The Way You Make Me Feel

by Maurene Goo

  The day was sunny, but there were dark clouds on the horizon. Apparently, it was the rainy season, so the weather was temperamental. We had already hit up a few boutiques where everyone had gotten free stuff (including me! A pair of insanely overpriced leather sandals and a straw hat—both of which I decided to wear immediately) and taken a thousand and one photos.

  We were on our way to the spa at yet another eco resort. I found a lot of this stuff really over-the-top, but at the same time I couldn’t deny that it was a pretty sweet deal. Getting paid to shop and relax? To eat fancy food and stay at posh boutique hotels? Okay!

  “That hat looks fab, Clara Shin!” Kendra shouted to me from her bike, snapping a photo and making her bike teeter precariously for a few seconds while doing so. I couldn’t believe none of them had eaten it while filming and riding. It was bound to happen, right? Bonus points if caught on camera. I was almost willing to do it for them.

  While everyone else had been glued to their phones all afternoon, I decided to leave mine back in my room. One, international roaming charges were no joke. Two, avoiding Hamlet and Rose.

  I popped a wheelie, making someone behind me scream with fear. My mom called out, “You better not hurt yourself on this trip, or Adrian will kill me!” He would, but it was my dad who taught me all the tricks on my eighth birthday. I felt another wave of homesickness, but the kind where I wished my dad could be here to experience this with me. I couldn’t remember the last time he traveled anywhere by plane. He would have foodie-fainted over the ceviche we’d had at the party last night.

  A couple of spa staff were waiting for us at the entrance that was shaded by tall palms. They took our bikes (bike valet?), and we entered the white adobe-style building. After getting signed in and bundled up in plush robes, we got our various treatments—everything was planned out for us: first, a dip in the various pools. I stayed in the cold one, sweaty from the bike ride. Then we got hot stone massages in individual huts outside. I made sure to stick close to my mom. I didn’t want to be rubbed down while naked next to a stranger. Then it was time for a facial. My face was glowing afterward, and I felt like an angel. When everyone was in the saunas and steam rooms, I went poolside and took a nap. Throughout everything, we were served bottled water with slices of lemon and various fruits. My mom took a Story of me with an orange slice covering my teeth as she asked me a bunch of questions, cracking up the entire time. I also let her take photos of me with cucumbers on my eyes, even though apparently that was a spa cliché and no one really did that anymore.

  By the time we got back to the hotel, I was pooped from pampering. Everyone seemed to feel the same and went off to their villas to relax until the yoga class.

  My mom and I lay back in lounge chairs facing the Caribbean Sea, each with a coconut in hand. People actually did that here. I was hoping for a sunset, but Mãe told me we were facing east. She said we could have dinner on the jungle side tomorrow to watch it to the west. As a warm breeze drifted lazily over us, I glanced at my mom and smiled. “Today was fun.”

  She rolled over onto her side to look at me. “Right? I’m so glad you made it, meu bem.” When my mom wasn’t around her posse, she used Portuguese mom-expressions like “meu bem.”

  “Me too.” And I was.

  “How’s everything going, then?” she asked, taking a sip.

  I shrugged. “Fine.”

  “Really? Then how come Adrian was totally panicked when he called me yesterday?”

  My head swiveled toward her. “What! You told me…”

  “Girl. I was lying. Where do you think you get your skills from?” She flipped her hair to punctuate the point.

  I shook my head. “Of course.” The sky darkened, and someone lit the tiki torches around us. “Well, I kind of … left without telling Pai.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did you pay for your ticket?” Incredulity made her eyes huge.

  Picking at the lemon yellow cushion on my chair, I took my time answering. “I know Pai’s credit card number by heart.”

  “Meu Deus,” she breathed, making the sign of the cross on herself. “I can’t believe you’re still alive.”

  “I know. It was … impulsive.”

  “Ya think?” she said with an exaggerated American accent. “What made you do it? You wanted to come here that badly? I could have convinced your dad!”

