Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  I smile at Melanie, the woman who might be the person to force my father to grow up. Things are looking up. I mean, Jessica apologized and Melanie told dad to eat like a human. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s cool with me.”

  36

  Two hours later, I pull the Squeegeemobile into the massive gated compound that is Jessica’s home. It looks like a palace surrounded by flowing lawns and forests. No, I’m not just saying that. I actually call Emily and Janet from the curly iron bars of the front gate and describe it to them. I try not to sound like a squealy girl, but, you know. It’s a phenomenal house. They’re like, no way, not a palace, and I’m, like, way, and then I’m thinking, you know what? We all need to improve our vocabularies. Way.

  “I don’t think you should go in there,” warns Emily.

  “Why?” I ask. “Jessica said she’s sorry, and now she wants to be friends. And her mom is way cool.” Way again. Oops.

  Emily sniffs. “Oh, Paski. You’re way too nice sometimes.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “It means you better be careful in there. That’s what it means. Call me if anything happens. Or 911. Put it on speed dial.”

  “You guys, it’s going to be fine,” I say.

  So, listen. This house? It’s not just a palace but a white stucco palace perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. People live here? It looks like nuns should train here. Somewhere cloistered and distant from the real world. Do nuns train? I have never considered this, and it makes me laugh to think of them hurtling over high bars like athletes, in full skirt and whatever. Clearly I must be nervous.

  The gate slowly opens with a chime of bells and allows me to drive into the compound. I ease the Squeegeemobile forward, hoping it doesn’t contaminate the grounds. On either side of me, lawns stretch. Stone sculptures stand here and there, like this might be the grounds of a museum. The driveway is long, flanked by super-tall palm trees. I see a gardener driving around the grass on one of those mower things, and another couple of gardeners trimming hedges and flowers. Jessica has a fleet of gardeners?

  Back home in Taos, we sort of had a backyard, but it was mostly dirt and weeds. Oh, and things like old mops and buckets and broken lawn mowers that my dad would leave back there to rust. I don’t know why he did that, exactly, except that maybe he thought they were going to biodegrade down to dust and no one would know. Now and then my dad would get this idea that we needed grass, and he’d buy sod and lay it down. It would look nice for about a week, and then we’d both forget to water it.

  After driving probably a quarter mile on a winding driveway, I’m at the front of the house. I park in the half-circle driveway and walk up the large stone steps, past the snarling white marble lions (money does not breed taste, apparently) to the enormous wooden door. I want to call my buds and tell them about the lions, but it wouldn’t be polite to do that right now. I make a mental note to call them later with all the gory details. I ring the bell, even though the people inside already knew I was coming because I had to ring another bell down at the gate to have it opened. I’m not sure I ever want to have so much money that I need all these gates to keep people away. Security cameras above the door watch me. When I move, the cameras move. Creepy. A house with eyes?

  Jessica’s mother answers the door in a frilly white miniskirt and a matching white tank top. The skirt starts so low on her hips and ends so high on her thighs that I think it must be no more than, like, three inches long.

  “Paski!” she says brightly, like we’re old friends. She seems much happier than the last time I saw her. Relieved. I’m glad she’s feeling better. It must have been scary thinking your child might die. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” I say. “How are you?”

  “Good, things are good. Come in.” She steps aside and makes a sweeping motion to the interior of the house. “I’m glad you’re here. Jessica’s expecting you.”

  I enter the house and look around. Mrs. Nguyen looks me up and down with a smile. “You are so cute!” she says. “You look adorable.”

  “Thank you.”

  “All you girls are so cute.” She sighs and fidgets with the edge of her skirt like she wishes she wasn’t as old as she is. I think the skirt is the same one Jessica wore at the party the night she threw me into the pool. Jessica’s mother’s belly is tanned and flat, and she has a diamond in her belly button. She looks better than most of the girls at school and must be at least twice our age. She’s one of those moms all the guys at school dream about.

  She closes the door after I step into the house. “Jessie and Bree are waiting for you,” she says.

