Juniors (2 page)

Walk i
f you feel that you'
ll never have enough
. Walk if you do thi
ngs to feel good tha
t aren't good for yo
u. Walk if these thi
ngs make you feel wo
rse.
These questions resonate inside us, triggering our brains to remember things specific or vague, which can be harder—not having a thing to stick a pin into.

Ross and Jim aren't making jokes after every question anymore, and the cluster of girls has been separated by their differing answers. The majority of the group is well ahead of me, which makes me feel boring. I need to steal, cheat, gossip, do drugs, text someone pictures of my boobs. Beside and behind me are the people I expect to see: Mark Lam, Mark Lum, Geoff Davenport, Sylvia Moncrief, the ballerinas, but then I see
someone only a few steps ahead whose presence surprises me: Whitney. Beautiful, blessed Whitney West, daughter of a hotelier; she's like Hawaii's Paris Hilton. I make eye contact with her. She has never spoken to me before, even though our mothers are friends and my mom and her dad both went to Punahou.

Mom and the Wests have kept in touch, though it seems that Melanie's fondness for my mom is proportionate to my mom's success. A stint in a sitcom: Melanie West calls. A commercial for Crest Whitening Strips: not so much.

Now, for example, with a show set in Hawaii on the brink of its debut, Melanie is a close, close, super-close friend.

When my mom and I visited my grandparents—who passed away four and seven years ago—Melanie would have her come to dinner parties. She was Melanie's actress friend. I was never invited (rich people seem to have a no-kids rule), and my mom would come home feeling slightly proud and slightly degraded.

“I'm kind of like a circus monkey,” she once said, having had to perform one-liners all night about the famous people she has come across in her career.

Whitney looks back and smiles at me, just slightly. I can't tell if it's a smile recognizing our family connection or if it's a kind of sly grin, telling me she's lying and she shouldn't be so far behind. Why is she so far behind? Is she not as experienced as I'd imagine her to be? Or maybe she's back here because nothing bad can touch her.

Her brother, Will, is a senior. He's her male equivalent, looks-wise, yet even more large and magnetic, pristine. My first week of school, I happened to pass him, thinking that he'd know who I was because of my mom. “Hey,” I managed to say. He looked
at me as though he wasn't sure if I'd spoken or burped, and he kept on walking.

“Walk if you feel like you're living your life to its fullest potential,” Sheri says in a soft voice.

I don't move. Whitney doesn't either. Of course we don't. We're seventeen. I hope to God this isn't my fullest potential.

On the other side of the partition, I hear the dribbling of basketballs and feel like our little world is being intruded upon. Sheri turns the music up.

“Now,” Sheri says, “walk if you've ever done anything illegal.”

An easy one. Mostly everyone walks. I'm sure we've all had a drink, even the peer counselors.

“This week,” Sheri says. “Walk if you've done something illegal this week.”

It's Tuesday. I rack my brain for something, anything. Jaywalking perhaps, not using my blinker. Other people walk, and they all happen to be good-looking, as if only beautiful people can have such bad fun. They're looking around with smirks on their faces. What have they done? I have always known that my life was a little predictable, but for the first time, I see it as totally disappointing. Whitney walks. I'm farther behind her now. What has she done in just two days? Mike turns around and gives her a knowing look that I don't think anyone else was supposed to see. I want to walk too. I want to seem interesting. No—I want to
be
interesting. This
is
a race, and I am far behind. And then I remember something. I guess it's not technically illegal, but whatever—it's against the rules. I proudly take five steps. I'm in the gym, and I'm wearing black-soled shoes.

• • •

When I get home my mom tells me something that brings me back to today's exercise, our crossing. I think of what I had felt during the truth walk—wanting a change, wanting something, anything, wanting to belong here, to just speak up. For me, it wasn't about getting real and confessing, it was seeing what little there was to be said.

When my mom tells me what's about to happen I experience a rush and then a kind of crushing. I'm stunned into silence—the what, why, when, whaaaat???? of it all stuck to my dumb tongue.

