Twenty-Four The Past

Walking the hallways at school Monday morning is like walking an electrified plank of weekend prom gossip, and eyes cutting sideways as I go by, and fragments of doctored rumors passed off in whispers as gospel truth.

The Gospel According to Escondido. So it has been written. About me... and Beckett.

It all hurts. The guarded whispers. The not-so-guarded whispers. People in class watching dozens of videos of us, recorded Sunday morning from in front of the church. All over Instagram and TikTok, even YouTube—all just a click away. Watching, then looking up at me like they know something.

They don’t know anything.

At the beginning of lunch, Cason Price circles me at my locker with a stare that’s part challenge, part threat. Every time he comes around, he gets closer.

SOS, I text to B’Rad.

He’s there in a minute, ushers me out to his car, shuttles me away from campus, away from Cason and Lucy and everyone who went to Pure Prom and everyone who didn’t but watched those videos after.

He swings into a little taco stand just out-of-the-way enough to feel safe from all of it for a few minutes.

“What can I get you?” he asks, like he’s taking my order at the Hound’s Tooth.

The thought makes my chest ache with regret.

“I’m not hungry,” I say, following him up to the window.

He orders me two tacos anyway and hands the woman a ten.

“At least let me pay,” I tell him.

“No, I got it.”

I tip my head. “Dude... come on. You lost your job because of me.”

“Is that how it’s gonna be from now on?” he says. “You lost your job because of me—let me give you my kidney.”

I roll my eyes.

“You’re not in great shape either, you know,” he says as the taco stand woman calls out our number.

“Besides”—B’Rad takes the foil-covered paper plate from her—“the old bastard had a Mac Classic sitting out in the yard under a tarp. Can you believe that shit? Fully functional. I sold it online for... well, enough to buy a few hundred street tacos, let’s just say that.”

“I thought your days of selling off his shit were over.”

He holds my gaze for a long beat.

“It was a Mac Classic, Daya,” he says, and I lift my hands in surrender.

We sit in the back of his car with the hatch up and our feet dangling. B’Rad hoovers the three tacos he got for himself while I pick away at mine.

I go, “You have every right to be pissed at me for what happened.”

He pushes his glasses back up by the nosepiece, looks out across the gravel parking lot as he chews.

“For a long time...” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Like, a really long time, I was afraid that... y’know, that whatever drove my dad to do that to my mom...? It might be... I mean, nature versus nurture and everything.”

“B’Rad...”

“Because the thing is, it wasn’t just my dad. It’s my granddad too, right? He’s a whole skin-bag of nothing but anger.”

He squints, finishes the last bite, wipes his face on a napkin, wads the napkin up with the foil, and throws it in the back seat.

“But I figure, most things aren’t worth being angry about,” he says. “That shit’s lethal. And it sure as hell isn’t worth getting angry over losing some basic job at a crappy hot dog stand, y’know?”

I feel a little love-rush for B’Rad just then. I’m not sure I could be so generous in his position.

After lunch, in Spanish class, my gaze keeps sliding to the space where Beckett’s hand would usually be—raised to ask a question, minuscule gold band that’s no longer on her ring finger because she gave it to me on prom night. I touch the chain Stella loaned me to keep it on, run the slender ring across it the same way Beckett fidgeted with her gold cross at Justin Tadeo’s party on a night that seems forever ago, even though it wasn’t.

Se?ora Mu?oz calls Beckett’s name for roll and someone at the back of the room says, “She transferred.” The person behind me says, “No homos,” low enough for Se?ora Mu?oz not to hear. But I hear. The words ripple forever, because sound is infinite.

After Se?ora Mu?oz offers to help me find a new partner, I sneak-text Stella about it under the desk, and she’s waiting for me outside the door at the end of fifth period.

“I’ll have my mom write us a note,” she says, edging me off campus. She hooks her arm through mine as we walk home, so I can cry and not worry about crashing into anything.

“Fuck the haters,” Stella says. “Seriously, fuck them. They eat people.”

“It’s not just that,” I try to tell her. “It’s... everything.”

“I know,” she says. “I get it.”

