Mayte
MY ENGLISH TUTOR, NICOLE, IS A SKINNY BLOND JUNIOR WITH A TON OF freckles and a waterfall ponytail.
I already don’t want to stay after school and now I’m spending my Tuesday and Thursday afternoons being tutored by a junior.
She has already hit me in the face with her hair once, while whipping her head around to kiss her boyfriend, who’s sitting at the table next to ours.
He looks like he unzipped his skin suit and loaded his arms and legs with boulders in an attempt to look athletic.
I think it looks unattractive and uncomfortable.
I don’t actually think I need tutoring. Reading and writing come rather naturally to me.
It’s just that with Abuelita Duty and spending the past few weeks with Aida after school, I haven’t been very consistent with my homework.
We’ve been assigned three essays this semester.
I have written zero essays this semester.
And now that we’re coming up on midterms and I have an F, Mr. Nolan says it’s either after-school tutoring or potentially summer school.
Which means I wouldn’t walk with my class at graduation.
And I’d have to go to summer school the summer after my senior year. So after-school tutoring it is.
This is my fourth session with Nicole. I spent the first two sessions with this guy named Pete, but then he hit on me, so I went with Nicole instead.
Nicole and I have spent four sessions sitting at the same table in the library while she talks to her boyfriend and I try to catch up on essays that she doesn’t even glance at.
It’s great.
Today I’ve brought a finished draft of the essay about a personal challenge.
I wrote about Abuelita and the cancer, and to be honest, I’m genuinely glad that Nicole is in the mood for making out because it feels like I’ve thrown up a slew of emotions onto this paper.
I wasn’t trying to get all mushy about everything when I started writing it.
I just wanted to explain how Abuelita’s cancer had pretty much been the main reason my grades slipped, how it caused a lot of stress on our family, and it’s why Aida had to come live with us.
And then, all of a sudden, I was writing about how scared I was that she was going to die, and how Aida living with us is hard because I barely get to hang out with my friends after school anymore, and how every time I looked at Abuelita’s shrinking body, at her pale face, part of me imagined this future where all my friends are in sweatshirts for their colleges, ready to move out, and I am in pajamas holding my mother’s hand.
I grab my pencil and scribble out as much of that emotional vomit as I can, like I’m trying to hide evidence.
When I look up, my eyes meet Auggie’s across the library. I try to look away, but he’s already started walking toward my table, his little brown notebook in hand.
“Hey,” he says.
He’s standing, and I know he doesn’t mean to do it, but the fact that he’s physically looking down at me makes the “hey” feel condescending.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
He raises the notebook in his hand. “Writing an article for the school newspaper. I’m trying to grab a few interviews.”
The fact that he’s not being tutored as well makes everything about him come across as condescending.
“Good for you,” I say.
He sits on a chair across from me. “What did I say wrong now?”
“Nothing.” I sit up straight.
“I don’t know anyone else here,” he says. He clears his throat and begins to fidget with the pencil, spinning it between his fingers. It’s rather impressive, even though the motion is obviously coated in anxiety. “Could I by any chance interview you?”
I nod over at Nicole and her boyfriend giggling. “Can’t you tell my tutor and I are extremely busy?”
He smiles. “Oh, obviously. How rude of me.”
“So, what? You want to hear from the mouths of all us stupid people?”
He shrugs. “A stupid story about stupid people.” My jaw drops and he shakes his hands in front of him. “No! Sarcasm. It was sarcasm. It was—”
“A joke,” I say.
He rubs the back of his neck, and a smile makes its way onto his face again. He sits silently with it for a moment before talking. “I have to write an article about the tutoring program as part of a deal.”
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
He glances down at his notebook. “What led you to reach out for tutoring?”
“It was either that or summer school,” I say. And then without thinking, “I’m failing English because I haven’t done my homework.”
“Why not?” he asks.
“My abue—grandma had cancer and I’ve been taking care of her and my sister,” I say. “It’s just taken up a lot of my time lately.”
He’s put the notebook on the table now and is just looking at me. “I’m so sorry,” he says.
“It’s fine,” I say. Sit up straight again. Smile. “She’s in remission now. So. That’s cool.”
“That’s great,” he says. “I have a younger sister too. How old is yours?”
