“Nena, pay attention,” Tití Mili snapped her fingers as if to bring Jimena out of a trance. The two sat on one of couches by the airport check-in, waiting for Eloisa and Steve to sort out the luggage. Jimena couldn’t help but be annoyed.
“I am,” she said as she stood up, slinging
her duffle bag over her shoulders.
“I’ll call you when the plane lands and when I get to the camp. Got it.” Tití Mili gave her approval with one sharp nod,
“Exactly,” and handed her
her backpack. She hugged Jimena tight, grabbed her face and pressed her cheek to hers, making the sound of a kiss in the air. Jimena wasn’t embarrassed in the least. In fact, she was excited to do the same with her mother. Jimena tried to pull away from her aunt’s grasp, but found she was pulled in closer by her.
“I’m sorry,” Tití Mili said,
“It’s just... you’ve never been so far away from home and for so long. Besides,” she whispered,
“who knows what those rich kids are gonna be up to. If anything happens, anything, you let me know. Okay?” “Yes, Tití.” Jimena finally pulled away from her aunt. As she turned away to make her way towards her mother, her aunt called out,
“Behave yourself!” The melodic tone of her voice barely masked the clear threat behind her statement. Though she wasn’t an imposing woman, with her short stature, big cheeks and wide smile, Tití Mili could be terrifying when defied. Not that Jimena ever really saw that side of her. She mostly stayed on her good side. It was her cousins who truly ever suffered Tití’s wrath.
By the time Jimena got to her mother, she had already taken care of the extra luggage. They walked towards each other with extended arms.
“Ay, beba,” Eloisa said as she wrapped her arms tight around her daughter,
“I’m gonna miss you so much.” In English, Jimena noticed.
So he feels comfortable. Steve - not ‘Dad’; never ‘Dad’ - watched as Jimena and Eloisa kissed each other on the cheek. When Jimena turned to Steve, he had a grin on that suggested he expected the same kind of goodbye. He got a half-hearted hug instead. He didn’t seem to mind, though.
“Remember to call me,” Eloisa reminded as she fussed over her daughter, playing with her hair and straightening her collar. Jimena nodded, prompting a smile to form on her mother’s face, warm brown eyes full of love. They were tired eyes. The circles under them only ever seemed to grow. This is for her. Jimena had to constantly remind herself of that if she hoped to make it through the ten weeks. If she hoped to even make it past the TSA check. That’s what she had convinced herself in the weeks leading up to this day. But now that the day was finally here, when she was actually about to leave her mother and her family to spend two months and a half in a camp far away from home and full of strangers, Jimena found her resolution to be far weaker than she thought it was.
“All right!” Steve said, clapping his hands together,
"You have your ticket?" "Yes." "Your passport?" "Yes," her answer came through gritted teeth.
”Great!” Steve slung his arm around her shoulder and led her towards the TSA check.
“It'll be awesome, you'll see!” Steve pressed his arm around her reassuringly.
“Just you and other kids your age, and no one to boss you around. You can do whatever you want. Doesn’t that sound fun?” Jimena rolled her eyes. She had never been the rebellious type, nor the type to be into stuff that authority figures would disapprove of. Not that her father would know.
Steve stopped and spun her so that she faced him.
“Oh, one more thing,” he pulled out his wallet from his pants pocket and from it, a credit card. He handed it to her. It read
Jimena Deyo-Negrón. Both surnames. That’s also how he put in her name in as when he signed her up for the camp. All her life, Jimena was just
Negrón, her mother’s last name. Her father was as absent from her name as he was from her life. Now he’s invading both. She looked up at him from the credit card with her usual scowl. In response he smiled back. Not his usual sleazy grin, but a genuine smile. It was almost loving. Jimena snatched the card from his hands and quickly turned away.
"Thanks," she muttered as she walked away with one last wave at her mother.
Kiran loved the atmosphere of airports. The excitement was almost palpable here. Everyone was going somewhere different. Families sat chattering about their plans for their vacation, businessmen checked over their official papers and presentations, and Kiran sat there trying not to bounce her leg as hard as she was. For the fifth time that minute, she flipped her phone over to check its battery. Only 3%. Not enough to run on and certainly not enough to last her the next flight. Last night the anxious girl had stayed up late, unable to sleep. But when she finally passed out, she forgot to plug in her phone. Now she sat there in the Denver airport with nothing to do. Kiran tried to take deep breaths and calm herself, but her imagination kept producing ideas of the exciting things to come. Her eyes scanned the airport, perhaps she could put her imagination to a different use. Let’s see, there’s a group of college students who look like they’re going somewhere fun! Ooo, maybe there’s drama within the group and this trip will be the one that settles who gets the girl. She paused for a moment. Nah, too cliche. Surely there was something better…
Kiran’s dark brown eyes moved away from the students and soon caught something far more interesting. A girl her age by herself! It seemed as though she was reading. Maybe a book? The girl wasn’t too far away, maybe if Kiran knew the book she could go over and talk? She could only stand sitting around for so long (Hehe, get it? Stand, sitting? No? Ok). Good books are always fun to talk about, even terrible books are fun to talk about. She craned her neck over to see the what she was reading. The words on the piece of paper caused a shock to go through the Indian girl’s heart. She nearly fell over. Did it really say ‘Aces High’? Could this girl possibly be going to the same camp as her? What were the odds! All the excitement Kiran had been trying to repress came through as she stood up and bounded over to this mystery girl. As she got closer her features became more clear. Her downcast eyes had an empty feel to them, and her facial features showed that she wasn’t entirely of European descent, but Kiran had never been good at guessing people’s ethnicity. She also had what most would call a ‘resting bitch face’. However, this didn’t stop the bright ball of anticipation. In an instant, Kiran plopped down and had made herself at home next to this new girl.
