I didn’t know how to make friends. It was a skill I’d never learned, because I’d never had the chance. I’d lived in my father’s compound for most of my life, and before that I was homeschooled, and so the only people I ever spent time around were my family and my father’s guards. So few of them paid me any attention, and the ones that did ended up either dead—or worse.
It was a relief when Capri Balestra walked toward me. She grinned and waved a hand, her auburn hair streaming in the sunlight, her smooth, pale skin almost glittering like one of those fancy vampires from Twilight. I sat up on the bench and waved back, unable to stop the grin that broke out across my lips. It felt good to have someone I knew on campus, even if she was my boss and best friends with Carmine.
“Hey, girl,” Cap said, stooping down to give me a quick hug.
“Hey, yourself. Thanks for coming out here. You really didn’t need to.”
“Oh, come on. I wanted to see how you spend all your hard-earned tip money.” She sat down and stretched her legs. “Besides, I like college campuses.”
“Did you go to school?”
She shook her head, still smiling. “That wasn’t in the cards for me.”
“I didn’t think it would be for me, either. But I guess I got lucky.” I pulled open a plastic bag sitting at my feet and handed her a Styrofoam container. “I got us some lunch. I figured you’d be starving.” “Got it from a food truck nearby. Supposed to be good.”
“Thanks so much, you didn’t have to do that.” She opened her container and grinned. “Oh, no, looks like you know me already.” Bright, colorful tacos, traditional-style with a light tortilla wrap, fresh pico de gallo, guac, onions, and grilled vegetables. I had the same thing and figured it’d be easier to get two than to guess what she’d actually want to eat. But I was pleased when she dug in and got eating.
I took a few bites of my food. It was decent, but it made me homesick. There were a lot of things to hate about living in my father’s compound, but he’d hired this incredible cook, an old lady named Rosalita that made the absolute best chilaquiles in the morning and unreal tamales throughout the day. The stuff in Texas wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t like back in Mexico.
“So how are you acclimating to all this?” Cap asked as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I bet it’s kind of hard to adjust, huh?”
“It’s not easy,” I admitted. “Living with Carmine is okay. He keeps to himself mostly and he’s always so busy. College is harder though. I’m not used to speaking English all the time.”
“Your English is really good though.”
“I had a million different tutors, and Papa always hired English-speaking guards, so I’d practice with them. I know a little French and some German too.”
Cap laughed. “God, that’s amazing. I wish my dad cared enough about me to force me to learn more than one language. He barely cared enough to let me get my GED.”
“I wouldn’t say Papa cared about me so much as he didn’t want his daughter to be completely ignorant. He did pass me off to a total stranger in order to cement a business relationship.”
“At least he’s not trying to marry you off like my dad did.” Cap’s face went slightly distant, and it really hit me hard how similar we were.
Cap was the daughter of a mafia Don. She grew up in his house and followed his rules, and from the basic stuff I knew about her, I understood it hadn’t been an easy life. It seemed a lot like mine: quiet, controlled, sheltered. Except she’d been engaged to Carmine as a sort of political alliance, back before her father decided to stab Carmine’s father in the back. That ruined their arrangement pretty fast.
So far, my father hadn’t tried to marry me off, but that was coming. He didn’t speak of it, but I understood other cartel leaders used their daughters like that, marrying them to other cartel families in order to cement strong bonds. It made sense, and while I knew it could happen, I kept on hoping it never would.
Perhaps this whole college enterprise was a joke to begin with. If my father was going to marry me to some rich drug lord in a year or two, it didn’t matter if I went to classes. But I couldn’t think that way. I had to keep moving, one foot in front of the other. To stop now would be to give up on my dreams, and they were the only things keeping me going.
“You know, I never asked, what are you studying?” Cap finished her meal and set the container aside. I put mine down on the ground and tossed her trash into the take-out bag.