Fresh Off the Boat

by Melissa de la Cruz

  I nodded. They were in my backpack at the cafeteria.

  “Cool. When you get a chance, can I have them back?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great. Well, see ya,” he said.

  “Bye.”

  I closed up shop in, like, five minutes flat. I felt a ball of hurt and disappointment clench my stomach. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. I thought about how he must have waited at the theater, all alone. God, I knew what that felt like. But still, it wasn’t like a date or anything. We were just friends. At least, we used to be friends. I was so angry at myself I slammed the pantry door just as my cell phone rang.

  “What?” I said sullenly.

  “Is that any way to answer the phone?” Dad asked.

  “Sorry.”

  “Can you take the bus home?” Dad asked. He explained he was still too busy studying for his notary exam at the library to pick me up.

  “Fine!” I said, annoyed that on top of everything, I had a long forty-five-minute bus ride to look forward to. We only lived fifteen minutes from the mall, but the SamTrans bus took such a long way around, it was almost a scenic route. I stuffed the red tin can with the day’s take ($80, half what a week of supplies cost at Costco), jammed it into my backpack, turned off the lights, dropped Paul’s books by his employee locker, and stormed out of Sears.

  Ugh. I hated Sears!

  The Gros girls were right. It was the tackiest store in the universe.

  In Manila, my family would never even shop at a store like Sears. In Manila, I would never have this kind of problem. First of all, in Manila, I was popular. That’s what sucked so much about living in America. Just when it mattered the most, all the rules had changed, and I was suddenly out of the game.

  An hour later, I finally walked up our driveway. “Mom, I’m home!” I yelled from the front door. I was still depressed about Paul and headachy from the bus ride. I didn’t want to do anything but hole myself up in my room and turn up the new Blink-182 album. Mom was sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, with a paper in her lap.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  She held up the page, and with growing horror, I realized it was a printout of an e-mail to Peaches.

  “Do you want to explain yourself?” she asked.

  16

  Joining the Joy-Luck Club

  I’VE BEEN GROUNDED indefinitely. I’ll probably rot in my room until eternity. Which is fine, because I’m not sure I really want to leave it anyway. Maybe there’s a chance for home-schooling yet.

  Mom is F-U-R-I-O-U-S. But I can’t tell who’s angrier: Mom, because I lied to her, or me, because she invaded my privacy. Wasn’t I entitled to my own cyberspace? Even just a little bit? Where did she get off reading other people’s personal thoughts. When I grow up and have children, I will never treat them this way, I vowed.

  “How’d you get that?” I asked, when I recognized what she was holding in her hand.

  “You hate your Soirée dress?” Mom asked. “The one we bought at the outlet?”

  “No, Mom, I don’t. I swear. Give me that, please, it’s mine…”

  She read aloud: “‘It’s got a butt bow…’”

  “Why’d you go through my account?”

  “You left it on the screen. I went to close it, but then I saw this and I just started reading it.” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Thank God Mom didn’t open the other e-mails. God knows what she would think of all the lies I’d fed my best friend. She would probably think I was crazy. Maybe I am.

  “It’s not true.”

  “What’s not true?”

  “What’s in there. I like the dress, Mom, I promise.”

  “No, you’re lying to me. Stop lying to me!”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You are! Just admit you hate it!”

  “I don’t hate it!”

  “It’s right here. You say you hate it! Why can’t you just be honest with me for once?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t hate it! You’re getting it all wrong! That wasn’t for you to read! Mom, can you please give it back?”

  “You said it was ugly!”

  “It’s not ugly! It’s great, Mom, please!”

  “What am I supposed to believe?” she asked.

  “Believe me!”

  “Why? You lie to me! You lie!” With that, the worst thing of all happened. Mom started to cry.

  “Don’t cry, Mom. I’m a horrible person. It’s not true what I wrote,” I pleaded. “Please, Mommy, you’ve got to believe me. Please don’t cry.”

