“You okay?” Be careful, she wants to tell her grandmother. At the back of her head, the skin is stapled shut, the bone still not closed over.
Her grandmother frowns. “I don’t feel like that.”
“Like what, Gramma?”
She flaps her hand at the reflection. “Not inside. Inside me I’m cute.”
“You’re cute,” Angel says. “You’re still cute.”
Her grandmother catches sight of Angel’s troubled expression and smiles, skin creased around her mouth, teeth bared. “Can you call my mother?”
At Smart Starts!, every part of the day is designed to support Angel and to keep her mind on other things, and a smile or a stray touch from Lizette can, for up to half an hour at a time, wipe away her sadness.
The trouble starts midmorning one Wednesday in early October, when, twenty minutes into GED workbook time, Jen announces that she is selling raffle tickets to raise funds for her church’s trip to Honduras. “It’s the last day. I keep forgetting to tell you guys.”
“Not the time, Jen,” Brianna says, looking up from her laptop.
“They’re only five dollars apiece.” Jen waves her roll of paper tickets. “The prize is a spa day at Ojo Caliente.”
“I’ll buy one,” says Tabitha, digging her wallet out of her purse. “I could use a spa day. What do they do, like massage you and paint your nails?”
“How’re you going to get to Ojo Caliente, Tabitha?” asks Ysenia. “In your pumpkin chariot? You don’t got money to waste on no raffle.”
“It’s not a waste,” says Jen. “It’s to benefit people in need.”
“We got people in need right here,” says Ysenia. “In this very room. We even got people from Honduras in Espa?ola. You want to encourage more to come over here where everyone’s all strung out and there’s crap for jobs?”
Jen sighs. “I don’t know why you’re complaining. You get food stamps. Plus you have a free lunch every day and—”
“Every weekday,” cuts in Ysenia.
“I’m just saying you’re lucky, because there are churches right here in this town waiting and hoping you’ll join.” Jen looks like she might cry.
“I’m pretty sure there’s churches in Honduras,” Christy says.
“You know, you could buy a whole roll of tickets for nothing at Dollarland,” says Trinity helpfully. “Then you’d definitely win.”
Jen has buried her face in her hands, and only now does Angel notice that she’s not wearing her promise ring.
“Hey,” Angel whispers. “Are you okay? Are things cool with Jared?”
Jen looks squarely at Angel, stricken. Her eyes gleam with unspilled tears.
Lizette closes her workbook quietly and stands. She announces, “I’d like to call a Community Meeting.”
Brianna sits up in surprise. “Uh, okay,” she says, then looks as if she regrets it.
The girls scramble their desks into a circle, as if it’s totally normal protocol for a student to call Community Meeting. Angel hesitates, then drags her own desk into the circle.
Lizette paces at the front of the classroom while the girls settle. Near the door, Brianna stands uncertainly, arms crossed, weight on one foot. It’s a provisional stance, as if she might at any moment turn and bolt. Lizette stops pacing, and now she faces their teacher. “I have an issue I need to raise about favoritism.”
Brianna opens her mouth, shuts it.
“And one of your favorites is Angel, which, whatever. And one of them is Jen, who breaks rules all the time, trying to convert our butts during work period. I was in the middle of a math practice test just now when she started running her mouth. Which is not respecting others or supporting each other.” She taps the relevant rules, numbers one and five, on the butcher paper.