Fresh Off the Boat (3 page)

I noticed a Spider-Man sticker on her book bag. “Oh my god,
are you into Tobey Maguire, too?” I asked, showing her the same sticker on my three-ring binder.

“He is a god!” She laughed.

Isobel left her scooter on the sidewalk, and we walked through the double-height bronze doors. The elderly receptionist was closing up for the day, but she told us the clinic was still open.

Inside the great hall, a catering company was setting up for the evening. Grosvernor was a designated historical landmark, and after hours, the school was one of the most sought-after event spaces in the city. A long banquet table was laden with steaming silver buffet pans, plates, and assorted cutlery.

“Mmm, something smells delicious!” Isobel declared. She walked over to the nearest one and opened the lid. “Shrimp fritters!
Très bien!
My favorite!” she said, swiping a few with a napkin.

“Isobel!” I said, scandalized, looking around to see if any of the scurrying tuxedoed waiters or white-jacketed chefs had noticed.

“Want one?” she asked, popping another into her mouth.

I shook my head, but it was seriously tempting. I was amazed at her brazenness. My best friend back in Manila, Peaches, is just like me—neither of us would ever do anything to break the rules. We’ve never even jaywalked.

We tiptoed past a harried woman in a headset barking orders
and trudged up the winding marble stairs to the nurse’s office on the fourth floor, Isobel still munching on the pilfered treats.

“Here,” she said, and before I could protest, she brusquely placed a warm, flaky shrimp in my hand.

I was frightened—could they kick me out of school for being an accomplice to an hors d’oeuvres thief? But, on the other hand, I was kind of hungry. I nodded my thanks and devoured it whole. I wiped my sticky fingers on my skirt and followed her into the clinic.

As the nurse cleaned and bandaged our wounds, we compared schedules. I was pleased to learn that besides being in the same English class, we had lunch at the same time—G period, which meant I might have someone to eat with in the cafeteria. Lately, I’d taken to sneaking my sandwiches into the library.

“Ouch!” Isobel yelped as the nurse applied antiseptic to her scratch. I ended up with matching Band-Aids on each knee but at least my palms had stopped throbbing.

Isobel offered to drive me home, but I explained I lived in South San Francisco—and not in the Bayview or Excelsior district but in a different town altogether, forty-five minutes away, which declared itself
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO
:
THE INDUSTRIAL CITY
in mile-high capital letters on a hill. Just like the
HOLLY
-
WOOD
sign but not.

We said good-bye, and I watched her ease her scooter out and
drive it slowly down the tree-lined block. When she got to the corner, she waved before disappearing down Fillmore Street. I walked up another block to take the bus.

Usually, Dad picked up Brittany and me from school, but since I was supposed to be going to the game with the Spirit Club, he had already gotten her earlier. They were both waiting for me at his office downtown, a twenty-minute ride on the Jackson Street bus. I liked meeting Dad at his office since his building was across from Market Street, where I could hang out at the Gap, Rolo’s, Tower Records, and Nordstrom.

The only thing I didn’t like were the pink mohawked punks who loitered around Market Street in full studded-leather-and-torn-T-shirt regalia. I was always a little afraid of them. I didn’t understand what they were calling me at first, but I soon learned it wasn’t very nice. They never failed to comment whenever I walked by—yelling out “FOB!” (fresh off the boat), which infuriated me since I had arrived in this country on a Boeing 747. I managed to hurry by without arousing their interest, however. Perhaps they were having an off day.

“Anong nangyari sa iyo?”
Dad asked, when I arrived at Arambullo Import Trading. He shook his head at me when he saw the Band-Aids on my hands and knees. “
Akala ko
you were going to the game?”

“
Wala
, I fell. I missed the bus.” I shrugged, walking over to
greet him with a kiss on the cheek.

“You should be more careful!” he said. Dad always got angry as a way of expressing concern. When I was little, I was terrified whenever I hurt myself because Dad’s wrath was so much more frightening than the pain of any cuts or scrapes.

