Mr. Alvarado takes a moment. “Have you tried contacting Congressman Blakely, then?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “But his office says it’s in our hands. They advised us to wait and not press the matter, actually.” I don’t mention that the congressman is my boyfriend’s dad. Mr. Blakely was sincerely apologetic but it was clear he was also rattled by the leak and there was nothing more he could or would do for my family.
“They said that? Politicians,” Mr. Alvarado says, shaking his head. “They duck and hide.”
“But the judge already agreed to the visa extension. We’re not supposed to be deported, at least, not yet.”
“Tell me what you know,” he says.
I tell him everything I remember about the judge supposedly being pressured by Congressman Blakely to grant the stay of deportation.
Mr. Alvarado sits back, takes it all in. He coughs, clearing his throat. “I don’t know if I can touch this,” he says, to our disappointment. “The judge may have already put a stop to this once Blakely backed out and denied the existence of the private bill. I don’t see how you would still be entitled to that. I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do anything for you.”
“Not even to call the judge to see if the visas were granted to us?” I ask, irritated.
“You chicken! You’re a little hen!” Dad suddenly says.
Mr. Alvarado is shocked at Dad’s words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m no chicken!”
“Liar! I see your feathers!” Dad points. “Right there! Under your collar!”
Mr. Alvarado, still shocked, straightens his shirt.
“Dad!” I say, turning to Mr. Alvarado. “Sir, you can see the stress this has caused. You’ve seen our family in the news. In fact, don’t you think the media would be interested in our side of the story, especially when we tell them how our lawyer promised us a victory and encouraged us to ask for a deportation hearing? I think the exploitation of helpless immigrants for profit is a story that some news outlets would be glad to pursue.”
Mr. Alvarado’s eyes seem to prickle. “Are you forcing my hand, little girl?” he says.
“Call it what you want,” I say. “You need to keep your reputation as a pro-immigrant crusader, and we need you to contact the judge and remind him to make good on his promise. You need to tell him you know all about the favors he owes Congressman Blakely, and that he better get us our visa or we’ll go to the media and tell our side of the story, about how everyone has been in cahoots. They’ve been dying for us to talk to them. We’ve been quiet so far.”
“You would do that?” he says.
“We would,” I say. “It all depends though.”
“On what?” he says.
“On whether you do what’s right. We’re tired of being pawns.”
“And you would make me one?”
I smile sweetly.
* * *
When Dad and I get back to the car, Mom’s shocked at how I handled the lawyer.
“Neneng,” Dad says. “You almost sounded like a lawyer yourself.”
“Do you think he’ll do something?” Mom says. “He seemed to start listening.”
“He has to,” I say. “Or we’ll talk to those journalists who keep hounding us. They’ve been wanting us to talk.”
“Is that a good idea?” Mom asks.
“It would complicate things,” I admit. “But Mr. Alvarado doesn’t know that.”
Dad starts laughing. “Maybe you should work in a casino, Jasmine. You’re pretty good at gambling.”
38
If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
—KATHARINE HEPBURN
ROYCE TAKES MY hand and I feel his warmth. Every time he touches me, there’s a spark between us. I smile to myself—I am so in love with this boy.
We’re at his house. His parents aren’t around. Just us hanging outside by his pool in the evening, lazing in lounge chairs. Everything about this backyard is perfect. The pool. The fountains. The furniture. The meticulously landscaped trees and bushes. A line of statues and columns.
“What was it like growing up here?” I ask.
“Just like growing up anywhere else,” he says. “It’s just home. It’s all I’ve known. I guess it is a little like living in a bubble though, and the older you get the more you can’t see that it’s a bubble. Mason still doesn’t realize the bubble is going to pop one day.”
I want to tell him what I’ve figured out about Mason but let him finish his story.
“Anyway, one summer—I think I was ten or eleven—Mason and I were sitting on opposite edges of the pool, and he poured a bucket of water over one of the maids. He wasn’t trying to be funny. He was being mean and he knew it. You want to know the saddest part? At the time I thought it was funny too. We laughed our asses off.”
“You were kids,” I say.
“Privilege is like having blinders. It’s hard to feel unloved or unwanted because everyone wants your money, so you get the attention. I guess that isn’t really what you’re asking. But when everything is handed to you, there’s no room to write your own story because there’s no struggle. Your life becomes a story centered on accumulating things, all these things you own, instead of about the struggle to live, or the struggle to survive, or the struggle to stay in America, which is a far more interesting story than mine.”
“Interesting? You think I would choose to go through this? Being illegal? Being deported? God, Royce.”
“No, of course not, but you asked me what it was like to grow up here.” He smiles at me cheekily.
“About Mason,” I say.
“What about Mason?”
“He keeps hitting on me,” I say. “It’s creepy.”
“Yeah, I know,” Royce says unexpectedly, his face calm behind his aviator shades. “I’m sorry about that. When we were little, Mason liked taking away my toys and making me cry. It was his favorite game. Remember that girl I told you about? My first serious girlfriend?”
