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  Cassidy smiled. All Noeli did was give and give. A thought occurred to her, one she felt naive for never thinking before. What had Noeli thought about the word partner in the article she’d been reading? What did she think about it?

  “Have we talked about middle names?” Noeli asked, interrupting her thinking.

  “I don’t think . . . we have. Hey, where’s Abuela?”

  “Out working in the rose garden.”

  “Ah.” Cassidy took her water back to the couch and Noeli followed, sitting so close that their legs touched. Cassidy looked at Noeli’s ripped black jeans and then at her own maternity leggings, the black stretched so thin, she could see her legs.

  Noeli leaned her head on Cassidy’s shoulder, and her curls tickled Cassidy’s cheek.

  “Theme party?” Cassidy asked, jumping up and causing Noeli to fall slowly sideways. Cassidy had to lean down and grab the coffee table to steady herself—she wasn’t used to her current center of gravity.

  “Always,” Noeli agreed.

  “Although . . .” Cassidy said, reconsidering. “This isn’t going to be fair. Nothing’s going to fit me.”

  “I’ll give you a five-minute head start,” Noeli offered.

  “Okay,” Cassidy agreed. “Theme?”

  “Umm. Hipsters?”

  “Too easy.”

  “Hipsters with superpowers?” Noeli tried.

  “Yes!” Cassidy said.

  “Go!” Noeli yelled, looking at the time on the clock.

  Cassidy wobbled down the hall toward the closet and Noeli laughed.

  “Shut up!” Cassidy’s voice echoed behind her as she reached her room and began rummaging through clothes.

  She felt weirdly competitive about this game, which they’d invented a couple of months earlier. Living with Noeli felt like the best kind of sleepover, Cassidy thought as she pulled clothes from drawers and flung them over her shoulder. The sleepovers from back before the other girls realized she was different and stopped inviting her. Noeli sprinted down the hall past Cassidy’s door, tearing into her own room. Noeli got into the game, too, but she knew how to do it lightly. She’d be so good with the baby, Cassidy thought, picturing Noeli giving piggyback rides and singing silly songs. She threw on an outfit just as Noeli yelled “Time!”

  Cassidy waddled into Noeli’s room and saw her wearing a huge rebozo of her grandmother’s draped around her neck like a giant infinity scarf. An enormous pair of sunglasses gave off a definite raccoon vibe, and she had combed her hair completely over one half of her face. They both cracked up.

  “What’s your superpower?” Cassidy asked.

  “Drinking more pour-over coffee than humanly possible.”

  “Wow,” Cassidy said. “I know we’re having a baby together, but that was a little too much of a dad joke.” She froze, realizing what had come out of her mouth.

  Noeli laughed, unfazed. “Come on! I had five minutes! What’s yours?” She looked at Cassidy’s Modest Mouse shirt and the headband she’d pulled on top of her hair, making the bit above it poof up.

  “Oh, my power?” Cassidy said, trying to sound bored. “You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

  She couldn’t hide her smirk as Noeli cracked up again. “Okay, you definitely win. Where’s the hipsters-with-superpowers party?”

  “You mean you didn’t get the invitation?” Cassidy asked. “It was printed on artisanal recycled bacon.”

  “I get it! You tell better hipster jokes than I do!” Noeli bent her head to unwrap the rebozo from around her neck. When she looked up again, Cassidy was looking at her with wide eyes and a serious mouth.

  “What are we doing?” Cassidy asked. The air-conditioner turned off, leaving the room even more still.

  “What do you mean?” Noeli asked, still smiling. “You really want to find a party?”

  “No.” Cassidy removed the headband and her hair stuck up in awkward wisps. “I mean what are we doing? What is this?”

  Noeli inhaled and lifted her head in a half nod of understanding. Her eyes darted back and forth from one of Cassidy’s to the other. The air suddenly felt stagnant and hot. Outside, a woodpecker tapped an electrical pole.

  “I don’t know,” Noeli said, choosing her words carefully. “Isn’t it okay if it’s a little . . . ambiguous?” She gripped the rebozo tightly, rubbing her fingers over its red-and-orange weave.

