never, and already her siblings were annoying her. Typical.
“We’ve got even bigger problems if he thinks it’s a date,” Grace added. “Hey, why are you calling me instead of texting?”
“What, I can’t call you and talk, voice to voice? Have a human connection?”
“Nice try. Are you grounded?”
“Yep. My parents took my phone. I can only use the computer for school.” Maya sighed heavily as her mom walked past the kitchen, then one more time for good measure. “My jailers let me use the landline for five minutes. The fucking landline. Like I’m on the Oregon Trail or something. I told them I had a question about homework.”
“So how did you get the email from—you know what, never mind. I don’t want to know. So do you want to meet him?”
“Hell yeah, I want to meet him.” Maya wrapped the phone cord around her finger. It was oddly soothing, being able to do that. The tip of her finger started to turn red, and she loosened the cord, then did it all over again. “You have to drive, though,” she told Grace. “Shotgun.”
“There’s not even going to be anyone else in the car. Why do you have to call—”
Maya felt bad for Grace sometimes. Imagine being raised without a sibling and not understanding the importance of yelling “Shotgun!” at every single opportunity. Grace was really missing out. Maya wondered how she played Slug Bug on car trips.
Maya’s mother came back through the kitchen this time, and Maya immediately put on her most innocent face. (She had practiced it in the mirror. It was sort of necessary when she snuck out as much as she did.)
“Oh, is that the quadratic equation?” Maya’s voice suddenly changed into a sweet and dopey imitation of herself. “Oh, that makes sense. Okay.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Are you having a mathematically based stroke?”
Sweet, innocent, na?ve Grace. Maya was definitely going to have to toughen her up.
Maya’s mother widened her eyes at her, then pointed at her watch. “One minute,” she mouthed.
“I know, I know,” Maya said, and her mom gave her a warning glance before she left the room.
“Do I even want to know why you’re grounded?”
Maya could hear Grace tapping on a keyboard in the background. How dare she? “I snuck out last week to practice devil worship with these kids I met in a cornfield.” Maya wrapped the phone cord around her whole fist this time. “They’re not the best conversationalists, but they’re pretty nice once you get past all the ritual sacrifice.”
Grace laughed this time, which made Maya feel pleased. Her family was so used to her weird brand of humor that they had stopped acknowledging it a long time ago. Hearing Grace laugh made Maya feel like a comedian who had finally found her perfect audience.
“Okay, I’m going now,” Grace said. “I’ll pick you up at noon on Saturday. Don’t be late. Good luck with the ritual sacrifice.”
It warmed Maya to hear Grace tell her not to be late. She felt like she had spent her entire life watching out for Lauren, herding her from place to place, telling her to hurry up. It was nice to have another person take the reins, even if that person was still basically a complete stranger.
“I’ll put in a good word for you with the cornfield kids,” Maya said, then hung up before Grace could respond.
Maya didn’t tell her parents much about going to meet Joaquin, mostly because she didn’t want to answer questions about it. Her parents were super into discussing everything. It made Maya feel anxious, the way she was supposed to put her emotions into words, like it was an easy thing to do. Lauren was good at it, being able to say whatever was on her mind so that other people could understand, but for Maya, it was like describing colors: the sunset pinks and reds of first love, the stormy blues that clouded her brain when she was hurt or angry.
Claire had always seemed to see the palette of her brain, had been able to sort the colors through a prism so she could understand how Maya felt without Maya having to say a word. The night she had gotten caught sneaking out, she had met up with Claire in the park, smoking a joint that Claire had stolen from her older brother, Caleb. (They also had two younger siblings, Cassandra and Christian. Their parents were Cara and Craig, but Craig had taken off