Chapter 30
Thirty
Only after I’ve rung the bell, as I’m pacing on the stoop, do I realize that I’ve never been inside Efraín’s house before.
I sit in the driveway four days a week, but I haven’t gotten out of the car since that first morning, simmering with resentment.
Today, I don’t see the opulence or the hypocrisy; I just know there’s a boy inside who made a stupid sacrifice for me. A boy
who doesn’t seem to want to talk to me. He must know I’m here. I waved at the doorbell camera like a fool.
When the door finally swings open, Efraín’s scowling at me. “How did you get past the gate?”
“Lola gave me the code.”
“You should be at work—”
“So should you,” I quip. “I called in sick.”
“You don’t look sick.”
“I might be at risk for heatstroke if you don’t invite me in.”
He steps aside. The AC is languid at best, and if Efraín’s tank and short shorts weren’t clue enough, I have twelve years of data from which to deduce that Efraín obviously sets the thermostat to 80 degrees.
He leads me up a winding staircase. His massive room lies at the end of a long hall. Rather than feeling palatial, the size
only emphasizes the sparseness of the space.
It wouldn’t track for Efraín to display the consumerist trappings of the average American teenager’s room. Instead, he has
a collection of succulents on his windowsill and sun-bleached signs from protests past tacked to his walls. A triptych of
black-and-white photographs of vineyard workers hangs over his desk, and a collection of Pomo-style woven baskets sit beside
his MacBook Pro. On his night table, a cluster of carved wooden animal figurines huddle next to a tangled nest of charging
cables.
“What are you doing here?”
“You weren’t returning my texts.”
“My phone died.”
“And your charger broke?”
He just shakes his head and paces like it would physically hurt him to stay still.
I look for somewhere to sit and settle for one of two wine barrel stools. Not one of those artisanal stools carved from reclaimed
barrel panels but an actual wine barrel that someone sawed in half and nailed shut. It’s sturdy but not terribly comfortable.
Nothing about this conversation is terribly comfortable.
“Look,” I say. “I’m not going to ask why you did it.”
He shoots me a piercing glance. “You think you know?”
“You thought, if you took responsibility for everything the union had done, then that would be enough to appease management
into sparing me, but this was my fault. If we hadn’t done the pronoun buttons, if I hadn’t let Dagny get inside my head—fuck.” I look away. “The point is,
it didn’t make sense for you to—”
“Fucking hell, Elisha, it makes perfect sense. I care about you. I want you to have what you need.”
“But you didn’t ask me,” I protest. “I didn’t want you to take the fall for me. What about the deal you made with your mom?”
“I knew what you’d say.”
“You didn’t think that me not wanting you to get fired for my sake was a reason not to get yourself fired?”
“That’s why I didn’t text you.”
“So you got yourself fired for me but were just going to ghost me? For how long?”
“As long as it took you to understand.”
“You’re unbelievable. Truly, honestly, literally unbelievable.” I stare up at him. It shouldn’t surprise me that he believes
his own spin—that it was noble to sacrifice himself for me, even knowing I wouldn’t want it.
Efraín always leaps without looking. He turns every molehill into a mountain. After all, he started a union because of my
sister’s peekaboo highlights.
It follows that he would want to burn down the museum when he realized institutionalized transphobia was putting my job at risk, but was it even about me?
Would he care about me if I didn’t embody a cause? Would he kiss me if he couldn’t taste the bittersweet desperation on my tongue? Would he want me at all if I wasn’t
someone he thought he could save?
But he didn’t burn down the museum after all. He set himself on fire.
“You know,” I say, my voice rough. “I’ve read that self-immolation is one of the most painful ways to die.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Helping everyone except yourself.”
“Better that than help no one but myself.”
I ignore the low blow for what it is: desperation. “It’s not that you’re going to burn out; you’re burning up.”
“I’m just doing my part. From each according to their ability—”
“You don’t know the limits of your ability, let alone the scope of your needs.”
“I don’t need—”
“Anything?” I scoff. “You don’t need to be a teenage martyr. The world needs you alive and whole more than it needs you to
play Joan of Arc.”
“I’m not about to let anyone burn me at the stake.”
“I know. Because you’ll do it for them. You’ll light yourself on fire before you give anyone else the chance. You’ll douse yourself in gasoline before you even consider passing the torch or letting your friends help you.”
“I started a union.”
“Joan of Arc led an army.”
“She asked other people to fight her battles in the name of God. I haven’t asked anyone to fight my battles. I’m fighting
for the greater good.”
“But you don’t have to fight alone.” I grab his arm, encouraging him to stay still, to stay here. “Because you’ve taught me
what it means to show up for someone. Maybe that means it’s my turn to save you.”
“I’m not asking you—”
“To set myself on fire for your sake?” I ask. “I’m not going to, but, Efraín, I’m saying I care. I may not have the capacity or the ability to give pieces of myself to everyone who buys museum admission, but I care about you. I can take care of you, if you let
me.”
“What are you asking me to let you do?” He sees completely through me. “That’s why you really came here, right? You have some
new plan, so you’re asking my permission to make a point?”
“Not exactly.” I wince. “I came here to remind you—wait. You let them fire you, right? You didn’t just preemptively quit?”
He nods. “Giving them the satisfaction went against my every instinct, but I figured that would sate their bloodlust.”
