things awkward. She had never been as close to Boogie or him as I’d been, but they weren’t total strangers. She had lived with our abuela for a few years before moving away once she had finished her basics at the local community college.
“I was supposed to hang out with a friend, but they kind of left me hanging. It’s not a big deal, but I just overreacted and got annoyed.”
Eyes lighter than mine stared at me through my tablet as she narrowed them. We didn’t totally look alike. Her hair was straight; mine was about as curly as humanly possible. Hers was light like our dad’s, and mine was dark like our mom’s. She had always been all cute and small, and I gained weight if I just looked at a single Chips Ahoy. Connie had always been pretty and popular and had boys all over her. Me? Not so much. At least not until my early twenties.
But she wasn’t totally believing me; I could tell from her facial expression.
“It’s no big deal,” I insisted. That got me an eye roll that made me want to change the subject ASAP. “Say, have you talked to your parents lately? They haven’t emailed or video messaged me in over a week.”
That had my sister sliding me a look before grunting. She let the “your parents” thing go, fortunately. “Yeah. Mom emailed me yesterday—”
“Mom! Mommy! I think I super-glued my fingers together!” a voice hollered from somewhere in the background. “Oww! Mom! Help me!”
My sister instantly sighed, lifted a hand, and pinched the bridge of her nose for a second before shooting me a flat look. “I want you to think about this moment if you ever decide to have kids, Peewee. Think long and hard.” One side of her mouth went up in a half smile that meant nothing good was about to come out of her mouth. “Long and hard are what got me into this situation.”
I scrunched up my nose and covered my ears with my palms. “Nope. You’re crossing the line. I’ve told you before, Richard is in the Never-Want-to-Hear-About-It category.”
She cackled. “Let me go deal with this. Love you. Bye,” Connie said before ending the call only after I’d said bye too.
I was still trying to shake off her TMI as I opened my pantry and pulled out the cans of beans I was going to need for the soup I was making for dinner—because I could eat soup for lunch and dinner and be happy for the rest of my life—when the doorbell rang.
Ah, hell.
Even though the complex I lived in had a gate that required an access code to get in, and even though solicitation was banned according to the signs posted at every entrance, every once in a while, people still managed to sneak through. Just last week, someone holding pamphlets and offering to speak to anyone who would listen about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ had rung my doorbell. The only reason I’d checked the peephole ahead of time was because I’d heard voices outside the door—specifically my neighbor Santiago’s voice—and had been curious. And I wasn’t even embarrassed to admit that I’d laid down on the floor for a solid five minutes afterward.
Then again, I pretended I wasn’t home anytime anyone I didn’t know knocked. Even when Girl Scouts came around and tried to sell cookies. I had no willpower.
So, you could say that I knew better than to call out to whoever was ringing the doorbell.
I set my can down beside the Dutch oven I had been about to use and crept as quietly as I could toward the door. Boogie had tried to tell me once you could see shadows move across the peephole from the outside when they were used, but I didn’t totally believe him. I’d stopped believing everything he said when I was thirteen and he’d tried to tell me that kissing boys made babies.
Yeah, I’d found Connie’s condoms two years before that and had that conversation with her. My sister had taught me about the birds and the bees using a carrot and a cinnamon donut. There was a reason we were so close. She could tell me anything.
Anything that wasn’t related to her husband, because I saw him too much and just didn’t want to picture things.
Anyway, one quick glance through the peephole had me dropping to my heels from my tiptoes, then going right back onto them to make sure I hadn’t imagined