The House That Lou Built

by Mae Respicio

Once the room clears, I say, “Mr. K, you have a sec?”

  “Of course. Anything for my hardest-working student.” He sits down at his desk.

  “What would you think if I was building my own house?”

  “Let’s see. I would probably think it was a huge undertaking, but one that I would certainly delight in seeing you accomplish. I certainly wood. Get it? Would?” he says, chortling. I let that one go.

  “It’s called a tiny house.”

  “That’s a beguiling concept,” he says. “I’ve read about them.”

  I want to ask Mr. Keller for tips, like, well, how do I know if I’m starting the right way? Or even if he’ll help me bring a few things to my land. He’s always bragging about the new truck he just bought.

  “I have some stuff I need hauled to my building site, and I’m trying to find help. It shouldn’t take too long,” I say.

  “Perhaps I could be of assistance,” he says cheerily. I knew he’d volunteer.

  “Really? That’d be great.”

  “Sure, I know a guy. He’ll cut you a deal. I’ll call your mother and give her the info. It’ll be a good excuse for us to catch up.”

  Mr. Keller goes way back with my family. He and Lolo first met while playing chess at Golden Gate Park, around the time Mr. K still had hair. Mom and Auntie Gemma had him for social studies and homeroom in high school, and Lola often invites him and his husband to our parties.

  He opens his lunch container and makes a sour face. “Organic avocado and dry alfalfa sprouts. Ed’s trying to kill me.” He extends half his sandwich. “Care to join? We’ll talk more about this wee house of yours.”

  “Thanks, maybe another time.” I grab my things and head out to meet Alexa and Gracie.

  * * *

  —

  We eat lunch at our normal hilltop spot, on a bench with my favorite view of steep streets that dip like roller coasters.

  Gracie’s Filipina, too, and the nicest girl in our grade. We take folk dance together and our families are close. Alexa became my friend in kindergarten when Carver Jamison threw sand at me and she made him cry by dumping a pail of sand on his head. Alexa gets a lot of heys in the hallway. She’s friendly and never snooty, so everyone likes her.

  I’m not as popular as my friends. People say I’m kind of quiet—except when it comes to my ideas. When I create something, I want everyone to know.

  Lola says that “quiet” means I notice everything, and it’s what I had in common with both of my grandpas. She says I spot things that need fixing and think up ways to fix them, the type of person who needs to work with her hands.

  I squeeze in on the bench.

  “Hi, Ate,” Gracie says.

  “Hi, Manang,” Alexa says.

  It makes me laugh whenever Alexa calls me Manang. Even though Alexa’s blond and blue-eyed, she’s an honorary Filipina. She’s been around our families long enough to know that if you see someone who’s Filipino, even if they’re not related, you should call them by their respectful term.

  My family uses manang or manong for older siblings and cousins, and ading for younger ones—in Gracie’s family they use kuya for brothers and ate for sisters. Our words are different because the Philippines has so many dialects.

  We pull out our lunches.

  “Ew, what’s that stuff all over your hair?” Alexa asks, and their faces pinch up.

  Gracie blows at the top of my head. Sawdust.

  “Woodshop,” I say.

  “Louie, maybe next year you should try a cooler elective, ooh, like Peer Mediation. Or, I know, High-Velocity Dance! You’d be great,” Gracie says.

  “And anyway, the only cute guy in shop is Jack Allen.” Alexa smiles slyly as he walks past. “Speaking of Jack…”

  All the girls watch him like that. They gossip like he’s famous or something. Jack’s a surfer-guy who’s always in shorts and flip-flops. He has darkish tan skin and longish dark hair that’s not styled with goop like some of the other boys’. He has lots of different kinds of friends at school, a floater.

  Jack breezes past with a super-cool group, the kids who make middle school look easy and fun. I catch the gaze of one of the girls, someone pretty in a teen-magazine kind of way.

  “What’s up, Prez TP?” she says, giggling. Alexa and Gracie roll their eyes.