  Mom sniffed into a tissue and blew her nose. “I don’t know. I don’t know. So hurtful. So hurtful. Hits here,” she said, patting her chest.

  “What’s going on? Why are you fighting?” Brittany asked, appearing in the doorway with a Popsicle.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Brittany, go to your room, iha.”

  “Why are you crying, Mom?”

  “I said GO TO YOUR ROOM!” Mom roared.

  Brittany disappeared, dripping Popsicle juice on the floor.

  Mom was muttering to herself. “You know, you’re entitled to your own opinion. You just should have told me you didn’t like it. What a waste of money! Do you know how hard Daddy and I work so you can go to that school? And all you say is that you hate it, that everyone will make fun of you, and that they’ll laugh when they see you.”

  “Mom, stop, please stop. Please.”

  She began to weep uncontrollably. “Daddy and I are doing our best. We didn’t want to leave Manila. But we had to, we had to.” She rummaged in the box for another tissue. “We didn’t have a choice. We had to move to America. But if we had known this was going to happen! Our children talking back to us. Our children so miserable. So miserable! That’s what you said, right? That you’re miserable! You don’t even know!” she raged.

  “Don’t know what? Why we had to move?” She was right, I didn’t know.

  “Daddy’s partner, Ponce Sorriano, in the bank. Embezzled all the money. All the money. We were bankrupt. Daddy’s best friend! Stole all the money! Fled! And left Daddy with nothing! And everyone said Daddy should sue, but Daddy didn’t. We decided to come to America for a new start. We could have moved to the province. Daddy’s family still has onion plantations in Nueva Ecija, but where would that leave you and Brittany? We wanted better for you girls. Better life! Some life this is! Some life!”

  I sat on the couch, paralyzed. I didn’t know. I had a suspicion that our moving had to do with something bad that had happened with Dad’s business. But my parents had always been so cheerful about everything. They never even talked about it—never ever brought up why we had to leave.

  “The province—you guys were thinking of moving to the province?” I asked, inwardly cringing. Nobody lived in the province. I couldn’t even imagine it. Mom’s family had always been from Manila, but I knew Dad’s family came from some big province up north. But I didn’t think he would ever want to go back there. Moving from Manila to Nueva Ecija was like moving from New York to Omaha, but even worse. They didn’t have malls or cable TV or Starbucks in Nueva Ecija!

  “Cheaper! We couldn’t afford the maids, the house, the car, the guards anymore. Daddy and I thought about it. We said we had to downsize. To live a little more simply! But then we said, no, we’ll go to America! So we’re here! For you! For you and Brittany! Only for you! And then we move here, only to find out that the rumor in Manila is that Daddy embezzled money, too! Your dad! Can you imagine? They think we’re so rich because we send you to Grosvernor School!”

  “What, who says?”

  “Everybody in Manila! Can you imagine our humiliation! But, no, we don’t say anything! Let them gossip! Let them talk!” Mom said bitterly.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Everyone’s saying how can the Arambullos say they are bankrupt when the girls go to the best private school in San Francisco! Daddy must have taken money, too! Daddy must have let the bank fail! Daddy mu
st have been in on it! So many lies! Lies! You know how Filipinos are! They can’t wait to kick you when you’re down! And all Daddy and I have is how proud we are of the two of you! Everything for you! And this is how you thank us!”

  “I never asked you to move!” I screamed. “You didn’t even ask me what I wanted! Did you think I wanted to come here? Away from all my friends? Do you even realize I practically don’t have any friends here? You don’t know anything about my life, Mom! I work after school and on Saturdays and I still try to keep up a three point eight GPA! Do you think I wanted this for myself? Did you? Did you?”

  We were getting as ridiculous as one of those tawdry Filipino soap operas my grandmother and I were addicted to—the shows where dewy-eyed actresses in the starring roles played much-abused orphans.

