Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  “Boys and girls,” says Tina. “Haters come in all genders.”

  “Thank you,” says Dad, releasing her.

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Archuleta.”

  The force of my dad’s embrace has knocked the ever-present drawing pad from under Tina’s arm. It splays across the floor, revealing some of her creations. I see something that looks like a spider with a human face. Tina is still weird, but I like her. My dad looks at the pad as she scoops it up, and after he apologizes again (does my dad ever stop apologizing anymore?), he tells her that he would like to get a better look at the drawings if she wouldn’t mind.

  Tina shrugs and hands the pad to my dad, then she comes over and sits by me on the sofa. “Hey, Pasquala,” she says. “¿Como estás?”

  “I’m fine,” I say. I don’t know what the big deal is, really. Why does everyone look at me like I’m roadkill? Do I look that bad? Tina reaches out and touches the stitches on my forehead. Did I mention I have stitches on my forehead? Well, yeah. I so do. I look like the bride of Frankenstein. When Jessica threw my drugged butt into the pool, I seem to have smacked my head and nose and chin on the side of the pool. How I managed that, I will never know.

  “Does it hurt?” Tina asks.

  “No, it feels great,” I say, sarcastic.

  She smiles. “Sorry, dumb question.” She looks over at the television. I point the remote to turn down the volume. “You know,” she says, “you’re quite the cause célèbre at school these days.”

  “I’m what?”

  “Everyone’s talking about you.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Mostly good. They all feel really bad for you. The whole school is way pissed at Jessica Nguyen for what she did.”

  “What about Andrew?”

  Tina shrugs. “You know how it is with jock boys.”

  “No, actually. The jock boys back home were pretty normal.”

  “Okay, well around here, no matter what they do, society forgives them because they are jock boys. It’s like being a soldier. You can rape and pillage, you can disembowel babies, but if you’re a soldier, they throw parades for you when you get home.”

  She sounds like my dad. I look over, and he’s grinning at Tina’s drawings. Tina looks over, too. Dad nods in approval. “These are good,” he says of the drawings.

  Tina shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but I can tell she’s happy someone noticed. “Thanks.”

  “My dad’s a professional cartoonist,” I say. It does not escape my notice that the phrase “professional cartoonist” is hilarious. “He should know.” I am trying in a weird way to make Tina feel good, out of guilt for not being sure I liked her. She’s a good person, and I am really starting to understand that good people come in all styles, even weirdo and geek.

  Tina’s face completely changes with this news. I mean, totally changes. She is no longer a morose, brooding girl who has come to fix me and the rest of the world. She is now a normal, curious kid.

  “You are?” she asks my dad. He nods.

  “We moved here so that my dad’s comic book could be turned into a movie,” I say.

  “I am a comic book junkie,” says Tina. “Which one did you do?” Dad tells her about Squeegee Man, and she jumps off the sofa like someone in a baseball stadium whose team just hit the most amazing home run of all time.

  “No way!” she shouts. “You’re Rudolfo Archuleta?”

  My dad gets this smug look, as if he wants me to understand that he’s not just, like, my stupid parent. That he has fans. “Please, call me Rudy.” Uh, puke?

  “I love Squeegee Man!” cries Tina. And then they start talking about all the obscure, weird things my dad’s characters have done over the years. As Tina and my dad talk, the phone rings. I answer it, and a woman asks for my father. I ask her who she is so I can tell him. She identifies herself as a reporter from People magazine and says she’s been asked to do a feature on my father and his work.

  Really?

  I hand him the phone, and as he listens to her spiel, his eyes grow very, very wide. “You want to profile me?” he asks.

  To Tina, I mouth, “People magazine.”

  Tina drops her jaw to show me she doesn’t believe it. “You guys are so cool,” she gushes. “Nobody at school has a clue how cool you are. You know that? You know your dad’s about to become a millionaire, don’t you?”

