squeezed so tight, it’s a wonder they don’t turn to diamonds. “She has scored above you on every exam this year, June,” she says, as if I didn’t even speak. “You know as well as I do there are only so many slots open in the university programs. Do you want to have to go to Tier Eight Community?”
I grimace. “I’m an artist.”
“And you don’t want to go to the University of Palmares? Train in their art program with Juliana Consecu? Exhibit in their gallery? You don’t want that kind of pedigree?”
Of course I do, which is why Mother has to bring it up. She’s always been the one interested in my art — as though she could use it to win me from Papai, as though I wasn’t good enough to prove myself to him on my own. And even with him dead, she can’t shake the habit.
“An artist can create anywhere,” I say.
Her lips unbend slightly. I wouldn’t dare call it a smile, but it’s a little looser than her habitual expression. I guard myself against it. “And an artist can only support herself with proper connections.”
“Well,” I say, “wouldn’t you know all about that.”
She doesn’t even flinch. She just narrows her eyes, closing even more of herself. That’s Mother all over — these days I can’t even hurt her.
I sigh. “Where’s Auntie Yaha, anyway?”
“Damage control with that ambassador from Tokyo 10. Your Gil put on quite a show.”
I giggle without meaning to. I don’t understand how that was just last night, and this is only this afternoon, and so much has happened I feel as if I could squeeze a whole lifetime inside.
My mother is halfway to her room, but she pauses in a strangely tentative way and turns back around.
“June,” she says, “are you … what happened with Gil, last night, you looked …”
She literally can’t force it out. My laughter gets louder, harder.
“Don’t strain yourself, Mother,” I say. “I’m fine.”
And, just then, it’s nothing but the truth.
These days Mother is mostly a housewife, but she used to be one of the most important grandes in Palmares Três. She was the president of the University of Palmares, one of our three big schools. Not quite the best, though you never said that in her hearing. When he was alive, Papai was a music professor there. He taught modern trends in interpretations of twentieth-century classical music. They met when she first started in administration, and he’d already been teaching for years. He’d been married once, when he was a waka, but it ended badly and he’d never tried again until Mother.
I think they loved each other. At least, I can remember the way Papai would sometimes sing to Mother when she’d had a bad day at work. I remember the trip through the flat cities that she’d arranged for their fortieth anniversary. Papai had never seen Salvador, and Iremembered how excited he was to visit the famed ruins of Rio de Janeiro. He must have taken a hundred holos on the glass beach at Ipanema, smiling like a child from inside his decontamination suit, and I looked dutifully at each one when he came back.
That was a year before he died, my papai.
I’ve never looked at that footage since.
I didn’t know it then, but that trip was how Mother met Auntie Yaha, who was Auntie Yaha even then, and the newly appointed flatling ambassador of Palmares Três. She was young for an Auntie, much younger than my mother, but still about fifty, definitely no waka.
We had a fight the morning of their wedding. I asked her if she’d slept with Auntie Yaha when Papai was still alive. If while Papai was destroying bandwidth taking every possible angle of the Ipanema glass, wondering if it would be here or here that Tom Jobim had seen that most famous schoolgirl walking to the beach every morning, she had snuck out of her hotel room and betrayed him with the woman who was now supposed to be my new mother.
“You know nothing ,” Mother had said. “Your papai is gone. He left me and I’m still
I grimace. “I’m an artist.”
“And you don’t want to go to the University of Palmares? Train in their art program with Juliana Consecu? Exhibit in their gallery? You don’t want that kind of pedigree?”
Of course I do, which is why Mother has to bring it up. She’s always been the one interested in my art — as though she could use it to win me from Papai, as though I wasn’t good enough to prove myself to him on my own. And even with him dead, she can’t shake the habit.
“An artist can create anywhere,” I say.
Her lips unbend slightly. I wouldn’t dare call it a smile, but it’s a little looser than her habitual expression. I guard myself against it. “And an artist can only support herself with proper connections.”
“Well,” I say, “wouldn’t you know all about that.”
She doesn’t even flinch. She just narrows her eyes, closing even more of herself. That’s Mother all over — these days I can’t even hurt her.
I sigh. “Where’s Auntie Yaha, anyway?”
“Damage control with that ambassador from Tokyo 10. Your Gil put on quite a show.”
I giggle without meaning to. I don’t understand how that was just last night, and this is only this afternoon, and so much has happened I feel as if I could squeeze a whole lifetime inside.
My mother is halfway to her room, but she pauses in a strangely tentative way and turns back around.
“June,” she says, “are you … what happened with Gil, last night, you looked …”
She literally can’t force it out. My laughter gets louder, harder.
“Don’t strain yourself, Mother,” I say. “I’m fine.”
And, just then, it’s nothing but the truth.
These days Mother is mostly a housewife, but she used to be one of the most important grandes in Palmares Três. She was the president of the University of Palmares, one of our three big schools. Not quite the best, though you never said that in her hearing. When he was alive, Papai was a music professor there. He taught modern trends in interpretations of twentieth-century classical music. They met when she first started in administration, and he’d already been teaching for years. He’d been married once, when he was a waka, but it ended badly and he’d never tried again until Mother.
I think they loved each other. At least, I can remember the way Papai would sometimes sing to Mother when she’d had a bad day at work. I remember the trip through the flat cities that she’d arranged for their fortieth anniversary. Papai had never seen Salvador, and Iremembered how excited he was to visit the famed ruins of Rio de Janeiro. He must have taken a hundred holos on the glass beach at Ipanema, smiling like a child from inside his decontamination suit, and I looked dutifully at each one when he came back.
That was a year before he died, my papai.
I’ve never looked at that footage since.
I didn’t know it then, but that trip was how Mother met Auntie Yaha, who was Auntie Yaha even then, and the newly appointed flatling ambassador of Palmares Três. She was young for an Auntie, much younger than my mother, but still about fifty, definitely no waka.
We had a fight the morning of their wedding. I asked her if she’d slept with Auntie Yaha when Papai was still alive. If while Papai was destroying bandwidth taking every possible angle of the Ipanema glass, wondering if it would be here or here that Tom Jobim had seen that most famous schoolgirl walking to the beach every morning, she had snuck out of her hotel room and betrayed him with the woman who was now supposed to be my new mother.
“You know nothing ,” Mother had said. “Your papai is gone. He left me and I’m still
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