I put my hands up. “TMI.”
“As soon as this quarter’s grades come in on Friday, we hope to finally be released from Dating Jail.” Leo grabs another handful of rice crackers and crams them in his mouth. “Maybe all four of us could do something over spring break, like play miniature golf. If you and Alex are getting serious, then he should know that your awesome BFF is part of the package deal.”
I scoff. “He knows. But I would like it if you guys could be friends too.”
I’m thankful that Aurora returns before Leo can cement a date for what will undoubtedly be the most awkward double date in history. Aurora pulls the sketches back to her side of the table. She rearranges the order, still putting the icy blue one first.
“Not that one. You’re going to see Koty’s banged-up legs.” Leo moves the icy blue one to the fifth-place slot.
“Stop riding your skateboard until after the party.” Aurora moves the icy blue one back to the first-place slot.
“It’s not from skateboarding. My knees are bruised from laying tile in the build’s downstairs bathroom with Dad. He can do it for about fifteen minutes while the cameras are rolling, but it’s too hard on his knees for much longer than that. Dad won’t let anybody else do it, so he’s micromanaging me through the process. On the plus side, if Ojiichan buys me a few matching tiles, I can replace the cracked ones in the restaurant’s bathroom. I am now Koty, Queen of Tiles.”
“Hmm, Ojiichan’s seventieth birthday is coming up soon.” Leo taps his chin with his index finger. “Maybe we could surprise him. And by we, I mean you because Aurora and I have no building skills.”
“Because our dad never has time to teach us any.” Aurora waves her phone at us. “Speaking of Dad, he said to tell you the romance writers are coming in tonight.”
“He couldn’t poke his head out the kitchen door and tell me that?” Leo says and then puts on a cranky-old-man voice. “Kids these days. Always on their phones.”
“You know that phone is his baby,” Aurora says.
“Yeah, he deserves it. Dad is the most overqualified dishwasher in Phoenix.”
“Your dad gave up a lot to keep Ojiichan’s dream going,” I add.
“Well, I hope he doesn’t expect to hand the Matsuda torch to me, because I’m moving to New Hampshire full-time come August, even if I have to get a second part-time job on top of my work-study one. Besides, being Favorite Matsuda Child is Leo’s job.” Aurora stands up and looks at the sketches one more time. She pulls out the middle one—the long, rose-gold one—and holds it up next to me. “This one. This one is all Koty.”
Leo grumbles as Aurora walks away, already on her phone to Jayden, no doubt. “I’m Favorite Matsuda Child because Sasha is gone, and Aurora sets the bar so low I could trip over it and still be the favorite.”
“She does have a point.” I lower my voice. “I know it’s not my business—but keeping it real—I’ve overheard our dads talking in the man cave. About what happens after you leave for college too.”
“No pressure or anything.” Leo sits back in the booth. He puffs out his cheeks and blows out a frustrated sigh. “And then there’s the whole Number One Son thing. Before you go off on me about the patriarchy, it’s a Japanese thing, not an American thing.”
“Yeah, not changing my mind.”
“Agreed, but all three of us are Number One Sons. There is a lot of Japanese-style baggage that comes with that, even when your mom is a white American. Which means at some point I’m going to have to make a difficult decision about the future of Matsuda. But not today.” Leo nods at the front door as a party of five comes in. “Today, I need to focus on making that last Japan trip payment.”
“Speaking of difficult, you’re going to have to let your parents know about the trip sometime. You can’t just dip for three weeks this July and hope they don’t notice you’re gone.”
“I don’t know. That works for me,” Leo jokes as he slides to his feet. “Again, if I can’t make the final installment, it doesn’t matter anyway. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Leo, that is not a good plan.”
As Leo flits off to take care of customers, I look at the sketches one last time. The purple one is fun, a little sassy, and—Leo’s right—not me at all. Nevaeh encouraged me to push my fashion boundaries for this event. Though I agree about not going with the safest choice, I’m not sure a dress with a slit way up one side is right for me either, especially on TV. I don’t need any more memes created about my social gaffes. Thanks.
