After school, Lorena and I go to her house to do some Internet snooping, so I call Amá and tell her that I’ll be home late because we’re working on a project. At first, she says no, because she’s still mad about me ditching school, but when I explain to her that my (imaginary) group assignment is due tomorrow, she gives in. Amá doesn’t let me go anywhere unless I have a specific reason. If I tell her that I want to spend some time with a friend, she asks me what for and says she doesn’t want me in other people’s cocinas, which is stupid. First, I don’t understand why she thinks it’s so scandalous to be in other people’s kitchens. Second, most of the time we’re not even in the kitchen—we’re in the living room.

Amá doesn’t have any friends and sees no point to having any. She says all a woman needs is her family. According to her, only orphans and whores run around in the streets by themselves. If Amá isn’t working, shopping for groceries, or cooking and cleaning at home, she’s usually with my aunts or her comadre, Juanita, who is also her cousin. Oh, and on Saturdays and Sundays, she’s at church. She hardly leaves our neighborhood. Her world seems small, in my opinion, but that’s how she wants it. Maybe it runs in the family, because Olga was like that, too, and Apá’s favorite place is our couch.

Instead of trying to convince Amá that I need to go out and talk to people I’m not related to, I often make up homework assignments. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Lorena dumps the hot chips we bought at the corner store into a big bowl and squeezes lime juice over them until they’re completely drenched. We eat them quickly, as if it’s some sort of race. Our fingers are stained red and our noses are runny by the

time we’re finished. Even though I eat half a giant bag, I still want more. I ask Lorena if she has any more food, but she says no. My stomach grunts.

I can only eat junk food in secret because it’s forbidden in our house. I guess it’s ironic that Apá works at a candy factory. Amá says Americans eat nothing but garbage, which is why everyone here is so fat and ugly. She has the perfect body and expects everyone to be as lucky as she is. She’s never taken us to McDonald’s, not even once, but no one ever believes me. Sometimes, when I walk home from school, I buy a dollar cheeseburger and eat it in three bites before I get to our door. That’s probably why I’ve been getting kind of porky. My boobs keep getting heavier and heavier, and sometimes hurt my back. Amá says there’s no need for burgers and fries when we have a pot of beans and packets of tortillas at home. Whenever I ask her if we can order pizza or Chinese food, she says I’m spoiled and tells me to make myself a quesadilla. Other times she pinches my stomach and walks away from me without saying anything.

“So, what do you want to look for?” Lorena takes a pitcher of water from the fridge.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I haven’t told you, but I went through her things the other day.”

“And?”

“I found some underwear. Like, hooker underwear.”

“What are you even talking about?” Lorena seems annoyed. She says I exaggerate everything.

“They were scandalous. Thongs and this lingerie-type thing.” “Hello? I wear thongs, too.” Lorena rolls her eyes.

“But this is Olga we’re talking about. She didn’t even swear. Amá would’ve snapped if she’d found them. She hates stuff like that. She doesn’t even like it when women wear shorts.”

“So what if she wanted to feel sexy? She was a grown woman.” “Okay, well, how would you explain the hotel key I found?” I

pull it out of my backpack. “This,” I say, and I throw it on the

table.

“I don’t know. Maybe she used it as a bookmark or something.

Doesn’t Angie work at a hotel?”

“Yeah, but not this one. Something’s not right, I’m telling you.” “I think you’re probably wasting your time.” Lorena walks to her

room and brings me her laptop from her bedroom. It weighs about

a hundred pounds. It was a hand-me-down from her cousin, and it’s old as hell.

“What do you want to look for?”

“I don’t know. Facebook, I guess, but I don’t know if Olga even used it. I’m telling you, she was an old lady trapped in a twenty- two-year-old’s body.”

“You’re not on it, either.”

“Yeah, because it’s stupid. People are boring enough in real life without having to see how boring they are online. Plus, I don’t have Internet, so what’s the point? I’m not about to go to the library to use it.”

