Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  “What?”

  “You won’t believe how cool this school is.”

  “What?”

  “We have to start on the movie right away. Do you have any idea how long it takes to make these animated movies? Even with computers?”

  I shake my head.

  “That Finding Nemo took more than four years.”

  I stare at the top of the table. I’ll be twenty years old — almost twenty-one — in four years. Twenty? That’s halfway through college. I want to be a lawyer, though, so that’s halfway toward law school. Wait a minute, back up. Did he just say he registered me at a high school already?

  “We’ll come back to visit for holidays. I promise.”

  The waitress brings our food, but I’ve lost my appetite. Dad, though? Mr. California parts his pearly whites and chomps down on those nasty-looking fish tacos like they’re the best thing he ever tasted.

  2

  It’s a snowy Saturday afternoon, gray and dreary, and Dad is home with Don Juan, our one-eyed orange tomcat, and a couple of Dad’s artist friends, packing the last of our things into the U-Haul. The cat lost his eye when one of our idiot neighbors shot him with a BB gun. My dad, though, he lost his mind when he went to Los Angeles.

  I should let you know that he is going to pack the stereo at the very end, because he’s got it blasting while he works. He’s listening to Gwen Stefani’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Can I just say he’s scaring me more and more every day? Seriously. There is nothing on earth scarier than seeing your dad sing along to “Harajuku Girls,” doing his arms like serpents.

  Oh, and Dad’s not just singing along, okay? Singing along, dancing around, and wearing a big Phat Farm hockey shirt and too-long jeans that drag over his awkwardly trendy shoes. I mean, he’s going bald, okay? Bald. Get a clue. Go gracefully into that good night, I say. I swear on everything I consider holy and dear that when I get to be thirty-eight years old I will not act like that.

  Anyway, he’s letting me use the car to go around saying goodbye to everybody I love. He says we’re going to have to buy a new car after we get settled in L.A., because he’s embarrassed to show up in this one to Hollywood parties. That’s what he said. Does he not realize animators probably never get invited to Hollywood parties? Poor Dad. There’s nothing wrong with this car. It’s a dark blue 2000 Toyota Corolla with a CD player. It runs really well. But lately, Dad’s all into saying, “a Beemer, I have to have a Beemer.” Even his artist friends are confused.

  First stop? Taos Bakery, to say goodbye to Ethan Schaefer. I know, I should go to see Emily and Janet first; they’re waiting for me at Emily’s house. Then I have to go to Grandma’s after that. I’m on a tight schedule here, because Dad wants to get the car hitched to the U-Haul and leave before dark. In case you were wondering, my dad’s a vampire. He only works at night, and he thinks I can sleep in the truck while he drives. I’m, like, ho-tel, okay? But whatever.

  I can’t stop thinking about Ethan, about how I’m never going to see him again. Or, if I do see him again, how he’s probably going to be in love with someone else by then. It’s not like I even know him that well to be all stupid about leaving him behind. It’s just that he’s the first guy I’ve known who makes me feel pretty. I like that feeling. I never thought I was all that pretty until Ethan started telling me how beautiful I was. I’m nothing exceptional, just a normal-looking New Mexican Hispanic girl, five-five, longish dark brown hair with very recent reddish highlights that don’t look that great because Emily and Janet did them for me. I’ve got kind of pale olive skin, and I guess my eyes are big and very dark.

  I’m not flashy, either. I stick to jeans, T-shirts, and sweaters mostly. There’s no Urban Outfitters in Taos — or anywhere in this state — but I order things from them online twice a year, fall and summer, and that’s pretty much my wardrobe. I like shirts with funny slogans on them, and I keep a diary where I write down slogans I think would look good on a T-shirt. I came up with a new one last night: IT’S MY DAD’S FAULT.

