Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  The saleswoman who greets us looks like a model from way back in the 1970s, real blonde with blue eyes. We don’t have a lot of people who look like that in New Mexico, unless you count the Texan tourists, which I don’t. She looks healthy. So do the other two saleswomen who work in the office. Dad tries to flirt with them, which basically makes me want to barf. Even barfier? They flirt back, and he laughs like he’s da bomb. I’m, like, it’s their job to flirt with you, Dad, but I don’t say it. I just think it. Dad likes to believe he’s a stud. Let him.

  We return to the apartment, and Dad opens up the garage and takes me inside to show me around before we start unpacking. It’s a three-story townhouse, with a garage and storage on the ground floor, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and half-bathroom on the second floor, and three bedrooms and two bathrooms on the top floor. The walls are cream-colored, the carpets beige. It’s very clean and new and smells good. Basically, it’s nothing like the apartments I’ve known in my life, which were these dumps where my mom used to smoke cigarettes and play blackjack.

  “You can have any of the bedrooms you want,” he tells me.

  “Even the master?” I ask. It’s big, with an attached bathroom and its own private balcony overlooking a vast green lawn with walking paths and palm trees.

  “Yep,” says Dad.

  I pick the master, of course. Far as I’m concerned, Dad owes me, big-time.

  An hour later, we have the U-Haul unloaded, and I’m starving. Dad forgot to mark the boxes, so we have no idea where the dishes and pots are. It’s chaos in here. I go out on the balcony of my new bedroom for some fresh air and to get a look around. Dad finds me there and tells me he’s going to return the moving truck and pick up some burgers on the way back. I’ve never had In-N-Out burgers, and Dad swears I’m going to love them. And then he’s gone.

  I’m alone.

  I wander around the townhouse for a minute or two, trying to let it sink in that this is my new home. Don Juan is walking around with nervous cat legs, sniffing everything and flicking his tail. He doesn’t know what to make of this, either. It’s definitely nicer than the house we had back in New Mexico, which was old and kind of run-down. I mean, I thought my house was fine, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I’ve been too negative about all this. Maybe it’ll be okay.

  I realize I have to pee again, and head to the master bathroom. My bathroom, thank you very much. It’s got a big counter where I can put my makeup and stuff. I never had that back home. Whoever lived here before us left some toilet paper on the roll, and it’s a good thing because not only do I have to pee, but God has decided this is the moment I’m going to get my period. Great. I don’t know where the box is with my supplies in it. I wad up some toilet paper and stuff it in my underwear. Gross, I know. But you do what you have to do.

  Finished with that nightmare, I go back out on the patio. On the patio next door sit two pimply, goofy-looking guys who are probably a little younger than me. They’re not ugly or anything, but they certainly aren’t cute. I’m surprised for a second, because part of me believed all guys in California would look like movie stars. I look away from them, because I don’t like giving guys the impression I like them, especially when I don’t. I also can’t look directly at them because I have a weird feeling about them — it’s not a bad feeling, just unusual. I feel like I really like them and want to protect them or something, but it’s not exactly me feeling it.

  One of them startles me with a hello. I mean, I think it’s a hello. What he actually said was “’Sup.”

  “Hey,” I say, to be polite. The cramps are starting. Yep. There they are. Just my luck. I look at the guys briefly, and the sound rushes through my head. It’s like the sound of my own blood, only really loud. I hear voices in the middle of the noise, and crying. Great. There’s something creepy going on already. I think of my grandmother and realize I’ve left the stone necklace in the U-Haul. I should probably take better care of it, but whatever. I hope my dad gets it out of the ashtray. I have a feeling I could use it right now.

  “You just move in?” one of the guys asks. He talks through his nose. I keep hearing a thunking-boing sound and wonder if it’s part of the white noise in my head, but then I see it’s just a basketball. He’s got one and he’s dribbling it, even though both guys are sitting in lawn chairs.

  “Yeah, we just moved in today.”

  “Cool,” they say in unison. I look away again because the wave of sound is coming back. What is that crying? It’s awful. It’s like a little girl.

