Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Aren’t we supposed to be a family too? She submitted to handholding
and an unfamiliar grace. Her father was the one
who’d refused to convert to Catholicism to please
Carmen’s maternal grandparents. Now he was Mr. Grace?
Carmen thought forlornly of her mom. She and her
mom said grace now, but they hadn’t when her dad still
lived with them.
She stared at Lydia. What kind of power did this
woman have?
“Lydia, this is fabulous,” her father said.
“It’s great,” Krista chimed in.
Carmen felt her father’s eyes on her. She was supposed
to say something. She just sat there and chewed.
Paul was quiet. He looked at Carmen, then looked
down.
Rain slapped against the window. Silverware scraped
and teeth chewed.
“Well, Carmen,” Krista ventured. “You don’t look at
all like I was imagining?”
Carmen swallowed a big bite without chewing. This
didn’t help. She cleared her throat. “You mean, I look
Puerto Rican?” She leveled Krista with a stare.
Krista tittered and then backtracked. “No, I just
meant . . . you know . . . you have, like, dark eyes and
dark wavy hair?”
And dark skin and a big butt? Carmen felt like adding.
“Right,” Carmen said. “I look Puerto Rican, like my
mother. My mother is Puerto Rican. As in Hispanic. My
dad might not have mentioned that.”
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