Patina

Patty sends a smiley face text to Ma to let her know that she is thinking of her while Ma gets her thrice-weekly dialysis. In addition to losing her legs, Ma’s kidneys no longer function due to complications from her diabetes. As a result, she needs to get her “blood cleaned” (82). These appointments take a lot of energy out of Ma, and on days she is not receiving dialysis, she requires rest to recover.

At school, Patty struggles with what to do at lunch time. Her daily routine involves circling around the room while eating “because when you keep moving, people think you going somewhere, like you on a mission and shouldn’t be bothered” (86). She is surprised when her Frida Kahlo project partner, Becca, asks her to join her table for lunch.

Patty’s history teacher, Ms. Lanford, informs the groups that they will need to work on the project outside of class. TeeTee and Taylor “basically beg” Becca to have them over to her house (93), as it is across the street from school. Becca explains that she has done some research on Google about Frida Kahlo, and the girls have a moment of connection while discussing Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s relationship.

At practice, Patty and her 4 x 800 teammates try a complicated new technique to practice handing off the baton to each other. Krystal does not run fast enough to pass the baton to Patty and accuses Patty of “over-running” (103). The tension between the teammates escalates quickly, and Krystal lashes out at Patty saying that she acts like she’s better than the rest of the team because she has a “white mother” (104). Patty’s inner anger flares, and she retaliates, almost resorting to physical aggression. Patty’s response causes Coach and Coach Whit to intervene. Coach gives Krystal and Patty the baton and instructs them that if either one lets go, they are off the team. Coach demands that Deja and Brit-Brat watch them for accountability. Krystal and Patty find common ground and ultimately come to try and understand one another. The team is still intact, and Patty feels a part of the team knowing “we now had each other’s backs” (113).

In the aftermath of the stressful track practice, Momly can tell that something is wrong with Patty. Patty denies this, and as always asks Maddy if she needs help with her homework. On the way home, they listen to a talk radio program in which a woman details a story about how her mother takes her dogs to a human spa. Patty at once thinks about how her school project partners probably have dogs like the one in the radio program.

Patty assumes that Becca will not invite her to sit with them again and resumes her usual laps around the cafeteria. To Patty’s surprise, Becca does invite her to sit again, and she resumes the same conversation from the day before about outer space.

Becca asks everyone at the table what they would send into space, and when it’s Patty’s time to answer, a thought comes to her. She describes this as an “under-thought” (122), a thought that is in a distant part of her brain. She responds that she would send a recording of her father’s music beats, or his favorite cupcake recipe. Becca asks if Patty’s father still makes beats, which is jarring for Patty and causes her to realize that she never talks about her father. Patty has the immediate instinct to run and process her emotions, but track practice is cancelled because of rain.

To Patty’s dismay, Momly drives Patty, Maddy, and Patty’s project partners across the street to Becca’s house to work on their project. Maddy asks the girls a series of questions such as whether any of them give their dogs massages or kisses on the mouth, and whether the girls have moms. This foreshadows the revelation at the end of the chapter that TeeTee’s mom is Maddy’s teacher, Mrs. S, at Chester Academy. Patty is shocked to learn that both TeeTee and Taylor’s mothers are teachers, which shatters her assumption that the girls must be wealthy.

Patty also revises her assumptions about Becca when they enter her house and see that while Becca is wealthy, Patty and Becca have more in common than she previously thought. Becca spends most of her time being cared for by her grandmother because her parents are constantly busy working as astrophysicists. The extent of Becca’s interest in space becomes clear when they enter her room. Patty and the others are shocked to see that Becca’s room is not like “living inside of a strawberry cupcake” (131), but entirely black. By flicking a light switch, Becca illuminates an entire galaxy of constellations, which Patty finds intriguing. The other two group members, however, do not, and soon the girls’ mothers pick them up.

Patty learns about Momly’s history in this chapter. After Momly and Patty argue about Patty wanting to help clean up after dinner, Patty again expresses her amazement that TeeTee and Taylor are just “regular girls pretending to be something they not” (140). Momly says that she’s not surprised, because people showed the same kinds of behaviors when she was at Chester Academy.

Patty is shocked to learn that Momly not only attended Chester Academy, but that she was only able to go because her mother worked as a night custodian at the school, a job which Momly often found herself helping with after school hours. After her mother suffered a stroke and was forced to go into a long-term care facility, Momly was only able to continue at Chester because of her grades.

To honor her mother, she tried to continue to do the custodial work at the school, despite being 12 years old, until the school hired a man to take over. This man was Mr. Warren, the elderly man that Momly now cares for through her caretaking business. Mr. Warren and Momly became close during her time at Chester Academy, and he taught her a valuable lesson about not running away from one’s problems or avoiding the harsh realities of life, such as the fact that her mother was no longer the same. Momly implies that Patty could benefit from learning the same lesson.