Previously:
Andrea returned to Carol with gifts chosen well enough to keep their relationship looking intact. Carol knew attentiveness was not love, but she played along because the performance still served her. What she had not admitted was who the performance was protecting her from.
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Carol
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
~Oscar Wilde
Penelope skidded to a stop in front of me. Her arms tightened around her body as if she were protecting herself from the echoes of the wails we had all ignored. “Did he hit her again?”
“Beat her black and blue.” I couldn’t forget the brittle expression on Lucia’s face. Under her stare, every excuse I had made for myself turned hollow.
“My mom was in the atrium when she heard the screams.” Penelope’s voice cracked. “She didn’t tell me until it was over.”
I looked toward the spot where Lucia had stood, remembering the way her wounded eyes met mine. Those wails had been part of our neighborhood for six or seven years. “You didn’t see her face. Like I had been in that room when it happened.”
Penelope hugged me. “But she can’t blame us for what her family does. It’s just not fair.”
Such a stupid thing to say. Fairness was a fairy tale people told themselves so tragedy would seem temporary. Life was indifferent. Otherwise, Lucia’s parents would not have died in that crash when she was three, or her grandfather nine years later. It wouldn’t have left her in the hands of her grandmother, who was all bitterness and retribution, or an uncle who smiled whenever someone was in pain.
Still, logic did not make me innocent. I could have been a better friend. The thought did not accuse me loudly. It only stayed.
I hated myself for it. When I thought of it, which wasn’t often. And only on Lucia’s behalf, naturally, not because guilt suited me.
“Why don’t you come over and hang out?” Of course Penelope offered a distraction. I could always count on her to make me feel better. “She won’t be mad forever.”
I bit my tongue. Really? That was all she offered? Positivity did not change the truth. It only taught people where to apply lipstick.
“Great idea.” I wasn’t ready to see my mother or my boyfriend. I drew a breath, polished my voice, and made it light. “Andrea hasn’t been himself since he got back.”
“Oh, he adores you.” She looped her arm through mine as we crossed the street. “He’s probably still recovering. You know how he gets after he flies.”
For the next few days, I tried to believe Penelope, but something in Andrea was shifting out of my reach. He no longer invited me to the beach bungalow. Lately, we met only at his parents’ house or somewhere public. So his offer to pick me up from school and take me to lunch didn’t surprise me.
But when I opened the door of his Porsche 911 Carrera, he didn’t look excited to see me. He shifted behind the wheel as though he had spent all day waiting and had grown tired of me before I arrived.
“Hi.” I focused on the click of the seatbelt. Too loud, but it was easier than letting my thoughts go where they wanted.
“Hi.” He leaned over for an air kiss. Manners, not love. “You look lovely.”
I heard it in his voice then. Andrea was tired and had already decided not to fight. His eyes settled on me. Really settled. He wouldn’t make excuses for me anymore. Or worse, he had finally finished making excuses for himself.
I had miscalculated. Visiting him in the hospital would have been the intelligent choice. Stupid mistakes were not like me, especially with Andrea, but I had already made this one. I had left him alone long enough to think.
“We need to talk.”
My stomach flipped. Fuck. It was worse than I thought. Still, I didn’t blink. “No,” I breathed. “Not today.”
“Carol…”
I unbuckled my seatbelt. My hand moved toward his waistband. Thought was dangerous, and desire easier to manage. Before he could stop me, I slid low enough to make refusal feel cruel. He wasn’t capable of humiliating me by pushing me away. Too damn polite and decent, which made decency useful.
A sharp, shallow breath escaped him as I slid into position, my heels scraping against the leather. No panic, just calculation. My perfume folded between us like silk, soft enough to pretend this was still seduction. His hand turned into a fist; guilt made a noble effort. His body did not.
My mouth moved without my heart. Time, borrowed one breath at a time.
When I finished, I climbed back into my seat. No one was around. Thank God. I smoothed my skirt. Clicked the seatbelt into place. By the time I turned toward him, I had become innocent again. With a sweet smile, I asked, “Where are you taking me for lunch?”
Those pale blue eyes studied me. I didn’t see love there, only defeat. Now he couldn’t say it. I had moved the conversation somewhere he was too decent to follow.