Honestly, I’m not sure she does. When she and Duke broke up, Duke was still walking around school. Stella could see who she hung out with and what parties she went to. Duke didn’t just disappear, which meant Stella didn’t have to make up stories about her. She didn’t have to wonder. It would be easier to be mad at someone, to move on even, if you could see them moving on. But I don’t know if that’s what Beckett’s doing. I don’t know if she’s okay. If she wants to talk to me again or not. I don’t know if she hates me, or if her parents sent her for deprogramming, or... anything. Not knowing is actually harder than knowing something bad.

At least I can deal with something bad. Process it. Move through it.

I don’t know what to do with a heart full of nothing but broken pieces.

The shade doesn’t ease up much as the days drag on. Being low-profile queer in this town was nothing compared to what it’s like being “the dyke who got caught defiling Escondido’s queen of purity.” It’s completely irrelevant what the truth of the situation actually is.

Stella puts up with my nightly check-ins, where I ask if she’s heard anything about Beckett, and she tells me she hasn’t. She rolls with it, as long as she can stream old Veronica Mars episodes on TV while I interrogate her. She calls teenaged Kristen Bell her TV crush.

That’s what we’re watching on the last Monday night of the school year when out of nowhere she goes, “What about Be Weird?”

“What about him?”

“He’s got shop class with Cason, doesn’t he? Can’t he get intel?”

“They’ve iced him out too,” I tell her. “Guilt by association. They’re calling him Kingpin now. Can you believe that?”

“Why, because of the pot thing?”

I nod. “I think that whole drug-dealer rumor broke the sound barrier.”

She nods. “Right? Like, who do they think people like Cason Price get their nugs from, anyway?”

“Seriously.” I reach into Stella’s bowl of popcorn I told her I didn’t want any of and steal a handful. “All her church friends are on complete information lockdown too.”

“How about social media?”

I shake my head. “Her accounts have all been deleted.”

“Damn,” Stella says. “So maybe it’s better not to know, y’know?”

“Maybe.” I lean my head on her shoulder. “It’s not going to stop me from wanting to, though.”

In private, I acknowledge this is only a half-truth. I want to know everything about Beckett. Everything but the part about Lucy. I never want to know the whole truth about Lucy. What they were. What they did. I don’t want those images living in my head.

Sound isn’t the only thing that’s infinite. So is pain. Pain and memories.

On Tuesday, Stella has detention after school for the fight she got into with Valentina in the science wing, and B’Rad’s going job hunting, and suddenly I have no one to walk home with. They’ve been really careful about not leaving me alone—a coordinated but unofficial effort to keep a safety net under me. They think I don’t know, but I do, and I love them for it.

The truth is, I’m not sure which is weirder—being alone for the first time in nearly two weeks or realizing I’m alone for the first time in nearly two weeks.

When I hit the Strip, I detour left instead of going straight. Straight would take me to Stella’s. Left leads in the direction of the mortuary.

Joanna’s car is parked in the back lot. I stand on the other side of the street, looking at it.

I could go inside that building right now, if I chose to. I could cross the distance between here and there, open the door, and walk inside. But then what? Would she talk to me? I don’t think so. I think she’d rather talk to the dead. I think she believes they deserve something I don’t. Tragedy is Joanna’s safe space. It’s where she’s most comfortable. She’s designed her whole entire life around it. And she made it more than clear when Stella’s mom called her... I don’t belong in that space with her.

I’m worse than dead.

I’m unredeemable.

By the time the last day of school comes around, things at Stella’s mom’s house have settled into a freakishly normal routine, whatever normal is. Mr. Zapata out back grilling burgers or carne asada. Ms. Avila laughing in that way women do when they’re happy. I don’t think I ever heard Joanna laugh like that.

A call hits my cell as I’m setting out paper plates for our celebratory, last-day-of-school dinner. The sound is jarring—I almost never get actual phone calls.

“Guess who just got a job bussing tables at O’Ring?” B’Rad says, and I can almost see him pointing to his own chest with both thumbs.

“Awesome!” I say. “How’d that happen?”

“The owner took one look at my work history and hired me on the spot.”

“What? Did he just have a gut feeling about you?”