  I expect Jack to laugh but he says, “Hey, Lou.” He looks straight at me, and not in a you’re-a-weird-DIY-girl kind of way. Friendly. He probably thinks he can still get help with his woodblocks so he won’t flunk our last assignment. I’m too shy to say anything back, and he keeps walking. Gracie and Alexa glance at each other.

  “What?” I say.

  “He’s never said hey to you before…,” Gracie says.

  “…out loud…and in public!” Alexa says.

  They give me huge smiles and I blush. I dig into my lunch bag and pull out a plastic container that I don’t remember packing. Inside, there’s rice and little dried fish with the heads still on. I call them Salty Snackers, but only at home.

  “You gotta tell Lola to stop packing your lunch. No one brings that to school, not even the Asian kids. Ask for bologna next time,” Gracie says.

  Alexa plucks out a tiny fishy, swims it in front of Gracie’s face, and pops it into her mouth. “Mmmmm…tasty.”

  I’ve asked Lola to stop, but she always sneaks things in.

  “Almost weekend time,” Alexa says. She bites into the sunflower seed butter sandwich her mom packs every Friday—on sprouted whole grain with the crusts cut off. There are hearts and clouds and smiley faces drawn on the plastic bag.

  “You guys have plans?” I ask.

  “It’s Ultimate Saturday to kick off summer vacay,” Gracie says, grinning.

  Ultimate Saturday is when Gracie and her dad do something special, just the two of them, like gourmet cooking classes or trapeze school.

  “Nice. What are you guys doing this time?” Alexa asks.

  “We’re renting those bright yellow go-carts tourists drive down Lombard Street.” She gives me two thumbs up and laughs.

  “My dad and I did that once. You’re gonna have sooooo much fun!” Alexa says. “I’m hiking with my dad. He found a waterfall in Marin that we’ve never been to. You should come with us, Lou.”

  My friends love to talk about the cool dad things they do. They always invite me, but I make up excuses not to go. Since I’m dad-less, I think they feel bad and don’t want to leave me out. I’m lucky we try to take care of each other that way.

  If Mom and I have to move, how will I ever find friends like them again? I stop eating.

  “Gotta go help with eighth-grade promotional,” Gracie says, getting up. “See you at fiesta practice, Lou.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  Alexa looks at me. “So you want to go hiking with us?”

  “Thanks, I can’t.” I’ve got my house to build.

  “How about dinner later?”

  That I would love. Alexa’s family always eats dishes we never have at home, and her parents talk to us like we’re not little kids. I’m fascinated by how normal her life seems. It’s like a science experiment to me. It has a mom and a dad who are still married and a big brother who comes home from college on weekends; a perfect nucleus enclosed in a red-and-cream Spanish Colonial Revival with a hybrid car tucked into the garage. My normal? A gigantic extended family squished into Lola’s for every holiday imaginable.

  Alexa waves her hands at my face like I’ve forgotten about her. I do that sometimes, get stuck in my head even with people right in front of me.

  “Hello?” she says. “My house later? It’s Vegan Lasagna Night!”

  “Sure.” I smile at her. “I’ll ask my mom.”

  We look out at our view of clouds framing the sky and houses packed on roads that slope into each other. I
can’t wait for this day to end. Once summer break starts, so will my house.

  I gather with my Barrio Fiesta crew onstage in the senior center auditorium. We’ve had a long Friday afternoon of dance practice and set-building as we finish up the bahay kubo, a little home. We’ve made the walls out of huge sheets of cardboard and painted on the bamboo patterns. Now it needs the roof.

  A group of girls glue straw pieces onto the house while the boys chase each other with unplugged hot-glue guns.

  Every Barrio Fiesta ends in a spectacular show by the kids. This year’s skit tells the story of a boy in the Philippines whose bahay kubo gets caught in a flood, but the neighbors help his family escape by carrying the house to safety.

  A bahay kubo is the first type of house I ever learned of, because Lola used to sing us songs about them. It’s the traditional Philippine house, built on stilts, with one room where the whole family lives. At night they unroll a mat and everyone sleeps on it, and in the morning they just roll it up again before getting on with their day. If the land floods during typhoons, villagers help their neighbors by hoisting the house onto their shoulders with wooden poles and walking it to its next spot.

