by Maurene Goo
“Nah. We don’t really have food — I mostly order in stuff. Or eat out.”
“Wow, your family eats out every night?!”
“No, I do.”
“By yourself?”
He took a generous swig of sparkling water before answering. “Yeeeah. Yup.”
Weird. “Don’t your parents make you eat with them?”
“Uhhh, nope. They’re not home too much.”
I laughed. “Lucky.”
He threw me a peculiar look. “I guess.”
“Can I get a tour of the house? Do you mind if I take pictures for the article?” I held up the Weasel Times’ digital camera.
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
I followed him as he walked me through the sprawling house, snapping pictures here and there. I tried to get some info on the house, on his family, but it was like talking to a wall. While not particularly hateful, Matthew was proving to be completely boring.
“Who built this house? It looks like a lot of care went into the design.”
“Uh … I don’t know. Some architect my dad knows.”
“Are these floors made out of bamboo?”
“I think so.”
“Wow, are those all solar panels?”
“Yep.”
I pointed to a photo of a ruggedly handsome man in a suit and a beautiful woman in a dress with 1980s-style shoulder pads. “Are these your parents?”
“Yep.”
PLEASE, THE ENTHUSIASM WAS OVERWHELMING.
“Well, should we start the interview, then?” I asked as we walked back to the kitchen. I was praying he would give me more details and personality. This was going awkwardly as hell.
He shrugged again, pulling out a chair and propping his legs up onto the pristine, white breakfast tabletop. I positioned a chair across from him, making sure to keep a sizable distance between us. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people having a good view of my pores in the harsh daylight. Especially if “people” is someone who purportedly dates only bathing suit models with perfect poreless skin. He had probably never even seen a zit before. I scanned my list of questions. “All right, so … maybe first we can just talk about the usual stats. Where you were born, what your parents do and all that?” I asked while setting up the digital recorder.
He picked up my pen and started fiddling with it, not looking at me. A few seconds passed and he cleared his throat. “I don’t know…. Does anyone really care about that?”
“Yessss,” I replied testily. His total lack of interest in this interview couldn’t be more evident, from his lazy-bum pose to his bored rich-boy face.
He closed his eyes from the sheer exhaustion of having to speak to me. “I was born on a cold winter’s day in 1996.”
I glared at him, hoping my silence spoke volumes. How would I tell Isabel that I had no story because Matthew Reynolds was the most boring jock to have ever attended Bay High?
At that moment the back door into the kitchen slammed open and a little girl flew in, all blond braids and giant backpack. She threw the backpack on the floor and ran over to the next room, all without acknowledging our presence.
Matthew grinned widely and called out, “Hey, Amelia!” She looked up from under the coffee table where she was inspecting a large stuffed carrot, then made eye contact with me. She immediately buried her face in the carrot and turned away from us.
I tried to laugh it off. “Kids love me.” Matthew looked apologetic, but before he could speak a Latina woman wearing a hoodie and yoga pants walked in, carrying an armload of bags. Matthew shot over to take them from her. She gave him a grateful smile and squeezed his shoulder. “Thanks, kiddo.” She noticed me and smiled curiously.
“Carina, this is Holly, she’s a reporter for the school paper doing a story on me. Holly, this is Carina, Amelia’s nanny.”
Carina walked over to me and shook my hand. “How wonderful! Nice to meet you, Holly.” She shot me another warm smile and then turned to Matthew. “The teacher said Amelia managed to nap today so she should be okay for the rest of the evening. And she did this in class today, which is a huge deal.” She held up a large piece of paper with a drawing of a rainbow-striped horse.
Matthew’s eyes widened. “Wow! That’s great.”
“And, Matty, I’m so sorry to interrupt your interview, but do you think you can take over for a while? I just got a call from my oldest saying she needs a ride to her swim lesson. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“Of course,” Matthew said without hesitation. Carina looked relieved. “Thank you! Also, here’s the paperwork from the center that your parents need to sign.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
Carina gave him a sympathetic look. “You’re a good boy. I’ll see you soon.” She turned to me and waved. “Nice meeting you, Holly! Bye, Amelia, I’ll be right back!” she called out. No response from Amelia, but Carina didn’t seem to mind. She gave us a final wave and closed the door.
