The Do-Over, page 2
Mom flicked a chunk of avocado at her. “See if I share any of it with you two,” she said as they giggled into their oven-baked taquitos.
Now there was toilet paper stashed everywhere. More toilet paper than Lucinda could imagine three people using in a lifetime. They could cover their walls in it, and there would still be more toilet paper. Mom had started giving it away to neighbors who were running low.
“Just … grab some and start scrubbing!” Raquel said through gritted teeth. Then she twisted the faucet and raised her voice over the rush of water. “We’re in the kitchen, Mom! Cleaning up! Just like you said!”
Lucinda held her breath as she heard the tap of Mom’s footsteps on the tile kitchen floor. She waited for Mom to ask why they hadn’t finished, to ask why they had barely started, to ask … anything.
Raquel turned off the water and swiped her hands over the front of her jeans to dry them.
“We know you wanted the cleaning done before you got home, and we would have finished sooner, only Ms. King kept us late, and then the newspaper meeting ran over,” Raquel started in that whirlwind way she had that left you too dizzy to argue. “But Lu actually came to the meeting this time, which we thought you would be happy about since you want her to make some friends, so—”
“I already have friends,” Lucinda interrupted. “It’s just that …”
Lucinda stopped mid-sentence. Raquel stepped aside as Mom walked silently to the sink and washed her hands. She looked as dazed as she had been that day she took Lucinda to her first skating competition and they’d been nearly swallowed by a crush of rhinestones and fleece.
“Mom?” Lucinda asked.
“Hmm? Oh! Sorry.” It was as if Lucinda’s voice had whisked away a cloud and Mom could finally see them again. “I … I just stopped to drop some groceries off for Mrs. Moreno.” Mom lifted a grocery bag, then set it on the counter. A box of Raisin Bran poked out the top. “And it turns out she’s sick. She has it.”
“What?” Lucinda and her sister said in unison. Both of them sprang toward Mom. Raquel took one of her hands and led her to the table. Lucinda pulled out a chair.
“Thank you, mija,” Mom said, sitting down. Then she repeated, “She has it.”
Mrs. Moreno lived in the apartment downstairs. She checked in on them after school sometimes when Mom had late appointments at the salon, and she always brought them half a loaf of banana bread when she baked a batch. “It’s too much for just one old lady,” she’d say. Crybaby liked to sneak off and cry outside her door for treats.
Mom had been bringing Mrs. Moreno groceries once a week. Ever since they heard a doctor on television explain that older people should stay at home if they could.
“Will she be okay?” Raquel asked. Lucinda wanted to ask, too. But she was too afraid of the answer. She understood that the virus was real, but until that moment it hadn’t seemed real. You couldn’t see it or feel it the way you could other dangerous things. And yet, somehow, it had crept up under them.
Crybaby sprang onto Mom’s lap with a yowl. She scratched behind his ears. “I think so,” she said after a while. “I hope so. Her grandson is staying with her now. That’s a good thing. He’s the one who told me. I was so shocked I forgot to leave the groceries.”
“I’ll take them down,” Raquel offered, reaching for the bag.
“No!” Mom and Lucinda said together. Mom put her hand on top of Raquel’s. “I’ll bring it down later.” Then she closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Lucinda didn’t move. She glanced at Raquel, who usually knew exactly what to do or say. This time, she just shook her head.
Finally, Mom opened her eyes. “You need a trim,” she said to no one in particular.
The t-word. Before Lucinda fully registered what was happening, Raquel had ducked into the kitchen and turned the faucet on again. “Better get back to these dishes,” she said.
Seriously? Lucinda mouthed.
Sorry, Raquel mouthed back before squeezing a drizzle of soap on a sponge.
Some people went for a long jog when they needed to clear their heads and think things through. Other people listened to music, or gardened, or painted, or sipped tea. Andrea Cruz-Mendoza cut hair. And if she didn’t happen to be at the salon when she had a problem that needed untangling, she grabbed whoever was nearest. This time it was Lucinda.
“Go get a towel for over your shoulders, mija,” Mom said. “I’ll get my shears.”
