As we’re finishing, my phone dings; there’s a message from Lidia: OK. You win. I’ll help Carlos. Send me info and I’ll see what I can do. No promises. Have your uncle call me!

I shift over to Carlos, who is standing by the big boats that go out on whale-watching trips, telling Kamal that they can go next week. Sometimes I think Carlos spoils Kamal because it’s as if he’s giving the kid a life that got interrupted for him.

I tell him, “She’ll do it.”

He looks puzzled. “Do what?”

“Lidia will represent you!”

He pulls away. “That’s okay.” He’s hunched over, kicking at the posts. “I don’t need you to help me. To feel sorry for me.”

My temples throb. “Is that what you think this is?”

“Isn’t it?” He turns to me, his face looking gaunt in the shadows. “Poor little Mexican boy. Like all those kids they show every night on the news? You want to rescue me?”

My eyes sting with tears. “You must be kidding.”

“I’m not.” His voice is cold. “Have you seen my drawings? The ones I did in the shelter? Did you notice I never show them crying or clutching their stuffed animals? It makes me sick. The way they show us, night after night. Always with the eyes of pity. I will never be that.” He lifts his chin.

“God, you are so…arrogant! You want to turn down a perfectly good offer? Lidia is awesome.”

“Really? If she’s so great, how come your mother’s in that place?”

“That is so unfair,” I say softly. My ribs hurt, as if someone had punched them, hard.

He’s quiet, staring out at the boats, hands jammed in his sweatshirt pockets. “Look, I’m used to being on my own. Doing it my way.” He gives a sly smile. “Like that lady there. I got her to seventy percent. Not bad.”

“But—”

“Stop.”

I watch him head toward the lot where the car is parked. I hate him sometimes. But sometimes too I feel as if I were looking at a mirror of myself: proud, armored, too self-sufficient. Grown up fast. We’re the same! I want to yell. But we don’t say anything the whole way back to the motel, the gray road humming before us, Kamal draped across the back seat, asleep. And as I slide into bed that night I don’t know what hurts the most: that Carlos won’t take my help. Or that he won’t kiss me back.

Chapter Fifteen

We may be in blazing summer heat, we may be earning more money, but Carlos and I are barely talking.