“She seems nice,” I replied, kind of dazed by this entire scene. The Matthew I was seeing now was completely different from the one who had been lazily answering questions earlier.
“Sorry, I need to make Amelia a snack. Would you mind keeping an eye on her for a sec?” he asked as he dug around the cupboards.
“Sure,” I replied, sitting up straighter to be more alert even though Amelia was directly in my line of vision, this time in the middle of the family room. In fact, she was crouched into a little ball now, rocking back and forth on her heels, keeping her carrot close to her.
He arranged some graham crackers on a plate, then made frustrated noises as he looked through the fridge. “You’d think we’d have a piece of fruit or something in this stupid house.” He managed to scrounge out an apple, carefully sliced it into pieces, and spread some peanut butter onto each slice.
“Amelia Smelly-lia, it’s snack time!” he hollered.
Silence. Matthew sighed. “Be right back.” He walked over to her and knelt down, but she shrieked in response. Matthew started shushing her, but she got louder, until she was full-on screaming at the top of her lungs.
I sat there uncomfortably. Should I be doing something?
Just when I was about to get up and go see if he needed help, the screaming stopped. “Time to eat, okay? Let’s go in the kitchen,” he cajoled her. She reluctantly got up and followed closely behind. I noticed that during this entire interaction the two had never touched. “Okay, snack time for the little monkey.”
The teeniest of smiles hovered on Amelia’s lips as she pulled herself up onto a stool alongside the granite kitchen counter.
Matthew handed her an apple slice. She shook her head. He placed it on the plate and she picked it up herself and munched on it.
“Don’t forget the yummy juice,” he said as he held it up to her, a colorful coiled straw tempting her. She took a long drag and then pulled away. They continued to do this until the straw rattled with the sound of an empty cup.
She eventually hopped off and ran into the family room again. “Would you mind if we did this in the other room until Carina gets back?”
“Yeah, yeah of course, no problem,” I said hurriedly, grabbing my stuff. Matthew leaned over and took everything from me.
“Here, let me,” he said, smoothly swinging my backpack over one arm. Wait, what?
“Oh, um, okay. Thanks.” Flustered, I followed him into the family room.
Amelia was sitting in front of the wall of windows, staring out at the ocean. I stood next to her to see what she was looking at, but there was nothing apart from the ocean and the jacaranda trees moving in the breeze on their deck. I smiled and looked down at her. “Anything interesting out there?”
Barely a flicker of acknowledgment of my presence. She didn’t answer, and I felt oddly sheepish, like I was interrupting the deep thoughts of a four-year-old.
“Don’t be offended, she’s not ignoring you on purpose,” Matthew said. He was sitting on the floor, leaning ag
ainst a sofa.
I walked over and sat down across from him, spreading out my notes and recording equipment. “Oh, it’s fine…. I mean, kids actually don’t love me.”
He lowered his voice. “Well, she’s different from most kids. Um, she’s autistic?”
“Oh! Oh, okay!”
I had no idea how to react. I am the worst reactor to serious things. Am I supposed to say “Sorry”? Isn’t that insulting? Because you don’t have to be all feeling sorry for someone with an autistic sibling. That seems so condescending. But “Rad!” didn’t feel like the appropriate response either.
Matthew looked at me curiously. “Oh, do you know what it is?”
I got super self-conscious again and wanted to avert the Matthew Reynolds gaze away from me. Preferably with all my hair covering my face.
“Yeah! I mean, but I’m not like, an expert…. I just, know what it is? Kind of?” Words were just barfing a mile a minute out of my mouth.
“Oh, cool. Most people aren’t that familiar with it.” Matthew started talking really quickly, too. He sat up straighter and was the most animated I’d ever seen him. “But Amelia does really well with her therapy, and she’s pretty high functioning even though she’s only four years old.”
