The Go-Between Read online

  Welcome-Home-Sergio Dinner

  To start

  Pozole broth with grilled shrimp, hard-boiled egg, and ramen noodles

  Then:

  Sea bass à la plancha with 3 salsas: salsa verde, salsa rojo, and jalapeño crema

  Caesar salad, Tijuana style

  Elotes with chili-and-lime-spiked sauce

  And for dessert:

  Chocolate tres leches cake with fraises des bois

  Rooney looked at me. “Do you like it? If you don’t like it, I can change it.”

  “I like it. I love it,” I said. “It just seems…a little above my skill set.”

  Rooney laughed. “If you’d like, I can come over and help?”

  I nodded.

  “When is this dinner?”

  “Saturday night.”

  She said, “No problem. I’m free.”

  On Saturday, Rooney came over. I’d made sure we had all the ingredients needed. In no way, shape, or form was I thinking about hooking my brother up with Rooney. But from the moment she walked into our house with her curly hair falling past her shoulders, dressed in a white embroidered off-the-shoulder blouse and white jeans, it was clear that my brother was smitten.

  I introduced them, and then as Rooney and I walked toward the kitchen, she whispered, “Do you think this Mexican-style blouse is too wannabe Frida Kahlo?”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “You look amazing.”

  Sergio was still right behind us, and he said, “You look amazing.”

  Then I saw it: Rooney blushed, and I could tell. He liked her and she liked him too.

  Sergio didn’t want to leave the kitchen, but I kicked him out. I’d made Rooney promise to be my sous chef, handling all my prep but letting me put together each dish (with copious coaching, of course). I wanted my family to feel that I’d really made the meal for them. And now that I’d shaken off the bad mojo of my lying ways, I hoped that the food would taste of love, not stress.

  When everything was nearly cooked, Rooney and I went out to the garden and decorated the outdoor table with one of my mother’s favorite tablecloths. Rooney had brought along a bag of rose petals that she’d gotten at the flower market downtown. We sprinkled those on the table, setting each place with simple white dishes and leaving plenty of room for the food.

  Once everything was on the table, we called everyone to the garden. Sergio took the lead in introducing Rooney, while I poured everyone drinks from a big pitcher of guava agua fresca.

  The looks on my parents’ faces made the hours in the kitchen so worth it. They walked out the back patio door as if they were lottery winners being escorted to their prize.

  “You did this?” my mother asked, wrapping her arms around me. “All of this?”

  “Well, Rooney helped,” I said, beaming at her.

  “Very impressive, both of you,” my father said, raising his glass in a toast. “To our son, who has come home. To Rooney, a new friend. And to our daughter, who against all odds has learned to cook.”

  Everyone laughed.

  After the toast, Rooney gave me a hug and urged everyone to sit down and eat.

  My parents oohed and aahed over every course, though I think the pozole with the ramen noodles was probably their favorite. The only thing that interested Sergio more than Rooney was the chocolate cake. He kept talking to her in French, and it turned out that Rooney had spent a summer interning in Lausanne, Switzerland, where Sergio went to school. By the time the meal was over, my parents had taken their coffee into the media room. I went into the kitchen to clean up, and Rooney and Sergio stayed outside in the backyard until very, very late. I could not imagine a better way to welcome my bro into our new home.

  As for me, when I got up to my room, I picked up my phone, and immediately I knew who to call. I hit a phone number that was so familiar to me that I didn’t need speed dial to remember all the numbers, I knew. I was missing my hometown doctor, Amadeo. He was not close, but he was just a four-hour flight away. Amadeo. I loved the me I was when I was with him. I was tired of being on a break.

  “Hola, Amadeo,” I whispered into the phone, as if I was in a crowded theater and not alone in my bedroom. “Soy yo.”

  I didn’t know how I was going to make up for all the lies I’d told, but I knew that I needed to do more than apologize. As Rooney often said, “I’m not a Buddhist, but I believe in karma. What goes around comes around.” I needed and wanted something good to come my way—even if it was just the feeling that I could look in the mirror and not think, “Ay, Cammi, no” or “Ay, Cammi, why?” every day of the week.

