Blueridge Corridos

Home , Dance to This

BLUERIDGE CORRIDOS

A University Thesis Presented to the Faculty

California State University, East Bay

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in English

Emilie Caroline White

June 2017

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Occam’s Razor at California State University, East Bay, for their publication of a previous version of “A Dance for Día de los Reyes Magos (Un baile por

Día de los Reyes Magos),” and to The Bohemian at Notre Dame de Namur University, for their publication of a previous version of “Bailando con el español (Dancing with

Spanish).”

Thank you, as well, to Stephen Gutierrez, Susan Gubernat, and the faculty of the

Department of English at California State University, East Bay, for their assistance and guidance.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ...... iv

Prólogo (Prologue) ...... 1

Bailando con el español (Dancing with Spanish) ...... 6

Galletas (Cookies) ...... 17

Transiciones (Transitions) ...... 28

Sounds of Home (Sonidos de casa) ...... 41

A Dance for Día de los Reyes Magos (Un baile por Día de los Reyes Magos) ...... 54

May at St. Ignatius (Mayo en St. Ignatius) ...... 68

An American in Salem (Un americano en Salem)...... 77

Stars (Estrellas) ...... 93

Thanksgiving (Día de Acción de Gracias) ...... 108

Lanterns (Linternas)...... 118

Epilogue (Epílogo) ...... 133

Prólogo (Prologue)

Seventh Grade, Blueridge Middle School

It was ten o’clock in the morning on the kind of day about which no one ever writes stories. Leah Green leaned against the pillar outside the science building at

Blueridge Middle School, her oversized purple backpack, stuffed with textbooks, binders, and notebooks for each of her classes, leaning against her feet. A book, a weatherworn copy of Pride and Prejudice that had seen a few too many car rides and family vacations, lay open in her hands. Blueridge Middle’s science department was on the southern end of the central courtyard around which all of the school’s buildings were centered. Beyond

Leah, students crossed in small groups from building to building as slowly as possible, drawing out the three minutes until the sound of the second bell as long as they could. A clump of boys dumped their backpacks in the middle of the grass. One pulled a soccer ball out, and they began to play.

“Chica, don’t you ever read anything else? You do know that nobody else here reads that, except you.”

Leah looked up. Ana, a Latina girl who had been Leah’s best friend since the age of three, was standing before her, her own much smaller black backpack slung over her right shoulder.

“I like Pride and Prejudice,” said Leah. “Darcy’s shy, and romantic.”

“He’s a jerk,” said Ana. “My sister showed me the movie. He won’t dance with her at the ball. It’s like Jose Romero at the Halloween dance.”

“I meant after that,” said Leah. “Once they’re friends.”

Ana shrugged and bounced on the balls of her feet. “Hurry up. We’re going to be late to math.”

Leah picked her backpack up, slipped it over both her shoulders, and followed

Ana across the courtyard. Her best friend marched straight through the boys’ soccer game as though it wasn’t there.

“Hey!” one of them, a curly-haired, dark-skinned boy with whom they had gone to elementary school, Rogelio Hernández, yelled after them.

Ana shouted something unattractive at him in Spanish, but he immediately was distracted by the soccer ball whizzing toward his team’s goal. Leah cracked a grin. Ana had always been the more daredevil of the two, since they’d been four years old and

Ana’s brother’s dog had gotten loose. Though looking back, she knew the animal was harmless, four-year-old Leah had been terrified of the dog’s incessant barking. When

Ana’s brother, Diego, had come running into the yard at the noise, he’d found his little sister standing directly in front of his pet, her hands on her hips, talking a mile a minute, yelling at him in a high-pitched voice for scaring her friend.

Ana and Leah were two of the last people to file into Mr. Loggins’s room as the bell rang. Leah dropped her backpack and fell into a third-row seat behind Ana. Mr.

Loggins had already started lecturing.

“Today, we’re continuing our lesson on basic variable equations, in Chapter Two of the book,” he said. “I’ll collect your homework, and then let’s get started.”

Leah pulled six loose-leaf pages out of her binder.

“Shoot, I was going to ask you if you had the answer for number twelve,” Ana hissed over her shoulder. “I got all of them but that one.”

The answer for number twelve was 24, but Mr. Loggins collected the papers before she could try to help Ana. When he returned to the front of the class, Mr. Loggins began writing on the chalkboard.

“For an equation featuring one variable…” Mr. Loggins began. “You want to isolate the variable on one side of the equation, so it’s all by itself. Here’s an example.”

He wrote “x-7=10” on the board. “Now this is a subtraction equation. To isolate the variable, you want to make any numbers on that side equal zero, so the variable is the only thing there. To cancel out the -7, you add 7 to both sides.” He wrote “+7” on each side of the equals sign, drawing a line straight through the “-7+7” and writing “=17” on the other side. “So here, because 10 plus 7 is 17, x=17.” He turned to face the class.

“Does that make sense?”

No one answered, but Loggins seemed to treat their silence as assent.

“Now you try,” he said. He wrote “x+3=8.” “Can anyone tell me what x would be equal to in this equation?”

There was silence for a few moments.

“Five,” said the boy sitting next to Leah. She didn’t know him, but he often had the answer to Mr. Loggins’s questions.

“Good job, Marcos,” said Mr. Loggins. “Why?”

“You subtract three from both sides,” he answered.

“Good.” Mr. Loggins wrote another equation on the board. “Can anyone answer this one?”

“Six,” said Marcos immediately.

“How about this one?” Mr. Loggins wrote “x×4-2=14” on the board. “A challenge question.”

“Seven,” said Marcos.

“Four,” said Leah under her breath.

“Leah says it’s four!” Ana said. Leah looked up, about to whisper to Ana to be quiet, but Marcos answered.

“It’s definitely seven.”

“No, it’s four,” Leah told him. “You move the two to the other side, which gives you x×4=16. Then divide by four.”

“Leah is correct,” said Mr. Loggins, the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

Marcos looked down at his notebook, bemused. From the desk behind him, his friend, who Leah knew was named Horacio, poked him in the back.

“The girl beat you, dude!” he crowed.

Involuntarily, Leah felt her cheeks growing pink. She looked down at her notebook.

“That’s enough,” said Mr. Loggins. “I want you all to break into pairs, and work on the first ten problems in the exercises. Let me know if you have any questions.”

Still embarrassed, Leah looked at the back of Ana’s head expectantly, waiting for her to turn around, as they were always partners. Before she could, however, Leah heard

the metal legs of one of the desks scooting across the floor. She turned to see that Marcos had moved his desk into the aisle, so it was closer to hers.

He looked at her nervously. “Will you be my partner?” he asked. Behind him, an offended look crossed Horacio’s face.

Leah looked at Ana, who grinned and turned back to face the front, reaching out to poke María Elena Perez’s shoulder.

“Sure,” said Leah.

Bailando con el español (Dancing with Spanish)

Sophomore Year, Blueridge High School

It was Friday, and everyone in the hot, packed classroom knew it. The only

Spanish-speaking portable on campus was filled with laughter and the chatter of students focusing too much on last night’s soccer game between México and América and the latest rerun of El chavo del ocho, and not enough on the classwork they had been given.

Leah sat at the front of the room, head bent over her verb conjugations. She furrowed her brow in concentration, more aware of the scratch of her pencil as she scribbled over the paper than of anything her two best friends were saying behind her.

“It's chocolate, and has vanilla frosting, and—”

Ana’s words slipped through Leah’s cloud of focus, and she rolled her eyes affectionately. Ana’s voice rose above all others in the room as she told Marcos about the cake her family had finally let her order for her quinceañera party the following weekend. Ana had been Leah's best friend since they'd been three years old and Ana's family had moved two doors down from Leah on Santa Inés Court. Ana was easygoing and a chatterbox. When they had been children, and their mothers had still arranged their playdates, it had been Ana who'd made up a name and history for every doll the pair owned. It had been Leah who had written them all down.

Their other best friend, Marcos, sat on Ana's left, and characteristically said nothing as Ana rhapsodized about trying frosting samples. Marcos, quiet and introspective, was more like Leah in nature. Marcos and Leah had started competing in

every class they’d taken since middle school, racing to see who could finish each assignment first with the highest grade. Somewhere in between the book reports and science projects, they had become fast friends.

Marcos finally broke through Ana's monologue. “My parents liked the chocolate cake they ordered for my sister's first communion last year. Me, I’d rather have—”

Leah missed what Marcos's favorite flavor of cake was because the vacant desk next to her was suddenly filled. It was Edgar, one of the boys who'd sauntered in the door the first day of class and set up camp in the back row.

“Hola, Green,” Edgar said. “¿Cómo estás?”

“Bastante bien.”

“Whoa!” He threw his hands up in surprise. “You know Spanish, White Girl?”

Leah shot a glance at the calendar on the wall, which marked the date as April

15th, more than two thirds of the way through spring semester. She then looked down at the extensive lists of Spanish verb conjugations she had been working on for the past half hour and the AP Spanish language textbook sitting out on her desk.

“Yes…”

I've been here all year, she wanted to add. In this class. With you. Same exact seat, even...

Leah had spent her whole life in Blueridge, a tiny town painted as an afterthought in the valley in the heart of California. Most of Blueridge was inhabited by Mexican

American families, and as a Caucasian, Leah had grown up as a minority among her classmates. Gradually, she’d fallen in love with mariachi music and burritos, and yelled

in Spanish on the elementary school playground. Some days, even now, she almost felt more comfortable speaking in Spanish, the language feeling like verbal comfort food that rolled more easily off her tongue.

“Know something that doesn't make sense?”

“What?” Leah asked.

“Why's your last name Green? You're not green, you're white!” said Edgar, cracking himself up as he walked back to his friends in the back of the room.

“Have you all finished your verbs?” Mr. Sánchez, Blueridge High School’s only foreign language teacher, asked them in Spanish, moving from his desk to the front of the room. “If you haven't, take them home and finish them. Turn them in to me on Monday.

We need to move on to the discussion of the last part of the play I had you read last night.

Did you all get a chance to finish La Casa de Bernarda Alba?”

Leah had, in fact, loved La Casa de Bernarda Alba, especially the dichotomies between the sisters in the play, but her mind wandered back to Ana's quinceañera on

Saturday. It had been all Ana had been talking about for weeks. Almost a year ago, she'd been at Ana's house working on a chemistry project when Ana’s parents had given her permission to throw the huge fiesta. Ana loved any excuse to dress up in fancy clothes, but her parents had been more hesitant about the festivities.

A quinceañera was a joyous time for many families, a celebration of the lives of their daughters and their transition into womanhood. The parties, thrown sometime close to when the daughter turned fifteen, were often expensive, though, and many families in

Blueridge simply didn't have the money to pay for one. Leah remembered the pained look

Ana's father, Mr. Espinoza, had worn that day as his daughter and her mother made plans to begin their dress shopping the following weekend.

Suddenly, Leah had the uncomfortable realization that she had been paying no attention to the questions Mr. Sánchez had been asking about Bernarda Alba.

“What would your parents say if you brought home someone they didn't like?”

Mr. Sánchez paced at the front of the room. “What if it was someone of a different economic or social background? What about someone of a different race? Anyone?”

“My mamá always insists that she's going to find me a nice Mexican girl,” one of

Edgar's friends joked in the back.

“What about you, Leah?” said Mr. Espinoza. “What would your parents say if you brought home a Latino boy you were dating?”

Leah’s cheeks felt suddenly warm. “¿Dirían… hola?”

“Really?” Mr. Espinoza responded, surprised. “They wouldn't care?”

“No...”

Mr. Espinoza seemed taken aback. The bell rang soon afterward, and Leah waited for Ana and Marcos so they could walk to Honors English together.

“Sánchez really doesn't get your family at all,” Marcos said as they pushed their way through the mob trying to escape the classroom and down the ramp outside the door.

“Why did he think that would be such a big deal?”

There was something mischievous behind Ana’s eyes. “I mean, who else would you date here, anyway?”

As they reached Ms. Guerrero's room, Ana hurried inside, but Marcos pulled Leah back before she could follow.

“What's up?”

“Are you good for Ana's quince?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you freak out about this stuff,” he said. “You had me brief you before my sister's first communion and my confirmation last year. You've also asked me about every detail about every party my family has thrown in the past five years so that you'd know what to expect.”

“It's a... culture thing,” she mumbled. “This is all new to me.”

Marcos laughed and clapped a hand on her shoulder. Immediately, he realized what he had done, and removed it awkwardly. “Look,” he said, trying to cover, “if you want, my parents can pick you up, and you can hang out with me.”

Leah shot him the most grateful look she could muster.

Almost despite himself, Marcos smiled and pushed her ahead of him into the classroom.

Despite her better judgement, at noon on Saturday afternoon, Leah found herself sitting on a stool in the bathroom that she shared with her younger sister, Jessica, a strand of her hair wrapped in a curling iron held by her mother.

“I’m going to be late.”

Jack, Leah’s younger brother, appeared in the doorway. “Dad wants to know if he’s supposed to take you to Ana’s,” the eight-year-old reported.

“I’m okay.”

“He says he’s got to go down to his classroom at the school to pick up some papers and could take you on the way,” Jack added staunchly.

“I’m good. Marcos is supposed to come get me.”

Immediately, Jessica appeared at Jack’s side. “Ooh, Marcos is picking you up?”

Leah’s sister was thirteen. She had moved so quickly at the sound of Marcos’s name that her red hair, pinned up on either side of her forehead with butterfly clips, had swung wildly. “Are you going on a date?”

Leah felt that familiar warmth in her cheeks. “No—”

“Jess, be nice.” Catherine Green pulled the curling iron out of her daughter’s hair and reached for the next strand.

Jessica beamed, and she and Jack vanished as quickly as they’d come.

“There.” Leah’s mother released the curling iron, and the final strand of Leah’s hair fell against her left cheek. “What time is Marcos supposed to get here?”

“The invitation said three.” Leah looked at the clock. The minute hand was pointed straight down. Apprehension built in the pit of her stomach and she smoothed down hem of her skirt. “But he’s already late.”

Marcos arrived about ten minutes later, wearing a dress shirt and black pants, but no tie. Leah answered the door, and he appraised her. “Sorry, it’s early, I know,” he said.

“But are you ready?”

“It’s early? The invitation said three.”

Marcos smiled. “We’re going to be the first ones there,” he promised. “Trust me.”

Leah climbed into the weatherworn Honda behind Marcos, and greeted Xiomara

Santiago, Marcos’s mother. Leah felt another attack of nerves, and the friends rode through Blueridge in silence.

The town of Blueridge was centered around la Avenida Central, the main street that ran for seven blocks through the center of town. La Avenida Central, and the shopping center on its western end, were populated with small corner stores, the

Blueridge Public Library, the town’s only gas station, two different La Reina Market grocery stores, and more than half a dozen Mexican food restaurants. On the easternmost end of the street was the large Catholic Church, a white clay building with the largest parking lot in town. The water tower, which had “Blueridge” written across it in turquoise lettering, was directly behind it.

Most of the rest of Blueridge was residential. The city hall was located about two streets over from the Avenida, and Blueridge’s two elementary schools, as well as its middle and high school, were scattered throughout town. The northernmost end of the town featured the Blueridge City Park, and the southern was the home of Blueridge’s latest conversation topic—the new Carl’s Jr., the only fast food restaurant to have noticed that there was a town in the midst of all those grape and corn fields on the map. Whoever had designed the building had placed on the roof what Ana had dubbed the greatest feature of the town—a huge golden star, the Carl’s Jr. logo, hoisted nearly two hundred feet into the air.

“It’s probably so travelers can see it from the freeway and know to stop,” Leah’s father, Daniel, had said with dismay.

The window next to Leah was rolled down, and waves of heat rolled in through the open frame. It was unseasonably warm in Blueridge, even for April.

“The memorial hall is going to be sweltering.”

Leah looked back at Marcos. He looked oddly apprehensive for someone thinking about the weather.

When she followed Marcos to the Blueridge Memorial Hall, Leah had the too- familiar feeling that she was overwhelmingly out of place. Marcos had been right—when they arrived, the only people present were Ana’s immediate family, the DJ, and a troupe of mariachis carrying guitars and trumpets. Ana herself was nowhere to be seen. But soon, the music from the DJ at the front thundered off the walls and the hall was full to bursting with Ana's family and friends, all of whom seemed to be watching Leah as she followed Marcos around the perimeter of the room. Ana seemed oblivious, though, as she rushed toward Leah, clad in a pink ball gown with a voluminous skirt, arms outstretched.

Her hair was in ringlets, pinned to the top of her head.

“You’re HERE!”

Despite her nervousness, Leah couldn’t help but smile. “Of course,” she said.

“How could I miss it?”

“Hi, I’m here too,” said Marcos, and Ana threw her arms around him.

“I’m so excited,” Ana bubbled. “The band got here half an hour ago, and I got to tell them what songs to play, and my dad and I finally decided what song we’re going to dance to, and—it’s all so exciting!”

Leah smiled. “You look so happy,” she told her friend affectionately.

“And it’s even better now that YOU CAME!” Ana said, hugging her again.

Ana’s father approached with a broad smile to tell his daughter she needed to come greet the cousins that had just arrived, and Marcos looked at Leah.

“Shall we sit?” he asked her hesitantly. Leah could barely hear him over the music, but she nodded.

As Marcos led her to a table near the front of the hall, he eyed the crowd on the dance floor, looking from them to Leah, and back again. Leah, still feeling as though all the eyes were on her, shifted uncomfortably in her skirt.

A group of ladies was sitting at the table next to theirs as Leah sat down next to

Marcos. One of them leaned to the other next to her, and said, in Spanish, “¿Quién es la gringa?”

“I don't know who she is,” the other woman responded in Spanish. “Anita must know her from somewhere.”

“I didn't even know that the gringos knew what a quince was.”

“Who does she think she is?”

Marcos shifted towards Leah protectively, obviously listening as well.

Leah turned around. “Sí, I know Ana from school. Asisto a la escuela con Ana,” she said to the women in Spanish. “She's my best friend. Mi mejor amiga.”

“You speak Spanish?” the first woman said.

“Sí,” said Leah.

“She's more fluent that I am,” Marcos supplied helpfully.

The women's eyes lit up. They moved to join Marcos and Leah at their table and began talking a mile a minute. Leah learned that they were two of Ana's aunts on her father's side. One aunt event went so far as to bring both Marcos and Leah a plate of food when dinner was served. After a while, their table grew as Ana's uncles and cousins joined them and the aunts became distracted. The song changed to “Payaso de Rodeo,” and people rushed forward to line dance to the old crowd favorite. Marcos turned to

Leah.

“Want to dance?” he asked softly.

“I don't know how to do this one...” Leah began.

“I'll teach you,” he said, cutting her off.

“I'll be terrible,” she said, a laugh spreading across her face. Marcos took her smile as assent and dragged her out on the floor.

Leah was terrible. She couldn't pick the steps up quick enough. She and Marcos stood at the back, his hand in hers, as he pointed to her feet, trying to show her where to move them. In the end, they gave up trying to do the steps entirely, and rocked out together at the back of the crowd. Eventually, they ended back at their table, each with a piece of birthday cake, listening to the mariachi band play long into the night.

When the night ended, Leah gave Ana a hug goodbye, and followed Marcos out to the parking lot, where his parents were picking them both up to drive them home. In the

dark car, Leah answered Mrs. Santiago's questions about the party, acutely aware of how close Marcos had laid his hand next to hers on the seat between them. When Mr. Santiago pulled up at Leah's house, Marcos pulled her into an awkward side-hug over the seat.

“Text me later?” he asked.

Leah nodded, and got out of the car. Before she even made it through the door, she pulled out her phone and sent him, That was awesome. Thanks.

It was, he sent back just seconds later. I could have used, like six more of those enchiladas.

Delicious, though.

But I'm still hungry, L! he responded.

Leah flopped down on her bed. What do you expect me to do about it?