“Well, I mean, I didn’t really think anything was that off. I mean, you know what I mean,” I said awkwardly.
Before Matthew could respond to that highly intelligent comment, the front door opened and high heels clicked across the wood floors.
“Hello?” a woman’s singsongy voice called out.
“We’re in here!” Matthew yelled.
A woman who was an older version of the 1980s hottie in the photo I saw earlier walked into the room, bringing a cloud of expensive perfume with her. She was tall, slim, and her dark blond hair was perfectly highlighted and curled. Matthew clearly got his cheekbones from this woman.
“Matthew, my goodness, your car needs a wash!” she said before giving him an air kiss. Huh? Matthew’s ridiculous Porsche was spotless. He shrugged in response.
I stood up halfway to greet her, but she pulled out her crystal-encrusted phone and started texting.
I sat there kind of uneasily. Hello?
She eventually finished her text and walked over to Amelia and ruffled her hair. “Hi there, princess!” Amelia shook her off with a screech and started rocking back and forth on her heels again. Matthew’s mom frowned for a moment, then put on a bright smile again, looking at her reflection in the sliding doors.
Matthew finally spoke up. “Hey, Mom, this is Holly. She’s writing a story on me for The Weasel Times.”
I stood up again, not sure what the protocol was with this glamorous woman. “Hi, Mrs. Reynolds. Nice to meet you.”
Her darkly lined green eyes widened and she immediately shot me a big smile. “Hi there, dear! An article on our Matty! How lovely.”
Before I could say anything, her phone rang shrilly. She fumbled around the pockets of her cashmere camel coat and picked it up, smiling already. “Oh, hi, Sylvie! Yes, I was just about to call you about it. Can you believe it?” She walked back toward the front door of the house, calling out over her shoulder, “Bye, dears. Matty, don’t forget Daddy and I are out to Mexico for the weekend. Make sure you remind Carina!” And with that, she was out of the house again, her scent lingering in the air.
It took me a moment to register what Mrs. Reynolds had just said. “Your parents are going to Mexico for Thanksgiving?”
“Yup.”
“But you’re not? And Amelia’s not?”
“Nah.”
“So you’re going to spend Thanksgiving alone?”
He laughed. “You make it sound so messed up. I haven’t spent Thanksgiving with my parents in like, years. They love to travel for the holidays. I like being home, so it’s cool.”
While the idea of spending a holiday blissfully alone, away from my chaotic family, did sound tempting, it also felt wrong somehow. But Matthew didn’t seem to mind.
He glanced at his watch. “Should we continue the interview?”
I almost forgot why I was there in the first place. “Yes, thanks for reminding me!”
So with Amelia playing quietly by herself, I continued to ask a way more relaxed and cooperative Matthew Reynolds questions. By the time six rolled around, I had a ton of information for the article.
“Thanks, Matthew. Hopefully this shapes up to be a decent profile. It’ll be my first one,” I said.
“Well, this is my first profile, too. So I guess we’re all good?” he said with a smile. I couldn’t help but smile back at him.
My cell phone beeped. I looked down to see a text from Ann: “Momz going to kill u if you don’t get home soon. LOL.”
My parents would kill me if I was even a minute late. They had been psychotically on my case ever since the local news started incessantly reporting a story on some man in a van kidnapping children. I repeat, children. Sigh.
“Sorry, but I have to get home now. Can you drop me off, or do you have to wait for Carina?” I asked.
Matthew grabbed his keys off the counter and said, “No worries. Amelia does really well in cars.”
As we drove, Amelia quietly chatted to herself in the backseat. When we got to Pacific Beach, I asked Matthew to drop me off a few blocks away from my house.
“Uh, are you sure you don’t want to be dropped off closer?” he asked, looking dubiously at the group of skater kids who were glaring at us from a storefront.
“Oh, yeah. If my parents saw your car pull up — oh my God, they’d be so annoying.”
