Chapter Text
June 2005 - Natalya.
It's the last week of dance before classes are over for summer break, meaning they had a year end party. Everyone took an extra hour passing around phone numbers and email addresses and whatnot. Nat could personally do without, but you could really only get to the snacks after all that’s done, and she really only came to class because of the food.
She idly licks chocolate cupcake frosting from her fingers. They'd stop and go again, stop and go again. She looks out the window, watching them move forward, inch by excruciating inch. They've been in traffic for more than an hour now.
Keith, Leon’s dad, suddenly does a big sigh up in the front seat, the kind where you kind of blow loud air through your nose. He turns off the radio. If she leans forward a bit she could see him roll his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Funny how big of a difference an hour could make, hmm?” Cynthia, Leon’s mom, says to Keith. She pats his arm reassuringly, and Nat watches this exchange with interest.
It was interesting how Leon had parents. It was interesting how Malika had parents. Married couples were always so… strange. It was fun to watch them interact, though. Nat could imagine how things could have been with her parents.
“Well, I mean, it sure as hell wasn’t this crowded before God knows what happened in the nineties,” Keith replies. “I’m telling you, Cynthia, border control is the way to go! Even after 9/11 these morons don’t know the meaning of border control. I mean, how well do we have to outline it? We. Don’t. Want. Them. Here. Jesus, at least Bush has got his head screwed on straight. ”
“I’m an immigrant, Keith," she reminds him gently. "Dad came from Hong Kong in the sixties.”
Nat leans forward a bit in her booster seat to try to see his face in the rearview mirror again. She doesn’t know what happened in the nineties, or what 9/11 is, or what border control entails―she’s only six―but Keith sounds angry, and his facial expression when angered amuse her. His thick eyebrows move up and down when he talks, but that’s really where the family resemblance between him and Leon ends.
In most cases, Natalya can say her friends look like their parents. When it's not ironed straight for dance, Malika has really, really curly hair like her mom. Alfred looks a lot like a very young version of his dad, but Leon does not look like his parents at all. Maybe he's adopted, Natalya thinks, squinting at her friend.
He and his dad have the same eyebrows and the same brown hair, but Leon’s hair is long enough to touch his shoulder blades, soft and fine to the touch. Keith, on the other hand, has elected to slick back his hair, making his forehead seem much higher than it likely is. Keith is a young father―all parents are old to Natalya, but Keith is younger than most―but he talks like he’s heard every bit of information he needs for the rest of his life. He’s always very well dressed, and very, very clean. Still, for all the work he puts in, Keith does not seem very inviting.
Cynthia, on the other hand, is even smaller than Keith, with long dark hair and even darker sunglasses. The tiredness that seems to make itself home on most mothers’ faces hasn’t quite reached her yet, and Natalya thinks that must be good, because Keith cringes whenever he sees other mothers in the neighborhood with age on their faces.
Natalya likes Cynthia, because sometimes she makes cookies when Leon and Natalya are hungry, but Leon’s dad is entertaining for a number of reasons.
“―and I’m just saying, if all these immigrants just come into our country and decide that they’re free to take what they want―”
“Malika’s not an immigrant,” Leon pipes up suddenly.
“She’s from New York City,” Nat adds. Nat isn't sure what exactly they were talking about as a family or why Leon seemed so worked up all of a sudden, but she still feels the need to tell everyone who's willing to listen that Malika’s from New York City. They went there a few summers ago; she could still remember the highlights from that trip.
The airport scanners at the Empire State were one of them. Telling Iryna she’d push her from the top was another. (Getting chewed out by her father after saying those things was less fun, but it didn’t stop Natalya from saying it again after Bill’s back was turned.)
Cynthia turns around to see both Leon and Natalya in the backseat and says tightly, “Now, you know we wouldn’t talk about your friend like that. I’m sure Malika’s a fine girl. Your father and I are having an adult conversation now. You wouldn’t understand.”
Leon slumps back into his booster seat, defeated.
Natalya doesn’t understand, it's true, but she doesn’t like people telling her she doesn’t understand. She glances at Leon, who leans on the car door beside him. His mom and dad keep talking in the front, though Keith does most of the talking. Natalya gets the impression that if Cynthia gave any real input, she’d be ignored.