Fresh Off the Boat

by Melissa de la Cruz

  I’m so sorry to hear you and Rufi broke up! But at least your parents never found out about it.

  I can’t wait for you to get here in December! It turns out Whitney and everyone will be away for break, so you won’t be able to meet them. :-(

  Love,

  V, AKA Mrs. Caligari

  12

  Cinderella Problems

  ISOBEL IS NOW tutoring Claude and me during every free period. While things at school were looking up, back at the cafeteria, I didn’t see Paul for a couple of days, which was kind of disappointing. I was looking forward to seeing the movie with him, even if I knew it really wasn’t a date. I figured he’d probably forgotten all about it, so I was happily surprised when he called me on my cell Tuesday afternoon.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, V, it’s me, Paul.”

  “Oh, hi!” I said, turning away so Mom, who was in the Toyota with me, wouldn’t hear.

  “Where are you guys? It’s not even five o’clock.”

  I explained that Mom and I had closed the cafeteria a little earlier for a special errand.

  “Can you check the map again?” she asked, peering over the steering wheel as we drove off the highway into the warehouse district. “Who’s that on the phone?”

  “No one,” I mouthed, a little embarrassed that I was talking to a boy on the phone, even if it was just Paul.

  “Hold on,” I told him. “It says Fourth Street and Divisadero, Mom,” I said, consulting a faded San Francisco street map. “Oh, there it is.”

  “My dad canceled on me this weekend, so do you want to see that Stephen King movie this Friday?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Cool. Should I pick you up?”

  I laughed. Why was he being so formal? “I can just meet you there,” I said, hoping to be as evasive as possible since I didn’t want Mom to know I was making plans to meet a boy. I still didn’t know exactly how I was going to be able to sneak out to the movies with him.

  “Cool. There’s, like, a little fountain in front that we can meet at,” he said.

  “Okay, see you then. Bye.”

  “Later.”

  I was glad Mom was too busy parking to pay much attention. “Ayayay! Look at that line,” she said, clicking her tongue.

  The line in front of the Jessica McClintock outlet store was so long, we had to stand several blocks away from the entrance when we finally arrived. Several women were armed with folding chairs, bottled water, and decks of cards.

  “Are they actually letting people in?” an elegant lady behind us asked.

  “I’ve been here since noon. It’s worse than a concert,” replied a dark-haired girl with a tongue ring.

  It was Mom’s idea to hit the outlet to buy me a dress for the Soirée. She clutched the extra-ten-percent-off coupon she had clipped from the newspaper and kept checking to see it was still in her pocket.

  “Stop it, Mom. Let me hold it,” I said, a little annoyed by her fidgeting.

  “Okay,” she said, handing it to me.

  But that didn’t work, because then every ten seconds she asked, “You still have the coupon, right, V? Right?”

  “Yes, I still have the coupon. What’s the big deal? It’s only ten percent off!” I said huffily.

  “Don’t talk back to me that way,” Mom said. “Is that what you’re learning in school? To talk back to your parents?”

  I looked down at the ground and said nothing. Mom was really getting on my nerves. She was in my face so much—asking me too many questions, forever getting on me about my clothes, my multiple Tobey Maguire posters on the wall (“The tape will ruin the wallpaper! And we won’t get our security deposit back!” she’d warned me direly). The other day she interrogated me on why I was wearing a blue sweater to school instead of my usual cranberry one. Like everyone in my class, I had begun to wear a blue sweater like the one only allowed to seniors because Whitney had started doing so. But it’s not like Mom would understand if I told her why.

  “You used to tell me everything,” she lamented. It was something she said so often it had become a refrain. “You used to tell me everything, now all you do is talk on the phone to that French girl or else you’re online e-mailing Peaches.”

  Mom had been very close to her mother, and I knew it disappointed her that I wasn’t her best friend. Mom’s argument is that there wasn’t a “generation gap” between us since she was only twenty-six when I was born. But Mom just doesn’t get it. Sometimes, it seems that she grew up in the fifties, not the eighties. Mom told me that when Dad was “courting her” (her words, not mine!) Dad would come over and have dinner with the family before they could go out together. They’d met in a Christmas caroling group in college—how 7th Heaven is that?

