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and chewed.
    "I didn't say that. Some other girl said that."
    Marisa pictured her so-called friends cutting her up, calling her a coconut—brown on the outside but white at the core. They were probably calling her fat, tangle haired, smelly maybe, and extending their insults to her family.
    "I don't care what other people think. They're stupid. I'm happier over there."
    "How come you don't like it over here?"
    "Here" was a school with no working drinking fountain, no nets on the basketball rims, no toilets
that flushed consistently, no teachers who hadn't had their cars keyed or tires poked with ice picks. "Here" was a school whose flag could only be hoisted halfway up.
    "I'll be straight-up and tell you I don't like Washington," Marisa stated firmly. "It's nasty. I just want to do something different." To change the subject, she asked Alicia how her leg was. She almost asked about Roberto.
    "When am I going to see you?" Alicia asked. "I'm going crazy in my room."
    Marisa felt for her friend. "Yeah, you're stuck in bed."
    "Nah, it hurts a little bit, but I can get around."
    They made plans to get together at a school car wash at Marisa's
old
school, Washington.
    "Heard from Roberto?" Marisa risked asking.
    "He left some messages on my machine, but I'm not calling him back."
    "Right on, girl." Marisa told her friend that she had to go, that her mother was screaming for help in the kitchen.
    "I miss you," Alicia murmured.
    Marisa was confused. First Alicia had called to say that a bunch of shanky classmates were talking about her. Then she was being all friendly.
    "I'll call you," she told Alicia.
    In the kitchen her mother was licking the blades of the hand mixer.
    "You want some?" her mother asked. She handed Marisa a whirly blade white with frosting. Marisa took the blade and made a swipe with her fìnger. As she licked the frosting she warned herself, "That's twenty calories and more if I keep going!" She set the blade into the sink. "What did you want, Mom?"
    "I want you to finish the cake." Her mother pointed at a lopsided cake that required a layer of frosting. "Use a plastic spatula."
    Marisa plastered the cake with frosting and then helped make
frijoles.
She oiled a pan, set it on a burner, and after a long minute scooped beans into it. The beans, little troopers, sizzled and marched in the pan.
    "Mom, do you think I should be going to Hamilton instead of staying at Washington?" Marisa mashed the beans and added a handful of yellow cheese.
    Wearing mismatched oven mitts, her mother slowly brought a pan of red enchiladas out of the oven and set it on the counter. "
Claro.
Of course you should." She took off the mitts and peeled back the aluminum foil. Steam rose against her face. "Why? Don't you like it there?"
    "Yeah, I do, except I just got a call from Alicia."
    "
Pobrecita.
How's her leg?"
    "She's home and she's getting around on crutches." Marisa hesitated but finally informed her mother that some shisty girls were talking about her.
    "So let those
cholas
talk about you like that!" Her mother was furious, like a blender on high. "Just because you're going to a better school. They're jealous!" She cupped her hands and yelled to the den, "Rafael! It's dinner."
    "I like it at my new school," Marisa said.
    "I know you do. You're going to do well." She cupped her hands and called out a second time, "Rafael—
ven!
We're waiting for you."
    Marisa poured iced tea from a pitcher, and instead of doctoring hers with scoops of sugar, she took it plain. When she cut into her enchilada, steam rose and moistened her forehead. She blew on a forkful and told her father, "Dad, I'm trying out for a play."
    "¿Cómo?"
His big mustache went up and down as he chewed.
    "I'm going out for
Romeo and Juliet.
"
    He chewed and chewed, cleared his throat, wiped his mouth with his napkin, picked up a grain
of
arroz
that had fallen from his fork onto the table, and remarked, "I used to know Romeo and Juliet."
    "Dad, get out of here," Marisa