Papaya Season

The humidity in Tita Rosa's backyard clung to Maya's skin like a second, sweatier layer. She adjusted her strapless dress for the fiftieth time, hyper-aware that everyone else had worn the traditional baro't saya she'd declined because 'it wasn't her style.' Now she just felt like a fraud at her own family's party.

"Maya! Come, come!" her mother called, waving her over to the karaoke machine where her titas were gathered. Maya's stomach did that familiar flip — the one that happened every time she had to speak Tagalog and pray she didn't mess up the pronunciation.

"She's too busy being American," someone whispered not-quietly-enough. Maya's face burned.

She escaped toward the food table, grabbing a slice of something bright orange and unfamiliar. One bite and she almost spat it out — weirdly musky, nothing like the fruit she knew from Whole Foods.

"That's papaya, silly," said Jay, her cousin who'd moved to California last year and now acted like he'd never lived in the Philippines. "You don't like it?"

"I've never had it like this before," Maya admitted, feeling small. "It's... different."

"That's because it's REAL papaya, not that supermarket garbage." He laughed, but not meanly. "Here, try it with salt. Trust."

She did. And okay, maybe it wasn't terrible. Actually, it was kind of perfect with the humidity and the music and the way her tita Belinda was now shouting Bruno Mars lyrics off-key.

"Ay! Fortune teller!" someone screamed suddenly.

An older woman Maya had never seen before sat in a plastic lawn chair under the coconut palm tree, its fronds casting shadows across her weathered face. Kids were lining up, giggling and nervous. Maya's little sister shoved past her.

"They say she can tell your future," her sister whispered, eyes wide. "She reads your palm."

Maya hung back, skeptical but lowkey curious. What could this woman possibly see in her hand that she didn't already know — that she was caught between worlds, not Filipino enough for her family, not American enough for the white kids at school who still asked where she was "really" from?

"You next," the woman said, surprisingly young-sounding. Maya sat, extending her hand.

The woman's fingers were calloused, rough like tree bark. She traced Maya's lifeline with surprising gentleness.

"You think you don't belong anywhere," the woman said in Tagalog, switching to English for Maya's benefit. "But both places are yours. You don't have to choose."

Maya's throat tightened.

Suddenly, Tita Rosa's ancient pug — Pancit, obviously — waddled over and plopped his butt directly on Maya's foot, letting out the world's most dramatic fart. The entire line of kids erupted in laughter. The fortune teller cracked up. Even Maya couldn't help it — she laughed so hard her mascara probably ran.

"See?" the woman said, wiping her eyes. "You fit in just fine."

Later that night, Maya sat on the back porch steps, Pancit snoring beside her. She ate another slice of papaya, this time adding the salt herself without being told. The distant karaoke music faded as her cousins filtered inside, but she stayed, watching the palm tree sway in the breeze, feeling something loosen in her chest.

Maybe next time she'd wear the dress. Maybe she wouldn't. Either way, she decided, reaching down to scratch Pancit behind the ears, it would be her choice.