up and stares at the pink marks, then at me again. “Whatever, it’s fine. I’ll just try to get it out with nail polish remover—” I look at the empty bottle of nail polish remover among all the colors. “Which I don’t have.”
She sits, still staring at the stain.
“Here,” I say, reaching for her hand. “It’s not that big of a deal. Can I fix your nails?”
She groans but places her hand on my knee.
“Wanna know something else?” I ask. She takes her eyes off the stain and looks at me. “The asshole boy thought my name was Matey.”
Aida snorts.