“Fine.” Lucinda stomped to the hallway closet and grabbed a beach towel. Then she dragged one of the chairs to the middle of the kitchen and slouched on it.
“Thanks a lot,” she whispered to Raquel, yanking out her scrunchie while she waited for Mom to come back with the scissors. “We had a deal. It was supposed to be your turn.”
Technically, that was true. Raquel had promised Lu that the next time Mom was looking around for hair to trim, she would volunteer. It was only fair after Lu agreed to sit for an hour with her head covered in plastic wrap when Mom wanted to test out that new glaze treatment.
“Well …” Raquel said, tugging at the back of her hair as she scrambled to come up with an excuse. “I’m still growing out the last one.”
“Ugh.” Lucinda rolled her eyes.
The truth was, Raquel could see that Mom wasn’t simply sorting through her jumbled thoughts this time. She was following them someplace. And if Raquel wanted to find out where, she would have to pay attention—and be ready to act—which she couldn’t do if she was sitting in that chair.
A single question flashed in her mind: What happens next?
Mom got back from her room with scissors and a spray bottle, her black apron from the salon tied around her neck. She tousled Lu’s hair, then reached into the apron pocket for a comb and some clips. “Sit up straight,” she said. Lu closed her eyes and sat up taller in the chair.
Raquel hopped onto the counter and watched as Mom spritzed and combed and snipped. Her lips moved like she was having a conversation—an argument, even—that only she could hear.
Raquel leaned forward. She strained to make out bits of it.
“Way too close,” Mom muttered, her eyebrows raised with shock.
“And for how long? ¿Quién sabe?” Her forehead wrinkled with worry.
“For the best.” She pressed her lips together in a straight, sure line, the way she did whenever she had made a decision. The kind of decision she knew the twins wouldn’t like.
Facts swirled in Raquel’s mind, then fit themselves together like puzzle pieces. She hopped off the counter, grabbed the laptop from the table, and slipped away to the bedroom. They would have to be fast.
Silently, Raquel pushed open the bedroom door and stepped over Lu’s skating bag, still packed and ready to go, as if practice could start again at any minute. The bag seemed frozen in time somehow. Like the invitation still tacked to her corkboard for a birthday party that had since been canceled. Or the packet of worksheets Ms. King sent home when everyone thought they’d be back to school two weeks later. It was as if the whole world was on pause, and they were all waiting for someone to press Play again.
Raquel pulled Lu’s warm-up jacket off the desk chair and tossed it onto her bed. She sat down and shoved aside the worksheet packets to make room for the laptop. Principal Osterwald loaned out computers when school closed, but there weren’t enough to go around. Since Raquel and Lu lived together, they had to share one. She tapped the screen back to life and opened a new search window.
Her fingers flew over the keys as she listened for the sound of Lu’s footsteps in the hallway. If it was just a trim, like Mom said, she should have about fifteen more minutes. Maybe twenty. That was all she needed. So when Lu poked her head in the door, exactly eighteen minutes later, Raquel was ready.
“Mom told me to come get you,” Lu said, her voice wobbly, damp hair hanging over her shoulders. Feathery bits of her trimmed ends dusted her nose like freckles. “She said she needs to talk to us. Together.”
Raquel nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I figured.”
Lu glanced over her shoulder, then stepped through the door, Crybaby meowing behind her. She scooped him up and nuzzled her cheek against his silvery fur. “I’m pretty sure it’s because she finally decided to—”
“Send us to stay with Dad?” Raquel finished the sentence for her. “I know.”
“You know? So what are we going to do? How are we going to get out of it?” Lu pointed to the computer screen. “Have you figured it out?”
Raquel wanted to snort but managed to swallow it back down. Mom and Lu were always accusing her of being bossy, but when they needed a plan—and even if they didn’t admit it, they always needed a plan, especially now—who did they turn to?
She pushed the chair away from the desk and looked Lucinda in the eye, trying to steady her with her gaze. This was going to be the hardest part. “We’re not going to get out of it,” she said evenly.
“We can at least try!” Lu protested. Raquel held her finger to her lips, and Lu dropped her voice. “We have to try. What about your newspaper? What about ice skating? My competition is only six weeks away, and I haven’t practiced in more than a month. What if the rink opens and I’m stuck in the middle of a farm?”
Raquel wished she could break the puzzle apart and show her sister the pieces, one at a time. Then maybe she would be able to make out the whole picture. Mom’s salon was closed. The school musical was canceled. Mrs. Mendoza had gotten sick.
There was not going to be a skating competition, maybe not for a very long time. Raquel was sure of it.
But she was also sure that if she broke the news to her now, Lu wouldn’t be able to hear anything else she had to say. And if the plan was going to work, she needed Lu to pay attention. To cooperate.
She turned to the computer screen. “Look, I mapped it out. Four ice rinks, all of them within an hour’s drive of Lockeford.”
Lu set Crybaby on the carpet. She pressed her lips together, just like Mom had done, and peered at the screen.
“If any one of them opens, you’ll be ready,” Raquel continued. “And I bet it’ll be way less crowded than in LA. I bet you’ll have the place all to yourself.”
Lu frowned. “Dad wouldn’t have time to take me. Not when he’s trying to run the farm stand.”
Raquel forced herself to take a deep breath before replying. She needed to be careful now. She tried to remember what Mom had taught her—or tried to teach her, anyway—about threading a needle. You had to be patient. You couldn’t force it.
“Well …” Raquel said. “Maybe Mom could take you? I mean, maybe she could come with us.”
Raquel realized she was lucky her sister hadn’t just taken a gulp of water. She would have spit it out all over her.
“Mom?” Lu said. “No way. She’d never go for it.”
Raquel knelt on the carpet so the two of them were level. “She would. If Dad asked her to come. If he told her he needed her help taking care of us, I know she’d say yes.”
Lu wrinkled her nose, like she had tasted something sour. “What about … Sylvia?”
Raquel sat back on her heels and smiled. “That’s the best part. If Mom comes with us, she and Dad will be forced to spend more time together, and who knows? Maybe it’ll be just like Daisy said.”
She knew right away she had gone too far.
Lu tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “You can’t be serious, Kel. Mom and Dad are not getting back together. There’s no such thing as a do-over. You know that, right?”
Raquel turned away and forced a laugh. “Of course I know that. I don’t mean together-together,” she said. “Obviously. I just mean, it would be a chance to remind them how things used to be—how much better it used to be—when we weren’t so far apart.” And if it just happened to turn into together-together, so much the better, she wanted to add. She wasn’t hoping for a do-over necessarily. More like a revision, the way you could go back and rewrite the parts of a story you didn’t like.
Lu got up off the chair, crossed the room, and flopped backward onto her bed, where Crybaby was already nestled on a shaggy blue pillow. “Maybe,” she said.
Finally, they were getting somewhere.
“But how do we get Dad to even invite her?” Lu asked, staring up at the ceiling.
This was her moment. Raquel stood and took Lu’s phone from the corner of the desk. “We tell him it’s the only way Mom will let us go.”
She held out the phone. “It has to come from you, though. Dad will think I’m up to something. I already typed it all out. All you have to do is press Send.”
Lu sat up. “Hey, that’s my phone. When did you—”
Mom called out from the kitchen, “Girls?”
Raquel shook the phone, wishing her sister would listen for once. “Just press Send.”
Lucinda snatched it. Her eyes flitted as she read.
Raquel had spent so much time thinking about what to say that she knew the message by heart. It was perfect. It would work.
“I would never say, ‘Pleeeeeease,’ ” Lu whined. “And anyway, none of this is true.”
Raquel pounced on the bed, sending Crybaby skittering to the floor. “Just send it, Lu. Mom is going to come looking for us any second, and then it’ll be too late.”
Lu squeezed her eyes shut. Her finger hovered over the Send button.
“Come on, Lu,” Raquel pleaded again.
At last, Lu pressed Send. With a small scream, she tossed the phone away from her as if it were charged with electricity.
