The Nowhere Girls

  “That is both adorable,” Rosina says, “and a little insane.”

  “I know,” Melissa says. “I kind of love it.”

  “I think cooking was supposed to be my thing with my mom,” Rosina says. “It’s the thing she loves to do, what she’s really good at, and she’s always trying to teach me. But I hate it. I hate Mexican food. I hate Oaxacan food. I hate beans and corn. I hate tortillas. I refuse to go to church, and I like girls, so basically I’m like the worst Mexican daughter ever.” Why does she feel like crying all of a sudden?

  “Probably not the worst,” Melissa says.

  “No?”

  “Maybe the second worst.”

  Rosina smiles. As nervous and full of self-pity as she is, talking with Melissa is so strangely easy.

  “What do your parents do?” Rosina asks. “Like as a job?”

  “My mom’s a kindergarten teacher,” Melissa says.

  “That must be why you’re so nice.”

  “My dad does something with pencils.”

  “Pencils?”

  “Yeah, like the distribution of pencils.”

  “Wow.”

  “He manages a pencil distribution office.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “That’s fascinating.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  They ride the rest of the way to Rosina’s house with grins on their faces.

  It’s been a whole week since cousin Lola took over babysitting duty, but it’s still a shock to Rosina every time she enters her empty, quiet house after school instead of the chaos of her aunt and uncle’s place next door. Despite having not a single shred of faith, she can’t help but say a silent “Thank you, Jesus” as she closes the door behind them.

  There was significantly less bloodshed involved in Rosina getting out of babysitting than she expected. Her aunts didn’t care who did it as long as they were dependable and—most important—free. At least there is one perk of her mother’s silent treatment—Mami didn’t get involved. All it took was Rosina promising to pay Lola fifteen dollars per afternoon to take her place, which is almost all her tips from a night of work, but that is a small price for freedom.

  And right now, what Rosina’s new freedom looks like is Melissa Sanderson standing in her house, unsupervised, the whole afternoon in front of them until Rosina’s shift at the restaurant, when she must pretend like she did not just spend the past couple of hours with the most beautiful girl in the world.

  “Where’s your grandma?” Melissa says. “She’s such a sweetie.”

  “Next door, at my aunt and uncle’s house. My cousin is watching her. Used to be my job, but I quit.”

  “You have a lot of jobs.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year.”

  They stand in the entryway of the house that is identical to the one next door, the living room open on the left, the dining area and kitchen on the right. Their coats are still on, their bags still on their shoulders. Rosina realizes she has no idea what to do. “Um,” Rosina says. “Are you hungry? Do you want something to drink?”

  “I’m okay,” Melissa says, looking at the brightly colored print of la Virgen de Guadalupe hanging above the dining table.

  “Don’t judge me,” Rosina says.

  “About what?”

  “That.”

  “Why would I judge you?” Melissa says. “She’s beautiful.”

  “It’s so . . . Catholic,” Rosina says.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Rosina searches Melissa’s face for a hint of sarcasm. Is she really like this all the time? This open? This positive?

  “They don’t exactly have the highest opinion of people like me,” Rosina says. Or like you? Rosina wants to say. There is so much she wants to say.

  “I’m sure not all Catholics are so closed minded.”

  Rosina shrugs. They are still standing in the same spot with their coats and bags on. “Do you want to watch TV or something?”

  “Can I see your room?” Melissa says.

  Rosina almost chokes. “Sure,” she says. “Yeah.”

  She is leading the most beautiful girl in the world to her room. Rosina should be giddy, excited, all those cliché teenage romantic feelings, but as they climb the narrow stairway to the second floor, her nervous joy is interrupted by thoughts of Erin, how she didn’t raise her hand at the meeting where Grace asked who the virgins were, how she looked so scared, how she shut down, how she keeps shutting down, how she’s full of a pain she refuses to share, how Rosina can’t fix it, how Erin won’t even let her try. And Erin made Rosina ashamed of that, as if wanting to help her was somehow wrong. Rosina would do anything for Erin. Why is that bad?