I dropped my book bag on the floor, where Brittany was stretched out, coloring with crayons in a book. “Hi,
Ate
,” she said, without looking up. My parents insisted Brittany call me “ate” the proper title for “big sister” as customary in Filipino families.

“V, you know you can just call me V,” I whispered, since I was trying to discourage the habit.

Dad’s office was just big enough to hold the three of us with all of his furniture. When you opened the door, it hit the guest chair. In the middle of the room was a big black metal desk with a battered old computer he had bought at a garage sale, a phone, and an ancient fax machine. It was so old it still used the shiny paper that spooled through in a continuous sheet that you had to rip off at the top. There was a filing cabinet wedged behind the desk on which Mom had placed a goldfish bowl with one lone goldfish. “For luck!” she said, explaining a Chinese superstition. A ceramic kitten with its paw sticking up stood guard on top of the minifridge. (“It’s supposed to bring in money! Japanese good luck charm!”) There was a pineapple-shaped ashtray and a pineapple-shaped coffee mug. (Hawaiians believed pineapples
brought prosperity.) Mom believed in adopting as many superstitions as she could—you never know which one will work, she always said. My dad ran an import-export business, to bring Philippine products to American sellers and vice versa. So far, despite the numerous lucky charms, he’d had absolutely no luck.

In Manila, my parents had owned one of the nicest restaurants in Makati, and my dad had been an investment banker who owned his own company, Arambullo Investments. He had the biggest office in the building on the top floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows and white shag carpeting. He had three secretaries: one to take calls, one to file, and another just to order Christmas gifts. The few times I’d visited my dad at his office, I was always amazed—everyone, from the bank tellers to the messengers to the receptionists and VP’s seemed to know who I was. “Mr. Arambullo’s kid, right?” “Oh, the daughter of the Big Boss!” Mom said that everyone at the office was scared of my dad, so I liked marching in, bursting in on his meetings or while he was on the phone or with a guest. Dad would shush me, but he would never ask me to leave. Instead, I would sit on one of the black leather couches next to the conference table and look out at the view or else admire the framed pictures of lions and waterfalls that I’d drawn which were his office’s sole decoration.

“Can I go to Nordstrom?” I asked.

“No, I’m done here,” Dad said, pulling out his briefcase. He
placed a few file folders inside. “Bri-tta-ny, pack up
na
.”

My sister nodded and started carefully putting away her things. Brittany is very particular about her stuff. We once had a huge fight when I tore a piece of paper from her notebook and left the little frayed edges on the ring. Unlike me, she hates to make a mess.

I glanced at paper on the top of my dad’s desk. It was a memo about Philippine lumber being a great source of wood for pencils and rulers. “Ask about our low prices and international delivery.” In the three months we’d lived here, he’d only been able to sell one order of pencils and one order of rulers to a school-supply company in Minnesota.

Brittany and I waited in the dim hallway while Dad locked up his office. He always wore a suit and a tie to work, even though he was the company’s sole employee. He looked tired and drained. His suit jacket was frayed at the edges. According to my parents, moving to America was supposed to be our “new adventure”—halfway between an exciting journey and a long-term vacation. We never really talked about home, and never once did anybody in my family ever mention how much they would like to go back there. Or how much we missed it. Not only was I homesick for my friends and our extended family but I also longed for our old life. But my parents made it clear that it wasn’t an option, although I still didn’t really understand why not.

In any case, leaving Manila did seem pretty final. My mom cried when we sold our house, and I’d sat quietly while neighbors and strangers appraised our things and put bids on them—my parents’ wedding china and silver, the custom-made carved napa-wood coffee table, the Viking range.

On the way out, like he always does, Dad stopped by Gino’s deli to buy a lottery ticket. He always plays the same numbers: 7, 29, 22, and 6—our birthdays. Dad was inspired by a Filipino man he knew who won the lottery.
Mang
Pedro used to be our gardener in Manila until he moved to Texas. After he hit the fifty-million-dollar jackpot, his grown children immigrated to America to be with him. When they arrived at the airport, they showed the INS officer the newspaper clipping of their father holding up the humongous check, to prove that they could afford to live here. True story. Dad still thinks this could happen to us.

