It’s Talia, smiling brighter than I’ve ever seen her, looking directly into the camera. I don’t know who I’m more jealous of—her for looking so stunningly happy, or Zaq, behind the camera, who got to be on the receiving end of this smile.
An idea hits me, and I’m suddenly extra grateful that Talia and I exchanged numbers after that initial icebreaker in government. I type the text before I can talk myself out of it, dropping my phone on my bed like it’s on fire as soon as I hit send.
hey, sorry if this is weird, but is there any chance you’d be able to drive me to get my graduation photos taken tomorrow?
I adjust my top, suddenly feeling exposed. It was just a text. It’s just a favor. I don’t really have a choice unless I want to ruin my parents’ dream of savoring their only child’s high school graduation for years to come.
“Ophelia! Dinner!” Mom shouts from the kitchen.
“Coming!” I yell back. Parents forget that someone had to teach us our bad habits.
I’m halfway out the door when I hear my text tone. I practically pounce on my bed, ruffling through the bedding until my fingers find the cooled glass screen. I yank my phone to my face.
Sure, what time?? Talia replied.
THREE
“Smile naturally.”
My cheeks burn as I smile wider, eyes watering under the bright lights.
“Better,” the photographer says as she snaps ten photos of me grimacing. Can’t wait to have this plastered all over the house for the rest of my life.
Somehow sweating and borderline crying in a steaming room while this photographer snaps at me every five seconds for not smiling authentically enough—shocking that I can’t do that while being yelled at—is less painful than the car ride over here was. When Talia picked me up in her endearingly run-down white truck this morning, I had an entire mental notebook full of thought-provoking questions and witty commentary about our classmates prepared. But my mind went blank the second I got in her car, her GPS’s voice command the only sound punctuating our silence during the ride.
She’s currently waiting on the sidelines of the studio, arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. I look away from the camera for a second and catch her eye. She bares her teeth and widens her eyes in a grotesque exaggeration of what the photographer is asking of me, drawing a laugh out of my stomach. I look back to the camera right as the flash bursts.
“Perfect! That was the one,” the photographer says, then dismisses me to go change out of my fancy black dress. It’s decorated with little white and yellow daisies. I picked it out to wear for graduation months ago, in an uncharacteristic act of preplanning. In addition to her freckles, Mom blessed me with her gift of procrastination, so I can hardly be blamed for my genetic predisposition for avoidance. Case in point: She’s spending her weekend grading papers last minute instead of driving me today. Not that I’m complaining.
Talia follows me to the dressing room and hands me my phone and change of clothes. “Your phone keeps buzzing. I wasn’t sure if it was an emergency.”
I have five texts from Sammie, all about what shirt he should wear to the movies with Lindsay, and three from Agatha, all complaining about how boring her cousin’s wedding ceremony has been. I chuckle and tell Sammie to go with the maroon button-up before telling Agatha to hang in there and give her cute older cousin, Trey, my best.
Talia clears her throat. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just Sammie and Agatha being … Sammie and Agatha.” I laugh. “But thanks. I should probably change before I get it all sweaty.” I close the door and reach for the zipper at the back of my dress, but it doesn’t budge.
I swing the door back open. “It’s stuck,” I say helplessly, awkwardly twisting my arm as I keep trying.
“I can—uh.” Talia takes a step forward, then back.
“Oh yeah, uh, thank you.” I move my not-even-in-the-way hair aside just to give my hands something to do and hold my breath as she jiggles the zipper and eventually unzips the dress halfway. It’s low enough that she gets a glimpse of my back and white bralette. The air is freezing on my exposed skin. “I probably would’ve sprained something trying to do that on my own.”
Talia coughs out a laugh. “I’ll wait outside,” she nearly whispers, and vanishes. I quickly undress and slip back into my clothes, denim shorts with daisies embroidered on the cuffs and a lacy white tank top.
I’m determined not to let today be a complete dud, so when I meet Talia back in the main office and she lifts her dark eyes, I ask if she’s hungry. And, thank goodness, she smiles and nods.
The photography studio happens to be in the same outdoor shopping center as the best, and only, Cuban restaurant in town, Ollas Amarillas. The promise of food fills the empty spaces in our conversation. She’s like a whole new person, going off about the brilliance of the alcapurrias from a small cuchifritos place by her house, slipping back and forth from Spanish to English with an ease I’m still struggling to master. Words come easier now, but we’re still walking nearly two feet apart.
“They’re so good. Bueno, yo sé que no son las mismas que hacía mi abuelita, pero…” She stops herself. “I’m sorry, I’m talking a lot.”
“No! No, it’s fine!” I reply, awkwardly adding, “Está bien.” When you’ve had the same friends for this many years, you forget how much work goes into your first one-on-one time with a new one. “It’s actually refreshing to talk to someone so fluent in Spanglish.” Though her Puerto Rican Spanish slightly differs from the Cuban Spanish I’m more familiar with.
I’m conversationally fluent in Spanish, and can even understand Dad’s rapid conversations with his friends about the shit they used to get up to when they were my age (though he doesn’t need to know that). But I didn’t grow up with a big family like Dad did, and he’s one of the only other Cuban Americans I know. Plus, I don’t know any other Latines who celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day like Dad and I do for Mom. For me too, I guess.
But when we step inside Ollas Amarillas and Talia admits she’s never actually had Cuban food before, I gain the confidence I’ve lacked all day.
“You’ve been seriously missing out,” I tell her as she scans the glass display cases of pastelitos de guayaba and de jamón y queso. I swear saliva trickles from her lips when she reaches the thick chocolate cakes dripping with cherry drizzle. I watch Julio, the cute waiter I used to drag Agatha and Lindsay to Ollas Amarillas just to stare at, as he presses fruit into the white cream frosting of a tiny spherical pound cake.
The place is small, with a half-circle glass counter that leads to the kitchen built into the middle of the back wall. The walls are painted a pastel yellow near the base, building to a deeper golden shade at the top. Small, white-clothed tables decorate the black-and-white-checkerboard floor. Posters displaying vintage cars and tanned, leathery men smoking cigars outside white stucco buildings hang from the walls.