Over and over since Wednesday, Amadeo has picked up his phone to call Brianna. He needs to apologize—sour nausea rises like a fast incoming tide every time he thinks of her. And he thinks of her often—her alert face, the way she tucks her feet under her when they watch a movie, her weight against his chest.
On Sunday, once he’s helped his mother with her breakfast, he goes to the morada again to pray, because that’s where his priorities should lie, not on earthly concerns about some woman. Once he’s there, though, he realizes that he’s actually waiting for Al and Isaiah. He wants the reassurance of their steady, male presence. He wants reassurance that, simply by virtue of being on his knees in this building, he’s in the right. Also, he wants to pray with them again.
“Where’re you working now, son?” Al asked last time, as they locked up the morada.
Amadeo confessed that he isn’t working, not exactly, that his business hasn’t taken off, but his mom is sick, and he has to be with her, but that also he’s worried about money. “You know, with her being sick and all. I just—I don’t know why I don’t have a job yet.”
Isaiah said, “Listen, man. We’re hiring at Lowe’s. Let me know.”
Amadeo was filled with a sense of well-being; here was this stranger, offering help.
“Okay,” he said eagerly. “I will.”
Now, Amadeo sits on the bench for nearly an hour, looking at his hands, but no one comes by. He wonders how Isaiah is holding up.
What would Jesus do? he asks himself, and the answer is clear: Jesus would follow up with Isaiah and get a job. Jesus would take care of his mother and his daughter. Jesus would call Brianna and apologize. Jesus would make things right, and Jesus would see if there was still any chance for something between them.
So call he does, as he walks home. It goes to voicemail, but then a second later she calls back.
“I wasn’t going to pick up, but I changed my mind.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“You were really a dick to me. How could I know your mom was sick?”
“I know,” Amadeo says. “I’m sorry. Hey, do you want to hang out?”
“Are you calling because you want to hook up?” Her voice is defensive.
“No,” Amadeo says, and wonders if she’s right. He doesn’t think so, but there’s a chance she sees him more clearly than he sees himself. “Not that I’d mind. But I thought we could talk.”
“God,” she says. “Fine. Let’s get together.”
After school Monday, as the other girls gather their bags, Angel lingers near Brianna’s desk, her weight uneven on her feet. “Miss?” she asks, because Brianna seems too familiar, given the shift in the classroom atmosphere.
Brianna flicks her eyes from her computer screen. “Yes, Angel. How can I help you?” Her voice isn’t cold exactly, more wary.
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Brianna has aged in the last week—she doesn’t have new wrinkles or a sudden stoop, she doesn’t appear exhausted, nothing so clear as that—but ever since Lizette left, there’s been a ragged, unhappy electricity around her that makes Angel think of her mother.
“What, Angel?” Brianna’s eyes slide back to her screen.
And because she’s thinking of her mother, of her mother’s helplessness in the face of authority, and of how she rejected her mother’s attempt to draw her back home, and then of her grandmother, Angel loses her nerve.
“Oh, nothing. See you tomorrow.”
“You sure?” Brianna asks, and this time the softening in her voice makes Angel’s step stutter, but not enough to break her momentum.