Teresa sneezed thunderously, startling everyone. After blessing her, my mom took the opportunity to change the conversation by asking Watts how he felt to have his old friend back in town.
“It’s cool,” Watts said. “I’m just glad he came back even though he’s kind of outgrown this place.”
“You say that like it’s a compliment,” Seth said between chews. “But look at it this way. That truck of yours, Danner, was given to you when I got too big to fit inside. I upgraded to a bigger truck, and on paper, that looks like I’m doing pretty well for myself. But really what it means is, I’m obese and on the freaking verge of death.” He laughed, wiping his mouth. Teresa clicked her tongue, and Seth put his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m going, I’m going,” he said. Then he stood, shoving back his chair to make room. He apologized for dominating the conversation. “Hate to leave you guys,” he said, “but yo tengo mucho trabajo.” The accent was so awful, I thought he was playing it up.
“The food is so delicious,” my mom said once he was gone. “You know, Mexican food is so different from Armenian cuisine. Everything in Armenian cuisine — even the heavy stuff — is just lighter.”
“Well,” Teresa said, “flavor does tend to make things heavier.…”
While they debated, Watts leaned over to me and said, “How’s it been, being back?”
“Fine,” I said. “Didn’t do much this trip. I went to that rally on the Boulevard today, and that’s about all.”
“The American Popularity Party,” Watts said. Apparently, his dad was a member. “What did I miss?”
“Well,” I said, “I saw Roxanne.”
Teresa dinged her glass with a knife. “Boys. Lena and I want to make a toast.”
The two women filled their glasses with wine and gave us — underage, as we were — a tiny splash each. “It’s a special occasion,” Teresa reasoned. “And it’s bad luck,” my mom added, “to make a toast with an empty glass.”
The four of us raised our wine.
“To you boys,” Teresa said.
“And to your long, great friendship,” added my mom.
“We’re so proud of you both. In only one generation, look at our great boys in this country.”
“And we can’t wait to see what your futures hold. What your own sons and daughters, who won’t be the children of immigrants, will be able to do.”
“And also to Robert—”
“Who we all wish could be here with us tonight, but he’s making us safer.”
“And we’re praying for him, to keep him safe, too.”
“And for all of you boys. We’re so proud.”
“Salud.”
“Abrés.”
We clinked glasses to loyalty and sacrifice, though nobody said so, exactly. Karinger’s name had been breathed into the room, though, like grace in another language, and I regretted avoiding his sister at the rally. She had always been kind to me. If I earned her trust again, I thought, I could eventually regain her brother’s. I’d see her again. Next time, I thought, I’d catch her eye and walk over to her—
“What?” I said. Watts had been saying something to me.
“Was she with a guy?”
“Roxanne? No. She was with Linda.”
Watts pondered this. He knew I had nothing to gain by telling him of my sighting. But he also knew why I’d done it: I was from here, a place where gossip — not ambition — served as the driving force of stories.
“She looked good,” I said.
“Of course,” he said, hanging his head so his curls covered his face. “Of course she did.”
Just as my mom called off a second glass of wine, telling Teresa we ought to be going, Watts flipped his hair back and punched me lightly in the thigh. “You owe me a favor.”
“Oh, God,” I said.
“Stay here tonight.”
“What?”
“Just don’t go home.”
Our mothers were hugging. They made plans to see each other again, soon, just the two of them.
“Shit,” I whispered. “It’s my last night in town. You know I promised my mom I’d stay with her.”
“Look, I’ll take you back to the airport tomorrow, free of charge. But you have to help me tonight.”
“Daniel,” my mom said, coming over to hug him. “So good to see you.” Then, to me: “Ready?”
I rubbed my thigh where Watts had hit me. He’d been kind to pick me up from the airport, and generous to offer another ride in the morning. But that’s not why I owed him my loyalty. I owed him because he was still here. I owed him my loyalty because he’d given the Antelope Valley — and me — his.
“Actually,” I told my mom, “I thought I’d stay the night with Watts — with Dan — if that’s all right with you? And with Teresa, of course. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“But you leave tomorrow,” my mom said, maintaining her smile. “Don’t you think you should come home tonight, get a good night’s rest?” She put her hand on Teresa’s back. “They’ve got workers coming in and out, too, remember, so it’s better if you’re not in the way.”
“Oh,” Teresa said. “We can handle one more boy, no problem.”
“And we were going to have hatz banir tonight.” She fiddled with the Band-Aid on her thumb. “And I made all that boreg for you.”
“I’ll have some of the boreg we brought here,” I said.
“But who will eat all the ones we have at home?”
I didn’t have to answer that — my mom knew she was beginning to sound desperate. To cover this up, she offered a little laugh to our host and said, “I guess it’s already been decided.”
When we hugged, my mom said she could call off work again tomorrow, if I wanted, to spend another hour or so together before she drove me to the airport. But I told her I already had a ride, and plus, she couldn’t keep doing that, calling in sick. What I meant was she couldn’t afford to, but speaking of money always embarrassed her. So I made a joke instead. “Stop pretending to be sick,” I said, “or karma’s gonna catch up with you, and you’ll get sick for real.”
I arranged to swing by the house later to pick up my bag and say good-bye. Any pain I felt for choosing Watts over her was swept aside by the conviction that my mother and I had decades more to spend together. For another fifty years or so — an impossible amount of time to imagine — I would sit in traffic with her, run errands with her, taste-test her cooking. And eventually, once the drought ended and the town exploded into a true city around us, we would huddle together in the crammed aisle of a bullet train and reveal to each other the various occasions on which we’d sacrificed for each other in the name of loyalty. All the times we’d survived more than a cut.
* * *
The truck his father had outgrown started on the second try. It was just after midnight. In the hours since dinner, the only idea Watts had come up with was to head over to Roxanne’s house.
“To do what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Karinger would’ve had a plan. Even you might have something in mind. But my motto’s always been, ‘Just be there,’ and usually whatever needs to happen will happen.”