  I turn off the television and look around the apartment. Is he? He hasn’t mentioned it, but now that I think about it, Hollywood, People magazine, a feature film. Hmm. Maybe so. I listen as my father goes into the kitchen and begins to tell his life story to a reporter from the most popular magazine in, like, the world.

  “And you know what else?” Tina asks. I just look at her. I am still thinking about the fact that my dad is about to become a millionaire. I shudder to think how many Squeegeemobiles he’ll buy with that kind of money. I’m happy for him, but part of me is, like, great, you know? He waits until I’m almost on my own to get rich. I won’t really even be able to benefit from it, except that maybe now I won’t have to worry about paying for college. That would be cool. I want to go to Harvard. I don’t know anything about it, except that I really want to go there because it’s famous. Then I want to go to Yale Law school. God, what if we could actually afford that? What if I had my own car when I went to college and then Emily and Janet went to Harvard, too, and we drove all over Boston looking way hot and blasting our music? That would so rock.

  Tina says, “The haters won’t be able to call you ‘apartment girl’ anymore. That will be amazing.”

  “Do you live in an apartment?” I ask. Tina nods. “So it’s kind of personal for you, too?” She shrugs, but I’m right. She knows it and I know it. I wonder what the haters did to her and how long they’ve been doing it.

  She narrows her eyes and says, “I so want to be there the day you drive up to school in your new car.” Her brown eyes gleam wickedly. “What would you get?”

  I shrug. “Not a Porsche.”

  “Oh my God. Andrew’s car is so cheesy, isn’t it?”

  “It’s nice, but a little macho.”

  “Who the hell drives a Porsche anymore?”

  My father sticks his head in to interrupt. “Don Johnson,” he answers.

  Tina howls with laughter. “Your dad’s hysterical,” she says.

  “Who’s Don Johnson?” I ask.

  “This old guy from this show Miami Vice my mom used to like.”

  “Oh.”

  Tina claps her hands together and actually rubs them, like a cartoon villain. She says, “I want to see the looks on their faces when they realize that your dad created the most popular character since Spider-Man. They’re going to be eating crap out of the palm of your hand, girl.”

  I smile, but it’s hollow. I’m only half listening. I’m thinking about the kind of car I’m going to get when — if — my dad gets to be a millionaire. “Tina,” I say. “I really don’t care what the haters call me anymore. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need anyone to eat crap out of my hand.”

  Tina leans back and blows air out of her mouth, very comfortable here. Almost too comfortable. “That’s where you’re wrong, girlfriend,” she says. “You might not want what they think to matter. But this is Southern California. Look around. Money and power will always matter here. In fact, I would bet that money and power are just about the only things that will ever matter here. I mean, it’s certainly not the environment or poetry.”

  “Don’t forget surfing,” I say. “That will always matter here.”

  She laughs. “You and your dad crack me up. Can I move in?” I get the feeling she’s only pretending to joke. “Okay,” she says. “So, money, power, and surfing matter here. And what matters here ends up mattering around the world eventually.”

  I wish I had the strength of conviction to argue with her. But the truth is, she’s right. I hate it that she’s right. But she’s right anyway. I’m sorry to admit this, and I’m only going to thin
k it, but I would really like to be an overnight millionaire with my own car and better clothes than Jessica. Well, at least better than Brianna. Or as good. I’d like to roll up in my own little Infiniti or something and see their faces. How shallow, I know, but inside every deep, psychic girl, I would bet you there’s a shallow moron just waiting to come out.

  “The only thing you can really do about Southern California,” Tina says, “is surround yourself with people who will care about you no matter where you live or how much your dad makes.”

  I smile at her and think of Emily and Janet. I miss them. But maybe Tina’s beginning to grow on me.

  22

  I guess I’m still a little sick, because when Tina leaves and my dad heads out to the grocery store for more of everything I want — even Diet Pepsi, which he never used to let me have, owing to his deep-seated hatred for everything American soda companies represent — I fall asleep on my bed. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I meant to read my physics textbook in hopes of learning something. But boom. Asleep.