Marcos's text made her phone buzz just seconds later. Can you make tortillas?

Really? she wrote. You want the one white girl you know to make tortillas?

She could hear Marcos's chuckle in her head. Oh, that's right, you're white, he wrote. Sometimes, I forget.

Galletas (Cookies)

Junior Year, Blueridge High School

“Everyone, sit down,” Mr. Sánchez said over the murmur of his students as the bell rang to signify the beginning of first period. “Ya vamos a empezar. We need to begin.”

Leah was already sitting in the second row, with Ana and Marcos on either side.

Students huddled around the room wearing backpacks, while others settled into their seats. The whiteboard at the front of the class was covered in verb conjugations from the previous afternoon. Despite Mr. Sánchez’s words, few moved very quickly to their desks.

Mr. Sánchez shooed a clump of students from where they had congregated near the whiteboard. He looked out at his class.

“Antes que empezamos la clase,” Mr. Sánchez began in Spanish, “I’d like to offer you all a unique opportunity. I’ve begun work on a book, a collection of testimonies from

Mexican immigrants in the United States. I’m conducting interviews with a variety of different people, including families from Blueridge and other towns in the valley, and if any of you are interested in helping me transcribe interviews after school or keep track of paperwork, I’ll give you community service hours that will count towards your graduation requirement.”

Ana leaned over to Leah. “I desperately need some hours,” she whispered. “Do it with me.”

“You do know we have plenty of time to get hours, right? And I’ll have basketball practice starting in a month.”

Ana shrugged. “It doesn’t sound so bad, though. Better than doing car washes or barbecues for Blueridge Rotary or something.”

“Does anyone already know they’re interested?” Mr. Sánchez asked.

Ana raised her hand, and Leah followed suit. Leah nudged Marcos with her foot.

He sighed, and raised his hand, too.

The only other person in the room to raise his hand was Rogelio Hernández, who had gone to elementary and middle school with Leah and Ana. Leah felt a vague sense of apprehension. She and Rogelio had never gotten along well.

“Que bien,” Mr. Sánchez said, looking pleased. “Now, on to more class-related activities. As you know, part of being in an AP Spanish class is learning about culture as well as language. So this year, we’re going to put on a presentation for Day of the Dead in November.” He settled onto a stool that had been placed in front of the whiteboard.

“For lots of you, Día de los Muertos is very familiar,” Mr. Sánchez said. “But as a recap: in Mexico, Day of the Dead, which occurs on November 1 and 2, are days to celebrate the lives of those who have passed on. Rather than viewing death as something to be dreaded, much of Mexican culture believes that the focus should be instead on celebrating the lives the dead were able to lead. Many families visit loved ones’ graves on

Day of the Dead, while others build altars within their homes to honor those who have died.”

“My family goes to the cemetery every year for my grandparents,” Ana murmured to Leah. “It’s actually kind of cool. People make a party out of it.”

Mr. Sánchez paused. “For your Día de los Muertos projects, you will each write a

5-7 page paper, researching traditional ways to celebrate the holiday throughout Mexico.

We will also be building an altar in the classroom, and presenting our findings to any family members or friends who would like to attend on November 2nd.”

There was silence in the room.

“Afterwards, we’ll have a class party,” Mr. Sánchez added.

The mood in the classroom then brightened considerably.

A week later, after seventh period, which was AP Calculus for Leah and Marcos and P.E. for Ana, the three friends reunited and headed towards Mr. Sánchez’s room.

Mr. Sánchez was sitting in one of the desks in the front row, having flipped it around to face a woman in a long dress sitting in the second. Rogelio had beaten them to the classroom, and looked up as they walked in. His eyes darkened.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” said Mr. Sánchez in English. “Everyone, this is María del Carmen. María, Marcos, Leah, y Ana.”

María looked at each of them as Mr. Sánchez introduced them, but lingered just a second longer on Leah.

“We were just discussing how María’s family arrived in the United States,” Mr.

Sánchez said, reverting back to Spanish. “She’s here with her mother, her husband, and three of her children.”

María looked back at Leah, and said softly, “¿No me entregara la gringa a la migra?”

Leah felt her cheeks go red. “Solamente estoy aquí para aprender,” she said. “I’m here to learn. You can trust me. I’m not going to call the border patrol.”

María’s eyes brightened. “¿Hablas español?”

“Sí,” said Leah. “I’ve been in Spanish classes since I was young.”

Leah could almost see the knots unravel in María’s shoulders.

“So tell us,” Mr. Sánchez said gently. “How did your family cross the border?”

María began to speak. She told them about deciding to leave the state of

Michoacán in México in the hopes that her husband, Reymundo, could find a steadier job. They had left her eldest son, José Luis, in charge of the family’s small ranch. The original plan had been to send money back to José Luis when they found jobs in the

United States, but the family was struggling to support themselves, much less anyone else.

“Mi esposo and I work in the fields. We wake up at 4:30 every morning, go to work until six at night. Mis hijos usually have dinner ready for us. The oldest is only in fourth grade, and they all walk home from school together.”

Mr. Sánchez asked María questions for over an hour. After she left, Ana and

Marcos took the recording Mr. Sánchez had made over to his desk, where they began typing a transcript. Rogelio and Leah stayed to help Mr. Sánchez organize his notes.

Leah didn’t realize that Mr. Sánchez was watching her until he spoke. “What are you thinking, Leah?”

She paused. “What made you want to start writing this book?”

Mr. Sánchez put down the papers he was combing through. “I am part of a program with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,” he said. “I’m doing a teaching placement for four years in the United States. When you see two such totally different worlds, that somehow still have similarities, you can’t help but want to write about it. There’s so many people that aren’t given voices on both sides of the border, so many people whose lives get forgotten.” He studied her. “What is it?”

Leah scrambled to find something to say. “It just… it’s just one of those things that if you didn’t know it was true...” Even as she said it, it sounded woefully inadequate.

“Yeah, well, that’s how life is, White Girl.” Rogelio’s voice broke across their conversation. She looked up at him. His eyes were biting. “We can’t all live comfortably in big houses and yards like your people. We don’t all have everything we want. This is how life is for us.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Lay off, Hernández.” Leah realized Marcos had been listening from across the room. She looked at him, and there was something in his eyes she couldn’t quite define.

Ana was the fiery one of their trio, but there was something blazing across Marcos’s face.

“That’s enough.” Mr. Sánchez’s voice was firm. “Rogelio, help Ana with the transcripts. Marcos, you come over here and help us.”

Marcos appeared next to Leah. He lay a hand on her shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” Leah didn’t meet his eyes.

A few weeks later, Leah walked into Spanish class to find that the students who had already arrived were dragging the desks to one side of the room. A large folding table had been set up on the side furthest from the door, and Mr. Sánchez was spreading a large white tablecloth over it.

Piles of multicolor tissue paper sat on the desks in the front row. Mr. Sánchez instructed them to pick up several sheets before sitting down at their desks.

“Today, we’re going to make papel picado to decorate the altar with,” he said.

“Usually, you fold the papel into small squares, and then cut. When you unfold it, it creates a full design. Papel picado for Day of the Dead usually features skulls or flowers, but you guys try it out and get the hang of it before attempting anything that intricate. As you work, I’m going to have you sign up to bring different elements for the altar.”

Leah folded a piece of pink paper into squares. She felt uninspired, but picked up a pair of scissors, and began to cut small triangles around the paper’s edges. She unfolded it. The design was simple, but there was something about the pattern that intrigued her.

She became so engrossed in cutting shapes that Ana had to tap her with the sign- up sheet before she noticed her friend was trying to hand it to her. She read down the list—marigolds, other flowers, sugar skulls, pan de muerto… there was also a category for any skull-based artwork.

Leah signed up to bring marigolds, and passed the sheet to Evelia Mendoza.

“Don’t forget,” said Mr. Sánchez. “Bring some food to share at our class party after our presentation. Since we’re a foreign language class, bring something that you consider cultural. Also…” he paused, as though searching for the right words. “Although of course it’s not required, if any of you would like to bring photographs of departed loved ones to display on the altar, I would love it if as a class we could honor them.

Traditionally, people place photographs on an altar, as well as objects that once belonged to the deceased. Though I’m afraid if we bring too many remembrances, our altar might get a little crowded, you’re welcome to bring one small object for the person you are honoring, too.”

At the end of the class, Mr. Sánchez began collecting all of the papel picado his students had made, and taped it to strings that he draped around the uppermost part of the classroom’s walls. One string he laced around the empty altar.

“What do you think the public perception is of immigrants in the United States?”

Leah asked.

Tomás Méndez, who looked to only be a few years older than Leah, shrugged.

“Some people seem to like us fine,” he said in a thick accent. “But other people think we are taking away their jobs.”

“How does that feel?” Marcos asked quietly.

Tomás laughed. “I mean, if they want to join me under the sun in the lettuce for eleven hours a day, I’ll lend them a hat.” He grew sober. “My parents brought me here

when I was three to find me and my brothers better lives. They got me to where I am. It’s up to me to take it from here.”

After Tomás left, Marcos, Leah, and Ana walked out of the classroom together,

Rogelio stalking off in the other direction. Ana quickly said her goodbyes and headed home, but Marcos walked Leah back towards her neighborhood.

“I like this more than I thought I would, to be honest,” he told her.

“Me, too.” Leah looked down at her feet as they crossed the concrete. “It feels like we’re really doing something important. That matters.”

“Yeah.” Marcos stopped at the corner for the streetlight to change.

“We’ve done so many interviews already. Can you imagine how many stories don’t make it into books? That get forgotten?”

The light changed, and Marcos led her across the street. “Maybe books like this are our tribute. That’s why things like newspapers and books are so important. Even if the person gets forgotten, the story remains.”

That night, Leah’s father, Daniel, sat in their living room, watching the news.

Leah was heading into the kitchen to join her mother and help her bake cookies for the

Day of the Dead festivities the following evening. She was distracted, however, by the news broadcast shimmering on the screen. It announced that the government would be imposing tighter immigration restrictions, and leading more frequent searches for undocumented immigrants.

A man’s face filled the screen. “These people are coming here and taking everything from us. They don’t pay taxes, they just come in and take all the benefits of living in this country.” His voice was thunderous.

“I bet he doesn’t know a single undocumented immigrant,” Daniel said.

Leah forced her anger at the man on television down into her throat, and went into the kitchen to join her mother.

“Mr. Sánchez said to bring something cultural, right?” her mother asked. Beside the large mixing bowl that was already full of dough and chocolate chips sat the recipe that Catherine’s mother, Leah’s Grandmother Eden, had passed down to her. “They’re part of our family’s culture, for sure.”

Leah picked up the recipe card. Her grandmother’s handwriting was scrawled across it.

“Hey, Mom?” she asked. “Will you do something for me?”

Leah led her family to Mr. Sánchez’s room early the following evening, clutching a bouquet of marigolds in one hand and carrying the cookie tray with the other. Her parents, Jessica, and Jack followed her up the ramp into the classroom, and sat down in the desks with the other parents. Leah headed for the food table, which was bursting with conchas, pan dulce, and even tacos and tamales, and set down the cookies.

She proceeded to carry the marigolds over to the altar, placing them gently across the table. She then reached into the pocket of her coat, and pulled out a photograph.

Grandma Eden smiled out at her from the dining room table young Leah had associated with dinners at Grandma’s house.

There was only one other photograph on the table so far. A haggard-looking, serious man glared up from the photograph, and the dark fury behind his eyes made Leah instantly realize whose photo it must be.

She became acutely aware of Rogelio hovering in the corner, watching her. She looked at him. He stared resolutely back at her. She set her photograph down right next to his.

“Who is it?”

“What?” Leah turned.

“Who’s in your picture?”

“My grandmother,” she said. “She was the daughter of Swiss-Italian immigrants who came to California.”

“Why?”

“They were looking for something better,” she said, holding his gaze. “They were looking for a better life.” She paused. “The world is a whole lot more connected than you think.”

He wouldn’t look at her.

“What about yours?”

“What about mine.”

Leah moved to perch on the desk next to him. “Who’s in your picture?”

Rogelio didn’t answer. “My dad,” he said, finally.

Leah watched him silently, but he didn’t continue.

“If I can get all the students to come over to the altar,” said Mr. Sánchez, “and all of the families to take their seats, we’ll begin the presentation.”

Leah looked across the room to see Marcos leaning against the wall. Their eyes met. Leah noticed that his parents, Heriberto and Xiomara, and both his siblings were already seated.

Marcos moved over to stand beside her and Rogelio, and as her classmates gave their families the history of the Day of the Dead, and the significance of each of the items on the altar, she realized that Marcos’s stance seemed almost protective.

After the presentation, she headed for the food with Ana and Marcos. The smells of tortillas, frijoles, and sweet bread swirled together. Ana loaded up a plate, taking two of Leah’s cookies.

“Are those yours?” said a voice behind her.

Leah turned. Rogelio was pointing to the platter of cookies.

“Yeah,” she said. “Grandmother’s recipe.”

Rogelio chuckled. “You’re something else, White Girl,” he said, reaching for the platter.

Transiciones (Transitions)

Senior Year, Blueridge High School

Since they’d become best friends in the seventh grade, Leah estimated that

Marcos had missed maybe three days of school. So, when Marcos didn’t show up on

Monday morning, two weeks before their high school graduation, Leah noticed. When

Tuesday morning rolled around and his desk was empty once again, she became worried.

Ana wasn’t as concerned. “He’s probably just got a cold or something,” she said.

“Or maybe he’s been running secret agent missions on the weekends for years without telling us, and one ran long.” She paused, watching Leah’s face. “Hey, I’m sure he’s okay.”

Leah wanted to believe that Ana was right.

Marcos didn’t show up to school on Wednesday morning, either. Leah was deciding that she would call Marcos to check on him when she got home, when Mr.

Davis, the school principal, came in, and told the students that the annual scholarship banquet for seniors would be held that Friday. Mr. Davis then passed around a sheet with everyone’s names, asking them to write down the college they would be attending. When the page reached Leah, she filled in “St. Ignatius University” in the blank next to her name. Ana had written “UC Santa Cruz.”

Ana’s voice floated across her brain. “Do we need to fill in Marcos’s for him?”

“Do you know what he decided?”

“I was figuring it was UCLA,” said Ana. “It was his top choice.”

Leah stared at the blank next to Marcos’s name. “I don’t know that he sent in his statement of intent to register, though.”

Ana paused. “Maybe we leave it, then.”

Leah nodded.

Before he left, Mr. Davis picked up the invitation with Marcos’s name on it off his empty desk.

Marcos didn’t come to school on Thursday, either. Leah called him when she got home, but his phone went straight to voicemail for the second day in a row.

“Hey, it’s Marcos,” Marcos’s voice said. “Leave your number and I’ll call you back.”

“It’s me. Been worried about you, since you haven’t been at school. Finals are coming up, and senior dinner… I don’t know. Just give me a call back, I guess. Miss you.”

She hung up, feeling inadequate.

On Friday, Leah did her best to put Marcos out of her mind, and focus on the senior dinner. At 6:45, she climbed into the car with her parents, Jack, and Jessica, and headed for the student union. When they arrived, the spacious room was decorated in the

Blueridge High School colors, with blue plastic tablecloths and a blue and black banner hanging behind a microphone placed at the front of the room. About twenty-five folding chairs were lined up behind the microphone. A long table, laden with various platters of food, had been placed along the opposite wall at the back of the room.

“Where should we sit, L?” her father asked her. “Do you see Ana?”

Leah did. She led her family to where Ana’s parents, two of her sisters, and her younger brother had commandeered a table right up front. Ana’s family greeted Leah’s warmly.

Ana clapped Leah on the back as she sat down next to her. “We made it, chica,” she exclaimed happily. “Who’d have thought it would be me sitting here with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just stoked to be going to college, much less to be up for scholarships.”

Mr. Davis spoke into the microphone at the head of the room. “If you all would help yourselves to the food in the back,” he said, “we’ll have a quick dinner, and then move into the awards portion of the evening, at which time I’ll ask our honored seniors to come up here and sit behind me.”

Ana’s mother, María Elena, looked at her daughter questioningly. “¿Por qué no aprende español?” She sighed. “So many of us parents could understand him a lot better if he spoke Spanish.”

“I’ll translate for you, mamá,” Ana’s sister, Leticia, said, switching languages.

María Elena smiled. “I know, hija,” she said in Spanish, wrapping her arm around her daughter’s waist. “But it’s not the same.”

Leah and Ana led their families over to the buffet table. The aroma of chicken, rice, and beans swirled together and wafted down the row.

“That food is going to kill me before we ever get to the head of this line,” said

Ana.

“You’re telling me,” Leah answered before realizing Ana was looking behind her at the front of the student union.

“Hey,” she said softly, nodding in the direction of the door.

Leah turned. Marcos was standing there, his eyes scanning the room, holding his ten-year-old sister, Natalia, by the hand. His parents and his older brother, Roberto, were nowhere to be seen.

Marcos found Leah, and the two of them locked eyes. Marcos looked exhausted.

He had put on a green dress shirt and tie for the dinner, but his tie was askew, as though he’d been in a hurry.

He moved toward Ana and Leah, pushing Natalia in front of him.

“Where have you been?” Ana asked the moment he reached them, but Marcos shook his head, his eyes flicking to the top of Natalia’s head.

“What did we miss?” he asked.

“Nothing, really,” said Leah. “We’re just starting dinner, and the awards will be after.”

“What do you want to eat?” Marcos asked Natalia, leaning down.

All three families got their food, and settled themselves back at the table. Natalia was still within earshot, so Leah didn’t press Marcos about his week. When Mr. Davis asked the students to come sit in the seats at the front, Marcos leaned over to Leah’s mother, asking her if she would keep an eye on Natalia.

Marcos turned back to Natalia. “Behave,” he said. “Stay with Catherine.”

“Sure!” As she often was, Leah was struck by how uncannily similar Natalia’s accent was to Marcos’s.

Ana, Marcos, and Leah settled themselves into the first row of seats, with Marcos in the middle.

“What’s going on?” Leah whispered immediately.

“My dad had dual knee replacement surgery,” Marcos said quietly. “He’s been having problems for a while, but we couldn’t pay for it, so he’s been delaying getting it treated. But it was getting so bad, he went to the hospital, and they did it.”

“Why were his knees so bad?” Ana asked.

Marcos shrugged, looking at the ground. “He’s worked in the fields all his life,” he said. “Picking crops. It messes you up.”

“So you’ve been with him all week?” Leah asked.

Marcos nodded. “My parents don’t speak any English. They needed someone to translate with the doctors.”

“They couldn’t find a translator who worked there?” Ana’s brow furrowed.

“Not someone who spoke it fluently,” said Marcos. “Details got lost in translation.”

Leah was quiet, but Ana pushed forward. “Is he home now, at least?”

“No. But Roberto got off work for the weekend to take over so that I could come to this.”

The three friends fell silent as Mr. Davis began speaking. He congratulated the parents on having raised such high-achieving children, the students on all the hours of homework they had survived, and the scholarship donors for their much-appreciated service to the community. Mr. Davis then presented the students behind him, who he announced comprised the top ten percent academically of the graduating class.

Ana looked stunned. “I made the top ten?” she whispered.

Leah reached out for a fist bump, and Marcos grinned.

“Now, we have thirty-five very generous donors awarding scholarships this year,”

Mr. Davis continued. “Most of the awards range from $250 to $5,000, with the Diane

Gutierrez Scholarship totaling $15,000. We’re so very grateful to all of you for your support of these talented and hardworking students, and their efforts to receive higher education. To start things off, I’d like to welcome Mrs. Lidia Sánchez, from the

Blueridge Rotary Club, to award three scholarships from her organization.”

Mrs. Sánchez, who was sitting at a table at the back with several teachers, including her husband, made her way to the front. She awarded the first two scholarships to Rogelio Hernández and Leticia Rodríguez, a very kind girl whom the three friends had known since freshman year.

