My mom mouths the words. The gears are turning in her head. Foreign-educated. I can work with that.
“I’m not going,” I say to the two of them, nipping this crazy talk in the bud. I am not about to run off to another country just because I failed one exam. “Sorry. I refuse to go to boarding school.”
“Who said anything about boarding school?” my dad asks. “Wash your own clothes? Eat cafeteria food? Live with roommates?” He shudders at the thought. “Besides, you don’t have time to take the SSAT.”
OMG, he’s actually serious. I thought this was all angry talk, which is why I indulged him, but now, looking into his manic eyes, I wonder how long he’s been thinking about this. Maybe I should have just memorized my tutor’s stupid words.
My mom chews her fingernail. “It would make things a lot easier,” she says. “And when you come back, think of how much you’ll stand out.”
“I don’t want to stand out,” I say.
“Well, you should!” she retorts. “There are 1.3 billion people here! Why do you think people are always shopping, trying to grab whatever label and slap it on their asses? To stand out!”
I roll my eyes. Please, with the shopping psychology.
“Your mother’s right,” my dad says. “We have to be smart. This is the right move for your future.”
“And what about my friends? What about my boyfriend?” I ask. My eyes water under my contacts at the thought that I might not be able to see Teddy again, that we’ll have to Skype . . .
“What boyfriend?” my dad asks. He turns to my mom. “You didn’t tell me she had a boyfriend.”
“He’s not a boyfriend,” my mom quickly denies, trying to calm him down. Her eyes urge me to go along. She always does this, whenever my dad gets mad at me, and I used to love that about her, but lately, it’s made me wonder. Why do we always have to massage the truth for him?
“Yes, he is,” I say. “Which you would know if you actually lived here.”
“Claire!” my mom shouts.
My dad jumps up from the couch, his face red. But I don’t let him off the hook.
“Where have you been?” I ask, following him to the kitchen.
“I’ve . . . I’ve been traveling,” he mutters.
Ah yes, “traveling.” The word my dad uses to avoid any and all responsibility. Why didn’t you come to my swim meet? I would ask. Oh, was that today? Sorry, I’ve been traveling so much, I can’t remember, he would say.
I cross my arms. My dad reaches into his pocket for his second favorite get-out-of-jail card—his phone.
“I have a deal blowing up,” he says, fingers tapping his phone. “I have to go back to the office.”
I look to my mom for help. Is he just going to walk away from this? Finally, we’re talking about it, having the conversation we should have had many years ago, and he’s just going to walk away? My mom’s frown carries the same heavy weight of disappointment, but she says nothing.
“Did you know Mom cries herself to sleep at night?” I blurt out. I don’t know what else to say to get his attention.
My mom jumps from the couch and walks over to us. “Stop it,” she orders. She starts apologizing to my dad, saying I’m not myself, I’m too stressed out, too upset over my grade. Why does she always do this? Why is she so afraid of him?
A second passes. Then another. My dad takes his hand and slips it into my mom’s, accepting her apology, and the two of them stand side by side in the kind of nauseating solidarity that makes me sad for womankind.
My dad looks to me and says, “It’s true I’ve been working a lot of late nights at the office,” by way of explanation.
“Yeah, right,” I mutter.
My mom shoots me a look. Watch it.
“But I’m going to be home more often from now on,” he promises. My mom looks like she doesn’t know if she believes it, but she’ll take it. “I’m going to be more involved, starting with your education. First thing next week, I’m going to take you to the agent who’s going to help get you into the American high school.”
I turn to my mom and plead with her. I promise her the moon and the stars—I’ll write whatever the tutor wants me to write; I’ll get better grades; I’ll never talk back, ever. “Please, Mom, I don’t want to go to America,” I beg. “Where am I even going to live?”
“Oh, don’t worry, the agent will take care of it,” my dad says. “You’re going to American Preparatory. It’s in LA. And you’re going to live with a wonderful host family.”
My dad dishes out the death sentence like it’s dessert.
Four
Dani
I try to push the image of the guy having sex in the big Mediterranean house out of my head as I ride the bus home from the agency. We didn’t have time to wait for Eduardo. Ming and I got out of there as fast as we could, Ming nearly tripping with her chunky boots on the dragon statue by the door. I’ve seen some weird stuff cleaning houses, but this is a first. And the way he said, Wanna join in? Like it was a video game. I hope when I finally have sex, it’s with a guy who respects me.
“Mom?” I call as I walk inside my house. “I thought you were picking me up today from the agency?”
I waited for her for a half hour, trying her on her cell.
“Dani!” my mother answers from the spare bedroom. “Come in here and help me!”
I dump my backpack on the floor and walk over to see her kneeling, reaching under the bed. Three large trash bags sit next to her, and she’s pulling out more junk from underneath the bed: newspapers, old Christmas ornaments, little bottles of shampoo she’s been hoarding.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Clearing out this room,” she says, sitting cross-legged on the floor in her whitish stretch pants. For all her separating other people’s laundry all day long, my mom never bothers to separate her own whites. Says it wastes too much water. As a result, her whites are gray.
“Why?” I ask.
We never use the spare bedroom. Ever since my dad left, it’s been just the two of us. My mom’s relatives are all back in the Philippines. I’ve met my grandparents only once, as they’re too old and weak to make the trip from Manila to the US. Still, my mom prides herself on the fact that we have a spare bedroom. “See? We’re not strapped. We have extra,” she’d say.
“I’m renting out the room!” she announces to me.
“What?” The news cramps my throat. “To who?” I ask.
“A nice girl from China, you’ll like her,” she says. “She’s gonna go to your school. Her parents are paying us two thousand dollars a month just for her to live with us!”
I don’t know what to say—$2,000 is a lot more than Ming pays Underwear Kevin. On the other hand, we’d be giving up so much more than a room.
My mom frowns. “Look, you know the property taxes are going up, the mortgage payments are killing us . . . ,” she says. My eyes slide over to the stack of tax bills on top of the trash bag. She doesn’t have to remind me. My dad may have left us this house, but he didn’t own it. Not even close.