Look At You

Luna had taken nineteen pictures and found something wrong with every one of them.

“Your eyes are closed.”

“The sun’s in my fucking face.”

“Then stop looking at it.”

“I’m looking at you. Unfortunately.”

She lowered the phone just far enough to give him the finger. Ezra laughed, and she brought it up again. “That one. Do that again.”

“Laugh on command? That costs extra.”

“Z-Z.”

He knew how good he looked in this suit, and he was getting at least one picture where the fucking sun wasn’t making him squint. He settled his shoulders, lifted his chin a little, and gave her the smile. His knee had bounced through most of the ceremony beneath his gown, and when they’d finally called his name, he’d stood up on legs that briefly felt too long.

He’d done it. Fucking finally.

Around them, families kept rearranging themselves on Josie Robertson Plaza, passing flowers and phones back and forth. Someone behind Luna shouted a graduate’s name, drawing it out until the last syllable broke into a cheer. Ezra grinned toward the sound. That was how you were supposed to do it. He’d heard Mami when his name was called. He’d have known her voice through twice that much applause.

“Let me see,” she said now, reaching for Luna’s phone.

“Mami, I’m still taking them.”

“Pues, take one with me.” Mami came to stand beside him, sliding an arm around his waist, and Ezra bent to kiss her cheek before straightening for the picture. Her fingers gathered a little of his gown at his back. “Mi graduado,” she said.

“Mami, no me llores encima. I’m charging you for the shirt.”

“Ay, cállate.” She looked up at him, smiling with her eyes wet. He put his arm more securely around her and looked toward Luna’s phone.

“Ready?” Luna asked.

“Wait.” Mami reached across his chest. “Your pin.” Ezra glanced down. The little trumpet had turned crooked on his jacket beneath the open gown. She nudged it level with one fingernail, smoothing the lapel afterward. “There.”

Ezra could feel where she’d touched him after she moved her hand away. He’d fastened the pin himself that morning, then checked the clasp twice because losing it today would’ve been exactly the kind of stupid shit he could manage. It was still there. He could see it.

“Ezra,” Luna said. “¡Aquí!”

He lifted his head, pulled Mami closer, and smiled.

Afterward, Mami wanted a photograph of both her children, then one of Ezra alone with the gown closed. He gave her that one, then opened it again before she could ask. Mami had the right idea about the suit. He hadn’t spent the morning choosing a shirt so they could preserve him forever in a fabric sack.

“Now with your sister,” she said.

Luna leaned into his side, and he stayed still for her, his hand resting loosely against her upper arm. “You’re crushing my hair.”

“Your hair’s fine.”

“You can’t even see it.”

“I’m gifted.”

She made a face at him, and he squeezed her once before letting go. A classmate called to him from across the plaza. Ezra lifted his hand, shouted congratulations back, and caught the kiss the classmate’s mother blew him with enough ceremony to make her laugh. He liked her. She’d brought food to a performance once and insisted he take another plate.

Mami was looking through the pictures again. “Send me all of these.”

“You’re in half of them blinking,” Luna said.

“Todas.”

Ezra’s phone vibrated in his pocket, then again before he could reach it. There’d be messages from people he wanted to answer, pictures somebody would already be posting. He wanted to see them. He also needed everybody to stop needing his face for a few minutes.

“Mami, hold this for me?” He slipped off the gown and gave it to her.

“Where are you going?”

“Bathroom. Don’t let her pick my pictures.”

Luna looked up. “I’m posting the worst one.”

“Then I’m telling everybody you cried.”

“I didn’t.”

“Mentirosa.” He kept moving until the crowd thinned. Inside the school, the change in temperature cooled the sweat beneath his collar, and he loosened it with a finger.

A faculty member whose hands were full of flowers looked up as he passed. “Congratulations, Ezra.”

“Thank you.” He lifted his hand, already moving past. He could come back and talk. Five minutes, and he could come back and enjoy being congratulated like a normal fucking person.

In the bathroom, he checked beneath the stall doors before taking the last one. Empty. He locked himself in anyway.

For a few seconds he stood with his palm against the latch. Someone had left a strip of toilet paper on the floor beside his shoe. The overhead ventilation made a thin, steady rushing sound. He could still hear the cheering outside in his head, Mami’s voice coming up through it.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He’d wanted Papi there when they called his name. He’d known all morning that he wanted him there—while he showered, while he worked product through his curls, while he stood in front of the mirror trying two different shirts. But he’d been busy. There were things to do, people to find. Luna had been texting to ask where they were supposed to meet him, and Mami had needed to know whether he’d eaten.

Now there was nothing left to get ready for. He’d graduated.

His breath caught hard enough that he took his hands away from his face. He tried swallowing, then pressed his lips together while the next breath shuddered through his nose.

He wanted to tell him.

Papi could’ve watched the whole ceremony, and Ezra would still have wanted to tell him about it afterward. Get the trumpet out and show him what he’d done at the recital. He wanted to play the melody of “Brothers” straight through, then go back and show him all the places he could take it, hearing Papi try to follow him on guitar. He wanted to talk too fast and get interrupted. He wanted Papi’s hand around the back of his neck and to hear him say, “You killed it, mijo,” in that gravelly voice of his.

