What's Mine and Yours(75)

“I understand perfectly. I know what you need the money for.”

“Your mother and me, we worked it out.”

Noelle picked up the leather jacket, stuffed her face into it, and screamed. Then she flung it to the floor and ripped out of the room. They heard the basement door slam. Robbie picked up the leather jacket, folded it neatly, and set it on the couch.

Margarita was the only one left, and she felt her whole body pulsating. She was furious, but she wasn’t sure with whom—Noelle for being a brat, her mother for leaving them alone with Robbie, or herself for being the last to get a gift.

“And for you, pepita,” Robbie said, “I got half a present.”

Margarita felt herself sink. Of course she would get only half. Of course she was the one who would be forgotten.

“Now, now,” Robbie started. “You know I love all my girls. I love you all the same. But you, Margarita—you’re the one who when I look at, I see myself. I look at you and say, There’s the one who came out like me.”

Robbie opened the box in his hands, lifted out one gold ring, and then another. The first was small, and he pushed it onto Margarita’s ring finger where it spun, so he moved it to her middle finger. It was a signet engraved with an R. He slipped the other ring onto his pinkie; it was engraved with a cursive M.

Margarita held her ring aloft, watched it gleam in the pale light. How had her father known? The way she saw the two of them? The way she saw herself? Noelle and Diane were both so clearly made of their mother, not just in terms of their looks, but in their temperaments. But every time her father left, she fought the feeling that she should have been going with him, that they belonged together. She was his blood, and he was hers. All along, without saying so, he had known.

She went to thank him but couldn’t speak. She felt that she would burst.

“You keep that one,” he said. “And I’ll keep mine. That way no matter where I am, I’ll be with you. That way we’ll always be together.”



After Robbie left, the girls went back to their TV, and Lacey May climbed under the sheets. She didn’t want to talk to Hank, and he huffed around the bedroom, putting on his pajamas, straightening things, until he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

“We could use that money, you know. Your daughters could use it one day.”

“Robbie promised to give me some for the girls.”

“And you believe him?”

“Stay out of it, Hank.”

“I’m your husband.”

“And so was Robbie. I’ve got my business with him, and I’ve got my business with you.”

“You’re going to lose them.”

“Is that right? But if I take Robbie to court and ruin his life, I’ll get to keep them?”

“You’re focusing on all the wrong things. That campaign. Helping Robbie. Your girls need you.”

“That campaign is for the girls! One day, Margarita and Diane will go to that school. I’m doing this for all of them. To protect them.”

“Maybe they don’t need protecting anymore. You got them out. Maybe their futures are already fine.”

“A woman’s future is never fine,” Lacey May said, and left the room.

Margarita and Diane were sitting on the couch, the dog at their feet, as if Robbie had never shown up, and there had been no disturbance at all. They were wearing their new jewelry. Noelle was nowhere to be found, but this time, Lacey May knew not to go looking.

She sat beside her daughters, reached her arm around their shoulders. To her astonishment, they nuzzled close.

On the screen, a flimsy blond girl was throwing men with bloody jowls against brick walls in an alley. The girls leaned toward the glowing set. The blond girl onscreen yanked out a pointy stake from the sleeve of her leather jacket, turned toward her assailants, blew them to dust, one by one. The girls gasped; they clapped. Here, it was plain to see: her girls wanted a hero. How could Hank ever expect her to step away and leave them be?

During commercials, a preview aired of the late-night news. There had been a drive-by shooting on the east side. A house party, a teenage girl struck dead through a window, someone who had nothing to do with the dispute. They showed her picture, the big purple scrunchie in her hair, her face too young. Lacey May sucked her teeth, and shook her head, but before she could say anything out loud about girls at parties, crime in the city, she had an idea. It was fire bright, the kind she’d been needing all along.



At the next rehearsal, Noelle didn’t sit with Gee in the audience. Instead she left the auditorium during the breaks and wandered back in right before Mr. Riley called them to scene. She seemed distracted, missed giving a few cues. Gee wondered what was wrong with her, but she didn’t meet his eyes when he looked in her direction.

Mr. Riley seemed to sense her malaise, the way it penetrated the room, because he cut their rehearsing short and suggested they play an energizer to end. It was a half-hearted round of Zip Zap Zop, and Adira stood next to Gee, whispering in his ear.

“You like her. And if she doesn’t know already, she’ll know soon. You keep staring at her.”

“I don’t date white girls,” Gee said, as if it were policy, although he’d never dated anybody.

“She’s not a white girl. Her last name is Ventura.”