“That, plus check this out. The guy had a horrible experience buying a scooter at none other than Wild Rides Vespa last year. He left a scathing Yelp about it, but... he’s still burnt over it after all this time.”

My heart plunges when he says the name Wild Rides.

“Daya, for real, when Ulises heard I was fired from the Hound’s Tooth by Dennis Wild himself, it lit him on fire. I’m telling you... I think you need to capitalize on this.”

“Me? How?”

“I mean, create a fake work history showing your very brief stint at the Hound’s Tooth.”

I wait for him to laugh it off as a joke, but he doesn’t.

“Are you sure you’re not stoned right now?” I ask him.

“I’m not, I swear. Come on, it’s not a total lie—you did work there that one night. Look, just come in tomorrow and talk to him. I’ll put in a good word for you. You know we make a great team.”

I don’t tell Stella about it that night, but I spin the idea around my head a few billion times. In the morning, I head down to O’Ring to talk to Ulises, and after an interview lasting two minutes and some change, B’Rad’s new boss becomes my boss too.

I hurry home to share the good news, but I’m not sure who’s more excited—Stella or her mom.

“Good for you, m’ija!” Ms. Avila says. “That’s fantastic! We should celebrate!”

Stella cuts right to it. “Can I use your employee discount?”

“Jesus, woman,” I say. “I don’t even start till Monday. Hey, so B’Rad’s taking me to the Freestyle Exchange after his shift today so I can get some work clothes. Wanna come?”

“Nah,” she says. “I’m helping these two power-wash the back patio. But there’s a party at Cara’s tonight and we”—she flips her finger between us— “are going. So if you see something fly on the racks—”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I tell her.

“Come on, man. You can’t lay around being morbid all summer. We’re seniors now!”

“I really can’t,” I say. “I’m not ready. It’s just... it’s hard, y’know?”

“I know, but...” Stella heads to the fridge, grabs two Cokes, and hands one to me. “I mean, it wouldn’t be fair for me to have all the fun this summer, right?”

I don’t take the bait. I’m not ready to joke this part away.

She goes, “Look, I just don’t want you to be alone.”

“I won’t be. I’m hanging out on the boat tonight with B’Rad.”

“Okay. Well.” She sets her Coke down so she can slip on a pair of rain boots. “Here’s the deal. You get a pass tonight, but that’s the last one. Next time, you have to roll the dice and come with me, no matter what.”

“Uh-uh.” I shake my head. “That’s too much power for one lesbian.”

“Dude, I won’t make you go skinny-dipping in a public fountain or anything. I promise. Just pinkie swear you’ll do it?”

“I don’t feel good about this.”

“Come on,” she says. “There are so many great parties happening this summer, and pity party isn’t one of them. Walk away from that, Daya.”

She stands up, tucks her hair into a ball cap.

“And quit listening to Cassie Ryan,” she adds. “That shit’ll make you tragic.”

“If I say yes, will you finally stop talking?”

“You have to pinkie swear.”

“Fine, I pinkie swear. Are you happy?”

It turns out that what Stella actually meant by next time was the Fourth of July.

“Time for re-entry,” she announces the second my eyes open at the crack of early evening. I swear, opening shift at O’Ring is gonna do me in.

I pull the blankets up around my head and roll over on the trundle. “What time is it?”

“I just told you.”

“What actual time is it?”

She throws a pair of her pants at me—plaid, with random buckles down the leg—does an all-teeth smile, and goes, “Time to head to Los Escondidos.”

I sit up and make face back at her. “The fair? Seriously?”

“So many girls, Daya.”

“I’ve already told you. I’m not interested.”

“Bitch, not for you. For me.”

“Okay, but...” I swing my feet onto the floor. “What if you run into Valentina and what’s-her-name?”

“You mean Puta?”

“I think it’s pronounced Paula.”

“Either way, I don’t care. See? This is me, not caring who Valentina wants to see. Come on, Daya. Let’s go do the Fourth at Los Escondidos. They’ll have fireworks!”

Stella widens her emoji-smile, and I cave. I find a cleanish T-shirt and a pair of jeans shorts to slip into, because there’s no way I’m wearing her weird Hot Topic buckle pants to the fair in ninety-seven-degree heat.