He remembered the force of those hugs after his early school performances, his face pushed against a shirt, Papi still talking above him. “You’re gonna be something special.” Ezra had believed him so easily then. He could play something badly and still want his father to hear the next thing.

He let his head tip back against the partition. It shifted a little under his weight.

Papi hadn’t even heard him get this good. Four years, and he couldn’t play Papi five fucking minutes of it. He’d worked so hard, and now he wanted his father in a chair with nowhere else to be. He could start with “Brothers.” Let him hear it before telling him who it was for, then watch his face when he understood. After that, Ezra could play him something else. There was so much he wanted to show him.

His next breath broke coming out, and he covered his mouth.

He’d imagined his father in the audience before the ceremony started. For a few seconds he’d let himself do it—Papi beside Mami, wearing a clean shirt, his hair fixed, leaning forward because Ezra was about to stand up. He’d given him a good day. Of course he had. In his head, Papi could sit through the whole ceremony without hurting. He could get up afterward and come find him.

Ezra rubbed his eyes until the pressure hurt.

There’d been so many days when he couldn’t come. Ezra used to look anyway. He could be halfway through playing something he’d practiced for weeks and catch himself checking the door, then get pissed off because he’d lost his place. Afterward, he’d go home with all that excitement still running through him and have to decide whether to knock on the bedroom door.

Today he’d caught himself looking into the crowd. He hadn’t expected to find him. He knew that. He just wanted to look at his father instead of somebody else’s.

“Coño, Papi.” He bent forward, bracing his hands on his thighs. “Tenías que estar aquí.”

The first tears fell between his shoes. He stood there crying with his mouth open, trying to keep his breathing quiet, until the effort made his throat ache worse. There was nobody in here. He let the next breath come out however it came, a wet, uneven sound that embarrassed him even alone.

Papi should’ve been thirty-nine. Ezra had to work it out again, counting from the birthday in March. Thirty-nine wasn’t even fucking old. He could picture men that age without trying, people he played with, men he passed on the street who looked young until they mentioned their kids. Papi should’ve been one of them. He could’ve stood out there arguing with Mami about who got to take the next picture.

Ezra wanted him so badly that he pressed a fist to his mouth and waited for the feeling to ease enough to breathe around it.

A door opened. Footsteps came toward the sinks, and he straightened fast, pulling toilet paper from the roll. He held it under his eyes, listening while someone turned on the water. The faucet ran for a long time. Then the hand dryer started, loud enough to cover the sound when he blew his nose.

By the time the outer door closed again, his breathing had slowed. He waited another minute before opening the stall.

At the sink, he wet a paper towel and pressed it against his face, careful around his collar. His eyes were red. He leaned closer to the mirror, then farther back, as if a different distance might make them look any fucking better.

He looked like Papi. He’d heard it his whole life, sometimes while he was standing right beside him. The shape of his mouth was the worst of it right now. He tried to relax it and saw his father more clearly.

“Look at you,” he said under his breath.

His face crumpled before he could stop it. He turned the water back on and stayed there with both hands gripping the edge of the sink until he could look up again.

His phone buzzed, and he took it out. It was Luna.

Where are you

He typed Ya voy, sent it, and put the phone away before she could answer. He used another damp towel, then a dry one, and checked his shirt for water. The pin was straight. He touched the small metal trumpet with one fingertip.

For a moment he wanted to take it off and put it in his pocket where nobody could see it or fix it or ask him about it. His fingers found the edge of the lapel, but he left it alone.

Outside, he could hear the fountain before he found Mami. She was holding his gown over one arm while Luna showed her something on the phone. They were both laughing.

He slowed down a little to watch them. Mami had tilted her head toward the screen, her free hand resting on Luna’s shoulder. Whatever the picture was, Luna kept enlarging it and making it worse.

Then she spotted him. “There he is.”

“What did you post?”

“Nothing yet.”

“A ver. Dame eso.” He held out his hand. Luna let him have the phone, grinning, and he found the picture she’d been showing Mami. He had his eyes closed and his mouth open, caught halfway through complaining. “You took all those pictures and that’s the one you’re keeping?”

“You look so educated.”

He laughed, a little roughly, and swiped to the next picture before she could take the phone back. One picture showed Mami beside him, looking up, and another showed both of them facing the camera. Then there was Luna tucked under his arm, her cheek almost against his jacket, smiling like she’d forgotten she was supposed to be annoying him.

He stopped there. “Mándame esa.”

“I was going to.”

“Ahora. Before you lose it in the other six hundred.”

Mami’s fingers brushed his sleeve. When he looked at her, she searched his face for a moment, then reached up and smoothed one curl that had come loose above his forehead. “¿Tienes hambre?” she asked.

He nodded. He hadn’t been hungry a minute ago, but now that she’d said it, he was starving. “Sí, Mami. Let’s go.”

She handed him his gown and took his arm. Luna was still tapping at her phone as they started walking, and Ezra waited until she’d caught up before reaching over to tug gently at a piece of her hair. “Educated,” he said. “Show some fucking respect.”

She knocked his hand away, laughing, and he held it out for her phone again. “Wait. Let me see that picture one more time.”