  They ask me my name, then tell me theirs: Keoni and Kerani. They ask me where I’m from, and I tell them. I don’t ask them anything because I don’t really feel like talking to possibly hormonal male strangers with my dad gone, and I don’t want to encourage the weird noise to come back.

  Then they ask me if I’m Asian.

  “No,” I say, surprised. I look at them, and the voices come back, clearer this time, speaking a language I’ve heard before but don’t understand. Dandan kowaku naro! It’s a shrieking voice, a little girl. Dandan kowaku naro! Then a man’s voice, deep and menacing inside my head. Utsubuse ni natte kudasai.

  “You look Asian,” says one of them, I think it’s Keoni but who knows.

  “I’m Hispanic,” I say. “Mexican.”

  “We’re Japanese and black,” says the other one.

  Japanese. I feel a tingle in my spine and realize that’s the language I’m hearing. There’s a little girl pleading in Japanese, and the man is yelling at her. Have you ever felt like you’re going completely crazy? That would be me right now. I must be tired. I don’t like to tell people about the “voices,” because I know they’d think I was insane, even though I know I’m not. It’s like listening to people talking in another room, only that room is in a different universe.

  I don’t say anything in response to the guys’ ethnicity because I’m not sure why they’ve told me this or how exactly I’m supposed to respond. They ask me if I’m going to be going to public school. Back home, pretty much everyone goes to public school. I tell them my dad has me registered at Aliso Niguel High School and that I’m supposed to start tomorrow.

  “That’s where we go,” one of them says. He doesn’t look happy about it. Then, as quickly as it started, the noises stop.

  I finally look at them longer than a second. They’re wearing baggy basketball shorts and white undershirts with skinny black neckties. They match completely, down to their dirty, unlaced basketball sneakers. One of them keeps dribbling the basketball on the patio floor, which makes me think of Ethan. I miss him, but right now I can’t really even remember what he looks like. I realize with a shock, that my new neighbors are twins. Duh. I should have figured that one out before. Anyway, one has longer hair than the other, but they are otherwise identical, down to the zits on their foreheads.

  “You like it there?” I ask of the school.

  “It’s okay,” they say in unison. Then the one on the right says, “Niguel’s a good place if you’re popular.”

  The two boys look at each other sadly, and it wouldn’t take a brain surgeon to guess they’re probably not the popular type.

  “If you’re not popular,” the other one says, “you hear from the haters.”

  “Every single day,” says his brother. They look depressed.

  “Haters?” I ask.

  “Yeah. The school’s full of them,” says the one with longer hair.

  “And if you’re not one of them?” asks the short-haired one.

  They say the last part in unison: “Aliso Niguel blows.”

  4

  Dad gets home with the In-N-Out burgers half an hour later. I’m actually relieved, because I’ve run out of things to say to Keoni and Kerani Jackson. They only want to talk about chess, a “sport” over which they get entirely too excited, and some video game called Conker: Live & Reloaded. I could care less about Xboxes, and it seems like that’s all these two care about. The more I talk to them, the more I hear
that Japanese man’s voice, too. Utsubuse ni natte kudasai.

  “Pasquala Rumalda Quintana de Archuleta! Your delicioso burger is getting cold, Chinita!” calls my dad. The twins look at each other like they want to laugh. I wouldn’t blame them if they did. I’d like them better, actually. Anyone who laughs at my dad is okay with me. They have a sense of humor. That’s a plus. If I’m going to have to see them all the time, they might as well be funny.

  “It’s my full name,” I say. “I have to go.” They look down and shrug, which I assume is an Orange County goodbye from guys who like chess and wear ties with T-shirts. I’m just guessing here, but ten-to-one, social skills aren’t their strength.

  I enter the house-o-boxes. I feel like I just shrank and fell into a toy chest of wooden blocks at a preschool, or like that mouse in If You Take a Mouse to School, when he makes a house for himself. How will we ever get these unpacked? I have to start school tomorrow, too. Where are my clothes?