I nod. Girlfriend number five. Not one of the hand-holders, but the first girl who broke his heart.
“She cheated on me with Mason. I found out when he sent me a Snapchat of the two of them hooking up.”
“That’s awful,” I say. “Your brother is a complete psycho.”
“He likes showing me that he can have whatever I have, that he can take away everything I care about. He dumped her soon after. He got what he wanted out of her. I think it’s why he went for Kayla, because you kept turning him down. Kayla was close enough to hurt you, to mess with us.”
“Jeez,” I say, not even able to contemplate the depths of Mason’s instability.
“It’s why I didn’t want to introduce you to him that first night in D.C. He was a National Scholar too, did I tell you? He’s smart as a whip but lazy as a dog. He got kicked out of Harvard, then Stanford, and so now he’s at USC.”
“Wow, he’s seriously messed up.”
“Yep. The price of privilege. I think someone wrote a book about it,” Royce jokes, as it’s a famous title and he’s trying to make light of the situation.
I shake my head. “Royce Blakely, you surprise me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know that you’re the smartest boy I’ve ever met, right?”
“Nah, unlike Mason I only got into Stanford because of my dad. But that’s okay. I’m smart enough to know a good thing when I see it. Like you.”
I laugh.
“Come on,” he says, leaping into the pool. He enters with barely a splash. “Come on!” he yells after me again.
We swim for a while. While we’re hanging by the edge, I tell him something I’ve been worried about since the trial. “I feel like I’ll be less of a person if I move back to the Philippines,” I
confess.
“First of all, you’re not going anywhere. Secondly, you shouldn’t feel that way. Listen to what you’re saying. That Filipinos are lesser? Come on. Being an American makes you feel superior. Talk about privilege.”
“I guess so. When people ask me about what I’ll miss, I usually say you—and then friends of course. But I’ll miss this way of life too.”
“You’re not going to miss me, Jas. Because I’ll be wherever you are.”
I so want it to be true.
“Also, I was going to ask you,” he says, sounding nervous. “I wanted to do this in a more creative way, but things got busy.”
“You’re not going to ask me to prom are you?”
Royce shrugs his shoulders, looking guilty. “How did you know?”
I laugh. “I didn’t! I was joking. Looks like you ruined your own surprise.”
He curses softly, but he’s laughing too. “Well, what do you say? Will you go with me? To prom?”
“Of course, if you’ll go with me to mine,” I say, kissing him so that I taste the saline from the pool on his lips.
Then we’re out of the pool and back on the loungers.
“Royce,” I say, getting his attention so he’s looking at me as he dries off. “You don’t have to stay with me, you know,” I say. I step out and grab a towel, wrapping it around my body. “I mean if I have to leave the country, you need to go on with your life. You can’t keep worrying about me.”
He frowns, then takes me in his arms and wraps his hands around my towel, holding me tight. “Stop saying that,” he says. “You’re staying right here. I’ll think of something. I promise.”
I don’t want to make him mad, but I can’t rely on his family for a solution to our problem. We already tried that once.
39
If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.
—ERMA BOMBECK
DAD GETS OFF the phone with our lawyer.
“What did he say?” Mom asks. She’s working on some work spreadsheets. I feel bad for her. If we’re really going to be deported, then she’ll have to leave her job, which she loves now that she’s been trained.
“I can’t tell if he’s stalling,” Dad says. “He says he’s working on it but then gives me nothing.”
Mom shifts some papers around. “Maybe he’s afraid to tell us the truth.”
I try to play the optimist. “Or maybe he just doesn’t know. Don’t give up,” I say. “Please, Dad, don’t give up.”
We have our first showing of the house this weekend. I keep trying not to think about it, but I have to prepare for the reality that I really might have to leave this country.
* * *
Meanwhile, Millie’s getting better again. She’s breathing a little easier. They let her go home on one condition: she has to have an oxygen mask at all times. She doesn’t seem to mind too much.
Millie must be really bored, though, because she asks me to visit multiple times a week. I’m sitting on the foot of her bed when I ask her about her health. I’m still worried about her.
“Will you have to go back to the hospital?”
“I hope not,” she says. “No guarantees. Any headway on your case?”
“Haven’t heard anything,” I say. “But... I should be hearing any day now from the colleges I applied to. I really want to get into Stanford. But even if I get in, who knows if I’ll be able to go. It’s like the pressure of everything is about to crush me. I feel like the moon is only in the sky because I’m holding it up. And I can’t much longer.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to,” she says. “Just a little longer. Take comfort, Jasmine. Sometimes in the darkest times, a little light shines through.”
* * *
I don’t really feel like being social, but I’m hanging out at Lo’s after visiting Millie because I promised Kayla this favor. All I can think about is our house slipping into the hands of some other American family when it should belong to us. I guess that’s the American dream for you. Your home sold to someone else. Your job filled by another. Your dreams dissipating in a cloud of smoke.
