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It’s not that Lupe wanted a bunk bed. She wasn’t a child. She wasn’t in the navy.
It’s just, if Jess and Esti were going to bunk their beds, it would have been nice to be invited . That’s all.
But she wasn’t. Instead, she was left to listen to the sounds of their project from three rooms down. Sawing and hammering and Jess asking for Esti to pass her the hand plane and then explaining what it looked like three separate times, even if Lupe wouldn’t have needed it to be explained to her at all — once, at the most.
Was she supposed to pretend to be stupid? Like she didn’t realize what they were up to when they came downstairs together for dinner, Jess, smelling like sweat and fresh-cut wood. Esti, with sawdust in her pigtails.
Well if they thought Lupe was going to make this bed snub easy on them, they had another think coming.
She laid in wait until the team had all tucked into their meals, and then, she pounced.
“You know what doesn’t get enough credit? Heights. Heights are great,” she announced, real casual like, to the table at large.
“You hate heights,” Jess retorted. She didn’t even look up from the mashed potatoes she was shoveling into her mouth.
Lupe frowned. Jess only knew that because a couple weeks ago, they’d snuck out to the bar and Esti, furious that they refused to take her with them, had locked them out of the house. They’d had to climb up onto the roof of the porch. Lupe had gotten stuck halfway up, and Jess had needed to haul her the remainder by the back of her jacket. Then, while she’d been jimmying the lock on her bedroom window with her penknife, Lupe, nauseous with fear and inebriation, had leaned over the edge of the roof and ralphed all over Maybelle’s underwear, freshly washed and drying on the porch railing below. She’d been livid the following morning, but unable to pin anything on the two of them.
Also, from a few other incidents.
“That’s not true,” Lupe grumbled, and stabbed at her potatoes.
“It’s kind of true,” Carson contributed, even though no one had asked her. “It’s why you hated Greta, when you first met her.”
Lupe objected to that. She didn’t hate Greta. She’d just had a perfectly pleasant conversation with her the other week, when they’d creamed the Blue Sox 6-2, and Lupe had told Greta, sincerely, ‘Good game.’ She hadn’t even mentioned that it was Greta striking out that’d ended the game.
“Barometric pressure’s been high, lately,” Jess announced, changing the subject. “Good time to go fishing.”
Lupe waited, remarkably patiently, for Esti and Maybelle to finish their chatting. They were, as usual, discussing their radio programs. Lupe knew it was good for Esti to listen to English shows, and to have English conversations, and to make friends, but god, she was running out of ways to fuss with the buttons on her shirt before it was obvious she was intentionally hanging back in the locker room.
She listened to Esti recount the same Fibber McGee and Molly bit the third time in a row, Maybelle laughing like it was the first time she’d ever heard the joke, and took that as her sign to cut in.
“Esti, come take a look at this!” Lupe called across the locker room, and Esti trotted over.
“What is it?” she asked, and Lupe gestured to her locker.
She’d mounted some extra hooks inside, to hang her things more neatly, and even created a set of cubby holes, from a milk bottle crate turned sideways, to hold half a dozen pairs of clean socks for herself.
“What is it?” Esti asked, confused.
“My locker,” Lupe told her, like it was obvious. “I organized it. I really love saving space. You know, efficiency. It’s really important to me.”
Esti looked at her like she was crazy. Then, realization dawning on her, she took a step back and crossed her arms.
“Lupe,” she said, in clear and perfect English, “I like my dresser exactly the way it is.”
Lupe rolled her eyes. She’d only tried to reorganize it three or four times, because Jess needed some space for her own clothes, too, and also because the way Esti shoved everything in those drawers, too many clothes to begin with, no rhyme or reason to any of it, was just irresponsible.
Her things were going to get wrinkled.
Lupe, in the sitting room, snagged Jess on her way back into the house. She and Ana had spent the afternoon walking around the neighborhood, hunting on the sidewalks and in the gutters for lucky pennies. They had a game against the Chicks coming up that they were both nervous about, and thought that this would help. Personally Lupe thought it was pretty illogical of them, but it had given her time to work on her card tower, which she could now show off.
“What do you think?” she asked Jess, who she’d lead over by the elbow.
Jess looked at the card tower, and then back at Lupe.
It was six layers tall, just for the record.
“It’s real swell, Lu,” Jess approved dutifully. Lupe played modest.
“Yeah, I guess I just really love stacking things.” She emphasized the least part, just so Jess would pick up on it.
Jess looked at her some more. She kept her face straight, but her eyes had that smug little look to them that she got when she’d figured something out, but wouldn’t say it.
“I guess you do,” she agreed, and clapped Lupe on the back.
“You should take a photograph,” she continued, and then retreated up the stairs to get cleaned up before dinner.
Lupe sat on the front porch, enjoying herself a very dignified cigarette, relaxing in a way that wasn’t the slightest bit petulant, or sulky, or even the slightest but mopey.
She was totally over this whole bunk bed situation, not even thinking about it, furthest thing from her mind, when Esti burst through the front door like a chicken with its head cut off.
“Lupe, Lupe!” she shrieked, hysteric. “Come quick, come now, the bed collapsed! Jess is squashed!”
“Oh, fuck!” Lupe exclaimed. She shot up like a bat out of hell, and ran inside. Esti followed.
Lupe took the stairs two at a time. This was exactly her point! This whole idea was nothing but stupid, but they hadn’t cared in the slightest. They’d given no thought to the consequences, and now Jess was seriously hurt.
And that meant Lupe was going to have to watch her show off the gnarly scars, offering more and more outlandish explanations of their origins, every single time they went out drinking for the rest of their lives.
Lupe threw open the door to their bedroom, bracing herself for the worst.
Jess was sitting reclined on Lupe’s bed, shoved in beside the godforsaken bunks, smoking a cigarette and picking at the scabs on her knee.
“Hey, Lu,” she offered, like it wasn’t anything.
Lupe wanted, more than anything, to call her a fucking son of a bitch, but she decided she’d better save that sort of personal talk for when the two of them could be alone.
Esti came up behind Lupe and threw her arms around her shoulders, planting a loud, garish kiss on the side of her face.
“Lupe, welcome!” she declared, bright and happy. Then she pulled back, serious. She twisted around to look at Lupe dead-on and said, like she meant it,
“There’s no room for you in the dresser.”