Lorena shakes her head and enters her password.

I search for Olga’s name, but there are twelve Olga Reyeses. I click on each one, but none of them resemble my sister.

“Maybe she used a different name?”

“How would I know what name she used?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you look through Angie’s page and see if you can find her or go through her pictures or something?”

We find Angie, but when we click on her profile, everything is private. All we see is the profile picture of her and Olga when they were kids. The caption says, I miss you, friend.

“Damn it, Angie’s useless.”

“Do you know any other friends, like, from work or something?” “Not really. She used to have lunch with this girl sometimes.

Denise, I think. But I don’t know her last name.” Defeated, I close

the laptop.

While Lorena fiddles with her phone and begins playing her horribly sexist rap songs, I walk over to the altar her mom has set up in the corner of the living room. I like to see the way it changes every time I come over. Lorena’s mom worships Santa Muerte, the scary skeleton saint, and if Amá knew about this, she’d never let

me see Lorena again in my life. She already dislikes her mom because she thinks she wears way too much makeup and dresses like a teenager. I guess she’s right—Lorena’s mom’s eye shadow is heavy, and her eyeliner curls up from the corners of her eyes. She kind of looks like a homely Cleopatra. Most of the time, she wears skintight spandex dresses that make her body resemble a soft- serve ice cream cone. Not at all flattering.

Lorena takes after her mom when it comes to makeup. She also dyes and highlights her hair, so it ends up a mixture of yellow, orange, and red. The colors remind me of flames, and when she wears her hair in a ponytail, she almost looks like a torch. She’s prettier with dark hair, but she doesn’t listen to me. She says I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, that why should she listen to me when I dress like a homeless lesbian? She ignores me about her hazel contacts, too. Anyway, Lorena and her mom make questionable choices when it comes to their looks, and Amá always feels the need to point them out, as if I didn’t already notice. “That old lady shouldn’t be running around like a quinceañera. She has no shame,” Amá whispers to me. Although Lorena’s mother isn’t the best parent, and she looks lumpy and nuts, she’s always been nice to me, feeding me cookies or cake whenever I see her. A few days after Olga died, she took Lorena and me out for ice cream.

Today Santa Muerta is wearing a red satin dress. Last time she wore a black cloak, which wasn’t as scary, because what else would a skeleton wear? In front of the doll, there are three fresh candles, a pack of cheap cigarettes, an open can of Tecate, a bowl of apples, and a white rose starting to brown at the edges. There’s also a new framed picture of Lorena’s dad riding a brown horse. Lorena looks exactly like him when she smiles. Even though Lorena’s mom has been with her boyfriend, José Luis, for years now, she still has her dead husband’s pictures hanging everywhere. When Olga died, Lorena’s mom asked for a picture of her so she could pray for her soul, but I thought it was too bizarre, so I pretended I forgot.

Lorena never talks about her dad, and I never ask about him, because it’s really none of my business. It’s up to her if she wants to talk about him. I don’t like to pry. The only reason I know what

happened to him is because, a few months ago, she and I got shit- faced after school, and it spilled out like a sack of fallen beans.

After about the fourth glass of Alizé, which her cousin had bought for us, Lorena started crying out of nowhere. Maybe it was the mariachi song with the sad trumpets that was playing on the radio, I don’t know. I asked her what was wrong, and between sobs and gulps of the syrupy booze, she told me that she missed her dad. She was crying so hard that I could barely understand her. Her mascara started streaming down her face, which made her look like a grotesque clown. It would’ve been funny under different circumstances, like the time we got caught in the rain and her makeup smeared like a gasoline rainbow and we had to go back to her house to fix it.

