“The one and only,” Maritza said with a wry smile. “I was sitting there crying in my car, trying to calm down enough to drive, and all of a sudden she’s tapping on my window. She gave me a really big hug and asked if I wanted to talk. I told her the truth about what had happened with Rona, and you know what she said? She said, ‘Rona has no idea who she is or what she wants, but you do, and you can’t let her take that from you.’”
“Wow,” I breathed.
“And then…” Maritza’s eyes grew bright. “She told me that a few months ago, she kissed a girl from her church. And that she was always here if I needed to talk.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Are you saying—Vivien Chen likes girls?!”
“I think she does,” Maritza said, and the way she laughed was shy, almost blushing.
I stared at her. “Do you have a crush on Vivien Chen?”
She shook her head, but there was no denying her smile.
“Maritza!” I said, giddy with shock.
“She was texting me all day, asking how I was feeling. She kept sending me GIFs of The Sandlot.”
I laughed, remembering the GIFs Lydia had sent in the beginning. “Oh yeah, this is definitely a thing.”
Maritza shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t deal with those dance girls again.”
“Of course you can. Vivien’s right, you can’t let Rona or anyone else take something you love away from you. You know that.”
Maritza was quiet. “You know … this whole time, I thought that if I didn’t make a constant effort to put myself out there, nothing would ever happen for me. For any of us. I was so worried about forcing things into existence that I didn’t realize what was happening on its own.” She took a deep breath. “I never should have forced things with Rona. I could feel in my gut that it wasn’t right. And I shouldn’t have tried to tell you and JaKory who you were or what you needed. You guys did a much better job figuring it out on your own.”
We swiveled around to watch JaKory through the Waffle House windows. He was talking animatedly, and I could see his smile even from here. Daveon was wearing his fedora.
“That damn fedora,” Maritza said, clucking her tongue. “Anyway, I’m tired of all this emo bullshit. Are you in the mood for a coffee?”
She went inside to get us a cup while I wandered back over to Ricky and my brother. They were both sitting on the curb now, and I sat down next to them and let their conversation wash over me. When Maritza came back, she was carrying four coffees on a tray, and she handed them around to each of us.
“You’ll get used to it,” I told Grant, who had taken a sip and failed to hide his grimace. “It grows on you.”
* * *
For a while we sat there in the humid night, watching cars pull in and out of the lot, counting the tired, grimy people who walked in through the doors and back out sometime later. There was one car that remained on the opposite side of the parking lot the whole time, which Maritza surmised must be Daveon’s friends waiting for him.
At last, JaKory stepped out of the Waffle House with a boy about his size who wore glasses and a red flannel shirt, despite the peak July temperature. We watched as they walked over to the long-parked car, from which two people, a guy and a girl around our age, stepped out to shake JaKory’s hand. It was obvious that JaKory and Daveon were wildly happy, that their giddy energy was spilling over into every gesture and grin.
“Our turn,” Maritza whispered, as the four of them loped our way.
JaKory’s smile was even happier up close. “Y’all, this is Daveon,” he said, brushing his shoulder against the other boy’s, “and his friends Kara and Julian.”
We introduced ourselves to each other, everyone smiling and gripping hands almost like we had accompanied JaKory and Daveon to their wedding. Even my brother seemed excited.
“I’m so happy we got to meet you,” I told Daveon, looking him square in the eye.
I could tell he was shy, but he looked right at me through his thick-framed glasses. “Me too,” he said. “This whole night has been a dream.”
Maritza was conferencing with JaKory. Based on their gestures, it looked like they were trying to