The Fresh New Face of Griselda

by Jennifer Torres

“It’s no trouble at all,” Mrs. Arong says.

  Mom kisses my forehead. “Have fun!” she says and walks back to Maribel’s car. Mrs. Arong follows me and Sophia into the mall, then tells us we can wander around on our own.

  “I’ll meet you back here in two hours. Don’t forget, Sophia: You need to find a dress for your Rita Moreno costume. Do you have your Living History costume figured out yet, Griselda? Please help Sophia. And please try to find some real food in here—not just junk.”

  We promise.

  But the candy store is our first stop. We each take a cellophane bag and gaze at bins filled with red licorice ropes and rainbow-colored jawbreakers and pastel taffies. “If you weren’t here, Mom wouldn’t let me even look at this stuff,” Sophia says.

  I open a bin of gummy bears and pour just a few into my bag.

  Sophia comes up behind me, snatches the bag, and adds another heaping scoop.

  “But I can’t—”

  “My treat,” she says. “Grandma sent birthday money.”

  Must be nice not having to worry about every penny, I think.

  We stop inside an accessories store next. Sophia tries on a pink fedora and then a sparking rhinestone tiara. I clip an artificial sunflower behind my ear.

  “So cute!” Sophia says. “You should totally get that.”

  I pull out the clip and shake my head. “No. I don’t think so.” Cute isn’t a good enough reason to spend money anymore. At least not for me.

  Just as Sophia predicted, her mom isn’t exactly with us. But she’s never very far behind. I look over my shoulder now and then and, when Mrs. Arong sees me notice her, she turns away as if the nearest window display is the most interesting one she’s ever seen.

  I’m standing outside a department-store changing room where Sophia is finally trying on dresses. I spot Mrs. Arong behind a display of silk scarves.

  Sophia steps out in time to see her, too. “Ugh. I know,” she says. “So annoying. Just ignore her.” She turns to face the mirror. “What do you think of this one?”

  As usual, she doesn’t give me a chance to answer.

  “I mean, I did really want to be an Olympic swimmer, but Rita Moreno turned out to be pretty interesting, too. She’s this actress and singer, and she was the third person ever to win the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards—all four of them. Do you think this is twirly enough?” She spins.

  “I like it. Definitely twirlier than the last one.” If I were the one shopping, it wouldn’t matter which was twirlier, just which one was cheaper.

  “Aren’t you going to try anything on?”

  “Ummm…” There isn’t any point. I found one dress the same daffodil yellow as in Lady Bird Johnson’s portrait, but it costs more than ten lip glosses—at full price.

  I want to get out of here. “Hey, aren’t you hungry?”

  “Yes!” Sophia steps back into the changing room and closes the door. “Let me just pay for this and we’ll go find something to eat.”

  The food court is at the other end of the mall. Mrs. Arong follows us there, always twenty steps behind. We make a slow lap, looking at all the menus and sampling bites of French fry and teriyaki chicken along the way. Once we’ve checked everything out, Sophia orders two slices of cheese pizza and a giant cup of root beer. I settle for a warm pretzel. If it were listed in the Alma catalog, it would have been called Salty as the Sea. After paying with Mom’s money, I grab a packet of mustard and a handful of napkins and sit down at the table where Sophia has already started eating.

  On her wrist, along with the friendship bracelet I made her last year, is a silver bracelet with a dolphin charm. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “That’s so pretty,” I say, pointing. “Is it new?”

  She shakes her wrist and the charm clinks. “Birthday present. And I’m glad you like it because…” She takes a box out of her purse and gives it to me. “Open!”

  Inside is a silver bracelet almost exactly like hers.

  “We match! Sort of. Yours has a rose charm instead of a dolphin. Because of your garden, you know? Don’t you want to put it on?”

  I’m nodding. I’m holding out my wrist. I’m even saying thank you. But all I’m thinking is I have nothing to give her.

  I can’t believe I didn’t bring her anything. I open Maribel’s purse and feel around inside. She always carries makeup—you never know when you might make a sale, after all. I pull out a box of lip gloss. Wicked Stepsister.