When Leo passes by my booth with his customer’s order ticket, he stops for a second to pull the rose-gold one back to the top.
“You’d look pretty in this one. Very princess-y,” Leo says, tapping it with his middle finger. The same finger that flicks me in the arm after the compliment.
I look at the rose-gold gown. The neckline is a little lower than I would normally like, but some of Stephanie’s magic tape will keep the fabric securely attached to my skin. The bottom part flows out wide, but it doesn’t have a train for Alex to trip on. I could pull this dress off, especially if I pile up my hair like the model in the sketch and add a tiara for some extra bling. Nevaeh made me promise that there will be some tiara action happening because, “Come on, how many times is a tiara appropriate in your everyday life?” For normal people, that is. Nevaeh’s hoping that my tiara will start a new trend at school, especially as tiaras are not officially banned headgear. Yet.
I pull out my phone and take a picture of the rose-gold dress. I text it to Mom and Stephanie at the same time.
ME
Order this one from Starr please.
STEPHANIE
Perfect choice, IMO. Next up: shoes! I’ll start a new file for you ASAP.
ME
Uggggggh. Start a tiara file too please.
STEPHANIE
You got it!
After all, I did promise Aurora that this party would be ridiculous, like only the McDonalds know how to do ridiculous.
Chapter
24
With the amount of negotiating I’m required to do just to go to Alex’s Senior Night baseball game, I should work for the State Department.
“It’s one high school baseball game,” I argue with my parents. Again.
“Please? It’s Senior Night,” Alex says as we all crowd in the kitchen after Alex’s and my latest dance rehearsal. I even ditched the work boots for two-inch heels to practice in tonight. I am working my way up to three inches. Progress!
“Maybe, but you absolutely cannot go to a party afterward. Whether there are parents there or not,” Mom says.
“Mom!”
“Honey, I know you think we are being unreasonable about this, but we just want to protect you.” Dad throws an arm around my shoulders. “It’s not like asking to hang out with the Matsudas. You’re fair game out in the bigger world. We don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Yeah, but not ever facing that potential danger hurts too. And since I started dating, now I see how much I’ve been missing out on.”
“We know, Dakota.” Mom shares a pointed look with Dad. “Boy, do we know. We live this life too, remember. And for a lot longer than you have.”
“I promise, we will not go to any parties after the baseball game,” Alex says. “The most dangerous thing we’ll do is get double scoops of ice cream instead of singles. Please, Mr. and Mrs. McDonald. It’s a special night for me. Please let me share it with Dakota.”
I won’t say it out loud, but I can fill in the rest of his thoughts from a previous conversation.
“If you could be Switzerland and sit between the Santos and Gordon sides of my family on Senior Night, that might keep everybody on their best behavior.” Alex had pretty much begged me after our—as predicted—completely awkward spring break double date to Golf Land with Leo and Lindsay. “Also, if I could use you as my excuse for why I can’t go out for dinner with them afterward, I would owe you forever. That will cut down on the p
assive-aggressive behavior from whichever parent I don’t choose. I did promise Abuela that I would bring you over for a visit soon. Just the three of us. I know the unnecessary drama between my parents grinds on her too.”
“I don’t know, Doug,” Mom says, bringing me back to the present.
“I will agree to it, young man, but only if you listen to Dakota one hundred percent. If she doesn’t feel safe or people are acting inappropriately to her, you will get her to safety immediately and call me.” Dad takes off his bifocals and gives Alex the full Evil Santa glare.
“I’m not a member of the royal family, Dad. The scariest thing that might happen is that I get brain freeze from too much ice cream.”
Dad crosses his beefy arms. “Those are my conditions.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex says.
I grab Mom’s hand. “Mom. Please. Everything is going to be okay. I promise. Let me come out of the McDonald Bubble for a little while and be a regular teen. A regular teen who wants to support her boyfriend at one of his last high school games before he leaves for college.”