“Oh my gosh! Are you going to Aces High too?” She pointed at the pamphlet eagerly, looking at the girl with glittering eyes.
If the girl’s eyes were open any wider, they might have rolled right out of her skull.
“Uh, yeah,” she said.
“So am I! Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. What are the odds that I meet someone going to the same place as me. That’s so cool!” Kiran gushed, finally having an outlet for her energy.
“That’s kinda weird, yeah.” The girl’s look showed she expected the interaction to be over. She was surprised to see Kiran not willing to allow that.
“So what’s your name? I’m Kiran Khanna, I’m from Georgia. This is my only stop before I fly to California. It’s kinda stupid that I even had to stop.” “What do you mean?” “With all the international flights and increasing technology in the field of flight, one would think that there would be at least one flight that went across the country.” She rolled her eyes, and threw her hands up.
The corner of the girl’s lips twitched into a smile. She seemed amused.
“I guess, yeah,” she said.
“Haven’t really thought about it that way. I’m Jimena. I live here, so,” Jimena finished the sentence with a shrug,
“No connecting flights for me.” “Jimena?” Kiran tried to repeat her name, but it didn’t sound quite as fluid on her tongue.
“What does it mean? I’ve never met anyone with that name before.” Jimena frowned like she was remembering something.
“It means ‘listener’, I think. I don’t know, I thought it was a pretty generic Hispanic name but now that you mention it,” she smiled,
“haven’t really heard it on anyone else. I haven’t heard ‘Kiran’, either. Are you from Georgia, originally?” “I was born in India. I didn’t really live there long though. I pretty much grew up in America, so I’m more used to American culture. Though I do visit my family every once in awhile, plus my parents like to keep some Indian culture in the house. Like the food.” She grinned, thinking of all the delicious food she was leaving behind. It would probably be terrible school grade food from here on out.
“Same here,” Jimena nodded in agreement.
“Well, I wasn’t born in-- No, my mom’s Puerto Rican and she moved here to Denver,” Jimena held her finger up and moved it across her chest as she explained this.
“Then she met my dad and, y’know. I don’t actually travel to Puerto Rico much. I went this summer with my dad, but that’s about it.” Kiran was a bit confused at Jimena’s hand gesture, was it some other cultural thing? Nonetheless, she turned her confusion into sympathy.
“Aww, that sucks. My family over in India is the only reason I’m going to Aces High.” “Really?” “Yea, one of my uncles gave this trip to me as a graduation gift before I go off to college. He has a lot of money at his disposal.” Jimena scoffed.
“Well, my dad made me go to Aces High. He has a lot of money, too,” she elongated the last syllable.
“He ‘made you’?” Kiran asked, making air quotes with her hands.
“Yeah,” Jimena tilted her head to one side.
“He’s been butting into my life recently and I guess this is his latest gesture,” she said, holding out the Aces High brochure in her hand.
“Oh, okay. Well, I think it’ll be fun as long as you keep a positive attitude about it! I mean it’s not as if your dad’s coming with to have some father-daughter bonding time. Besides you’re stuck there for 10 weeks, might as well make it good.” Jimena chuckled,
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be honest, I’m kinda excited about seeing what a rich kids’ summer camp is like.” Kiran bit her lower lip, kind of glancing away.
“Yea, maybe the experience might be nice, but the actual rich kids themselves might be kinda annoying. I just-” She stopped herself before she continued on her rant that this girl probably had no desire to listen to.
Jimena blinked. She was obviously surprised by Kiran’s statement. Then a grin creeped into her face, and her brown eyes seemed to gleam with approval. She began to nod.
“Naw, I… I get you.” Kiran was glad for the conversation buddy. Someone to pass the time with until their flight arrived. As time went on Jimena seemed to open up to her, which made the sociable girl really happy. Plus she’d have a friend before this whole camp even started. This would be an exciting summer.
Kiran and Jimena chatted the entire time in the terminal and the entire bus ride to camp. If their seats hadn’t been so far away - Jimena sat in first class, while Kiran sat in the economy seats - they probably would have chatted the entire flight. Instead, Jimena thought about how ridiculous it was that Steve had bought her a first class seat. About how close she was to actually getting to camp. About Kiran, and how lucky she was that an extrovert had taken a liking to her, specially one who was an actually good person. Maybe Kiran was right. It probably won’t be that bad if Jimena kept a positive attitude.
Positive attitude. Jimena snorted.
That’d be a first. Before she knew it, the plane had landed, the bus had arrived at Camp, and she and Kiran were sorted into different suits.
“Dammit!” “What? What cabin did you get put into?” Kiran leaned over to look at Jimena’s paper.
“Clubs,” Jimena groaned.
“Aww, sad. I really wanted to be in the same cabin. Or at least the same suit. Maybe you’ll meet some other people?” It was a weak suggestion, but it was the most positive she could give.
“Ugh, now I have to socialize,” Jimena said. Kiran simply smiled. Jimena begrudgingly did so, too.
