The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School(12)
After fourth hour I have to go to room C303 for lunch detention. I take my time walking there, but it’s too short a walk to take more than a couple of minutes, so I’m still there with a few minutes to spare. When I walk inside, the first—and last—person I want to see greets me.
“Hey, detention buddy.” Cesar laughs.
“You too? Already?” I was supposed to be keeping him out of trouble.
“You already!” He throws it back at me, and he’s right. I’m not setting a great example.
“What’d you do?” I ask.
“Chewed some gum. You?”
Bashed Catholicism and called my classmates racist . . .
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. Then the teacher comes in and hands us all green mesh “detention” vests. Apparently, lunch detention here means public shaming and picking up trash.
Once we get out into the courtyard, I wander around searching the ground for fallen trash. I decide against going inside the cafeteria and walk to the outside lunch tables looking for something to pick up. All I see is a wad of dirty napkins lying near one of the trash cans, like someone shot and missed from a distance. There’s not much work to do unless I lurk by tables waiting for someone to have trash for me to take—which I’m not doing.
Whenever no one is looking, I check my phone to see how our Etsy orders are going. As of this morning, sales were slowing down a bit since I first got involved. But when I check, it looks like we’re fully sold out! I quickly open up TikTok to see that my video from this morning went semi-viral, with thousands of likes and comments! We’ll definitely have a backlog of orders to fill now, but that’s a good problem to have. I shoot Mami a quick text, updating her about the sales, then put my phone away. She agreed to give me the extra money I make for her after my half of tuition is paid, so I plan on getting to work as soon as I get home. I could really use the extra money. Who knows what Mom would do if she found out I was gay? It’ll be good to have some savings, just in case. Mom’s been teaching me the art of jewelry making since I was a kid, so I’m more than prepared to make some cash.
Before long, Jenna, Emily, and Karen find me. It’s like they thought someone else might snatch me up for their friend group. They’re all happily linking arms, with Karen’s borderline brownface spray tan in the coveted middle position. When Jenna grabs my arm to link with hers, I jump. I hate that I jumped, because Jenna’s adorable, and I do like her. It just surprised me that they don’t all hate me for being confrontational with Karen.
“Oh my God, you’re so cute, Jumpy!” Jenna says, and her voice squeaks a little on the word “cute.” No, you’re cute. God I’m so gay. Stop being so gay, Yami. Stop that shit right now.
Jenna guides me to their usual lunch table inside under a massive crucified Jesus statue in the corner of the cafeteria. It’s staring me down. I can feel it—lording over us all, judging me for ditching my detention duties. I avoid looking at it the best I can. I don’t know how anyone has any fun around here with overlord Jesus watching.
I don’t like Karen, but Jenna and Emily seem nice, aside from the fact that they choose to hang around someone so openly racist. Besides them, there’s one other guy at the table. I’m assuming he’s Karen’s boyfriend, based on the fact that they’re sucking face instead of talking to the rest of us, which is fine. Karen might not have been the one who made the abortion comment, but I’m still not cool with anyone who asks where I’m from as if I don’t belong here. Maybe I don’t belong here, but she can go and choke for pointing it out.
I don’t have many options yet as far as friends go, so I pretend to pick up their trash in case the detention monitor walks by while I’m with them. Before I know it, they’re all interrogating Jenna about her mysterious crush.
“Come on, who is it?” Emily nudges Jenna’s shoulder.
Jenna shakes her head, pretending to zip her lips shut.
“We’re just gonna keep asking,” Karen sings. Her boyfriend’s eyes glaze over and he checks out of the conversation by staring at his phone.
I know there are plenty of reasons to be tight-lipped about a crush, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s a girl. Either way, I can relate to Jenna for not wanting people to know who you’re crushing on.
“If she doesn’t want to tell anyone, she doesn’t have to,” I say, possibly overstepping the New Friend boundary.
“Thank you!” Jenna says emphatically, squeezing my arm.
“What about you, Yummy? We saw you talking to Huuunter! Do you like him?” Karen taunts.
“That boy is a whole meal,” Emily says, fanning herself. “He was talking about you in trig. Pretty sure every girl in that class is jealous of you.”
“Really?” I ask. I don’t want to be making any enemies, but I guess it’s good everyone thinks I like a boy. Still, it makes me want to squirm away from the conversation. “I mean, he’s cool, but we just met.”
“Guys, leave her alone. Emily’s just exaggerating. No one hates you.” Jenna comes to the rescue like I did for her.
“Ugh, fine,” Karen says before turning to her boyfriend, back to ignoring the rest of us. The subject finally changes, and I go to turn in my vest.
I only get ten minutes to eat after detention, but I could definitely get used to Slayton’s food. There are sections of the cafeteria that have their own cuisines: Mexican, Chinese, Italian, burgers, fries, milkshakes. . . . You could eat something different every day of the month without repeating.