by Kelly Yang
“Don’t worry!” he said. “I’ll help spread the word and drum up more customers. And once I start my new job, I’ll be working with lots of lao wai, and I’ll tell all my colleagues! I could put brochures at the doctor’s office too. I’ll be getting benefits with my new job!”
My dad looked down at his tattered pants. His face puckered, like he’d just drunk a bowl of vinegar. Uncle Zhang quickly added, “Hey, one of these days you’ll be on the main road too, my friend. All you have to do is study—”
“No time,” my dad replied, gazing over at the vacuum cleaner sitting in the corner. “Too busy cleaning.”
After Uncle Zhang left, I asked my dad what this main road was. He chuckled and said, “The main road just means having a job that pays proper.”
I looked around, almost wanting to protect the innocent ears of our fine new walls. “This job doesn’t pay proper?” I asked.
My dad patted my head and playfully messed up my bowl-cut bangs. “You worry too much,” he said. “Now, let’s get you to the library. You said you wanted to borrow a cookbook this week?”
I nodded.
At the library, I browsed through the cookbooks, looking for a simple recipe to make for the school potluck, then wandered over to the History section to get a book on undocumented immigration.
As we were leaving, I noticed my dad had borrowed a few books of his own.
“What are those?” I asked.
He flushed, slightly embarrassed, and hugged the books tight. “Oh, these? Nothing.” He tried to cover up the titles with his hands, but I could still read them on the spine: English Made Easy and Lab Technician Certification Study Guide. “I just thought I’d get them, you know, just in case.”
I thought back to what he’d said about the main road. But if my parents switched jobs, who would clean the rooms every day? Who would leave an extra blanket in the guest rooms in the winter when it got cold? More importantly, who would greet me with a smile after school when I charged up the stairs to let them know I was home? Suddenly, I was seized with panic.
“Don’t worry, my little penny,” my dad said. “Thinking and doing are two very different things … sadly.” He sighed as he checked out the books.
I looked up at him, wanting to ask, What do you mean? but also not wanting to ask. I just wanted to hug the relief that my dad wasn’t going anywhere.
At school the next week, all the kids were excited about the cookout. But Lupe’s mind was on something else.
“Guess what?” she whispered, bouncing next to my desk. “My mom’s on her way back! She left with the coyote last night!”
“That’s great!” I whispered back, throwing my arms around her to give her a hug.
Mrs. Welch cocked her head as she passed back our math quizzes from last week. Both Lupe and I had gotten an A this time. “Are you guys talking about the big debate on TV between Wilson and Brown last night?” she asked. “Did anyone see it?”
A few kids raised their hands.
“My dad says a woman can’t be governor,” Michael said. “That’s a man’s job.”
“Yeah!” Stuart said. “Girls just aren’t tough enough.”
I scoffed. “Not tough enough? Who’s the one who killed the roach?”
“Yeah, well, that was … that was …” Stuart stammered. “That was just because my dad wasn’t here. If my dad had been here—”
“And who runs a motel?” I continued, cutting him off. Bethany opened her mouth, but I shot her a look so intense, she promptly closed it. “Every day I get up at six a.m., come to school, work at the front desk after school, do my homework, do my mom’s math worksheets on top of my homework, and write updates or call our investors to let them know what’s going on. Not tough enough? Please, give me a break.”
The entire room was silent.
“Thanks for sharing, Mia, that’s very impressive,” Mrs. Welch said, looking not the least bit impressed.
But I didn’t care. I was impressed, for I had finally worked up the nerve to not be ashamed of what I did, but to be proud of it, to own it. And that was something!
Mrs. Welch asked me to stay behind at the end of the day for “a quick chat” while everybody else packed up and went home. I thought she just wanted me to clean the classroom again, so I started picking up the markers. But she told me to put them back down.
“You know, Mia, it’s one thing to be proud of your job, but you shouldn’t make others feel uncomfortable or bad,” she said with a frown. “Remember what Principal Evans said about kindness?”