  It’s a weird sleep, the kind where you aren’t even sure you are asleep. I have a lot of these. My grandmother told me that they’re called night terrors, where you feel awake but like you can’t move, and there’s a sense that you’re not alone in the room. Yeah, well, I get that. I get a night terror. Just when I thought nothing else bad could possibly happen to me — you know, statistically speaking — this. I try to resist it. Usually there are spirits that want to talk to you in a night terror. And more often than not, those spirits are bad. Really bad. So bad that you’re better off making yourself wake up and do something else.

  I fail. I can’t wake up, and I can’t turn away. I know that I am awake but also asleep, and then I feel like I’m rising out of my body. I mean, I am rising up. I don’t have a body anymore. I hate this. It’s terrifying, frankly. There is nothing scarier in the world than this sensation right now, which makes my blood feel thick and frozen, like melting ice cream. I turn and see myself asleep on the bed. I wonder for a second if I’m dead. A long, scary second. Then I hear a voice say, “Don’t worry. You’re still alive.”

  It’s a familiar, high-pitched voice. I turn toward it and see a little girl sitting on the chair in my corner. She looks Japanese. She wears a dirty dress, and I want to feed her. “Who are you?” I ask.

  “I’m Yuko,” she says. Her manner is not the manner of a little girl. She looks at me like a grown-up and moves her hands like a grown-up. I am getting very freaked. You’ve seen scary movies, right? Well, this is a million times scarier than the most frightening moment of a scary movie. Trust me. I don’t think I can deal. “I’m your future grandmother.”

  “What?”

  I’m not really talking, not in the usual way people talk. It’s like we’re communicating telepathically. I mean, I know that the little girl is probably speaking Japanese, but for some reason I totally understand it. It’s like the symbols of the words are gone and all I see are the feelings and thoughts they are meant to represent.

  “I am Keoni and Kerani’s grandmother,” she says.

  “I am not going to marry those boys,” I say, wondering as I say it if it’s even true.

  The little girl laughs. “No, you’re not. But your father. . . .”

  “My dad is not going to marry those boys, either,” I say. I wonder why I can still be a smart-ass, even when I’m in a scary, creepy dream state, floating above my body and communicating telepathically with a dead woman who appears to me as a little girl. I think it’s a coping mechanism. I can’t deal with this horrifying situation any other way.

  She laughs. “My daughter likes your father very much. She notices him, and even more important, I like him.”

  “You like my dad?” I ask. She pulled me all the way to the spirit realm to tell me this? She needs to get a life. Er, a death. Whatever. Something.

  “Your father is a great man,” she says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I thought you were talking about my dad.”

  “I would appreciate any help you can give me in helping them find each other.”

  “Is that why you keep trying to talk to me?”

  “No,” she says. “I have another reason.”

  I wait for her to tell me.

  “I watch my grandsons suffer at school, with all those mean boys and girls, and it makes me very, very sad. I thought we had to sacrifice and suffer in this country, all the discrimination, so that our children and grandchildren would not have to. But I realize now that discrimination takes many different forms.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, for us, it was because we were Japanese, or Asian. For my grandsons, it is because they’re not rich, or because they aren’t what others think they should be with their clothes and interests.”

  “That’s why you want to talk to me?”

  “Yes. Because I want you and my other grandchildren to remember what my generation went through.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It is important that you and Kerani and Keoni all stop listening to those hateful children and start to love yourselves for the amazing human beings that you are. Stop letting other people make you who you will be. That is the most dangerous thing in the world.”

  “Peer pressure?” I ask. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how peer pressure compares at all to what happened to you with the internment camps.”

  “When you meet a person one-on-one, it is very unusual for a person to discriminate. The usual way people behave, human nature, is to try to find common ground in order to get along and help each other. It is when people become insecure and act in the context of a group that danger exists. So it is that your peers put pressure on each other to harm less popular children and those who are different from them in the same way that people in nationalistic, xenophobic societies put pressure on each other to treat foreigners and other people who are different from them badly.”

