“I don’t know. He won’t want me hanging around, not if he’s single. Plus I’m almost eighteen. I could find my own place.”
She doesn’t even seem worried. Angel nearly says, You can stay with me, at my grandma’s, but then looks away. An embarrassed heat overtakes her, and she pats Connor too rapidly to be soothing.
Connor fusses, mouthing the fabric of her T-shirt. Finally, she steps around the tangle of clothes on the floor, perches on the unmade bed, and begins to feed him, too. She hunches and half turns to cover herself. They sit, the only sound the snork and smack of the babies, and the air feels thick. Angel finds that she can’t look at Lizette, and trains her eyes on Connor’s head instead. Why isn’t Lizette more worried about her future? Angel is almost angry at her.
“So I started doing research,” Angel says. “The child care over there in Finland is great. Did you know that? They’re number one in the world on education.”
“I know.”
“You picked Finland on purpose?”
Lizette drops her head back, exasperated. “Uh, yeah. I heard a lady in the office talking to some other lady about it. I wanted us to get the best country.”
Angel regards Lizette with admiration. “Well, get this. I researched foods. There’s lots of crap we can’t get, like reindeer, and they got all these crazy berries, like a cloudberry, ever heard of it? But one of their main foods is egg butter, like fourteen hard-boiled eggs mashed up with a whole lot of butter. They smear it on pie.”
Lizette repositions a leg of the sweatpants over her shoulder, then swings Mercedes upright and gives her a few firm whacks on the back. “Egg butter? Fucking sick.”
“Yeah, but if you think about it, it’s basically just egg salad.”
“Like I said, fucking sick. Also, who puts egg salad on pie? We should cook that for our report and make Brianna eat it.”
“Isn’t she vegan?”
“You’d know better than me.” Lizette gives a crooked, challenging half-smile. Angel’s heart starts up a jittery percussion.
The small window is divided into panes by a plastic grid that seems not entirely affixed, and the slanted diamonds of light fall across the floor and a half-full soda bottle. An amber-colored pool of light refracts onto a crumpled white T-shirt, and Angel focuses on this spot.
Her mouth is dry. When did Angel start looking at Lizette like this? Or rather, when did looking at Lizette become so difficult? She is constantly aware of Lizette’s movement in the classroom; wherever Lizette is, Angel is oriented toward that place.
Before long, Lizette heaves herself up and deposits Mercedes in the crib. Connor, too, is asleep, his mouth slack.
“So.” Angel tugs her shirt down, her movements exaggerated, then stands. She sets Connor beside Mercedes, noting that the crib sheet is none too clean. Good for his immune system, she tells herself. Her back to Lizette, she reattaches her bra, smooths her shirt. Mercedes is not much bigger than Connor, despite being seven months to his three and a half. Her chin is canted up, as if in defiance, but her face is, for once, relaxed. Angel places a flannel blanket over both babies. Then she digs in her backpack for her laptop and notebook. She opens the laptop, a protective barrier.
“There’s something I’ve always wondered,” Angel says, though she only wondered it just this minute. “Does all breast milk taste the same?”
Lizette leans against the dresser, sardonic. “Are you asking to suck my titty?”
“No.” Angel’s cheeks warm. “God! No. I was just wondering. Biologically.”
Lizette laughs, an edge of meanness. “You want to suck my fucking titty.”
“I don’t,” Angel says hotly. “You would think that. You think everyone wants to.”