  Mom and I gaped at each other in shock. We had never spoken to each other this way. Mom didn’t have the easiest childhood. Actually, it was something out of an Amy Tan novel. Her dad was old-school Chinese, with the goatee and the Fu Manchu mustache. I was always a little scared of Grandfather, even if by the time I was born, he had mellowed out and was a fat, quiet old man. Mom told me how Grandfather’s family had disinherited him after he married my grandmother, who was half Norwegian and a Catholic. Mom’s greatest wish was to have the kind of loving, stable family that wouldn’t yell and scream like we were doing now.

  She threw the paper to the floor. “I always thought, I always thought—that we had a special connection, you and I,” Mom said. “I know you and Daddy are close, but I thought we had a nice relationship, too. I don’t trust you anymore. You were my girl. But you have broken my heart. You have ruined it. Ruined everything.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered. “I’m just so, so sorry.” She left the room, and I knelt down to pick up my correspondence.

  Mom and I had fought before, but never like this. We just didn’t seem to be able to talk to each other anymore. I didn’t know what was going on. I wish we had never come here. I wish we had never moved to America. If we had never moved to America, Mom and I wouldn’t have fought like this. I wouldn’t have to make up stories about my pathetic life to my best friend because I would actually have one. I was too shocked and angry and confused and sad to cry.

  I never knew Tito Ponce had betrayed my father. I didn’t know that was why we had to leave. I didn’t know my parents had even considered moving to the province. It was too much information. I was only fourteen. I didn’t need to know everything. I went online and deleted all the e-mails I had sent Peaches.

  Later, Mom knocked on the door to my room.

  “Come in,” I said meekly.

  She walked in, and her eyes were still red and puffy. “You’re grounded for missing curfew. Freddie told his mom everything—because she was so mad he didn’t get chosen for the church band she complained to the priest. Father Al told her he never even showed up! So you can forget about going to the Soirée. But I guess that’s fine since you hate the dress you were going to wear anyway,” Mom said bitterly.

  I shrugged. “I’m sorry about the party. I didn’t think you would let me go.”

  “Always no trust! You think Daddy and I are like from medieval times. Why not ask? Why not find a way we can help? No, you lie. Instead, you lie, always you lie.”

  I looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

  “And no computer either.” She unplugged the laptop and picked it up. “Where is your cell phone?”

  I handed it to her, placing it on top of the computer.

  When Dad finally came home, Brittany, Mom, and I were seated around a gloomy dinner table.

  “What happened? Who died?” Dad asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Mom said sharply.

  I spent a dismal night in my room, trying to stop thinking about everything. I’d disappointed Paul. I’d disappointed Mom. And when Dad found out what I’d done, he’d be disappointed, too. I didn’t even have the energy to worry about e-mailing Peaches. I had absolutely nothing to say.

  YOU HAVE NO NEW MESSAGES.

  INBOX:

  NEW MAIL: 0

  SAVED MAIL: 0

  DELETED MAIL: 75

  17

  The Wrong Kind of Popularity Contest

  ON MONDAY, DAD dropped us off at school after hardly saying a word to me and Brittany during the hour-long commute. No fun stories of his childhood. No crazy and fantastical conversations about what we would do when we finally won the lottery.

  “Bye, Dad,” I said tentatively.

  He grunted as I closed the door. Brittany headed to the kindergarten room, and I walked up the steps where Isobel was waiting. She ran over when she saw me.

  “What happened to you?” she asked. “I called your house and your mom said you cannot take my calls, then I tried your cell and there was no answer. Didn’t you get my messages?”

  “Long story,” I said.

  “So you don’t know?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “Know what?”

  “Incroyable!”

  “Know what?” I insisted.

  “It’s all online.” She shook her head.

  “Online? What are you talking about?”

  She looked at her watch. “Okay, we have a little time before first period. Let’s go to the computer lab. I’ll show you.”

  Several girls from our class looked at me when we arrived at the lab. “Wow. It’s always the quiet ones, you know,” one snickered.