“I would like to award the third scholarship,” said Mrs. Sánchez, “to a student with one of the highest G.P.A.s in the class. When we held our scholarship interviews, she impressed us with her eloquence, her passion for helping others, and her dedication to hard work. She’s been involved with several clubs on campus, wrote for the school paper,

and even played basketball all four years… I’d like to award the third Blueridge Rotary

Club scholarship to Leah Green.”

Leah stood up and made her way to the microphone. She caught sight of her parents, their smiles stretching from ear to ear, and Jessica letting out a cheer. Natalia was clapping happily beside Ana’s family, who did the same.

Mrs. Sánchez smiled down at her. “Congratulations,” she said. “You deserve it.”

Leah received three other scholarships throughout the evening: one from

Scottsdale County Gymnastic Association, one from a Blueridge family who donated a scholarship every year in memory of a beloved matriarch, and one from the Blueridge

Lion’s Club.

When the representative from the Knights of Columbus, Mr. López, rose to present the scholarship for his organization, he began by telling the families of the recipient’s dedication to hard work and perseverance.

“This man has taken every Advanced Placement course offered at Blueridge

High,” said Mr. López. “He has worked as a tutor after school and scored very well on his SAT’s.” He smiled. “I’d like to present the Knights of Columbus scholarship, for

$1000, to Marcos Santiago.”

Finally, the only scholarship left unannounced was the Gutierrez. Liana Gutierrez, who was close to eighty, rose, walking with a cane up to the microphone.

“My family awards this scholarship every year to a student who shows academic excellence,” she began in a shaky voice, “but also shows something more than that. This recipient has shown dedication to academics, extracurricular activities, theater and the

arts, and social justice throughout the last four years.” She smiled. “This year, I would like to present the Gutierrez scholarship to Ana Espinoza.”

Ana’s jaw fell open. Leah was cheering before she even realized it. Marcos thumped Ana on the back. Ana, stunned, didn’t move.

“Get up there!” Leah beamed, reaching for Ana’s hand to pull her to her feet.

To end the evening, Mr. Davis took the microphone once more. “Finally, I’d like to announce this year’s valedictorian and salutatorian,” he said. “I think I’ll tell you who they are, and then I’ll tell you a little about them. You’ve seen a lot of them both tonight.” Mr. Davis looked down at his notes. “First,” he said, looking back up. “The salutatorian for this year’s Blueridge High School graduating class is Marcos Santiago.”

Marcos rose to his feet as applause rang out. Mr. Davis placed a medal around his neck. Leah watched him, a small smile spreading across her face. Suddenly, she flashed back to Mr. Loggins’s math class in seventh grade, where she’d met a dark-skinned, messy-haired twelve-year-old who loved to compete with her on every equation to see who could get the answer first.

“And the valedictorian,” said Mr. Davis, “is Leah Green.”

Leah felt something between fear and excitement as she stood, Ana’s cheer rising above the sound of clapping. She took her place beside Marcos. He looked down at her, his eyes still tired, but his face beaming, as Mr. Davis placed her medal around her neck.

Marcos leaned to whisper in her ear. “You remember that day I asked you to be your partner in Mr. Loggins’s class?” His face shone. “Good decision on my part,” he whispered.

Leah wanted to answer, but Mr. Davis was speaking again, talking about their academic and extracurricular achievements.

“…these two students are talented and of sturdy character…”

“…did he just call us… sturdy?” Leah whispered out of the corner of her mouth, and Marcos smothered a laugh.

Saturday night, Leah sat at her desk at home, attempting to draft her speech for graduation. Mr. Davis had asked Marcos and Leah to show him drafts of their speeches before school on Monday. Leah had begun by thanking her teachers and classmates, and moved into talking about all of the important and life-changing events that lay ahead, but it all felt cliché. She meandered into her family’s living room, where her father was watching the news on TV. The news anchor for Scottsdale County was reporting that at a school principal in The Vale, about forty minutes away, was advocating for the elimination of bilingual education programs, instead favoring English-only classes.

Her father groaned, and Leah felt an instant rush of anger. She went back into her room, picked up her phone, and dialed Marcos’s number.

He answered on the first ring. “Hey,” he said, his voice gravelly. “What’s up?”

“How’s your dad?”

“Not great.” It sounded like he was pacing. “He’s home now, so I’ll be at school again. But I have to help him take his medications, because the directions are all in

English.” He paused. “But what’s up?”

Leah opened her computer back up. “Have you written your speech yet?”

“Not really.”

“I feel like nothing I’m saying matters.”

“What do you mean?” she could hear him lean back on his bed.

“It feels like everything’s been said before. A whole phase of my life is ending. I should be able to say something original.”

“Maybe it’s not about saying something original,” he said. “Maybe it’s about saying something familiar. You don’t have to say something brilliant and new. You just have to say something that reaches your audience.”

Leah stared at the blinking cursor of the empty document open on her laptop.

Leah didn’t sleep much the night before graduation. As the graduates had to be at

Blueridge High’s football field by eight, she woke up at six. She put on the bright blue dress that she had found when out shopping with her mother and Jessica a month earlier, slipping on a pair of matching blue heeled sandals. Jessica helped her curl her hair.

They were standing in their bathroom, Jessica holding one curling iron and Leah holding one on the opposite side, when Jessica spoke suddenly.

“Do you like Marcos?”

Something in Leah’s chest stopped. “What?”

Leah’s mother appeared then. “Time to leave!” she said excitedly. Leah looked back at Jessica, but with a sly grin, Jessica slipped out of the bathroom. Leah grabbed her graduation gown and followed her.

The students were lining up by the football field where the ceremony was to be held. She found Marcos and Ana quickly, near the head of the line where Marcos and

Leah would be the ones to lead the class into the stadium.

As Leah approached, still holding her graduation robe instead of wearing it,

Marcos turned around. He looked even more haggard than he had at the scholarship dinner, but his eyes lit up when he saw her. He raised an eyebrow and smiled affectionately. Leah suddenly felt aware of how well her dress fit.

Ana, on the other hand, looked livid.

“Leah,” Ana said. “Marcos didn’t accept it.”

“Accept what?”

“His offer of admission.”

“To where?”

“Anywhere.”

Leah looked at Marcos, horrified, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I can’t,” he said. “My family needs me. There’s been complications from Dad’s surgery. He can barely walk. He can’t work. My family will fall apart without me. I have a duty to them.”

“But… if you go to college, you can get a degree, and get a solid job, and help them out more in the long run.”

“It doesn’t matter, L,” said Marcos. “They need the help now.”

“But can’t Roberto—”

“Leah,” he said quietly. “Please.”

She met his eyes. And she stopped.

“I’ll go to Scottsdale,” he said, referencing the community college in a neighboring town. “I’ll work and I’ll take night classes. Then I’ll transfer out. Hopefully

Dad will be better by then.”

Leah opened her mouth to answer, but Mr. Davis appeared, and “Pomp and

Circumstance” began to play on the field.

Leah and Marcos took their places at the head of the line. Leah looked at Marcos, and for once, he held her gaze. They stayed there for a moment. Suddenly, it hit Leah.

The end of an era. She wanted to say something, but something in Marcos’s eyes told her he already knew.

Together, they led their classmates into the stadium. The grass had been cut for the occasion, and a field of perfect green spread out underneath them as Leah and Marcos walked down the steps in the stands towards the field. Leah looked at Marcos as they reached the grass. He smiled. They parted, heading in opposite directions, leading their sections to seats on either side of a center podium. It took a full fifteen minutes for everyone to take their seats. Mr. Davis led the stadium in a flag salute, and Xóchitl

González, as student council president, presented the senior gift, a bench for the school’s center courtyard. Then Mr. Davis announced Marcos as the salutatorian.

“So much hard work has gone into putting us here. Not only by us, but by our parents and families,” Marcos told his classmates. “So many of our families and friends slave hours in the lettuce or the grapes or doing other manual labor to support us and to make ends meet. They are the reason we’re able to study at night when we get home, the reason why we’re able to focus on school instead of work.” Marcos paused, and his eyes

found Leah’s. “That’s why I’d like to thank my parents, Horacio and Xiomara, and my brother, Roberto, for working hard so that I could be standing here today.”

At the end of Marcos’s speech, Mr. Davis introduced Leah. She took her place at the podium. The crowd stretched before her, a wild kaleidoscope of faces. She wanted to find her family, but they were too far away to see.

She took a deep breath. Reach your audience.

“Welcome, families, friends, teachers and students,” she began. “Bienvenidos a las familias, los amigos, los maestros, y los estudiantes.” She continued, alternating between English and Spanish. “For me, this school has been a clash of worlds, a mixture of language, of art, and of people, and I am a better person because of it. Para mí, esta escuela ha sido una mezcla de mundos, una combinación de lenguaje, arte, y gente, y me han convertido en una persona mejor…”

Sounds of Home (Sonidos de casa)

Freshman Year, St. Ignatius University

After their first week and a half of college, Leah felt like she only had half as much energy as her roommate, Lana López.

On Wednesday, Leah had asked Lana about getting lunch together in the St.

Ignatius University dining commons. Lana had already had plans with a new friend from the floor below them, Chrissy Marks, but had invited Leah to join them instead. Leah and

Lana gotten lunch together a couple of times, but after all of their first-week scripted small talk, Leah could only figure that they’d been placed in a room together because their names were so similar. The two girls had nothing in common—Lana had grown up in San Francisco and thrived in the big city, and was studying electrical engineering.

Leah was an introverted girl from a small town, and a communications major. Lana had been to five orientation week parties in the last week and a half. Leah had been to none.

But Leah was the only person from Blueridge High to come to St. Ignatius

University in the last five years, and she and Lana were roommates. Leah looked down at her the receipt for her three carne asada tacos, and vaguely considered ordering a large steaming coffee, too, before her next class. The large dining hall was painted a bright yellow with orange accents, and the feigned cheeriness annoyed her.

Lana was pouring over a large pamphlet with “St. Ignatius Club Fair” printed across it.

“They don’t have club lacrosse,” she said, irritated. “What a joke.”

Leah thought she had misheard.

“Did you say lacrosse?”

“Yeah,” said Lana. “I played in high school. I was hoping to keep it up in college, but I guess I won’t.”

“What club sports do they have?” Chrissy asked.

Lana listed off fifteen teams—including competitive sailing.

“Great!” said Chrissy. “Do you think they’ll let me on both the rowing and sailing teams?”

“Probably not,” Lana said. “You’ll have to pick one.”

“Dude,” said Chrissy. “I don’t want to go to class. Spanish 2 is so hard.”

“What are you working on?” Leah asked her.

“Past tense.” Chrissy rolled her eyes. “Apparently Spanish has two different types.”

“Preterit and imperfect,” said Leah.

“Right.” Chrissy shrugged. “I don’t even get why a language needs two different forms of past tense, much less how to conjugate verbs in both. But whatever.”

“If you want, I could help you out,” said Leah. “I’m fluent in Spanish.”

Chrissy shrugged again. “It’s whatever. I don’t care that much about this class.

I’m just taking it because it’s a requirement.”

St. Ignatius was celebrating Diversity Week, and as part of the festivities, several cultural food booths had been set up in addition to the commons’ regular stations. Leah went to go check on her tacos, which had been abandoned on the counter next to the

Mexican food booth for their owner to pick up. She almost felt a sense of relief when she saw them.

She took them back to the table, and bit into one expectantly. They tasted like oatmeal. The carne asada had been overcooked, leaving it tough, and the tortilla was cold. She set the taco back on her plate.

“What?” Lana asked her. Lana had ordered a burrito that she was already halfway through.

“It’s kind of awful.”

“Tastes fine to me,” Lana said, taking another bite.

Maybe it was her. Leah picked up her half-eaten taco again, and took another bite.

She forced herself to take a few more.

“It’s almost one,” said Chrissy, checking her phone.

“I have to head to class,” said Leah, grateful for the excuse to abandon both the tacos and the conversation.

“What do you have?”

“History of Journalism,” said Leah. “And then Psych 1. I’m super excited, because I’ve never taken a class in either.”

“Really?” said Chrissy. “I took AP Psych in high school. Why didn’t you?”

“My school didn’t have it.”

“Wow. You really did go to a little school.”

“I thought you wrote for the school paper,” said Lana.

“Yeah, I did.”

“You didn’t have to take journalism before being on the paper?”

“We didn’t have that, either.” Leah looked at the door.

“Well, we’ll see you tonight?” Chrissy asked. “Club Fair!”

Leah grabbed her backpack and headed for the door. St. Ignatius’s campus was positively covered in trees of every type imaginable. The lawns were so green and perfectly cut it was almost painful. Leah walked across the courtyard to the brick building directly opposite, and up to the third floor to her journalism course.

Journalism passed without incident. Each student signed up for their research paper topics, which would focus on a specific current figure in the media or journalism fields. Leah walked out of class to find a text from Ana. I. Love. Theater. This class is incredible, her best friend had written.

Leah grinned at her phone. I’d never have guessed.

It was in Psych, however, that Leah felt her irritation rise once more. Professor

Harris stood in front of the class, lecturing, when he asked a question of the boy in the front row.

“I don’t know,” said the boy, looking like a toddler caught knocking books off a coffee table.

“You should have learned this in AP Psych,” Harris snapped, before turning to the girl next to him.

Leah texted Ana when she got out of class about the incident. She held her phone in her hand as she walked back to the dorm, expectantly waiting for Ana’s response, but

her friend didn’t answer. She let herself into the building, and climbed up the empty stairs.

The dorm room that Leah shared with Lana was tiny, with one window, and barely a walkway between the two beds. The room had come with a bed, dresser, desk, and closet for each girl. Lana had brought an extra set of plastic rolling drawers, so the room was even more cramped than it should have been. Leah turned on the light. Lana hadn’t yet returned. Leah kicked her shoes off, dumped her backpack on the desk chair, and crawled up onto her bed, curling up into a ball.

Leah reached for her phone, and pulled a pair of earbuds out of her pocket. She unlocked her phone, stuck the buds in her ears, and turned on Juanes.

Leah lay there for a while. Before long, however, she pulled out her headphones and opened up the phone app. Jessica was in high school and would still be in class. Her dad would be at work, and Mom would be picking up Jack from school.

She hit Ana’s name in her “Recent” list. The phone rang six times before Ana’s voice came on the line, asking whoever was calling to leave a message.

Leah hung up. After a beat, she tapped Marcos’s name.

He answered on the first ring. “Hey.”

Leah felt something well up in her chest.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?”

“How are you?”

“Okay,” Marcos answered. She heard his bedroom door shut, and Marcos settle himself into his bed. “School’s long.”

“How’s your dad?”

“Better,” said Marcos. “Physical therapy is really helping.” He paused. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“…are you okay?”

Leah studied the patterns the paint made on the ceiling. She said nothing. Marcos understood.

“Hey, L?”

“Yeah?”

His voice was low. “I miss you.”

Something within Leah hurt.

That night, Leah met Chrissy and Lana at the front door of the dorm. The two girls were laughing together on a concrete bench on the sidewalk as Leah walked up.

“What’s up?” she asked, plastering a smile on her face.

“It’s nothing,” Lana answered, still laughing. “Our biology class. You would have had to be there.”

Leah followed the others as they headed to the St. Ignatius gym. The building was massive, with five floors and a basketball decorated with the green St. Ignatius crest in

the center court. Each of the campus’s clubs and sports teams had set up tables around the room. First-year students flooded the floor, so much so that Leah, Lana and Chrissy had to elbow their way through the crowd to even be able to read the signs hanging off each table.

They reached the departmental clubs. Leah signed up for the mailing lists for the

Society of Young Journalists and the newspaper, The St. Ignatius Bear. She turned away from the journalism booth, and almost ran into a boy standing beside the Spanish table.

She caught a flash of dark skin and rumpled hair.

Marcos?

But of course, it couldn’t be Marcos.

In fact, as she looked at the boy consciously, she realized he looked nothing like

Marcos. This boy’s face was thinner, and his hair was straighter, and he was taller. He looked down at her.

“Perdón,” she said.

His face lit up. “¿Eres estudiante de español?”

“No,” Leah answered back in Spanish. “I’m a comm major.”

“You should double major. Your accent is on point.”

“No sé. I’ll think about it.”

“¿De dónde eres?’

“I’m from a tiny town in Central California.” Leah thought of Lana and Chrissy, so dismissive of her small high school. “You wouldn’t know it.”

“I’d like to learn more about it sometime, though.” He stuck out a hand. “Me llamo Guillermo.”

“Leah Green,” she said, shaking it.

“Hasta luego, Leah Verde.”

Leah turned back to Lana and Chrissy, who were watching her. “You speak

Spanish,” said Lana.

“Yeah,” said Leah. “I told you, remember?”

“Yeah, but you really speak Spanish,” said Chrissy. She turned to Lana. “Girl, she’s even more brown than you are!”

Leah followed Lana and Chrissy around the rest of the fair, but they didn’t talk much. When they went back to the dorm about an hour later, Lana went down to

Chrissy’s room, and Leah resumed her post on the bed.

Leah pulled one of the pamphlets she’d gotten at orientation off her desk. She read down the list of events for Diversity Week. There were various festivals, concerts, meetings… Leah’s eyes stopped on one particular entry.

Yes.

The next day, after her classes ended at 4:30, Leah headed over to the music building. The hall had been redone only a few years before, with wooden paneling, tile floors, and the latest in microphone and stage technology. She grabbed a program and walked through the two giant oak doors into the concert hall. The stage was bare, except for three microphones. Only five or six people sat in the audience. She noticed that

Guillermo, the boy from the club fair, was one of them, but he was chatting avidly to the guy sitting next to him, so she didn’t approach him.

Leah sat down in the center of the audience, about halfway down the rows of seats. Awkwardly, she crossed her legs, nervously tapping her program against her knee.

“Thank you all for coming,” one of the music professors, a forty-something woman, said to the five audience members. “We at Music at Dusk truly appreciate your attendance and your support.” She smiled. “Now, without further ado, I’d like to introduce Sonidos Musicales!”

As the paltry audience clapped again, one of the wooden panels that lined the back of the stage slid open, and a band, all dressed in traditional white embroidered mariachi clothing, filed out to center stage. They carried a wide variety of musical instruments, including a large guitar and two trumpets. One woman, with her braided hair looped into two rings around her head and fastened with large multicolored bows, stepped up to the microphone.

The woman began to sing. Leah closed her eyes, and let the sound of the trumpets wash over her. She was back in Blueridge, at Ana’s quinceañera two years before, which she’d attended with Marcos, and where they’d danced together…

Too soon, it was over, and she stood up to leave. Guillermo and his friend were standing up, too, and Guillermo finally caught sight of Leah.

“¡Leah Verde!”

Leah grinned despite herself. “Hey.”

“This is my buddy, Chase,” he said, gesturing to the guy next to him. “I’m trying to introduce him to music other than Coldplay and Justin Timberlake.”

“Every time I turn the radio on, Guillermo makes fun of my white boy music,”

Chase said, rolling his eyes.

“What are you up to now, Verde?”

“I have to go get some homework done tonight, I guess.”

“Well, you want to get lunch with us sometime?” Guillermo asked her eagerly.

He pulled a phone out of his pocket without waiting for a response. “Here, give me your number, and I’ll text you so you have mine.”

After the buzz of Guillermo’s text, Leah parted ways with the boys, and headed back to her room alone. She began planning out the journalism articles she would read that night. She had expected her room to be deserted, but Lana and Chrissy were there, along with another girl Leah hadn’t seen before. Lana was lying on her bed, the other girls standing around her, discussing something furtively. As soon as Leah walked through the door, she caught a whiff of something that smelled like hot sauce gone bad.

Chrissy turned when she heard the door open.

“Hey, Leah,” she whispered. “We went down to a party on Fourth. Lana had a little too much.” She gestured to the other girl. “My roommate, Katie.”