  I don’t do a lot of makeup, just some lip gloss and mascara. I see all these movie stars and singers, like Lindsay Lohan or whatever, and they’re so beautiful and glamorous with their fake lashes and starving bodies. I’m nothing like that. I mean, I’m not fat. I’m strong. I like to eat the right things, and I ride my bike a lot. You can see a lot of definition in my calves and thighs, and one time when I was walking around in shorts last summer, this construction worker whistled at some other girls but when he saw me slapped his buddy on the arm and said, “I’d hate to piss her off. She’s got some strong legs.” I don’t know what that meant, really, but I’m the kind of girl who takes it as a good sign that disgusting construction workers are afraid of me.

  Because I don’t have a mom around, I never had much of a chance to learn about too many girlie things. Emily and Janet have taught me everything I know about makeup and pulse points. But Ethan’s all “Your cheekbones are so structured” or “Your body is amazing” and “You have the darkest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.” He tells me all the guys at school talk about how pretty I am, but that’s news to me. None of them ever talked to me before, until now. Ethan, meanwhile, looks just like Jesse McCartney. No, I’m not kidding. Exactly like him. So you see why I don’t want to leave town. Just yesterday? On the phone? He’s all “You should be a model, Paski.” Yeah, right! Models are tall, and they wear, like, a size zero. I wear a size eight, and I’m not very tall. Personally, I’d rather be a professional cyclist than a model anyway, someone like Dede Barry. I’d rather spend my life training in the fresh air of the mountains than walking on a runway for a bunch of German men with cat’s-eye glasses. Ethan’s kind of corny, now that I think about it.

  Anyway, I have never had so much in common with a guy before. We’ve been talking on the phone every night, and even though we haven’t kissed or anything it’s pretty clear he likes me. We like all the same bands, same food, same everything. It’s cruel to pull me out of my life here with this happening, right?

  I park in front of the bakery and go in. Ethan works here on the weekends for a little extra money, making cookies. I think it’s cute. I mean, how many hot guys can bake, when you think about it? Let me count, uh, let’s see: none. I talked to him on the phone about a half hour ago, and he said he’d go on break when I got there.

  Ethan’s at the counter, helping a fat lady with her order. She’s getting boxes and boxes of pastries. Is that really a good idea when you weigh four thousand pounds? I don’t know. People do what they’re going to do. You can’t stop them. Ethan looks up and sees me. He smiles and looks shy. I love that about him. Ever since he asked me out, he looks bashful around me. I used to think he wasn’t interested at all, but he told me it’s just that he was intimidated by me. That’s crazy, right? A guy intimidated by me? Ethan tells me I’m beautiful. I’m going to miss that, too.

  The fat lady pays for her poison and waddles out the door. Her thighs rub together in a way I think might start a fire.

  “Don’t you feel bad?” I ask, gesturing with my chin at the fat lady.

  “Bad?” asks Ethan, taking the plastic gloves off his hands. “Why?”

  “You might have just sold that lady a heart attack.”

  Ethan laughs. I love his laugh. It’s like his voice has just barely changed, and it has a certain bell-ness to it. “You have a point,” he says. “But if a lady wants to eat cake, I say let them eat cake.”

  “That’s very feminist of you,” I say.

  “I am my mother’s son,” he says. Ethan’s mom is a state representative, big on women’s rights and water conservation. I like her almost as much as I like him. Before Dad decided we had to move, I wanted to get involved with water issues here in the state. We’re running out of the stuff. Now I don’t have an issue. Do they have issues in L.A.? Ethan starts to untie his apron. “Let me just punch out for break. I’ll be right back.”

  I wait and look at all the yummy things in the pastry cases. None of
them look as good as Ethan Schaefer.

  He comes out from behind the counter in jeans and a striped button-down shirt. I notice he’s put gel in his hair and wonder if it was to impress me. He’s about six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He’s on the basketball team at school, and the coach thinks he’ll get an athletic scholarship somewhere. He pushes a chunk of long blond bangs from his eyes.

  “It’s kind of bad weather,” he says. “Wanna just sit in my car and talk?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  We trot through the snow to Ethan’s car. Yes, I said Ethan’s car. He has his own, a 1994 Saturn bought with the money from his job. He rocks. We duck inside and close the doors. Ethan turns on the engine to get the heater going, and pushes a CD into the new stereo. It’s our favorite artist, Gorillaz. We have the same tastes, me and Ethan.