  “Congratulations,” another remarked. “Look who’s here, Vicenza, the numero uno herself!”

  I didn’t even know they knew who I was. I was so used to being invisible. Apart from Isobel, no one ever said hi to me in the hallways.

  Isobel logged onto the web. “Here,” she said, showing me the web page she had called up on the screen.

  “Oh my God!”

  “I know.”

  “Why am I there? What did I do?”

  “Is it true?” Sylvia Abernofsky asked, coming over and leaning over the chair. “Whitney said that you totally stole her boyfriend and made out with him in the bathroom for three hours!” Her voice lowered, scandalized. “She said you guys even showered together!”

  “Is that what she’s saying?” I asked.

  “It’s what everyone’s saying. It’s even on this site,” she said, opening another browser window and pointing to a “sighting” on Claude’s fan site. “You were at the rager on Friday night at Claude Caligari’s?” she asked, a hint of envy in her voice.

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “So what happened?” someone asked.

  “Tell us! Did the police really get called and break up the party?”

  “What’s Claude’s house like?”

  “Oh my God, did you kiss him?”

  “In the bathroom?”

  “Tell us!”

  I sighed and told them the truth: that I was locked in the bathroom with Claude Caligari but nothing happened. I thought about telling them about how he threw up the whole time but decided to be discreet on that point.

  “Really, nothing happened. He was passed out in the tub. I was trying to get the door open. That’s it. For a whole hour. I thought I’d die because I couldn’t pee with him there.”

  But somehow, I didn’t think anyone believed me.

  When I walked into Honors English, everyone was sitting around the table chatting. They stopped when they saw me.

  “Hi, Vicenza,” Carter O’Riordan said. She was a red-haired girl who headed the second-most-popular clique in the freshman class next to Whitney’s. I didn’t even think she knew my name.

  “Did you have a nice weekend?” she asked.

  The whole class burst into laughter.

  It suddenly occurred to me that I was finally popular. But not in a way I had ever wanted to be.

  All that week and the next, I could hardly concentrate, at school or at home. At Gros, everyone was talking about me. They seemed to know not only my name (and how to pronounce it) but also exactly wha
t happened that night (except for the part about me and Claude hooking up, which SO didn’t happen), where I lived—everything. Whitney made my life harder and harder. She never passed up a chance to mock or criticize me.

  “Who in their right mind would ever wear brown stockings?” I heard Whitney ask during ethics class.

  My ears burned. Mom had bought me nude-color silk stockings from Hong Kong. They were a valued luxury in Manila. I wasn’t really thinking when I put them on that morning—I just reached for the nearest pair that wasn’t black, since I was so sick of wearing black tights with my uniform. Apparently, I had committed yet another horrible fashion faux pas.

  “I think they are adorable,” Isobel said supportively.

  “Whatever. I’ll take them off later,” I said. I was late for the geometry semester final. I was desperately praying I would pass, or else there would be hell to pay when I lost my scholarship.

  Claude had arrived uncharacteristically early for the final, and had spent almost the entire time bent over his paper in concentration. Usually, he gave up halfway through and turned in an incomplete sheet. When he turned in his test this time, I noticed it was black with eraser markings and crossed-out answers.

  “How’d you do?” I asked, after I’d handed my exam in.

  “All right.” He grinned. “I think I actually did all right for once.”

  “That’s great.”

  “By the way, V, I’m sorry about the other night. I was so wasted.”

  “Yeah, it’s no big deal,” I said. As I said it I realized, it really wasn’t. When I looked at Claude, my heart didn’t go pitter-patter anymore. He was just a guy. Just a guy. Just a slightly dim, kind of goofy jock. That was all. He wasn’t deep or smart or funny or in any way interesting. He was blond and had blue eyes, and he didn’t even look one iota like Tobey. In fact, what was I thinking? He looked…well, rather ordinary, come to think about it.