Chapter Synopsis
Nayeli is thinking about Missionary Matt, a blonde-haired blue-eyed boy that came with the Missionaries to Tres Camarones. She and all her friends fawned over him and she often reads the card he gave her with the phonetic spelling of her name (Nah/YELL/ee) and his phone number. She keeps this card and the postcard her father sent her from Kankakee, Illinois with her at all times. She thinks about what she is going to do with her life. She can’t go to an expensive university as her mother can’t afford much of anything. Her aunt Irma helps them out with the money she made investing her winnings from bowling. Aunt Irma’s nickname is La Osa (the she-bear) as she is known for being tough.
Tacho’s “kind” is known for having “la mano caida” (the fallen hand), the limp wrist in gay men. Tacho did not accept this stereotype so he threw it back into the citizens faces by naming his café “La Mano Caida”. Nayeli’s two girlfriends enter the shop, Yoloxochitl, or Yolo for short the brainiac, and Verónica, Tres Camarones’ only goth called la Vampira, or Vampi for short. They spend the rest of Nayeli’s shift looking up pictures of American actors and on youtube. When she comes home her mother informs her they are going to the lagoon for crab-catching in the morning.