My mom tells me we're moving to 4461 Kahala Avenue. The home of Whitney West.

I IMMEDIATELY H
AD TO GET ON MY BIKE
AND RIDE OUT
of Enchanted Lakes to clear my head. I rode through the other sections of Kailua, a town I know and love. I can't say that I love our house, though. I ride back into our neighborhood and park my cruiser in the carport and look at our dark town house, which sits alongside a canal that I believe to be a source of diseased tilapia and staph infections. According to my mom, we will move to a three-bedroom cottage on a thirty-thousand-square-foot lot right on the ocean. White sand, palm trees, disease-free fish.

Our current neighbors are a single mom with a red-faced toddler who is always screaming and beating his chest and, on the left, Dr. Rocker, a sex therapist for paraplegics. Our new neighbors will be less visible. I've already looked them up. On the right: Stanton Ichinose, founder of a hospital supply company and a recent addition to the Forbes list of world billionaires. To the left: Stavros Angelopoulos, a money manager known as “the Greek,” who just purchased the home (his third) for a bargain at twenty-one million.

Moving into a new home bought with my mom's hard-earned money would sound awesome to me, but the thought of
living in Whitney's cottage? I may as well go the cafeteria, put on a hairnet, and serve her two scoops of rice.

I walk in. My mom's in the kitchen, packing up a box. Her phone is docked and playing music—the poor sound quality is something she doesn't mind, but it drives me bonkers.

“You're packing already?” I ask. “You just told me two hours ago. I went for a ride, remember? To clear my head before getting more details. Now I need to reclear!”

“You don't need to reclear,” she says, looking at me as if I'm joking around and not being completely heartfelt. Her smile is wide and filled with nice square teeth. She has a face that's calming. I don't know how she isn't some megastar. She's beautiful in this effortless and blooming way that makes me stare sometimes as if I don't know her at all.

“I just got inspired to organize,” she says. She flips her hair back and rolls her head from side to side.

I look around at the stained carpet and worn armchairs that were here before we moved in. The chairs are covered with our things.

“There are
boxes,
” I say. “I see boxes.”

“May as well get started,” she says. “The cottage is open, and we pay month-to-month here. Plus, it's kind of hard to know you're going somewhere but not heading there, right?” She ponders a spatula, the slightly melted plastic, and puts it aside. “This is crazy,” she says, but in a way where “crazy” means exciting and not insane. She looks at me for confirmation, but I don't give her any, so she looks away, still smiling to herself.

I get a glass of water, wishing I had those poetry magnets to try to describe what I'm feeling with a limited choice of words.
I look at the small TV as if someone on it could help me out. The redheaded woman on the screen says she's going to stick it to cancer.

“How was school?” my mom asks. Her innocent everyday question has no place here, and how does one ever answer that question in ways other than “good” or “okay” or by shrugging?

“It was somewhat taxing,” I say. “I was nervous walking by this group of guys. They just sit in this spot, looking really bored, and I have to walk by them every day to get to biology.”

My mom keeps sorting through utensils and cookware.

“Biology was kind of fun,” I say. “We dissected a frog—I thought it would come shrink-wrapped like bacon the way they did at Storey, but Punahou doesn't use real frogs. They use a frog app, so we dissected on our laptops.”

“Cool,” she says, though I could have said “I have herpes” and elicited the same response.

“Creative writing was creative,” I continue. “Our teacher is kind of lame. I think he wants to be like a movie teacher—you know, all irreverent and inspiring—but it just makes him look like a tool. I ate a papaya and a Dove bar and some sushi at the snack bar. And in ethical responsibility, we did an exercise that had the ironic effect of making me want to be more unethical.”

My mom sifts through a drawer. I'm always super detailed as punishment for her asking me how school was, but she keeps asking and, as far as I can tell, she listens here and there. I try to catch her tuning out.