As soon as the word “boyfriend” comes out of my mouth, I regret it. Alex looks at me. We haven’t had that conversation yet.
The idea hangs in the air for a few more beats before Mom says, “Okay, you can go.”
“Thank you, Mrs. McDonald. Mr. McDonald. I promise you won’t regret it.” Alex throws his arms around me and lifts me off the ground. That is until Evil Santa clears his throat. Alex places me gently back down on the wooden floor. “Toning it down, sir.”
Dad grumbles and wanders off to his man cave.
* * *
“I’m not kidding, Dakota Rae,” Dad lectures me for the hundredth time. Today. “Keep your phone close by. If things start going sideways, you call me. I’ll be there in three minutes.”
“I think it might take a little longer than three minutes.” The drive over was forty-five minutes.
“No, I timed it from Chucky’s Sports Bar and Grill around the corner yesterday.”
“Dad!”
“Where I will be enjoying all-you-can-eat Happy Hour hot wings until after the game.” Dad pulls up to the curb of Desert Bloom High School. “Text me when you are in the car with Alex. And stop rolling your eyes at me, young lady, or I will turn this truck around right now.”
“We’re all going to be fine, Dad. I promise. Go enjoy your hot wings.” I kiss Dad’s cheek. “Look, there’s Alex’s Mom.”
Probably. I’ve never met Mrs. Santos, but who else would be wearing a baseball jersey with a giant bedazzled 7 on it. Of course, she can’t see me through the pickup’s tinted windows. I jump out of the truck and follow the light crowd toward the baseball field.
“Dakota! Yoo-hoo!” Mrs. Santos yells.
Instinctively, I put my shades back on and pull my baseball cap down lower.
“Hi, Mrs. Santos. Thanks for inviting me to the game,” I say quietly, hoping that she will take my lead and lower her voice.
She doesn’t. “Look at you, Dakota! That jersey looks perfect on you!”
Once we got the official okay from my parents, Mrs. Santos insisted on making me a Desert Bloom High School Scorpions baseball jersey with a giant 7 and SANTOS on the back. I am thankful that Alex talked his mom out of bedazzling mine.
“Derek is holding our seats inside,” Mrs. Santos says. “But first, a picture.”
“No,” is my conditioned response, but Mrs. Santos already has her phone out.
“Not even for Alex’s Senior Memories book? Next to the tuxedo pictures you sent us. What a precious birthday gift. Thank you.” Mrs. Santos looks ready to burst into tears.
I can’t take the credit for that, or the picture Alex’s abuela is getting next month for her sixtieth birthday, but I know better than to bring that up. “You are very welcome.”
“Alex was over the moon that you were able to come support him tonight. Please, let’s take a picture.”
You wanted to be out here in the bigger world, Dakota. Time to own it. Alex’s and my relationship is about to go public anyway. It’s not like I can stop everybody who might want to take my photo with their cell phone tonight. I might as well “control the narrative” as much as I can.
I slide my sunglasses off and lean into Mrs. Santos.
“Here, my arms are longer.” I take Mrs. Santos’s cell phone so that I can set it up at the optimum selfie angle for me. If I’m going to control the narrative, I’m going to make sure that the small pimple on my right temple isn’t part of it.
“Sherri!” echoes across the area until we turn around. A white woman wearing a matching bedazzled jersey walks toward us. Two little girls wearing SANTOS-bedazzled T-shirts and huge, burgundy-and-gold bows on their curly blond hair fight over who gets to hold the poster with a giant picture of Alex’s face on it, until their mom snatches it out of their hands. The older one jumps at the poster, which is now over her mom’s head. The younger one has a meltdown in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Where’s Ricky?” Alex’s aunt says to Mrs. Santos.
“In his room. Possibly until the next decade. Lord, grant me patience with that child.” Mrs. Santos leans down and coaxes the younger cousin into her arms. “Lily, are you going to be a cheerleader tonight, or does your mommy need to take you home?”
“Cheer-weeder.” The little one wipes her snotty nose on her arm.