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I just wish this line wasn’t so long.”

  “Me, too.” She sighed.

  I was excited to see what they had in stock. Even if I had to go with Freddie, I was still looking forward to getting all done up for the big night. Mom had promised to bring me to the beauty salon to get my hair blow-dried. She cut my hair herself, but she was so excited for my “first American dance” that she said this time I could get Manang Charing at Marikit Beauty Parlor in Daly City to give me a wash and dry.

  When we lived in Manila, every Saturday, Mom took me with her to her weekly visit to Arthur at his salon. Arthur was the ne plus ultra (I learned how to say that from Isobel) of hair. He was the man behind Imelda Marcos’s bouffant, and when we arrived at his pink-marble-and-fuchsia-draped salon, he showered Mom with a flutter of air kisses, screeching, “Mrs. Didi!! Kamusta na! Ang ganda mo naman! Ang galing ko talaga!” in the same breath complimenting my mother on her beauty while also congratulating himself for his excellent work.

  Next to grandma, Mom probably missed Arthur the most. Because when we moved to San Francisco, Mom had to learn how to give herself manicures, as well as how to cut everyone in the family’s hair. When Dad got a five-dollar haircut from a Chinatown barber, he returned looking like a plucked chicken. After that, Mom bought a learning video and a pair of professional shears. It wasn’t hard to approximate Arthur’s bowl cuts on Brittany, and Dad mostly just needed a trim, but I often emerged from the family beauty salon looking a little…well, strange. Somehow, my requests to look more like Reese Witherspoon would always turn me into a miniature Kelly Osbourne. Mom picked on me about my hair, but really it was her fault.

  The line at the outlet finally began to move, and we shuffled along the sidewalk following the rest of the bargain-hunting hordes. I was suddenly struck by how familiar the line seemed—the orderly procession tinged with anticipation and a dash of desperation. Where had I seen this before? Then I remembered. It was just like the line at the Homeland Security and Immigration office, where we went when we first arrived in the country, in the summer. Dad had to ask a question about our green card applications. Apparently, to actually talk to an INS official, Dad would have to be one of the first fifty people in line. The Dalugdugans advised us to get there as early as possible, since most people started lining up for an appointment at two in the morning. We all bundled up and drove to downtown San Francisco at midnight. My parents decided to take the whole family because even though I argued that I was old enough, they didn’t feel comfortable leaving us at home alone, and they didn’t know anyone well enough to trust them to baby-sit.

  We sat on the sidewalk with all the other beige- and brown-skinned immigrants (if there was a white person there, I didn’t see one). The line hummed with the friendly, tumultuous babble of various languages, and a certain we’re-all-in-this-together camaraderie began to develop. I noticed that people would hold each other’s place in line politely if you asked, for instance, if you had to run to the twenty-four-hour Wendy’s across the street to use the bathroom. Most people spent the night telling each other their stories. We made friends with a Mexican family who shared their homemade tortillas with us and told us about how they smuggled them
selves across the border in the trunk of a Lincoln Continental. We gave them a few rolls of pan de sal Mom had made the day before.

  At the head of the line were two INS security guards who dozed off intermittently. When they were awake, they tried to keep everyone’s spirits up. When a family of five arrived at half-past two, the guards told them they were too late to be one of the first fifty appointments. They took it hard, grumbled a little, and said they would return the next day.

  The INS office opened at seven A.M., and we all watched the sun rise above the Bank of America tower and the Transamerica building. A few coffee and doughnut vendors rolled up with their carts, and people started yawning, stretching, and unzipping their sleeping bags. We shuffled in through the glass doors, through the metal detectors, and were finally allowed inside the building.

  Once inside, there were even more lines ahead. There was a line for every possible predicament: one for people who were picking up new green cards, another for people who had lost their existing green cards, and yet another line for people who were asking questions about their current green-card applications. And the longest line was for people who didn’t have green cards at all. When we were finally in the right line, we were ushered into a large, dimly lit room the size of a football field, with neat, plastic orange chairs arranged in a row and flashing digital monitors hanging from the ceiling that blinked your ticket number. We each sat on one of these chairs and every time someone got called, you moved over to the next chair, then the next.