  Is this what Mami wants Rosina to feel about the family? The kind of selflessness that would make her do anything for them? Can love be the same as duty and obligation, words that make Rosina bristle and want to fight?

  Can love be forced? Can someone be shamed into it? Is it still love if it suffocates you? Is this what Rosina’s doing to Erin? Is she suffocating Erin with her love the way Mami and Rosina’s family suffocate her with theirs? Is that why Erin pushed her away?

  “Wow,” Melissa says. “Your room is so cool.”

  “Thanks,” Rosina says, using every bit of strength to pull herself back into the moment.

  I don’t deserve her, she thinks. I don’t deserve this perfect girl.

  “What are all these bands?” Melissa says. “I don’t recognize any of them.”

  “These are all vintage posters I found at this record store in Eugene,” Rosina says. “Most of these bands don’t exist anymore. They were around in the nineties. This is Bikini Kill. Heavens to Betsy. L7. The Gits. Sleater-Kinney is the best one. I have all their albums. They’re still around too. They didn’t just have the attitude, they’re also really talented musicians.”

  “They all look so . . . fierce,” Melissa says.

  “They are.”

  “Like you.”

  Rosina opens her mouth but no words come out. Melissa smiles.

  “You play guitar?” Melissa’s fingers brush the strings of Rosina’s acoustic leaning against her bed.

  “Yeah,” Rosina says, hoping Melissa didn’t notice her shiver. “I sing, too. I write songs.”

  “I had no idea!”

  “I don’t exactly talk about it all the time.”

  “Why not? It’s so cool.”

  “It’s kind of personal, I guess,” Rosina says.

  Melissa takes off her coat and shoes and sits cross-legged on Rosina’s bed. Rosina says a second silent Thank you, Jesus that she made her bed this morning.

  “Will you play one for me?” Melissa says. “One of your songs?”

  “No,” Rosina says immediately.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve never played them for anyone.”

  “There’s a first for everything,” Melissa says. “You want to play them for people eventually, right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Really? You write songs just to play for yourself?”

  Rosina smiles. Of course not. She writes them to sing at the top of her lungs on a stage in front of an audience of people who adore her.

  “Okay,” Rosina says. “But you have to be nice.”

  “I’m always nice,” Melissa says. Which is true.

  Rosina takes a deep breath, picks up her guitar, and sits on the bed next to Melissa. She starts the quiet fingerpicking of her most recent song. Her whispery vocals come in, with a melody like a lullaby crossed with a funeral dirge, pretty yet heavy, with lyrics alluding to a bird trapped, caged. The single guitar notes slowly build to strumming, Rosina’s voice breaking into a full-bodied wail. Her dark thoughts are released—Mami and Erin, gone. She sings of escape, of flight. The music vibrates inside her. It shakes the room. Her voice, her words, are her wings.

  When she is done, she puts her guitar down and slowly lifts her eyes to Melissa. There is
the look she’s imagined while writing her songs in secret. There is the audience she’s dreamed of every night singing to herself. There is the love, the adoration. In front of her is someone moved to tears.

  “Say something,” Rosina says.

  “I can’t.”

  “It was that bad?”

  “Oh my God, no.” Melissa takes Rosina’s hands in hers. “That was quite possibly the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  Rosina looks away. Her smile takes up the whole room.

  “Why don’t you perform?” Melissa asks. “Why don’t you have a band?”

  Rosina shrugs.

  “That’s crazy. You have to let people hear you. They need to hear you.”

  “Maybe someday,” Rosina says.

  “Someday soon,” Melissa says. “Please.”

  “Okay.”

  Their smiles cannot get any bigger. Melissa’s eyes cannot get any deeper. The space between them shrinks as the rest of the room falls away, until all that exists is this twin bed and these two girls and their strong hearts pounding beautiful in their chests, willing their bodies closer so they can catch each other’s rhythm, so they can beat together, so they can make music.