“Those guys look shady.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “They’re just the stoner losers that hang out here every day. They’re ugly, but essentially harmless.” He let out a sharp bark of laughter and I looked at him in surprise. I felt oddly pleased that I could make the Blasé King laugh.
Amelia let out a copycat bark of laughter, which made all of us crack up. “You’re kinda funny, Holly K.,” Matthew said.
I blushed. Like, blushed. “Um, thanks.”
And then there was this moment. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. He kind of tilted his head and looked at me. My blushing was out of control at this point and I could barely look at him. And you know what? He WAS good-looking. I mean, I always knew it, similar to the way everyone knows Brad Pitt is good-looking. But I didn’t give a crap about how good-looking Brad Pitt was because he always struck me as boring as hell.
“What?” I asked, because he was still staring at me.
He looked down into his lap. “Well, I was just thinking.”
My heart skipped a beat. What was wrong with me?! Was I getting a crush on MATTHEW F-ING REYNOLDS?
“Yes?” I asked, my voice kind of cracking. This was an oddly romantic-comedy moment. And my life? Is not a romantic comedy. It is just pure comedy. It’s Curb Your Enthusiasm as an Asian American girl.
He sighed heavily. “So, are you going to include everything in this article?”
I blinked. Oh.
“Er, ummmm, I don’t know. I mean …” See, as a journalist, you can’t promise anyone anything. In the end, you can write whatever the heck you want because technically you are not held accountable to anyone. Other than your boss, maybe.
My lame answer elicited the familiar shrug. The wall had come back down.
“Never mind. Write whatever you want. Forget I said anything.”
He was staring out the window now, and I looked at him for a moment. “Okay.” Silence. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You’re welcome,” he automatically said. Polite till the end.
I said bye to Amelia, got out of the car, and closed the door. I stood there not knowing what to do for a moment, and then waved. He waved back. I started walking, and thought he would zoom away. But when I glanced back, there he was in the same spot, Porsche idling. He was glaring at the skaters.
* * *
That night, after Ann and I went through our usual sparring o
ver the dishes, I sat down in front of my laptop to check my Facebook page. I almost knocked over my green tea when I saw that Matthew Reynolds had posted on my wall:
Hope you liked the apple juice.
My face grew hot. This could not be happening to me. Please, God, pleasepleaseplease don’t let me have a crush on Matthew Reynolds. MATTHEW F-ING REYNOLDS.
But, it was just so darn cute. I mean, why did he leave that post? Didn’t he care that everyone else in the world would see that he, Matthew F-ing Reynolds, left a post for me, Holly F-ing Kim?
I closed the browser window before I could do anything foolish — like leave a responding comment on his post. After some quick Internet stalking, I found that his profile was covered in a billion comments from girls. Bleugh.
Instead, I decided to blast the new Muse album and start my Matthew Reynolds article. I looked through my notes and decided to begin the piece with Matthew’s story about his first Little League game.
The rest of the story followed easily, practically flowing through my fingers. I typed furiously — about his childhood, his fisherman grandpa, his Swedish scientist grandmother, his junior high sports stardom, his trips to Africa and Europe.
I wrote about everything but his parents. I wrote about how cool his house was, the view, the many rooms. I also mentioned his cute little sister, but as a side note. I steered clear of any autism talk.
As I reread the story, I realized I was missing the all-American heartwarming slant that Isabel wanted. Something about Thanksgiving. I remembered his mom’s space-cadet reminder about her trip to Mexico. A trip without her kids, one of whom had special needs. What was Matthew going to do by himself with his four-year-old sister while everyone else was spending Thanksgiving with family?
No, I decided to not write about Matthew’s parents or his secret: that he was almost single-handedly raising an autistic sister in a big, empty house.
IS THAT YOU, HOLLY?”
I sighed. “Noooo, it’s the Van Rapist.”
“Rapist! Omo, I don’t know how you think of such horrible things. I must have had too much spicy food while pregnant with you,” I heard her mutter from the kitchen.
