Miss Meteor

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  “Now, you do not have to drink.” The girl with outer-space nails holds up an outer-space-polished finger. “Your participation is not mandatory. But your presence here is. You are hereby part of the sisterhood of unlikelies.”

  A flutter inside me tells me that beauty queens doing shots in a borrowed bedroom is something forbidden, against the rules, like sneaking off school grounds at lunchtime to visit the rock.

  But like sneaking off school grounds at lunchtime, it feels like a rule worth breaking. Between all of us contestants, this is so much like a spell that it lures me. It’s as magic as the sound of the few falling-leaf trees each November.

  I tip back the shot with them, and everyone cheers.

  It goes down hot, like accidentally swallowing mouthwash.

  “How much alcohol is in this?” I ask. I’ve had little bits of wine and mezcal before, but nothing like these layered liqueurs.

  “Don’t worry,” the redhead says. “Five shots or less and you’ll still wake up pretty as Sleeping Beauty, three or less if you’re a lightweight.”

  “And let’s call you a lightweight just to be safe,” Sara tells me.

  Three or less.

  So I take the next one with them, and it tastes not just like mouthwash but like chocolate and mint.

  And the next one, sweet as vanilla and raspberries.

  I slump across the sofa cushion.

  Sara laughs. “Okay, we’re cutting you off.”

  The room turns fuzzy, like seeing pool lights underwater. Or Christmas tree lights through a rain-blurred window on the few nights it rains in Meteor, New Mexico.

  Chicky

  AT LEAST FIFTY people watch as I beat Junior Cortes at beer pong. I take the last shot with my eyes closed, because it’s going to go in. It’s just that kind of night.

  Everything slows down after he drinks his last cup of “beer” and there are people jumping up and down and drunkenly shouting, ribbing him and congratulating me, but it’s all just noise. The only real thing in the room is the way he’s looking at me.

  The way I’m looking back.

  And I feel like maybe finally, finally coming clean—coming out—to Lita has unlocked something in me, something that’s been building for a long time. And that something starts to crystalize, and I feel, in this moment, like maybe I do know Junior. Maybe I’ve finally figured out what I have.

  Maybe it’s time to decide what comes after knowing.

  Even after liking . . .

  “I got next!” shouts one of the twins from the final match, his red jacket unzipped, his hair disheveled. His cheeks are flushed, and he’s drunk, and sure, it would be fun to beat him, but Junior already took care of that.

  “Why would I play you when I already beat him?” I ask, a hand on my hip. “Seems like kind of a step down, doesn’t it?”

  “Oooooh!” goes the crowd, and two high fives are bestowed upon me by people I don’t even know.

  “Wanna get out of here?” I ask Junior, and his new smile has none of the suave, newly popular Junior in it. This one is just for me, and I feel the pull of it, tugging at all the places we’ve tied ourselves together these past five years.

  “For sure,” he says, and I slip my arm into his as we leave the noisy kitchen and all my new fans behind.

  There’s nowhere quiet in the entire Bradley house, and I don’t see Lita and Cole anywhere, but I’m not worried. This is Cole’s turf, and I trust him. And even the knowledge that Lita is here, and she knows who I am, and she’s my friend, makes me feel safe in a way I’ve been missing for five years.

  That safety is what makes me follow when Junior gestures to a sliding-glass door and the dark, velvety night beyond it. It’s a little scary, another new world, but this time I think I’m ready for it.

  There’s a bite of fall in the air out here, and my sweatshirt is still on the kitchen chair. Junior notices before I even react, sliding off his own hoodie and holding it out like one of those guys in movies helping some fancy lady into her coat.

  I let him, and his fingers brush my collarbones as he’s drawing it around me, and it’s nice, the feeling of him being close to me. It’s more than nice.

  “So,” he asks, his smirk on full display even though its edges are softer tonight. “What’s no limit beer pong?”

  “Shut up!” I say. “Like I have any idea! I was just trying to sound cool.”

  “Well, you did,” he says, his smile turning tender.