Leah realized that the smell that she’d sensed when she’d arrived was emanating from Katie. Vomit was splattered across the front of her shirt and all over her jeans.

Katie caught Leah’s gaze. “This isn’t mine. Chrissy called me to help get Lana home.” She gestured down at her clothes. “Lana thought she’d dress me up a bit. I’m trying not to think about it too much.”

“Do you need any help with her?” Leah asked.

“That’s okay,” Chrissy said. “I might stay with her tonight, though, if that’s cool.”

Leah thought of her homework. “Okay. I have some stuff I have to finish, so I’ll go work in the library, I guess.”

“You can come up and work in our room, if you want,” Katie offered. “I have a reflection paper to write, so I’ll be up for a while anyway.”

Leah thought of the cold walk across campus to the library, and was unexpectedly grateful. She grabbed her bag and followed Katie out of the room and up the stairs. Katie looked back down at her clothes in disgust.

“I mean, I know drinking happens in college… but when the tacos you ate for dinner end up all over someone else, you’ve taken it too far. I mean, not only am I covered in tacos… I’m covered in shitty tacos. Way to add insult to injury.”

“You’re being a good sport,” Leah said.

Katie shrugged. “I guess she couldn’t help it.”

They reached Katie’s room. She unlocked the door, and held it open for Leah.

Half of the room was a startling, shocking pink. Everything was decorated the same—the comforter, the pillows, all the way down to a rug that had been placed on the floor. The other bed was covered in a navy comforter, green pillows stacked across the bed.

Katie threw her backpack onto that bed. “You’re welcome to either my bed or my desk,” she said. “Wherever you’re more comfortable.”

Leah chose the desk. Katie disappeared behind her closet door, and reappeared a few seconds later in a new t-shirt and sweatpants.

“So, how is it being Lana’s roommate?”

Leah searched for words. “She’s pretty outgoing.”

Katie laughed. “To say the least. You don’t seem very alike.”

“Not really,” said Leah.

Katie hopped onto her bed. “Sometimes they get roommate arrangements totally wrong. Chrissy’s calmer than Lana, but she and I aren’t really the same type of people, either. What are you working on?”

“A report for my journalism class. I’m reading about David Farenthold.”

“Nice. Are you a comm major?”

“Yeah. I want to be a journalist.”

“That’s super cool.” Katie settled into her pillows. “I’m an English major. I want to be a writing professor. Sort of along the same vein.”

Leah tried to keep the conversation going. “What made you choose to come to St.

Ignatius?”

“I went to a Catholic High School in Seattle.” Katie looked at her. “I just realized

I know you’re Leah, but I don’t even know your last name or where you’re from.”

“Leah Green. I’m from a little town in Central California. You wouldn’t know it.”

Katie shot her a look. “Tell me anyway.”

“I promise, you won’t have heard about it. No one has.”

“But hey, it’s your home, right? That makes it important.” She gave Leah a searching look. “Don’t let Lana or anyone else tell you any different.”

Leah smiled.

“Blueridge,” she said. “It’s called Blueridge.”

A Dance for Día de los Reyes Magos (Un baile por Día de los Reyes Magos)

Sophomore Year, St. Ignatius University

The more noise Chase made with the paper wrapper around his third burrito of the afternoon, the more Leah felt her irritation rise. The speedometer on the dashboard of her car rose steadily as she sped down the crumbling two-lane highway towards Blueridge.

Katie sat beside Leah in the passenger seat, browsing songs on her iPhone, which was hooked up to the car’s speakers. Leah eyed Chase in the rearview mirror. He reached the end of his burrito, crumpled the wrapper, and tossed it lazily into the empty takeout bag on the seat beside him. He picked up Burrito Number Four, and pulled back the paper.

Leah sighed.

“Ignore him,” said Katie, without looking up from her playlist.

“We could have stopped anywhere. Anywhere. Gotten him literally anything to eat that he wanted. And what did he choose? Taco Bell.”

“Aw, come on—” mumbled Chase through a mouthful of steak, beans, and tortilla.

“Not only is Taco Bell across the street from campus, where you can, I don’t know, walk to it, but I’m literally taking you home, where we have real Mexican food that doesn’t taste like cardboard—”

“The idea that tortillas at Taco Bell taste like cardboard is a vicious stereotype,”

Chase said, interrupting her.

“Cut it out, both of you,” Katie groaned, sinking into her seat. “You can’t take it personally, L, Chase’ll eat anything, you know that.”

“Ana says we’re having tamales tonight,” Leah told them. “Her mom makes them a lot during the holidays. Then you’ll see I’m right.”

“What’s a tamale made out of?” Chase asked, wadding up the paper wrapper.

“Tell me I don’t have to stop this car.”

“Oh, now you got her started…” Katie muttered. “God, Chase, even I’ve had a tamale, and I’m from Seattle.”

“Are you seriously telling me you’ve never had—”

“Hey look, I found that old Carly Rae Jepsen song,” Katie interjected, reaching for the volume dial.

As the bubblegum pop blasted through the speakers, and she sang along to the words with her friends, Leah fought to mask her growing apprehension. More than two years earlier, Leah had left lettuce and strawberry fields behind for St. I’s. There, she had found she wasn’t the minority, but sometimes, she felt as though she stuck out more than ever.

Chase and Katie had had upbringings that couldn’t be more different from Leah’s.

Katie’s family was from the Pacific Northwest, and Chase’s from the LA area, and both fell easily into the Bay’s latte-laden, designer-jeans-filled world. Leah had wanted to show off her small hometown to them for over a year, and to introduce them to Ana, the

Ron to her Harry, the Han to her Luke, the vibrant socialite to Leah’s introverted, shy artist. Even though the trip had so far proceeded as planned, even down to the time they

had allotted to pull off on an exit about halfway through the trip to satisfy Chase’s inevitable need for a snack, Leah was still nervous. Other people weren’t as adept at jumping between worlds as she was.

As the song ended, Chase tapped Katie on the shoulder from the backseat, and she turned the music down. “Wait,” Chase said, his eyes moving to Leah. “You said Marcos still lives in Blueridge, right?”

Leah’s chest tightened. She didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”

Katie straightened in interest. “Do we get to meet him?”

“I don’t know…”

The truth was, while she’d told Katie and Chase about Marcos, Leah wasn’t sure

Marcos wanted to talk to her, much less her friends. Last Thanksgiving, when Leah had come home, her friendship with Marcos had taken a blow. The night before Leah had gone back to school, they’d been sitting on the couch in Marcos’s parents’ house with

Ana, watching old Friends reruns. As the clock had crept toward midnight, Ana had drifted to sleep, curled up on Marcos’s right. As Chandler declared his love for Monica in front of their friends onscreen, Marcos had slipped his hand into Leah’s. Leah would remember having two distinct thoughts: that they were living out a romantic comedy in the best way she could imagine, and that she desperately hoped her hand wouldn’t shake.

They’d parted for the night an hour or two later, Leah figuring that they’d discuss

Marcos’s move the next morning before she left. But they’d never talked about it. Marcos disappeared, going completely off the grid, leaving text and Facebook messages unanswered, and letting calls ring all the way to voicemail.

“I want to meet him,” Katie said, settling back down into the chair.

“He hasn’t called me,” Leah said quietly.

“Have you called him?” Chase asked pointedly.

“Well, no, but—”

“You could do it, you know,” said Chase. “Girls can call first.”

Katie twisted in her seat to shoot him a glare. “You’re one to talk. You call every girl that blinks at you—”

“Hey, it’s all a game, the ‘who chases who’ thing,” said Chase. “I’m a highly sexual being.”

“Tell me you didn’t just say that.”

Chase shrugged absentmindedly, but Leah noticed the familiar dark look that crossed Katie’s face as she turned back around in her seat, shifting unhappily.

“Let’s just get to Ana’s house, and not worry about Marcos,” Leah said. “She’s probably dying to go down to the festival already.”

“But we haven’t had tamales yet,” said Chase innocently. Almost in unison, Katie and Leah rolled their eyes and shared a grin.

When they drove into the driveway, Ana came bursting out of the house, arms spread wide. She enveloped Leah in a hug, even though one of Leah’s legs was still in the car, then threw her arms happily around Chase and Katie at the same time, who looked taken aback.

“I’m so happy to meet you!” Ana said excitedly. “Come in!”

She took off, dragging Katie behind her.

Inside the house, Ana had finally let go of Katie when they’d reached the kitchen, and was now spooning a plate of food for her. Ana’s mother, María Elena, stood at the stove, stirring a pot of beans. Leah went over to her and embraced her warmly. “Ha sido bastante tiempo, querida,” María Elena said.

“I know… but I’ve only been back at school a week!” Leah answered her in

Spanish.

“¿Cómo te van las clases?”

“Classes are going well.” The Spanish words rolled lazily around her mouth. “I don’t really like one of my literature classes, though.”

“¿Qué piensan tus amigos del pueblo?” María Elena asked with a small smile, watching Ana push Katie towards the table with one hand, while balancing her plate in the other.

“We came straight here, so I haven’t gotten to show them much of the town yet.”

“El chico es bastante guapo,” María Elena responded slyly, her eyes somewhere over Leah’s head to where Chase was standing. Leah turned to find him watching her. “I didn’t understand a word of that,” he muttered.

“Sorry,” said Leah, gesturing to Ana’s mother. “Chase, this is Ana’s mom, la señora Espinoza. Este es mi amigo, Chase. Nos conocimos en la universidad.”

“It is… a pleasure… to meet you,” said María Elena in heavily accented English.

“Back at you,” said Chase, shaking her hand awkwardly.

Ana appeared by Leah’s side, having deposited a plate with two tamales, rice, and refried beans in front of Katie.

“I’m told que nunca has comido un tamal,” Ana said, eyeing Chase in a way Leah could only describe as seductive.

“You’ve never eaten a tamale,” Leah said after Chase looked at her for an explanation.

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. Before long, he was seated next to Katie and his own plate was deposited in front of him. Leah helped herself to food, and sat across from them, Ana plopping down beside her.

“So, what do you guys study?” Ana asked eagerly.

“Um… English and Political Science,” said Katie. “Chase does Physics.”

“Lord,” said Ana, turning to Leah. “You do like the scientists, don’t you?”

Chase’s head jerked up, and his fork was poised in midair on the way to his mouth.

“What?” Leah said.

“First Marcos the Chemist, now Chase the Physicist…” Ana’s eyes were firecrackers.

“Hey, wait a minute, we’re not—” Leah began, but Chase broke in.

“We’ve been trying to get her to call Marcos, but she won’t do it,” he said.

“I don’t know,” Ana said shrugging. “I haven’t heard from him much lately, either.”

“So, I get my best friends in a room, introduce two to a new culture… and we have to talk about my lack of a love life,” said Leah.

“Algunas cosas son universales,” said Ana happily. “Some things translate, no matter what language you speak.” She turned back to Katie and Chase. “Are you guys ready for the festival?”

“Of course!” said Chase. “I’ve been told it’s the social event of the season in

Blueridge.”

Leah socked him playfully across the table. “Día de los Reyes Magos is a big deal here,” she said. “I think it’s a Mexican thing in general?”

“In my family, anyway,” said Ana. “On January 6th, we celebrate when the wise men visited the baby Jesus. Apparently for this town, that means we have a festival.

There’ll be live music and dancing! We can have Rosca de Reyes!”

“Dancing?” Katie asked, her face going blank, but Chase cut across her.

“Is Rosca de Reyes food?” he asked.

When Leah, Ana, Chase and Katie walked up to the booths that lined la Avenida

Central, they could already hear the sound of trumpets and accordions through speakers down the block. The street was lined with tables and wooden booths, covered in chipped white paint. Some of the stalls sold crafts, while others were stocked with every type of burrito, taco, and enchilada a girl could ever dream of eating. Ana zipped up her hoodie and looked at Leah. “You owe me a dance, you know,” she said, beaming. “It’s tradition now!”

“Always,” Leah shouted over the music. “But I promised I’d get Chase some

Rosca first.”

“Oh, fine….”

The most popular bakery in Blueridge had set up a booth right near a small stage and dance floor. On the stage, three men in traditional mariachi clothing played a jaunty, lilting melody. On the ground, several couples danced—the men dressed in sombreros, white colored shirts and pants, and white boots, the women in full, multicolored folklórico skirts, the edges of which they held and swung above their heads like fans. The men stomped their heels in repeated patterns as the women’s skirts flew. Other couples— some men and women, but parents and children as well, but all in more modern clothes— were scattered on the dance floor around them. While some swayed across from each other, not even holding hands, others clutched their partner as though they were holding on for dear life.

Ana and Katie declared they’d go find a table, so Chase and Leah stood in line at the Rosca de Reyes booth together. Chase’s blue eyes followed the couples on the floor, who danced, nimble-footed, to the lilting beat of the music.

“What?” Leah murmured, watching him.

Chase’s eyes flicked to Leah, then back to the dancers almost immediately. “Can you do that?” he asked softly.

“Do what?”

He gestured vaguely to the couples. “Dance like that,” he said, still quietly.

“Yeah,” Leah said.

Chase watched them for a beat, then looked back at Leah. “That’s… really cool.”

“I mean… I’m not great,” said Leah. “But the music’s so catchy that most of it is pretty easy to pick up. Some of the songs have coordinated dances, though, that’s when you really run into trouble.”

Chase pulled at the scarf around his neck. By then, they had reached the head of the line. Leah ordered a Rosca and carried the sweet bread, baked into a giant circle and decorated with candied fruit and sugar, back to the table where Katie and Ana bobbed along to the music. “You got it!” said Ana, turning around.

Leah set the large tray on the table between them, taking off the plastic lid.

“So what’s the story behind this, again?” Katie asked, eyeing the Rosca.

“So…” Leah tried. “There’s little Baby Jesuses baked in the bread—”

“… say that again?” said Chase as he sat down next to Leah.

“Shut up.” Leah reached for the words. “It’s a Día de los Reyes Magos tradition.

Many families either buy or make one on January 6th. They’re little dolls that represent the Baby Jesus. They’re plastic, so you don’t eat them, but if you get a piece of bread with the Baby Jesus in it, it means you’ll have good luck for the new year.”

“It can mean different things,” Ana said. “Depends on the family. Like, in mine, if you get el santo niño, you have to clean the whole house and cook a nice dinner for everyone.”

“I think your mother capitalizes on her children,” Leah told her.

Ana cut each of them a slice, and they ate together in relative silence before the band onstage switched songs. Ana whirled around to Leah.

“Now we have to dance!”

“Why, what song is this?” Katie asked.

“They’re covering Caballo Dorado!” Ana crowed. “Leah loves them!”

Caballo Dorado was indeed one of Leah’s favorite artists, but as the familiar rhythms flooded across the dance floor, uncomfortable memories burst into Leah’s brain.

For Leah, “Payaso de Rodeo” immediately brought back the too-warm dance hall, an evening spent with Marcos, and the feeling of his hand as he pulled her in closer to teach her the steps…

But before she could complain, Ana was dragging her to the floor, and they were dancing together, Katie and Chase watching them from the table. After a few beats, they began to tap back and forth, leaning from their toes to their heels, and eventually beginning to swing their elbows and shoulders and kick their heels higher. Despite her associations with the song, the music gave Leah a sense of peace. She felt more in her element than she did around the bubblegum pop and wannabe rap at school.

“We should drag your friends out here,” Ana said to her in Spanish as they danced.

“Katie wants Chase to dance with her,” Leah replied, keeping the Spanish up.

“Chase wants to dance with you,” Ana said, catching her eye.

“…what?”

“You heard me,” said Ana, her eyes sparkling, twirling as she danced back and forth.

“No, he doesn’t—”

“It’s okay. Due to the wild, dramatic tension between the three of you, I’ll take the fall and dance with him for you.”

“I didn’t know you had thing for white boys,” Leah teased.

“There’s something about the pale, tall and bony that sets my heart aflutter,” Ana sassed back, executing another full turn. “Seriously, though, don’t you think he’s hot in that coat?”

Ana didn’t wait for her best friend’s answer, diving back to the table. Ana shot

Leah a devilish look, and reached for Katie, spinning her away from the other two. Chase looked at Leah.

Leah thought vaguely that she could have cheerfully killed Ana.

“Come dance,” she said awkwardly to Chase, jerking her head towards the dance floor.

“Sure,” he said, bounding to his feet and following her.

When she reached the center, she turned back to see Chase looking at her with a mixture of expectation and what she then realized was nervousness. “Just… go back and forth,” she tried to teach him, but they couldn’t get on the same beat together. Then the song switched. It was “Payaso de Rodeo.”

It was only when Chase put a hand on her shoulder, concerned, that Leah realized she had stopped moving.

“Are you okay?”

Leah shook her head. Wordlessly, she took Chase’s arm and led him over to Ana.

Before either Ana or Chase could interject, Leah exited the dance floor, and perched back on top of the table they’d vacated.

It was then she saw Marcos. He was sitting with his elder brother, Roberto, a couple of tables away in a faded hoodie and jeans. As soon as Leah spotted him, they made eye contact.

Leah hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself, but she’d missed him. She’d missed him so much that seeing him now, even though it had only been a month and a half, made her chest loosen, as though, suddenly, she’d regained the ability to breathe before having realized she’d lost it. He was so familiar that it almost hurt. They stood there for a moment, just looking at each other. A strand of Marcos’s dark hair flopped down in front of his left eye, and he pushed it away. Suddenly, Leah realized that there was no surprise, no look of recognition typically seen in someone who had just spotted a friend. Even though she had just noticed him now, he clearly had seen her earlier.

Marcos stood up and moved over to her, standing next to her without meeting her eyes.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“The song…” he gestured vaguely.

“Yep.”

“You’ve dropped off the face of the earth lately,” Leah said, finally breaking the quiet and turning towards him.

He turned towards her, too. “I know.”

“And—”

“Look, you know I’m not good with figuring out how to say things,” he said, interrupting her.

Marcos looked away from her, across the dance floor. Chase, Katie, and Ana were dancing in a circle. While Katie seemed to have a handle on the steps, Chase loomed awkwardly, as though his limbs were too big for him.

“Are those the friends you used to talk about?” Marcos asked her quietly after a moment.

“Yeah, that’s Katie, and—”

“Chase.”

Leah studied Marcos, turning to face him more fully. “What does that look mean?”

Marcos shrugged. “Look, let’s just dance.”

He took her hand, and led her gently onto the floor. As they moved on the beat together, he slipped his hand around her waist. Gradually, she could feel him pulling her closer to him, and then he was holding her tightly. She leaned her head against him, and could feel his heartbeat ramming against his chest.

The song ended and they pulled apart. “Look, since Thanksgiving, I’ve been meaning to call—” Leah began, but Marcos was looking over her shoulder.

Chase was walking up, a broad smile on his face. “Are you Marcos?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Chase stuck out a hand. “I’m Chase, I’ve heard a lot about you!”

“Yeah, I know who you are.” Marcos’s voice was quiet, and the smile he tried to muster disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. To an outsider, they had to make a funny picture, Leah realized. She stood between two guys who couldn’t be more different—tall, gangly, blonde Chase in his thick woolen coat and scarf, and the shorter, thicker, browner Marcos in his hoodie.

“I better go, Leah,” Marcos said, tugging on the sleeves of his jacket.

Leah felt something well back up inside her. “Marc, wait, I—”

But Marcos was gone almost as quickly as he had come. Chase looked at Leah in bewilderment. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Leah didn’t meet his eyes. “Let’s go.”

“There was leftover Rosca, want some more?” Chase asked as Leah charged back to their table without looking behind her. She nodded, and Chase took the plastic covering off the tray, cutting her a piece of the bread.

When Chase handed her the slice of Rosca, Leah searched every inch of it for the

Baby Jesus, but didn’t find him. She checked again. Just in case.

May at St. Ignatius (Mayo en St. Ignatius)

Sophomore Year, St. Ignatius University

Leah stopped in her tracks. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Katie was lost in her phone.