  Rosina suddenly realizes they’ve been holding hands this whole time, and looks down to see the entwined lattice of their fingers. She thinks this is where she’d normally say something sarcastic, something to diffuse the intensity of the moment, to make Melissa think she doesn’t care, to make her think she’s not quickly turning to jelly, starting where her fingertips rest soft in the palm of Melissa’s hand, up her arm, her chest, her heart, aching a beautiful ache that could turn ugly at any moment. The yearning is so close to pain. It could turn into a monster, a great clawed thing, and jump out of Rosina’s chest, so desperate to hold every piece of this beautiful girl only inches away.

  But Rosina stays silent. She lets the moment last. But she does not look up, cannot look Melissa in the eyes, cannot let her see the blinking neon in her own eyes that will tell her everything Rosina’s too scared to let her know.

  But then a soft touch on Rosina’s chin, a gentle lifting. And then two eyes bright with the same yearning, two lips soft and open, and suddenly the world is too beautiful for Rosina to feel scared.

  GRACE.

  Grace wonders if this is kind of what it feels like to be on a date—nervous and excited, hopeful but slightly wary of the night not living up to her expectations. As she and her mom drive to dinner, thoughts of Jesse Camp creep into her head, how easy and pleasant it was to talk to him that first time at church, then the strangely overblown feeling when she saw him sitting with Ennis Calhoun at lunch, as if he had personally betrayed her, how both feelings tug inside her every time she sees him. Grace wonders how it would feel to go on a date with him, if it was Jesse in the passenger’s seat instead of her mom.

  “So your friend’s family owns this restaurant we’re going to?” Mom says.

  “Rosina’s mom is the head chef,” Grace says. “And Rosina’s working tonight, so you get to meet her.”

  “Oh, good!” Mom says, and she seems genuinely excited. “I can’t wait to meet one of your new friends. And I’ve heard great things about this place.”

  She makes it sound so normal, Grace thinks. One of your new friends. As if it isn’t a miracle.

  Rosina spots them as soon as they set foot in the restaurant. “Gracie!” she calls as she runs over to give her a hug.

  “Gracie?” Grace says. A hug? Something’s wrong with Rosina.

  “Is this your mom?”

  “Hi, Rosina,” Mom says. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

  “So nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Salter,” Rosina says, shaking her hand. “Or should I call you Pastor Salter?”

  “You can call me Robin,” she laughs.

  “Where do you guys want to sit?” Rosina asks. “The booths are comfy.”

  “A booth would be perfect,” Mom says.

  As Rosina leads them to their table, she whispers to Grace, “Guess who just came over to my house after school?”

  “Melissa?”

  “Yes!”

  “You’re like seriously swooning.”

  “I know!”

  “It’s kind of disturbing how happy you are.”

  “My mom’s been yelling at me all night and I totally don’t care!”

  Rosina seats them and takes their drink orders, then dances away.

  “She’s sweet,” Mom says.

  Grace can’t help but laugh at that description. “She’s usually a lot grumpier. But I think she’s in love.”

  “How nice,” Mom says. “What about you, Gracie? Anyone catch your eye?”

  “Ugh,” Grace says. “No.” But maybe she’s lying just a little.

  “It’s okay to date, you know,” Mom says. “I know the culture back in Adeline was a little backward about stuff like that. But I want you to know it’s okay with your dad and me. As long as he treats you right.”

  “Noted,” Grace says, racking her brain to find something to say to change the subject.

  “Or . . . she?” Mom says.

  “He, Mom,” Grace says. “But thanks.”

  “Honey,” Mom says. “Is there anything you want to know? About dating? About . . . being intimate? We can talk about these things, you know.”

  “No,” Grace says. “Thanks. I’m okay.” What she really wants to say is how do you expect me to talk about that stuff when we haven’t really talked about anything lately?