“I don’t know exactly what you said to them, but no matter how much you tried to assume the blame, everything you did was
collective. We would all testify to that, but the proof is in the actions. The signatures on the petition. The number of emails.
It’s all there, and even if it wasn’t, the interrogations were out of bounds. The evidence is ironclad.”
“Elisha. In ten words or less.”
I hold up my hand and count on my fingers. “You. Were. Fired. Illegally. And. We. Can. Prove. It.”
“Yeah, no shit. So what? You want to add a paragraph to your letter?”
“No, I want to file an Unfair Labor Practice complaint with the NLRB and get you your job back.”
Efraín sinks down on his platform bed. Shock has knocked his legs out from under him. “The NLRB takes a hundred and eighty
days to process a ULP.”
“I know. But you know what we can do right after we file the official complaint, right?”
He laughs, gobsmacked. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. You—of all people—want to start a strike? Because of me? To get
me back the job I didn’t want in the first place and gave up for you?”
Efraín, ever the rebel with a thousand causes, never once thought he’d be one of them; if given the gift of foresight, he would’ve died before he became the boy whose face launched a thousand ships.
He levels his steeliest stare. “Now who’s the one with the savior complex?”
Gingerly, I sit down beside him. “That isn’t what this is.”
“Then what is it, Elisha?”
I face his profile, silently urging him to look at me. “This is what we do: We save each other.”
For once, I’m the one to reach out and take his hand.
He does look at me then, his eyes still dark and impenetrable, but he doesn’t let go. “Even when there’s no damsel in distress
asking to be saved?”
“You save first, ask later, after you’ve done it all yourself. I never ask at all, just try and fail and try until I break—or
you swoop in. Which feels condescending, yes, but that’s what happens when you go it alone. That’s the problem with your rogue
lone wolf routine.”
“I’m not a lone wolf. I started a union, for fuck’s sake. Would someone who doesn’t believe in collective power start a union?”
“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s not about either of us swooping in to save the other, getting on and off the
white horse like some rideshare merry-go-round. It’s give and take, right? You got fired for me. I’m starting a strike for
you. I just need you to join me.”
“But you’re not asking my permission.”
“I asked the rest of the union. Motion carried unanimously, but we need you to file the paperwork with the NLRB. So, I’m asking for your signature, and, well, this.” I squeeze his hand. “Meet me at the picket line.”
He stares at me, speechless, for approximately five seconds before he swoops in and kisses me for . . . well, more than five
seconds. When he finally lets me breathe, he whispers, “That’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I can’t repress a laugh; I don’t want to. “Say you’ll be there. Let me—let us—do this for you.”
Efraín opens his mouth, then shuts it. He drops my hand. “It’s not that simple.”
I follow his line of sight.
The door to his walk-in closet is open. Amidst piles of clothes, an overflowing laundry basket, and a pair of Docs for every
day of the week, there’s a suitcase splayed open on the floor.
Suddenly, the room feels hotter than 80 degrees. I’m overdressed in my shorts and T-shirt, sweating like a stuck pig.
“I called my dad,” Efraín says. “I’m driving down to Madera today.”
“But—” I swallow hard and shut down every line of thought that involves me because this is not about me. “What about your mom?”
“I didn’t tell her. I’ll call once I get to my dad’s place.
I’ll—” He rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’ll make another deal.
Let her set me up with some soul-numbing, résumé-padding part-time job.
I’ll take the SATs again and give her final approval of my college list. I’ll swear to never even think the words ‘gap year’ again. ”
“Efraín.” My heart seizes in my chest.
“Don’t you dare blame yourself,” he says. “I made my choices and didn’t give you veto power. Besides, you’re trying to get
me my job back. She’s never forgiven me for losing that spelling bee, but if she saw your SAT scores and college prospects,
she’d probably call you a good influence.”
“Perish the thought.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.”
He cracks a weak smile.
“How long will you be gone?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Don’t know.”
“But . . .” I blink at him. When I asked Efraín to meet me at the picket line, it was supposed to be rhetorical.
“We’re starting the strike on Friday, a week before the twenty-fifth-anniversary gala,” I tell him. “That gives us four full
days to plan, then we’ll strike in time for the weekend, as traffic ramps up for the gala. Hopefully it’ll be over before
then, but if not—”
“It’s best for everyone,” Efraín interrupts, “if I’m not there. I quit. I shouldn’t be the face of the strike.”
“It’s literally a ULP strike. For an unfair labor practice committed against you.”
“Only because I got there first. Otherwise, it would’ve been you. Hell, it was already you. Management retaliated against you, personally, for the pronoun buttons. They committed a slew of ULPs against you before—”
“Against everyone,” I correct him. “The interrogations were—”
“They interrogated you first and blamed you for the buttons.”
“It’s all in the letter. But you . . .”
I just lectured him on taking care of himself, so I have no right to bring up what the union needs. He made a stupid sacrifice
so I could get what I want, and somehow he’s found a way to seize a fraction of what he wanted, too. I sure as hell can’t
tell him that what I need is him by my side on the picket line.
“I understand that you need to go to Fresno, and I’m glad you’ll get to see your dad. But, Efraín, you’ll be back in time
for the strike, right?”
He presses a kiss to the crown of my head.
If that’s an answer, it’s the wrong one.