Chapter Four

Things That Go Wrong on My First Day of School

1. Lily uses all the hot water so I take an ice- cold shower.

2. I’m late.

3. I don’t get to see Marisol and Sophie before school, even though I promised I’d be there.

4. I don’t even get a pumpkin spice latte even though I deserve ALL the PSLs!!!

5. Brock Moore and Dom Taylor exist.

6. I spill water on my BRAN D-NEW JOURNAL and waterlog a bunch of the pages.

7. The in k on Whit’s Totally Definitive Guide to the Perfect Senior Year bleeds, and when I blot it with napkins, part of the list just disappears . . . a surefire sign that this senior year will be anything but perfect.

8. At lunch, I’m so stressed that Sophie and Marisol might be mad at me that I ask them if it’s okay if I sit at their table. They look at me like I have five heads, and we sit through an A+ awkward lunch.

9. The sleeve of my blazer catches on my locker and the button rips off, which is really the icing on the cake of this craptastic day.

On top of all of that, Lily barely registers me when I show up at her locker to pick her up, and she simply keeps packing her things into her backpack.

“Hi, Lily!” I chirp. “How was day one of your freshman year?” She shrugs.

“That good, huh?” I joke.

When she offers nothing, I tell her about my day instead— though I leave out the part about Brock and his puffed cheeks.

“I feel like my class schedule is going to be killer,” I ramble, leading Lily. “I have a class with one of my favorite teachers, though, so that’s nice.” Lily’s looking down at her phone while I talk, but I press on. “How were things with you? Any good classes?”

“It was fine,” Lily says.

I push through the heavy doors that lead to the parking lot. “Just fine? I told you about my whole day. That’s all I get?”

Lily rolls her eyes. “It was school. What is there to say?”

Only a million things! Were people generally nice? Which teacher was her favorite? How was it navigating school? What did she eat for lunch? Did anything funny happen?

I huff. “Sor- ry. I was just wondering if anyone noticed your backpack. They better have, given that searching for it helped make us super late this morning.”

Lily stays quiet as we approach our car, and I instantly feel bad.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that.” I shake my head, pushing some of my curls out of my face. “It’s been a long day.”

Lily pulls open the car door and throws her book bag inside before plopping on the seat. “Tell me about it,” she mutters.

So badly, I want to probe and ask what went wrong. But she clearly wants to be left alone.

Instead, I let the quiet settle between us as we make the drive home. Frankly, I’m tired, too. I don’t mind the silence, though I am startled when we turn onto our street and Lily gasps and points.

“It’s Nora and them! Can you let me out here?” Nora is one of Lily’s friends from our block. Though they’re around the same age, Nora goes to private school, so Lily never gets to see her during the day.

“Sure.” I ease the car to the side of the road and Lily hops out with her backpack.

When I turn into our driveway a moment later, I’m surprised to find Abuela grimacing from her seat on the front steps, rubbing her hip. In her midfifties, Abuela’s not old by any means, but she does have a bad hip, which she hates talking about because she says it’s an elderly-people problem and she’s not elderly. Still, it acts up sometimes and reminds her she should take it easy.

Judging by the appearance of the thin headband that’s keeping her short black hair from falling into her face— something she only ever puts on when she’s doing physical work I know t here’s no way she’s been taking it easy.

“Abuela!” I call, rushing over to her and dumping my bag onto the step beside her feet. “What happened?”

“Nada,” she insists, clasping her hands together like she wasn’t just rubbing her hip. “I wanted to get all these decorations up before you got home as a nice surprise after your first day.”

I glance around and see that my abuela has lugged out two plastic bins stuffed with fall décor onto our front porch. Not much has made it out of the bins just yet, but I’m irritated all the same. She knows better!

I point over at the bins. “Please tell me a big, burly lumberjack randomly carried those up onto the porch?”

Abuela gives me a sheepish grin. “Ay, don’t worry about it.”

“Abuela,” I groan. “You have to take care of yourself !”

“I know, I know,” she says, reaching for a hand. “Help me up, will you?”

Slowly, I guide her to her feet and over to one of the outdoor rocking chairs. “How about you watch me do some decorating?”

“Yes,” Abuela says, in a way that sounds like “jes.” “¿Dónde está Lily?”

“We saw Nora on the drive home, so she’s over at her place,” I explain.

“Ah, okay. So, how was your first day?”

I wrinkle my nose at her. “Honestly? It kinda stunk.”

“No! ¿Porque?”

