by Misa Sugiura
22
OAK VISTA CONTINUING CARE COMMUNITY IS nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Hundreds of years ago, the Spanish Mexican ranchers used to graze their cattle here, and I can still see a few cows scattered on the slopes as we pass through what Stephen never fails to tell us is land owned by Stanford University. In the winter, it looks like Ireland (or what I imagine Ireland looks like, anyway): bright green hills as far as the eye can see. But now, in the summer, the sun has burned everything to a dusty, dull, dead-grass-brown; I try to see it as golden, or blond, or even just plain old yellow, but it resists all my efforts to cast it in a better light.
The pretense is that we’re going on an exploratory tour, but in reality, Stephen has already made up his mind. Max and I have been instructed to rave about how amazing Oak Vista is, how beautiful the residences are, how delicious the food, how interesting all the activities. The plan is to continue singing Oak Vista’s praises in front of Baba every now and then for the next few weeks until Dad arrives, at which point he and Stephen will take Baba out for a nice meal and tell her they’d like her to move there in the not-too-distant future. They keep insisting that Baba will take it better this way, but I’m still not convinced.
Despite the brilliant sunshine outside, the atmosphere in the car is decidedly grim. Baba is staring sulkily out the window; apart from her unmistakable opposition to the whole idea of this field trip, she’s furious with Stephen, who snapped at her when she criticized his driving, and then snapped at her again when she made a comment about him and Lance eating out too much. Stephen probably would have had more patience, but he’s annoyed because Lance had to leave town unexpectedly for an emergency on-site consultation on one of his buildings. Max is hungover from going out with some college buddies last night and is in a foul mood.
Me, I’m cranky because Mom called this morning to tell me that she was going to send me links to some options for bedroom furniture from Ikea. It seemed like good news, but two sentences later, she bait-and-switched me. The bedroom conversation was happening because—surprise!—she’s planning to move into Mr. Jensen’s house, and his spare bedroom is going to become my bedroom.
“Isn’t that great, Zozo? I can’t wait to decorate it with you,” she gushed.
“You’re moving in with him?” I stared at my phone in disbelief.
“It’s bigger than the one you have at ho—I mean, at Dad’s house.”
“You only started dating him in May! You’re not even legally divorced yet.”
“I am an adult,” she replied, as if being an adult excused everything, “and I’ve told you many times that I only left because I finally realized I had no other choice.”
Ah yes. The April Epiphany, when she read a self-help book and decided that the marriage was unsalvageable and she needed to “save herself,” followed quickly by the May Departure and Dating Spree, when she began “finding herself.”
“I’m not staying at your boyfriend’s house,” I said, and hung up.
In sum: it’s been a shitty morning for everyone.
Thank goodness I can distract myself with something fun. Not long after I got back from the Ice Cream Bar, Willow called. I’d been afraid that she was going to make a joyful announcement that our plan had worked, and that she and Arden had settled their differences and gotten back together. But in fact, she informed me that she and Arden hadn’t been able to stop fighting. What’s more, she felt terrible for abandoning me in the shop with Dela and wanted to take me sightseeing to make up for it. Was sometime this week okay?
Just the two of us on a real, honest-to-goodness, not-just-for-show, not-just-for-Instagram-likes date? Hmm, let me think . . . (which is to say, YES!!!) Okay, so it’s not precisely one hundred percent a date in the sense that she wants to take me in her arms and kiss me senseless. But you never know, do you? Anyway, given her fight with Arden yesterday, it’s the perfect opportunity for me to shine.
I look out the window and let the glow of anticipation transport me to a sunset picnic at Lands End, a catamaran ride on the bay, a redo of Golden Gate Park where we actually slow down and enjoy it. By the time we pull into the parking lot at Oak Vista, I’m so completely wrapped in a cocoon of possibilities that when Stephen asks me what I’m looking so dreamy about, I say, “My date with Willow this week,” and I don’t remember until after I’ve said it that it’s not exactly a date.