  “Almost forgot,” I say, sliding the box across the table. “Happy birthday to you, too. Sorry I, um, didn’t wrap it.”

  Sophia squeals and claps. She opens the box, and the lip gloss, an electric orange-red, drops onto the table.

  “It’s from the Fairytale Collection,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. “No one else at school has it yet. Exclusive.”

  Sophia doesn’t lift her eyes from the table. “Thanks, Geez. It’s… nice.” She puts the lip gloss back in the box.

  I know it’s not a very good gift—not a silver bracelet, or even a bag of her favorite candy—but I don’t think it’s that bad, and anyway, it’s the best I can do.

  “What’s wrong? Do you hate it?”

  “No,” she says, still staring at the box. “It’s just…”

  “What?”

  She finally looks back at me. “It’s like all you care about anymore is lipstick.”

  It isn’t true. I don’t care about lipstick. Or lip gloss. Or any of it. What I care about is having a home with two parents living in it. Like I used to. I miss the feeling of buying new clothes or lunch at the mall without worrying, without even thinking, about how much money it costs. I’m angry about the money I’m losing being at the mall instead of working with Maribel, and I’m angry about having to work with Maribel in the first place.

  Sophia doesn’t know any of this, so of course she can’t understand how I feel. But for some reason that only makes it worse. She will never understand.

  “Well, all you care about are your jelly beans and your dress and spending your mom’s money!” I slam my hands on the table.

  Sophia opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Her cheeks turn bright red and tears pool in the corners of her eyes.

  Oh, geez. I think I might throw up.

  “Sophia, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  Her face crumples, and she really starts crying. She pushes her fast-food tray away from her.

  Mrs. Arong rushes over to the table. “Girls? What’s going on?”

  I look down at my shoes. “Can we leave?”

  “I think we’d better,” Mrs. Arong says.

  Sophia sits in the front seat with her mom instead of in the back with me. I drop my candy bag on the floor mat, next to my feet. Just looking at it makes my stomach hurt all over again.

  Mrs. Arong keeps trying to get us to talk. She asks Sophia about the dress she bought. She asks me how I’m liking Mrs. Ramos-McCaffrey’s class. But when neither of us answers with more than a word or two, she finally gives up and turns on the radio.

  I don’t know what made me snap the way I did. With my forehead pressed against the window, I replay the conversation over and over in my mind. Sophia’s squeaky laugh when I handed her my gift and the way her smile shriveled when she opened it. I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I could crumple up the whole afternoon, toss it in a wastebasket, and start over. I unclasp the charm bracelet and leave it next to me on the seat. She probably wishes she had never given it to me.

  Then I open my eyes and realize, too late to do anything about it, that Mrs. Arong has driven me to the wrong house.

  It would have been the right house six months ago, but not anymore.

  A man and a woman are outside in my garden, pulling weeds. A little girl with yellow pigtails holds a hose up to the strawberries, but mostly just drenches her shoes.

  Parked alongside the curb, Mrs. Arong looks at me in the rearview mirror. “Griselda? Do you have… family visiting?”

  I op
en my mouth and almost say yes. Yes, those are my cousins in the garden. Thanks for the ride. See you later. Goodbye.

  Only, then what? What happens when Mrs. Arong wants to wait at the curb until I make it inside? Or what happens when she drives away and I’m left standing outside a stranger’s house?

  “Griselda?”

  I can’t avoid it anymore. I have to say something. I have to say it out loud.

  I swallow. “We lost the house. It’s not ours. We don’t live here anymore.”

  “You lost…” Mrs. Arong doesn’t understand, and then, suddenly, she does. “Oh, Griselda. Oh, honey. You should have told us.” She’s still looking at me in the rearview mirror, her eyes wider now.

  Sophia unbuckles her seat belt and twists around. “You what?”

  “Sophia—” Mrs. Arong tries to stop her, but she doesn’t have to. It doesn’t matter.