The older one tugs on my jersey until I look down at her.
“Are you Alex’s girlfriend?” she says.
“Ummmm. I’m a girl, and I’m Alex’s friend, so, yes?”
“Of course you are, Dakota.” Mrs. Santos puts the other little girl down. “Alex has had lots of girlfriends. You are the only one he’s ever let me make a jersey for, even if he insisted on the boring version.”
My insides push and pull. I don’t like it when somebody else hijacks my narrative, but I also appreciate that someone can clarify the facts for me.
“Alex is texting me.” Mrs. Santos waves her phone at us. “It’s time for family pictures.”
“If you can point out where you want me to sit, I’ll wait in the stands.” I put my sunglasses back on.
“Oh no, sweetie. Alex wants you to come too. He wants you to be in one of the pictures since you can’t go to prom with him in April.”
“Wait. What?”
“You’re going to be in New York for an award show or something? At least that’s what Stephanie told him when he ran his prom-posal idea across her.”
It’s hard to be annoyed with Stephanie when this is literally her job. I guess I should thank her for saving me the potential embarrassment of Alex spending a lot of time and money and then me turning around and rejecting him. Even if we weren’t going to New York, I’m not ready to be that open. At least at my birthday extravaganza, I have my friends, Stephanie, and the crew looking out for me. I would be a wide-open target at Alex’s prom. My stomach clenches and I force the SNL skit out of my head.
“Hey, baby!” Mrs. Santos yells when our group rounds the corner and finds a professional photographer set up for the team.
“Mooom.” Alex rubs his temples. “Where are Dad and Abuela?”
“How should I know?”
“But it’s my turn next.”
Mrs. Santos puts her hands out to her sides like “And?”
“Never mind. We’ll do candid shots later with the family instead. Maybe.”
“Santos, you’re up.” The coach waves him over.
“Oh no, we’re doing this. I’m going to celebrate my baby. Even if other people aren’t responsible enough to get here on time.” Mrs. Santos smooths her bedazzled jersey over her generous curves.
“SANTOS!” The coach yells.
“Coming, Coach.” Alex looks back at us and lowers his voice. “Can we not do this right now, Mom?”
“Then stop complaining and take the blessed picture.” Mrs. Santos hands me all her gear and walks two steps behind Alex. “And I’ll be happy.”
The p
hotographer does a couple of shots of Alex by himself, plus a sweet one of him and his mom. Either Alex is a better actor than he lets on about, or whatever the photographer said pulls a genuine smile out of him.
“Dakota, baby, come over here.” Mrs. Santos waves at me, and I jog over.
She steps out of the frame and grabs the gear from me. I step into the frame and do my standard pose next to Alex.
The photographer lowers his camera. “How about you loosen up there a bit, sis. This isn’t the red carpet.”
I turn into Alex and link my arm through his. I hit another red-carpet-worthy pose, again maximizing the angle of my head to minimize the view of the pimple on my temple. The photographer is obviously not impressed by my red carpet training. He shakes his head.
“How about this?” Alex takes the opening move to our dance.
“Now we’re getting some life into this picture,” the photographer says.
Egged on, Alex swings me out and then back in again. A squeal rips out of my lungs when Alex suddenly lifts me off the ground and spins me around. The photographer keeps shooting long after my tennis shoes hit the packed earth again.
“Do I know you from someplace?” the photographer says when we finally leave the area so another baseball player can take his turn. “You look familiar.”
“No,” I say as Alex starts to out my identity. “I’m nobody special.”
“Yes, you are,” Alex whispers as we walk toward his family. “Very special.”
Alex’s little cousins immediately attach themselves to his long legs. It takes both moms—and the bribe of kettle corn—to pry the girls off Alex.
“Good luck tonight,” I say as his loud family walks away. I rock back and forth on my heels. “Would a good-luck kiss be out of place here?”
“Not at all.” Alex looks around. “We only have a minute or two, but let’s find a more secluded spot.”
Faking Reality Page 21