  —

  Willow and I made our peace pretty quickly. I think out of all of us, she and I had the most in common. I wasn’t mixed the way she was, but I had one foot in my life in Mexico and one foot in LA and it was that particular mix that I’d found so hard to navigate. Tiggy kept insisting that we wanted to blame her for “everything” because she was white. Finally, one day after school, the three of us met up at the Grove and Willow put her foot down.

  We were sitting in a booth at Blue Ribbon Sushi, our old stomping grounds. We had just ordered and we were sipping tiny cups of green tea because even though it was California, and it was hot outside, the air-conditioning was on full blast. Willow and I sat on one side of the booth, Tiggy sat on the other.

  She said, “I’m still not speaking to her. She’s a liar.”

  Willow put her tea cup down and said, “Yep, that’s been established. But we’re not here to talk about Cammi, we’re here to talk about you. You’ve done some ra— Let’s not call it racist. Mad culturally insensitive ish and you’ve got to fix it. You can start by apologizing for spilling the Diet Coke and expecting us to clean it up.”

  Tiggy looked genuinely embarrassed.

  “What?” I said. “You thought we’d just forget about that?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not arguing, but looking more at Willow than at me. “That was out of line.”

  It was so obvious that Tiggy had never had to apologize for anything in her life. This looked like the harshest thing she’s ever had to do. As much as I hate to admit it, I felt a little sorry for her. Willow was a little less forgiving.

  “I didn’t mean it. I was just so angry, and I felt left out, seeing you two band up together after everything she did.” I stopped feeling sorry for her immediately. “And I know it’s not an excuse, but I snapped. I lashed out.”

  “Okay, am I supposed to feel bad for you because you suffer from white fragility?” Willow responded. I had to give her props, that was definitely the right term to use here.

  “Willow, I’m so sorry. You’re my best friend,” Tiggy pleaded with her. “I need you, please…you’re right. I’m f***d up, I’m…racist, okay?”

  That looked really hard for her to say.

  “But I’m working on it, I swear,” she added.

  “You’ve been out of line and all over the place for a while, Tiggy,” Willow said. “Do you even want to be our friend anymore?”

  Tiggy shrugged, “I want to be your friend, Willow. Things were so much easier before she came around.”

  Willow shook her head. “Easier for you, maybe, but not easier for me. I like not being the only person of color in our squad. I like having a different perspective in the mix. It’s what our whole school is supposed to be about.”

  Tiggy scowled, “But she’s not even really poor.”

  “But I am really Mexican,” I said. “And even though I lied about what my parents do for a living, the way I feel about things as a Mexican hasn’t changed.”

  “So what do you say, Tiggy?” Willow asked. “Are you down with the rainbow tribe?”

  “Sure,” Tiggy said. Then she nodded in my direction. “As long as the rich girl pays for lunch.”

  I took out my black card and put it on the table. “Done.”

  Tiggy looked at me and shook her head. “I knew that card was real. Positive thinking, my booty.”

  Makin
g up with Milly was harder. No matter how many times I approached her at school, she just shut me down. Every time I tried to pass her a note in class or give her one at her locker, she made a big show of ripping it up. Then finally, one day I decided to FedEx a letter to her house. I thought maybe if she got an overnight package that someone had to sign for, she would at least read it before she ripped it up.

  In the letter, I wrote:

  Dear Milly,

  I get it. I screwed up. I disrespected you and I disrespected myself by playing into other people’s beliefs about our culture. Would it help if I explained that I’m new to this country and that English isn’t my first language? (Ha, ha.) But really, the thing is, I didn’t know before I moved to Los Angeles just how deep the misconceptions were about us Mexicans, just how damaging the stereotypes could be. So I’d like to apologize for that.

  My father always told me and Sergio that it’s okay to fail, as long as we failed forward. If we learned something, if we could then use what we learned, then the failure was worth it. I’ve learned a lot in the past few months. I’m trying to use what I’ve learned.