She was reminding me about kindness? I wanted to burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
I pinched my lips, but a smile was impossible to hold back—and my words were too. “Well, no offense, Mrs. Welch, but you’re always saying things about immigrants.…”
Mrs. Welch stared at me like I’d just accused her of bleaching her hair with toothpaste. “I didn’t say anything! I merely said they should be kept in check! If only a small number were allowed into the country, people wouldn’t be so mad at them!”
I glanced over at Mrs. Welch’s diploma next to her desk. I knew it was wrong, but seeing as she was already mad at me, I asked, “Is that like at universities, only a small number get to teach there?”
Mrs. Welch followed my gaze. “So you saw my degree,” she said. She walked over to her diploma and positioned her desk chair so it was hidden from view again. Then she came and took a seat in the chair next to mine. It was too small for her, but she squeezed into it anyway.
“It’s true that I have a PhD, and that I ought to be teaching at the university level,” Mrs. Welch admitted. “But sometimes in life, we don’t always get what we want.”
You can say that again. I glanced out the window, wondering if I could go home now. But Mrs. Welch was not done.
She picked up an eraser from my table and started playing with it, as though she was erasing something imaginary. “I didn’t think I’d end up here,” she said. She closed her eyes for a second. “I thought I’d be in the front of a lecture hall, discussing Brontë and Faulkner in an auditorium full of students. Not kids, but real students. You know?”
I shook my head. No, I didn’t know.
“And I’d be the cool professor, showing them movies and occasionally having class outside on the lawn.”
“That sounds nice,” I offered.
“It was nice, at first. But when it came time for faculty selection, they kept promoting the men.” She looked at me, slightly embarrassed. “I can’t believe I’m having this discussion with an eleven-year-old. You couldn’t possibly know what it’s like to be passed up for something, or not be able to do what you were meant to do.”
“Actually,” I said quietly, “my mom used to be an engineer in China, but now she cleans motel rooms. So I know a little about that.”
Mrs. Welch didn’t say anything, but I could tell from the look on her face that she did not expect to hear that. As I packed up my stuff to go home, Mrs. Welch didn’t go back to her desk. She stayed right where she was, squished in the kid’s chair, her eyes a river of thoughts.
The school was decorated in red and white balloons, our school colors, on the day of the big cookout. Excitedly, I carried the aluminum pan full of my mom’s fried rice and chicken chow mein across the field. My mom was carrying the stainless steel serving spoons that she’d bought with her new credit card. There were families everywhere, all holding hot pans of tasty food.
“Mia!” Jason called. He was in a chef’s hat and apron and standing proudly in front of a table of deliciousness. I waved and walked over to where he was presenting three bowls of his roasted pork belly for me and my parents to taste. “Tell me this is not the best pork belly you’ve ever had!”
I took a bite. The meat, oozing with flavor, melted on my tongue. The kick of the caramelized chili balanced perfectly with the golden crispy skin. “This is the BEST pork belly I’ve ever had!” I declared, and my parents
agreed.
“It better be,” Mr. Yao’s voice bellowed from behind us. “It cost $3.99 a pound! I tried to get him to make something cheaper—”
“Yeah, he wanted me to bring canned beans.” Jason rolled his eyes.
“What’s wrong with canned beans?” Mr. Yao protested. He looked over to my parents, who said hello. He pointed at the two of them and asked, “Who’s watching the motel if you’re both here?”
My parents immediately tensed, as though they were still working for him. Before they could answer, Mr. Yao declared, “You know what, it’s not my problem anymore!”
Instead, he peered down at my mom’s dish and asked her what we brought.
“Fried rice and chow mein,” my mom said. “Would you like to have some?”
Mr. Yao clapped his hands together. “Now, that’s my type of Chinese food!” he said, eying the dish like it owed him money. My mom chuckled and started serving some up for him with her new serving spoons.