  Someone came by to offer us mango slices. We dutifully took some. So delicious, it hurt. After chewing, I responded, “Well, see, I entered the KoBra in a food truck competition. It was supposed to be a surprise for Pai because the reward is one hundred thousand dollars.” Mãe whistled. “Yeah. Exactly. But then Rose accidentally told him about it—”

  “Who’s Rose?”

  I exhaled impatiently. “My friend from school who had to work with me on the truck.”

  “Wait, your friend? Adrian told me you guys got into a huge fight and that’s why you had to work on the truck in the first place?”

  My hand fluttered between us. “Yeah, we hated each other, but it’s cool now. Anyway. She told him about the contest, and he freaked out and got mad. At me!” I looked to her for confirmation on how horribly unfair it was.

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “I have no clue! I mean, he was in a bad mood because an investor backed out for his restaurant.”

  “Clara.” My mom looked at me with exasperation. “Maybe he was just in a bad mood, and it wasn’t the right time to tell him the news about the contest?”

  I ate another slice of mango. “Maybe. Either way, he got mad and that made me mad.” Suddenly my words sounded absurd coming out of my mouth. The monumentalness of my dad’s offense became so small as I sat here on a beach in Tulum. I tried to figure out why, at the time, it felt so big. “It made me mad because … I finally cared about this stupid truck. And I was trying to help—that money could be the final piece he needs to open his dream restaurant! And, and…”

  “You were disappointed?” my mom asked. She was stirring her coconut water, the question casual. Perfunctory, even. But it zeroed in on everything.

  The ocean and sky were the same color now. I stared at the reflection of the moon on the water. “Yeah. I was disappointed.” And it was the first time I had been that thoroughly disappointed. It’s easy not to be disappointed when you’re always wading in the shallow end of feelings. Patrick and Felix never disappointed me. I glanced at my mom.

  Neither did she.

  “Hey, so your dad also told me you were dating someone new?”

  The subject change caught me off guard. “Oh. Yeah … I mean, I was? I’m not sure what the deal is now. I fought with him, too, before I left,” I said sheepishly.

  “Wow, Clara. Burning everything down,” she said, spraying herself with some mosquito repellent. “What’s his deal?”

  Hm, Hamlet’s deal. How to explain this guy? “Well, he works at this coffee kiosk at one of our stops. Which he doesn’t really have to do because his parents are rich. Like, they own skyscrapers in China rich.” My mom nodded knowingly. I’m sure she knew every variety of wealth in her line of work. I continued, “He was born in Beijing and moved to LA when he was little, but his parents moved back for work, so he lives with some family friends. They’re cool. And he goes to a different school but is the same grade as me. And … that’s where our similarities end.” I had to laugh.

  “What does he look like? Is he cute?” Right down to business, my mother.

  “He’s your basic … hot.”

  “Basic hot?”

  I squinted. “No, he’s more than that. I mean, he’s definitely hot. But there’s nothing basic about him.” I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat talking about him. A buildup of guilt, remorse, and missing. “He’s driven and kind. A boxer.”

  “Ooh.”

  “Yeah. There’s a lot of ‘ooh.’”

  My mom whipped her phone out. “Can I find him on your Insta?”

  “Y
eah. He’s there.”

  I craned my neck to watch as she scrolled through my feed. “Oh!” she exclaimed, pointing to a photo of him holding Flo up like a prize fish. “Is that him?”

  A surge of happiness coursed through me just seeing his face. “Yeah, that’s him! Hamlet.”

  She glanced up at me. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Well, he’s cute. What’s the problem? Why did you fight?”

  It’s the least special thing about you. The words still hurt days later. “Oh. You know. The stuff people fight about.”

  Before she could respond, Kendra and Jeremy were running down the beach waving to us with big, sweeping arm gestures. My mom waved back. “Looks like yoga’s starting,” she said, getting up. She held out her hands to help me up. “Well, don’t be too sad, Clara. High school romances, who needs them, right? There are so many guys out there, and they’d be lucky to date you.”