  “Whatever,” I say, but I’m smiling too.

  “No, I’m serious,” he says, something shifting as he moves a little closer. “You were kind of incredible in there.” We’re in the side yard, and I’m leaning against the house. The only light is coming from inside, and it feels like we’re on our own little planet out here, just the two of us.

  “Had to stop hiding eventually,” I say, feeling suddenly shy at the thought of myself on that chair, shouting without fear like a true Quintanilla sister.

  “I never got why you were hiding in the first place,” he says, and it’s quieter.

  “Maybe the world wasn’t ready for the real Chicky Quintanilla,” I say, like it’s a joke, but he doesn’t laugh.

  “Maybe it was. Maybe it is.”

  I want to want to, kiss him so much, and I swear I almost do, but it feels like everything is moving too fast all of a sudden, and I break eye contact, snuggling deeper into the sweatshirt that smells like him.

  “Junior?” I ask, like there’s anyone else out here.

  “Yeah?”

  “Who would you be, if you could be anyone?”

  He smiles now, and instead of moving closer again, into that space that makes my heart beat funny and my hands get a little shaky, he leans against the wall beside me, our shoulders touching.

  He’s not pushing. He’s keeping his promise.

  The panicky feeling recedes, and I think this is perfect for now. Just this. But maybe I won’t be afraid of what’s next for very much longer.

  While he’s thinking, I notice his shoulders, and the line of his jaw, and the way there’s still a little bit of that awkward middle school boy left in his cheeks. I notice the way he catches every speck of light, how it reflects off the sleek crow-black of his hair until he glows like he can’t possibly be real.

  I’ve never looked at him like this before, and he must feel it, because he looks back—really looks, like he wants to memorize my slightly crooked teeth and the blunt line of my kitchen-scissor haircut and the freckles just a single shade darker than my cinnamon skin.

  “I think,” he begins, not looking away. His breath smells clean and sharp, like I imagine snow on pine trees might. “If I could be absolutely anyone . . .”

  Inside, something—or someone—crashes loudly into something or someone else. The door slides open, and three people run out, giggling into the dark yard.

  The spell we’ve woven in this little quiet corner breaks, but it breaks softly, like there’s something left of it. Our shoulders are still touching.

  “You tell me first,” he says, and in the light from the doorway I think he might be blushing.

  Lita

  FIVE SHOTS IN—well, three for me, since I skipped two rounds on Sara’s advice—the First Timers’ Club spills into the hall and back into the party. We hug each other goodbye until tomorrow, and as Sara calls after me, “Do you want somebody to walk around with? I’m a little worried about you,” I’m already weaving into the crowd.

  First I look for a sink. Bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, I don’t care, I just need to splash some water onto my face to make the world less blurry.

  I wander through a door that I think might be the laundry room.

  It is.

  But a blond girl stands between me and the sink, her shoulders heaving.

  She spins around.

  “Kendra?” I ask.

  Within a second, she recovers, and in the dark room I see her crossing her arms and straightening up.

  “What do you
want?” she asks.

  I take a step into the room. “Are you okay?”

  She shakes her head, which I know is supposed to be her clearing away the crying, but it looks like a no.

  “You know, I was actually kind of impressed,” she says. “How you decided that jackass just wasn’t worth a response.”

  I wobble in the space of the words.

  I am officially drunk.

  Well, check that off the list of Earth experiences.

  I must be drunk.

  Because it sounds like Kendra Kendall just complimented me.

  Just in case I’m right, I say, “Thank you.”

  “People are jerks,” she says, and even under her careless laugh I hear what’s left of her crying. “You know that.”

  I can’t help laughing with her. “Yeah. I do.”

  The laugh drains out of her. “Then why do you want Cole to be like you and Chicky?” she asks.

  Her saying Chicky’s name the way she does, like a brand of clothing she would never be caught wearing, makes me want a throw a capful of detergent on Kendra’s dress. Sure, it wouldn’t do anything but pretreat any drink stains, but the thought of the sticky mess on that pretty patterned fabric is too satisfying not to revel in for a minute. For me. For Chicky. For everyone like us.