  He turns toward me, puts an arm up over the top of his seat, tilts his head to one side, and looks sort of sad. “So, you’re leaving today, huh?”

  I nod and try not to cry. I will not cry. I will not.

  “That blows,” says Ethan.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I agree.

  And then he does it. He leans in and kisses me. I’ve only kissed one other boy before, and it was pretty grotesque, like he was a vacuum hose with wet rubber lips. But Ethan has soft lips and sweet breath. I could kiss him forever.

  “Wow,” I breathe when we finish.

  “You can’t go,” he says. “That settles it.”

  “I have to,” I tell him. “My dad’s packing the truck right now.”

  Ethan looks at his watch. “I’ve got ten minutes before I have to go back in there.”

  We spend the next ten minutes kissing, and then we promise to stay in touch through e-mail and phone calls. We get out of the car and hurry across the parking lot. He kisses me one more time in the snow, which feels colder than any snow ever. “I have to go now.”

  “Okay,” I say, shivering. “See you later.”

  “No,” he says with a big smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I smile sadly.

  “No,” he repeats. “I mean it. I’ll come visit you as soon as I save the money. I promise.”

  “Really?”

  “Hell yeah!” He runs back toward me, kisses me again, and says, “Don’t worry about anything, okay? Things happen for a reason. I won’t forget you.”

  I cry a little bit on the way to Emily’s house and realize I’m ridiculous. Ethan’s just a guy, right? There are lots of guys in the world. There are probably even guys in California. But I feel like Ethan understands me. He makes me laugh. I think he could have been that guy you always talk about your whole life as your first true love or whatever, like, the guy I lost my virginity to or something. But it’s not going to happen, thanks to my psycho cartoonist dad. How stupid is that?

  Emily lives in a pretty pink adobe house near the plaza with her mom and dad. She’s one of the few people I know whose parents are still married. They’re completely normal, too, her parents. They’re, like, businesspeople or something. Almost everyone else around here is an artist or a tourist. Emily’s parents do all the stuff I’ve never done my entire life, like go to church and have dinner together every night. My friendship with Emily started because I was jealous of her sparkly purple lunchbox back in second grade. I’m still jealous of her, the way her clothes are always clean, but now I like her, too. Our other best friend, Janet, is the prettiest girl at school, so I guess you could say we’re the popular kids. I don’t know. At Taos High School, I’d say we’re pretty accepting of pretty much everyone. It’s not like it’s supposed to be on TV shows about kids.

  I park in the driveway and ring the doorbell. The house looks like an iced strawberry cake in the snow. Emily’s mom, Mrs. Sandoval, answers and gives me a hug. That’s the kind of mom she is. She’s petite, wearing slacks and an expensive-looking sweater with gold jewelry, and her red hair hangs in a tidy bob. I have no idea how it must be to have a mom like that. The house is warm and steamy with the smell of something cooking, and Emily’s little brother is playing Monopoly with his dad in the family room. I have always wanted to have a family and a house like this, but seeing as I’m going to be a legal adult in two years, there’s not much chance of that happening, like, ever. Unless, you know, I marry Ethan and we have kids and a nice house and everything like that.

  “The girls are in Em’s room,” Mrs. Sandoval says.

  I knock on the door to Emily’s bedroom to be polite. “It’s mee-eee,” I call, so she knows it’s someone she wants to let come in. The door flies open.

  “Paski!” my best friends cry in unison. So you know, Emily is the tall one with the shoulder-length brown hair; Janet is the shorter one with the chin-length curly black bob and the super-pink cheeks. They grab me and hug me. We shut the door again. My friends stand to the side and smile at the bed, like I should look there. I’m surprised to see three beautifully wrapped gifts. I feel like crying. I’ve been through so much with these two.

  “Open them,” urges Janet.

  “Yeah,” seconds Emily.

  I crawl onto the queen-size bed, and they tumble up next to me. I open the gifts carefully, slowly, because I want to save the shiny pink and purple paper forever. Inside the first box I find a pink velvet journal with lined paper, and a pink pen with a feather puff on the end.

