Barbara the Slut and Other People. Lauren Holmes

Monday, it’s gorgeous.”

      We walked along the water toward where it looked more crowded.

      “So, are there any boys I should know about?” said my mom. Always her first question.

      “Nope,” I said. “Still no boys.” That was always my answer, and she never seemed to think it was weird or some kind of clue, which she shouldn’t have needed anyway. Shouldn’t she have noticed when I was born? Wasn’t there something about me that told her I was going to grow up to cut my hair and wear sturdy underwear and date a girl who brought her leather biker boots to textile recycling and then bought vegan ones? And if not when I was born, she should have noticed in elementary school when I was obsessed with amphibians and reptiles and with my friend Emily. And if still not then, she definitely would have noticed in middle school, when I hit puberty and was really confused and, according to my dad, really weird. But she was already gone.

      I followed my mom out of the water and into the crowd of towels and people. She didn’t say anything or approach anyone.

      “How do you say ‘underwear’ again?” I said.

      “Pantis,” said my mom.

      “¡Pantis! ¡Pantis!” I called.

      “Lala!” said my mom.

      “What?”

      “I was going to go up to girls that looked like they would want them.”

      “Okay,” I said, “good plan.”

      We walked through the people until my mom spotted four girls and an older man together. She went up to them and said she was selling ropa interior from Victoria’s Secret, and would they like to buy any.

      One girl sat straight up and said, “¡Papá, me encanta Victoria’s Secret!”

      The dad looked at her and at my mom and frowned. “Huh,” he said.

      The other girls sat up too, and soon my mom was spreading out the underwear on one of their towels. The daughter picked out like eight pairs. One of the other girls looked at “See you tonight” and said, “Hubba hubba.”

      “Those are my favorite,” I said.

      “Su favorito,” said my mom.

      I wasn’t sure that they were impressed with me because I was starting to get really sweaty, but the daughter grabbed a pair of the same ones and looked at her dad.

      “¿A cuanto?” he asked my mom.

      “Ciento cincuenta.”

      The dad raised his eyebrows but they bought three pairs. Then we sold some more pairs to another group of girls nearby, and when we were walking away my mom said, “See?”

      • • •

      Back at the motel my mom checked some Swiss people out and I went swimming in the pool. Later my mom came out and read, and I spent the afternoon sleeping until I was too hot, and then swimming until I was too tired.

      At the end of the day we went back to the beach to watch the sunset. My mom said that when the sun set in Pie de la Cuesta, it lit up the backs of the waves, and you could see the silhouettes of kids swimming. Tonight the waves were too small, although they didn’t look small to me. If I were braver I would have gone in and felt the water rush over my body and my head, and I probably would have been fine. But I was scared. My mom wasn’t one to tell me something was dangerous if it wasn’t. And she was sometimes one to tell me something was safe when it wasn’t.

      • • •

      When the sun went down we went back to the apartment and got ready to go out to dinner. My mom came out of the bathroom with makeup on and said, “My friend is going to meet us at the restaurant. Is that okay?”

      “A man?” I said.

      “No, a woman. Of course, baby, a man. His name is Martin and he’s from Pah-ree. You’re going to love his accent.” I assumed Pah-ree meant Paris.

      “Great,” I said.

      The restaurant was ten motels down and when we got close we saw Martin waiting outside. He was tall and skinny and he waved at us.

      “Oh shit, I forgot to tell you something,” said my mom. “I only speak Spanish, okay? I’ll explain later.”

      “How am I supposed to talk to you?” I said.

      “You speak Spanish.”

      “I haven’t spoken Spanish since I was five,” I said.

      Now Martin was twenty feet from us and he said, “¡Hola!”

      “Bonsoir!” called my mom.

      “Jesus,” I said.

      Martin gave my mom a kiss on the cheek. He shook my hand and gave me a kiss on the cheek too. He had a big nose but he was handsome and he had a lot of hair, which my mom likes. He didn’t have a French mustache or anything. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and gray shorts.

      The restaurant was a big patio, and there were folding chairs and folding tables with picnic covers. There were a lot of families with little kids. We sat at a table in the back and it felt like we were right on the beach. It was dark but I could see the waves licking the sand.

      I ordered a piña colada and my mom ordered a bottle of wine for her and Martin.

      I looked at the menu and didn’t know what any of the fish were except for camarones, and I hate shrimp. “I don’t know what to get,” I said in English.

      “The pulpo, it is very good,” said Martin. “This is octopus.”

      “A ella no le gusta comer pulpo,” said my mom. “Mija, te encantaría el pargo de piedra.”

      “Okay,” I said.

      While we were waiting for our food, Martin asked me what I was studying in school. I gave him the speech I give strangers about my research—how there’s so much information about lead poisoning in paint, but almost none about lead in soil, and kids are so much more likely to eat soil, and the community where I’m doing research relies on its gardens for food.

      “This is very interesting,” said Martin. “Your mother has not told me about this.”

      “Te lo he dicho,” said my mom. “Pero es tan complicado y ella es tan inteligente.”

      They talked to each other in Spanish for the rest of the dinner, about me and stuff that I did when I was a kid, like one time in San Francisco when I kept catching fish and no one else caught any and they thought I could talk to animals. My mom said she knew I was going to be a doctor or a scientist. I tried to laugh at the right times but I had trouble following what they were saying.

      After dinner we said good-bye to Martin and he walked in the other direction. On the way back to the motel, my mom told me that Martin didn’t know about Grandpa or Grandma or that she had lived in the States with me and Dad. She thought he wouldn’t think she was interesting if he knew that Grandpa was rich and not Mexican, and that Grandma came from a government family and was legally Mexican, but genetically at least fifty percent Spanish, and emotionally one hundred percent white. My mom didn’t want Martin to know that she spoke English and went to Berkeley and lived in California for fourteen years and drove a Mercedes and then a Range Rover, so she told him she lived in Mexico City the whole time and drove her old VW the whole time, and I went to live with my dad in the States so I could go to a good school. My mom said the first time they met, Martin told her he loved her simple life, and she didn’t want to tell him about me at all, but then she had to because I was coming.

      When we got back to the apartment my mom kept her sandals on.

      “Baby, you’re just going to go to sleep, right? Would you mind if I went to Martin’s apartment