Morgan smirked. “Band, definitely. And you won’t mess it up, dude. Just get the kid all sorts of toys and let them decide what’s fun for them when they get old enough to have opinions. Same thing with clothes. A baby in a dress isn’t going to make or break anyone, but if they get to the point they don’t like dresses? Don’t force it on them. But that’s just my take, too. I’m one trans girl. There are lots of other takes.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I hope I wasn’t being weird asking.”

“Nah, we’re friends. You can ask me anything.” Morgan smiled at me and then, without a word, took Erin’s empty water bottle up to the fountain to refill it for her. She took care of her girl, always.

“What time on Saturday?” Leaf asked, handing me a napkin and motioning at his lip. It took me a second to clue in that I had food on my face, and I cringed and swiped it away.

“Sorry. I need a feedbag. Let’s say five? I should be home by three but knowing me, I’ll need a nap. And you’re warned, Mormor’s intense. She’s...very. Very what, I don’t know, but she’s very.”

“Not too worried about it. Five works for me.” Leaf glanced over his shoulder at the cafeteria monitors and, seeing them chatting and ignoring the kids, pressed a quick dry kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I look forward to it.”

Glad one of us does.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

At nine o’clock on Saturday morning, I was in a classroom at a community college thirty minutes from home, seated next to a girl named Erika who, after five minutes of small talk, I discovered was almost exactly as pregnant as I was, except she was huge. Like Sputnik huge. It made me appreciate my conservatively rounded paunch more; the longer I could put off the carrying-a-basketball phase, the better. I was hesitating on wearing the maternity jeans Mom had bought me with the belly pocket and stretchy waistband because denial is NOT just a river in Egypt.

Erika was not so lucky. She was well into her maternity pants because, apparently, her kid was going to be the size of the Hulk.

The poor thing.

Erika was sixteen and went to school four towns over from me. She had dark brown skin and dark hair as curly as mine that she wore under a red cloth headband. Seeing that my last name was Rodriguez on my Hello My Name Is badge, she peered at me.

“¿Hablas español?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Dad took off when I was little. Didn’t get a chance to learn.”

I braced for the usual pushback—the value judgments made about being bilingual in Latinx and Hispanic communities, but Erika was cool about it. She shrugged.