Half an hour later, I squeeze next to Stella in the tiny back seat of Mr. Zapata’s dinky car, with her mom up front, riding shotgun next to him.

“Sorry about the tight quarters, girls,” Mr. Zapata says. “I took your mom’s car to the shop for servicing. I just didn’t know it would take this long to finish.”

Stella elbows me. I elbow her back.

“How old are you?” I whisper.

“How old are you?”

We have to turn away and look out our own windows, so we don’t send each other into the mother of all giggle fits.

When we hit the fairgrounds, he drops us off at the gate before parking and promises they won’t harsh our vibe while we’re there.

“You have the weirdest expressions,” Stella tells him.

“Here,” he says before we get out of the car. “Have a good time. No kissing boys.”

Our hands stop midway to taking the money he’s holding out to us.

“Hashtag dad jokes,” he says in his own defense. “Not funny?”

Stella goes, “Your timing’s off.”

Ms. Avila adds, “Just needs a little tweak.”

“Yeah, I’ll work on that,” he says.

“Okay, well. See you folks later.” Stella slips the cash out of his hand before leaning forward to kiss her mom on the cheek.

“Thanks, Mr. Zapata,” I say, sliding out behind her.

He goes, “Hey, you know you can call me Mark, right?”

“Too soon,” I say, shutting the door.

Stella and I buy our tickets and push through the turnstiles.

“Where’s Be Weird?” she asks. “I thought he was meeting us.”

“He’s just leaving work.”

She goes, “Tell him to let us know as soon as he gets here.”

“Dude. Chill. I’m working on it,” I say, firing off a text to him.

hey, hit us up when u find parking

be there soon, he shoots back.

also, don’t text and drive, I add.

We’re cruising the souvenir circuit when another text pings through.

meet @ baby animal pens

He’s standing by the goats when we find him.

“Dude!” Stella calls out, pulling him into a bro hug.

“I thought you were going to text from out front,” I say, but B’Rad is so stoked, he steamrolls right over me.

He goes, “For real? I’ve been waiting all day for this. Let’s go eat something greasy and disgusting. First round’s on me, no strings attached.”

We spend a few minutes debating between giant turkey legs or pizza or shave ice or tacos. Eventually, we agree on The Battered Ram so Stella can get the nachos she wants, and B’Rad can have the corn dog he’s been craving, and I can get my personal favorite: funnel cake. If it can be dipped in breading and/or deep-fried, The Battered Ram will sell it to you.

B’Rad steps up to the window to order first, and just about then, Stella notices that the girl hanging out the window taking orders is kind of cute.

When it’s her turn, she gives that girl in the window The Smile, and asks, “Which would you recommend—the nachos or the smothered fries?”

“It’s not Chez Panisse,” I tell her. “Just pick one.”

Stella ignores me, and the girl in the window uses her tongue to play with the diamond stud pierced into her lower lip. She takes her time, gives it some careful thought.

“Honestly?” she says. “The smothered fries are one of our bestsellers.”

Stella nods like she’s assessing the rec. “Okay.”

“Besides,” the girl says, dimple-smiling down at Stella. “They’re kinda sexy.”

“I guess we have a winner, then,” Stella says. Man, that girl can charm the paint off a car.

I edge her out of the way so I can order my funnel cake, then step aside to let B’Rad pay, and that’s when someone says, “Hey,” from so close behind me I jump at the sound of it.

Maybe-Naomi takes a few steps back once I turn. Her smile is about half of what Stella’s is right now, still getting her flirt on with the Battered Ram girl.

“Hey,” I say back, not sure where to go conversationally after that.

“Happy Fourth of July,” maybe-Naomi says.

“Yeah. You too.”

Some middle schoolers stagger past us like a bunch of drunk college freshmen on spring break, completely on fire about whatever ride they just got off. I watch them until they disappear around the back of the merry-go-round, and then I pick out one of the horses, the purple one, and track it as it comes back around.

“Funnel cake?” I hear from the window, and B’Rad taps me on the arm and hands it to me. Stella is in the process of asking the girl in the window what time she gets off.