As Mr. Yao wolfed down my mother’s rice and mein, I skipped over to find Lupe. She was on the other side of the field with her dad. They were serving tamales, guacamole, and chips. I picked up a tamale, letting it cool in my hand.
“Can you believe this?” Lupe asked, pointing at all the banners and other decorations that the school made especially for the cookout. They said things like Kindness matters! and What’s free and priceless? Being nice! “I wish my mom were here. She’d love this!”
I put my arm around Lupe’s back, and we gazed across the field. The sunset had turned the sky into a canvas of colors. “When will you guys know if she’s crossed back safely?” I asked.
“Hopefully in the next couple of days. She’s in the desert as we speak.”
I gave her a little squeeze, knowing how dangerous that trip could be. “She’ll be back before you know it,” I assured Lupe. “Hey, have you tried Jason’s pork belly yet?”
Lupe shook her head and her body stiffened, but I pulled her hand. Finally, she let me drag her to the other side of the field.
There was a line a mile long in front of Jason’s stand when we got there. Lupe got in line. At the front of the line, a couple of students I recognized from Jason’s class reached for the pork.
“This is amazing!” they remarked, devouring their pork. They looked at Jason in awe, and he scooped up miso butterscotch ice cream for them for dessert. Even Mrs. Welch was there—standing in line for seconds!
“I don’t normally like ethnic food,” she said. “But I have to say, this pork belly is quite good!”
I giggled as I walked back over to my parents’ table. I found Mr. Yao sitting behind it alone, still munching on the fried rice. My parents were walking around the field, tasting everyone’s food.
“You know, you shouldn’t just fill up on fried rice,” I said to Mr. Yao, remembering one of my dad’s all-you-can-eat-buffet rules. “You should try some of your son’s delicious pork belly before it runs out.”
He shook his head. “Nah. Too heavy for me. I like my food plain and simple.”
I turned and pointed at Jason’s crowded stand. “Look at that line! You’re missing out! Jason’s going to be an incredible chef one day.”
“I hope not.” Mr. Yao coughed, as though a grain of rice went down the wrong pipe. “He’s got to advance, not go backward.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. What was he talking about?
“Like your family,” Mr. Yao said, waving his chopsticks at my parents on the other side of the field. “You used to be employees, and now you’re owners.”
He turned back to his rice with a melancholy sigh. And I stood there, very, very quiet, under the early evening moon. It was the first time Mr. Yao had ever let on that he was impressed with us. I didn’t want to care what he thought of my family, but he was right. We’d come a long way.
Lupe wiggled at her desk, staring at the clock. I knew she was counting the hours, and then the minutes, and then the seconds until school was over so she could run home and see if her mom was back.
At recess, I tried to distract Lupe by asking her what she wanted to be for Halloween. Last year, we all went as mummies. Hank thought it might be fun this year to go as Tetris blocks. We could make them out of the big empty boxes in the supplies room so that when we all lined up, we’d fit together.
“Tetris blocks works for me!” Lupe said.
Jason came hopping over. We were gathered underneath the tree, as usual. Thanks to the big kindness cookout and Principal Evans giving us her blessing to sit and talk at recess, our Kids for Kids club had grown even bigger—to twenty-two members! We couldn’t even all fit underneath the shade anymore.
“Guess what the other kids are calling me now?” Jason asked. “Master chef!”
“That’s great!” I said. That sounded a lot better than Chinese dough boy. “So are you going to talk to your dad about the cooking class?”
“No.…” Jason looked down at the grass. “He’d never go for it.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. I hated seeing Jason give up like that. “You saw it for yourself at the cookout. You’re an amazing cook. Everybody knows it!”
All the other kids under the tree nodded. We took turns describing how good his food was.
“You make pork taste like … Doritos!” Hector said.
“You make eggs taste like marshmallows,” I added, thinking back to how delicate and light and fluffy his eggs were.