  I find my father dancing around the kitchen with white paper sacks in his hands. I’m not sure, but it sounds like he’s whistling “Toxic” by Britney Spears. “’Don’t you know that you’re tox-ic?’” he sings. Yup. Good guess on my part. I am now certain my dad is singing “Toxic” by Britney Spears. Moments like this make you wonder if there is a God. Don Juan circles Dad’s ankles, crying for food. Don Juan is always hungry. He thinks that every time someone goes near a kitchen, that means it’s time to open a can of food for Don Juan.

  “What?” says Dad, looking at me. He examines himself like he thinks he might have something gross on his shirt or pants. Then he looks at me again. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say. I’m not about to tell him I’m hearing terrified girl voices in Japanese, or that I just met two of the goofiest kids I’ve ever met. I’m not about to tell him I miss my house, my friends, my life. I mean, I told him all that already, but did it help? Nope. Better to be quiet.

  Dad turns away, dancing, and sings, “’And I love what you do, don’t you know that you’re toxic?’” He rolls his hips on the “toxic.” Oh. My. God. I would like to think of something smart and annoying to say, but I’m speechless. My psycho dad thinks he’s a Backstreet Boy.

  “What?” he asks again. “What’s that face for?”

  “Nothing,” I say. Britney Spears? My father is singing Britney Spears? At least Gwen Stefani was somewhat cool, but Britney? “Did you get my necklace out of the ashtray in the U-Haul?” I ask.

  Dad stares at me with a blank look. “Did you ask me to?”

  “No. But I left it in there.”

  “Paski!” he says. He’s got the disappointed-father face going now. “Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t read your mind!”

  “I forgot.”

  Dad finds the phone and dials 411. He asks for the number of the U-Haul place and then waits on the line while he’s connected. After about ten minutes of sighing, waiting, and explaining over and over what we’re looking for, he hangs up. “They have it. You’re lucky. I’ll get it for you tomorrow.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  “A thanks would be nice,” replies Dad.

  “Thanks.” I try not to sound sarcastic but fail.

  “You need to learn to take better care of your things, Paski.”

  “Please don’t lecture me right now,” I say.

  “I’m not lecturing. I’m offering fatherly advice.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Wanna eat on the balcony?” he asks. This is Dad’s way of trying to change the subject. Just talk about something new. Pretend we weren’t just arguing, sort of. I think of Kerani and Keoni.

  “Uh, no. How about right here on the floor? We could use this box as a table.”

  Dad shrugs and goes along with me. He does that a lot. Sometimes my dad is very easy to get along with. “I know something’s bugging you, though, for you to forget about the necklace like that,” he says as he sits cross-legged on the floor across the box from me.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I respond.

  “Whatever,” says my dad. He actually puts his thumbs together to make the shape of a W with his hands. It has to be a midlife crisis. There’s no other excuse, really. He opens the bags and unloads the food. There are two enormous burgers with everything gooped on them, and two giant orders of fries that smell like a heart attack. He’s also gotten me a Diet Coke, gigantic size. “Dig in, Punkin,” he says as he unwraps his burger. “I am telling you, these are the best hamburgers you’ve ever had.”

  I eat the food. It’s as good as my dad said it would be, but I don’t want him to get all superior about it, so I keep my thoughts to myself. The meal has also made me feel majorly, hugely fat. What I really need right now is to get out and ride my bike. I’ve been tucked up in the moving truck for days. I’m full of grease. The cramps from my period are getting pretty bad, and I’ve found that the best thing for that is to work out. Plus, I want to get a look around this town — without my dad.

  “Can I go for a ride after this?” I ask.

  Dad looks at me like I’ve asked if I can walk to the moon. “Bike riding?”

  “Yeah, you know, a bike? It has pedals, handlebars, wheels, I think you’ve seen them before. Bi-cy-cle.”

  Dad gives me the “ha ha, very funny” face. “But we just got here. Where would you go?” He chews like a bull, the food going round and round forever. He’s got a mustard smudge on the tip of his nose, but I’m not going to tell him, because I know he is trying to manipulate me right now.