  I can’t beg you to be my friend. I can say that you’re someone who I’d like to continue to hang with. You make me proud to be Mexican. I think together we can do a lot of good and maybe even have some fun. But regardless, I hope you’ll accept my apology.

  Sinceramente,

  Camilla

  I sent the letter on Friday for Saturday delivery. All day Saturday and into Sunday, I kept checking my phone for a text and I had to resist the urge to text her. Just the act of writing the letter made me realize that I couldn’t make Milly be my friend. The way she iced me out made me think of all my elementary school friends I’d cut off, just because they asked my mom for an autograph. Yeah, I was a kid. But until it happened to me, I didn’t realize how much it hurt to have made a mistake with someone and not be given a chance to fix it.

  That Monday in chemistry, I walked into the classroom to see Milly sitting at her desk. She had a Bunsen burner and my letter, which she proceeded to torch. I looked at her in disbelief. I didn’t think she could’ve found another way to tell me to screw myself, but I had to give her props. She was crazy creative.

  When she was done, she walked over to me and poured the ashes on my desk.

  “Wow, thanks,” I said, sarcastically.

  “Talk is cheap,” she said. “Let’s see what you do.”

  “Okay…,” I said.

  “My Dad misses hanging with your Dad,” she said. “He wants me to invite your father to lunch on Saturday. You can come.”

  —

  Milly and I were sitting on the sidewalk in front of her house when I had the biggest brainstorm. She said, “When I was a kid, we used to have the best block parties every summer.”

  I’d never heard of a block party, but Milly explained, “We’d close the street down to traffic. There’d be a bouncy house for the little kids, music, dancing, all this food. It was great.”

  I nodded. “It sounds like the street festivals in Coyoacán. I love that kind of thing.”

  “Me too,” Milly said. “But we don’t have them anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “All the old ladies who used to plan them either passed away or moved away. It’s a ton of work. You’ve got to fund-raise, get permits from the city to close the streets, hire people, organize everything.”

  I jumped up. “I can do it. I can be that old-lady organizer.”

  Milly shook her head. “You know you’re crazy, right?”

  —

  On the way home, I talked to my dad and he agreed to help me. He’d just finished his big voice-over project, so both he and Rogelio were free. Every day after school, we had meetings at our house. I’d been working on my friendships for days, trying to make sure Willow and Tiggy didn’t hold a grudge. Milly had been to our house, but true talk, it was weird the first time Willow and Tiggy came over.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tiggy said when I opened the front door.

  “This is niiiiiice,” Willow said. “And I know nice.”

  —

  A few weeks later, it had all come together. We called our block party “Coyoacán Comes to East LA,” and early one Saturday morning, we all drove to Milly’s block. And by “early” I mean five a.m. There was so much to do. Rooney got a few friends who had food trucks to roll through. All the food was free because my parents had agreed to underwrite the whole thing. By seven a.m., the street smelled like heaven—there was Korean barbecue grilling away, a Hawaiian poke bowl truck, and, of course, two taco trucks serving the best of Mexican street food.

  There was a bouncy house. Because Milly had insisted. “Nostalgia, man,” she said, trying to pretend she wasn’t all sentimental about it. “That ish runs deep.”

  Tiggy and her mother organized a street-style fashion show using guys and girls from the community, and they were all set up to broadcast it live on teenvogue.com.

  Milly’s dad gave painting lessons, and my mom took selfies with fans next to the free photo booth that we had set up.

  The costume designers from my mother’s TV show had set up a huge tag sale of clothes, handbags, and shoes from the shows they had worked on, things that weren’t needed for the next television season. Everything was being sold supercheap. All the proceeds were going to the Polestar scholarship fund.

  Speaking of which, we got the Admissions Department to set up a table so that kids from Milly’s neighborhood could learn about opportunities and even apply. There was also a raffle so that five kids could get free admission to Polestar’s summer day camp. I looked at all the kids lined up to meet the admissions counselors. The girls and boys looked like they could have been the little brothers or sisters of me and Sergio, or of Willow, or of Milly. At one point Milly, Willow, and I just stood there looking at the kids.

  Milly wiped a tear that had gotten away from her and said, “Sin palabras.”