That, I decided, was enough for now.
San Diego never really changed with the seasons, but the light did. That afternoon, everything looked distant and crisp. The windshield reflected the low gold of early fall. Sunlight stretched thin, like it was trying too hard. Just like me.
I had delayed Andrea.
Lucia wouldn’t be as easy.
A few days later, I found Lucia on her porch with Penelope. She looked almost normal, covering most of her bruises with jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Makeup hid the mark on her face. She had never done that before.
There was so much I wanted to say about the other night. Anything might have crossed the distance between us, or made it worse. So I said nothing. Unless Lucia brought it up, I would not be the one to make her.
The longer she remained silent, the heavier the guilt sat on my chest. Lucia would never have done that to me.
She hadn’t.
The worst moment of my life returned in a rush. My lower abdomen had been a tangled mess of pain. I was crying, not only from fear or agony, but from the relief of not being alone. Because she hadn’t left.
Lucia held my hand through the worst of it.
And me?
Not only had I failed to help her, but I had barely looked at her. Heat spread up my neck and across my face. I flicked my wrist, and the light caught my new tennis bracelet. Shame looked better in diamonds.
“Wow! Who gave you that?” Penelope squealed.
“That’s nice,” Lucia said, flat and uninterested. She didn’t bother looking at my hand.
“Andrea got it for me in Monaco.” I liked the idea of him walking through one of those exclusive boutiques, choosing something worthy of me. In reality, I had not bothered to ask, and if he had told me, I had not listened. Not that he was all that talkative since his return.
“Real diamonds,” I added, because apparently my audience needed cue cards.
“You shouldn’t have taken something that expensive.” Lucia’s eyes drifted across the street toward Penelope’s house.
“Why?” My heart spiked. Did she think I didn’t deserve expensive things because no one gave them to her? Or worse, did she think they bought me?
Penelope tilted her head. “Because you aren’t in love with him.”
“Not you, too.” I snapped. “He did give me a promise ring.” Real enough on my finger. False everywhere else.
Maybe Andrea was wrong for me. He had been such a good cover. So much fun, too, until usefulness started feeling like loss. Even before his summer trip, he had started pulling away. No more romantic weekends, just a gift here or there.
I had simply ignored it. My life was full of so much else: family, school, friends in Hillcrest, the real estate office. Still, I regretted not being more proactive. Under his cover, I was safe. Everyone knew what box to put me in. It had been pure idiocy not to sit with him at the hospital, but really, he had a lot of nerve thinking my time should revolve around him.
“What’s a promise ring?” Lucia asked, as if I were making it up.
In the barrio, a promise meant his parents had asked your family for your hand, not handed you jewelry promising better jewelry later.
“A promise that forever is coming.”
Penelope rolled her eyes. “More like a pause between ‘someday’ and ‘not yet.’ That’s why Mexican guys give you an engagement ring, so you know they mean it.”
“You spend too much time in the barrio.” Good grief. She sounded like someone’s abuela.
Before Penelope could keep talking, I turned toward Lucia. “Why are you wearing your hair in a braid?”
“Matteo’s sister taught me how to do them yesterday.”
My breath caught. A hot, churning sensation burned through my chest. Since when did Lucia have a Matteo? The pang left before I could call it anything respectable. “You look like an india.”
“I like it.” Lucia kept her voice even, as if I hadn’t just insulted her. “You’re only angry because I think you should return the bracelet and the ring.”
I huffed and followed her gaze toward the front yard. “What the hell are you looking at?”
“She loves the magnolia tree.” Penelope’s tone had changed. Calling Lucia an india had been a shitty thing to do. My comment sat on the porch with us, ugly and impossible to retrieve.
Seriously, though. That stupid tree again? It wasn’t even blooming.
Lucia stood first, taking herself out of the conversation without raising her voice. “What’s a good brand of makeup that isn’t too expensive?”
“Since when do you care about makeup?” There it was again, that slight constriction in my chest, making my breath stutter.
Other girls might want that kind of attention. But not her. She was too bright. Too Mexican, and I hated that anyone outside us might notice her. Their kind loved girls like Lucia only until love required courage.