“What is that?” Leah walked up to the poster that had been taped to the door of their dorm suite while they’d been at the dining hall for dinner. Katie and Leah’s suitemate, Joanne, came to stand beside her. While Katie and Leah had become friends freshman year and applied to live together the next fall, Joanne, a Native American girl from outside of Phoenix, had been placed with them randomly. “Drinko de Mayo” the poster read. “May 5th.” Below the headline, an address and time were listed.

“I think it’s a party invitation.” Katie pulled the poster off the door and studied it.

“Yeah. It looks like the houses off 9th Street are planning a massive party tomorrow for the holiday.”

“Drinko de Mayo?”

“I know,” said Katie. “It’s super racist.”

“…Drinko de Mayo?”

“People will take any excuse to drink,” said Joanne. “Mexican Independence Day is just one on the list. The same thing happens on the Fourth of July, it’s just that no one’s around school to celebrate since it’s the middle of summer.”

“It’s not actually Mexican Independence Day,” said Katie.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s the celebration of the day that the Mexican army beat the French at the Battle of Puebla,” said Leah. “Mexican Independence Day is actually September 16th.”

“Huh. Good to know.” Joanne pushed the door to their suite open. “Did you guys not go to any of the parties for Cinco de Mayo last year?”

“Not really our thing,” said Katie, moving past her into the dark suite and flicking the lights on.

“It’s fun,” said Joanne. “People dress up and everything. It lets people destress during the middle of the quarter.”

“Wait,” said Leah. “Dress up how?”

“I think I still have some of the pictures of Nate and me on my phone.” Nate had been Joanne’s boyfriend since high school. She thrust her phone out in Leah’s direction.

A photograph of Nate and Joanne, both wearing serapes and Nate a sombrero, shone from the screen.

“Joanne,” said Leah. “You don’t see where that might be cultural appropriation?”

“No,” said Joanne. “We weren’t doing anything bad. We were having a good time and celebrating Mexico.”

Katie cut across Leah before she could retort. “It’s still cultural appropriation to celebrate a holiday you don’t understand the definition of and wear clothes that—”

“Whatever.” Joanne put her phone back in her pocket. “You guys don’t get it. It’s just fun. No one means any harm by it.”

“Don’t you feel that when people wear Native American headdresses to Coachella every year, they’re appropriating Native American culture?” said Katie.

“Not particularly.” Joanne shrugged. “It’s not like I go around wearing headdresses every day.”

“But—” Leah began, but Katie stopped her.

“I need to go to bed,” said Katie. “I have to get up early to work the event for accepted students in the morning.”

“I should go to bed, too,” said Joanne. “I think I’m going to watch Netflix for a while, though.”

Katie dragged Leah into her room, shutting the door behind her.

“She’s wrong,” said Leah. She felt her blood thundering in her ears. “It’s not just fun, it’s—”

“I know,” said Katie. “But she wasn’t going to listen to anything you had to say.

It was better just to stop talking. We have to live with her for another month and a half.”

Leah sighed. “I need to go start my English paper. That way I don’t have to do it all tomorrow.”

“Breathe,” said Katie. “It’ll be okay. We’ll stay away from all the Drinkos.”

Leah nodded, and went to her own room.

Leah awoke the next morning to the sound of her phone ringing. It fell silent. She rolled over, and pulled her phone off her desk. When she saw she had ten missed calls from Katie, she sat bolt upright, and redialed Katie’s number.

“What’s up?” she asked sleepily.

“Can you please come help me?” Katie asked. “I called Chase but I forgot he went home for the weekend. I’m working the check-in table at the accepted students’ event. My co-worker didn’t show up. I’m overwhelmed, and I don’t know what to do, and my boss isn’t here until 11:00, and—”

“I’ll be there in twenty,” Leah promised.

When she arrived at the check-in table in front of the library, Leah was dismayed to see that the line of parents and future Bears of St. Ignatius stretched all the way from the library to the main science building across the courtyard. She pushed past the people to the front of the line, and saw Katie standing at the table by herself, wearing a St.

Ignatius green polo and a look of total and complete stress.

“I told you,” Katie told a fierce-looking father. “He’s registered for the 1:00 session. If you want to change it, you’ll have to talk to my supervisor, but she’s not here for another hour and a half—”

Leah slid in behind the table, and Katie threw her a grateful look.

The first few parents that Leah dealt with were fairly easy, each with their future student in tow. One couple wanted to know the physical location of every panel on the schedule, while another wanted to know how to contact a head of a department. After about half an hour, though, a man and woman moved to the front of the line by themselves.

“¿Dónde está?” The woman hissed to her husband. Her face was lined with worry and panic. “He was supposed to be back by now!” she added in Spanish.

“I don’t know,” her husband said back to her, also in Spanish. “And we’re going to have to figure out how to talk to these girls in English—”

“Actually,” said Leah. “Yo hablo español. You can speak Spanish to me.”

The man and the woman stared at her.

“¿Tú hablas español?” the woman repeated.

“Sí,” said Leah.

Their faces lit up.

“¡Gracias a Dios!” The woman exclaimed. “Our son was at a meeting for first- generation students, but he promised he’d be back—”

“He’s the first in our family to go to college,” the man said proudly in Spanish.

“We’ve been struggling all morning,” the woman added. “Everyone here only speaks English. We don’t know where to go, or what to do, or—”

Leah smiled. “Empiecen aquí,” she said, holding a map out to them and pointing to the university theater, where the parent orientation was being held. She explained to them where each panel and event was being held. “Si tengan problemas,” she said.

“Come back and ask me. I can point you in the right direction.”

The man and the woman thanked her profusely. Just then, a freshman boy came running up to them, looking flushed.

“Perdóname, por favor,” he said to his parents. “No me dejaron ir de la junta.”

“Está bien,” said his mother, smiling. “La muchacha nos ayudó. Ya sabemos el horario.”

The boy looked at Leah. “Thank you,” he said. “I was afraid they’d be lost, and not be able to communicate.”

“Not a problem,” she said. She held her hand out, and he shook it. “I’m Leah.”

“Manuel,” he said, before his family moved away.

By then, the crowd had dwindled down, as each family headed to their first meeting of the day to learn about life at St. Ignatius University. As soon as the last set of parents and children moved off towards the science department, Katie sat down in her chair.

“Man,” she said. “Well, that was a nightmare.”

“Wasn’t Lisa supposed to be working with you?” Leah asked.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” said Katie. “No one notified me of anything.”

“You’ll find out later, I guess.”

Katie was silent for a few minutes, staring into space in the direction of the registration table. “You really helped them,” she said finally.

“Really helped who?” Leah asked.

“The family that couldn’t speak English,” said Katie.

“Oh.” Leah shrugged. “That’s what the language skills are for, right?”

“The way they looked at you, though,” said Katie. “When they figured out you could speak it. It was like… like they’d seen an old friend, or something.”

“I get that a lot.” Leah shifted awkwardly in her chair. “It used to happen to me at home in Blueridge, too. People see that I’m white, and assume I only speak English.

They light up when they figure it out. It makes me just like them.”

“That’s so cool.”

Leah shrugged again.

“No, genuinely,” said Katie, leaning towards her. “It was cool to watch.”

Leah smiled. “Language makes all the difference, sometimes. If we can communicate, it makes us the same.”

In the evening, Katie, Joanne, and Leah met up for dinner again. At St. Ignatius, the dining commons was divided into different stations—one for pasta, one for burgers, one that was a salad bar, and so on. Each of the girls decided they wanted a bowl of pasta, and moved into the line together. Katie was talking about something with her biology class when Leah heard the boy in front of her raise his voice.

“No, marinara!” he said. “Not meatballs.”

The woman behind the counter nodded. “Oh, marinara,” she said in a thick

Mexican accent.

Looking disgruntled, the boy moved away. Leah moved up to the counter with

Joanne and Katie. “Can I get the lasagna?” she asked in Spanish, a smile on her face.

The woman’s shoulder seemed to relax. “Sí, ¡por supuesto!” she answered.

Leah turned to her friends. “What do you guys want?” she asked. “My treat.”

She ordered another piece of lasagna for Joanne, and the pasta alfredo for Katie.

They moved to the other side of the counter after Leah paid with her dining card. Leah realized they were standing behind the boy who had been in front of them in line.

Another boy pushed past Leah to stand next to him.

“’Sup, dude?” she heard the second boy say.

“Not much, man,” the boy said. “Just waiting on my food.”

“They take forever,” his friend said.

“Dude, for real,” said the line boy. “And the woman, she couldn’t even take my order right. She got meatballs and marinara mixed up. I mean, come on. You have to be able to speak English to work in this country, right?”

“You should have to,” said his friend.

Leah felt her irritation rise, and she looked back at her friends. Katie was telling

Joanne about bio class again, but Leah realized Joanne had been listening to the boy, too.

After dinner, Joanne, Leah and Katie headed back towards the dorm.

“I don’t want to write this paper,” said Leah. “What happens if I don’t write this paper?”

“You flunk,” said Katie helpfully.

They crossed the hallway towards the dining commons’ door. Before they could, however, a boy, clearly already drunk despite it only being seven o’clock, burst through the doorway. He was dressed in a sarape that was too big for him and a sombrero he kept pushing back as it fell over his eyes.

He caught sight of them, and even though Leah was sure she didn’t know him, he apparently felt the need to talk to her. “Happy Cinco De Mayo!” he crowed. “Happy

Mexican Independence Day!”

He held up a hand for Leah to high-five, but she didn’t.

“Fine, whatever!” he said. “Any other takers?” He held his hand out to Katie and

Joanne.

Katie rolled her eyes and moved away towards the door with Leah. He made eye contact with Joanne.

“Nah,” she said. “You do you, dude.” She joined Katie and Leah, leaving the boy hanging, his palm outstretched.

That night, Leah spread her books all around her on her bed, marking key quotes from each source to use in her paper. She left the door to her bedroom open. At one point,

Katie poked her head in, asking her if she wanted to watch an episode of Doctor Who, but

Leah replied that she wanted to get as far as she could on her outline.

Around 9:00, she heard Joanne’s phone ring from the living room.

“Hey, babe,” she heard Joanne say. “No, I don’t think I want to go out tonight.”

Leah paused.

“I don’t know,” she heard Joanne answer Nate. “Doesn’t it seem a little off to you, this whole Drinko de Mayo thing?”

Leah smiled, and went back to her work.

An American in Salem (Un americano en Salem)

Junior Year, St. Ignatius University

As she stood under the blistering stage lights on that August afternoon, and her director, Stan, spoke in a forced calm to one the other actors, Leah had the all-too- familiar thought that once again, it was all Ana’s fault. Ana, upon hearing that Leah was returning home from college over summer, had happily browbeaten her into auditioning for the local community theater production of The Crucible. Leah had given in—and found herself cast as Mary Warren, one of Abigail’s posse who begin to accuse respected members of the town of being witches and consorting with the devil.

“It’s two weeks until the show,” Leah heard Stan say. “What have you been doing?”

Ana had fallen in love with theater at college, and desperate to act again, had managed to get cast as Abigail herself. The two girls were the only ones in the cast who were commuting to the Scottsdale Community Theater from Blueridge. While most of the classmates Ana and Leah had grown up with were Mexican-American, Scottsdale’s population was predominately white. Ana had told Leah, about three weeks into the show, that she felt as though she’d been dropped into a completely other world.

Leah knew the feeling.

As Stan lectured Don, a native of Scottsdale around Leah and Ana’s age, Leah looked up to the ceiling above the stage. Scottsdale’s theater building was falling apart, but retained some of the splendor it had exhibited in an earlier era in which more people

went to live performances. Stan had called “hold” in the middle of one of the play’s group scenes, and had ordered Leah, Ana and the others to remain in their places as he spoke to Don. Leah searched in the darkness of the grate above the stage until she saw a familiar mop of dark, curly hair. Marcos was working on the show as a followspot operator, having also been dragged in by Ana. Marcos waved at her, making the universal talking sign with his right hand in mockery of Stan.

Leah grinned back. This ease and familiarity with Marcos was still new, and she reveled in it. After Marcos had gone off the grid, no longer returning his best friend’s calls and texts, they’d finally reconnected over the spring at Ana’s birthday party. While

Marcos had apologized for his moody behavior, the only explanation he’d offered was that he was “working through some stuff.” They’d never mentioned what had happened at the Friends marathon the previous Thanksgiving, when Marcos had reached for her hand. Though Leah would have never admitted it, she’d fought off disappointment, but she had been so glad to have Marcos back at all that she had pushed it aside.

Stan turned around to face the other actors. “Look, everybody take a ten,” he said.

“Then I want you back in places.”

“Thank you, ten,” the actors chorused. Marcos’s face disappeared from the grate above Leah. Leah hopped off the stage, and headed to the door in the back of the auditorium that led up to the catwalks. She saw Ana chattering happily to the woman playing Elizabeth Proctor. The door opened, and Marcos’s stocky, dark frame appeared.

“Friday rehearsals are so long,” said Marcos. “And I still don’t know how I feel about this play.”

“You’re just excited about our trip this weekend,” Leah teased. Though Chase had gone home to L.A. for summer break, Katie had stayed in the Bay Area, and had invited

Leah, Ana, and Marcos up to see a production of In the Heights in San Francisco with her and her new boyfriend, Tom. Though Ana had family plans, Marcos and Leah were planning to drive up for the day. Neither had ever seen In the Heights, but they’d poured over the soundtrack, and discussed every detail.

“Obviously,” said Marcos. “But still, I don’t get this play. It’s a bunch of white people losing their minds for no reason. The problem’s contrived.”

“That’s the point, though.” Leah leaned against one of the seats. “My scene’s up next. I love Ana, but this is so far out of my comfort zone, I can’t even begin to tell you.”

“Let’s practice, then.” Marcos reached a hand towards her. Hesitantly, remembering the previous fall, she took it, but the same thought didn’t seem to cross

Marcos’s mind at all. He pulled her back towards the stage, letting go of her hand to hoist himself onto the apron. Most of the actors had exited the auditorium to the bathrooms or the green room. Stan and Don had moved offstage to the wings, standing with the stage manager, Ursula, and the assistant director, Marie. Marcos looked at Leah. “Go. Run lines.”

“Don’t you need a script?” Leah asked.

Marcos shook his head. “I’ve been up in that catwalk enough times that I’ve got this play memorized. Just go for it.”

“Cue me.”

Marcos puffed his chest out, mimicking the actor playing John Proctor. It was a gesture so unlike his mellow personality that it threw Leah off. Marcos not only knew the lines for both Elizabeth and John Proctor, but knew the blocking for each character, alternating between the two as Leah fired her Mary Warren lines at him. They flew through the scene easily, and with a final declaration that John Proctor could not order her to go to bed, Leah exited stage left. She came back to find Marcos beaming at her.

“See?” he told her quietly, himself again. “I told you that you had it.”

Stan burst through the double doors at the back of the old theater. Leah hadn’t noticed him leave from his spot backstage. Don and Marie had disappeared, but Ursula was still there, evidently having watched Marcos and Leah onstage. There was a look on the middle-aged woman’s face that Leah couldn’t quite define. As soon as she saw Leah looking at her, Ursula moved, hurrying down the steps towards Stan.

“Everyone on the stage!” Stan bellowed. “Not just cast! Everybody! Come down from the catwalks and the booths!”

With a look at Marcos, Leah sat down on the edge of the stage, her legs hanging limply a few feet from the ground. Ana appeared, sitting down on Marcos’s other side.

Gradually, the company straggled in, Marie taking her place on the other side of Stan.

Ursula leaned to Stan and whispered something to him. Stan looked at her, intrigued, and asked her something Leah couldn’t hear. Though the group was often chatty coming back from a break, the look on Stan’s face was enough to shut them all up. Leah noticed Don was nowhere to be seen.

“A situation has come up,” said Stan, turning away from Ursula. “Don has been unable to commit completely to this production, and has just quit the show.”

A murmur broke out over the crowd. Leah heard an audible gasp from Ana, and felt a rush of pity for her.

“That leaves us without someone to play Giles Corey.” Stan ran a hand distractedly through his hair. He looked at Ursula. “But Ursula has just told me something very interesting.” He took a deep breath. “Santiago, do you know the Giles

Corey lines?”

It took Marcos a minute to realize that Stan was talking to him. “Me?” he looked from Leah, to Ana, to Stan, and then back to Leah. “I mean… not officially.”

“Ursula says you just ran the Elizabeth/Proctor/Mary scene with Leah from memory. What I need to know is if you know the rest of the show, particularly the Giles

Corey lines.”

Panic crossed Marcos’s face. “I… sort of. I’ve picked up a lot of the show from watching it when I’m running spot.”

“He’s really smart, Stan,” Ana piped up. Marcos whirled around in an effort to make Ana be quiet, but she ignored him. “He has a great memory. I’ve seen him memorize whole TV show episodes without even trying.”

Leah had the vague thought that that was probably less helpful than Ana had meant it to be. It didn’t seem to faze Stan, though. “Good enough for me,” he said.

“But who’ll run spotlight, then?” Marie asked Stan.

“I don’t know. But I can find a spot op a lot more quickly than I can find a new actor.”

Marcos looked at Leah, a look of total terror crossing his face. Stan, Marie, and

Ursula approached the stage. “What. Is. Happening?” said Marcos in an undertone to

Leah.

Ursula pulled Marcos away to give him a copy of the script. Leah watched them go, her pride growing. Suddenly, though, she heard Marie whispering to Stan.

“There’s a problem, though,” said Marie.

“What’s that?”

“That accent,” said Marie. “What do we do about the accent?”

Leah froze, her pride replaced by anger. Stan turned to look at Marie. “What?”

“I like the kid, don’t get me wrong,” Marie said. “He’s great. But no Giles Corey has ever had a Mexican—I mean, Latino, accent.”

“Who cares?” Stan asked. “Ana’s Mexican, too—”

“She doesn’t look so out of place. She’s pretty pale, and speaks more clearly.

Nobody’ll be able to understand him. Plus, it’s anachronistic. Puritan New England was white. Early America as a whole was pretty white. You wouldn’t cast a white guy as one of the Youngers in A Raisin in the Sun, right? So why are we—”

“Look,” said Stan, cutting across her. “Marcos works hard, and he’s what we need. Ursula said he was good when he ran lines with Leah, that he showed natural talent.

He’s been at every rehearsal early and wanted to learn everything he could about tech. I don’t care what he sounds like.”

Leah wanted to say something to Marie, but was distracted by the arrival of

Marcos, who, stunned, was being led around by Ana. There was a look on Marcos’s face that made it clear he’d heard what Marie had said. Ana, however, had missed it.

“Look at you, hombre,” Ana teased. “You’re in the big leagues now.”

Marcos locked eyes with Leah.

“I’ll help you,” Leah promised.

“You’re going to be the brownest Giles Corey to ever set foot in Salem,

Massachusetts,” Ana laughed.

Leah woke up early to pick Marcos up to head up to San Francisco for In the

Heights. When she pulled up, Marcos was sitting on his porch waiting for her, script in hand, his backpack resting beside him. She waited over a minute before realizing he was so engrossed in the script that he hadn’t even noticed her approach. She rolled down her window.

“Spoiler alert,” she said. “The moral of the story is to stay away from nut jobs wearing bonnets and grumpy old men willing to hook up with their servants.”

Marcos’s head jerked up. He grabbed his backpack and headed to the car. “Why are we doing this play?” he asked. “Acting is supposed to be relating to the character, right? How do I relate to a 17th century white dude who was pressed to death?”

“If this is about what Marie said—” Leah began, but Marcos cut her off.

“No, she’s right,” he said. “They’re putting a Chicano guy in Massachusetts.

That’s weird now, much less in the 1600s.”

Most of the rest of the ride passed in silence as Marcos poured over the script.

Leah turned on her Spanish music playlist on her phone and hooked it up to the speakers.

