Fresh Off the Boat (4 page)

In this way I discovered Isobel was just like me: she had moved to the States that summer, adored Mexican food, liked to quote lines from
Good Will Hunting
(“so inspirational”), downloaded dance remixes of cheesy pop songs on Kazaa, and loathed Whitney Bertoccini upon meeting her for the first time.

We were interrupted when Dr. Avilla asked Isobel to read from last night’s homework and she got a lecture on how atrocious her English was. He said it was absolutely criminal that a fourteen-year-old girl, bilingual as she was, had such a poor grasp of English grammar. Isobel argued that she was fluent in French, and since French was a Romance language, it was infinitely superior and truly the language of the civilized world, while English was derived from the bastard tongue of barbarians. Strangely enough, he didn’t take too kindly to her opinions.

Avilla the Hun!
she wrote in my notebook margin.

I suppressed a giggle.

To my surprise, Isobel didn’t seem to care that people snickered about her purple jacket. She walked around Gros totally oblivious to the fact that despite the school uniform she didn’t look like anybody else. It didn’t bother her one bit. She sang aloud off key
to her iPod, wore her knee socks pulled all the way up (everyone else scrunched theirs down, as was the current fashion), and joked around in rapid French with the intimidating French mistress, Mademoiselle Fraley, in the hallways as if “Mamselle” were just a classmate. One day she walked in with a bright pink streak in her hair, and when the dean asked her to explain, she said she’d tried to fix it but she was worried if she dyed it again it would turn green.

Isobel’s PeeChee folders, textbooks, and three-ring binder were totally graffitied with song lyrics and drawings. Her locker was a mess of
CosmoGirl
posters and Evanescence stickers. She wasn’t anything like Peaches back home, who was neat to the point of obsession. But they did have something in common. Both of them had the same laugh. Like Peaches, Isobel snorted when she laughed—and not with small, quick bursts either but with loud, embarrassing Mr. Snuffleupagus grunts—
hrog, hrog, hrog
—which made the other girls shrink back in distaste. When Isobel found something funny, she couldn’t help herself. Her shoulders shook, and her hands waved in front of her belly as she hiccupped and snorted.

A week after Claude almost killed both of us with his car, we were walking out of English, talking animatedly about the pros and cons of dating Ben Affleck versus Matt Damon (Isobel was
in the Ben camp and I passionately argued that someone who would make fun of his ex-girlfriend on
SNL
probably wouldn’t make such a good catch) when Dr. Avilla asked if we could stay behind. I thought for sure we were in trouble. We had been reckless, the notes flying back and forth on our notebooks crammed with caricatures and insults, only paying the least bit of attention to the lesson at hand.

“I’m going to have to separate you two,” Dr. Avilla said sternly.

We were definitely in trouble. My parents would kill me. I’d never gotten in trouble in my life.

“What do you mean, Dr. A?” Isobel asked with a grin. She was fearless.

Dr. Avilla shook his head. “Can I borrow Vicenza for a minute?” he asked.

“Oui.”
She shrugged.

“See you at the caf?” I asked.

She nodded as she walked away.

It was then that I noticed Dr. Avilla was holding up an essay I had written last week about Camus’
The Stranger
. Above my name was a red letter A scrawled inside a circle.

“Vicenza, how long have you been in this country?” he asked.

“Um, three months,” I replied, a little wary.

“That’s amazing. And you learned English so quickly? You
don’t even have an accent!”

“Oh, no, actually, we speak English in Manila,” I said, explaining something people in the States didn’t seem to understand. “Everything is taught in English—science, social studies, math. Tagalog is like a second language.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.” He smiled. “For a minute there, I thought you were a prodigy or a genius,” he joked.

“I wanted to tell you, you’re wasted here.” He motioned to the empty room. “I’m booting you up to the honors class. This essay is even better than any my honors students have produced this year.”

“Really?”

Honors English was, well, an honor. They went on field trips to see movies at the art-house cinema in the Haight and Dr. Avilla took them to readings and book signings. There was a two-week summer trip to England to go see the Poet’s Corner and where Shakespeare lived.

