We loved Junkanoo, Amparo and I, and in the early morning we walked back along Market Street and waited hours at an overpriced diner. It was the greatest night of our lives – we had seen a f*******n part of the world, and it was full of magic both strange and familiar. We were adults now, and we would make our own choices. No one would tell us where to go.
We shivered, huddled in the diner booth – no amount of hot tea could warm us, but we didn’t care. We ate eggs and bacon and waffles. Amparo leaned forward, her hair falling into a smear of syrup.
‘I’m going to pledge the Saturn Club with East,’ she whispered. ‘Come with us.’
I stared at her hair in that sparkling glob of syrup. Darkness and light. I remembered my grandmother slitting a frog’s belly in half while my mom was at the rest
