Fresh Off the Boat (17 page)

“We didn’t win,” I said flatly, folding the paper.

“What do you mean? It says we’re the top finalists! And that we may have already won,” Mom said, her voice quavering.

“It says you
may
be a winner. It’s not quite the same as actually
being
the winner. And, anyway, if Dad had won, there’d be, like, a camera crew and Ed McMahon here. Where’s Ed McMahon, Mom? It’s just a scam, I can’t believe you guys fell for it. Diane Sawyer did a story on it on
Primetime
the other night.” Diane Sawyer had done a total exposé of it, and if they didn’t believe me, I knew they would believe Diane Sawyer.

“Are you sure?” Mom asked.

“Hindi tayo nanalo?”
Dad asked.
“Bakit?”
(We didn’t win?! Why?)

I explained to them how these companies worked, sending false, misleading information to bolster sales of their products. “It’s totally bogus, Dad.”

“Bow-gus? What does that mean? Stop talking slang!” Mom said angrily.

“It means it’s bunk, it’s a fraud, it’s a lie. There’s no twenty-five-million-dollar bounty waiting for us at the end of the rain bow!” I was quickly forgetting my relief at not being grounded for life and was becoming increasingly annoyed at how naïve my parents were acting. Wasn’t I supposed to be the kid here?

“It’s not true? The letter? But it’s on official stationery. There’s even a seal on it!” Dad said indignantly.

“Why would they lie? Why would anyone do that? It says we may have already won. All we need to do is send out for more magazines and we can claim our prize,” Mom argued.

“I’m telling you, Mom. Diane Sawyer said it’s a scam.”

“Diane said? Are you sure? Diane really said that?”

“Positive.”

My parents looked at me doubtfully, but Diane Sawyer’s word was unimpeachable in our house. They idolized her. She was their only source of news, next to Regis Philbin, Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, Meredith Vieira, and all the rest of the women on
The View
.

When the truth sank in, they began to get angry. “They shouldn’t be allowed to send letters like this! That’s a crime!” Dad said.

“Imagine that, telling people they might have won the sweepstakes!”

“We should sue!”

“
Buti nalang
we didn’t tell anyone yet. Imagine how embarrassing that would have been! Thank God we waited for you!”

“Mga tarantado!”
(What wickedness!)

Dad tore up the letter in a million little pieces in fury. “That’s what I think of that!” Then he looked at his watch. “Ayayay, it’s one in the morning!”

“What are you doing home so late anyway?” Mom asked, suddenly focusing on the fact that I had broken my first-ever curfew.

I should have kept my mouth shut.

It took the better part of the weekend to cheer my parents up from the depression that not winning twenty-five-million dollars had wrought. I could overhear them talking in the kitchen while I did my homework. Things were looking bad. Cousin Norbert was under investigation, so the tape-smuggling business was still on hold, and my dad still hadn’t had any luck convincing the other Sears stores in the area to let us open up an Arambullo Food Services in their employees’ cafeterias. Dad’s import-export business was bringing in zero, and Mom had stopped selling homemade longanisas after Tita Connie and Tito Ebet asked for a “sales commission.” The “commission” from selling the sausages to their friends practically wiped out any
profit my parents could derive from the business. Meanwhile, rent was due and the tuition bills were looming.

On Saturday, Mom didn’t even come to the cafeteria with me. She had fallen ill with a cold, possibly from all the excitement. Dad had to drive me to Sears, and on the way there, he was philosophical about the entire thing.

“You know, V, the thing is, we didn’t really think we had won,” he said, one hand on the steering wheel and the other draped over the open window.

Dad was weaving in and out of traffic, cutting people off, and turning left and right without signaling. It had taken him three tries to get his driver’s license. Dad complained that Americans followed “too many rules.” In the Philippines, such things as traffic signals and turning lanes were nonissues. On the off chance that Dad was caught by the police, he would slip them a five-hundred-peso bill with his driver’s license. But Dad already had two points on his American license; he couldn’t afford another speeding ticket.

“Careful, Dad, you almost hit that post,” I said, gripping the armrest of my seat tightly. I had never noticed how badly Dad drove back home, since everyone else drove the same way. I decided I preferred the American way, especially when the van suddenly racked up and down on speed bumps, which Dad drove over blithely without slowing down.

“But there’s no saying that we didn’t win, either,” he said. “I sent the thing away.”

“You ordered another magazine, Dad?” I groaned.

“
US Weekly
. I don’t give up,” he said cheerfully. “Mark my words, one day, we will win. It’s just a matter of time.”