I thanked Dr. Avilla profusely. At lunchtime, I picked up my lunch from my locker and walked to the belvedere, a marbled room that had been renovated to accommodate the Gros cafeteria. I found Isobel sitting at a corner table under a large, pink-and-silver poster that blared
GET YOUR TICKETS TO THE SOIRÉE D’HIVER NOW
!!!
JOIN THE SOCIAL CLUB TO PLAN THE YEAR’S BEST DANCE
!!!

“Yuck. What a waste of time,” I said, pointing to the incriminating sign.

“So
stupide
,” Isobel agreed, as she nibbled on her steak frites. She had her lunch delivered every day from a French bistro on Fillmore Street. She motioned at the crisp, golden fries, and I marveled that Isobel didn’t seem to follow any of those trendy low-carb diets that everyone else in class followed religiously.

I bit into my microwaved burrito. Mom had just discovered the joys of the frozen food aisle at Safeway. In Manila, we had wet and dry markets, where everything was so fresh, the fish flipped out of baskets and the tomatoes were still on the vine, and there were buckets of fresh crabs and giant prawns, juicy sweet mangos and purple guavas.

Supermarkets were a constant source of amazement for my family. A trip to the grocery store was like discovering a new continent—and we couldn’t believe how cold it was. Brittany had to wear two jackets and a sweater when we went to Safeway. “This is a great and strange land,” my dad concluded, after surveying the overwhelming amount of choices in the cheese aisle: lowfat, nonfat, fat-free, reduced cholesterol, no carbohydrates, low sodium, or calcium added. Of course, we loaded up the cart with Twinkies and Chips Ahoy cookies, which were criminally expensive at the PX Import Shop back
in Manila but dirt cheap at Safeway. After six weeks, the four of us each gained fifteen pounds. I was still trying to lose ten of mine.

I opened a granola bar (which I’d had to beg Mom to buy—the concept of health food was anathema to a Filipino palate) and ignored the cackling from Whitney’s table.

“So, you’re not going to the Soirée?” I asked Isobel, relieved.

“I’ve been to real nightclubs in Manhattan. Why do I care about some silly dance?
C’est un jeu d’enfants. Pas d’importance.”

I guess that meant she didn’t have a date either, but her indifference was convincing. It was probably just her accent, which made everything she said sound so worldly and sophisticated. She said Claude never even called about replacing the mirror, like a “typical American.”

To change the subject, I told her how I’d been bumped up to Honors English.

“So you’re not in my class anymore?” Isobel asked, eyes wide.

In my excitement, I had completely forgotten what it would mean. No more secret notes, no more saved seats.

Sigh.

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

SENT: Friday, October 16, 8:35 PM

SUBJECT: RE: how are you??

Hi, Peach—

School is good so far. Classes are really easy, except for geometry, which is a complete waste of time. But the good news is that I got transferred to Honors English. Still, it’s bittersweet because all my friends are in regular. Whitney was really sad about it. She says hi, by the way.

Love,
V

4
Saturdays at America’s Favorite Store

T
HIS CAME FOR
you last week,” Mom said, pushing a familiar-looking envelope toward me as we wolfed down our breakfast of maple-sugar doughnuts and coffee. It was eight in the morning on Saturday, and we had to get to work by nine, in order to set up before everyone arrived.

“I found it in the trash and forgot to give it to you,” she explained, wiping confectioner’s sugar from the corners of her mouth. “Daddy must have made a mistake.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t even bothered to open the envelope. I already knew what it contained.

“Open it,” she urged.

I ignored her and helped myself to another doughnut and began chewing it ferociously. It was our favorite breakfast, and one I was allowed as a special treat on Saturdays since I had to work all day with Mom at our cafeteria. On school days, I
usually had oatmeal or toast.

Seeing that I was determined to leave the envelope where it lay, she picked it up and carefully slit the edge with a letter opener. She pulled out a thick, embossed card with gold trim covered in pale ivory tissue. “Oh, how nice!” she exclaimed, and read aloud the words that were written in curlicue calligraphy:

Miss Maria Vicenza Esmeralda Rodriguez Arambullo and Escort
are cordially invited to attend the
Montclair Academy-Grosvernor School for Girls
Annual Soire d’Hiver
December the Nineteenth
The Top of the Mark Hotel, 8 P.M.
$90 each, $150 per couple
Black Tie

I made a face. “It’s just a stupid dance.”

