Fresh Off the Boat (11 page)

I asked Dad once why we had to go to church, and he said because we are part of a community. I told him I thought church was boring and I didn’t choose the faith, it was chosen for me. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t argue with me. He said I might feel different when I grew up, but right now, I lived in their house and I had to follow their rules.

The reason my family likes to sit in the first pew is because whoever sits in the first pew gets to take up the wine and wafers at the Processional Offering before Communion. I saw Freddie’s Dad get the nod from Mang Amoy, the gray-haired usher with
the bad comb-over who smelled like cough drops. Sure enough, just as the choir burst into, “Yahweh, I know, you are near…” all three of the Dalugdugans stood up and walked slowly down the aisle to the little table holding two silver bowls and a crystal decanter of wine.

Until my family arrived to challenge them, the Dalugdugans always brought up the offering at the nine o’clock Mass. I watched them walk up together, reeking of smug, pleasant self-satisfaction. Freddie’s dad, in his shiny sharkskin suit and Brylcreem in his pompadour; his mom, shuffling up in a beige crepe dress and plastic beads; and Freddie himself, the pride of Daly City.

I dozed off during the sermon, then played a game of thumb war with Brittany under the wrathful eye of my mother. Brit was always easy to distract. I made faces at her when my parents’ backs were turned. As far as I was concerned, Communion was the most exciting part of Mass. It was a great people-watching spectacle. I craned my neck to see if my favorite church boy was there today. He was a tall Irish guy who always dressed in a button-down shirt and pressed khaki pants. But as the people passed us by, I didn’t see him. The congregation at nine o’clock Mass was so regular, so punctual, that everyone would notice your absence or that of a member of your family. The Tuazons, for instance, were one person short, since Amelia was off at college; and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy’s dentist husband had left her for
his hygienist so she attended Mass alone.

When it was our turn to stand, I felt none of my usual excitement. This was a chance to show off my clothes, but since I hadn’t been allowed to wear The Outfit, I merely slouched forward. I bent my head and clambered over Brittany, who had yet to take her First Communion. The holy wafer stuck to the top of my mouth, and I had to pry it off discreetly with my tongue. Like Mom and Dad, I hurried past the goblet of wine. Too many cooties. I couldn’t imagine drinking from the same cup as a hundred other people.

As I knelt down, I prayed the same prayer I prayed every Sunday:
Please, Lord, let me have a boyfriend. Claude Caligari would be nice. Please, Lord, I can’t be a teenager and never been kissed or never have a boyfriend. Please, Lord, let me have a cute date for the Gros Soirée so I can be normal. Please, please, please.

When Mass was over, Mom and Dad made the rounds at church, greeting the priests and mingling with a few of their friends. They had maintained an aloof distance from the large Filipino community when we first arrived. “We didn’t move to America just so we could hang out in Davao,” Mom had sniffed. Mom and Dad took a lot of pride in Mom’s Norwegian ancestry and Dad’s Spanish surname.

The Dalugdugans certainly didn’t look like any of Mom and
Dad’s old friends back home—Mom’s best friend Tita Kikit used to model in Singapore and had married an Austrian businessman, while Dad’s social network was composed mainly of Spanish mestizos with blond children. But what Freddie’s parents lacked in glamour, they more than made up for in kindness. They were guarantors on our lease; they had helped Dad rent office furniture and had introduced him to Mr. Bullfinch, the manager of the Sears department store, who was a client of theirs.

We met them through Mom’s old nanny. Mom practically fell over in joy when she spotted
Manang
Toneng praying by the altar at church one day. It was a tearful reunion. Toneng had moved to America twenty years ago, but she and my grandmother had kept in touch over the years. Her daughter, Annabelle Ocampo, was the mayor of Daly City. Everyone at church was really impressed that we knew them. The Dalugdugans were good friends of theirs and took us under their wing immediately.

I had Freddie’s parents to thank for my life at Gros, since they were the ones who told my parents that it was the sister school of Montclair Academy, where Freddie was a student. Grosvernor was the “best all-girls private school in San Francisco” according to his mom. It was also the most expensive. My parents spent their life savings paying for Brittany and me to attend, even with the scholarship money.

