“Dude,” Travis called out from across the kitchen, “if you’ll let her dry dishes, you gotta let her drive you.”
He laughed, and I smiled a little. He had a point. Well, sort of. Driving and drying weren’t the same thing, but they did have five letters in common. Maybe that would be close enough.
“What do you think?” Mayra asked. She sounded hopeful.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “I still need to get Bethany’s car from school since Travis drove me home this morning.”
“How about I take you to school to get the car?” Mayra suggested. “It would be kind of a trial run for the next time.”
A trial run sounded pretty good, really. It would be like going to school, but I wouldn’t be worried about being late to class, so I agreed. Travis wiped the back of his hand across his face and grumbled about eating too much, and then he came over and leaned against the counter.
“I’m off,” he said. “You all right if I go?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Travis said as he pushed away. He wiggled his eyebrows at Mayra. “You two be good!”
Mayra and I finished washing the plates and glasses after Travis left. She did a really good job of drying everything completely. I showed her which cabinets they went in and how the plates and glasses needed to line up with the pattern on the cabinet’s lining paper. When we were done, I rode in Mayra’s Porsche to pick up Bethany’s car, and then she followed me back to my house so we could do some work on our project. We made some progress and then sat back down on the couch in the living room when we were done—Mayra on one side and me on the other.
“Matthew,” she said, “I’m really sorry about this morning. I just didn’t realize how you would react, and I’m going to punch Carmen Klug myself if she ever says anything like that to you again. I didn’t think they would do that.”
I twisted my fingers around themselves and wondered how much more successful I would be at the act if all my fingers were the same length. That way, they could curl around my knuckles the same way on each finger and not be lopsided.
“Can I ask you something?” Mayra said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Do you remember what happened in the hallway?”
“I fixed the stuff in my locker.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Usually you remember things pretty well, though, don’t you?”
“If I read something, I usually remember it. Also if I write something down—I think my fingers remember what I write.”
I glanced over and smiled a lopsided grin at her.
“That’s weird, huh?”
“No,” she said, “it’s not. I remember things better if I write them down, too. Then I read over it again, just to be sure.”
“I do that.”
“Well, then,” Mayra said with a smile, “we have something in common, don’t we?”
“I guess so.”
Mayra scooted over a little closer to me.
“Is this okay?” she asked quietly when she was sitting right next to me.
I thought about it and decided it was, so I nodded.
“Can I ask you something else?”