  I said, “Exactly.”

  Willow asked, “What does that mean?”

  I explained that it’s a phrase that means “Words aren’t necessary.”

  And Willow said, “Sí, hermanas. I agree.”

  She was cute like that.

  At the end of the afternoon, the band started to play. My father had found musicians in Salazar Park and hired them to be our headliners, and they played old-style Latin music. My mother was dressed down, in a simple sundress and a simple ponytail. But she was also wearing a pair of impossible heels because, you know, that’s how she rolls. When the music started to play, she came over to me and said, “I’m very proud of you, Camilla. I probably don’t say that enough. You’re like your dad. You’ve got a lot of heart.”

  Then she went over to my father and said, “Oye, Viejo, want to dance?”

  For a little while, it was just the two of them, in the middle of this street in East LA, twirling and dancing. But soon others started to join them. When the band started to play an old reggaeton song, me and my crew started dancing too. Willow and Milly were the best dancers. They looked like they had just come off tour with Beyoncé. But Tiggy and I did our best to keep up, collapsing into giggles every time we tried to execute one of their more complicated moves.

  I knew it would take a while for my new friends to trust me again, but for the first time since it had all gone south, I began to feel that I was a person worthy of that trust.

  Late that night the band was still playing, and the kids, hopped up on sugar, were still crawling all over the bouncy house. Families had set up folding chairs on the street, and they drank cerveza and big cups of Cuban coffee, and talked animatedly, with their arms flailing about this, that, and everything. My girls and I were exhausted, so we lay out on Milly’s painted driveway. It would be summer soon, and we all had different plans.

  “Where are you off to?” I asked Willow.

  “New York,” she said. “I got an internship at the Jewish Museum. They’re doing some black and Jewi
sh exhibit.”

  Milly, who loved all kinds of art, said, “That sounds mad cool.”

  Tiggy shook her head. “It sounds weird. You’re not even that into being Jewish, but that’s pretty cool.”

  Willow shrugged. “Culture is everything, so it should be interesting, I hope.”

  Tiggy said, “My parents have rented a house in the Hamptons. You can come visit us when you get bored. I mean, if you get bored.”

  “I definitely will,” Willow said. “How about you, Milly?”

  Milly smiled. “I’m going to Rock Camp this summer. I’m going to learn how to play guitar. Write a few songs. Rock out.”

  I smiled. “That sounds like fun.”

  “What are you going to do, Cammi?” Willow asked.

  “I’m going back to Mexico,” I said, beaming. “My mother has to stay here and shoot her show, but Rooney has the summer off, and she and Sergio are going to work on this soccer thing. My dad’s coming too.”

  “That sounds cool,” Milly said.

  “And I want to see my boyfriend,” I added.

  Everyone looked shocked.

  “You have a boyfriend?” Willow asked.

  “Yeah,” I said with a goofy smile. “His name is Amadeo and he’s in medical school.”

  Now Tiggy was interested. “You have an older boyfriend, in medical school? Then why were you all infatuated with white Max?”

  “Amadeo and I were on a break,” I began sheepishly.

  “Your idea or his idea?” Willow asked.

  “My stupid idea,” I confessed.

  Milly said, “Let’s see a picture of him.”

  I pulled up a photo on my phone and handed it to her.

  She whistled. “He is devastatingly handsome. Only a fool would take a break from a hottie like this.”

  What could I say? It was pretty well established that wise decisions had not been my forte lately. I was happy that I’d be back at Polestar in the fall, but I couldn’t wait to get home—back to my guy and the girl I used to be.

  My mother’s show in the US was a huge hit, and just as she’d suspected, the studio had ordered the back nine before the first episode had even aired. Things were a little bit back to normal as we had known it in Mexico City. There were photographers waiting outside our house every day, and my mom began to travel with a driver who doubled as security. One Saturday afternoon, the two of us were swimming in the pool, protected from the prying eyes of the paparazzi not only by a good fence but by a row of English-style hedges. “I miss my anonymity,” she said. “It was fun to be un-famous for a while.” I nodded, but noted the key words “for a while.”