“I’m going to sit in the sun, don’t care if it’s a million trillion degrees outside so my skin can get dark like it’s blue where it bends like Lucy’s. Her whole family like that. Eyes like knife slits.” 

The narrator wants to be like her “Lucy friend” and even covets how conspicuously Lucy projects her cultural identity. Here, the narrator makes a clear insinuation that her outward appearance does not register as Mexican as much as Lucy’s does. The narrator is determined to change that.

“There ain’t no boys here. Only girls and one father who is never home hardly…and so many sisters there’s no time to count.”

Part of what attracts the narrator to Lucy’s household is how female-centric it is. Lucy’s father is rarely on the scene. It is a world of women and girls where the rules are less exacting and the environment is imperfect but welcoming.

“Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit inside the other, each year inside the next.”

Rachel would like to be instantly more mature and prepared to handle whatever life throws at her. Unfortunately, she learns during the incident of the red sweater that maturation doesn’t work that way. She will still struggle with social situations at any age of life.