We’re greeted in the lobby of the sprawling main building by a lady in a smart suit, understated makeup, and a flawless French twist, and I have to put the dream on hold.
“I’m Celia,” she says, and when Max and I introduce ourselves, she exclaims, “Well, aren’t you lucky, Grandma! Remind me to tell you about all the family activities we have here for when your grandchildren visit.”
Baba laughs and says, “I’m not going to live here. I’m just here because my son wants to tour.”
Her laughter feels a little false, though, and when Stephen clears his throat and says, “Keep an open mind, Mom. I think you’d really love it here,” her eyebrows settle into an angry V.
“Of course, it’s a decision you’ll want to make as a family,” says Celia with practiced calm. “But I think you’ll find that we have a wonderful, welcoming community here.”
“Doesn’t that sound nice, Mom?” says Stephen, and he smiles hopefully at Baba, but her eyebrows remain stubbornly V-shaped.
Celia shows us the fitness center, the library, and a condo unit before calling a golf cart to take us around the grounds. She points out swimming pools, tennis courts, hiking paths, and a “sustainable, organic, artisan” community vegetable garden. She encourages us to admire the sweeping views of the wooded foothills. I don’t even have to pretend to be impressed. I generate so many oohs and aahs that Max elbows me and tells me to tone it down.
Baba, however, glowers at everything as if she finds it all deeply, personally offensive. She keeps up a constant grumbly commentary as the tour goes on: too many white people, too many rich people, ugly paint colors, no space for her to garden.
“But there was a garden just back there,” Max says.
“It was not so good. So many tomatoes,” she says darkly, as if tomatoes were the fruit of the devil, as if they weren’t one of the only two vegetables in her own garden (the other being cucumbers).
Once the tour is over, Stephen suggests a walk on one of the paths that meanders through the hills on the property—Baba loves a scenic nature walk—but it’s hot and uncomfortable and Baba grouses about sunburn and dehydration.
“I bet it’s so pretty in the winter, though,” I say. “All green and everything.”
“The path will be muddy,” she says.
“The path is paved,” Stephen points out, his voice strained.
“It will be slippery and dangerous.”
Back in the lobby of the main building, an attendant offers us a choice of water, sweet tea, and cold oolong tea. Stephen tries to spin it as Asian-friendly, but Baba sniffs, “Oolong-cha. It’s Chinese, not Japanese.”
“I saw a flyer for a chess club,” Stephen ventures. “You like chess, right?” I have to hand it to him. He really doesn’t quit.
She sniffs. “I doubt anyone can beat me.”
“It’s mostly men who play chess, anyway,” Stephen muses, and a spark flares in Baba’s eye.
“I can beat any man,” she snaps.
“Probably,” he replies mildly, and as Baba boasts about how she was the chess champion of her school, and rants about how men who play chess think they’re so smart, Stephen smiles at me and Max.
Baba may be difficult and infuriating, but I can’t deny how awesome she is, too.
We go around a bend in the freeway headed north, and the weather changes abruptly as we enter another microclimate. The sky shifts from pale blue to pale gray, and the tops of the Santa Cruz Mountains disappear under billows of fog that tumble over the peaks and spill down the sides like the foamy crest of a giant wave. Stephen glances over a
t Baba, who has fallen asleep in the front passenger seat.
“How do you think that went?”
“Could’ve been worse,” answers Max. “I guess she can go and win all the chess tournaments.”
“It would give her a positive reason to move. Nothing gets her going like the possibility of kicking someone’s ass,” Stephen says, and then adds with a wry grin, “If you can call wanting to beat people at chess a positive reason.”
Baba stirs a little, which shuts down that avenue of conversation.
Do they have actual tournaments, though? Or will it be more like the soccer league I played in as a kid, where no one keeps score and everybody gets a trophy? Poor Baba. We’re already treating her like a child; she’ll hate it if they treat her that way at Oak Vista, too.