  Rosina returns with a tray of chips and waters in one hand, her other hand tugging the sleeve of a woman behind her who must be her mother. Rosina’s mom is half a foot shorter than Rosina and much plumper around the middle, her black hair up in a tight hairnet-covered bun, her face a mix of hesitance and surprise as Rosina drags her across the restaurant floor.

  “This is my mom,” Rosina announces. “Maria Suarez.”

  Rosina’s mother wipes her hands on her apron and smiles shyly. “I’m happy to meet you,” she says with a girlish voice. This is the evil tyrant Rosina is always complaining about?

  “Hi, Mrs. Suarez,” Grace says. “I’m Grace. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Hello, Grace.” She smiles. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” She seems to genuinely mean it.

  “I’m Grace’s mom, Robin,” Mom says, extending her hand for a shake.

  “Thank you for coming to the restaurant,” Mrs. Suarez says.

  “See, Mami,” Rosina says. “Grace is totally normal and totally a good influence on me.” Both sets of moms and daughters laugh.

  “Rosina is a good influence on me, too,” Grace says.

  “I doubt that,” Mrs. Suarez says, but with a hint of her daughter’s signature sass.

  “Maria!” a man calls from the back of the restaurant.

  “Tío José beckons,” Rosina says, rolling her eyes.

  “I have to return to the kitchen,” Mrs. Suarez says. “It was very nice to meet you, Grace. And Mrs.—?”

  “You can call me Robin.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Robin. I hope you enjoy your meal.”

  Rosina bounces away after her mom, and Grace can’t help but smile, imagining her as a little girl with pigtails, full of the same fire but in a much smaller and less coordinated body.

  “Seems like you’ve settled in pretty well here,” Mom says.

  “Yeah,” Grace says. “I guess I have.”

  “I’m proud of you, honey,” Mom says. “I know things ended kind of badly in Adeline with your friends.”

  Grace feels the sting of sudden tears in her eyes, but she shrugs in feigned indifference.

  “People can be very cruel and closed minded when faced with things they don’t understand.” She pauses and looks down. She smoothes the napkin on her lap. “I want you to know I’m sorry. You suffered because of things I did. That wasn’t fair to you. I wish it could have been different.”

  “You were called,” Grace says. “You
had to answer.”

  “That’s true.” Mom smiles. “But I’m taking you with me, aren’t I? I never asked you if you wanted to come.”

  “I was mad at you for a long time,” Grace says. Something in her body is different. Her bones are harder; her blood is thicker. “But now, I think maybe it happened for a reason. For you, obviously. But for me, too. Those girls weren’t ever really my friends if they could drop me that easily. What happened brought us here. And I think I like it here. I think I’m happy.”

  Grace realizes the truth of these words as they come out of her mouth. As much struggle as she’s had here, as much heartache, she has found something she never had in Adeline, something she never even knew she wanted.

  “Oh, honey,” Mom says. “That makes me so glad.”

  “So thank you, I guess,” Grace says. “For totally destroying my life and making me move across the country to this weird town.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Mom says. She raises her glass. “To us.”

  “To us,” Grace says, raising hers.

  * * *

  Grace and Mom sit on the living room couch, eating mint chip ice cream out of the container.

  “I can’t believe I even have room for this after that dinner,” Mom groans. “It was so good.”

  “Remember, all Salters have a separate dessert stomach,” Grace says. “That stomach is still empty.”

  “Ah, yes,” Mom says. “Right you are.”

  “What should we watch?” Grace says, clicking through the channels.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to watch TV in so long. I don’t even know what shows are on anymore.”

  Grace stops clicking. She blinks. She wonders if she’s hallucinating.

  The title on the screen reads: TROUBLE AT PRESCOTT HIGH SCHOOL.

  “My school’s on the news,” Grace says, turning up the volume.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mom says. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. They interviewed me this morning about all the vandalism that’s been happening and the secret girls’ club—what’s it called?”

  “The Nowhere Girls,” Grace says.

  “That’s right. Do you know anything about it?”

  Grace hesitates. “No,” she lies, and something twists inside her as she does. Why can’t she tell her?