  I look at Sophia and say it again. “We lost the house. We don’t live here anymore.”

  “So where do you live? Are you homeless?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  “Sophia, enough,” Mrs. Arong says. Then quieter, to me, “Well, Griselda, where should we take you?”

  I fling open the door and jump out of the Arongs’ car without saying goodbye. I storm past Mom, who’s outside checking the mailbox, where there’s probably yet another overdue bill.

  From the kitchen window, I see her wave and walk over to the car. Mrs. Arong rolls down her window, reaches out, and takes one of Mom’s hands between both of hers.

  Mom tilts her head. I can’t see her face, but I know her lips are pressed into a sad half-smile. Trust me. This is not as bad as it sounds.

  At school on Monday morning, Logan brings me the bag of candy with the silver bracelet inside.

  “Sophia asked me to give this to you.”

  There’s a note taped to the bag:

  You forgot this in the car. Also, I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t know. You could have told me. Love, Sophia.

  “She’s right,” Logan says. “You could have told us.”

  “But you already know everything.”

  “Not really. Not from you.”

  I decide to find Sophia at lunch and try to explain it all. But when I get to the cafeteria, she’s already sitting with Daisy, and it doesn’t look as if there’s room for me. Instead, I carry my tray over to Kennedy Castro’s table and open up the new Alma catalog.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  So much of what happens in life is out of your control, but how you respond to it is in your control. That’s what I try to remember.

  —HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

  “It’s a guppy.”

  “And I named her after you,” Logan says. “Happy birthday.”

  I had gone to his house to drop off a blue suit coat that used to belong to Grandpa. After watching Logan turn my empty Alma boxes into a home for Magdalena, I thought maybe he could use Grandpa’s old coat to make his Lafayette costume. Nana didn’t mind. She liked the idea.

  “Come in for a minute,” Logan had said, grinning when he answered the door. “I have a surprise for you.” That’s when he unveiled Griselda the Guppy.

  She swims lazily in a shallow dish at the bottom of Magdalena’s aquarium. She has no idea what’s coming.

  “You got me a guppy.”

  “Cool, right?”

  “It’s a guppy that’s about to become snake food.”

  “I know! Look, here comes Magdalena.”

  “Actually, I should get going. Mom made a cake. You could come over?” I stop and start again. “I mean, it would be fun if you could come over and celebrate with us. Do you want to?” It’s the first time I’ve invited him to Nana’s house since we moved in. He must know it, too, but he doesn’t make a big deal about it. I like that about Logan.

  “In a minute. You’re missing the best part, you know.”

  “It’s not the best part if you’re the guppy.”

  “True.”

  “It was nice knowing you, Griselda.”

  When I first see it there, I don’t think there’s anything unusual about Mom’s car being parked on the street in front of Nana’s house. Then I remember who’s been driving Mom’s car. I jump off Logan’s front porch and run to Nana’s yard.

  “Dad?”

  He is standing outside, hands in his pockets, staring at the mint patch. He’s wearing rumpled blue jeans, and his plaid collared shirt is untucked. He holds an arm out for a hug, maybe an invitation, maybe a request. I don’t respond to either.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He drops his arm. “It’s your birthday. Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  Finally, I wrap my arms around his waist. “Of course I am. It’s just that I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “I didn’t want to say anything, in case…” He doesn’t finish his sentence.

  “In case something came up?”

  He crosses his arms and looks away, over at the mint again.

  “Does Mom know you’re here?” I lower my voice. “Does Maribel?”

  Just then, my sister calls out the window, “Are you guys gonna be out there all day or what?”

  Dad sighs. “She knows. They’re all waiting for us. Shall we go inside?”

  Mom and Maribel, Nana and Tía Carla are all in the kitchen. Dad joins them, sitting down at the table with a yawn.

  “So, what do you think of your big surprise?” Mom asks, setting down a cake with twelve unlit candles and a cluster of buttercream roses at the center.

  She stops and looks around.

  “Wait, where’s Logan? Isn’t he coming?”

