The Way You Make Me Feel(26)

Rose wiped her brow and adjusted the little oscillating fan so that it was aimed directly at her face. “Are you being a jerk?”

I pulled my shirt away from my chest, airing it out a little. “No, for once in my life, I’m being sincere. Your family is pretty cool to show up. Plus, Jessie’s rad.”

“Jessie can be ‘rad’ when he’s not being a little know-it-all.”

“Pardon me?” I held my hand up to my ear. “Did … did you call someone a know-it-all?”

Rose tossed an ice cube into her mouth and crunched it, making me cringe. “Believe it or not, I am not the worst in my family. Know-it-allness is a shared trait among the Carvers.”

“Well, you definitely seem like a family of total brains.”

She crunched the ice again, making my arm hairs stand on end. “Let me just say this one thing to explain the Carvers: we have a weekly dinner pop quiz.”

I stopped fanning myself with my shirt. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. About the week’s news, like Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” She noticed my blank expression. “It’s a weekly quiz show on NPR.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, yeah. Every Friday evening, we invite some person over, like a city council member or teacher or something, and we do the quiz with my parents as the hosts.”

I snorted. “Wild Friday nights with the Carvers.”

She laughed. “I mean, I know how it sounds. But I actually like hanging out with my family.” Her fondness was apparent in how she perked up when talking about them. Again, I felt a pang of curious jealousy. Rose’s family kind of seemed like my worst nightmare. Or maybe it was the worst nightmare in some narrative about myself that I wasn’t sure was totally accurate.

Another ice cube crunched in her mouth and I pointed at her. “Don’t! That sound is the worst thing in the entire world.”

Rose rolled her eyes but tucked the ice cube into her cheek so that it bulged out. “Well, I’m sure my family seems super boring compared to your like, cool-dad life.”

I made a face and fanned myself with a napkin. “Cool-dad life, oh my God.”

“It’s true! Your dad is so awesome.”

“Please don’t get a crush on him.”

Her mouth dropped open slightly. “I won’t!”

“Good.” I took another sip of water.

Her eyes lit up. “Hey! Also, not to be a creep, but I found your mom online through the truck’s Instagram account. What is her life?”

Whenever people found out about my mom, I wasn’t sure what to feel—pride? Embarrassment? In most cases, I feigned ambivalence. So I shrugged. “Oh, she’s a social media influencer. Or something.”

Rose mulled that over. “That’s her job?”

“I guess.”

“How do you get a job doing … that?”

The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Extreme narcissism.”

Her eyes widened in surprise and I laughed loudly. “Just kidding. She’s really good at social media. And looking good in clothes. And…”

“Having good taste?” Rose ventured. I looked at her sharply for signs of sarcasm, but she seemed genuine. A sly expression crossed her face. “I mean, she must. She hooked up with your dad.”

“ROSE!”

She cackled and the awkwardness quickly dissipated. I fanned myself with a paper plate and asked, “Are both your parents lawyers? I forget.”

She nodded. “Yeah. My dad has his own law firm. My mom’s a prosecutor. She got kind of big a few years ago when—”

“That police-beating case.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “Wow. You know about that?”

“It was all over the news, hello.”

“Says the girl who hates NPR.”

“I didn’t say I hated NPR. It just doesn’t exactly pump me up for work.”

She smiled. “Okay, whatever. Anyway. My mom became this community figure. She got to meet Michelle Obama.”

“I’m not even kidding, that’s a life dream of mine,” I said, my voice high with excitement.

“You and every human being who isn’t garbage,” she said. “Anyway, so that’s my mom. She was on the cover of magazines; people wanted to interview her. And then there’s me.”

I frowned. “What about you? You’re basically Joanne Jr.”

She shook her head firmly. “I wish.”

“Whoa. Rose Carver doesn’t think she’s good enough? What are the rest of us subpar humans supposed to do now? Might as well give up and jump off a cliff.”

She crossed her arms. “I’m serious.”

“So am I! You’re basically on track to become the president of the United States of America.”

I could tell she was pleased by that for a second. “The point is that there’s a lot of pressure on black girls to be better than everyone else anyway. And then add to that the fact that my mom is who she is. You don’t even know how aware I am of how I look and act all the time. I don’t have the luxury of rolling out of bed and acting like a little jerk like you do every day.”

“Thanks.”

“You know what I mean. Like, I can’t just run errands wearing cruddy sweatpants and not do my hair.”