“So, Bonita,” I said in a tone I hoped was passing for casual, “have you found a new subject for your next documentary?”
“I keep telling her,” Guillermo butted in, “the rise of a kickboxing champion.”
Bonita looked him off with a quick dart of her eyes and a pinched brow. “Actually, I may have.”
I waited for her to elaborate, but she left me waiting. Bonita, always kept me waiting. “And?” I said. “Don’t leave me in suspense.”
“A short suspense is the length of,” Guillermo butted in again. But since everyone ignored him, he abandoned his sentence and went back to working on his carne molida.
“I’m still in the early stages. Doing some research. Nothing concrete, exactly.”
I opened my mouth to ask a follow-up, but Mr. Morales beat me to it. “How’s the training coming along?” He looked at me and pointed with his fork. “He still dropping his guard when he kicks?”
“The only thing I’m dropping,” said Guillermo, “is precision blows.” He gave the air a quick one-two combination.
“Not at the table, Guillermo,” said Mrs. Morales.
“I say,” continued Mr. Morales, “we sure do appreciate you helping him out like you’ve been doing.”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s my pleasure.” I stole a glance at Bonita.
She saw me. I wanted her to. The pleasure I was talking about was meant for her. I tensed again at the thought that probably she’d picked up on that.
“After the tournament,” said Mr. Morales, “maybe Guillermo can help you out for a change. Have him lie on the couch. Does a social psychologist need a guinea pig or something to practice on?”
“Dad,” said Bonita. And she shook her head. She was a year younger than me, but sometimes she’d acted like my big sister, protecting me from Mr. Morales’s ribbing.
It was sweet, but I didn’t want her to protect me. I wanted to protect her, silence her parents with a stern glare when they tried to tell her what to do and what not to do. Hell, I wanted to fly into the sky, grab the sun and throw it far, far away so it would stop hurting her.
“Maybe you could work on Bonita,” said Mr. Morales. “There’d be a lot of social psychology to do with her, I bet.”
Guillermo almost choked on his food.
“Dad,” said Bonita, “you don’t even know what social psychology is.”
“Sure I do.”
“Okay. What is it?”
All eyes were on him, poor guy. He looked at me for help, but I just smiled. You got yourself into this. You’ll have to get yourself out.
He waved his arms, open palms out. “He figures things out about the mind. Helps people out.”
We had to concede that was a sufficient enough definition—better than I expected, at least.
Yeah, Mr. Morales, I thought, I’d like to have her lie on my couch. And I could help her out, help her out of her clothes.
3
Bonita
Apparently, some people find walking and chewing gum at the same time quite challenging. Try holding down a conversation with a dad who doesn’t listen, keep him from embarrassing your friend, focus on not saying the wrong thing in front of your perfectionist mother, and eat your lunch. All the while, there’s probably a message waiting in your inbox to tell you whether or not your documentary has been selected for the festival, and you have to stay calm and collected until lunch is over before you can run up to your room to find out.
Of course, I didn’t run up to my room straight after lunch. I volunteered to do the dishes. I thought that might help calm my nerves, get me into a Zen mindset before I faced the fate of the film I’d spent nearly six months on. My plan backfired, but in a good way, I supposed.
Noah offered to help me clean up: an offer I gladly accepted. Luckily, and quite unusual for my family, everyone went off on their own way and left us alone. Noah tried to make small talk. I could barely register what he was saying. All I could think about was my film. What if it actually were accepted? What if it played at the festival and, who knew, maybe even won an award? What if they hadn’t gotten back to me like they said they would? They’d received so many submissions; maybe they’d simply forgotten about mine.
Noah could tell I was distracted, more than usual. He had a way of cutting through my façade and seeing that there was something more bubbling inside me. He knew I’d made a film about my life with solar urticaria, but he didn’t know I’d submitted it to a film festival. Greta was the only one I’d told. In case it wasn’t accepted, I didn’t want to have to tell everyone I’d gotten rejected. But as we stood there at the sink, me washing the dishes and Noah drying them and putting them away, he asked me what was on my mind, and I told him.