31 | Melina
Melina
“He sounds like a douche,” Mateo concludes after I finish telling him my life story.
“You’ve said that about all of my relationships.”
He throws out his hands. “And when have I been wrong?”
“Well, you can stop asking me about it now, okay?”
I wasn’t eager to recount the story of my vacation because its ending makes me sad. And not all the guys I’ve dated have been douches, but there’s a reason I’m not with them.
I’ve been hanging out a lot with Mateo. I don’t like running errands alone because I feel like everyone is watching me.
Worse, if they’re not watching me, they’re not-so-discreetly taking pictures or even having the audacity to come up and ask me questions about my love life.
Mateo’s muscly enough that they’ll leave when he tells them to.
These past few days have been the most embarrassing of my life.
I’m the hot topic on every social media platform you can think of: Instagram, Twitter, eBay, probably.
Even the real news is doing op-eds on my quarter-naked body.
I’m not the spicy sex-positive girlfriend everyone thinks Taylor is dating.
My love life is quite flavorless, definitely no ice cubes.
Rachel, on the other hand, is a very spicy photographer.
Almost five years ago, she got a new lens and wanted to test it out.
I thought the pictures turned out pretty nice, so I put one on the website.
I didn’t think anything of it. How was I supposed to predict she would marry a rich guy and I would meet one of his groomsmen who happened to be the Prince of St. Claire and we would become friends and make up some batshit crazy plan to have the press assume we’re dating?
It’s not like I’m ashamed of the photo. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Rachel is a wizard with Adobe Lightroom and could make a kitchen sponge look enticing.
But I guess I’m not chaste enough for Prince Taylor, according to royalists.
They think I’m a floozy, a harlot, and other less savory words.
They don’t even know me. They don’t even know Taylor.
He’s just as unchaste as the rest of us.
After having sex with him, I can tell he’s been around the block.
Why should they care so much about something that’s none of their business?
Not all the comments have been negative.
In fact, there’s been more commentary about the negative commentary than the negative commentary itself.
I guess I sparked some sort of feminist conversation.
Something about the media’s historically abhorrent treatment of women involved with royalty.
It’s probably interesting discourse. I would care more if it weren’t about me.
Many think that yours truly, being my regular-degular middle-class girl self from the suburbs of who cares where, could be the one to save the monarchy from its eternal existence of stuffiness.
They think I could be the breath of fresh air for an out-of-touch family.
Sorry, St. Claire, I don’t think I’m the savior of this thousand-year-old institution.
The worst part is, I was starting to believe it. While brushing my teeth in the hotel washroom, I daydreamed of weddings and kids and frolicking through the Alps. Happily ever after type BS. It’s like I was a little girl who just watched Cinderella for the first time. How embarrassing.
Now there are strangers online confirming what I already knew to be true.
A wench with an immigrant mother who dares to show anything above the ankle is not a princess and will never be one.
It’s why a relationship that’s more than physical seems so preposterous to me.
I didn’t mean to offend him, it’s just hard to believe he was serious about wanting more.
Text me if you need anything, were his last words to me on the tarmac.
I didn’t text him. He can’t give me what I want.
I don’t know why I’m treating this like a breakup. How can I miss waking up next to someone when we’ve only had sex once? Whatever. Nothing a little terrible TV, lethargy, and my friends Ben and Jerry can’t fix.
Mateo stares out the passenger window of my Prius. “Do you think he’s seen it?” he hedges.
Ah yes. The elephant in the room. Dad isn’t completely cut off from the outside world. He gets TV and magazines, both of which I’ve been plastered all over.
“Probably,” I mumble.
Explaining this all to Mom was hard enough. She’s wonderful, of course, and told me that everything is going to be okay and painted my nails pink to ‘cheer me up’.
Mateo returns my Hello Kitty bobblehead to the dashboard, then rummages around my glove box for something else he can play with during our drive with spotty phone service. After reading my insurance, he reaches behind me to grab a grocery bag.
“When did you get this?” he asks, pulling out the new sketchbook I bought.
“A few days ago.”
“What are you sketching, Lina?” He thumbs through the blank pages. “Nothing? Why buy a sketchbook if you’re not going to use it?”
I thought I could get back into drawing to distract my mind from The Mess (trademark pending), but “I guess I haven’t had any ideas.”
“Well, at least take it out of the car.” He pokes my shoulder. “You’re scared.”
“Scared of what? A book? I’m not scared of a book.”
He tries to poke my shoulder again, but I slap him off.
After parking in front of the beige cinder block building, Mateo takes off his chain, and I, my scarf (they’re not allowed inside even when it’s cold as balls out).
We leave our phones in the car because I don’t trust the guards with them.
The one thing I bring is a clear plastic bag of coins because the only food we can eat is from the vending machines.
My father is in a minimum security prison, which I guess means he can walk around and isn’t housed with serial killers, thank God.
My brother and I have to travel an hour to see him.
We’re the lucky ones, because some families have to travel further and don’t have the time in their day to spend commuting.
As soon as Mateo gets out of the car, he throws my sketchbook to the ground.
“What are you doing?!” I yell as he punts it down a parking space.
He points to it lying upside down on the asphalt. “Jump on it.”
“What? I just bought it!”
“Do it, Lina.”
“I’m not—”
“Do it!”
I look at my poor, tattered sketchbook, frown at it sympathetically, then jump like I’m putting it out of its misery.
“Is there some philosophical purpose for this?” I ask atop it.
Mateo pushes me off and picks up the sketchbook from the ground. The cover is ripped, the pages are dented, and the back has an imprint of my shoe.