Lo’s sitting on her couch, kicking her red Converses off onto the floor. “So, Jas, you’re coming to the party on Friday, yeah?”
I think of the time I was at one of Lo’s parties and we thought we were being busted by the cops. What does it matter now? I’m getting deported anyway. I tell her that of course I’ll be there with Royce.
Next to her, Julian strings his acoustic guitar. “Yeah,” he says. “You gotta see us one more time.”
“I’m not backing out,” I say, though the feeling of being deported is almost a constant pain in my stomach. “I’ll be there.”
My friends know all about the Politico scandal and that Royce’s dad was trying to help us but when the news leaked, he couldn’t do anything anymore.
“How can you stay with your boyfriend after that?” asks Lo.
Julian turns one of the tuning knobs too far so that his string snaps and hits his fingers. He yelps, then curses. Lo doesn’t even bother to look at him, she’s so used to it.
“It’s not Royce’s fault,” I say. “Although it is a little awkward with his parents right now.”
“Just promise you’ll be at my party,” Lo says.
“I will. Promise. But there was this thing I was wondering about.”
“What?” Lo asks.
“It’ll be kind of weird, but I have to ask. Can Kayla come?”
“Her?” Lo asks. “I don’t know about that—it’s not like I don’t like her. Don’t get me wrong. But Dylan’s my friend. I don’t want to put him in that kind of situation.”
“Now just wait a minute,” Julian says. “Shouldn’t it be up to Dylan?”
“I guess so,” Lo says, backing down.
“I’ll talk to him.” Julian sets his guitar down. “He’s in the backyard. Be right back.”
After Julian walks out of the room, I ask Lo, “How are things going with you guys? You seem inseparable. I don’t think there’s ever a time I come over that he’s not hanging out with you.”
“We’re going to move in together after graduation,” she says. “Or maybe I can convince him to explore with me. Travel the world. Just live. You ever thought about that? Just experiencing as much as you can?”
I hadn’t thought about that at all. I can’t even imagine bringing that up to my parents. Am I too driven? I guess I’m not like other American kids in some ways.
“No,” I laugh. “I’m looking forward to college. Even if I do have to go in the Philippines.”
“You know, I have to say I’m a little excited to see what happens to you. In my opinion, Jasmine, whether you go to college or move back to the Philippines, you’re going to win either way.”
“How’s that?” I say. “It’s not what I want.”
“I know it’s not. But in my fantasy world I think, hey, you get to see some of the world. Look where you’ll be. You’ll see places most of us only dream of. And with your experiences and knowledge, you could still be whatever you were driven to become. Only now, when you’re a big lawyer or whatever you end up being, you’ll have an entirely different perspective on things. It’s really not as bad if you think of it that way.”
“I’ll have to digest all of that,” I say. This is what I like about Lo. She makes me think differently, consider other options. “To be honest, I’m just trying to keep my head above water.”
Julian returns. We both wait for him to say something. In typical Julian style he sits and starts tinkering with his guitar without telling us what Dylan said.
“Julian,” Lo says.
He looks up. “What?”
“What did Dylan say?”
“Oh yeah. He said it’s cool. He
doesn’t care. Or—I mean, I think he cares about her, but he’s pretending not to. You know? It’s a guy thing.”
Lo playfully slaps him on the shoulder. “Was that so hard?”
“I forgot, all right? We started talking about tour stuff.” Julian smiles.
“Like what?”
“Like how Jasmine is going to hook us up with gigs in the Philippines once she gets the boot.”
We all start laughing. It’s kind of funny, imagining their band playing some big party in Manila. They would look so out of place.
“I’m serious!” Julian says.
“I know,” I say. “At least you’re planning to come visit me.”
* * *
That weekend Royce takes me to his parents’ house in Malibu, just the two of us, and it’s just as romantic as it sounds. My parents don’t try to stop me. They know I’m with him. They seem resigned to the fact that I have a life outside our house and a boyfriend.
We decide to grill on the deck overlooking the ocean and as I watch the hamburgers cook, it strikes me how different Royce’s life will be from mine if I have to move back to the Philippines. Thinking of what Lo said earlier, I tell him I’ll take him swimming in the pristine aquamarine waters of Boracay, or rafting down the Puerto Princesa Subterreanean River, or hiking up the emerald green Banaue Rice Terraces.
I try to remind myself to not be so negative about my native country. Despite the poverty and the government corruption, the Philippines is a place of such natural beauty. Reminding myself of these things helps me face the fact that I may be leaving the United States right after graduation.
“Look, Jas, I’ll come to the Philippines for sure,” he says. “But it won’t be because you’ll be living there. We’ll go together, because I want to see the country where you were born. And I’ll be taking you back home to America.”
I don’t disagree, because I know it makes him too upset to even think about the alternative. Also, I don’t want him to burn the hamburgers. Instead, I put my arms around his back. He turns around to face me and we start kissing, getting a little carried away as usual.
The hamburgers burn. Oops.