Lupe threw out, “You make miso butterscotch ice cream taste like …” She paused and thought for a second. “Silk.”
Jason looked at us all in surprise.
“You have a gift,” I told him. “You have to do something with it.”
Jason’s eyes grew even wider. I couldn’t believe it myself—just a year ago, Jason had been my nemesis. And now I was saying that he had a gift (and not for stealing pencils). But it felt good to encourage him to go for his dreams, even if his dad didn’t think of them as “advancing.” Especially when his dad didn’t think of them as advancing.
Lupe wasn’t at school the next day, so I assumed her mom had come back safely and she was just taking the day off to spend some time catching up with her. In class, Mrs. Welch seemed more happy and content than usual. Perhaps the kindness posters, which were still up all around school, had rubbed off on her. After lunch, she put on some classical music and let us have a free write—no topic, no grades. We could write on anything we wanted.
I wrote a story about Lupe’s mom crossing the hot desert. Then, just as our time was about up, I realized, Oh, no, what if Mrs. Welch reads this? Frantically, I started crossing everything out. When Mrs. Welch came to collect my journal, she stared down at my blacked-out pages and frowned.
Back at the motel, I found my mom and dad cleaning in room 10.
“How was business today?” I asked them.
“It was okay,” Dad said. “Thank God for the immigrants. They’re our most loyal customers now.”
“Of course, we do give them a discount,” my mom added, as she pushed the vacuum. They were cleaning without the air conditioner on to save money. Sweat collected in circles around my mom’s armpits.
“Which means we make less,” I thought out loud. “Too bad we don’t have more rooms.…”
“We could rent out the lawn chairs by the pool!” my dad joked. My mom and I laughed.
My mom turned the vacuum off and sat down on the bed for a little rest. She pulled the scraps of math out of her pocket to study them.
Just then, we heard a scream from the parking lot.
“MIA!!!!!”
My mother jolted up, dropping her math scraps, and we both ran out of the room. Lupe was standing in the middle of the parking lot, her eyes red and swollen, her hair a disheveled mess. She was wearing the same shirt she’d worn the day before and tears gushed from her eyes. When she saw us, she ran over.
“My dad drove down to the border to try to find my mom, and they …” She struggled to get the words out. “They
’ve taken my dad!”
My mom shook her head like she didn’t understand. “Who’s they?” she asked.
“The immigration police—they’ve got him!”
Shaking, Lupe stood in the middle of the manager’s quarters telling my parents, the weeklies, and me what happened. Her dad went down to the border to look for her mom, who still hadn’t come back from Mexico. When he didn’t come home, Lupe had a bad feeling. That afternoon, her worst nightmare was confirmed. Her dad called her from jail to let her know he’d been picked up by the immigration police.
Mrs. T handed Lupe tissues as she cried, hugging her in her warm mama-bear arms, while Hank paced back and forth in the living room.
“Where is he?” Hank asked.
“He said he was down in San Diego County Jail,” Lupe said. Mrs. T ran her hands up and down Lupe’s shivering arms, over and over, as Lupe wailed, “I wish my mami was here.…”
Hank grabbed his keys. “We’re going down there right now,” he said.
There was some argument over whether Lupe should go, given her status.
“What if they take Lupe too?” my mom said. “She should stay here.”
But Lupe broke free of Mrs. T’s arms and held on to Hank’s arms. “Please, please take me to see my dad,” she begged.
It killed me to see her like this. I couldn’t imagine what Lupe was feeling inside. And to think that José, our dear, wonderful José, was locked up in jail. It wasn’t fair! There had to be something I could do.
“I’ll go with you too,” I said, slipping my hand into Lupe’s.
My parents exchanged a worried look. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” my dad said.
I looked up at them. “Why not? We have papers.” I’d seen them myself in the bottom drawer of my mom’s dresser, along with all our old photographs from China. The photos were faded by now, but still, I looked at them sometimes to remember my grandparents’ faces.