  “Think about if you really want him to be the same kind of loser as you,” Kendra says.

  I’m not drunk enough not to get it.

  Hanging around with a girl like me makes things harder for a guy like Cole.

  That word rings back through my head.

  Alien. Alien. Alien . . .

  Kendra eyes me in a way that makes me feel as small as a postage stamp. “Drink some water.” She pushes me out the laundry room door. “You look awful.”

  The world is still blurry and shiny and wobbly as I wander back toward the living room.

  “You seem . . . happy,” Royce Bradley’s voice says.

  I turn around to find the rest of Royce Bradley.

  Royce Bradley, who drove Chicky further into the closet, and me into curling up in a ball on a locker room floor.

  And the guy who, at this moment, thinks I look . . . happy?

  “So you and Kendall, huh?” Royce asks.

  “Huh?” I ask. I don’t mean to echo his last word, but I do.

  “I’m just saying,” Royce says. “If you ever want a real man.”

  A beer bottle rolls across the floor. I try to kick it at Royce’s feet but end up stumbling over it.

  “Excuse me?” I ask.

  “What, do I need to give you an anatomy lesson?” Royce says.

  I know where this is going, and I hate it already. Royce Bradley may the last person on this planet I would ever want an anatomy lesson from.

  Royce puts his hand on my arm. It’s the exact place Cole has touched me probably twenty times. It’s the spot on my arm Chicky grabbed when we were scrambling into the back seat of Junior’s car. I want her grasp, and Cole’s touch, on that spot, not Royce’s.

  But Royce’s grip is hard enough to bury the feeling of their hands.

  My stomach tightens.

  Alien.

  Alien.

  Alien.

  Royce Bradley has no business with my body, and no business commenting on anyone else’s.

  This body I’m in, this short, brown-skinned body, is mine. It’s mine the same way Cole’s body is his.

  I live here, on this planet. Maybe it’s just for now. And maybe I’m made of star-stuff that flew here from light-years away, but I am a girl who stands in this space.

  I am a girl with a body of my own, and three friends who showed me their hearts in the hollow of a crater.

  And I am not letting Royce Bradley talk about any of them like this.

  Whatever I had left in me to withstand being close to Royce, it’s burning up with every second his hand stays on me. And in this moment, I am done. With Royce and his friends thinking they can push around Chicky and Junior and me and everyone like us. With them thinking they can make the kind of jokes they make about Cole and still say they’re his friends.

  “Let go of me, Royce,” I say, my voice steadier than it’s ever been with him.

  Royce gives a grinning nod. “You know I have equipment Kendall doesn’t have.”

  I grab his arm for leverage, as hard as he once grabbed mine, and I knee him right in his equipment.

  The sound Royce makes is the same sound Bruja Lupe’s vacuum cleaner makes when I accidentally trip over the cord and cut the power.

  He stumbles into a side table, but I don’t stay around to watch.

  When I look up, Cole’s in the hallway between the door and the kitchen. He looks like he got there a second earlier, a what-just-happened look on his face. I sink into the relief of knowing he didn’t hear Royce talking.

  On the way to the doorway, I trip, because the world is still blurry and nothing quite stays where it is. I don’t so much fall as melt toward the ground. First I try to stay up and then I don’t; the carpet looks nice, and I think I’d like to lie down on it to see how it feels.

  From here, the lights set into the ceiling look like tiny suns. My classmates stepping around me are giants, and I am a tiny mushroom person looking up at them. I laugh at all of it, light-bulb suns and giants and a mushroom girl growing out of the carpet, and Royce still doubled over, which right now feels like the funniest thing in the world.

  Just as I’m considering whether to flail my limbs and make a carpet angel—I’ve always wanted to make a snow angel, but we don’t get any snow here—I feel Cole’s hand on my arm. The light way his grip lands, the warmth of it, blots out the memory of Royce grabbing onto me.

