The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School(5)

“But I’m grounded,” I whine.

“Mom’s at work.” He winks, which he apparently doesn’t know how to do without turning his entire head and opening his mouth to get his eye to close. “Besides, she wanted us to bring Do?a Violeta tamales anyways. She doesn’t have to know we also went to get Takis.”

It doesn’t take much convincing because personally, I don’t feel like I deserve to be grounded anyway. I’m sure she’ll un-ground me the second I tell her about my Etsy idea. Frankly, I don’t want Cesar walking to the corner store by himself. And Mami wouldn’t either. The guys he’s always fighting with don’t live far from us, and I swear he’s jinxed when I’m not around. I’d rather not risk it, even if it’s hot enough to fry an egg on the street. “Fine, but we’re taking pictures first.”

I hand Cesar my phone, and he starts snapping pictures before I’m ready.

“Not yet!” I rush to put on a bracelet and show off my wrist for the picture, but he shakes his head.

“Put those on, too.” He points at a pair of brown-and-blue earrings that were made as a set to match the bracelet.

I put them on and strike a pose with my hand touching my ear, so you can see both.

“You don’t have to do all that. Your mouth isn’t even in the picture,” Cesar says, and I relax my puckered lips.

Cesar’s a bossy photographer, but a good one. He keeps directing my poses and what jewelry to wear with what. It doesn’t take long for him to get bored, though, and he ditches me while I agonize over choosing the right shop name and Insta handle. After about an hour of deliberation, I end up going with JoyeriaFlores for both Etsy and Instagram. The previous Etsy name was Maria749, which obviously needed to change. Next, I need money to put up some listings. I delete all the current listings, since it’s hard to even tell what she was trying to sell with those. And according to the app, she hasn’t made a sale on here in quite some time, which is about to change. I want to be able to prove to Mami that the shop is a success before I show it to her, so I have my work cut out for me.

Only problem is, I already gave her all the money I earned from my last job to pay for tuition. Luckily, I have someone else I can ask. I shoot a quick text over to my dad, telling him all about my plan and sending him some of the pictures I took and letting him know what the listing fee is. It’s only a couple of minutes before my phone buzzes with his response.

Papi: Ay, que linda Your mami is going to love this. I can’t wait to hear about her reaction.

And then I get a notification from PayPal. He sent me enough money to pay for the listing fee for the first twenty items, plus an extra twenty bucks and another heart emoji.

God, I love my dad.

With the listing fees paid for, I’m careful to account for the listing fee, transaction fee, and processing fee in each price so we don’t lose money on anything. With this kind of moneymaking magic, how could anyone resist hiring me? Their loss.

As soon as I’m done listing all my favorite pieces, I share some pictures and the links on my Twitter with a caption about how hard my mom works to provide for us and how much I love her and her jewelry, blah blah. It’s cheesy but people eat that shit up.

“Taki time.” Cesar slides back into the room with a straight face.

I read over the caption several more times before finally hitting post. By the time I get downstairs, Cesar is waiting at the door with the tamales from the freezer. He’s wrapped them into paper plates to bring to Do?a Violeta. She’s been real depressed since her husband passed last year and hasn’t been looking after herself, so the block pretty much keeps her fed. She used to be the neighborhood nanny and took care of all the kids on our street, since none of our parents could afford day care. It was at least eight of us in her little one-bedroom house, and she somehow made it work. She took care of us then, so we take care of her now.

As soon as we’re out of the house, the sound of sad mariachi music echoes through the neighborhood, coming all the way from Do?a Violeta’s porch. She used to play folk songs you could party to, but now it’s always depressing. She just sits out on her porch all day, playing funeral music on repeat that bums out the whole block.

I can’t stop checking my phone on the walk over. Nothing. I guess it’s only been a couple of minutes since I set up the shop and Insta, so I really shouldn’t worry yet. I shove my phone back into my pocket, hoping for better luck the next time I check it. We only make it past two houses when the sidewalk burns like a comal through my shoes. Five feet from the door and this Phoenix heat already has me sweating. The sacrifices I make for this family.

Bianca’s house is on the way to Violeta’s, but I keep my eyes peeled forward. I don’t want to look at the flower garden we never finished planting together. The empty talavera pots we painted by hand would risk reminding me that being Bianca’s friend was fun, and I need to think of her as an evil, heartless bitch right now. But Cesar stares at her house as we get closer, and I can’t help but look.

The pots aren’t empty. The flowers aren’t dead. My stomach gets all tangled, and the sun feels twice as hot. She finished planting them without me.

“So what happened with you guys?” I hoped he wouldn’t say anything but knew it was going to come up eventually.

I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “Nothing. She’s dead to me.”