  This ancient tradition has a name: Bayanihan. Community. Helping each other. We chose it as this year’s festival theme.

  Right now the boys aren’t helping at all.

  Arwin, my second cousin, runs after Cody, another half-Filipino kid like me. Cody’s my dance partner. Arwin chases Cody to our work area, and loose straw flies. The boys drop to the floor, laughing and out of breath.

  “Hey, the house looks really good,” Arwin says, surprised. “We did a nice job.”

  “We?” I say. The boys barely did anything.

  “Lou, when are you going to start building your house?” Gracie asks.

  “Stay tuned,” I say, smiling at her.

  “Girls don’t build houses—they only vacuum them.” Cody cracks up.

  “Lame,” Gracie says.

  “FYI, women build and invent lots of things. A woman invented the circular saw in the eighteen hundreds,” I say.

  Gracie sticks her finger on Cody and makes a sizzle noise. “Burn!”

  “Big whoop,” says Gordon. Gordon’s a half-Chinese, half-Filipino kid whose hair looks like someone stuck a bowl on his head and cut right around it.

  “Oh yeah, and inventors of the life raft, the bulletproof vest, and residential solar heating? Women,” I say.

  Gracie and I high-five. I’ve memorized a long list of female inventors. My name will be on it one day.

  “Lou’s not bad at making stuff. Better than you jerks,” Arwin says. He points the glue gun at the boys and chases them off.

  Gracie and another girl hoist up the house, and I stand back to check out our hard work. “Nice!” Everyone’s going to ooh and aah once they see it dramatically lit up with spotlights.

  My family’s had fun at this festival ever since I was little. Lolo used to sneak goodies to me from all the food booths, and my cousin Sheryl and I would sink down into the theater seats to watch her big sister, Maribel, swirl onstage. The music always went on past dark—sometimes I wouldn’t remember going to sleep, I’d just wake up the next morning in bed, still in my folk-dance costume. If Mom and I move, I’ll miss all this. I’d hate that for sure.

  Sheryl and her mom, Auntie Gemma, wave as they walk up. Auntie’s holding a bag of skirt sashes for Lola to fix. Arwin yanks one out and flicks it at Sheryl. She grabs another, and they start flicking each other.

  Manang Sheryl is my best friend and my cousin. She loves the festival but hates the dancing part. She gets nervous—like, about-to-faint nervous—but Auntie still makes her perform.

  Sheryl’s already thirteen and has taught me everything Mom hasn’t, like what happens when you French kiss (gross) and why I should wear “cute” things like skirts. She hasn’t given up on me yet, even though I’m sticking with jeans and Converse (way comfier).

  Sheryl’s full Filipina and looks more like my mom than I do, with tan skin and black hair trailing down her back, swingy like in a shampoo commercial. She’s short with a sporty build and already wears a real bra—she’s not pancake-flat like I am.

  “Great work, girls!” Auntie says.

  It’s not too shabby, but I can usually find things to fix.

  “It still needs more straw at the top! Everybody grab some and help,” I say, but Auntie pulls on my arm.

  She says, “Come on, gang. Time to go.”

  * * *

  —

  When we walk into Lola’s, we see Arwin’s older brother, Manong Kelvin, sitting at the dining table, shoveling Lola’s famous stewed okra into his mouth and reading a textbook.

  “What’s going on, Kelvin?” Auntie says. Kelvin goes to college close by and visits between classes to eat or nap or wash his clothes.

  Without glancing up, he mumbles, like it’s one word, “HiAuntieLaundry.”

  Sheryl and Arwin pat his full cheeks, puffed with rice and stew. He shoos them away.

  Lola’s house has family pictures covering every wall. I always think the faces are creepily staring at me. Souvenirs, like Las Vegas snow globes, cram the shelves, and plastic shields everything—the carpet, the lamps, even the TV. It’s small, but we can squeeze in a ton of people.