  For Dad’s one question, we had to wait for nine hours, not counting the five hours we spent outside.

  And Dad thought the DMV was bad.

  “Can I see your invitation?” a bored salesclerk asked when we finally arrived at the front of the line at the outlet store.

  “Excuse me, our invitation?” Mom asked, waving her ten-percent-off coupon.

  “Can’t you read? Today’s sale is invitation only. It’s not open to the public until tomorrow.” She pointed at the small print at the bottom of the coupon.

  Mom peered at it. Press preview and VIP sale on Tuesday, open to public on Wednesday, it read. Of course, we didn’t have an invitation to the sale.

  “No, I’m sorry, we don’t have an invitation, but my daughter and I have been waiting in line for two hours.”

  “Tough luck. Come back tomorrow.”

  I sighed and began to turn away, but Mom stood her ground.

  “That isn’t fair!” she said. “We have been waiting for so long. I’m sorry we made this mistake, but can’t you make an exception? Why are you letting those people in?” she demanded, seeing the elegant woman and a Christina Aguilera clone being waved inside.

  The stony-faced clerk glared. “They have VIP passes from the boutique.”

  “But we didn’t know! This is an outrage!” Mom argued. “Can I see a manager?”

  I was surprised at Mom’s tenacity. She was usually so meek at a time like this. “Americans talk so quickly!” she always complained. “I can never understand what they’re saying!” She always assumed such a humble air; I had forgotten how much attitude she could muster if needed. But nothing brought out the best in my mom like the possibility that she might miss a sale.

  We were inside the outlet store in two minutes.

  “Take the right side, I’ll take the left!” Mom said, taking control of the situation. Divide and conquer was her preferred mode of operation during a big sale. She understood that speed was an important factor in successful outlet shopping—grab first, check sizes later!

  I ran to the right, hoping to find the perfect gown. I had seen Nicole Kidman wearing a variation of my dream dress at the Oscars—something off the shoulder, slinky, and glittery—or maybe I could wear something short and sequiny and mod. I selected a few choices—a short black lace dress with rhinestone beading, a strapless silk sheath, a halter-top and skirt combo, and began to look for Mom on the other side of the room.

  “Mom?” I asked a moving mountain of taffeta that was wearing my mother’s familiar black pants. “Is that you under there?”

  The taffeta rustled, so I took it as a yes.

  Mom’s face abruptly appeared at the top of the stack. She was breathing in short, staccato gasps, the way she does when she is very excited or nervous.

  “What is that?” I asked, grimacing when I had a better look at the gowns she was holding.

  “Found the clearance rack! Extra seventy percent off!” Mom smiled cheerfully. “Let’s go to the dressing room and see how they fit!”

  The dressing room was a large, cordoned-off section in the back filled with half-naked women struggling into formal wear. It lacked partitions or any semblance of privacy. I tried not to look at strangers in their underwear, their flesh bulging out from thongs and girdles. Mom and I are the type of people who hide behind bathroom stalls to change in the women’s locker room. I gave her a questioning look, and Mom shrugged.

  I gingerly stepped out of my clothes and pulled the black lace dress over my head.

  “That’s nice,” Mom said. She peered at the price tag. “Ay, not so nice.”

  I looked at it: $199. It was a steal, considering the original price was $899, but it was still out of our budget. I took it off reluctantly. Every dress I had chosen met the same fate—they looked perfect on me, but were way beyond our reach, pricewise. I felt my heart sink whenever Mom flipped up the price tag and sighed.

  “But you have your coupon…” I said.

  “Even at ten percent off, it’s still too much. I’m sorry, baby. Try on the dresses I chose,” she urged.

  I looked dubiously at a pink-and-black strapless monstrosity she was holding. “I don’t know about that, Mom. It’s, like, pink.”

  “There’s some black in it. C’mon try it. Look, it’s only fifty dollars!” she said cheerfully. “With my coupon, that’s forty-five dollars!”