I lean forward and look at her face. She has a brown spot near her right eye, and tiny wrinkles crisscross her chin, the corners of her eyes, and the area around her mouth. Her jaw is slack and her mouth is open a little, and her brow has relaxed out of the furrow she’s held it in for most of the afternoon. I’ve always thought of her as fierce and full of fighting energy, but she looks so vulnerable now, when she’s asleep. It’s going to be hard for her to leave her home, her garden, and her neighborhood where she never felt out of place for being Asian. Of course she’s trying to convince us—or herself, maybe—that she doesn’t need to move. Why is she so stubborn about it? I don’t know if she really believes that strongly that she’s okay, or if she knows on some level that she’s not but hopes she can bend life her way through sheer force of will. Honestly? I admire her determination. I just wish she could see how it’s messing up her life—and ours, too.
23
ONCE WE’VE DROPPED BABA OFF AT HER HOUSE and returned home, Stephen goes straight to his office to call Dad and give him a full report. I follow Max to his room.
“What?” he says. “Why are you following me?”
“Can I talk to you for a sec about Mom?”
He groans and rubs his forehead. “I’ve had a splitting headache ever since I woke up this morning, and that walk in the sun with Baba didn’t help. Can’t it wait?”
“I’ve been waiting. I didn’t talk to you in the car, did I?” Max looks longingly at his bed, and I add, “I promise it’ll be quick. Please?”
“Fine,” he says heavily. He trudges to his bed and lies down carefully, draping his arm over his eyes. “What is it?”
“Did you know she’s moving in with Mr. Jensen?”
“What?” This shocks him into dropping his arm and lifting his head to face me. “Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Ughhh,” he says, and back down he goes.
What, that’s it? One semi-animated expression of disbelief and a defeated groan? Then I remember that he’s hungover, so I wait another beat. But there’s nothing more. No outrage, no agitation, not so much as a mumbled “what the fuck.”
“Well?” I prompt him.
“Well, what?”
“Well, what do you have to say about it? It’s barely even been like two months since they started dating! Even if you pretend the whole idea of her and Mr. Jensen isn’t gross and weird in the first place, don’t you think it’s too soon? Don’t you think she should live on her own for . . . I don’t know, longer?”
“Can you please stop with the screeching, Zomi? Just take it down like fifteen notches?”
“I’m not screeching,” I protest.
“Every syllable that comes out of your mouth feels like you’re taking an ice pick to my skull.”
I open my mouth to argue but think better of it. Stay on topic. In my lowest, quietest, calmest voice, I say, “Don’t you think it’s weird? What should we do?”
“Yes. Nothing.”
My head practically explodes. “What? Why? Aren’t you even a little bit upset? It’s been two months, Max. Two! Months!”
Max winces. “Quiet? Please?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Oops. “But aren’t you? Upset, I mean?” I ask. Then I say the thing I’ve been wondering about for weeks now. “Do you think . . . do you think maybe she had an affair? Like started seeing him before she moved out?” I hate to think that Mom would actually cheat on Dad. I hate it so much I actively try not to think about it. But it’s not impossible, is it?
Max doesn’t say anything for a while. Then he breathes in slowly, as if he’s getting ready to say something important—and holds it for a second, then seems to change his mind and breathes out. I try very hard not to want to smother him with a pillow as he takes two more long, slow breaths, until I lose my patience and say, “Can you say something?”
Finally, he says, “Of course I’m upset. I think it’s fucking disgraceful. But what am I supposed to do about it, Zomi? Sue her? Have a temper tantrum? She’s forty-eight and she’s gonna do whatever bonkers, random shit she wants, and we can’t stop her. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
“But it’s . . .” I cast about for the words to explain my outrage. “It’s wrong. It’s disrespectful. To Dad. Don’t you think? He didn’t choose to get divorced.”
Max raises his arm enough to reveal one open eye, with which he gives me a long, hard look. “You do know their marriage was a literal garbage fire, don’t you?”
“But Dad tried to make it work. He asked her to go to marriage counseling. She could at least respect that.”