  My family’s close. Literally. Sheryl and Maribel live only four blocks away, and everyone else drops in whenever they want—they can’t leave each other alone. Lola says that as the eldest of fourteen siblings, it’s her job to take care of everyone. That would drive me nuts.

  “Who’s ready for dinner?” Mom asks from the kitchen.

  “We’re just dropping off more costumes for Lola to hem.” Auntie sets the bag down. “What are you cooking? Smells yummy.”

  “Lola made chocolate meat,” Mom says. That’s code for dinuguan, a tasty pork dish cooked in pork blood. Normally I love Filipino food, but today I’m tired of it.

  “May I go to Alexa’s for dinner? Her mom’s making lasagna,” I say, even though Sheryl’s listening. She hates not getting invited to things.

  “The rubber-cheese kind you don’t like?” Mom says.

  “Should I ask Alexa if you can come?” I say to Sheryl, but she shakes her head.

  “It’s okay.”

  Sheryl and Arwin settle in and scoop rice onto their plates. Kelvin dumps his bowl into the sink and shouts, “Thanks, Lola! Thanks, Aunties!” He slings on his backpack, straps on a helmet, and jets out the door. This house fills up and empties out without warning, so I never know when I might have quiet time.

  “Please?” I say. “It’s basically summer break now.”

  Mom smiles at me. “Let me just call over there to make sure it’s okay.”

  * * *

  —

  At Alexa’s house I ring the bell and her mom greets me with a big hug. She’s a tall, slender woman with light hair and dark roots, and she always makes me feel welcome.

  “Lou, the official eighth grader! How’s it feel? Come on in, I’ll grab Lexy for ya,” she says as she walks up the stairs.

  I love Alexa’s place, with all its happy colors and books and weird abstract art. It’s sunshiny and cheerful, just like her family. If my friend were a house, she’d definitely be this one.

  Alexa runs down the stairs and ambushes me with a giant hug, too.

  “Can you girls set the table, please? Dinner in a few minutes.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” Alexa gives her mom a stiff salute.

  We begin setting the table while some sort of rumba music plays, the kind Lola and the aunties would start dancing to if they heard it.

  I’m still thinking about Mom wanting to leave San Francisco. I lay down a place mat and Alexa tops it with a plate.

  “Question. What would happen if I weren’t around anymo
re?” I ask.

  Alexa gives me the strangest look. She plunks down the entire stack of plates and her eyes get wide. “Oh my gosh, Louie…Are you…dying?”

  I laugh. “No, silly. I mean like if I moved or something.”

  “Phew!” she says. “But wait….You better not say that you’re moving. I would hate you forever.”

  “We’re not. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Then why are you flipping out?”

  “My mom said she’s looking at a nursing job in a whole different state. Washington.”

  “But we’re supposed to go to high school together, then do our gap year in Paris before we go to New York for college, remember?”

  “Right? Am I overreacting?”

  “No! But don’t worry about it, Louie. Dessert will make you feel better. Mom whipped up some dairy-free wheatgrass ice cream with dehydrated kiwis. That should get your mind off things,” she says, making a face, and we laugh.

  * * *

  —

  Alexa, her dad, and I sit around the table, and her mom sets down the star dish. They clap, so I join them.

  Dinner here looks different from meals at my family’s, especially lately, since Mom’s always working double shifts. When that happens, Lola and I eat on TV trays while watching design shows. Alexa’s mom forces them to sit down together every night, and even though Alexa complains about it, I think it’s neat.

  “Dig right in, ladies!” her dad says.

  Alexa’s parents sip from the same wineglass and tuck into their lasagna.

  “So, Lou, Lexy tells us you want to build your own little house?” her dad says. Normally he’s in a suit, but tonight he’s got on his red Stanford sweatshirt.

  “I’ve seen some of those on TV,” Alexa’s mom says. “I always wonder what it would be like to live in one.”

  “I don’t know anyone who’d be able to do that but Louie,” Alexa says.

  They’re all smiling at me.

  The first person I ever told I wanted to build a house was my mom. She looked surprised and asked, “Why?”