  See, most parents would just say no, right? Like, “No, you can’t go bike riding.” But not my dad. He’s got this strategy where he thinks he can get me to do what he wants me to do by asking me a million questions and letting me come to my (his) own conclusions about things. He has no clue that I see right through him.

  “I want to ride to my new school,” I say. “I need to know how to get there tomorrow.”

  Dad’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise as he realizes I’m making sense. “That’s true,” he says. “I was going to take you tomorrow, though.”

  “I don’t want you to take me.”

  Dad holds a french fry up to the light and turns it over, as if it were a scrap of gold he found at the bottom of an archaeological dig. “Are these not the finest fries you’ve ever tasted?” he asks the fry. I assume he is talking to me, however.

  “They’re very good. So can I go riding?”

  “Do you know where the school is?”

  “Emily and I did a MapQuest,” I say.

  “A what?”

  “Online. You put in addresses and they give you directions.”

  “You can do that?” he asks. Dad is not what you’d call techno-savvy. He’s like a kid who was raised by wolves and brought back to civilization, always surprised about things.

  “Yep.”

  He shrugs and nods, impressed. “Go ahead,” he says. “But wear your helmet. And be careful. And get back here before dark. Take my cell phone. Call me if you need me.”

  “I don’t know the number here.”

  “Ah.” He jumps up and digs through some boxes until he finds a phone. Then he plugs it into the jack in the kitchen and calls the operator to ask her what our phone number is. He’s lost the paper where he wrote it. He scribbles it on a napkin from the burger place and hands it to me. Our new area code is 949. I can just hear Emily saying, “You’re kickin’ it in the 949.” She’d say something like that.

  “Be careful out there,” Dad says. “You’re the most important thing in my life, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  I smile at him and pop another fry into my mouth. “Watch out, Dad,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “You almost sounded like a real parent for a second there.”

  Dad smiles at me. He looks like he’s going to cry through that smile for some reason. I realize that even though he’s a total loser, I’m pretty lucky to have him.

  5

  After dinner, I dig thr
ough the boxes until I find one with my clothes (and tampons, thank God!) in it. I fix my leak and put on a pair of cycling shorts I haven’t worn since the summer, along with a long-sleeved red T-shirt Emily gave me. The shirt is from a Canadian company called Roots that Emily loves. It feels cozy and fits just right. Emily dresses like someone on a college campus in a movie. She’s very preppy but cool at the same time. I put on my old army-green fanny pack and bring Dad’s cell phone, the map to my school, and the napkin with our new home number. I pull my fingerless cycling gloves over my hands, snap my cycling shoes onto my feet, pull my hair back in a low ponytail. I clomp down to the first level of the townhouse and find my dad unpacking a box of kitchen stuff. He tells me to be careful and gives me a hug. He makes a point of hugging me at least once a day.

  My bike is in the trunk of the Corolla, in the garage, with the quick-release front tire popped off. I put it together quickly and find my helmet and pink iPod Mini inside the trunk, too. I’m a little tired of the mix on my iPod. I need to upload some new songs, but now that I can’t borrow Emily’s high-speed connection, it’s going to be tricky. Maybe I can talk my dad into getting cable and a high-speed Internet connection, you know, now that he’s a mack daddy and all. He used to be all “no TV in this house,” but now I don’t know. Now he’s Mr. Hollywood.

  I stick the speaker buds in my ears, hit play, and the Black Eyed Peas’ latest comes on. I like upbeat, funky music for when I’m riding, something I can lose myself in. Something that inspires me to take on the hard slopes and bumpy paths. I’m happiest when I’m challenged, and I’m proud to say I’ve never had a bad fall. I have crazy good balance, one of my gifts — the others being an ability to draw and the whole thing with dreaming about things that actually happen later on.

  This song jams. I’m good to go.

  I’ve memorized the map. Northwest on Summerfield toward Aliso Creek. Left on Aliso Creek to Terrace View Drive. End at Wolverine Way. Less than two miles in all, a breeze of a ride for me. I’m used to riding at least ten miles a day, even in the freezing cold, and usually a lot farther than that.