  I think about this. It makes sense, and it reminds me of someone. “You sound like my friend Tina.”

  “Tina is a good girl,” she says. “I am happy my future granddaughter has such a good friend.”

  “Why do you keep calling me your granddaughter?”

  “Don’t you get it?” she asks. “Your father is going to marry my daughter.”

  “He is?”

  She nods and smiles. “If I get my way. And I’m not leaving until I do.”

  “Why does it matter so much to you?”

  “Because,” she says. She is starting to fade, and I feel myself slipping back into my body again. “What my grandsons need is the love of a father figure. They are becoming men now, and they need to have a strong man around who can guide them and who, through his own brightness, can teach them that it is okay to shine with their own beautiful light.”

  Once she totally disappears, I am happy. Happy that the terrifying situation — a little-girl ghost talking like a grown-up? — is over. Or kind of over. I’m still thinking about what she said. And I can pretty much forget sleeping. What was she talking about? Shine their own beautiful light? Strong man? She might be long dead, but I still suspect she’s been smoking crack.

  I pick up the phone and dial the number of the only person on earth who will understand exactly how I’m feeling and what I’m going through: my grandma.

  23

  So, it’s the weekend. Sunday, to be precise. I get to go back to school on Monday. Dad has decided to blow off Sleepy and the other Homie Doll–looking guys to stay in Aliso Viejo all weekend hanging out with me. We’re not your typical religious family, so there is no church or anything like that. Not unless you count the Squeegeemobile, which my father appears to worship. I spend as much time as I can avoiding him and talking on the phone to Emily and Janet. Things sound interesting back home, with Emily starting a new relationship with a guy from Española I’ve never met. Janet assures me the guy is super-hot. I’m sure he is. Emily doesn’t go for any other kind. Then I hang up and I’m ba
ck here, with stitches.

  There’s just me and Dad all weekend, renting movies (last night) and driving around looking at houses (yesterday) that Dad would like to buy. He says it’s “bonding time.” Is he baked? Hello? The time to bond with your kids is when they’re infants. I’m sixteen. This is seriously separation time. But Dad needs bonding, so, you know, I’m down. At least I’m pretending to be down, because I’m feeling nice and I want to get on his good side for when he starts making the millions and buys me my own Infiniti, only now I’ve changed my mind and I don’t want the Infiniti, I want a Mercedes, because even though they used to be way wack and old-fashioned, they’ve got a bunch of new ones that are slick.

  “You ready to go?” Dad asks me.

  First we’re going shopping for bathing suits and towels, even though it’s the middle of winter. I don’t see a lot of locals going in the ocean right now. Sometimes I don’t think my dad pays a whole lot of attention to the world around him. It’s like he lives in those drawings he does. To him, California is warm, and warm means beach time. I’m telling you, he’s gonna be the only loser out there on the beach in a Speedo or something. Me? I prefer to follow the rules of conduct for the place we’re in. Dad, Mr. Super Trailblazer — or Rain Man, I haven’t decided — wants to go swimming. I think he’s nuts, but whatever. He didn’t ask me, and he’s been acting so goofy lately that I just let him do what he wants. I’m counting the days until I turn eighteen and graduate and go to college and start my real life — with my Mercedes.

  We go to Target for the swimwear. I don’t like any of it, so Dad takes me to something called Sports Chalet. Can I just say I adore this store? It’s amazing. We don’t have stores like this in New Mexico. We barely have stores in New Mexico, but that’s another issue. Anyway, the Sports Chalet has all the usual stuff you’d expect from a sporting goods store, but lots of other stuff, too. Really cool clothes. Lots of them. Dad encourages me to browse and tells me to get whatever I want. He even brings me a shopping cart to load it all in. I look closely at him to make sure he’s my real father. Yep. It’s him. Just baked.