“
Bakit? Ayaw mo pumunta?
”

“No, I don’t want to go.”

“But you love to dance!” she argued, taking another doughnut.

“It’s not like I have anyone to go with.”

“
Aba!
What are you talking about? There’s Freddie!” she said indignantly.

UGH.

Freddie.

No way.

I was NOT taking Mom’s friend from church’s dorky son Freddie Dalugdugan to the Soirée.

It’s bad enough that Freddie’s real name is John Fitzgerald Kennedy Junior Dalugdugan. Then again, I have a cousin named Jesse James Arambullo and an uncle named Pat Boone del Rosario. Filipinos are funny about names.

Freddie is a total pain. He’s an enginerd. I guess I should thank him for teaching me how to download movies from the Internet, but still. He’s zitty and scrawny and weighs ninety pounds dripping wet. He wears thick, Coke-bottle glasses and a satin baseball jacket with the Olympic logo that reads
SYDNEY
2000 on the back. I’m three inches taller than him, and I’m 5 foot 4!

Freddie is a senior at Montclair and has made the front cover of
The Filipino Reporter
’s Bay Area edition three times: first when he was a National Merit Scholar, second when he won first place in the Westinghouse Science Fair, and third when he scored a perfect 1,600 on his SATs. He’ll probably have his entire life and career recorded in that publication. Freddie gets a job at NASA! Freddie gets married to Miss
Philippines-USA! Freddie runs for mayor of Daly City!

I didn’t dislike Freddie, but there was no way I was showing up at some la-di-da school ball at the Top of the Mark with him on my arm. I’d rather stay home.

Unfortunately, Mom felt differently.

“You know,” she said, placing the card back in the envelope, “you should really try harder to fit in. Can’t you do that for Daddy and me?”

I stared down at the floor and said nothing, tearing the napkin I held under the table into a million pieces. How could I explain what school was like to my mom? They were so proud that I had been accepted into Gros with an academic scholarship. But they had NO IDEA what my life was like. They never even noticed how pathetic it was that I spent every weekend at home with them and that I didn’t have any friends who ever called me at home or on the cell phone they bought me because the family plan was cheap. They had already warned me that I wasn’t allowed to date until I was fifteen. Boy, they sure had nothing to worry about.

“I know it’s been hard on you, V. I know you miss your friends back home. But this is home now. I think the dance might be fun. Isn’t everyone going?”

Was she kidding?

It was the only thing girls in my class talked about all week.
Who they were taking (boys from Montclair, of course), what they were wearing (slinky halter dresses from BCBG), where they would go afterward (Margy McCarthy’s beach house in Marin).

The pathetic thing was, I agreed with my mother. I did want to fit in. I did want to go to the dance. More than anything in the world. But I would never, never, never admit it to anybody. NEVER. Not even to my mom. I know it’s really pathetic of me, but I just really wanted to go to the Soirée. I liked to dress up, I did like to dance, and a huge part of me really wanted to fit in. I just didn’t think I ever would, so why should I try?

“You could wear my pearl earrings and my black pumps with the gold straps,” Mom offered. “And, look, they’re opening a Jessica McClintock factory outlet next month! Prom dresses and evening wear. We could get you a gown there,” she said, showing me a clipping from yesterday’s paper.

“Can we talk about this later, Mom? Aren’t we going to be late?”

“Oy, Diosko! Halika na!”
Mom looked at her watch and agreed that we should motor. On the way, we argued about the dance for a little while, and I finally agreed that I would at least think it over.

“Freddie is a really nice boy. I know he’s not Mr. Universe, but if it’s just a date you need…” Mom said, as we drove into the mall entrance. “I’m going to invite the Dalugdugans over
one Sunday to watch the Niners game. Maybe you can ask him then.”

I grunted a noncommittal response. My parents and the “Niners” game? Since when did we have any interest in football? Since we bought the team jackets?

The parking lot was almost completely empty when we arrived, so Mom parked right in a choice spot next to the handicapped spaces near the front. We walked through the ghostly mall, nodding to fellow proprietors who had come to open their stores.

When everything was in place, the tables sparkling with Pledge and the air scented with the appetizing smell of roasting coffee from the two machines, I erased the blackboard and wrote out the following: