She stopped him suddenly. And literally. Grabbed a handful of his sleeve and just stopped him in his tracks on the sidewalk. He almost dropped the ice cream. They stood facing each other for an awkward second or two. He could tell she was staring up into his face, but he kept his eyes trained down to the pavement.
“What?” he asked, feeling defensive.
She reached up on tiptoes and kissed him briefly on the lips. Then she dropped back down to her heels again, still staring at his face.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “You didn’t want me to do that. I’m sorry. I thought you were just shy but you liked me.”
“I do like you,” he said.
“But not like that.”
“No.”
Silence. She let go of his sleeve, and Raymond walked again. Quickly. She ran to catch up.
“You like somebody else? Is that it?”
“No,” Raymond said, wishing they could talk about something else.
“You like girls more your own age?”
“No.”
“You don’t like anybody like that?”
“No.”
“But you did, right? You have. I mean, you’re . . . what? Sixteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“Oh. Okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”
“Thank you,” Raymond said, and hurried along, looking down at the sidewalk.
He almost plowed into a beefy, short man, who said, “Hey! Look where you’re goin’， kid!”
“Sorry,” Raymond mumbled, and hurried on.
“Hey, wait!” Luisa called from behind him. “I can’t walk that fast.”
He slowed for her, but it was hard to do. He wanted to get back to the apartment and not be alone with Luisa.
“So, seriously,” she said, as if she had never promised to stop talking about it. “You just don’t like anybody like that, and you never did?”
“Right,” he said, feeling the ice cream cooling the side of his ribs. He might have been holding it too tightly.
“Is that, like . . . a . . . thing? That people are like?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you’ll just never . . .” She trailed off, as though she might not continue. Raymond certainly hoped she wouldn’t. “。 . . have a family?”
“I can have a family. Mrs. G says I can have any kind of family I want. I can have . . . I don’t know. A group of friends, or somebody who feels the same way I do.”
“But don’t you want kids?”
“I never really thought much about it. I mean, I never pictured myself having kids, no.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well. I didn’t mean to make you feel like it’s not okay to be whatever you are.” But she had. “We can talk about something else if you want to.”
“Yes, please,” Raymond said. Then he added, “But thank you for liking me. Anyway.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
They sat on the living room couch together, post-dessert, Raymond and Mrs. G. Waiting for cups of tea to arrive. All the kids except the toddler had been sent to their rooms to do homework, including Luisa. That felt like a relief to Raymond.
Mrs. G leaned over and whispered to him at close range.
“So what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Fine. All right. Tell me later.”
Sofia hurried into the room with milk and sugar, which she set on the coffee table in front of them.
“I’m just so embarrassed,” Sofia said.
“About what?” Mrs. G asked.
“Oh, all that trouble. I wanted you to see us as a happy family. Well, we are. I don’t mean we were trying to fool you into thinking we are. But then there was all that trouble.”
“Where was I during all the trouble?” Mrs. G asked.
She was getting weary. Raymond could hear it in her voice.
“The trouble. You know. With the ice cream. And Luis Junior being asked to leave the table.”
“That? Oh my goodness, that’s nothing. I never would have given it another thought. He’s a child. Children do things like that. Their brains aren’t fully developed. It’s just who they are.”
“See, Sofia?” Luis Senior said. He was just walking into the living room to sit down. The sound of those words let Raymond know, for the first time, that the man was even within earshot. “I told you it seemed worse to you than to them.”
He settled his bulk into a wing chair and sighed, both hands on his belly.