Alfonse, who owns Gino’s deli, solemnly wished us good luck after handing Dad his daily lottery ticket, and the three of us walked to the garage under the building where the van was parked.

On the way home, I thought about my dad and the lottery obsession. He was so sure we would hit the jackpot one day. Maybe delusion ran in the family, because my knees still ached from almost being run over, but all I could think about was how
Claude’s hand had pressed gently on my shoulder. If he hadn’t almost killed me, we would never have met. Claude Caligari—I savored the syllables in my head.
He has the nicest eyes
, I thought. And he had really looked concerned about my welfare, not just scared that he might get in trouble or anything.

We drove by the marina before we hit the freeway. In the distance, I could see boys in brightly colored orange-and-blue jerseys shouldering their sticks and walking off the field. A few girls in Gros uniforms were walking toward the dependable yellow school bus parked on the corner. I squinted, but I couldn’t see a silver convertible anywhere.

The game was over. I wondered who won.

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

SENT: Monday, October 5, 9:30 PM

SUBJECT: lacrosse queen

Guess who just called? Claude Caligari—the cute guy from the movies! (BTW, he really does look like Tobey—except he has blue eyes and blond hair, but other than that—twins,
talaga
!) Omigod, he has the cutest voice on the phone. This afternoon he picked me up from school so I could watch him play lacrosse. (He’s the Montclair Academy team captain!) The game was so exciting—St. Augustus was in the lead, 1–0 for four quarters, but at the last minute, he scored two goals!! Lacrosse is kind of like soccer meets jai alai (except no betting). After the game, we went to get burgers at Mel’s Diner with the gang, then he drove everyone home.

That is so great about you and Rufi! He sounds adorable. Are you guys officially a couple now? What about your parents? Are you scared they’ll find out?

Hey, we heard about the bomb on the Lovebus—
nakakatakot
! My parents were so worried about everyone back home, but I was like, Mom, hello, nobody we know in Manila takes public transportation!

xxoo, V

3
Even in English Class, Everything is in French

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, rooting through the mail on the kitchen counter for the newest Delia’s catalog, I found a thick, ivory-colored envelope. It looked expensive and special, and if you held it up to the light, you could spy a watermark with the Grosvernor crest. It had no place in our Formica kitchen, where the linoleum was peeling off in strips and there were so many cracks that no matter how hard my mother scrubbed, it always looked dirty.

Ugh. I knew what it contained. I put it in the trash without opening it and left for school.

I walked in late for my first class, and I’d even missed homeroom, since Brittany couldn’t find her Hello Kitty socks that morning and caused a terrific stink. Brit can be a real brat sometimes, and my parents don’t even mind. She gets away with everything because she’s the baby—it’s so unfair. I was especially
annoyed because I hated walking in late, especially for English, which I dreaded even if it was my favorite subject. Unlike all the other classrooms, with normal individual desks and chairs, the English classroom only had a large round table in the middle. Everyone saved seats for their friends—but nobody ever saved me a seat, so I always had to sit in the dunce chair next to Dr. Avilla, who was nice enough, but what a loser move to actually have to sit next to the
teacher
.

Saving seats was a big deal at Gros. If no one saved you a seat, it was the surest sign you were nobody. Whitney, Georgia, and Trish always made a big deal of sitting next to each other. Once, I made the mistake of taking Whitney’s seat (I didn’t notice Trish’s notebook on it), so Whitney had to sit in the very front, and she complained about it the whole time, saying she was allergic to blackboard chalk.

But when I walked in, I found Isobel, the French girl, waving to me from the far side of the conference table. “Vicenza!
Reposez-vous ici!
” She had taken the best seats in the house—next to the window. She shifted her books off the chair next to her so I could sit down.

“Thanks,” I whispered, so happy that I couldn’t stop my cheeks from turning pink.

She nodded.
“Rien.”

As Dr. Avilla droned on about
The Old Man and the Sea
, she
scribbled notes to me in the margins of her notebook. I felt hesitant at first (this was definitely against the rules), but soon I found I was writing back as fast as I could.