Max stares at me for another moment before he crosses his arm back over his face and heaves a massive sigh. “Trust me, Zomi,” he says. “If Dad is delusional enough at this point to feel disrespected by Mom moving in with Mr. Jensen, he deserves the disrespect.”
Which I think is unfair and mean, but I get the sense that we’re scraping the bottom of Max’s very limited barrel of patience, so I don’t argue.
“She expects me to stay there on her nights,” I tell him instead.
“Ha.” He snorts. “Big L.”
“Yeah, I knew you’d think it was funny, you jerk.”
“I think it’s hilarious. Thank you for that.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you.”
With a sigh, I turn to go.
“Oh, hey. One thing,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you. Willow’s definitely not over her ex. In fact, I’d go so far as to say she’s obsessed, and you should get out before it gets ugly.”
What—how dare he? “What are you talking about?” I splutter. “Based on what evidence?”
“Um, for starters, you went on a double date with her ex yesterday.”
“So? She’s totally over Arden. You heard her say it yourself.”
Max lifts his arm just enough to skewer me again with one eye. “And you believed her? Jeezus, you’re more gullible than I thought.”
“I am not gullible.”
“Mm-hmm. Right.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I insist.
“You have no fucking idea what you’re doing. If you did, you wouldn’t be dating this girl. I know you’re not the sharpest crayon in the box, but it’s like you’re closing your eyes on purpose, and—”
“I’m not really dating her, okay?” I shout, unable to take it anymore. He flinches, and maybe it’s mean of me, but yeah. He deserves it for insulting me like that.
“Okay, what?” he says. “And can you not yell?”
In addition to petty (but sweet) satisfaction, I’m flooded with a strange exhilaration—or maybe I’m just relieved to be able to tell the truth—and the whole story, the whole plan comes pouring out. “See?” I finish. “I have a plan, and I’m totally in control. It’s like in those movies where—”
“Are you telling me you’re trying to have a relationship based on a romantic-comedy trope? Here’s a clue for you, Zo: those aren’t documentaries.”
Well, when he puts it that way, in that tone of voice.
“Listen, though. It’s going to be real. We’re going on a real date this week! She’s taking me whereve
r I want to go in the city.”
“Does she think this is a date?”
“I mean. Not exactly. But it’s not a fake date.”
“I hate to break it to you, dear sister, but if she doesn’t think it’s a date—especially if she’s thinking about someone else the whole time—it’s not a real date.”
Leave it to Max to poke holes in the only thing that’s making me happy right now.
“All you ever do is try to bring me down,” I say irritably.
“You only see what you want to see, so I’m trying to show you what I see. It’s for your own good. Look at the facts, Zomi. Live in the real world, for fuck’s sake.”
“I do live in the real world.”
“You’re literally trying to turn your life into a movie. Like you think everyone’s going to get a happy ending. And I’m telling you that in the real world, that’s not possible.”
I’ve had enough of this. “I thought you had a headache and wanted to be left alone,” I say.
“Trust me, I would like nothing better. And I’ve said all I have to say, so you can go now. Goodbye.”
I don’t care what Max thinks. He’s the kind of guy who’s so jaded and cynical, he sees Mom moving in with her not-even-two-months-new boyfriend—before she’s even moved all her stuff out of our house—and goes, oh well, just accept it, instead of freaking out like a normal person who understands that that’s not how people are supposed to act. It’s not like I’m unaware of Willow’s feelings about Arden. It’s not like I don’t understand that this might not work. It’s just that I expect the best out of life, and he expects the worst.
Only . . . it’s hard to be optimistic and hopeful about my plan when Max the killjoy keeps reminding me of all the ways it could fail. Ugh. I hate him.
24
ONE OF THE MORE UNUSUAL PIECES IN THE museum’s collection is a big, empty glass cube with a metallic sheen, mounted on a Plexiglas stand and entitled . . . wait for it . . . Glass Cube.
Why? I want to ask the artist. How am I supposed to explain this to kids? How is this art?