  I peeled off the backless black silk sheath, hung it up with much reluctance, and wriggled into the strapless taffeta, which was so starched and fussy, it was like sliding into a wedding cake. The dress was like a survivor from the Footloose prom set—a frilly nightmare with three layers of ruffles and a peplum waist. It wasn’t so much designed as upholstered.

  “What’s that on the back?” I asked, turning to look at myself in the mirror, and finding a gigantic ribbon at the end of my back. “I don’t know, Mom.”

  “I think you look beautiful!” Mom said. “So grown-up! And the waist is so flattering!”

  I studied my image in the mirror critically. Oh well. I was going to the dance with Freddie, so who really cared what I looked like?

  But the thing was, I did care. The dance was my one opportunity to get all dolled up and I had a vision of transforming myself into some kind of red-carpet goddess, wearing an outfit to end all outfits. Kind of like the way Renée Zellweger shows up to the Oscars looking fantastic after losing all the weight she had to gain for the Bridget Jones movies. “Look at your shoulders, they look so nice, and the pink brings out the color in your cheeks.”

  “I guess.”

  Who would look at my cheeks when there was an insanely huge bow on my ass?

  “Do you like it?” Mom asked, looking at me so hopefully I thought I would cry.

  I didn’t like it. I hated it. It looked and felt cheap and tacky. But I didn’t want to disappoint my mom. She had closed the cafeteria early just so we could get to the sale in time. She just wanted me to be happy, and I knew it would make her happy if I lied. I figured at least one of us would be happy.

  “I love it, Mom. It looks great.”

  “I knew it! I’m so good at knowing things! See, I know you so well. I knew you’d like it immediately.” She began fussing with the dress, pulling it at the waist, at the hips, fluffing out the taffeta layers and humming to herself.

  I felt utterly crushed. Even though I knew there was no way Freddie and I would ever be voted Soirée Roi and Reine, the dress killed every fantasy I had of arriving at the ball loo
king like one.

  The saleslady put my dress in a garment bag, and Mom finally relinquished her coupon with gusto. “Let’s tell Daddy!” Mom said, flipping open her cell phone. “Hi, honey…What?” She suddenly yelped. “Why? Oh no! What? So what will happen to us? Bakit? Ay, Patay!” She began to use words she had forbidden us to use in our house.

  “What? What happened?” I asked, nervous to see her acting that way.

  “Oh my God!” Mom said, putting a hand on her chest to steady herself. “The video store…”

  “Yes…??”

  “It’s been raided! Your cousin has been arrested for illegally renting tapes of American TV shows!”

  FROM: queen_vee@aol.com

  TO: amparo.dellarosa@info.ph.com

  SENT: Tuesday, November 17, 8:15 PM

  SUBJECT: The dress from hell!

  Omigod! EMERGENCY! I got the ugliest dress for the Soirée! Claude is going to laugh when he sees it! I begged and begged and begged my mom to buy me something else, but she wouldn’t listen. So: okay, my dress is like a flashback to the 80s. First of all, it has three layers of ruffles! It’s like a wedding cake! Worse, it’s alternating—pink and black! So, pink ruffle. Then black ruffle. Then pink ruffle. But wait—the kicker—it’s got a BUTT BOW!!! Omigod. Everyone from Gros will be wearing slinky little Arden B sheaths and cute little Tocca dresses and I’ll be in a BUTT BOW!! I hate my dress!! I hate it!! AGGHHH. I’M SO MISERABLE!!!!!

  Okay, I just had to vent.

  Love,

  V

  13

  Hiding in the Bathroom Isn’t the Answer Either

  THE NEWS WAS as bad as it sounded. When we got home, Dad was on the phone with Kuya Norbert, my cousin who ran the video store, who was calling from—of all places—jail.

  Just the other month Norbert had sent us a video of his own. The tape showed him standing in front of what looked like any ordinary living room. “This is the back room of the store,” Norbert had said. “Look, it’s a fridge! Or is it?” he asked gleefully, as he opened the door to reveal that the appliance was filled with VHS tapes. I even recognized my handwriting on several of the cassettes.