Far from the Tree(14)

“Warm without being personal?” Maya repeated. “Wow, okay.”

“So what’s it like being in a family of redheads?” Grace asked, trying to change the subject.

Maya huffed out a laugh. “Did you see the Sears Portrait Studio out there?” she asked, then sang, “One of these things is not like the other . . .”

“Are your parents cool with you being gay?” Grace suddenly felt oddly protective of her, like she had with Peach.

“Are you kidding? This is basically their claim to fame. They pretty much joined PFLAG before I even finished telling them that I was a lesbian. My dad—get this—he wanted to go to a gay pride parade with me.”

Grace couldn’t help but giggle, oddly relieved that Maya wasn’t in some awful, oppressive home. “Well, that’s good, right?” she said. “That they’re supportive?”

“No, it’s totally good. It’s just like . . .” For the first time since they had been upstairs, Maya seemed at a loss for words. “It’s good,” she finally said, and Grace decided not to push it anymore.

They exchanged phone numbers and listened to music (Maya’s) and talked about Claire. It was a good thing Grace didn’t want to tell Maya about Peach or Max, because she could barely get a word in edgewise. And by the time she and her parents were driving off in their car, she savored the relative silence of their Toyota Camry (squeaky brakes excepted).

“So!” her dad said after a minute, clapping his hands together. “Highs and lows!”

Grace groaned. Her parents used to do Highs and Lows at night after work and school, where they’d each have to talk about the high and low points of their day. That had pretty much stopped after Grace had announced she was pregnant. (Low.) “Dad, please . . .”

“I’ll start!” he said. “My high was seeing you meet Maya, Grace. That was . . . well, it just meant a lot to me, as your dad.”

“Dad, please, I can’t cry anymore this month. I’m tapped out.”

“Okay, okay, fine. But my low was realizing that I might have to wear a three-piece suit every single time we get together with their family.” He sighed. “I felt like a farmer at the table.”

Grace clapped him on the shoulder from the backseat. “You took one for the team, big guy.”

He patted her hand in response.

“Okay, my turn, my turn,” her mom said from the driver’s seat. “My high was listening to you talk to Maya upstairs and hearing you laugh. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard you laugh, Gracie.”

“Maybe you’re just not as funny as you used to be,” Grace said, but she knew her mom would know she was joking. She was pretty hard to offend.

“And my low was knocking my chicken off my plate with my knife. I wanted to die.” Grace’s dad started to laugh. “I seriously did, Steve! That entire house looked like a mausoleum—”

“That’s what I thought, too!” Grace cried.

“—and who’s the first person to get gravy on the tablecloth? Me.” Her mom groaned. “Diane was very gracious about it, though.”

“Where’s our tablecloth?” Grace asked. “Do we even have one?”

“Not since your dad accidentally set it on fire last Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, yeah.” The highs and lows on that particular holiday had been intense. And smoky.

“Okay, your turn,” her mom said, glancing at Grace in the rearview mirror.

“Well, I guess the high was meeting Maya. And she’s normal. I mean, at least she’s not homicidal or anything.”

“And the low?” her dad asked after a minute.

“Well, she’s kind of annoying,” Grace said. She hadn’t even known it was true until she said it. “She kept interrupting me, she only talked about herself, and she was sort of rude, too, honestly.”

“Honey?” Grace’s mom said.

“Yeah.”

“Welcome to having a sister.”





MAYA


It took Joaquin almost a week to respond to the email.

Maya was not amused.

She finally got his response while she was at home. She was always at home these days, since she had gotten grounded for sneaking out to see Claire one night when her dad was out of town on business and she had thought her mom was asleep. And by asleep, she meant passed out, but it didn’t really matter because her mom hadn’t been asleep or passed out when Maya had snuck back in downstairs at two in the morning. They had just looked at each other before Maya’s mom pointed at her and said, “Grounded. One week,” and then went upstairs. Maya suspected that if she had been dating a boy, there would have been a much bigger scene involving yelling and threats and being found dead in a ravine somewhere and teenage pregnancy statistics. Like Maya would have ever been stupid enough to get pregnant, anyway.

She guessed that dating a girl was a lot less threatening to her parents.

Lucky her.

Maya opened Joaquin’s email.

Hey Grace and Maya,

Sure, that sounds cool. Let’s meet up next weekend? I’m working that day at the arts center, but I’m free after 1 p.m. Cool to meet up with you and talk.

“That’s it?” Maya said as soon as she got Grace on the phone. She was using her parents’ landline. Part of her punishment was the surrender of her phone. She felt like someone in an eighties movie. It was humiliating. “‘Cool to meet up with you’? What does he think this is, a date?”