  “It’s our friendship journal,” says Emily. I open it to find that she’s already filled one third of the journal with writing. I flip further through the book, and see that another third has been filled by Janet.

  “The last part is blank,” Janet says. “So you can put your memories of our friendship there.”

  I close the book and try very hard not to cry.

  “Whenever you need us, you just read some pages from the friendship journal,” explains Emily. She and Janet give me a group hug, and I tell them I love them and that they’ll be my best friends forever.

  “Open the other ones,” says Emily, who is always the first to stop us from getting too sappy. We think of her as the sensible one. In one of the boxes I find a pair of sunglasses and some sunscreen. In the other box I find a tiny string bikini and the Blue Merle CD I’ve been wanting.

  I hold up the bikini, laughing. “You guys are sick,” I laugh. “I’m not wearing this. You know that.”

  “I hear there are nude beaches out there,” says Emily. Well, sort of sensible, anyway.

  “Uh, yuck?” I say.

  “Well you have to do something to meet a guy,” remarks Janet, who lost her virginity this year and hasn’t stopped thinking about boys since.

  “And we agree it’s about time you, uh, stopped waiting?” Emily lifts her brows suggestively. She lost her virginity last semester. Neither of my friends can believe I still haven’t done “it” yet. But they both have semi-normal families. When you have a promiscuous, crazy mother and a dad who draws voluptuous female cartoons that he drools over, um, let’s just say you take your time. Rebellion takes many forms.

  Anyway, I remind them that I’m not actually moving to Los Angeles. Nope. That would be too cool for my dad. Rather, I’m moving to someplace called Aliso Viejo, in Orange County. Dad says the schools are good there, especially the high school he already registered me in without even telling me. It is, in his opinion, the best place on earth to raise a child. I guess he forgot I’m not a child anymore. The only good thing about moving to something called Aliso Viejo, as far as I can tell, is that my new city will have a name almost as awful as mine. By the way, Aliso Viejo means “old cottonwood.”

  Janet stands up, grabs my arms, and pretends to stagger. “Take me with you! I want to go to the O.C.” Emily stands and grabs my other hand, telling me to take her, too. As religious watchers of The OC, Janet and Emily believe my life is about to become as fabulous as the lives of the actors on the show. I have reminded them many times that television shows and movies are written by clueless grown-ups, and that those clueless grown-ups apparently loo
k like . . . my father. “You are so so so lucky to get out of here,” says Janet. “This place is so lame.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t feel lucky.”

  The three of us plop down to the floor around a bowl of popcorn. Emily pours me some Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper in a plastic cup on a tray. I bet her mom brought all this in for us. Like I said, cool mom. They’ve been downloading songs from rhapsody to Emily’s laptop, which also sits on the floor. Janet suggests we do a Mapquest of my new apartment and school and print it all out three times, one for me and one for each of them, so they’ll know where I am and how to get to me if they need to. You can hit print on the laptop here and it will work from the printer in Emily’s parents’ home office. Emily’s whole house is wireless.

  My dad still does dial-up.

  By the time I drag myself to Grandma’s funky little mud hut, I’m emotionally drained. I actually cried at the end with Emily and Janet. They told me not to worry and said we’d see each other on holidays. They promised to keep me up to date on everything around here. Still. This is the suckiest day of my life, and all for what? So Dad can make movies? It’s absurd. I need my grandmother right now. There’s nothing better in the world when you’re feeling depressed than going to see my grandma. The really cool part about seeing her without my dad is that she lets me ride her motorcycle. She has a Harley, and I love the way it feels. I want a motorcycle of my own, a little racing bike, but my dad is, like, no way, so whatever. The adventurous gene skipped a generation in our family. Just like the psychic gene. But that’s another story.

  Just so you know, my grandmother had her house designed to look like a snail. That’s right, a snail. Like, the slimy little thing that lurks in your garden? Yeah. It’s her animal guardian or something. So there it is. I’m opening the door to a snail, and the door is purple. The fun never ends. The good news is, the house smells amazingly good. Grandma knows her incense. And Grandma can cook.