“Well, I was late, for starters.” I reach into the bin and pull out some fake cornstalks, rummaging around till I find twine to secure them to the square porch columns.

Abuela tsks. “I’m going to talk to Lily tonight. Maybe if she takes her showers in the evenings, you can get to school on time.”

“That would be great, actually. Thank you,” I say, starting to arrange the stalks. “But I mean, it wasn’t just that. After I missed homeroom, I felt like I spent the entire day catching up, not enjoying my final first day at Elmwood. I was rushing so much that I actually got caught on my locker and my sleeve ripped.” I hold up my arm to show her.

“Ah, I can fix that, easy,” she assures me with a wave of her hand.

“Thank you, Abuela.” I smile, though it fades as I remember Brock and Dom. “Two of my classmates were huge jerks to me, too.”

Abuela straightens her spine, her face instantly hardening. “What did they do?”

I wave a hand at her concern. “It’s nothing serious. They just laughed at me.”

“¿Porqué?” she demands.

I motion toward my midsection and laugh a little. It’s not funny, but it sure feels incredibly awkward. “Mis chichos.”

Abuela slaps her hands together in a way that makes me think she might be imagining Brock’s and Dom’s heads between her palms. “I’m calling the school.”

The way school sounds like “e - school” softens my otherwise worn heart.

“No, no. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is!”

I shake my head. “If you call, it’ll just let them know they upset me. I don’t want that. Honestly, more than anything, the worst part of the day was just”— I busy myself with tying a length of twine around the column so I don’t have to look at her as I say this next part—“that I didn’t feel like myself, I guess.”

I don’t let on that it’s been this way for a bit. I don’t want her to freak out.

A sympathetic expression falls across Abuela’s face. “Oh, nena. Why didn’t you say something? We can schedule another follow-up wit h Dr. Delgado.” Her voice drops to a whisper, even though it’s just us. “Is it your tummy?”

Dr. Delgado has me trying metformin, a medication she says can help manage insulin resistance— one of t he long-last ing, many, and varied symptoms of PCOS. A side effect of the medicine is that it can cause an upset stomach.

“It’s not that,” I say quickly, busying myself by draping a colorful maple leaf garland on the railing. “More like everything, I guess. This summer was a lot to deal with and maybe I haven’t been processing it very well.”

Abuela nods. “Ay, bendito. Come here.”

I go to her on the chair, perching on its arm, and let her envelop me in a hug. She smells like a mix of Aussie hairspray and Jean Naté a sweet, citrusy perfume Abuela’s worn since I was a little girl. A wave of comfort washes over me at the familiar scent, and at being this close. I even let her stroke my hair.

This horrible day mixed with the ongoing exhaustion of dealing with an illness for which there is no cure might be catching up with me.

“Thank you, Abuela.” I let her rock me back and forth for a moment. “Enough about me, though. How was work?”

“Bien, bien. Less fun than when you and your sister are around,” Abuela says. “I’d gotten used to you both keeping me company in the shop!”

“I missed it, too,” I admit.

Lily and I had made a habit this summer of helping Abuela at El Coquí, her tailoring and dry cleaning shop. If I find joy in lists and order, Abuela finds her joy in the art of fabric. She can breathe new life into any garment— patch holes, create new silhouettes, make any outfit fit like a glove. Her hands work so quickly, steady and confident, that I’m dizzy when I see her using her sewing machines.

Though I can do basic sewing, I’m not very good. Instead, I help with the bookkeeping and split cleaning and inventory duties with Lily, three things that used to fall to Abuelo. Lily also handles some of the marketing, like designing flyers and posting to our Instagram.

“Maybe you can ask Titi Mariana and Titi Luisa to visit you more,” I suggest.

“Oh no. No, no, no!” Abuela wags a finger at me. “I am not inviting my older sisters to come in and boss me around.” At this, I laugh. My tías can be pretty bossy, especially Titi Mariana. “I’d rather be in the quiet alone.”

We rock in the chair a little longer before I rise to finish decorating the porch. I hang leaf garlands, twinkle lights, and a wreath made of synthetic pinecones and mums; arrange corn stalks and ceramic pumpkins; decorate the wicker rocking chairs with umber pillows; and set out a welcome mat that reads HEY, GOURD- EOUS .

When I’m done, I stand back to survey the work. Though our little one- stor y, pewter- colored bungalow isn’t much, it’s perfect for us. And for Abuela, who can easily access everything without having to venture up any stairs.

“This porch is looking just like fall. Abuelo would love it,” she says, gesturing around us. “You did good, mija.”