When they reached the city, Marcos put the book down. The music played on. Leah could never quite get over the way the city skyline seemed so unreal it almost looked like it had been painted in. Then, the song on Leah’s phone switched to “Payaso de Rodeo” by

Caballo Dorado.

Leah looked at Marcos. Years earlier, at Ana’s quinceañera, Marcos had taught her to dance to this song in a hot, sweaty auditorium. At the Día de los Reyes Magos festival earlier that year, they’d danced to it again, before Marcos had disappeared.

Marcos was watching her, too. Without taking his eyes off her, he reached for the volume dial. “It’s our song,” said Leah, before he could say anything.

“Yeah,” he said. There was a beat, in which it looked like Marcos almost said something, but the GPS spoke, telling Leah to turn left into the parking garage by the theater.

When they walked up to the great oak double doors, Katie was waiting for them, waving madly at Leah with one hand and clutching the hand of a well-built blond boy in the other.

“This being apart thing sucks,” said Katie, as the two girls pulled out their hug.

“Tell me about it,” said Leah. She looked at the boy. “You must be Tom!”

“Katie talks about you all the time,” he said in an accent Leah could only peg as being from the East Coast. “And you’re Marcos?”

“That’s me,” said Marcos, shaking his hand.

Marcos and Leah followed Katie and Tom into the theater. They learned that Tom was an engineer, a year ahead of Katie and Leah in school. When they reached the house in the main theater, Leah couldn’t help but be impressed. The Scottsdale Theater had its own illustrious history, but this was beyond even Leah’s imaginings. San Francisco’s

Orpheum Theater had three levels of seating faced the majestic red velvet curtain covering the proscenium. Intricate carvings decorated the proscenium arch and the walls on either side of the stage.

Almost as soon as they’d found their seats on the uppermost level, the opening music started and the curtain rose. The hushed voices in the house fell silent as the lights faded out. A percussionist in the orchestra began to play a rhythmic beat. The actor playing Usnavi, the Puerto Rican protagonist, appeared in the dark, and gradually, the

Washington Heights barrio set appeared.

Before Usnavi had finished even the opening verse, Marcos leaned over to Leah.

“Doesn’t Usnavi’s store look like Mr. Mendez’s?”

Leah smiled.

The play was, predictably, mind-blowing. During “No Me Diga” and “96,000,”

Marcos and Leah had to stop themselves from singing along. Leah realized at some point in the first act, though, that Katie and Tom weren’t laughing at the jokes. She pushed the thought aside, though, as Vanessa, Usnavi’s longtime crush, spent the evening before the

Fourth of July salsa-ing her way through “The Club,” and “Blackout,” the finale of the act, began.

During intermission, Katie and Tom went out to the lobby, but Marcos and Leah couldn’t tear themselves away from the stage. “Dude, Ana and her sisters could totally be the hairdressers in ‘No Me Diga,’” said Marcos.

“Would I be Benny, then?” said Leah. “He’s the only one who’s non-Latino.”

“Which would make me Nina?” Marcos said hesitantly. Nina was Benny’s love interest. “I mean, she drops out of her four-year university,” he added, too quickly. He was watching her again. “I didn’t drop out, but it’s sort of the same.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You can be Nina.”

Like the first act, the second began with a single rhythmic beat. Nina appeared from a balcony on one of the set buildings, wearing only Benny’s shirt. He appeared behind her, wrapping his arms around her. They began to sing, Nina quizzing Benny affectionately on his Spanish vocabulary, and Benny translating her phrases into English.

Leah was aware of Marcos’s elbow resting against hers on the velvet armrest.

Gradually, Nina taught Benny more and more Spanish words. Then Leah felt Marcos’s elbow move. In the dark, slowly, Marcos reached for her hand, wrapping his fingers between hers. Leah felt something within her stop.

She looked at him. The same nervousness she’d felt at the Friends marathon was still there, but there was something else there, too. A sense that something had finally aligned within her chest.

She’d always assumed that Benny had liked Nina for years before she’d even left for Stanford. Suddenly, it occurred to her that the play never explicitly stated that.

A question beat out through Marcos’s brown eyes. She leaned against him. They stayed there until “Carnaval del Barrio,” when it was all they could do to not dance their way out of their seats. But even then, Leah did not take her hand away.

“Do you guys have time for a quick dinner before you have to drive back?” Katie asked Leah happily as the four stood on the busy street after the show. The cars zooming by on the street were so loud that Katie almost had to shout.

“Sure,” said Leah. “Want to find some Latin American place, to keep with the spirit of the evening?”

There was a Mexican restaurant just a few blocks away. After they’d ordered,

Leah looked at Katie. “So,” she said. “What’d you think?!”

“It was cool!” said Katie brightly. “I actually have a question for you. You know the ‘Carnaval del Barrio’ number?”

“What about it?”

“Is that like what Chase and I went to with you in Blueridge for Three Kings’

Day?”

“Kind of!” said Leah, pleased that Katie had noticed. “Same idea, anyway.” She took a sip of her water. No one said anything. “What did you think of the show, Tom?” she asked in an effort to be polite.

“It was okay,” he said.

“Just okay?” Marcos said, surprised.

“Honestly, I didn’t understand a lot of it,” he said. “I never took any Spanish classes.”

“It’s a pretty universal story, though,” Marcos said. “About finding your place, and what it means to be home, and what it means to be American.”

“No, I get that,” Tom said. “But I didn’t know what a lot of it meant. Like, I could see you guys laughing down the aisle, but I didn’t get the jokes. And some of the song lyrics, too—like the one the grandmother sang.”

“‘Paciencia y fé’,” said Leah. “It means ‘patience and faith.’ She’s advocating hope for the future.”

“I mean, I have to be honest with you, Leah,” said Katie. “I felt a little that way, too. That’s one reason I was so proud that I recognized the carnival scene. A lot of that I didn’t grow up with.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised you got it all, Leah,” said Tom. “Being white.”

Leah was overcome by something she could only describe as feeling hollow. “The area where Marcos and I grew up is predominately Latino,” she said quietly. “I grew up in an area similar in some ways to Washington Heights.”

“Isn’t Miranda’s other show selling out on Broadway?” Tom asked.

“You mean Hamilton?” Leah asked.

“Yeah, that one. About the Founding Fathers.” Tom leaned back in his chair.

“Isn’t it weird that that one is selling out, but the theater today wasn’t even all the way full?”

“Well, Hamilton’s a newer show,” said Leah.

“Still, it made me think,” he said. “Maybe In the Heights isn’t as relatable to audiences.”

“Hey. Tom,” said Katie, looking appalled.

“Wait,” said Marcos. His accent almost seemed to Leah to become thicker. “Are you saying that a story about old white dudes is more important to tell than one about a

Latino neighborhood?”

“No, not at all,” said Tom, looking taken aback.

“You know that the first two guys to play the leads in Hamilton were Puerto

Rican and Black, right?”

Katie looked at Leah. “Remember that time, in college, when we sat in a restaurant and argued the relative merits of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s plays?” she joked weakly.

“It’s just, everyone in the United States learns about the founding of America,”

Tom tried again. “Not everyone around the country can speak Spanish. That’s all I meant.”

“Tom,” said Leah. “I think that’s more of a reflection on the United States’ education system, than on the plays.”

“Maybe so.”

“Are you sure you didn’t relate to any of it, though?” said Leah. “I mean, I’m not

Latina, but I get feeling out of place, and of having the reputation of my town riding on me, like Nina.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” he said. “I mean, I do get having parental pressures.” He looked at Katie, who was watching him silently. “And I get Usnavi having to work up the courage to tell the girl you have feelings for her.”

Katie smiled and nudged him playfully with her shoulder.

“All’s fair in love and war, I guess,” said Leah. “And theater’s both.”

When Leah pulled into the driveway at Marcos’s house, she turned the car off.

Marcos turned to look at her. “Do you remember when we went to the county spelling bee in middle school?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Leah. “I misspelled ‘soubrette.’ It haunts me to this day.”

“Mine was lieutenant.” Marcos shifted in his seat. “They thought I said ‘e’ instead of ‘i.’”

“I remember.”

“I didn’t say ‘e.’ I said ‘i.’” Marcos’s voice crackled in the silence. “I just screwed up and said it in Spanish.”

Leah was silent. Somehow, she could hear Marcos’s heart beat across the car.

“It’s not about having had the experience, is it?” he asked.

“What isn’t?”

“Acting. You don’t have to have had the experience. You just have to know what it feels like.” Marcos shifted in his seat. “Sure, I’ve never accidently turned my wife in for being a witch, or been accused of consorting with the devil. But I do know what it’s like to be discriminated against for not fitting in.”

“Acting is about making the connection,” Leah said, “but so is life.”

They were silent for a few moments.

“Walk me in?”

Leah climbed out of the driver’s seat, shoving her keys in her pocket. They walked side by side to the door, Leah nudging him a little with her elbow as they walked.

When they reached the doormat, they turned to face each other.

Slowly, cautiously, Marcos wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him.

Marcos took up space. Marcos was there. He enveloped her.

The voice of the actor playing John Proctor resounded through the speakers in the backstage hallway as Leah hurried down the backstage hallway to her place. It would be curtain call soon.

Ana came leaping toward her. “Can you believe it went off without a hitch?!” she whispered happily. “Girl, we did it!”

Leah high-fived Ana as they ducked through the stage door. The cast was gathering in the wings. Marie and one of the assistant stage managers were shepherding actors into their places. Marcos came up behind Leah, and for one moment, he and Marie caught each other’s gaze. They stopped.

“Good job,” said Marie, shifting. It almost sounded to Leah like the words got stuck on the way out of her mouth.

Marcos heard it, too, Leah could tell, but he looked her straight in the eye. “Thank you,” he said, a look of calm pride crossing his face. The smallest of smiles crossed

Marie’s too. She nodded, and turned away.

Onstage, Elizabeth uttered the final line of the play, and the curtain fell. The applause began. The cast scurried behind the curtain and took their places in line for the bows.

She reached for Ana’s hand, and felt Marcos’s slip into her other. She turned to find him fully beaming at her.

“You killed it,” she whispered, tightening her hand around his and nudging him with her shoulder.

He beamed. “See you out there, Benny,” he whispered, and the curtain split.

Stars (Estrellas)

Junior Year, St. Ignatius University

Leah finished her last class of the day and saw that she had four missed calls from

Marcos. As she punched in the code to unlock her phone and call him back, the screen lit up again with Marcos’s photograph, dressed in his high school graduation robe. Leah had made it his contact photo because it made her smile every time she saw it—in this picture, Marcos’s eyes, so often serious, shone.

When Leah answered the phone, Marcos didn’t even bother saying hello.

“I did it,” he announced.

“Did what?” Leah asked, dropping her overly-stuffed backpack on the floor and throwing herself onto her dorm bed.

“Roberto told me about a friend of his that was selling a used car. I couldn’t believe it. He took me over and I looked at it, checked out the engine and transmission and all that and it was in pretty good shape. So I bought it.”

“Hey!” Leah propped herself up on her pillows. “That’s great!”

“Yeah.” Marcos’s pride billowed in waves through the phone. “That way, when I get to go off to school, finally, I’ll be able to get home.”

“Your timing’s perfect,” she said, shifting to sit up. Unbidden, she felt her pulse beat just a hair faster, and she tried to push it down.

“Yeah?”

“Chase just told me that as the Editor-in-Chief of the St. I Bear, he’s invited to the ASG end-of-the-year formal this weekend. Up to two officers from each club are invited. We go, there’s a dinner and a dance, we represent our clubs. He’s asked me to be the other one.”

“Nice.”

Leah took a deep breath. “…will you come up and be my plus one?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Of course.” There was something in his voice.

Relief flooded Leah. “Cool, I mean, I’ll get to show you the school, you’ve never even been here, and you can come down in the morning, and then we’ll hang out, totally low key—”

“L.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll be there. Promise.”

“Good.” She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“You’re going to make me dress up for this, aren’t you?”

After dinner, Katie and Leah headed back to their suite.

“Casablanca.”

Leah wrinkled her nose. “The Proposal.”

“On the Waterfront.”

“Harry Potter.”

“Twelve Angry Men.”

“Lord of the Rings.”

They reached their front door. Katie swiped her key card in front of the electronic lock, and it beeped. She reached for the doorknob. “Let’s be real. We’ll end up watching

Pride and Prejudice again, like we always do.”

“You read my mind.”

Katie headed towards her room to deposit her bag, already reaching to pull off her flats. “You put the cookie dough in, I’ll grab the DVD?”

“Sounds good.” Leah felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out.

“Chase wants to know if he can come over.”

“Only if he’s up for watching Pride and Prejudice.” Katie’s voice floated out of her open doorway. “I’m not sacrificing my time with Mr. Darcy.”

It’s P&P again tonight, she texted Chase.

Well, I was hoping so, Chase sent back, his sass radiating through the screen.

Leah pulled a cookie sheet out from behind the microwave, and opened the door to grab the roll of cookie dough the two girls had picked up during their mid-week

Safeway run. Her phone buzzed again.

“You put the cookie dough in,” she called to Katie. “Chase’s here already. I’m going to go let him in.”

She hurried down the hallway to the staircase that led to the side door. Chase was sitting cross-legged next to the door when she arrived, and jumped up when he heard the door opening.

“Hey, partner!” he high-fived her.

“We better hurry up. I’ve had to tie Katie down. When we get back, she’ll probably be watching the ball already.”

Chase began to take the stairs two at a time, and Leah had to hurry herself to catch up with his long stride. “Cookies?”

“About to be in the oven.”

“You guys are slacking.”

“It’s been a long week, okay?”

Chase turned to look at her as they hit the top of the stairs. “At least we get to go to the formal tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’m excited about it.”

They reached her room. “Hey, wait a sec.” Chase pulled gently on her arm, leading her away from the door.

“What’s going on?”

His face was uncharacteristically serious. “Would you… would you want to go with me?”

“I am going with you.”

Chase cracked a grin despite himself. “No, like, with me. As my plus one.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t look horrified.”

“No, I’m not, I just—” Leah fought for words. Ana had always suspected Chase had feelings for her, but Leah had always just assumed it was part of the fact that Chase

liked everybody, liked people. Though she knew they were close, Leah had never thought twice about it.

“I asked Marcos if he’d come up and go with me.” Leah forced herself to look at

Chase as she spoke. “He said he would.”

Chase’s face fell, but he fought to plaster on a face of nonchalance. “Okay, no worries at all.”

“Chase, you knew I—”

He didn’t meet her eyes and reached for the door handle of Leah and Katie’s suite. “Leah, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it.”

Guilt gnawed at her gut. “Chase.”

“Leah,” he said, finally looking at her and dropping all pretense. “It’s okay. I did know. Don’t worry about it.”

“But—”

He dropped his hand from the doorknob. He took a slow breath, closing his eyes and reopening them. “Leah.”

She looked at him.

He rolled his eyes. “Have fun with Marcos. I knew. I just figured it might be worth a shot.”

Leah looked at him. “I’m sorry.”

He smiled the same sad smile. “I’ll be fine,” he said quietly. “I promise.”

The door to the suite opened, and Katie stuck her head out. “Jesus, are you two ever going to come in? Jane’s already off to visit the Bingleys in the rain.”

“You have to go back!” Chase pushed past her into the room. “I insist on seeing

Mr. Bennet sass the living crap out of his wife.”

Leah silently followed them into the room.

After Mr. Darcy declared his love to Lizzie in the misty field, the three friends sat heaped together on the couch.

“So,” said Katie, who was sitting between them. “You guys ready for your formal tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” said Chase. His face was impassive, betraying nothing wrong. It was as though the scene outside in the hallway had never happened.

“When does Marcos get here, Leah?” Katie asked.

Shut up, Katie, Leah thought wildly.

“Early afternoon,” she said.

Katie turned to Chase. “And did you ever find a date?”

Shut up, shut up, shut up…

“Nah,” said Chase, casually leaning back into the couch. “But that’s alright. I’m a strong, independent man who don’t… well, you know. It’s more sexist when I say it.”

“You know, if you want someone to just go and chill with, I’d go with you.”

Chase sat up. “You know what. Why not. Sure. Want to go with me?”

“Yeah, I don’t have anything else planned.” Katie shrugged, her face impassive.

“Sure.”

You go, girl.

Now, Chase’s calm exterior was real, and he chatted happily with Katie about what they’d wear and when he’d pick her up the following evening.

Marcos arrived a little after one the following afternoon, dressed in his customary red hoodie and jeans, carrying a small duffel bag. He was leaning against a beat-up black

Toyota pick-up truck.

“I promise, I’ll dress up,” he said, as she walked towards him. “I just figured I didn’t want to be walking around in dress pants all day.”

She slipped her arms around him. She thought of the conversation he had mentioned having, and her heart beat faster. She was acutely aware of the warmth of his arms around her, the way he pulled her into his chest.

“Is this the new car?” she asked, distracting herself.

Marcos, beaming, gestured at the car. “All mine. All the overtime at Starbucks finally paid off.”

She looked it up and down—grime, chipped paint, a dent in the door to the truck bed.

“It’s gorgeous, Marcos,” she said, meaning it.

He beamed again. “So this is St. Ignatius?” he asked, looking around. “It’s all brick.”

“The school was built in the 1800s. They’ve kept the aesthetic going.”

“Well, show me,” he said. “I want to see where all the stories have taken place.”

100

She led him onto the campus and took him to the comm building, where she had so many of her classes, and to see her favorite room, full of film equipment and projectors. Then she took him to the cafeteria, with its seven food stations and its separate indoor coffee shop; to the two-story gym; and to the state-of-the art theater. They snuck into the theater building from the side door, and stood together in the empty audience.

“Wow.” Marcos looked at the lights adorning the ceiling, his right hand resting on one of the shining velvet seats. “Don’t tell Stan and Marie how cool this is. You’ll never be able to get rid of them.”

She took him to the library next. “My favorite,” she told him.

They paused at the giant two-story windows in front of the university’s automatic retrieval system. The giant metallic arm traversed shelves filled with boxes of books, reaching for ones that had been requested on the library website by the students.

“They let machines do the research for you?”

“Not really,” Leah explained. “We still do all the finding of sources. They’re just stored in the ARS for spatial purposes.” She saw his face. “I don’t love it either.”

“I mean. Bay Area. High-tech, I guess.”

Marcos was quiet for the rest of the tour. When they ended up back at her dorm,

Leah watched Marcos’s eyes travel as they walked through the lobby, passed the second key-card door, and into the elevator for the fourth floor. When they reached Leah’s suite,

Katie and Chase were sitting together inside, avidly discussing the evening’s festivities.

101

“Hey!” said Katie, getting up and giving Marcos a hug. Marcos looked surprised, but hugged her back. “How was your tour? Chase and I were just coordinating about tonight.”

Chase got up, and shook Marcos’s hand. “I have to go run a few errands. I’ll see you all tonight.”

Katie gave Leah a grateful look as the door closed behind Chase. “Girl,” she said as soon as he was out of earshot. “Thank you. I owe you.”

She hurried off into her room. Marcos looked at Leah. “Why does she owe you one?”

“She’s Chase’s date to the formal. She asked him after he asked me.”

“Wait.” Marcos sat down on the couch. “Chase asked you to this?”

“Yeah,” said Leah. “But I told him no. Obviously.”

“Chase asked you out?”

Leah looked at him, confused. “I mean, yes, but I told him no, I had already asked you, and we basically talked about his feelings for me—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t… know I was supposed to?”

Something flashed across Marcos’s face, but it was gone as soon as it had appeared. “You don’t have to.” He straightened. “But we’re best friends. You got asked out.”

“I’m sorry,” said Leah.

Marcos shook his head, moving away from her.

102

“Where are you going?”

He was at the door now. “A walk.”

“Marc—”

But he was gone. Leah sat down dazedly on the couch. She became aware of

Katie standing in the doorway to her room only when she spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Leah. “It shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“It shouldn’t,” Katie agreed. “But he’s not hearing that you turned Chase down.