  “Is it though? Is it ambiguous?” As Cassidy spoke, Noeli reached out to smooth her hair. Cassidy caught her hand at her head and held on. “I can’t do much more ambiguity.” She sighed. “Everything is ambiguous right now.”

  “That makes sense.” Noeli tapped her thumb on Cassidy’s fingers. “If it makes you feel any better, my feelings haven’t been very ambiguous lately. Are your feelings? Are they ambiguous?”

  “Very,” Cassidy admitted. “But I don’t like it.” But her feelings were growing clearer with every second she looked into Noeli’s eyes. Noeli laughed and Cassidy felt the tap tap tap of her thumb. Her baby responded—a tap tap tap to the right of her navel. “But I want something solid. And stable. I want someone who wants me now, even when I have nothing—even when I’m a mess.” Cassidy felt her breathing sync with Noeli’s as they clasped each other’s hands tighter, waiting for whatever would happen next. She went on. “I want someone I can laugh with. I want someone I can talk to. I feel closer to you than anyone ever. I know you’re always on my team. I love Abuela. I even love your mom.” They both laughed and then returned to their slow, synchronous breathing. “You gave me a home when I had nothing.”

  Noeli dropped Cassidy’s hand and hoisted herself back onto the bed. “Are you attracted to me?” she asked in a low voice.

  Cassidy studied the woman before her with her dark eyes and pale skin, her ringlets, the sharp angles of her cheeks and elbows, and the smooth curves of her breasts and hips under her thin black T-shirt. She imagined what it would feel like to touch these contrasting features—hard and soft.

  “I am.” Noeli bit her lip and the baby kicked harder in Cassidy’s uterus. The bed squeaked as Noeli stretched, then twisted, cracking her back. She twisted the other way and then faced Cassidy. When she reached out her hand, Cassidy took it. They laughed as they struggled to pull her onto the bed.

  Once they’d settled, they looked at each other, their faces no more than a foot apart. Noeli’s skin was almost translucent then, like notebook paper. Cassidy stared at the freckles that dotted her cheeks and nose, barely visible unless you paid attention like this—close. She looked like one of the “Celebrities without Makeup” photos where they all inevitably looked more beautiful somehow—pure and fresh. Cassidy was barely breathing.

  Noeli leaned in to kiss Cassidy then, and Cassidy willed her not to stop. She wanted her nose to brush her freckles, to feel her red painted lips on her own. The moment she did, the moment she felt the sticky lipstick on her own mouth, any questions that remained disappeared.

  It was like buttercream frosting, Cassidy thought, thinking of elaborate cupcakes and thick white sugar. “What if I tell my mom to get on with selling the farm?” she blurted. “What if we use the money to get a place together? Alone.” Noeli tilted her head, her lips still soft and parted. “It could be really ours, and we’d be out of the suburbs and in a Real Place, and we’d both be happy, because we’d be here in SoCal, but we could be in a cool neighborhood and maybe even somewhere we could walk to cool stuff and have a community feeling. I don’t know.” Cassidy knew she was rambling.

  Noeli kissed her again, harder this time. It was almost too good, like a guilty pleasure. Cassidy didn’t know it could be so good.

  Cassidy

  As they ate their cereal the next morning, Noeli brushed her leg against Cassidy’s, giving her goose bumps that rose from the point of contact up the corresponding side of her neck. Noeli’s jokester eyes sparkled with new amusem
ent and Cassidy felt like the world could read it.

  “I always feel the perfect amount of pregnant,” Cassidy mused.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Whatever week I am in my pregnancy, when I see people who aren’t as far, they seem so naive, like they’re barely pregnant. And people further along seem so pregnant. It’s kind of like when you’re a kid and people younger than you seem so little and the ones older than you seem so mature. Like whatever age you are is the only normal age to be.”

  “I still feel like that.” Noeli laughed.

  Rosa shuffled into the room, surprising them both—it was unusually early for an appearance—and the women pulled their legs back under their own chairs like teenagers caught holding hands in the hallway. Rosa rubbed last night’s makeup from her eyes and then paused mid-step to blink at them.