The church served coffee and bibingka after service, so everyone gathered in the vestry to snack and gossip. I wandered at the fringes of my parents’ conversations, bored and picking at the sticky rice dessert in my hand. I wish the priests would just serve doughnuts.

“V, did you say hi to Tito Ebet and Tita Connie?” Mom asked, steering me to the Dalugdugans.

“Hi,” I said, kissing both wanly on their cheeks. I liked them well enough, but I knew what Mom was planning and I didn’t want anything to do with it.

“Since they’re coming over for lunch, we should go home so we can get the Bean Dip ready,” Mom said as she pulled me aside.

Somehow, Mom had gleaned that the proper food to serve while watching a football game consisted of six-foot submarine sandwiches, a tub of homemade guacamole, and something called Bean Dip. (When Mom said it, you could tell it had capital letters—it was that important.) We had never had any of this food before, and Mom was nervous about its preparation.

We rarely entertained, so it was a big deal, even if it was just Freddie and his dorky family. But my parents had insisted they come over, since the Dalugdugans had been nice enough to invite us to their house to watch the football game last week. We had sat in front of their sixty-inch projection television in awe.
We had no idea what any of the rules were or what was going on, but we cheered whenever they cheered, and we watched intently as Tita Connie prepared the famed Bean Dip.

Mom asked for the recipe, and I knew she was eager to show Tita Connie she could be as American as they were.

“Wanna ride?” Freddie asked, nudging me with his Styrofoam coffee cup.

“Mom! Can I go with Freddie?”

“What? Why?” I could tell she was annoyed that I was skipping out on her, but I didn’t want to be stuck at home making sandwiches. I’d had enough of that at the cafeteria. Besides, maybe if I went with Freddie I could lie to Mom later and tell her he had turned me down.

“
Hindi na bali
, let the kids go,” Tita Connie said, so my mom had to agree.

“I didn’t know you had a
kotse
,” I said, following Freddie to his car, a green Honda compact.

“We bought it last week. It’s used,” he said apologetically. “But it only has forty thousand miles on it. Not bad.”

Freddie zapped his keys at the car, which made a beeping noise and flashed its lights. The doors automatically unlocked and we got in.

The dashboard was covered with a piece of cardboard made to resemble a giant pair of sunglasses. Inside the car were furry
dice, a dancing Hawaiian girl, and a VIP ON BOARD sign in the back. Cheesy. Taped to the dashboard was a picture of a pretty Filipino girl in a pink ballgown with a beauty pageant crown on her head.

“Sino yan?”
I pointed. (Who’s that?)

He smiled mysteriously.
“Wala.”
(Nobody.)

Hmmm. Did Freddie have a girlfriend? Impossible. Just look at him. The glasses. The acne. The ninety-pound skeletal frame. I was mildly intrigued, but not really. I was still wishing Mom wouldn’t make me do what she had bullied me into agreeing to do. It was the reason she had invited the Dalugdugans in the first place. But maybe she would forget all about it.

As we drove off from church, Freddie blasted Ludacris from the stereo system and flipped open the sunroof. He took a pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment and shook out a butt.

“Smoke?”

“No thanks.”

He lit it with the car lighter and blew a puff out the window.

I didn’t know Freddie smoked! Maybe under that Asian-Einstein exterior, he was actually a rebel. Then he began to cough and sputter. He stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray.

“How’s Gros?”

“Eh.” I shook my head. “It’s okay.”

“Thought I saw you at Monty the other day.”

“Yeah, I have geometry there now.” I told him about the geometry chair scandal. He laughed.

“Who’s in your class?”

I rattled off a couple of names and then offhandedly added, “Oh, and, um, Claude Caligari.” It was a treat just saying his name aloud.

“Yeah, I know Claude. We’re on the lacrosse team together.”

Right, if you count fetching him a towel being on the team together
, I thought.

“He’s my study partner,” I said dreamily.

“You should help him. He’s flunking. It’s not good for the team and we have State coming up.”

Ludacris ended and Freddie put in a new CD. The Backstreet Boys’
The Hits: Chapter One
. I kid you not. He sang along to “I Want It That Way,” “Quit Playing Games with My Heart,” and “As Long as You Love Me” with gusto. He knew all the words. I was right. Freddie was still a geek.