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept rubbing her back and smoothing her hair. After she calmed down a little, she was able to tell me the story, but I think I missed some bits and pieces because of the crying. Lorena said that when she was seven years old, her dad went back to Mexico for his mother’s funeral, even though everyone told him not to. He had lived in Chicago for ten years, but still didn’t have his papers. In order for him to return to the U.S., he had to cross the border with a coyote, just like he had the first time. Lorena’s mom even dreamt about it the night before he left, so she knew something bad was going to happen. In the dream, an eagle pecked at his heart while he sat there watching it. She begged him not to go, told him he’d die, but he didn’t listen. He said he loved his madrecita too much.

After his mother’s funeral, Lorena’s dad took the bus from Guerrero all the way to the Arizona border, where he met a man from his hometown who everyone had recommended. This coyote took all their money and then abandoned the entire group of mojados while they walked through the desert. They got lost for two days, and the seven in the group, including a baby, eventually died of thirst. Border Patrol found them all two weeks after they were supposed to arrive on the other side, and shipped his decomposed body to his hometown in Mexico, where they buried him. Lorena and her mom never got to see him again. That’s when I started to understand why Lorena is so fucked up. My parents

crossed the border like that, too, and even got robbed, but at least they made it here alive.

As I study her dad’s pictures in the living room, Lorena starts rolling a joint at the kitchen table. She’s so much better at it than I am, basically a professional.

“What are you doing?” she asks, without looking up. “Why do you keep staring at pictures of my dad?”

I don’t know how to answer because I’m not sure why— curiosity, I suppose. “Doesn’t José Luis feel weird about all of these pictures still here?” I finally ask.

“I don’t care what that motherfucker thinks,” Lorena says, and licks the joint. “You want some or what?” She hands it to me.

I’ve smoked weed a total of five times now, and every single time, I start worrying about the stupidest things. The last time we smoked I thought the police were knocking on the door. The time before that, Lorena was on her phone and I was convinced she was texting mean things about me. But I keep smoking because I’m hoping that one day it will feel good, that I’ll be all floaty and calm, like everyone says.

“I wonder if Olga ever smoked weed,” I say.

“Olga? Are you kidding me? No way. That girl was practically a nun.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure about that anymore.” I take a hit, and it makes me cough so hard my eyes water. I run to the kitchen for a drink. Lorena laughs and throws a couch pillow at my face as I walk back to the living room. It nearly knocks the glass out of my hands. I start laughing, too, and dump the rest of my water on her head.

“You’re such a bitch!” Lorena screams. “You wet the couch!” She’s still kinda smiling, though, so I know she’s not really mad.

“You started it!”

Lorena walks to her room and comes back wearing a different shirt. She changes the music to narcocorridos, those horrible Mexican songs about drug traffickers who buy diamond-encrusted guns and cut each other’s heads off.

When the first song winds down, the feeling suddenly clicks inside me—everything is in slow motion, and my body is light and heavy at the same time. It’s different from the times before. I’m not paranoid, just a little confused and unfocused. My contacts are so dry it’s hard to keep my eyes open.

Lorena takes a few hits before passing it back to me. I shake my head no.

“That’s it?”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t be high already.”

“I am, so leave me alone, and if I go home like this, my mom is going to ship me to Mexico for the rest of my life….Goddamn it, this quinceañera. What a pain in the ass.”

“Oh my God, get over it. I wish I could’ve had one, but my mom is always broke as hell.”

“I don’t even know where they’re getting the money. All they ever do is complain about how poor we are. It’s like they want to pretend everything is fine. They just want to put on a show for the rest of the family.”

“I can’t imagine you in one of those dresses.” Lorena laughs. “I don’t know what your mom is thinking. It’s like she doesn’t know you at all. Or she doesn’t care.”

“I know. The party isn’t for me; it’s for my sister. It’s not even my freaking birthday. Can you believe that?”

“Come on, let’s look at some dresses. Maybe you’ll find one you like,” she says, and reaches for her laptop.

“Doubt it.”