She didn’t answer. Penelope offered the name of some brand instead.
Shifting with discomfort, Lucia said she needed to help her grandmother with dinner. We all knew Doña Eva didn’t care. At least Lucia hadn’t called me on my shit. Perhaps that was worse. Like my cruelty had not even earned a fight. No, that was idiotic.
Between my looks and my father’s money, I was the catch of the barrio. Lucia had to know it. Didn’t she?
As soon as Lucia went inside, Penelope turned on me. “What is wrong with you? How many times have we talked about her and makeup?”
“Do you know anything about this asshole?” I shot back.
“Who?”
“The guy she was talking about.”
“Matteo?” Penelope paused, as if the name had only half-stuck. “She’s mentioned him once or twice. Something about the library.”
“Have they started spending time together outside of school?”
“I don’t think so.” Penelope shrugged. “If you weren’t being such a bitch, you could ask her yourself.”
“I just don’t want her to get hurt.” Doubt sharpened my voice. Suspicion sat beneath it, dressed poorly as concern.
“You’re doing a bang-up job of that. You’re worse than a jealous boyfriend.”
“Don’t be stupid.” I bit off the words too quickly. Too much force made denial look like confession. “I’m not jealous.”
The eighties did not reward honesty from girls like me. San Diego was a conservative stronghold, and the so-called gay plague had too many hypocrites foaming at the mouth. If you were smart, you kept quiet. You lied as though your life depended on it. Because it did.
“You’ve always been possessive.” Penelope flipped through the magazine in her hands without looking at it. “Any guy she lets near her has to be doing something right. Lucia doesn’t trust easily.”
“A saint,” I muttered. I knew exactly one Matteo connected to that campus, but he was so far out of Lucia’s league that I laughed. He would never notice her.
My feelings were making me stupid, and I refused to dignify them with a name. Or worse, with honesty.
Author’s note
When Lucia says Matteo’s sister taught her to braid her hair, Carol answers, “You look like an india.” Everyone on the porch understands she has insulted Lucia.
In Mexico, indio, or india in the feminine, can refer to Indigenous people of the Americas. By the early twentieth century, its meaning could carry judgments that went well beyond ancestry. Nieves Rodríguez Valle documents Mexican usage associating the word with ignorance, undesirable behavior, and low social standing.
Mexico has long incorporated an Indigenous past into its national identity. Yet living Indigenous people and Indigenous-coded traits have remained vulnerable to contempt. Appearance, education, class, language, and assimilation could all affect where someone was placed socially.
Those attitudes did not stop at the border. Oscar Zeta Acosta, the Chicano writer who grew up in California’s Central Valley, described his mother disparagingly calling his Indigenous-descended father indio. When Acosta and his siblings misbehaved, she accused them of “behaving like an indian.”
Sometimes prejudice survives migration because nobody needs to translate it.
Carol, Penelope, and Lucia understand the insult through a Mexican American vocabulary shaped by Mexico, migration, class, assimilation, and the hierarchies people can carry with them.
That is what Carol reaches for when she calls Lucia an india. She sees the braid, feels threatened by the mention of Matteo, and chooses a word capable of making Lucia’s confidence waver. Instead, Lucia keeps the braid.
Sources
Real Academia Española and Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española. “indio, india.” Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, 2nd ed. Accessed August 11, 2026.
Rodríguez Valle, Nieves. “Paremias étnicas en el refranero mexicano.” Acta Poética 26, nos. 1–2 (2005): 465–483.
Aguirre, Abby. “What ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ Owes to Oscar Acosta.” The New Yorker, July 13, 2021.
Tumbaga, Ariel Zatarain. “Indios y burros: Rethinking ‘la India María’ as Ethnographic Cinema.” Latin American Research Review 55, no. 4 (2020): 759–772.
Carol managed to stop the breakup conversation, but was it victory, or just strategic procrastination?
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Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne
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'Manners, not love.' Carol manipulation of Andrea's politeness to buy herself time in the Porsche is cold, but rooted in pure self-preservation. Watching her project her own shame onto Lucia with the tennis bracelet and promise ring shows just how trapped she feels. Brilliant narrative tension.