Oh, the priorities

It was the summer of, "Are you kidding?" The summer of, "They hired who?" So much energy in disbelief and ranting, so many drooped shoulders and slackened jaws. And not just over that one job. For a while there, it was going around. Decisions that had to be wrestled to the ground. Small stuff sweated through. In the end, most things work themselves out, but space-time is such a bitch, always so demanding:

Back in May I'd wondered why I didn't get invited, but I figured that's just the way things go. In July I wondered which weekend was the weekend. On Wednesday I greeted the party girl as she hurried through the door.

"I love your hair!" The color is different, the cut is new. She thanks me, pleased but rushed, as she rifles through her binder, on some sort of mission. I don't realize she doesn't belong in this class until the envelope is in my hand. She's made a special trip.

"But I thought it was over!"

"Oh no, it's still on," she replies, and at the same time I'm thinking that explains it and no wonder, maybe they changed it--and wait, brain, pay attention--did she just say August 23? Oh, no. Add a silent dammit.

I'm opening the invitation, but I ask her, "When is it, did you say?" Hoping to conjure some kind of revision.

"A week from Saturday."

"Cristina!" Exclamation point required. I am sorely disappointed. Of all days. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry! But I can't go."

"Ms. P!"

"I know!"

"All summer I was kind of offended and sad because I thought you didn't ask me." And yet here I am turning her down.

"Why not! Why can't you come?"

"Well, I have these tickets. These hundred dollar tickets," I say, thinking that might convey something, since the name Bruce Springsteen is not gonna mean anything. Because it, ah, didn't back in March.

She doesn't ask me if I can sell them--though somebody else will, later. She seems to understand, but we're all deflated. "You have to at least come to the church."

I'm calculating, desperately--that's not the part of her quinceanera I'm so anxious to go to, but I wouldn't mind appearing, would want to show her that I care, but 2:30--pit wristbands, Latino time at Our Lady of Guadalupe. . .it'd certainly be close. Oh, dear Virgin! A white girl needs a favor!