Lorena pulls up some websites and begins scrolling through dresses. All of them are atrocious, a few even rainbow-colored. When we get to a ladybug-pattern abomination, I’m done. I just can’t. They should be classified as crimes against humanity. They should be tried in a court of law. “Stop, please. Before I vomit my chips.”

Lorena sighs and begins plucking her eyebrows in front of a small hand mirror. I close my eyes for what feels like minutes, and when I open them again, I become hypnotized by the cheetah-

print pattern on her leggings, which I hadn’t noticed before. I am soooooo high. The more I look, the more shapes I see—faces, cars, flowers, trees, babies, clowns—and then, for some reason, I start imagining Lorena as a cheetah running through a forest. It’s her same head but on a cheetah’s body. This weed must be excellent. I laugh so hard I can hardly speak. It hurts but feels good to finally laugh again.

“What is it? Why are you laughing?” Lorena is confused. I try to explain, but I can’t catch my breath. Tears are streaming down my face. “What is wrong with you?”

I try to tell her, but I can’t get the words out. My face is hot, and my stomach muscles are aching. “You’re a cheetah,” I finally manage to say, gasping for air.

“A what?” “A cheetah!”

“I don’t know what you’re saying!” “A cheetah!” I say.

Maybe the laughter is contagious or Lorena is high now, too, because she starts laughing harder than I am. I try to think of things that are not funny—socks, cancer, sports, genocide, my dead sister—anything to get me to calm down before I pee my pants. Lorena puts a pillow over her face to control herself and muffle the noise, but it’s no use. She’s silent for a moment, and then a loud cackle escapes from her, which gets me going again. I cross my legs hard. I hope I can make it to the bathroom.

That’s when we hear the door open.

Lorena said that her mom was working, and that José Luis wasn’t supposed to come home for several more hours because he was picking up an extra shift, but here he is, walking in as we lie on the couch, high as hell. Lorena looks as if she’s about to commit murder.

“What are you doing home already? I thought you were working.” Lorena doesn’t seem worried about the weed, just pissed that he’s there.

“Business was slow, and the boss told me to go home,” José Luis explains in his singsongy style. He’s Chilango, which means he’s

from Mexico City, which means he has a super-annoying accent. “What are you girls doing?” he asks, as if we’re all sharing a

secret. It makes me feel gross.

Neither one of us bothers to answer.

José Luis has been Lorena’s stepdad—step-boyfriend—for about four years now. She said that when he and her mom met, he’d just crossed the border, so he was the freshest kind of mojado. Now José Luis works as a busboy at a few different restaurants on Taylor Street, which is why he’s always talking shit about Italians, always going on and on about how cheap they are. He and Lorena’s mom are the most mismatched couple in the world, because he’s fifteen years younger than she is, making him only ten years older than Lorena. Weird. He’d be handsome, if he weren’t so sleazy. Every time I know he’s going to be home, I wear my baggiest shirts and sweaters so he can’t gawk at my boobs. Sometimes it feels like he’s undressing us with his eyes.

José Luis is always lounging around the house in an undershirt, listening to norteñas and polishing his pointy crocodile-skin boots. Instead of leaving us alone like any normal dad, he’s always asking us dumb questions about music, school, and boys. I wish he’d just shut up and leave us alone. I know José Luis is a creep, because last year Lorena told me he saw her going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and pushed her against the wall and kissed her. She said he crammed his tongue inside her mouth all nasty and she could feel his penis against her leg.

“I would have cut his balls off,” I told her, but Lorena looked more depressed than mad, and didn’t respond. The next day Lorena told her mom what happened, but she just said that she was probably dreaming and went back to cooking dinner.

José Luis makes himself a sandwich, then goes into his bedroom. Lorena and I watch a reality show about a bunch of rich kids living in New York. It’s stupid, but I try going along with it for Lorena’s sake. I’m also curious because I want to move to New York for college. Ever since I was little, I imagined myself living in an apartment in the middle of Manhattan, writing late into the night.