  It was the nice, mom thing to say. But a small part of me wanted her to push me, to challenge my reasons for wanting to end things with Hamlet. But I knew, for my mom, high school romances didn’t work out. And she’d been keeping herself at arm’s reach from those kinds of intense feelings ever since.

  I trailed behind her as she ran toward her friends. A reminder of teenage mistakes, of the ephemeral nature of love.

  CHAPTER 31

  Days passed in a relaxed and pampered haze.

  I’d wake up, take a morning yoga class with my mom or Kendra or someone on the beach, have a super-late brunch at the hotel, then spend the afternoon helping my mom take photos of herself at some destination. One day it was ancient ruins (which was rad until someone almost fell off a ledge taking a selfie); another day it was sailing to an island where we had a picnic spread out for us with, like, antique flatware. Evenings were always spent back at the hotel—dinner, drinks, hot tub. Repeat.

  And in all that time, I had sent one text to Hamlet: Thanks for checking in. I’m good. I just need time. Talk soon.

  He had responded with a thumbs-up emoji, which in Hamlet-speak was a low-key “F-you.”

  I had apologized to Rose but I hadn’t heard back yet. It would have worried me more, except it was easy to bury that stuff deep in the back of my brain, prioritized way below the sand in my bathing-suit bottom or the mosquito bites on my ankles.

  But one morning I woke up and just didn’t feel like doing yoga. Instead I wondered what Rose, Hamlet, and my dad were doing. Because my dad was respecting my time with Mãe, I hadn’t really talked to him, either. How was the KoBra doing? Was Rose still working on it? Did Hamlet win his boxing tournament last weekend? Was it still hot in LA? Did Flo miss me?

  So I told my mom I was going to take the day for myself. I borrowed her iPad because I had dropped my phone into the ocean yesterday, and it was on the fritz. I slathered on sunscreen even though the day was overcast, packed my backpack with water and the iPad, then hopped on my bike.

  Shuttled off from one activity to the next since the day I arrived, I hadn’t had time to explore on my own. I was pretty tired of all the restaurants and businesses on the main drag, so I decided to explore the small side streets today.

  The instant I turned left onto the first random street, the vibe completely changed. Everything was slower, quieter. I saw actual children playing in the road. There were homes and businesses, but spread far apart, and the buildings were older, less finished.

  Time passed as I rode leisurely around these little roads and soon the sun came out—beating down on my new straw hat. Sweat trickled down my temple, and I pulled over to have some water. As I guzzled out of my bottle, I noticed a small wooden sign with an arrow pointing down a sandy path shaded by overgrown tropical greenery. Vines and ropey limbs tangled up to create a dense corridor.

  Well, why not? I walked my bike down the path, swatting at the occasional mosquito. After a few minutes, the plants gave way, and I was standing on a pristine white beach. But in the middle of it was a tiny hut and plastic tables scattered with chairs. Nothing matched, everything looked like it came from someone’s porch.

  I loved it.

  “Hola,” a woman greeted me warmly as I walked up to the hut. There was a counter, and I could smell food cooking in the back.

  I smiled and waved. “Hola.” Then I glanced around to see if there was a menu.

  Catching my searching expression, the woman said, “No menu here. We cook what we have!”

  Sniffing the air, I was down to eat whatever they were serving. “Okay, sounds good.” She told me to seat myself, and I sat down at the table closest to the ocean. There were some people in the water. It seemed like you could plop down at the beach here and eat or just hang out.

  The setting was perfect and quiet and peaceful. And yet … the antsiness I’d woken up to was still there. I pulled my mom’s iPad out of my backpack, slipping it from its designer leather sleeve. I really wanted to see what was going on with the KoBra.

  Opening up the browser, I planned on stalking the Twitter account first, but my mom’s e-mail popped up. I was about to close out of it until I noticed a folder labeled CLARA on the sidebar.

  Probably all of our e-mail correspondence archived. Oh boy, there would definitely be some hilarious gems in there—like the epic diary entries I’d sent her in middle school when I hated all my friends. I clicked on it, excited to go down memory lane.

  But the e-mails weren’t from me. They were from Pai.