I walk around to get air in my shirt—it's so hot in here, and I'm sweaty from the bike ride. I can't help but feel thrilled that we're leaving. We've always known we wouldn't stay in this
condo, so we never bothered to make it our own. My mom's been keeping an eye out for rentals in Maunawili, or something in town. I'm not sure how we could have made this our own, anyway. It seems designed for anonymity.

“I jumped off the roof of the gym into the pool,” I say. “Herpes.”

She throws some plastic spoons into the trash. “Are you swimming for PE?”

Caught her.

“How was
you
r
day?” I ask. “Any other news? Or just that we're moving in with strangers.”

“They're not strangers,” she says and runs her hand through her hair. “The Wests are longtime friends.”

It's funny how my mom's voice takes on a Hawaiian lilt at times. I sit on a bar stool and drum my fingers against the counter. “I'm not understanding how all this happened. Melanie just asked if you wanted to live in their cottage, and you said yes?” I'm hoping the repeated verbalization will make it seem less bizarre.

“Yes,” my mom says. “That's what happened.” She looks like she's holding back laughter.

“Why would she ask? How did it even come up?”

Since we got here, it seems like my mom is constantly taking calls from or going to events with Melanie. With dogs, you multiply their ages by seven to get the human equivalent. It seems like for minor celebrities, when they come to Hawaii, their celebrity also multiplies by seven. San Francisco society couldn't care less about my mom, but here she's on what I call the charity circuit—going to fashion shows and dinners that benefit the
arts or kids with diseases. She chaired some kind of Oscar party, which even she found to be ridiculous. Dentists and lawyers came out and walked a red carpet in their finery, all styled for the grand occasion of watching the Oscars on TV.

“It just . . . came up,” my mom says. I spin on my stool, and she goes through the cabinet with the pots and pans. “She knew we wanted a new place. She was telling me to look in town, that everything was happening on her side. Then she kind of lit up and said we may as well use her cottage, because it's just sitting there. And I guess it made sense. We've been wanting to get out of here, and you know her—you can't mention anything without her texting solutions and offers, I swear.”

She places the cookie sheets on the counter.

“No, I
don't
know her,” I say. “I don't know her at all. How much is rent?”

“Do you think we'll need all of these pots?” she asks.

I don't care about the pots. Kahala is like the equivalent of the Presidio or Nob Hill. I remember a sixth-grade sleepover at my friend Ashley's in the Presidio. Her house was supposedly inspired by a castle in France. Her mother told me to make myself at home. I stood on the cold marble floors, looked up at the grand staircase and the chandelier, and thought,
I don't k
now how to do that.

My mom tucks her hair behind her ear. “So, she won't let me pay rent.”

“What?” I automatically think of the charity circuit.

“I know, it's crazy,” she says off my look. “But I'll try anyway. I offered to cook for them—”

“What? That's ridiculous—like an employee?”

She resumes her packing, gathering kitchenware and putting it into a box, her hair falling back in front of her eyes. “No, no, not like that. Just as a friend. A friendly neighbor. You know I love cooking.”

“Is this some kind of pity party? Should I wear ripped clothes and hold out a tin cup?”

She stops packing, finally stops moving and avoiding the sight of me—my slumped shoulders and questioning face.

“It saves money and gives us a place before I decide if we can make living in Hawaii permanent. Who knows if the show will get renewed, and if it doesn't, then we'll be staying anyway so you can finish school.” She blows out a puff of air. “Plus, it will be fun.” She holds out her fists in a kind of cheering move. “It's beautiful, there's a pool, surf, it's closer to school, closer to everything, and you know the kids, right? They're nice kids, aren't they? It will be a good thing. Really great.”

I don't say anything to her or her happy little fists, but my first feeling is of anger toward her versus empathy when she said it would save money. I don't expect a lot, but sometimes all I want is an unawareness of money matters. I feel that I know too much.

I know that this week, Times has zucchini for $1.49 a pound, which is less than the farmers' market on Thursday. I know that this week Foodland has the cheapest cabbage, and Safeway has blueberries that are buy one get one free.