  “Bree?” I ask.

  “Brianna. Jessie and Bree are so excited to see you. They said you’re new at school but that they’ve gone out of their way to welcome you.”

  They said that? I don’t argue the point. I only smile and try not to look too stunned.

  “That’s the thing about Jessica,” says Mrs. Nguyen. “She is so loving to her friends. And so generous. She’s a great kid.”

  “Yeah, she is,” I echo uncertainly.

  “Follow me,” says Mrs. Nguyen. She takes me to the living room and leaves me on the pale yellow sofa. “I’ll just go make sure the girls are ready for company. I’ll be right back, sweetie.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  After she leaves, I look around and allow my jaw to drop in amazement. The house is spectacularly large, and everything in it is pale, curly, tassled, golden, and expensive-looking. It reminds me of a TV set for that Spanish-language psychic, Walter Mercado, that my dad loves to make fun of. Windows take up most of the western wall, with incredible views of the ocean. The wall behind me is a fish tank. No, I mean the whole wall. It’s like a city aquarium. I wonder if the fish get depressed, looking out the window at the sea.

  I look around the room, amazed. I’m overwhelmed by the money these people have, but also by the fact that everything — and I mean everything — is covered in cheesy portraits of Jessica. There are photos. Paintings. Even a couple of sculptures. Of course she’s the vainest girl on the planet. These people have taught her that she is the center of the universe. Jessica wakes up, walks in here, and sees that she is the most important human being to ever live. With all her money and fame, there’s nothing to make her doubt her supremacy, not for a single second.

  There’s a fireplace and a sparkly gigantic chandelier, and the walls have shiny gold wallpaper on them. The furniture goes way beyond the norm, with little antique tables and chairs that don’t exactly match but look like they were designed precisely not to. Everything goes together in unexpected ways. The gold, yellow, and cream curtains are really nice and look like they were hand-sewn. I can’t be sure, but it looks like the fabric of the cords holding the curtains back is printed with tiny golden images of . . . Jessica’s face.

  Mrs. Nguyen comes back with a cheery smile and asks me to follow her. “They are so thrilled you’re here!” We go down a long hall, past a half-dozen rooms that I wish I could wander through. I have never seen a house like this, not even on that MTV show Cribs. It’s like a museum of all things frilly and scary. No. That’s not quite right. It’s like a shrine. To Jessica.

  At the end of a second hall, we go down a curving staircase. At the bottom is another living room, this one done in a more modern style. Like the one upstairs, it has huge windows that look out to the sea. The creamy carpet is accented with a colorful modern rug done in squares and squiggles. Around the rug are two chairs and a sofa. They’re very slick and leather. In the middle sits a coffee table that looks like a steel sculpture of something extremely bowlegged. On the wall behind one of the chairs hang three original paintings, each of Jessica’s face at a different angle. They must each be six feet tall, and the colors are so bright you want to wear shades. My. God.

  “This is Jessie’s wing of the house,” explains Mrs. Nguyen. Um, no kidding.

  She leads me past a kitchen — a kitchen, Jessica has her own kitchen, with
white granite counters and stainless steel appliances! — down another hall, past what looks like a miniature movie theater with red velvet stadium seating, to a large bedroom. Jessica waits inside, lying on a massive white bed. Brianna lies on her belly next to her, reading a CosmoGIRL! and snapping her gum. The bed sits on a simple dark gray platform in the center of the room. Strange. I have never seen a bed in the center of a room. The style of Jessica’s wing is quite different from the rest of the house, which felt regal and stately in an English, Prince Charles, Vegas-stripper kind of way. This feels very lofty. It reminds me of a modern art gallery my dad used to take me to in Santa Fe.

  “Hi,” says Jessica in a soft, girlish voice. She points a remote at the wall, and a painting of Jessica’s smiling face rolls down over the flat television she was watching. No more sign that there was a television there at all. Wow. She’s smiling at me like we’re really good friends.