“If you say so.”

“So, how were the tryouts?”

“All right,” I hedged. “It’s really competitive. I don’t know if we made it. Think Mom’s going to be okay?” I asked, changing the subject. I still couldn’t believe I’d gotten off so easily.

“Oh yeah. She’ll be fine,” Dad said, whistling. “It’s just a cold.”

Dad drove into the Costco lot. We had to pick up a week’s supply of food and paper goods for the cafeteria. Plus, Dad and I loved visiting Costco for the free food samples.

“Look! Little hot dogs—let’s get some,” he said, just as we had stacked several bags of frozen chicken breasts on our cart.

We munched our way through the special salsa, the fish crackers, the ginger mayonnaise, and the mini pizzas.

“No need to get breakfast!” Dad said.

The flat loading cart was stacked with towers of paper plates, Dixie cups, and napkins. We had several huge slabs of cold cuts, from ham to turkey breast. We began to unload on the rolling
counter at the checkout. “Could you make sure not to tax us on the paper goods?” Dad asked. “They’re for resale.”

The clerk nodded and resumed punching numbers. The total flashed as small red letters on the cash register: $334.40. Dad wrote a check and handed it to the clerk. She punched in several numbers and waited. “I’m sorry, sir. We can’t accept your check,” she said.

“What?” Dad asked, a hand on his wallet. “Why?”

“Sorry, sir, it says check unacceptable. Do you have a credit card? Or there’s an ATM machine over there,” the clerk said.

I stood behind Dad. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Dad took the check back nervously. “No, no. Let’s go.”

“Let’s go?” I asked dumbly. I didn’t understand.

“I said let’s go,” Dad said in an irritated voice.

I followed him out to the parking lot. It had taken us a good hour to shop for the supplies. We climbed into the van. “They wouldn’t take my check,” Dad said, almost to himself.

I was scared. I couldn’t understand what just happened. Had we run out of money? What was going on? And what were we going to do? We were low on nacho chips and turkey breast, paper plates, and Kit Kat bars. How would I run the cafeteria without them?

“Is everything okay?” I asked. I suddenly understood the desperate hopefulness my parents had showed last night. Things
really were bad since the video store was raided. I tried not to think about it.

“It’s okay,” Dad said. “We should have cash by tomorrow—we’ll do the shopping then,” he assured me, but I sensed a note of doubt in his voice.

Dad dropped me off at Sears. I set up everything like I always did, and wished Mom were around to help me with the sandwiches. It was difficult having to run the register, sling drinks, and put together orders all by myself, and trying to explain why we didn’t have certain things on the menu was making me edgy. At the end of the day, I was practically wiped out from exhaustion. I sat on the table behind the counter and stretched my legs. My foot hit something small and metallic.

I looked underneath the table. It was my missing cell phone. It must have fallen out of my backpack yesterday afternoon even before I got to Isobel’s.

I pocketed it and looked up to see the doors swinging open, happy to see a friendly face underneath a bright red baseball cap. But instead of coming up to the counter for his Pepsi, Paul just walked straight to the back. I heard him drop coins into the machine and the whirr-flop of the soda can as it fell to the bottom. I heard the door slam as he exited through the back door.

Ooookay. That was strange. What was going on? Not even saying hello and then totally ignoring me. I pulled out my cell phone to complain to Isobel, and I noticed the message light was blinking.

“You have four new messages,” the electronic machine voice said. “First message, Friday, 7:15 P.M. To play, press one.” I pressed the button.

A guy’s deep voice.

I dropped the phone. Oh my God.

Last night was
Friday
.

The Stephen King movie!

Paul!

I ran out the door after him. He was drinking his Pepsi by the open stacks of products, near the Craftsman drills and tool sets. “Hey!” I said.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, turning away.

“Paul, please, I’m so sorry about last night. It just slipped my mind. I am so lame. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s cool.”

“It’s totally a big deal for me. I’m so embarrassed. I hope you didn’t have to wait too long.”

“Really, it’s no big deal.”

“Look, things are really weird right now…my family is like, falling apart… My Dad’s check was rejected at Costco… Last
night they thought they won the lottery,” I began to ramble incoherently. “I’m just so out of it…”

“Look, don’t even worry about it,” he said.

“Okay.” I shrugged. There was a long, awkward silence. I felt so bad. I couldn’t believe I had completely forgotten about it.

“Hey, are you done with those books I lent you?” he asked abruptly.

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?”