  “Ahhhhh!” she squealed. “Finalmente!” Her hair splayed out from the pink band on top of her head in every direction, like a poorly maintained fountain.

  Cassidy looked to Noeli, who looked as confused as she felt.

  “Finalmente?”

  “You two! Finalmente!”

  “So you’re cool with me being una marimacha now?”

  Rosa’s eyes glittered with the drama. “You’re not una marimacha if you are with this one.” She motioned toward Cassidy.

  Noeli snorted. “Thanks, Mamá. I’m glad it just takes you loving someone else to accept who I am.” Her tone was light.

  Ignoring her, Rosa went to Cassidy. “My grandbaby!” she exclaimed, holding Cassidy’s belly between her hands. Her tank top smelled like stale cigarettes. “Muah, muah!” she pantomimed kissing each side. Standing and turning, she walked to the cabinet, the bottom of each tan butt cheek peeking out from her gray cotton shorts. She rustled around in a box, retrieved a diet protein bar, and retreated back to her room.

  “I really do need to get out of here,” Noeli said through a mouthful of Corn Pops.

  “I was a lot more worried about how she would react,” Cassidy said. “How did she even know?”

  “Una bruja. A witch.” Noeli went back to her cereal, scooping another huge spoonful into her mouth.

  “So are we?” Cassidy paused as Noeli chewed. “Together?”

  “I mean, that’s what that whole conversation was last night, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Cassidy said, and it hung in the air between them, neither sure what to say next.

  Cassidy took a bite of her own cereal and chewed it carefully. She stretched her leg out under the table again, and Noeli resumed caressing it with her own.

  “Have you told your mom you’re going to sell the farm after all? That you want to buy something out here?” Noeli asked, plucking a paper napkin from the green plastic holder between them and dabbing her bare lips.

  Cassidy swallowed. “Not yet. I was totally browsing real estate last night when I couldn’t sleep, though.”

  “Me too,” Noeli admitted.

  The similarity between Noeli’s and Simon’s lives struck Cassidy. Noeli was going to escape her mom and finally live like the grown-up she’d been playing since she was sixteen. And Cassidy would get a real home, one she picked, not one she ended up with due to circumstance or chance or because someone hundreds of years ago plopped a stick in the mud when they got sick of hiking. She thought of the headings on the real estate website: interior features, square footage, neighborhood info, schools. She would carefully weigh the pros and cons, and select the best possible home, consciously and intentionally.

  Noeli brought her bowl to the sink, rinsed it, dried it, and placed it in the metal drying rack. Bending down, she kissed Cassidy softly on the lips, a familiar kiss now, the kind for departures and greetings. Cassidy felt a movement inside like a flower opening. The familiarity was thrilling and the baby responded to whatever hormonal reaction this was, flipping over and over.

  “I’ll see you after work,” Noeli said. She took her lipstick from her bag, applied it, and blew Cassidy another kiss before heading out the door.

  As it clicked shut, Cassidy tried not to think about the day that stretched before her. She should read the childbirth book. She should call her mom. Cassidy rinsed and dried her own bowl. When she turned around, Abuela was in the kitchen, holding on to the table for balance as she slipped her feet into her green rubber gardening clogs.

  “Ayúdame?” she asked. “Snip, snip?” She pantomimed using a large pair of clippers.

  “Sure.” Cassidy put on her own shoes. She tried not to think about how much she hated working in the garden; she figured this was the least she could do for Noeli’s family and all their hospitality. She followed Abuela out the door and watched as she stood on tiptoes to unlock the side gate to the backyard. Two pairs of shears, one large and one small, balanced against the back of the house. Abuela handed Cassidy the large pair and silently, they got to work deadheading roses.

  Cassidy hadn’t gardened since she was ten. Until that age, she’d enjoyed the attention of her mother, who often seemed so far away. In the garden, Paloma was present and patient, teaching Cassidy the names of the plants, how far to space them, how deep to push her finger into the earth for each seed. She showed her how to harvest and chop, which plants stored better in the refrigerator and which in the pantry.