  “Hi,” I say. Brianna smiles at me, too, but there’s something weird about her face, like she doesn’t understand exactly where she is or what she’s doing. She reminds me of a newborn chicken, finding a whole new world before her every time she blinks.

  Mrs. Nguyen kisses her daughter’s head and speaks to her in the kind of voice parents use on babies. “My poor wittle girl,” she says. “Does she need anything?”

  Jessie looks at me and rolls her eyes. I guess we have something else in common besides motorcycles and Chris. We both find our parents annoying. If nothing else, we might be able to bond over that.

  “I’m fine, Mom. Go away. I want to be alone with my best buds.”

  Brianna smiles at me again, like we actually are best friends. Like, if Jessica says it, then it must be true.

  Best buds? Go away? She told her mom to go away? She called me her best friend? That’s odd. All of it’s odd. I know that sometimes I talk to my dad like this, but hearing Jessica do it makes me realize it doesn’t sound very good. I should be nicer to my dad. I really should.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask Jessica after her mother has tiptoed out of the room.

  “Like dog crap,” she says with a wry smile. Brianna nods as if she knows this to be true. Jessica waves me toward her. I go to sit on the bed. I’m on one side, Brianna on the other. Jessica grabs my hand with her free hand (the other is in a cast) and gives it a squeeze. “You are so pretty, Paski,” she says. She turns to Brianna. “Isn’t she pretty?”

  “So pretty,” murmurs Brianna distractedly, still flipping through the magazine. “But you’re really pretty, too, Jess.”

  Jessica smiles and shrugs, like a queen. “I need to tan. But I can’t, with the casts.”

  “You look fine,” I say softly. Actually, she looks all bruised and battered, but you can still tell she’s beautiful.

  “I feel like I’m going to die,” she says.

  “She feels like she’s going to die,” says Brianna. Yeah, I think, thanks for the recap. Brianna, the master of repetition.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say to Jessica, apologizing for her pain but also for the tackiness of her house and the lack of intelligence of her friend. “I wish this never happened to you.”

  “Yeah, well, it did,” Jessica retorts. “Freak accident.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Anyway,” she continues. “I’m the one who should say I’m sorry. About all that stuff with the notes and the pool and Chris.” For some reason, her expression doesn’t match the words. Her face is telling me she still hates me. Or maybe I’m just paranoid and still a little afraid of her.

  “Jessie’s really sorry,” says Brianna. What is she, a parrot?

  As Jessica stares down at the comforter, her expression seems a little bored, a little hurt, and a little devious all at once.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say, trying to sound relaxed. “I understand. The important thing is that we’re cool with each other now.”

  She does not look up. “No,” she says with a strange smile. “I should. I should say I’m sorry. I was a total bitch to you.”

  “You were,” says Brianna to Jessica. “Like, so not nice. So cold.” They grin at each other like being a cold bitch is a positive trait.

  “I was petty and jealous,” Jessica continues with a playful roll of her eyes. “Stupid, really.”

  “What?” My voice comes out higher and more pitiful than I realized it could. I look around this amazing room. “Why would someone like you be jealous of someone like me? You have everything.”

  Brianna says, “Yeah, Jess, you have everything. Except a tan. You even have a wheelchair now.”

  “Shut up,” Jessica tells Brianna. Then she shakes her head and frowns. “No.” She raises a single eyebrow, like Catherine Zeta Jones. How does she do that? I want to be able to make that face. “Paski, here’s the deal. You got the only thing I really wanted.”

  “I did?”

  She finally looks at me. “Five-ten, broad shoulders, six-pack, great smile, funny.” She shrugs. “You know who I’m talking about?”

  Brianna frowns and asks, “Chris Cabrera?” Like she isn’t really sure.

  “Shut up, Bree. I wasn’t talking to you, okay?” snaps Jessica.

  “Chris?” I echo. Jessica smiles and blinks really fast, like she’s embarrassed to like him as much as she does. “He’s just a guy,” I say. “You have every guy in the world drooling over you!”

  “Every guy, it’s true,” says Brianna.

