My parents were no longer walking zombies, thanks to a sign up at the front office that Lupe and I made that said, Catching some z’s. Please come back in the morning! The front desk is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
The first night my parents put up that sign, they kept waking up at night, hearing customers in their heads. It was as though people were checking in between their right ear and their left ear. It took a week for them to accept that they were no longer nocturnal, but finally they started sleeping soundly all night long.
Lupe turned to me and asked, “We’re still going to do this when school starts, right? Check people in together?”
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “Of course!” I loved working at the front desk with my best friend. Best friend. I rolled the words around in my mouth. They were words I never got to say before, having moved to four different schools for six different grades. Now I got to say them whenever I wanted!
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Lupe said, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket and handing it to me. “My dad had to go home early, but he said to give you guys this.”
I opened the note. The words Channel 624 and Channel 249 were scribbled inside.
“They’re the Chinese news channels,” she said. “He finally managed to get them to work so your parents can watch the Chinese news!”
I grinned. “They’ll be so excited! Tell him thanks!”
Lupe took her watermelon rind, held it up to her mouth, and beamed a gigantic green smile at me.
One of the guest room doors opened, and the sound of the Channel 5 Evening News spilled into the night. The words illegal immigration thundered from the room. I jerked back again. I never used to hear that term before. Now I heard it five times a day.
“Have you seen the ads on TV?” I turned to Lupe and asked.
Lupe’s watermelon smile disappeared. She put her wedge down and asked, “What ads?” like she didn’t know what I was talking about. Which was impossible. You’d have to be a Martian not to have seen them all summer.
“Don’t worry, he’s not going to win,” I told her gently. I thought about telling her what Hank said about the goat named Scape.
Lupe wrapped her arms tightly around her knees and hunched into a ball. “So, you ready for school to start tomorrow?” she asked, changing the subject. “I hope we’re in the same class again this year.”
“Me too!”
“Hope we’re not in the same class as Jason Yao,” she added, making a face.
I laughed. “He’s not that bad.” Actually, I’d thought about Jason a few times this summer. I hadn’t heard from him. I bet he went on a long fancy vacation with his parents, staying at one of those hotels with the huge breakfast buffets. I wished we could have one at the Calivista. I wondered if he thought about us as he munched on his chocolate croissants. I’d kind of hoped he’d call me. Then I could tell him how well we were doing.
There were a couple of days that summer when we had rented out every single room. That had never happened before. We even got to light up the No Vacancy sign! My dad let me flick the switch. As I lit the sign, I fantasized about Mr. Yao driving past, his face fuming with regret.
“Jason is that bad,” Lupe insisted. Her face turned all red and I stared at her, half amused.
“He’s changed a lot,” I reminded her. “He was the one who helped us negotiate with Mr. Yao for the motel, remember?”
Still, Lupe shook her head. “People don’t change.”
I studied her, her hands squeezed tight into little fists around her knees, as Hank came running over.
“Mia! Lupe! Come quick! You guys gotta see this! We’re on TV!”
We all gathered around the small TV in the manager’s quarters. Hank turned the volume all the way up while Lupe, the weeklies, my parents, and I sat cross-legged on the floor. Everyone leaned toward the screen.
There, on the evening news, was a man standing directly across the street from the Calivista, holding up a small dog. The dog had been found right here on Coast Boulevard, hiding under a parked car. As the owner tearfully explained how thrilled he was to have his dog back after three months of agonizing over where he was, we all stared at the giant Calivista Motel sign just to the left of his head.
“This is free advertising!” Fred shouted. We all jumped up and shook hands, congratulating one another on our amazing luck. My mom poured everyone cups of jasmine tea as my dad hopped on the phone and started calling his immigrant friends and the paper investors to tell them the good news.
Billy Bob pointed at the TV. “How much do you think a spot like that would have cost?”
Fred whistled. “Thousands of dollars, I’d say!” His belly shook as he laughed.
Mrs. T flipped to Channel 4 and everyone gasped. We were on Channel 4 too! Lupe and I jumped up and down and started doing our happy dance.
Hank held up his index finger. “I have an idea!” he exclaimed. He looked to my parents. “Where’s the ladder? I need to add some words to our sign!”
My parents took Hank to the back alley behind the pool, where they kept the ladder that José used to fix the cable up on the roof. Fred and Billy Bob helped Hank move it in front of the towering Calivista sign. As Hank grabbed the letters to the new words he wanted to put up, we all looked up at the sign.
“You’re not thinking of climbing all the way up there, are you?” Mrs. T asked Hank. The sign was easily twenty feet tall. “It’s much too high!”
“Don’t do it, Hank!” I seconded. What if he fell? We still didn’t have health insurance. We’d tried to buy some as a small business, but the only plan that was affordable had a minimum requirement of six full-time employees. The insurance company said investors didn’t count.
But Hank was already halfway up the ladder, the letters gripped in one hand. As he added the new words to the sign, we all held our breath. It wasn’t until he was safely back down that we read the message.
There, under the words CALIVISTA MOTEL, $20/NIGHT, and 5 MILES FROM DISNEYLAND, were four words that made my heart swell with pride: AS SEEN ON TV.
Leave it to Hank to think up the perfect way to take advantage of our fifteen minutes of fame!
I rubbed my eyes the next morning, awoken by the sound of honking horns on the boulevard. Peeking out the window, I could see customers already lined up at the front office, ready to check in.
“Mom! Dad! Wake up!” I yelled, jumping out of bed.
My parents and I changed out of our pajamas and quickly got to work, checking people in and handling requests for wake-up calls and late checkouts. The new sign was bringing people in faster than you could say Calivista!
Hank stopped to say good morning as he was getting ready for his day, and when he saw how busy we were, he immediately stepped behind the front desk. Hank was a natural checker-iner. He loved talking to the customers, and they loved talking to him. Everyone wanted to know how we were on TV, and as soon as he told them the story of Cody the puppy being found just across the street, the customers all awwwed.
I glanced down hesitantly at my backpack lying beside the front desk, not quite ready to leave. It was all packed up for my first day of sixth grade.
“Go, Mia,” my dad said. “We’ve got it covered.”