  As puberty brought breasts and a budding awareness that she was different, Cassidy grew more and more self-conscious, and soon the whole thing began to feel like another way her mom maintained perfect control. Paloma did it all so easily while Cassidy struggled. Her rows inched closer and closer together when she planted. When she harvested, she dropped onions and watched them roll away.

  In this little rose-filled yard in Fontana, though, Abuela left things imperfect. Even in the middle of the suburbs, the wild seemed on the verge of intruding—the bushes just this side of unruly. The light smell of fresh petals was overpowered by the dry rotting ones. Pincer bugs crawled up and down stems and bees zipped from flower to flower.

  But what was the point? Why would Abuela come out all the time to prune, to keep the weeds barely at bay, just for more roses to bloom so she had to do it again in a week? It was endless and thankless and . . . and then Cassidy got it.

  Oh. She let the clippers fall to her side. That was the point. She turned to watch Abuela, who was shaping the plants with delicate snips, with perfect care and attention.

  Cassidy felt angry with herself. Of course she hadn’t seen it until she could imagine a trope—the wise old Mexican woman. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from wanting to hear some wisdom in Abuela’s voice.

  “Why do you work so hard?” she asked. “Just to do it again tomorrow?”

  Abuela paused, thinking, and Cassidy waited for her profound response. Finally she shrugged. “I like roses.”

  Cassidy laughed. “Me too.” Abuela was no trope. She was her perfectly Zen self, all love and no judgment.

  Inside, sun-worn and thirsty, Cassidy texted her mom.

  How’s the garden?

  She sat back in the chair and took a long swig of ice water. The baby kicked as the cold reached her stomach. A moment later, when Paloma responded, Still my little corner of our woods for now. Enjoying it while I can, it seemed to Cassidy one of the wisest things she’d ever read.

  I want my own corner, she typed back. She thought of the houses in Redlands, the land behind them. She could build raised beds and plant roses like Abuela’s. I’m ready for you to sell the farm. I want to buy out here.

  Later, when Noeli returned from work, Cassidy tried to explain her revelation. “I got gardening for the first time. It’s about the present moment and enjoying the process,” she gushed. She couldn’t explain it in a way that didn’t sound trite and obvious. “Also, I realized I like roses.”

  Noeli laughed and kissed her on the nose. “I love that you’re spending time with Abuela.”
<
br />   Cassidy called Grandma Jane later that night. “You told me about the first baby, but why did you stay after? You could have left at any time, but you stayed your whole life.”

  Jane

  “Well, darling,” Jane began. It was past midnight, and she felt glad that her granddaughter knew she would be up. “I suppose one thing simply leads to another.” It was true. She could not tell Cassidy anything more about the filthy furnace room. Instead she began her story later, when she’d gone devotedly to her job at the department store. At work, powders were soon out—Jane rubbed subtly shaded creams onto women’s bright cheeks.

  Victory Red lips slowly grew pinker. Movies grew more colorful, tight curls loosened, and cars began to resemble spaceships. It was as if the public wanted to propel itself as far from the war as possible, into a bright, shining future.

  By twenty-three, she’d accepted her status as a spinster. “Oh, I’m perfectly happy without a husband,” she told Mrs. Sharpo as she held out a palette of pinks and waited for the woman to choose.

  “I don’t see how, dear. Although I know you’re still living with your mom and daddy. Myself, I need a man’s—”

  Jane set the creams back on the counter, picked up a tube of lipstick, and began applying it to Mrs. Sharpo’s jabbering mouth in an effort to stop the racket.

  Cassidy laughed at this part of the story. “That’s hilarious,” she said, and Jane smiled at her granddaughter’s amusement. It was funny, Jane knew, because old women talking about sex was funny. Jane didn’t mind being a joke if it meant she heard Cassidy’s sweet laugh.

  “I told Mrs. Sharpo I supposed I’d learned a little about self-sufficiency at the FBI. She was shocked I’d worked for the Bureau and told me they needed people to help with computer punch cards at the hospital—that I was the perfect candidate.”

  Just like at the Armory, Jane had lost herself in work. Though her back ached, and she often dreamed of rows of rectangular holes, she knew she was making a real difference. Jane felt she could spend her life this way.