Raquel picked up it up off the edge of the bed and watched the screen. A bubble appeared.
“He’s typing!” Raquel whispered.
Lu clutched Raquel’s wrist. “What’s he saying?”
“Girls!” Mom called again, sharper this time.
Raquel hoisted herself off the bed and tossed her sister the phone. “I better go. I’ll tell Mom you’re changing out of the haircut clothes. That means you’re going to have to deal with Dad.” Then, as she was opening the door to leave, she stopped and added, “Don’t blow it, Lu. Please.”
Lucinda stared at the phone, wishing Raquel hadn’t left her alone with it, wondering how long she had until Mom lost her patience. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Dad’s response arrived with a ping.
Lucinda set the phone down on her rumpled quilt and wished she could think as quickly as her sister. The easiest thing to do—maybe even the best thing—was to leave it there. She could tell Raquel that Dad said no. It wouldn’t be a lie exactly. And maybe they’d still be able to convince Mom not to send them to Lockeford.
Yet something about the way Raquel had said “please” just now stopped her. She wasn’t sure what Raquel was planning exactly, and even less sure that it would work. But Lucinda knew that, whatever it was, it was important to her. Even more important than her usual schemes and schedules. She picked up the phone again. Her fingers trembled, but she knew what she had to type. It came to her as clearly as if Raquel had whispered it in her ear.
This time she didn’t hesitate. (If she had, she might have talked herself out of it.) She pressed the little arrow that whisked her message off to Dad with a soft whoosh.
There was no taking it back now. She turned the phone facedown, climbed off the bed, and pulled a fresh T-shirt from her dresser. Partly because changing out of the haircut clothes was supposed to be her excuse for staying behind in the bedroom to begin with. But it was also because she needed an extra minute for her heart to stop thumping.
“All right, let’s go,” she told Crybaby after one last look in the mirror. “We can’t put it off any longer.” Crybaby meowed in reply and followed her down the hall.
Mom and Raquel were sitting on the living room sofa. Lucinda couldn’t decide whose gaze she wanted to avoid more, so she kept her eyes on the carpet.
“There you are,” Mom said. “I was about to send a search and rescue team.”
“Sorry,” Lucinda mumbled. “I got a little distracted.”
“That’s okay,” Mom said, her voice softening. “I think we’re all a little distracted right now.” She patted the spot next to her on the sofa. “Sit down. There’s something I want to talk to you about. Both of you.”
Lucinda hesitated. In her experience, conversations that started like that never ended well. Maybe they were too late after all. Mom was about to send them to Lockeford. On their own. Raquel sensed it, too. She jumped off the couch.
“Wait, Mom, before you say anything—”
Just then, Mom’s phone rang. Raquel’s mouth snapped shut as Mom pulled the phone from her pocket and glanced down at the screen. “Huh. I need to answer this. You two just … don’t go anywhere, all right?” She carried the phone outside and slid the patio door closed behind her.
“Do you think it’s him?” Lucinda asked.
“It better be,” Raquel said.
They stayed on their feet, watching as Mom paced the balcony. She stopped and looked back at them for a moment, then turned away again and stared out into the evening.
“What did you tell him, anyway?” Raquel whispered, perching on one of the sofa’s arms. “You didn’t back down, did you?”
Lucinda shook her head. “No! I told him exactly what you said. That it was the only way we’d come.”
They were silent after that, watching the patio door until Mom opened it again a few minutes later. She looked from Lucinda to Raquel, then took a deep breath.
“That was your dad,” she said. Lucinda leaned forward. Raquel stood.
“And we’ve decided—both of us—that it would be best if you two stay with him for a while. Until all this settles down.”
“But—” Raquel protested.
Mom held up a hand to shush her. “I know this is a big change—for all of us—so we’ve agreed that I’ll come up, too,” she continued. “Just for a week. To help everyone settle in.”
She paused as if she expected them to argue and looked surprised when they didn’t. They were too busy trying to communicate with each other using just their eyebrows—and without Mom noticing. “All right, then. Well, I need to organize, and you two should think about getting packed.”