He’s not hearing that he’s going with me. He’s hearing that someone else asked you out.”

Leah turned to look at her. “But why.”

The ghost of a smile flitted across Katie’s face. “Has it never occurred to you he might be jealous of Chase?”

Leah looked up, startled. “Marc—Marcos wouldn’t get intimidated by anyone.”

“Maybe not.” Katie sat down on the floor across from Leah, leaning against the wall. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “But you don’t have to be intimidated to be jealous.”

Leah was silent.

“From what I see, it may not all even be about you. I mean, it’s mostly over you.

But from what you’ve told me, I think it goes beyond that.”

Leah found Marcos a few minutes later, sitting in the bed of his truck. She stood beside him, leaning her chin on the truck’s side.

“Hey.”

103

“Hey.” He didn’t look at her.

“Talk to me.”

“How do you not feel out of place here?”

Even after everything, the question took her off guard. “I do, a lot.”

“These people just expect it. Like it’s normal. None of this is normal. So many people don’t live like this.”

“That’s true.” Leah sat down across from Marcos in the truck bed. They looked at each other, two sides of the same coin. “But what I realized, as much as I felt like I didn’t belong here, was that it doesn’t mean that Blueridge was bad, or that this is perfect.”

“It looks like it.”

“On the outside. One’s not better than the other. They’re just different.”

“I’m scared going off to school will feel like this.” Marcos’s voice was hollow.

“Well you know how you find your pattern? You don’t march to either beat. You don’t try to match Blueridge, or try to match the beat of the school you end up at. You make your own rhythm. You figure out what you think, and go from there.”

They fell silent. Leah watched Marcos’s eyes. “I didn’t purposely not tell you about Chase.”

He looked up at her. “L…”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.” He stood up, swung his legs over the side of the truck, and reached out a hand to help her down. “Let’s go get dressed.”

104

When Leah emerged from her room, Marcos was waiting for her in the living room, already wearing black pants and a suit jacket. She had put on an olive-green dress and sandals, and when he saw her, he looked her up and down affectionately, as he had done when he’d first seen her at their graduation.

Something within her chest radiated.

“You ready?”

“Yeah,” he said. He was making more eye contact with her now than he had been all day. “Lead the way.”

When they reached the St. Ignatius Dining Commons, they could hear the throbbing pulse of the bad pop music from clear across the building. Leah paused when they reached the doorway of the ballroom. Huge speakers had been placed in strategic points around the room. The DJ stood at a table at the front of a large dance floor. The rest of the room was taken up by folding chairs and tables.

Leah reached for Marcos’s hand. She felt him stop in surprise, and slowly, very slowly, curl his fingers around hers.

She led him towards the other side of the room, where one of the tables in the back was labeled The St. Ignatius Bear. Chase and Katie were already sitting there, Chase dressed in a turquoise dress shirt, and Katie in a pink sleeveless dress.

They sat down beside them. Leah could think of little other than how she was still holding Marcos’s hand.

Suddenly, a girl was standing next to the DJ with a microphone. “Hello, everybody!” proclaimed Lana López, who, after being Leah’s freshman year roommate,

105

had since become the president of the student government. Lana was, as she had been when Leah had met her, perfectly slender, dressed in a strapless black dress. “It’s, like, fantastic, to see you all!”

Leah leaned closer to Marcos to whisper to him. “That’s Lana. Remember?”

“How could I forget? Chrissy brought her home passed out drunk.”

Leah looked over at Katie, and they smiled.

Lana finished welcoming everyone to the dance, and the music started again, a repetitive electronic song with few lyrics.

Leah looked at Marcos. “Dance with me?”

“To this?” Marcos said, and then caught himself. “I mean, sure, of course.”

She led him out onto the floor. They were swaying awkwardly next to each other when the music changed abruptly. Latin beats streamed through the speakers, and

Shakira’s “Loca” beamed through the room.

Leah looked at Marcos, and then up at the DJ. The other boy had disappeared, and

Leah’s friend Guillermo, there to represent the school’s radio station, KSIU, had taken over instead. He was dancing wildly on the DJ’s platform.

She looked back at Marcos. He grinned.

“Well, this’ll do,” he said over the sound of Shakira’s voice.

He took her hand, and as they so often did, they danced.

A few hours later, Marcos and Leah were back at the Bear’s table, this time by themselves, with a burrito split between them. Chase and Katie were on the dance floor.

106

Leah watched them with a smile on her face. The song ended, and Chase grabbed Katie’s hand to lead her towards the food table. He didn’t, Leah noticed, drop her hand when they reached the table.

“Last bite’s yours.”

Leah looked at Marcos, who was gesturing to the burrito.

The words were out before Leah realized it. “I didn’t come here with Chase because I wanted you to be my date.”

He set his glass down.

“I’m… I’m making the grand gesture.”

“What are you talking about?”

“At Thanksgiving, you made a move, right?”

Marcos was silent. “Yeah.”

“But both pieces can’t be in play until the other one makes a move, too.”

Marcos stood up. “Come walk with me.”

They didn’t say anything to each other as they left the ballroom, traversed the hallways of the dining hall, and pushed through the glass double doors to the courtyard outside. The sun had long since set, and the stars glittered across the brick rooftops and glided across the uppermost leaves of St. I’s trees. They walked back towards Leah’s dorm instinctively.

She was aware of every move the stocky, burly frame next to her made. His hands were burrowed deep in the pockets of his jacket.

They reached his truck. He leaned against it, looking down at his shoes.

107

“Hey.”

“Look at me,” she said softly.

He did. Maybe Katie was right, Leah thought, looking at his brown eyes, full of fear, anxiety, but mostly something else. Something else that could override all that anxiety.

She looked back. “Why didn’t you just tell me you felt the same?” she asked, equally as quietly.

He was looking at her now without her having to tell him. “I didn’t think you liked me.”

“…really?”

A grin cracked across his face for the first time that evening. “Shut up. It’s overwhelming. I was awful at handling it.”

Leah was quiet. Waves crashed over her.

“Does that scare you?” Marcos’s anxiety was back on his face.

“No,” she said. She took a step forward, too. They were only about two feet from each other.

She looked up at him. They made eye contact. She realized she had subconsciously crossed her arms in front of her chest. Slowly, Marcos moved towards her, reached for her arms, and slipped his hands into hers. He let go of her hands, wrapping his arms around her, and pulled her into him.

108

Thanksgiving (Día de Acción de Gracias)

Junior Year, St. Ignatius University

“Okay. Tell me again.”

“Mom, Dad, Jack, Jessica,” Leah counted on her fingers. “Aunt Angela, Uncle

Roy, Grandma Louise. Cousin Luke. Cousin Jacob.” She reached across her car to clap him on the back. “Come on, you got this, just stick close to Mom or me.”

“You told everyone I’m coming, right?” Marcos’s face was etched in worry.

“Yes. Breathe. It’ll be okay. My family can deal.”

“Yeah,” said Marcos. “I’m sure your family is just thrilled you brought your brown boyfriend home for Thanksgiving.”

Leah looked out the front window wordlessly. They were sitting in her parked car in front of her aunt and uncle’s house. Light shone through the curtained window. Her parents’ Dodge van was already parked in front of the house.

“You know I’m right.”

“Hey, I thought we agreed. No use of the words ‘brown,’ ‘Mexican,’ or ‘Chicano’ until after lunch.”

“You said yourself your family is conservative. It’s hard enough meeting your girlfriend’s family, much less—”

“I said my extended family.” Leah leaned her head against the seat. “My parents aren’t that way. And they already love you. Remember Halloween? My mother thought you were the greatest, handing out all the candy in costume.”

“I’ll give you that your mom likes me.”

109

“My dad’s just protective.”

“That time the six of us went out to dinner, he barely said two words to me.”

“So he’s not social.”

“I’m not worried about your parents.” Marcos seemed to almost burrow deeper into his seat. “I’m worried about your uncle who keeps guns in the house. We should’ve gone to my house. My mother would’ve made us tortillas and we could’ve sat on the couch watching reruns of El chavo del ocho.”

“Maybe my aunt’ll let us take some food home and we can make turkey quesadillas with your mom’s tortillas.”

Marcos sighed. “Let’s just go in.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Leah, with more confidence than she felt. “I promise.”

Leah reached for the car door, and the two clambered out. She was acutely aware of the sound their two pairs of feet made on the gravel pathway up to the house. The house had been built in the hills in Northern California, and what she’d been referring to

Marcos as a “house” since she’d extended the invitation to him a month ago was more appropriately termed a “mansion.” The community was gated, and their closest neighbors were half a mile away.

Leah reached out a hand, and touched the doorbell.

They could hear the sound echo through the house. It was a full three minutes before the great oak door opened, and Leah’s mother appeared.

“Great! You made it.”

110

Leah’s mother wore an expression of cheer, and her voice was happy and agreeable, but she shot her eldest daughter a pained look. Leah felt a rush of dread.

“Marcos, it’s great to see you,” said Catherine. “How is school going?”

“Hey, Catherine. It’s okay. Tired of biochem.”

“I do understand that. How was the drive up?”

“It was long.” Leah set her purse down next to the coat rack in the hallway, and pulled off her sweater. She gestured to Marcos for him to hand her his jacket. “I left the

Bay this morning, picked up Marcos, and drove straight here. Traffic wasn’t too bad for the holiday.”

“Let the kids come in, Catherine!” Leah’s father, Daniel, called from the kitchen down the hall. She could have been imagining it, but Leah thought she heard a sense of strain in her father’s voice, too.

“Of course!” Catherine said with the same fake cheer. She ushered them down the hall, leaning in to whisper into her daughter’s ear.

“Your uncle’s on the warpath. Someone broke in to the complex last night. They didn’t even come this way, but you know how he gets.”

Leah shot her mother a look not unlike the one she had just received, and followed her mother and Marcos into the kitchen.

Luke, Leah’s sixteen-year-old cousin, was sitting on the kitchen counter, playing on a Gameboy. He wore massive headphones, and didn’t look up as she approached, instead sticking out a hand in the walkway. Leah high-fived it.

“’Sup.”

111

“’Sup, cuz.”

Grandma Louise, Leah’s paternal grandmother, had planted herself in the recliner in front of Uncle Roy’s massive 65-inch television, set up in the corner of the living room. Leah planted a kiss on her grandmother’s head. Her grandmother, Jack, and Jacob, her cousin who was her brother’s age, were fixated on the Macy’s parade scrolling across the screen. Ariana Grande was singing on top of a float that looked like an Alice in

Wonderland-themed Christmas party. She reached for Jack and gave him a hug, too.

Marcos managed to clap him on the shoulder.

Leah’s father was wearing a black barbecue apron behind the stove in the massive refurbished kitchen. Leah made her way over to him, wrapping her arms around him.

“Your sister’s outside,” he told her, hugging her back.

But then, Jessica appeared in the sliding door, carrying a plate of turkey. She dropped the plate on the counter and dove for her sister, flinging her arms around her.

“What are we doing here?” Jess whispered in Leah’s ear. “Help me, take me back to school with you…”

Daniel reached to shake Marcos’s hand as Leah hugged her Aunt Angela, a petite, curvaceous woman who closely resembled her brother and his daughters. Uncle Roy hugged her then. Marcos shook Angela’s hand, then reached out to do the same for Roy.

Roy took a split-second glance at Marcos’s hand, then turned to his sister.

“Catherine, are you done with the rolls yet?

112

Leah saw something flash across Marcos’s face, and she reached for him, pulling him by the arm towards her and lacing his fingers through his. Her father had seen the same reaction.

“Here, Marcos, let me introduce you to my mother …”

As Daniel led Marcos over to the recliner, Catherine leaned into to whisper again to her daughter.

“Did you warn the poor boy about Uncle Roy?”

“Umm… sort of,” Leah whispered back. “Didn’t tell him about his anti- immigration lobbying or the incident with the neighbors… I also swore he wasn’t that bad.”

“Marcos is a brave soul.”

Jack ran over towards his mother and elder sister. “Mommy, it’s the Spiderman balloon!”

He dragged Catherine away to sit on the couch. Leah turned back to Luke.

“‘Sup, cuz,” Luke repeated.

“Hey. What’s new with you?”

“Oh, you know.” Luke’s eyes didn’t leave his screen. “Same old, same old.”

“Have you figured out where you want to go to school yet?”

That was enough to make Luke look up. “Umm…” he said, pushing one headphone off his ear. “I was wondering about applying to St. I’s, actually.”

“Like me?”

113

“Yeah.” Luke didn’t meet her eyes. “Dad wants me to go to, like, one of those super conservative Midwest schools out by his side of the family,” he blurted out.

“Would you want to?”

“I’d like somewhere that doesn’t want to stone liberals.”

“The food’s ready!” his mother called out to no one in particular. “Let’s eat!”

As though they had all received a sign from the universe, the family gathered around the table to sit down. Angela was the last one, adding the basket of rolls to the table before sitting down.

“Daniel, will you say grace?” Roy asked.

“Uh…” Leah’s father said. “Sure. Why not.”

The family joined hands.

“God,” Daniel began, “thank you for this food we are about to receive. Thank you for allowing us all to…come together, and… and for this food. Amen.”

The family began to pass plates around the table.

“So, Marcos,” said Angela, holding a plateful of turkey, “How did you and Leah meet?”

“We’ve been friends for a long time. We went to high school together.”

“Do you have a job?” asked Uncle Roy, staring at him.

“Um… yes, I do,” said Marcos, laying his napkin across his lap. “I work at

Starbucks, and as a chemistry tutor at my school.”

“Smart kid,” said Grandma Louise, deep into a plate of stuffing.

“You go to school?”

114

“Roy,” said Angela, a warning in her tone. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Marcos is studying chemistry at Scottsdale,” Leah added. “He’s going to start applying to transfer out next year.”

“Are you getting state grants?”

Daniel set the gravy down. “Roy, that’s inappropriate.”

“It’s just a simple question!” Roy’s face was impassive. “How much of my tax money is going towards paying for education’s like his?”

“Can we please just have a nice, peaceful dinner?” Angela’s face was etched in concern.

“Prove me wrong.” Roy leaned across the table to Marcos. “Do your parents work out in the crops?”

“I mean, yes, but—” Marcos began.

“There you go!” Roy threw up his hands. “Illegal parents, no money, and I pay for his education with my hard-earned money.”

“ROY!” Daniel’s voice grew.

“Uncle Roy, come on,” Leah began.

Jessica buried her face in her palm. “Oh, god…”

“Just shut up and eat your turkey, Roy.” Grandma Louise rolled her eyes.

“Mommy?” Jacob asked hesitantly.

“Yes, baby?” Angela leaned over to him, concerned.

“Will you pass the stuffing?”

115

Roy was on a roll now. “Why is it my responsibility to provide for someone who can’t afford something that’s not even a right? My parents came to this country, legally, and worked to succeed.”

“Roy, that’s enough.” Daniel’s voice rose above his. “You can’t speak to him that way.”

“Are you saying I’m not allowed to express my opinion in my own home?!”

“No, I’m saying you can’t shove all your stereotypes on one boy!”

“How are you letting your daughter date one of them?!”

There was a stunned silence. Next to Leah, Marcos leaned on the table, his head in his hands.

Leah stood up, grabbed his hand, and wordlessly pulled him from the table.

“Leah.” Marcos’s voice was calm.

“Don’t.”

“Leah.”

“I’m so sorry, Marcos.”

They were sitting beside each other in the car again. Leah’s head was leaning against the steering wheel.

“No, Leah, look—”

Leah looked up to see her grandmother leading her uncle out to the car by his shirtsleeves. Louise let go of Roy when they reached the car, looking at him expectantly.

116

“Marcos is part of our family and you will treat him with respect.” Louise stared at Roy. “Apologize.”

Roy sighed. “I apologize,” he said reluctantly. “My comments were unnecessary.”

“It’s okay—”

“No, it’s not,” Leah interjected.

Grandma Louise rolled her eyes. “You don’t know anything, Roy,” she said. “Go back inside.”

Roy did so, and Louise followed. A minute later, she was back, carrying two plates of food. Each was laden with turkey, chicken, salad, stuffing, and mashed potatoes.

Wordlessly, she handed one plate to Leah, and the other to Marcos through the car window.

“Whenever you feel ready to join us inside again,” she said, “you both are more than welcome.”

Without waiting for an answer, she went back into the house. They ate in silence for a while. After a few minutes, Leah looked at Marcos.

“Ready when you are,” he said, his empty plate on his lap.

Inside, Grandma Louise was sitting on the couch, while Angela, Daniel, and

Catherine worked on putting the food away. Jess, Jack, Luke, and Jake were scattered across the living room floor. Leah sat down on the other end of the couch from Grandma

Louise.

Marcos looked at Aunt Angela, and picked up the platter of rolls off the table.

“No, no,” she said, taking the platter from him.

117

“I’m happy to help—”

“You’re our guest. We’ve got this.”

Leah pulled Marcos down to sit beside her. Grandma Louise smiled, and patted him fondly on the shoulder.

“Who’s playing?” said Marcos, watching the men in helmets tackling each other onscreen.

“Niners and the Seahawks. Niners ahead by a touchdown.”

“You’re a football fan?”

Grandma Louise snorted. “Well, I’d much rather be watching this than the dog show, let me tell you.”

Leah became aware of Uncle Roy standing behind the couch, holding two pieces of pie. “Do you… do you like football?”

“I like soccer better,” Marcos answered. “But I have a soft spot for the Niners.”

“Bah,” said Louise. “Seahawks, all the way.”

“You’re crazy, Louise,” said Uncle Roy, a smile crossing his face. “The Niners are clearly the better team.”

Louise chuckled. After a moment, Uncle Roy turned to Marcos, and gestured awkwardly at him with one of the pieces of pie.

Marcos gave him a questioning look.

Uncle Roy made the same gesture again.

Marcos smiled and took it, nodding to show his thanks, and Uncle Roy sat down in the recliner across from him as the match continued.

118

Lanterns (Linternas)

Senior Year, St. Ignatius University

If Leah had known that planning Marcos’s twenty-first birthday party would become such a production for Ana, she would have brought popcorn.

“If you’re really just having a party at home, I still think you need a live band,”

Ana said, leaning back in her chair.

“I already told you,” said Marcos distractedly from the kitchen table, looking at the laptop that sat, overheating, in front of him. “I don’t want a live band. My brother is a

DJ.”

“What kind of party doesn’t have a live band?!” Ana gestured wildly at Leah.

“Woman, tell him!”

“Marcos can do what he wants,” said Leah. “It’s his birthday.”

Ana let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan, sinking further into the pleather seat of Marcos’s family’s living room couch beside Leah. “I should have never let the two of you get together. It’s turned you both against me. I can’t use one of you to manipulate the other anymore.”

Ana’s words were enough to make Marcos look up from his computer for the first time in half an hour. He stole a glance at Leah, who realized she was already watching him.

“Well, that is what pushed us over the edge, Ana,” Leah teased. “We did it just to spite you.”

119

“Ugh,” said Ana, closing her eyes for dramatic effect. “Hombre, you should just let me take you to a bar. It is your 21st, after all, and it would save me all this party planning.”

“All the party planning you’re doing?” Leah said innocently.

“You guys are mean,” said Ana in an injured tone.

“Okay, seriously,” said Marcos. “I just got an email back from my cousin’s friend, the one who runs the panadería downtown. He says he’ll cater my party for half price.”

“I will never understand how we’re friends,” said Ana. She stood up, and in a few strides, pounced on Marcos from behind, clapping him on the back. “Hey, ándale. Let me borrow your computer for a minute.”

“Why?” said Marcos, still not looking up.

“I want your girlfriend’s opinion on your birthday present,” she said, shooing him with her hand. “I have to get it now since she’s leaving and won’t even back until the afternoon of the party.”

