My mother was smiling and frowning at the same time, like someone had just told her a terrible joke. “Of course you don’t!” she said. “No one wants this. We didn’t ask for this. But we do have to bear it. All of us together.”

Well, thumbs-up, Mom! Earnest-motherly I can take. When I go to pieces she gets strong, and vice versa. She always comes through. Eres una estrella. In fact, that was so stellar, there might be a two-way eye-watering thing going on here soon if we’re not careful. But I feel we can conclude with dignity.

“Thanks,” I murmured. “Mama mia.” She likes it when I call her that. Our favorite slushy movie. I gave her one of the back-patting hugs I learned from her. Bony spine, sharp shoulder blades. We both need fattening up.

“And yes, please,” she said, pulling away. “I want you to do my nails. Makeup too. The works.”

Good thing she can’t read my mind. The afterlife! I’m the kid around here! You’re the one who made me! If they turn on you like that, I never want to have children. But I guess if I did, I’d get the hormone, and then I would be exactly like my mother.

3

Jack Bell had recently had his braces off, and his teeth looked blank and unused, like he was trying them out for the first time. I am five nine and a half, one of the tallest girls in the tenth grade, but he had passed me by a good two inches. What pimples he had were confined to his chin. His broad cheekbones narrowed his eyes in a friendly way. We stood there like we had both been hypnotized. I hadn’t had much to do with Jack since sixth grade. We weren’t mean to him—Fiona, Vicky, and me—but he was so quiet we tended to forget he was there. Now I felt sick to my stomach, standing on his porch in my beret, staring at his teeth. If only I had hair!

There is a thing I do at moments like this, that I’ve done since I was little. I imagine wrapping myself in some big thick material until everything is muffled and distant. Then I imagine I am being observed by someone I can’t exactly picture, who knows everything I’m thinking and loves me anyway. It makes me feel I can do all kinds of difficult things.

I considered Jack from inside my invisible cloak. “I’ve come about the campaign.”

“I know.”

“Miss Sedge’s idea.”

“I know.”

He went up the stairs in front of me, dragging his sneakers on each step, his big wrists swinging. At the top he turned. “Want a Coke? Water? Cranberry juice?” I hesitated. “Vodka and tonic?” Jack asked, grinning with his new teeth.