The Mirror Season: "No Good Deed"–"Notice"

A pretty boy (her words) who can’t be older than thirty, dressed in better suits than any school administrator could ever afford, he is a walking anti-advertisement for nepotism. We still don’t know whose nephew he is, but we do know that Mrs. Anders—Louise, as Principal Whitcomb likes calling her—would’ve been a better pick twice over.

I am overdoing neither my remorse nor my indignation.

The disciplinary code at Astin is unofficially based on who the school wants to come down hard on and whose transgressions they want to make disappear.

“Speaking of drowning”—I open a few wax sleeves while the men read off the placards in horrible Spanish pronunciation and the women wobble on their heels—“how’s class?”

The hierbas in little clay pots on the windowsill, the cilantro and pápalo and rue, each have a sprig of leaves that have turned to mirrored glass.

“You won’t be suspended. This won’t go on your record. But it sounds like Whitcomb’s got some painful penance in store for you and that boy.”

“Art installation gone wrong. It was a thing I was doing with some of Jess’s friends.” Sorry, Jess, but invoking your name instantly puts mothers at ease, especially mine.

“But I need you to sign this form saying you understand my depraved soul is in danger if I continue on this path.”

My mother goes to the garage, and I steal the sprigs of mirrored leaves so fast they cut my hands.

Dr. Emmott is out in his own front yard, near where his property meets the Peterses’ but not daring to set his foot over the line. A line which is exceedingly obvious since Dr. Emmott has a front yard full of stones and low desert plants, an unintentional indictment of the Peterses’ plush, water-sucking sod.

I don’t realize Dr. Emmott sees me until he casts me and my dad a forlorn smile across the street. It’s a look of run, save yourself.

The Gift You Can Only Give Once.
Of course Lock and I get stuck with the abstinence-only brochures.

To him, there’s no nuance, no use explaining that I’ve gone out with girls and boys, and even less use explaining that I’ve gone out with people whose identities are more complex than either of those words.

The acid taste of bile reaches up my throat.

The air around me feels stagnant, heavy.

With one flick of a cake spatula, I smooth the words into a green blur. I’ll pretend frosting gradients are my new signature flourish.

I look up, disconcerted to see a blurred image of my own face.

“Sexual education,” my tía says in the inexplicably posh British accent she uses for all Astin-related topics. “Yes, we must enlighten the youth, mustn’t we?”

“If only”—my tía leans wistfully against the metal counter—“you had something that could make your dear principal as uncomfortable as he’s making you.”

He gives me a wry, weary smile, an of course smile.

But now he sounds less exasperated and more amused.

“But what are you going to say if he accuses you of bringing lewd art to the school, or some other violation of the student handbook I don’t know about?”

He dips his head like he’s conceding a point in a duel.

The next morning, I know which customers should bring bisquetes to their estranged siblings and secret loves.

The echo reverberates through both of us.

“I don’t remember much about that night.”
I hate myself for it, but just for a second, I envy him, the oblivion, the not knowing.

He studies his burrito as intently as my tía does when she’s figuring out what spices are in something, but I can tell he’s doing it so he doesn’t look at me.

I use a fork because I never liked getting lipstick on the tortilla. It seemed like sacrilege to both color and burrito.

He goes with me through the wild grass, the green gilded with last light.

A lot of tourists’ daughters, a few locals, even a handful of girls from school show up in vintage lace and tulle they’ve either borrowed from their grandmothers or bought to look like it.

“They’re also really tolerant of disturbance. The trains don’t use this bridge anymore, but even if they did, the swallows would still nest under here. They’ll nest in highway culverts. They’re shockingly unbothered by human activity.”

“There’s a city ordinance that doesn’t allow the removal of healthy, functioning trees without a hearing.”

She unfurls a strapless dress with a full, tea-length skirt.

“Do you love it?” my mother says with the gravitas of one of her telenovela stars.

Every day growing up, I came home to a family where hips and thighs meant health and beauty, and it saved me from thinking there was something immodest and shameful about my body.