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Once we’re about done cleaning up, I cover the last of the leftover rice, beans, and tamales in Tupperware containers that Mamá will be sending home with us and place them in the fridge. But I stop when I see a few new pictures they’ve added near the ice dispenser. These pictures of me, Joaquín, and Angie have adorned this surface forever. Mostly from the concerts we attended. But these new ones make me curious.
“Where did you find this one?” I ask no one in particular as I stare at eighteen-year-old Angie and Rafael wearing black and white full-face makeup, ready for the Insane Clown Posse concert.
“Oh my god,” Angie groans, coming up next to me as I wrap my arm around her and pull her in close. “Was that when we tried to be Juggalos?”
“Yes,” Mom laughs uncontrollably. “I think that was the first concert you guys went to where you had no prior knowledge of the band.”
Mom’s laughter trickles to Angie. “That’s one hundred percent what happened. We looked up how we were supposed to dress and nothing else.”
All four of us are peeling with laughter now. “That was not our vibe,” I muster out. “Wait, wait, what’s this one?” I ask, pointing to the picture next to it.
Mom steps in closer to look at an image of a sunburnt Angie sleeping on a towel next to a tent—not in the tent—next to, and I’m crouched beside her with a huge grin and two thumbs up, wearing my swim trunks and a cut-off tank. “Oh, I found that one in the basement the other day. That was the summer after your sophomore year in college when we went river tubing and camping down in West Virginia. It was right before you went back to school.”
“I loved those camping trips,” Angie says fondly, squeezing me a little tighter around my torso.
“Me too,” I sigh, letting her hold me a little longer as we look back on our memories.
The pair of us have always been affectionate like this. Until Cora came into our lives, Angie was the only girl outside of my family I was comfortable being my true unfiltered self with. I guess to this day I’m still not nearly as affectionate with Cora as I am with Angie. That could largely be because Angie has been around since before I had my own opinions. Before I formed my hardened exterior to outsiders. That’s not to say I’m not still friendly and goofy with people I meet and other friends—I just don’t let those people inside the way I do with Angie.
My eyes travel to the one picture of my papá on the fridge. I’ve always been surprised my moms have kept it, but I’ve never said anything about it in fear that they’ll take it down—as if they’ve never noticed it, and by me mentioning its presence, they’ll correct their mistake. It’s a photo of him, me, and Joaquín before he transitioned. I’m about fourteen, which would make Joaquín about eleven. My dad stands between us on his front porch in Redbird, a well-to-do suburb of Dallas. I remember my mamá took the picture right before she dropped us off for a month that summer. She and Mom were heading to Mexico to visit family afterwards.
It was one of the last summer trips to Papá’s house where my moms traveled with us. I remember being beyond excited to be there. We only got to see him in the summer and the occasional Christmas spent together in Guanajuato. We’d still see my father’s side of the family in Mexico whether he was there or not, which, often, he wasn’t.
To say I look up to my dad is an understatement. Whenever I had one of those class assignments that asked who my hero was, my dad was always the answer. He was cool and fun and strong—he was everything I wanted to be.
And I wanted to show him that. I wanted to prove to him I was worthy of his love beyond reasonable doubt. I still do.
To this day, I still get excited when I get to see him. Though, it’s been almost five years since I have—the longest stretch of time we’ve ever gone. It’s not on purpose; we’ve been busy. He never had a chance to make it to DC when I lived there, but that’s okay. I know he has a demanding job working in the oil and gas industry down there. Plus, his hobbies keep him occupied. I get it.
I should visit more. That’s on me. I’ll plan to visit him soon. He’ll be so happy if I do. Maybe that will convince him to come visit me too. Shoot, the last time José Juan Jimenez was on the east coast was… huh. Was it when I graduated from grad school? Wow, it’s been forever. Not that he visited much anyway, but that’s okay. Other than us, he didn’t have any family here or reason to visit.
“Oh my gosh,” Angie sweetly sighs, pulling me back to the other memories in front of us. She points to another photo. “I can’t believe you let me bleach your hair back then.”
I chuckle. “You said you knew how! I believed you!”
“What sixteen-year-old knows how to properly bleach hair, Raf?”
“You were very confident,” I shrug. “You’ve always tricked me into doing things with your unwarranted confidence.”
Chapter 5
April 30th
Angie
Having Rafael back in my life full time is even better than I thought it would be. It’s also kind of worse, but in a way that’s easily ignorable. Over the last month, we’ve been hanging out after work at least a couple nights each week, usually in the evenings when he doesn’t have rugby practice. Sometimes by ourselves and sometimes with friends. Being with him—in any capacity—is like breathing. It’s natural.
Sometimes we’ll simply hangout, watching trash TV and eating ice cream as I self-medicate my period cramps. Which was a minor relief when I did get my period a couple weeks ago. I know we said nothing happened, but it’s still a relief to get that confirmation each month.
Our playlists seem to be getting out of control in the best way. We started curating them once we both graduated with our master’s degrees, and he moved to DC. It was a way we still connected to each other outside of the near daily text messages, at least weekly video calls, and monthly trips to visit one another. Playlists for trips we took to Mexico together, for holidays, for camping trips, and everything in between. Our master playlist holds the largest assortment of music—all four hundred plus songs that we deem our favorites or at least have some memory associated with it.
But now, instead of songs being added once a week or so, we’re sharing multiple times a day. I want to share everything with him—every thought and feeling put to a melody.
We haven’t spent every free night together though. We’re not that codependent. There have been a few nights where each of us went out on dates. Raf saw some guy named Charles for a few nights and it ended exactly the way it always does for him. I went out with a couple guys I met on a dating app—both of which ended on-brand for me. One guy took one look at me, eyes round, turned, and left the bar without saying a word. You know, I go to great lengths to make sure my profile photos capture my fatness. I clearly indicate that I’m five-foot eight and thick. What is so surprising to these fuckwads?
The other guy, who asked me out and made the plans at a trendy expensive restaurant, showed up, ordered a ton of food and four drinks for himself, then conveniently forgot his wallet. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me. So when he asked me if I could spot him, I said, “Sure. Let me just head to the ladies’ room and I’ll be right back.” I got up, found our server, paid her for my portion and tip, then left without looking back. I blocked that mooch before I even got in my rink-a-dink car.
That was over a week ago and I’ve been pinching pennies since then to make up for the unexpectedly high price of that dinner.