  “Are you okay?” Cole crouches next to me. “I was looking around for you.”

  “Just beauty queens and beauty shots,” I say. “Or something like that.”

  He laughs, running a hand over his face like he’s trying to wake himself up. “Oh, they’re gonna kill me. They’re actually gonna kill me.”

  “The beauty queens?” I ask.

  “Chicky’s sisters.”

  “No, they won’t, they’re nice,” I say. “They’re nicer than everyone thinks.”

  “Nice goes out the window during pageant week.” Cole offers me his hand. “You know that by now.”

  I’m not done with my carpet angel, but I let him help me up before my classmates trip over my wings.

  I’m still stumbling, so Cole gets me to lean on him.

  “We have got to stop meeting like this,” he says.

  I may be blurry with those three shots, but I still laugh, catching the joke, the memory of me and Cereza pulling him up after I crashed into him.

  Kendra pauses next to us. “Wow.”

  Cole sighs. “Can we forgo your running commentary for once?”

  “Just saying”—she raises her cup like she’s toasting us—“classy girl you’ve got there.”

  Whatever moment of understanding we had a few minutes ago, apparently Kendra threw it down the laundry room sink.

  “You know what?” Cole holds onto me tighter, but I don’t think he knows he’s doing it.

  It feels good for him to hold me that tight. Or it would feel good if I wasn’t so worried about how Kendra is still a giant like everyone else and I’m still a mushroom.

  “You lost your right to review my life a long time ago,” Cole says. “But if you had it, you gave it up the minute you messed with a family’s business. That’s how they make a living, Kendra. I’d think you of all people . . .”

  He stops. Another slow breath. And even though I don’t know what words he almost just said, I think of the red-lettered bills in the Kendalls’ kitchen drawer.

  Kendra should know better.

  “Small towns talk.” Kendra gives a delicate shrug. “I might have said a few things. What everyone did with them isn’t my fault.”

  “You got in everyone’s head. It’s what you do.”

  Kendra tosses her curling-i
ron curls, and I can see the gesture covering up a flinch.

  A flinch that makes her and Cole into a sister and brother who look more alike than I’ve ever noticed.

  “I have done nothing but support you, Cole,” she says.

  “Your medal’s in the mail,” Cole says. “You don’t get a free pass on all the other shit you do to try to make everyone around you smaller than you.”

  Smaller than you.

  I wonder if he’s ever been on the floor, too, feeling as small as a mushroom.

  “You can’t keep using me, Kendra,” Cole says. “I’m not some prop to make your point. I’m not here to make your life a better story.”

  The feeling of Cole’s arm around my waist drifts, like we are touching each other underwater.

  “You have no idea what I do for you,” Kendra says. “Do you know how many times I’ve explained who you are to anyone who asks? For like three years I was the Cole encyclopedia. And any time anyone asked, I always answered so you didn’t have to.”

  “Yeah, you answered in the same breath you were calling someone else a dyke,” Cole said. “Why am I the exception, Kendra? How the hell would you treat me if I wasn’t your brother?”

  I couldn’t talk right now if I wanted to.

  He just said it. He actually said the thing I’ve been wondering about Kendra and Cole for years.

  How would you treat me if I wasn’t your brother?

  Kendra looks away, pursing her lips. I wish I didn’t see the shininess in her eyes, but I do.

  “You wanna talk to everyone about me so I won’t,” Cole says.

  “Because every time you make a joke about the kind of stuff you do, it just makes people uncomfortable,” Kendra says.

  “The kind of stuff I do?” he asks. “You mean like packing?” He hits the last word as loudly as if he were making an announcement to the room. “Everybody hear that?” Now he really is. “Packing. We’re talking about packing.”

  He almost sings out the word, and I try not to laugh. Especially not now that I know what it means.

  It has nothing to do with going on a trip.

  Looking it up left my cheeks flushed enough that Bruja Lupe asked what I was doing. I made something up about a school project on desert moths and then went to take a shower.