  Jessica tosses her hair back, then winces in pain. I guess it hurts to be snotty now that her bones are broken. “I know. I know that now. But I really care about Chris. He’s my soul mate. I mean, he was.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I keep quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry,” I begin. “I didn’t know it was that serious. If I’d known, Jessica, I wouldn’t have. I mean, I don’t know. I’m just sorry. About everything.” I realize I’ve lied to her. But how else could I handle this?

  “It’s okay, Paski. Don’t worry about me.” An evil little smile creeps across her face. “I’m over him, pretty much. And I’ll get back at him someday.”

  I look at her face to try to see whether she’s joking. I don’t think she is. “Get back at him?”

  “Not him directly, but his memory. Not a big deal. Don’t worry about it, okay? We’re still cool. You can have him.”

  “Isn’t that up to him?” I ask, sort of baffled.

  “No, not really. If I really wanted Chris, I could have him back.”

  “She totally could, if she, like, wanted to,” says Brianna.

  I feel sick. I was hoping to actually maybe make peace with Jessica today, but I don’t know how to respond. Did she bring me here to try and kill me again because of Chris?

  Jessica smiles at me. “I mean what I said about being best buds. And about Chris. He’s yours. I’m moving on.”

  “Okay,” I say slowly.

  “But the thing is, when you’re friends with me, you have to play by my rules.”

  “You so do,” says Brianna. “But it’s worth it.”

  “I don’t understand?” I ask Jessica.

  “I’m saying that all will be forgiven and we can be friends, but you have to do what I tell you to do on matters of importance. So, rule number one is, when it comes to decisions for the group, I get final say.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  Brianna looks stunned for a moment, then starts to laugh like a hyena. Her eyes look fearful, though. Jessica holds up her hand in a way that tells Brianna to stop laughing, then she says to me, “That’s rule one. Rule two is that you stop trying to race motocross.”

  “I’m not trying to race!” I cry. What does she mean?

  “I heard from some people I know that you were practicing at the track with Chris.”

  “That was just for fun.”

  “Well, just don’t do it anymore. Stay out of my territory, and everything will be fine. I mean, it’s not that I don’t want you to have fun. It’s just, well, it’s like this. My dad’s in business,
right?”

  “Right,” I say, wondering why she would need me to validate this statement.

  “And in business, you don’t want to have people in the same corporation competing with each other for the same work. You need to diversify your interests so that you increase your chances for success. We are like a company. Understand?”

  I nod. I understand that Jessica Nguyen is crazy.

  Jessica smiles and grabs my hand again. “In other words, you should find something else to be good at, the way Brianna is good at volleyball and I’m good at motocross and Haley’s good at music. If two of us are doing the same thing, then it won’t work as a company.”

  “I see.”

  “So you can’t do volleyball or music, either,” says Jessica. She looks at me like she’s thinking. “We need to think of something really cool for you to be good at. Because that’s the other thing about being part of our group. We’re all outstanding. We are the hottest, smartest, coolest girls in Orange County.”

  “I know,” I say, knowing I have to agree. I can’t believe I’m going along with her, but as crazy as she is it seems unwise not to.

  “Good girl. So let’s think of something for you to be good at.”

  “I’m on the newspaper staff,” I suggest. I wish I had the guts to get up and leave, but I don’t. I’m ashamed to realize the thought of being a popular member of this group is intriguing.

  Jessica wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, no. Way goofy. You need something cool to be good at, like fashion or skateboarding. Something. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. Meanwhile, there’s something else important to talk about now.”

  “Uh, okay,” I say.

  “Brianna told me she saw you having breakfast with those geek twins this morning.” She’s scowling at me.

  “Keoni and Kerani?”

  “So gross,” says Brianna, with a finger down her throat for emphasis.

  Jessica stares at me like I’ve done something wrong. “The geek twins, Paski.”

  “And?” I ask.

  She looks frustrated. “Hello? You want to be our friend, right? So, you can’t be seen in public with people like that. What is wrong with you?”