  “He’s waiting for Magdalena to finish her dinner.”

  Nana shudders.

  “Maybe we should start with presents, then,” Mom suggests.

  Dad stands and retrieves a gift from on top of the kitchen counter.

  I loosen the ribbon and unwrap a new pair of gardening gloves—nice ones with tiny rubber dots on the palms to help with grip.

  I slide my hand into one and open and close my fist. “Thanks,” I say, looking at Mom.

  “I asked your dad to pick them out for you. I haven’t seen any of your old gardening things in a while, and I thought maybe your gloves got lost in… all the confusion.”

  I glance at Maribel. She rolls her eyes, which makes me smile.

  I reach across the table and squeeze Dad’s hand. “Thank you. And thanks for bringing them all this way.”

  Next, Tía Carla gives me a package of hot-pink hair chalk.

  “Tranquila, Sandra, it washes right out,” Tía Carla says as Mom’s eyebrows start to wrinkle and a whine of protest squirms out of her lips.

  “I am calm. I was just going to say, maybe you and Sophia can try it out together, Griselda.”

  “Or you and Logan,” Maribel teases.

  I chuck the gloves at her, but she dodges and they hit the wall.

  Nana gives me a new teacup. Hillary Clinton. Mint green with a sprig of violets.

  Finally, when I’ve finished opening everything else, Maribel reaches behind her back and pulls out a long, slender box.

  “Lip gloss?” I pick it up off the table and shake it.

  “Oh, Geez. Just open it,” Maribel grumbles. “You’re as bad as Nana.”

  Nana swats her playfully on the back of the head.

  I tear apart the paper and open the box. It’s the rose-gold watch, the prize from Maribel’s Alma rewards booklet.

  “I thought you were selling it,” I say, lifting the watch out of the box.

  “Changed my mind. So are you going to wear it, or just look at it?” She reaches over and helps me with the clasp.

  When Logan arrives, they all sing “Happy Birthday.” I blow out my candles and wish the only wish I have anymore: that things go back to the way they were. And with Dad home, it almost feels as though it could come true. Until I remember that he’s leaving again, first thing in the morning.

  Lat
er on, while Mom and Dad wash up, I go outside to walk Logan back home and to water the plants. The mint patch, I notice, has swallowed even more of the yard. We never would have let this happen in the garden back at our old house.

  One morning, the summer after I turned nine, Dad and I got up early, while the air outside was still cool and wet. We mowed the front lawn extra short, then smothered what was left of the grass under newspaper and compost. “We’ll let the sun do the rest,” Dad had said.

  Lying in bed that night, my shoulders all sunburned and achy, I thought about how the grass used to feel, warm and scratchy between my bare toes. Then I thought about how we were killing it, how probably, the sun had already baked it brown and dry. I worried we had made an enormous mistake, one it was too late to fix.

  But the next morning, before he left for work, Dad gave me a pencil and a stack of graph paper from his office. He told me to sketch out some ideas for the new garden we would plant where the lawn used to be.

  On those fresh, blank pages, covered in neat blue squares, every beautiful thing seemed possible. I started with a border of tidy hedges, rosemary and lavender with gray-green leaves and purple flowers. They would smell fresh and bright, a little like pine trees almost, only softer.

  Inside the hedges, I drew planter boxes. In spring, they would be filled with daffodils and tulips, stretching toward the sun. In summer, strawberries would spill over their redwood edges.

  And at the center of it all, I imagined roses, as many colors as we could fit: from pearly-white Snowdrift, to ballet-slipper Kiss Me, to sunny-yellow Midas Touch.

  We planted the roses in September. In June, Mom and I made our first batch of strawberry jam.

  Maybe none of it is mine anymore. But I still have a chance to get at least some of it back. I go to my room to line up another week’s worth of lip gloss.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I was allowed to progress in the business world as fast and as far as I could.

  —FLORENCE HARDING

  All through the rest of November, the contest deadline nags like a rock in my shoe. I can hardly stop thinking about it.