A laugh slips out of me. “Thirty-one.” He’s silent, so I continue. “She has a disability. Technically my half sister. She used to live with my grandma, so she came to live with us when my grandma got sick.”
“Oh. Gotcha. I’m… I’m sorry, I assumed… you know—”
“It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t usually hear about seventeen-year-olds taking care of their thirty-one-year-old sisters.”
“No,” Auggie says. “You don’t.”
I follow his gaze and land on Nicole, her shirt riding up, neckline plunging down as she leans toward her boyfriend. I look back at him. Ugh.
“Why are you staring at—” I start, just as he says, “So, she just doesn’t help you at all?”
I try so hard to cut myself off that I actually bite my tongue.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Why am I staring at—”
“Nothing!” I say, standing up and reaching over the table to cover his mouth.
“Mayte, chill,” he says, taking my hand away and standing up. “But, like, you’ve come to tutoring for help because you fell behind and she’s just—”
“It’s not a big deal, Auggie,” I say. “It’s whatever.”
Auggie walks around the table to my side. “How many times have you met with her?”
“Four,” I say, swirling my tongue in my mouth. Ow.
“Here,” he says. He places one hand on the table and leans over my shoulder.
I turn my head, and watch his eyes scan my essay.
“I can look it over real quick if you want.” My face warms at our closeness.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been this close to a guy before.
“I’m a fast reader.” His breath makes the hair on my neck stand on end.
Earth to Mayte. Hello? Mayte? another part of me is saying to the part that isn’t moving a single inch from its closeness to Auggie like Doggy.
“Not over my shoulder, you weirdo,” I say, shrugging him away. “I’ll just give you my email, Auggie.”
“Okay,” Auggie says, taking a step back. His face is red, too, but I also can’t remember if that’s just the way his skin looks. “Don’t, like, email me a virus and wreck my computer or something.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says.
“Do you really think I’m going to email you a virus?”
“Just forget it. I don’t know why I said that.”
“How do you even email someone a virus?” I grin as I look down, writing my email on a scrap of paper.
As I hand it to him, he grins back. “Why was I staring at who?”
He thinks he’s got me cornered, but I sit up straight and will the blushing away. I meet his eyes. “Why were you staring at my tutor?” I whisper.
“I wasn’t,” he says at full volume. Then leans over my shoulder again. “Not my type,” he whispers.
What is his type? that same part of me that stayed so still asks.
He starts to walk away, but I stand up. “Auggie!” He turns around and I wave him back over.
“Quote,” I say, and nod toward his notebook.
He picks up his pencil and looks at me. “Mayte Morales thinks tutoring could be a really helpful idea if tutors were well vetted and if students had the ability to review their tutors.”
Nicole’s ponytail swings around and she glares at me.
“Morales,” Auggie says.
“Honey,” I announce. “I’m home.”
I follow the sound of Aida’s acknowledging grunt to the living room.
They’ve been dropping her off at the house before I get home, but my mom says it’s only about ten minutes before I get there.
She leaves the front door unlocked and the TV on so Aida can just come and hang out. I don’t think the driver knows.
“Do you really want to watch this?” I ask, pouring us both glasses of milk and toting a package of chocolate chip cookies. On the TV, Mickey and Minnie Mouse are running from a train with very angry eyebrows.
She shrugs.
I sit down beside her. “If you don’t tell me, I’m changing the channel.”
She grunts and shrugs again.
Mickey and Minnie Mouse have been crushed by Angry Train and are flattened. They have two-dimensionally wobbled off the train track.
I set the milk and cookies on the table and scoot back into the couch cushions, but my hand presses against something wet.
I touch the cushion again. Yep. Soaked. I bring my hand near my nose and force myself to hold back a gag.
Pee. When I look up at Aida, she’s staring at me, shame flooding her cheeks.
“Did you go to the bathroom?” I ask.
She shrugs and then nods.
“That’s okay.” I roll up the sleeves of my sweater. “Have you been sitting in it all day?”
She shakes her head.
“Good. It happened when you got home?”
She nods.
I stand back up and wave for her to follow me. “Can I help you get changed?”
She stands up and unintentionally—I think—elbows me out of the way to get past the couch. The back of her blue sweatpants is darkened by the wetness. I follow her upstairs and turn toward her bedroom, but she continues down the hall.
“What are you doing?” I call out from her doorframe.
No response, but I see her turn into the bathroom.