I keep watching until one of the blond girls cries because her mom won’t buy her a pair of shoes that cost more than my entire life. It’s too much to take. I feel spiritually nauseated.

“This is garbage,” I tell Lorena. “Isn’t there anything else more enlightening we could watch? Is there anything on PBS? Any documentaries?” But she just ignores me.

When the show is over, Lorena goes into the bathroom for a long time. I can hardly stay awake. I close my eyes, and, after a few minutes, I feel something near me. Maybe their cat, Chimuela, finally came out from under the bed. When I open my eyes, though, I see José Luis crouched in front of me. He looks like he’s doing something with his phone, but I’m not sure. Am I imagining this? Am I that high? I don’t know what’s going on. I cross my legs and pull my skirt down, and when I open my eyes, I’m alone again.

—

Every Saturday night, Amá and Olga attended a prayer group in the church basement. Mostly, it’s a bunch of Mexican ladies sitting in a circle, complaining about their problems and talking about how God will help them endure. The few times I did go, I was so bored I wanted to tear out all of my hair. We were there for three hours, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I asked Amá if I could read the book I had in my bag, but she said it was impolite. When it was her turn to speak, Amá started telling the group about missing Mexico, her mother, and her dead father. She cried a lot, which made me feel guilty for complaining. Olga held her hand and told her everything was going to be okay, while I sat there like a slug, not knowing what to do.

Amá was always trying to force me and Apá to go to these meetings, but we refused. Who in the world would want to spend their Saturday night talking about God? It’s bad enough that she drags us to mass every Sunday morning. After hounding us for a few years, she finally gave up. One Saturday night, Apá let me order Chinese food, which was gloriously greasy. We had to throw the boxes away in the alley so Amá wouldn’t find out. We lied and told her we had eaten eggs for dinner.

Amá hadn’t been to the prayer group since Olga died. There is no way I’d go, but I’m glad Amá decides to attend tonight and is out of the house. On her days off, she lies in bed for hours and hours, and I worry that she’ll never get up again.

As soon as Amá leaves, I always ask Apá if I can go out, because he usually shrugs and tells me that if Amá found out, she’d be angry, but I just assume that means yes. I run out the door before he can protest.

Lorena and Carlos, the new guy she’s talking to, are supposed to pick me up at 7:30. She promised she’d make Carlos take us to his cousin Leo’s house because he’s a Chicago cop and might be able to help with Olga. I’m going to ask him how I can get more information about Olga at the Continental.

Carlos is seventeen and drives an old and battered red car with giant silver rims, which seems ridiculous to me. Why would you spend so much money on rims, when the car is about to fall apart? But I’m not complaining. At least it’s a ride.

When I get close, I notice someone in the backseat. A guy. Lorena didn’t tell me anyone else was coming. I get nervous and tug at my ponytail. I’m not wearing any makeup, and my hoodie is old and faded. I didn’t even bother to look remotely attractive.

Lorena gives me an apologetic smile. “There was a change of plans. Leo had to work. And he said he couldn’t help. We asked him, I swear to God. Julia, this is Ramiro, Carlos’s cousin from Mexico. He’s cute, right?”

“Are you serious, Lorena? Goddamn it, you’re unbelievable sometimes,” I tell her, then turn to Ramiro to say hello. It’s not his fault, after all.

“Nice to meet you,” he says in Spanish, and kisses me on the cheek the Mexican way.

Ramiro has long, curly hair, which I don’t care for, but I guess his face is okay. I do my best to ignore his pleather pants, too. He’s trying so hard it’s embarrassing.

He only speaks Spanish, which makes me nervous. I speak it fine, of course, but I sound ten times smarter in English. My vocabulary is just not as extensive, and sometimes I get stuck. I hope he doesn’t think I’m dumb, because I’m not.

Lorena and Carlos tell me we’re going to the lake. This was not the plan, and it’s freezing outside. It doesn’t seem like a good idea, but I don’t argue because I don’t want to piss off Lorena.

