Far from the Tree(22)

Joaquin sat up a little straighter. Grace’s posture was making him feel like a slouch. “Do you not want burgers?” he said. “There’s a burrito place across the street, or . . . ?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” she said. There was a steeliness in Grace’s smile, like it had been forged in a fire. Joaquin could respect that. He also knew not to ask about it.

“I just meant that it’s strange, that’s all,” she continued as Maya came back, holding napkins under her arm and a bunch of tiny paper cups filled with condiments in her hands. “I feel like I should know what to say, but I don’t.”

“I know,” Joaquin said. Maya plopped down on his other side with a sigh, then tucked one of her legs under her. “I, um, I actually Googled,” he admitted.

“Did you really?” Maya giggled. “Me, too.”

Joaquin was pretty sure their Google searches had looked a little different, but he didn’t say anything.

What’s it like to have sisters?

Will my sisters hate me?

Will I hate my sisters?

How does it feel when someone is your sister?

Why did someone want my sisters instead of me?

How do you talk to your sisters so they like you?

“Yeah, Google was pretty useless in that regard,” Maya said as she arranged her condiments in front of her.

“Hey,” Joaquin said, pointing at them. “You got mayonnaise. You got two of them.”

“Oh, I know, it’s gross,” Maya said. “Everyone in my family always makes fun of me for it, but I love mayonnaise for my fries. It’s weird because I hate mayonnaise on everything else, but—”

“No, that’s not—I like mayonnaise on my fries, too,” Joaquin said. It was hard to interrupt Maya. She talked like a run-on sentence, no pauses or periods.

“No way,” Maya said.

“Me, too,” Grace piped up. “It’s my favorite. My parents think it’s disgusting.”

There was a quiet space after that, the three of them looking at one another before Maya broke into a huge smile. “We’re bonding!” she said. “Over condiments!”

“It’s a start,” Joaquin replied, and Grace got up to get more mayonnaise cups for all of them.

It was simpler once the food came and they could eat instead of talk. Joaquin still had no idea what to say, but they were easy to listen to, chirping to each other about families and school. He mostly just nodded.

“Ugh, I have to go back to school on Monday,” Grace said, using two fries like chopsticks to pick up a piece of pickle.

“Were you on break or something?” Joaquin asked. He was also really good at asking open questions, making other people talk about themselves so he wouldn’t have to say anything about himself. His therapist called it a coping skill, but Joaquin just thought it was polite. They agreed to disagree on that one.

Grace’s face became one big “Oh no!” Like something had slipped past the drawbridge at the castle, but then her forehead smoothed out. “I was out for over a month,” she said. “Mono.”

“Lucky,” Maya said. “I’d kill for a month out of school.”

“Yeah, super lucky,” Grace said. “It was just like going to Hawaii.”

Maya rolled her eyes. Joaquin couldn’t believe how easy it was for them already. It was like they had a rhythm. Maybe it was because they were girls? Or maybe it was because there was something broken in him, something that everyone could see except him and—

His therapist called that negative thinking. Joaquin thought that was a pretty obvious term.

“Well, I’d still kill for a month off.” Maya shrugged. “School’s the worst. I mean, the only saving grace is that my girlfriend goes there.”

Joaquin knew his cue.

“How long have you been dating?” he asked. He could tell that Maya was ready for a fight about it, but she wasn’t going to get one from him.

“Around six months,” she said, shrugging a little even as her cheeks flushed.

“And your parents are . . .” Joaquin swirled what was left of his Coke in his cup. “You know, they’re cool with it?”

Maya sat up a little straighter. “Oh. Oh, yeah, they’re totally fine with it. It’s, like, made them the cool parents in our neighborhood.”

“One of my favorite foster sisters ever was gay,” Joaquin said. “We did time together for about six months in this one placement, but then our foster mom found out that she was gay so she kicked her out and took her back to the agency.”

Maya looked smaller in her seat. “Because she was gay?”

Joaquin nodded, suddenly aware that he had maybe picked the wrong anecdote to tell Maya. “She was cool, though,” he said. “I still miss her. Meeka. She left her iPod behind and I still listen to it sometimes. Good playlists. She wanted to be a DJ.”

Maya just nodded, her eyes round like pennies. “Oh. Cool.”

“Tell Joaquin how you and Claire met.” Grace said, and Joaquin turned back to his drink.

He could see Maya’s cheeks flush as she talked about Claire, the way she bit her lip and smiled almost to herself, even though the restaurant was packed and Joaquin and Grace were sitting right there. He wondered if he had looked that goofy, that sappy, when he talked about Birdie. “Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Mark had said to him the night after his and Birdie’s first official date (they’d gone to the movies and then gotten frozen yogurt afterward), and Joaquin had wondered how Mark knew because he hadn’t even said anything.