“Hold on. I’m checking my accounts again.”

Leah sat up. “Have you heard back from any of the schools you applied to?”

After their high school graduation, Marcos had turned down offers of acceptance from various schools up and down the state, to attend Scottsdale Community College, only fifteen miles from Blueridge, and work full time to help support his family after his father’s dual knee replacement surgery. He was months away from completing his AA degree, however, and as his father had been able to obtain a job as a crew supervisor at

120

the agricultural company he had once picked crops for, Marcos had applied to transfer out to four year colleges in California once more.

There was a ping on Marcos’s phone, signifying the arrival of an email. Marcos reached for his phone, looking from the small screen to his computer and back again. He held the phone out towards his friends. “Yes,” he said. “Just now.”

Leah dove around the couch as Ana leaned over Marcos’s shoulder. The student account that had been created for Marcos when he’d applied to UCLA again was open on his computer. The UCLA logo glistened from the top of the email on his phone. The message on both screens matched.

Under “Application Status” was the word “Declined.”

Leah reached for Marcos’s hand. His skin felt cold to the touch as she slipped her fingers around his.

“I’m so sorry, dude,” said Ana, uncharacteristically serious.

“It’s okay,” said Marcos automatically. His eyes were glued on the screen. He didn’t look at either Ana or Leah.

“Are you alright?” Leah asked quietly.

Marcos shook himself. “I’m fine,” he said, his strong Mexican accent even thicker than normal. “It’s not a big deal. I applied to a lot of other places.”

“We know,” said Ana, “but—”

“You guys want café?” Marcos asked, the wooden kitchen chair scooting back into Leah and Ana as he stood up. He hit the “logout” button swiftly and the UCLA login

121

page reappeared. “I’ll make some. Ana, you can have the computer for whatever you want.”

Ana and Leah watched Marcos, who still refused to look at them, as he rummaged through one of the kitchen cupboards, pulling out three mismatched mugs. Then Ana pulled Leah’s arm back towards the couch with one hand and grabbed Marcos’s computer with the other. The two girls settled back into the couch. Ana’s fingers flew over Marcos’s keyboard as she pulled up an Amazon page featuring a vinyl player. This present, Ana had already mentioned to Leah. They’d gone in on it together, Ana buying the player for him, and Leah buying him two albums on vinyl: Mi Sangre by Juanes and

Santana’s Supernatural. Leah was still looking for something else to complete the gift.

She grinned and gave Ana the thumbs up, to which Ana responded with a self- satisfied smile. She closed the window, shutting the computer as Marcos approached them carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. “Have you finished packing, L?” he asked, as each of the girls took a cup. He sat down in an armchair across from them.

“Pretty much,” said Leah. “Chase and I leave from the dorms to the San José

Airport Monday night, so it was easier to do most of my packing at school. I’m picking up a few things while I’m here, though.”

“I can’t believe the newspaper is paying for your trip in full,” said Ana, once more becoming one with Marcos’s couch. “I can’t imagine anything like that happening at UCSC. Private school perks.”

122

Leah felt a twinge of unbidden guilt. “It’s just because the newspaper won the award from the Associated Collegiate Press,” she said. “Nobody on campus would be giving us any money at all if we hadn’t just won a major award.”

Chase had become the editor-in-chief of their school’s newspaper as the two had headed into their junior year. Leah was the editor of the paper’s news section. The previous fall, the two had submitted the newspaper under various categories to the

Associated Collegiate Press’s award competition, and the paper had received three awards, including one for an article Leah herself had written for her section. As a result, the university had agreed to send Chase and Leah to Harvard University in Massachusetts for several days for the organization’s conference and awards ceremony.

“Well, I better head home. My mother’s texting me,” said Ana, thumbing through a series of messages that had appeared on the lock screen of her iPhone. She stood up and held her arms out to Leah expectantly. Leah grinned, standing up as her best friend’s arms enveloped her.

“Have the most wonderful trip, chica. Do us proud!” Ana said over her shoulder.

They broke apart, and Ana reached a closed hand towards Marcos for a goodbye fist bump.

As soon as the front door closed behind Ana, Marcos took her seat, leaning back into the couch cushions. “When do you go back up in the morning?” he asked quietly.

“Pretty early,” she said. “Chase and I have to finish up some paperwork so that we can leave the next day.”

“So I should make you go home.”

123

“No,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Never.”

He smiled, and she leaned against him. He pulled one of his arms out from underneath her, wrapping it around her shoulders, and pulled her against him.

“I’m really proud of you,” he said.

Before Leah could answer him, a voice broke across him.

“¿Vas al aeropuerto mañana, Leah?”

Marcos’s mother, Xiomara, a kind-eyed woman currently wearing a flowery full- body apron, leaned around the wall separating the living room from the kitchen, smiling at the sight of her son.

“No,” Leah answered her back in Spanish, smiling too. “I leave Monday.”

“Quiero escuchar todos tus cuentos cuando regreses,” Xiomara answered. “I want to hear all your stories when you return. Marcos translated the article for me. It’s very good!”

Leah looked up at Marcos again, who avoided eye contact and smiled despite himself.

“I’ve always wanted to travel,” said Xiomara in Spanish. “But other than our trips to México at Christmastime every couple years, I’ve never even been on vacation.”

Xiomara shook her head, a sadness around her eyes despite her warm smile. “Enjoy every minute of it.”

A short while later, Leah decided that she did need to head home, so Marcos walked her to her car. “Call me from your favorite spot,” said Marcos. “Your favorite place you find. I want to hear every detail.”

124

He kissed her then. Leah kept her eyes locked on the shape Marcos’s burly outline made against the night sky as she drove out of his driveway.

Leah could barely contain her excitement as she followed Chase down the boarding bridge to the airplane, her backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Keep breathing,” Chase teased as they reached their seats. “Don’t die on me before we even get there.”

“I’ve been excited about this for months. So much so I’ve driven Katie crazy!”

“I mean,” said Chase, laughing as he edged toward his window seat. “It’s super cool. But it’s just Boston. Don’t lose your mind yet!”

“I’ve never even been out of the country,” Leah said. “A trip to the East Coast is a big deal for me.”

“No way… really?” Chase studied her critically. Chase had grown up in a suburb of Los Angeles in a wealthy family. His mother worked at Apple, and his father for

Microsoft. His parents hadn’t even batted an eyelid when Chase had studied abroad in spring of their sophomore year, a full semester before most other students at their school typically did.

“I know. It doesn’t sound super cool that we’re going to Boston when you studied in Ireland,” she said. “And I know you’ve been to Europe a couple times before that. But

I’m still super excited.”

“No, I get it,” said Chase. Over six feet in height, Chase’s long legs didn’t quite fit between his own chair and the seat in front of him in the cramped plane, and he was

125

forced to lean his knees slightly towards Leah in the middle seat to make himself comfortable. Apprehensively, he glanced at her, but looked away quickly. “We just come from different perspectives, is all,” he added.

Chase and Leah passed the majority of the plane trip in silence. Chase drifted off almost before the plane took off, wearing large headphones with the volume turned up so loud that Leah could hear the sounds of Imagine Dragons, even sitting next to him. Leah napped for a while, waking up somewhere over the Midwest. Chase was awake, headphones still on—though now playing Coldplay—and typing away at his laptop.

“Are you still working on the vandalism article for next week?” Leah asked. A week before, the students at St. Ignatius University had woken up to find that a monument that the administration had erected for a group of students that had gone missing in Mexico had been vandalized, with the names of the students painted over and the monument itself on its side, thrown to the ground. No one had been caught.

Chase pushed the headphones back over his left ear. “No,” he said. He clicked the screen off. “Just… just playing.”

“Playing at what?” Leah asked.

“Nothing,” Chase said, without meeting her eyes. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well now you have to tell me,” Leah said, poking him.

“It’s not important,” he said. “I promise.”

Leah looked at him.

“Fine,” he sighed, turning his screen toward her. “I meant to have it off before you woke up.”

126

He clicked his internet browser, which opened to a colorful webpage about how to conjugate regular past tense verbs in Spanish.

Leah looked from the computer, to Chase, who still wouldn’t meet her eyes, and back to the computer. “What is this?

“It’s a Spanish program from Rosetta Stone,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, a grin spreading across her face.

“I was thinking about it, and I want to—oh, stop,” said Chase, nudging her as her smile grew wider. “I think it would be cool to be able to hold a conversation with you in

Spanish. You’re my best friend and it’s a big deal to you and a huge part of who you are.”

“Chase.”

“Shut up, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Chase, it’s a huge deal.”

Chase looked at her, glowing. “Good,” he said quietly.

The hotel rooms they were staying in near Harvard were small, but well-kept. The next morning, the conference was offering a shuttle bus from Harvard, which was in

Cambridge, to Boston, for those who had arrived at the conference a day early. Leah and

Chase boarded the shuttle at 9 am. They toured the city together, ending up at the Old

North Church, where Paul Revere had warned all that the British were coming during the

Revolutionary War. Chase was sitting in one of the pews of the church, looking up at the altar, when Leah walked up to him at the end of the tour.

127

“Are you good if I go make a call?” she whispered.

When Chase nodded, she walked outside, crossing the street to a bench that looked directly on the church, so she could see the steeple where the two lanterns had been hung. She pulled out her phone.

Marcos answered on the first ring. “Where did you pick?” he asked, by way of a greeting.

“The Old North Church.”

“One if by land, two if by sea.”

“I know. Predictable.”

“Hey, it makes sense.” There was something hollow in his voice that Leah couldn’t quite define.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Tell me about the trip so far.”

“It’s amazing.” Leah crossed her legs and leaned her elbow on her knees.

“There’s so much history we never learn in school.”

“Or how much of it never gets told.”

“There’s just so much here, you know?” Leah said quietly. “There’s so much to

American history. So many stories and so many people. Parts of the whole.”

“That’s what you’re doing, you know.”

“What?”

128

“With the journalism. You’re telling the history. You give a voice to the voiceless. You tell the stories of people so they don’t get lost to history, so they’re remembered. It’s like that article you said Chase is writing.”

“The vandalism one?”

“It’s not really just about vandalism, is it? It’s about the fact that some awful people on campus tried to destroy something that commemorates that there were a group of students who probably died because they were doing something they believed in. It’s about not letting them slip through the cracks. About telling their stories.”

Leah was silent for a few moments. “Yeah,” she said finally, looking up at the steeple. She shifted. “Tell me about home.”

Marcos was silent.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I got a call from the Berkeley admissions office.”

Leah felt her heartbeat quicken. “…and?”

“They were just missing my transcripts.”

Leah deflated. “I mean, that’s good, right? Still in the running.”

“I also didn’t get into USC.”

“Marc, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“I’m not going to get to go, am I?” Marcos’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I missed my shot.”

129

“Stop,” said Leah. “You’re going to get to go to college. You just haven’t found the right one yet.”

“I need one of Paul Revere’s lanterns. A beacon of hope.” Marcos fell silent.

“Have you heard back from Berkeley since the call?”

“No,” he said. “But my odds aren’t good. I looked it up. Plus, I don’t know how

I’d pay for it.”

Chase emerged from the doorway of the church, looking around for Leah.

“Chase is looking for me,” she told Marcos. “We’re going down to the Faneuil

Hall Marketplace for dinner. Chase wants to try all the different types of food.”

Marcos laughed. “Okay,” he said. “Have fun tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you at the party, love,” she said, hanging up.

For all of the buildup, the conference itself was fairly uneventful. The award

Leah’s article had won was presented on the third and final day of the conference, in

Harvard’s cavernous Annenberg Hall. Chase and Leah were placed at a table with journalists from several other colleges from California, including Stanford and USC.

Leah had written her winning piece about St. Ignatius’s administration stepping in to remove quotes from an article about one of the school’s donors. When they called her name, she stood up to thunderous applause, traversed the long conference hall, and received a plaque from a stern-looking man wearing thick glasses. As she sat back down beside Chase, she ran her fingers over the words carved into the award, lingering on

“written by Leah Green.”

130

As their flight was early the following morning, Chase and Leah went back up to their rooms to pack. Leah woke up before Chase the next morning, and took a walk around the Harvard campus. Classes were still in session, but she was early enough to dodge the majority of students.

She stopped in front of the statue of John Harvard in the middle of campus. The bronze man sat regally in his chair, watching the Harvard students hustle by with a seemingly calm look in his eye.

Her phone buzzed. Where are you? Chase had written. We should be out of here in 30.

She turned away from the statue, and almost bumped into someone walking behind her. The other person was a girl dressed in a Harvard sweatshirt, carrying an armful of books.

“Sorry!” said Leah.

“No worries,” the girl smiled, moving away.

Leah took a step in the direction of the hotel, but stopped herself.

Wait… wait.

She turned around suddenly, and hurried off in the other direction.

Leah had tried to sleep on the plane back, but as she drove home for Marcos’s party, she couldn’t help but feel drowsy. Marcos’s presents sat in the back seat beside her suitcase.

131

She pulled up along the curb down the block from Marcos’s house, as cars belonging to his extended family packed the street. Ana’s car was sitting in the driveway, a clear sign that she had arrived before anyone else. Leah smiled, and slipped through the side gate to the backyard.

Marcos and Ana had appeared to have compromised on various aspects of the party planning, which included a table heaped with food, and strings of Chinese lanterns, which artfully decorated his family’s patio. Marcos’s extended family milled about as

Marcos’s brother, Roberto, stood as the DJ behind a computer and giant speaker.

Xiomara waved cheerfully at Leah as she headed straight for Marcos, who was sitting at a folding table with Ana.

“Girl, you’re home!” Ana crowed, jumping up to throw her arms around her.

Marcos beamed at the sight of her, pulling her in as Ana finally let go of her. She handed him the two wrapped packages.

“For you,” she said, smiling.

“Are we doing these now??” Ana excitedly pulled her own presents for Marcos out of her oversized bag.

Marcos was thrilled with the record player, and complimented Leah on being able to find two of his favorite artists on vinyl. He pulled the final gift toward him.

Ana looked at Leah questioningly, but Leah’s eyes were on Marcos.

He unwrapped the paper to find a sweatshirt emblazoned with Harvard University across the chest.

132

“I know you didn’t apply to Harvard,” Leah said, “And soon, you’ll have one for your own school. But call it symbolism.”

Marcos looked at Leah, his eyes glowing, but was distracted by the sound of a pinging of his phone. He looked at Ana and then to Leah, a look of terror crossing his face.

“Berkeley acceptances are supposed to arrive today,” he said.

“Check it,” said Leah. “That way you’ll know.”

Marcos pulled out his phone, and after a second, looked up at Leah.

133

Epilogue (Epílogo)

Senior Year, St. Ignatius University

“Go forth and set the world on fire.” The voice of Father Reynolds, St. Ignatius’s president, traveled across the waves of students in black robes, amplified across dozens of speakers placed across the university’s football field. “The university administration and I have every faith that our graduates will fulfill these famous words from St.

Ignatius.”

Despite herself, Leah found herself distracted from Father Reynolds’ speech. The

Bay Area sun was sweltering, and, as the field where the graduates sat was uncovered, she was incredibly warm under her layers of fabric, despite the fact it was already five in the afternoon.

Leah felt her phone vibrate against her rib cage, and felt something between affection and exasperation. Because neither her dress nor her robe had pockets, she had stuck the phone in a small pouch that she had slung across her chest. Jessica had been sending her selfies for the previous hour and a half—pictures with their mother, father,

Jack, Ana, shots of the stage, Jess making funny faces…

“It is, without a doubt, a memorable and motivating phrase.” Leah could almost picture the small smile on Father Reynolds’ face, even though the podium where he stood was too far away for her to tell. “But countless scholars, Jesuit and non-Jesuit alike, have debated the true meaning behind his words.”

134

The text wasn’t from Jess. Ana had sent her a photograph. Leah unlocked her phone, and tapped the image. Ana and Marcos’s faces, immortalized as they rolled their eyes in unison, shined back at her from the screen. Ana had captioned the picture,

Another speech?

How long has he been here? she typed back. I told him not to skip class.

Since before you entered the stadium. He promises he didn’t. In true Ana fashion, there was an emoji after every sentence. It’s okay, Berkeley can spare him for an evening.

Beside Leah, Guillermo nudged her in the ribs. “This is a first,” he teased. “Leah

Verde not paying attention to a lecture.”

Leah smothered a grin and put her phone back in its pouch, turning her concentration back to Father Reynolds.

“But me?” the priest said. “I prefer to think that St. Ignatius hoped that all of us— no matter where we come from, what our life experiences have been—that we all follow our hearts to do good and make life better for those around us. As we follow our passions, we inspire others to do the same.”

He looked out at the crowd. “Without further ado, I’d like to invite Dr. Ramirez from the School of Engineering to take the podium, to present the degree candidates from his college.”

Guillermo settled into his chair.

“Weren’t you just telling me to pay attention?” Leah teased.

“Oh, we’ll be here ages.” He shrugged. “And let’s be real, the College of Arts and

Letters is the one we really care about, anyway, and we’re not until the end.”

135

Candidates from the School of Engineering began to file across the stage as Dr.

Ramirez read their names, shaking hands with Father Reynolds and receiving their green diploma holder, emblazoned with the St. Ignatius crest. Leah caught sight of Lana, wearing what looked like three full graduation leis, about three quarters of the way through the crowd.

Leah was almost sure Guillermo slept through the School of Business, which was next. Leah herself passed the time combing through the commencement program, a sizeable green booklet filled with student names, departments, and awards. She scanned the list.

Green, Leah Madison. Double major in Spanish and Communications.

The College of Sciences followed. Leah closed the booklet and watched eagerly until she saw a familiar blonde head, taller than the rest, reach the front of the line.

“From the Physics Department,” Professor Francisco, the head of the College of

Science, announced. “Chase Arthur Bennet.”

Unabashedly, Leah cheered. Chase broke decorum and gave Father Reynolds a hug, fist pumping in the air as he walked back down the steps on the stage’s other side.

Then it was the College of Arts and Letters’ turn. The schools were organized alphabetically by department, so the art department went first, followed by Leah’s classmates in the comm department. The English department wasn’t far behind, and Leah cheered again when “Katherine Marie Holgren” was announced, and Katie almost ran to accept her diploma holder.

136

When it was time for their row, Leah stood up, following Guillermo’s back up to the stage. They were at the front of their group.

“From the Foreign Language Department,” Dr. Bryan announced. “Guillermo del

Rio, Spanish.”

Guillermo bounded across the stage. Leah was at the head of the line. Her breath caught.

“Leah Madison Green, Spanish studies and communication.”

It all flashed before her: a blend of homework and papers and verbs and double majors and bad pop songs and movie nights and car rides and horchata and burritos and coffee and friends.

Her memory was all color, vibrant, swirling color.

She was moving before she realized it.

Father Reynolds smiled down at her. “Congratulations,” he said, shaking her right hand, and holding the empty diploma holder out towards her left.

“Thank you,” she managed. She remembered to turn for the photographer to take her picture, and followed Guillermo back to their seats.

Her phone was exploding. She reached for it with her right hand, her left palm becoming sweaty as it clutched the diploma holder. Jess was sending a steady stream of video and pictures, both of her parents sending congratulatory messages and hearts, suggesting a variety of restaurant options for dinner. Marcos had sent just one text.

137

Ana wants to go out to that coffee shop you showed us tonight after we all go out to dinner. Apparently they’re having a trivia night; she saw it online. Does that sound good?

Works for me, she typed.

Jess is so excited to come with us that she can barely sit still. Do you want to invite Chase and Katie and Guillermo?

Sure. I’ll ask.

Marcos’s response was immediate. … will you be my partner?

Leah leaned back, a smile crossing her face, and looked at the blue and white crest above the stage.

A clash of worlds. A mixture of language, art, and people.

“What?” Guillermo was watching her. “You alright? You’re not going to cry on me, are you, ¿Verde?”

She shook her head, still grinning. “I’m great.”