Oh, god, Angel thinks, in bed with Lizette. I am a lesbian, and the thought thrills and horrifies her. Lesbian. It is a truly gross word, an unwholesome fusion of lesion and alien. There are, of course, girls at her old school who make out with other girls at parties while guys whoop and holler and try to muscle in, and then there’s the small cadre of real lesbians, but they are the weird girls, the determinedly ugly ones with their sports bras and oversized Lobos shirts, baggy jeans and hideous glasses. They have Bieber haircuts or half-buzzed heads. They call themselves artists or are in bands, and they look down on anyone who wants to look like an actual girl. And now Angel is one of them.
Carpet-muncher, lesbo, dyke.
Before, when she considered what lesbians did to each other, it seemed pathetic and desperate. It would be wet and smelly and disgusting. But though she is doing what lesbians do, this doesn’t feel disgusting at all. Never did she feel this way with boys. Tenderness, yes. Pity. But not the rich swelling of affection, the unbearable musky love that wells in her. She likes the way they fit together, the safety of it, their bodies neatly matched, the cool slide of skin on skin.
After, Lizette pulls Angel to her, and this is Angel’s favorite part, her cheek against Lizette’s sweaty chest, their long hair tangled together on the pillow.
Pale hatch marks mar the flesh on Lizette’s thighs and left arm, notches scored onto a prison wall. Some are newish, pink and tender; a couple still have a thread of raised scab. Angel counts them like beads on an abacus, each line a record of misery or rage or boredom or whatever it was that made Lizette do this. Angel wants to understand, but knows if she asked, Lizette’s wary face would snap shut for good.
ON THE AFTERNOON BEFORE their presentation on Finland, they meet at Lizette’s to finish their poster and make egg butter.
Lizette clears some dirty dishes and cereal boxes and strewn junk mail from the counter. While the babies play on a blanket on the kitchen floor, Angel sets to peeling the two dozen hard-boiled eggs. The eggs are hot, and Angel’s fingers burn as she picks the bits of shell off the slimy whites. The texture puts her in mind of the sheep’s eyeball they dissected in biology her first semester of high school.
Lizette, who has refused to peel an egg （“They smell like donkey ass”）， presses against her. “Come on.”
“Stop it. Help me out.” Every time Angel is so grateful when Lizette wants her, so afraid that she won’t again.
“You have to let them cool, anyways.” Lizette juts her chin at the bedroom. On the floor Mercedes gums an animal cracker, smears the soggy paste all over a pink bear. Beside her, Connor breathes through a snotty nose and pushes himself up on his forearms.
“After we finish. After they fall asleep.”
“Fine,” Lizette says with a dramatic sigh. “I’ll help crack.” Taking two eggs in each hand, she whacks them against the counter. The sulfuric funk rises around them.
It’s a miracle that the person Angel loves like this should have ended up in her classroom at Smart Starts!, a miracle that she should be able to love like this at all. It’s so sudden and astonishing, unthinkable even a week ago. Such a strange progression of chance and error and damage led them to this place.
The project is slow-going, because the shells stick and Angel has to stop to kiss Lizette and to hold Connor, who is under the weather.
“I hope the whole class doesn’t catch his cold,” Angel says, wiping his nose. “I mean, I’ll wash my hands, but still.”
“No way anyone’s going to eat this shit. Snot would improve it. Egg butter.”
AFTER, ANGEL PUSHES her lips and nose into the cool curve of Lizette’s neck, but Lizette shrugs her off.
“You’re squashing me.”
“No way. I’m barely touching you.” Angel laughs, but not really, and rearranges herself to give Lizette more space. “Are you okay?”