The house smelled like rotten eggs, otherwise known as Mrs. Dalugdugan’s Famous Football-Watching Party Bean Dip. The “game” was on TV, but we had already missed kickoff. Freddie and I grabbed a few sandwiches from the table and sat on the floor.

Of course, when we arrived, the first thing Mom said was
“Vicenza, did you ask Freddie yet?”

“Ask me what, Tita Didi?” he asked, his mouth full of salami.

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

“Go ahead, don’t be shy. Girls are so modest!” Tita Connie said, as she scooped up a hefty portion of dip with a large nacho chip. Tita Connie was so corny. She called dating “courtship” and once asked me in all sincerity if anyone was “wooing” me now that I was all grown up and in high school. Seriously! It made my skin crawl. Tita Connie and Mom smiled at each other.

Freddie nudged me.
“Ano?”

“D’youhafadatefortheMontyGrosSoirée,” I said, looking down at my paper plate.

Freddie chewed for a couple of minutes, then said, “No.”

“Dyouwanttogowithmethen?”

“Okay.” Freddie shrugged, his eyes fixed on the television.

“What did he say?” Mom asked, peering down at us.

“He said yes, Mom.”

“How nice!” Mom beamed. Tita Connie positively glowed. I wanted to slap the grins off their faces.

“It’s in December, right?” Freddie asked.

“Yeah. Mom really wants me to go. You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I whispered.

“I’ve never been, so okay,
lang…
” (It’s fine.)

“Okay.”

I felt bad about not wanting to go with Freddie, since he was being so cool about it. But I just didn’t want to show up with him on my arm, although it didn’t seem like I had a choice. Mom was really determined that I should go and experience “everything an American high school has to offer.”

Isobel would kill me when she finds out I wimped out on our pact.

“TOUCHDOWN!!!!” We all looked up to see Tito Ebet and my dad high-five each other as the Niners scored their first goal.

I didn’t know Dad knew how to do the Touchdown Boogie.

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

SENT: Sunday, November 8, 4:45 PM

SUBJECT: A date!

PEACHES!!

The BEST news all year! I have a date for the Soirée! Claude is taking me to the dance! I asked him when we were watching the Niners game at his house. He was, like, No, I should ask YOU to the Soirée. And then he did, and of course, I said YES.

I think Whit was a little weird about it, but she’s still hot and heavy with her boyfriend from Carmel, so I don’t think it matters. Why does she want ALL the boys? I just want ONE.

Miss you,
V

BTW—That’s so great that your family might come visit San Francisco this Christmas! Let me know EXACTLY when you guys are planning to get here so we can hang out with Whitney and all of my friends!

11
But Is It a Date-Date?

F
OR DAYS AFTERWARD
, Mom and Tita Connie kept calling each other because they were so excited Freddie and I were going to the dance together. It was truly depressing. I didn’t tell Isobel because I was embarrassed to have broken our pact so quickly. For once, I was glad to be at the safe haven of the Sears cafeteria in the afternoons.

“Um, what does a guy have to do to get a Pepsi around here?”

I looked up from my book and saw Paul standing in front of me. I hadn’t even noticed. I yawned and looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes to six. I would be able to close the cafeteria soon. “Hey, haven’t seen you all week,” I said. “Where have you been hiding?”

“I broke up with Laurie, so I wanted to lay low.”

I was so clueless, I didn’t even know he was even dating anybody. I felt my stomach clench. Laurie had big hair and plastic earrings. She wore her jeans so low, her thong peeked out when
she bent over. She ordered chili dogs and nachos. She had long, press-on nails that she liked to drum on the counter while she decided between Diet Pepsi or bottled water. She never tipped.

“How long were you guys dating?”

“Not too long—like, a month.” He shrugged.

“What happened?”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t seem so worked up about it.”

“Nah, not really. But whatever. How’ve you been?”

“Okay,” I said.

“How’s that doofy school you go to?”

“Sucks.”

“Figures.”

“How’s your band?”

He smiled. “Not bad. Most of the time everyone just goofs off. Buncha jokers,” he said affectionately. “We’re trying to get something together to make a CD. A friend of mine has this whole setup on his computer where we can produce our own record.”