When we arrive at North Avenue Beach, Lorena and Carlos run off, leaving Ramiro and me standing awkwardly by ourselves. Ramiro blows on his hands. I wrap my arms around myself under my jacket. After a few minutes, he starts playing with his phone, and I watch the beautiful lights reflected on the water. I kind of wish I were there by myself.

When the silence becomes almost unbearable, Ramiro asks me about my favorite music. I tell him I mostly like indie and New Wave, but he doesn’t know what those are, and they’re hard to explain in Spanish.

“You’ve never heard of Joy Division?” He shakes his head.

“What about New Order?” “No.”

“Neutral Milk Hotel? Death Cab for Cutie? Sigur Rós?” He shakes his head and smiles.

“What do you like?”

“Spanish rock. My favorite band is El Tri,” he says, unzipping his jacket and showing me his T-shirt.

“Ugh. Are you serious? I’d rather listen to dogs barking for ten hours than listen to him for five minutes. I can’t believe that’s your favorite band.” Geez, what a turnoff.

“Wow. Okay, then,” he says, turning away from me and looking toward the skyline.

Lorena says I’m always blowing it with guys because of my big mouth. She thinks I need to give people a chance and be less of an asshole. I guess she’s right because I think I hurt Ramiro’s feelings.

“I’m sorry. That was so rude,” I say. “El Tri is a very well- respected band. Although they’re not really my style, I’m sure they’re talented. Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up. It’s a medical condition. They say it’s incurable, like AIDS.”

This makes him laugh. “I hope everyone continues to fight for the cure,” he says.

“Yes, me too.”

Ramiro and I watch the water for a few minutes without speaking. The sound of the waves is soothing, and for a while, I forget everything—who I’m with, who I am, where I live. All I can think of is that sound. I think that’s what meditation is supposed to be. I remember reading that in a book once. I stay in that trance until an ambulance races down Lake Shore Drive behind us. I search for Lorena and Carlos, but they’re nowhere in sight. I bet they’re probably fucking somewhere, even in this cold, and most likely without a condom, even though I’ve told Lorena a million times that she’s out of her mind.

“Lorena tells me your sister died,” Ramiro says out of nowhere. “That must be really hard.”

“It’s okay,” I say, even though it’s not. That’s just what you’re supposed to say. I’m fine! I’m fine! I’m fine!

“How did she die? If you don’t mind me asking.”

I do mind, but I tell him anyway. “She got hit by a semi. It ran right over her. She wasn’t paying attention.”

“Damn, I’m sorry.” Ramiro looks like he regrets the question.

Every time I think about my sister, I feel like something clamps down on my chest and I can’t get enough air. Why did he have to bring her up? And why did Lorena have to tell him?

I see a man walking in the distance when I turn to the buildings. “That guy is kind of freaking me out,” I tell Ramiro.

“Who? That guy?” he asks, pointing in his direction. “He won’t do anything.”

“How would you know?”

“Umm…I guess I don’t know.” He laughs. When I turn back, the man is walking away. “What if I protect you?”

Sappy but sweet in a way, I guess. I don’t know what to say, so I mumble, “Okay,” and shrug. Then Ramiro puts his hand on the back of my head and leans into me. I never imagined my first kiss to be this way, but I guess it could be worse. When will I ever find

someone I really like? Probably never. I bet I’ll be a virgin until I go to college.

Ramiro’s breath is slightly minty, and at first the kisses are soft and feel all right, but after a while, he spirals his tongue against mine, which totally grosses me out. Is this really how people kiss? It feels like my mouth is being accosted. Right when I’m about to put an end to it, Lorena and Carlos come toward us, hooting and whistling. I’m so embarrassed, I want to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich.

“Damn, girl. It’s about time,” Lorena says, smiling. I don’t bother responding.

Carlos fist-bumps Ramiro and says, “Good job, hermano,” which annoys me. It’s not like he won a motherfucking prize or anything.