The Way You Make Me Feel(66)

She rolled over onto her side to look at me. “Right? I’m so glad you made it, meu bem.” When my mom wasn’t around her posse, she used Portuguese mom-expressions like “meu bem.”

“Me too.” And I was.

“How’s everything going, then?” she asked, taking a sip.

I shrugged. “Fine.”

“Really? Then how come Adrian was totally panicked when he called me yesterday?”

My head swiveled toward her. “What! You told me…”

“Girl. I was lying. Where do you think you get your skills from?” She flipped her hair to punctuate the point.

I shook my head. “Of course.” The sky darkened, and someone lit the tiki torches around us. “Well, I kind of … left without telling Pai.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you pay for your ticket?” Incredulity made her eyes huge.

Picking at the lemon yellow cushion on my chair, I took my time answering. “I know Pai’s credit card number by heart.”

“Meu Deus,” she breathed, making the sign of the cross on herself. “I can’t believe you’re still alive.”

“I know. It was … impulsive.”

“Ya think?” she said with an exaggerated American accent. “What made you do it? You wanted to come here that badly? I could have convinced your dad!”

Someone came by to offer us mango slices. We dutifully took some. So delicious, it hurt. After chewing, I responded, “Well, see, I entered the KoBra in a food truck competition. It was supposed to be a surprise for Pai because the reward is one hundred thousand dollars.” M?e whistled. “Yeah. Exactly. But then Rose accidentally told him about it—”

“Who’s Rose?”

I exhaled impatiently. “My friend from school who had to work with me on the truck.”

“Wait, your friend? Adrian told me you guys got into a huge fight and that’s why you had to work on the truck in the first place?”

My hand fluttered between us. “Yeah, we hated each other, but it’s cool now. Anyway. She told him about the contest, and he freaked out and got mad. At me!” I looked to her for confirmation on how horribly unfair it was.

She frowned. “Why?”

“I have no clue! I mean, he was in a bad mood because an investor backed out for his restaurant.”

“Clara.” My mom looked at me with exasperation. “Maybe he was just in a bad mood, and it wasn’t the right time to tell him the news about the contest?”

I ate another slice of mango. “Maybe. Either way, he got mad and that made me mad.” Suddenly my words sounded absurd coming out of my mouth. The monumentalness of my dad’s offense became so small as I sat here on a beach in Tulum. I tried to figure out why, at the time, it felt so big. “It made me mad because … I finally cared about this stupid truck. And I was trying to help—that money could be the final piece he needs to open his dream restaurant! And, and…”

“You were disappointed?” my mom asked. She was stirring her coconut water, the question casual. Perfunctory, even. But it zeroed in on everything.

The ocean and sky were the same color now. I stared at the reflection of the moon on the water. “Yeah. I was disappointed.” And it was the first time I had been that thoroughly disappointed. It’s easy not to be disappointed when you’re always wading in the shallow end of feelings. Patrick and Felix never disappointed me. I glanced at my mom.

Neither did she.

“Hey, so your dad also told me you were dating someone new?”

The subject change caught me off guard. “Oh. Yeah … I mean, I was? I’m not sure what the deal is now. I fought with him, too, before I left,” I said sheepishly.

“Wow, Clara. Burning everything down,” she said, spraying herself with some mosquito repellent. “What’s his deal?”

Hm, Hamlet’s deal. How to explain this guy? “Well, he works at this coffee kiosk at one of our stops. Which he doesn’t really have to do because his parents are rich. Like, they own skyscrapers in China rich.” My mom nodded knowingly. I’m sure she knew every variety of wealth in her line of work. I continued, “He was born in Beijing and moved to LA when he was little, but his parents moved back for work, so he lives with some family friends. They’re cool. And he goes to a different school but is the same grade as me. And … that’s where our similarities end.” I had to laugh.

“What does he look like? Is he cute?” Right down to business, my mother.

“He’s your basic … hot.”

“Basic hot?”

I squinted. “No, he’s more than that. I mean, he’s definitely hot. But there’s nothing basic about him.” I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat talking about him. A buildup of guilt, remorse, and missing. “He’s driven and kind. A boxer.”

“Ooh.”

“Yeah. There’s a lot of ‘ooh.’”

My mom whipped her phone out. “Can I find him on your Insta?”

“Yeah. He’s there.”

I craned my neck to watch as she scrolled through my feed. “Oh!” she exclaimed, pointing to a photo of him holding Flo up like a prize fish. “Is that him?”