“The worst mindset for art is feeling like you’re ruining something perfect,” he says, dusting off the gravel. “It’s easier to make mistakes on something that’s already trash. I’ve done some of my best drawings on napkins.”
I think now is the time to say that my brother is a bit strange.
Occasionally, he drags me to pretentious art shows where all the canvases are painted the same color.
He’ll stare at them for ten minutes straight and use words like contextual and sublime to describe their aura to me.
Sometimes I wonder if he and the other gallery attendees dressed in post-industrial streetwear are seeing something I physically can’t.
Still, he may be right. Like figuring out most things in life, art is trial and error.
Maybe it’d do me good to make some errors.
Nonetheless, “Do you know how many cameras are in this parking lot? The cops are going to think we’re crazy.” I steal the book from him. “No more symbolic life lessons. I’m not in the mood.”
He tenses when I throw it back in the car and slam the door. He follows me from a safe distance to the sidewalk.
To enter a prison without committing a crime, one has to go through the rigmarole of being a visitor. Almost every week, I endure metal detectors, pat downs, and being asked to open my mouth. They ask if I have any drugs, weapons, or alcohol on me. Even if I did, why would I answer yes?
“Woah, you’re Melina Ramirez,” the cop says after checking my driver’s license.
My brother and I exchange glances.
“Yes, is that all the documentation you need from me?” I ask, knowing full well that’s all the documentation she needs from me.
The door to the visitor’s room buzzes.
“Yes,” she says, sliding it back to me under the dividing window.
As I walk through, I hear her tell her desk companion, “She’s seeing the Prince.”
Ignore, ignore, ignore.
I always find prison visits in movies unrealistic.
They show these big rooms with only a couple of people around.
Our visitation room is always cramped, hot, noisy, and never fails to host a couple in the corner eating each other’s faces.
We wait for my dad for around twenty minutes.
Soon, he comes out looking like he always does: gray sweats, stubbly, in need of a haircut.
It’s always been weird to see him this way.
He used to be so particular with his facial hair and grooming habits.
If my dad had tattoos, he’d look exactly like my brother, just a bit frumpier.
He complains about needing to lose a few pounds, but Santa could stand to lose a few pounds, and everyone loves Santa.
“Lina,” Dad greets as he pecks me on the cheek. When he leans back, his classic infectious smile is gone. “Well, I thought I had big news to share, but come to find out my daughter is now a princess.”
“I’m not a princess, Dad.” I sit down and give him two Snickers bars from the vending machine, as is our custom.
“I have a right to know this stuff, you know,” Dad says, taking the candy. “What has been going on? Am I supposed to find out about your life through other people? I am your father.”
I slide down in the steel chair. “Okay, Darth Vader,” I murmur.
“Is this man your boyfriend? Fiancé? I know he’s a prince, but that doesn’t mean he gets to skip asking me for permission.” He takes a large bite of the chocolate.
“Permission? Is this Pride and Prejudice? Taylor is not my boyfriend. And don’t be reading gossip.”
“Taylor?” He says with his mouth full. “You call him Taylor? Are you on a first-name basis with the Queen now too?”
“Dad. Nothing is going on. It’s a nonstory.” The whole country speculating is enough. I can’t take my own family hounding me. “Please, I just want everyone to stop asking me questions.”
I force open the bag of salt and vinegar chips and stuff them in my mouth. They’re the most popular snack from the machine, so them being stocked today will be my little dose of happiness for the week.
There’s some awkward silence before my brother changes the subject. “Uh, you said you had big news?”
Dad puts out his arms. “February fifteenth.”
Mateo steals a handful of my chips before I can take them away. “What’s February fifteenth?” he asks.
Dad wiggles his bushy eyebrows. I know exactly what he’s talking about.
“You’re getting released?” I ask. “You told us April at the very least.”
“Talked with the P.O. the other day. Good behavior, I guess.”
“That’s fucking amazing!” Mateo straightens and hits me on the arm. “Finally, some good news, eh, Melina?”
“What are you going to do when you get out?” I ask dully.
Dad raises his shoulders. “Do you have to be so commonsensical all the time? We can’t celebrate for two seconds? Would you like some chocolate?”
He gestures the Snickers bar out to me. I leave him hanging.
“We can celebrate. And yes, I do have to be commonsensical all the time.”
“I’ve already started researching jobs,” he assures. “You know I always figure things out.”
I look around the prison we’re all sitting in. “Okay, but just try to figure things out legally this time.”
His eyelids droop. “The day I let you two down again will be the day I die.”
And for the first time in days, a smile emerges from my lips.
Dad claps his hands. “Now, where are we going to eat on February fifteenth? If your mom comes, I was thinking of El Cabrito . She likes that place.”
As my Dad and brother fight over which Latin restaurant in St. Claire is the best (not much to fight about, there are very few), I make a mental note to type him out a professional-looking resume.
He needs all the help he can get as an ex-con in the job market.
Unlike many, he’s lucky enough to have a support system.
It’s been less than a year since his arrest, but the transition to life outside of prison is notoriously hard.
Not many take pity on the ones who make mistakes, even if they’re the people who need it the most. But if anyone can do it, it’s my father.
At eighteen, I only had a hundred dollars to my name, he would say whenever Mateo or I would complain about something.
I’m not sure if it was exactly a hundred dollars.
That’s a suspiciously round number, and he tends to exaggerate.
But my father’s never lied to me before, and I don’t expect him to start now.
The bickering persists as I take the other Snickers bar. I could use an excuse to celebrate anyway. Anything to cure my week from hell.