  What? Were these, like, child-custody-related e-mails? I knew I shouldn’t, but I clicked on the latest one, which was from a few weeks ago.

  July 24

  To: Juliana Choi

  From: Adrian Shin

  Jules,

  Does Clara know this Tulum trip is for work? She seems to think it’s just a vacation for you two. Mind clearing that up so she’s not so pissed about not being able to go?

  -Adrian

  I frowned. Okay, clearly my dad was waiting for my mom to tell me. Which she never had. I scrolled down and skimmed the e-mail subjects. My dad had been sending them regularly for years, it seemed. I clicked one from six months ago, in February.

  February 10

  To: Juliana Choi

  From: Adrian Shin

  Jules,

  Clara’s sad about her breakup with that loser whatshisname. Thought she could use some Mom time when Valentine’s Day comes around. Probably less awkward than me talking to her. Give her a call, okay?

  -Adrian

  Whatshisname. My dad’s least favorite boyfriend of mine, Leo, he of the no teeth-brushing. He always called my dad “bro.” Although he wasn’t the love of my life, I had been pretty bummed when we broke it off. So it was nice when my mom called. We had Skyped while watching the least romantic movie we could think of on Valentine’s Day. (Blackfish—nothing kills romance like a documentary about animal cruelty!) I had chalked up the timing to Mom instincts.

  I went even further back, to two years ago.

  September 3

  To: Juliana Choi

  From: Adrian Shin

  Jules,

  Hey, I didn’t hear back about whether or not you can make it to Clara’s birthday this year. Here’s the wish list I promised of things she wants. She’s going through a spectacular phase in puberty of hating everything, so this was a serious undertaking.

  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

  • A Venus flytrap

  • A neon sign shaped like a cat

  • New pair of Vans, high-top black ones

  • Colored pencils

  • Something called “primer.” I think it’s makeup??

  • Pasta maker

  True mystery, our daughter.

  -Adrian

  My breath caught in my throat. I got every single thing on my birthday list that year. From my mom. My dad took me to the beach, and I remember thinking my mom was so much cooler than him. How she was so good at knowing exactly what I liked. He had let her take all the glory for the presen
ts.

  Always.

  I went as far back as ten years ago in e-mails and found birthday lists then, too. From my dad to my mom, every time. Dozens, hundreds of e-mails. Reminders for my mom about school recitals and upcoming visits. Photos of me on the first day of school in slightly bizarre outfits. Horrible class pictures. Holiday and birthday photos when she couldn’t make it—posing with the gifts she sent. Updates on my health, including medications I was taking when I got sick. Every lost tooth noted. The first day of my period and the sheer panic that came with it. Questions about birth control and makeup and clothes.

  This folder was a record of my entire life.

  My food arrived: a whole grilled fish with buttery rice, beans, and a fresh salad. I looked up and the same woman from behind the counter looked concerned. “¿Estas bien?” she asked.

  I touched my face; it was wet with tears. Good God. Crying in public was my new thing now? “Yes, I’m fine! Just allergies.” She gave my shoulder a little pat, and I stared at the screen for a few seconds before shutting it off.

  When I took a bite of the food, I immediately thought of how much Pai would like the seasoning. Sitting there eating fish on a white sand beach with a cool breeze drifting over me, more than ever I wished I were on the KoBra—enclosed in an overheated truck with my dad and my best friend.

  CHAPTER 32

  When I got back to the hotel, my mom was getting her hair and makeup done in her villa.

  “Clara! You’re just in time. I’m about to start this interview for Pleat and Gather,” she said as a stylist tugged viciously on her hair with a curling iron.

  I plopped onto her bed. “What’s Pleat and Gather?”

  “You don’t know PLEAT AND GATHER?” she yelped, whether from incredulity or pain, I couldn’t tell. “It’s only the biggest fashion website, kiddo. Anyway, wanna stick around?”

  “I have no life obligations, so sure.” I was a little dazed from my afternoon snooping, and passively watching my mom get interviewed seemed like a great idea at the moment.