“Wanna go for a quick walk?” maybe-Naomi says. “I won’t keep you from your friends too long, I promise.”

I look over at Stella, who’s faking like she doesn’t notice us. She’s still flirting, but she’s also keeping a close eye on whatever’s going on with me and maybe-Naomi right now.

I ask B’Rad, “Hey, where are you guys gonna be?” and Stella goes, “Just meet us at the entrance to the stadium. The fireworks are gonna start soon.”

Maybe-Naomi and I wander off with no real destination, at least not in my mind. I use the flimsy plastic fork they gave me to wrestle off a piece of funnel cake and eat it, relieved she’s not watching as I shove it into my mouth.

“Bite?” I offer, holding the plate out to her.

“Sure.” She takes the fork, twists off a piece, then puts it in her mouth without touching the fork to her lips. “I wasn’t sure if you were, like, a germophobe, or...” she says around the bite before stopping to chew. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand in case there’s any rogue powdered sugar left behind and hands the fork back to me. “I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

I don’t say anything, because the truth is, maybe-Naomi has always made me uncomfortable.

“My friends tell me I do that sometimes,” she says. “Come on too strong? So. I’m trying to do better.”

I nod, working to pry off another bite of funnel cake but failing miserably.

“I’m losing the fork,” I say with a laugh, and maybe-Naomi laughs too and says, “Good call.”

We walk past the game booths, past the fast-talking carnies waving at us to come try our luck, past the rows of vinyl blow-up toys and rainbow-colored plushies hanging on S-shaped hooks inside the game tents. As we walk, we take turns pulling off pieces of funnel cake and licking the powdered sugar off our fingers. Out near the go-karts, I hold the plate out to her.

“Last bite?”

She shakes her head. “Nah, I already ate your whole thing.”

“I offered,” I tell her, picking up the last piece between two fingers and dropping it into my mouth. It makes me laugh for some reason, and when I do, a puff of powdered sugar micro-explodes from between my lips, and that makes us both laugh. But once the funnel cake is gone, I have no idea what to say or what to do with my hands. Maybe-Naomi takes the plate from me and throws it away and we keep walking, dodging the crush of bodies moving in the direction of the stadium.

“I guess they’re getting ready to start the fireworks,” I say.

Maybe-Naomi stops and turns.

“Look, Daya... I just want to apologize for... everything. For being a dick, especially that night in Oviedo. I wasn’t cool, and... yeah. I’m sorry.”

It’s weird hearing her mention Oviedo. That night feels like it happened light-years ago, or like it happened to someone else. But I’m not going to do that thing girls do, myself included. I’m not going to tell her it was okaywhen it totally wasn’t.

A loud boom cracks the sky, and we turn to look up. One long spiral of smoke and sparks rockets high above the fairgrounds before bursting red, white, and blue into the sky. The crowd cheers as the explosions start coming fast and relentless, strobing color and light across the sea of upturned faces. I sneak a look at maybe-Naomi, watch her face flash purple, then gold, then green.

“I should probably go find Stella,” I tell her.

“Cool,” she says, taking a step back. “Thanks for the walk. And the funnel cake.”

“I mean... I don’t think they’ll care if you want to hang out with us?”

“Yeah?” maybe-Naomi says, a look of surprise across her lit-up face. “Sure. For a little while.”

We find Stella and B’Rad just outside the gates of the stadium. I have to shout to be heard over all the noise around us.

“B’Rad, Natasha,” I say. “Natasha, B’Rad.”

He mimes drinking the hard cider she brought him that night and gives her a thumbs-up. She throws rock-star fingers back at him and smiles. B’Rad and Stella lean into each other as they look toward the sky, and then Stella throws an arm around me and hooks me into a hug.

I look up at the bursts of flame and color breaking loose above us, and hope that somewhere, Beckett’s watching it too. That it reminds her of something real, or something that could be real. If not for me and her, then at least for me. And her.

All around us, kids squeal and couples kiss and people ooh and aah and the breeze chases itself through our hair and the air smells like smoke and grass and hot dogs and sugar and the sky fills with flash-bursts of color.

And for right now, everything is perfect.