I know tuition at Punahou is expensive and renting is outrageous, and I know that my mom does pretty much everything on her own. I've never been denied anything. Gymnastics, ballet, tap, musical theater, piano, ukulele, a brief stint on the
bass guitar, ski trips, after-school care, art, private school, car. I've done and still do it all, but am always aware of her working for it and working alone. Maybe this is how all kids with single parents feel.

And so I don't say that this arrangement, especially if she cooks, makes her seem like a live-in maid, because I'm sure this has already crossed her mind. I think when people see my mom on TV, they figure we're super wealthy. She has access, she looks the part, but she's in—not
of
—a certain world.

“Just have Stranger Dad send some money,” I say.

When I asked once how she affords private school, she said he's helped a bit with tuition when needed. She ignores my suggestion.

“Melanie's excited. She says Whitney adores you.”

“I've never spoken to Whitney in my life.” I open the freezer and grab a Popsicle, which makes me feel like a little kid.

“Well, she thinks you and Whitney will really get along. It'll be fun. I promise. And Melanie says to use the pool, come over for barbecues, dinner. She says whenever we want we can sit with the family.”

For some reason, this makes me tear up a bit, and I'm not sure why. Is it because I could sit with my mother and the family and I'm happy, or is it because I'd be allowed to sit with my mother and the family and this is tin-cup humiliating?

“We'll have our own space though, right?” I say. “So we won't be sitting with them anyway.” I take the wrapper off the grape Popsicle and sit back down.

She doesn't answer me, knowing I'm getting worked up. I'm chewing my Popsicle like a rabbit.

“I'm not going,” I say, but she doesn't stop packing, which makes my heart beat fast, like I'm fighting with someone who won't hit back. We both know it's a pitiful threat.

“When are we going?” I mumble.

“We can move in now,” she says. “This week. Tomorrow.”

She won't look at me.
Look at me,
I want to say.

I don't understand my anger completely. I'm angry that what we have isn't good enough. I'm angry that I have so much and don't have a thing.

“It will be a good change for you,” my mom says. “Something different from Enchanted Lakes.”

I know she's implying I have nothing to lose. She knows my daily routine and knows I won't be leaving or giving up very much. Plucking me out of what's familiar could only be for the best. I have no attachments here. My mom's life is the one that matters.

I look out at the canal through the living room window. Across the water is the shirtless man smoking a cigarette and rubbing his hard, round stomach. There is nothing enchanted about this lake, but I'll miss the town, Kailua, the way I feel at ease here. It's a place I could see myself growing into, tailoring it to fit.

I like my routines, even though they're pretty solo—biking on the path by the marsh, the sounds of the birds and my tires on the gravel, the light shooting through the clouds and spilling over the Ko'olaus down onto the expanse of the Kawainui grass. Walking up to the Lanikai pillboxes, looking out at the windward coast and down at Waimanalo, which from that distance looks vacant and wild. Some days I walk
with Danny up to the Pali Lookout, and we're often the only ones on the trail until we get to the top and are joined by the people who come on tour buses. The wind is so strong at the top you can't hear anything but the sound of it, and you feel you'll be swept away. When I'm up there, I always think of my grandmother, who lived here all her life, driving to town on the old highway. I think of the battles fought in that very spot, battles to unite the island chain.

“My routines,” I say.
I have a life
here. Kind of.

My mom looks up and sighs. “Be grateful. You can still do everything you ever did. We'll be half an hour away.”

Then I'll be visiting someone else's backyard.

“You'll find other routines,” she says. “Whitney will show you around, I'm sure.”

“What a carrot,” I say. “She'll show me around Kahala Mall? Or the Outrigger? Great.”

“She's a nice girl,” my mom says. “And what a beauty.”

There's nothing that makes me feel worse than my mom complimenting another girl: it's less about her praising someone else than that she's suggesting I change or try harder. Whitney, hair the color of burnt butter, golden skin that's slightly freckled. If you described us, it would sound as though we looked alike, but the results of our similar traits are different. I feel like I don't wear my brown hair and brown eyes and petite frame as well as she does. I straighten, throw my shoulders back.