“Jealousy,” I said.
“Why?”
“I think I’m doing better at school than her son is.”
Matt nodded, then started to turn around to go back to work.
To keep him there just a moment longer, I asked, “Where’s your ma and Park? I hardly see them anymore.”
“Ma doesn’t feel so well these days, and when she stays home, she keeps Park with her. I can take care of them now.” He was obviously proud he could be the breadwinner of the family.
It still tore at my heart to have him so close. “You’re doing really well, Matt.”
He looked at me intently, then he finally spoke. “I miss you.”
Heat rushed to my eyes. So that he wouldn’t see my sudden emotion, I turned away. “You have Vivian.” When I finally looked up, he was gone.
Sometimes Curt told me stories that made me realize how different we were. Once, he was talking about his meal at an Italian restaurant with a few friends.
“We waited but that arrogant waiter still didn’t come with the bill, so we just left. I looked back as we walked out the door and you should have seen his face! Like he was going to have to pick up our tab himself.”
“He probably did have to,” I said.
“Really? Well, serves him right.” Curt looked a bit shamefaced.
I didn’t say anything more, but I thought about the fathers and brothers of the kids at the factory who worked as waiters, “standing by tables,” as we called it. What would they have done if they’d had to pay for such an expensive meal out of their tips? Many of them weren’t paid anything but their tips. This was something Matt would never do. Curt had no comprehension of what it was like to be working class.
But he was also surprisingly sweet sometimes.
Once I was sitting with him in the art studio when he said, “I just went to the junkyard this past weekend. You can find the most incredible things there. I brought you back something.”
I thought about where I lived. “I, um, already have much junk.”
Curt reached into a garbage bag and pulled out the skeleton of an umbrella, but he had put in metal supports, twisted and twirled the metal prongs so that it looked just like a flower. The silver links shone, as if he’d polished it.
“Beautiful,” I said, caressing an intertwined petal.
He lifted an eyebrow. “I can assure you that this will never be worth a lot of money, so you can feel free to accept it.”
“This is now my favorite piece of junk.”
The day of the naturalization test was in the middle of January. I was at home when I was surprised by a knock at the apartment door. The thick door downstairs hadn’t been closing properly lately, and I’d hurried upstairs after school that day, probably without getting it to latch. Earlier that year, Ma had failed the examination yet again, but I was eighteen now and could take it myself. Though I expected to pass easily, I still wanted to do a bit of last-minute studying before going to the naturalization office later that afternoon.
When I opened the door, Annette was standing there in her lumber-jack jacket and her L.L. Bean boots. She looked over my shoulder to stare at the cracked walls and open oven; then her gaze found the stuffed-animal vest I was wearing. Her mouth fell open, but when she saw the white clouds from her breath, she snorted in disbelief.
Instead of pity or embarrassment, there was pure anger on her face. “You should have told me,” she said.
I faltered for an answer. “I didn’t know how.”
Now her face became blotchy and she looked like she was going to cry. “I knew you didn’t have a lot of money but this is ridiculous. No one in America lives like this.”
I stated the obvious. “Actually, they do.”
The words poured out of her. “This is the stupidest place I’ve ever been. I spent years wondering why you never let me see your apartment. I told myself I shouldn’t do something you didn’t want me to do. I had theory after theory: that you were hiding your father here, that it was some kind of Chinese secret, that your mom was incredibly sick and you were taking care of her. When the show got canceled today, I just wondered if you were telling me the truth about the test and why I never got to come here, so I decided to visit.”
I pointed at the naturalization book on the table.
She nodded, acknowledging the book. “I couldn’t stand it anymore. But if I hadn’t come here, you’d never have told me. You would have lived here all these years and you would never have asked me for help.”
At this, the idea that she would have helped me, I reached out and hugged her. She didn’t pull away.
I said, “There was no use. Look, once I get a bit older, I’ll be able to get us out of here.”
“I don’t want you to stay here one day longer.” Annette gave me a quick squeeze and started walking around the apartment. She glanced down at the kitchen table and recoiled. “Your soy sauce has iced over! And there’s a roach drinking from it!”
I had been in the middle of putting the food away when she knocked. I ran over and banged on the table to scare the roach away, then hurriedly dumped the saucer in the kitchen sink. I had to wash it right away so as not to attract any other creatures, and Annette continued her own tour of the apartment.
“Why did your show get canceled?” I asked.
“There’s some kind of electrical problem with the lights, and the whole system blew out during dress rehearsal yesterday. They still haven’t been able to fix it.”
She called over her shoulder, “Good thing you’re so smart.”
“I’m lucky.”
She was back now and she crinkled her nose. “I wouldn’t say that. You need to report your landlord. This isn’t legal.”
“I can’t. It’s complicated.”
“Well, you can’t stay here any longer. We have to talk to my mom.”
“No, I don’t want anyone to know. Annette, don’t tell.”
“Kimberly, you remember my mom’s a real estate agent. I bet she could help you.”
“We don’t have any money.” Now that it was so obvious, I could say it.
“Please, let me ask her and see if she can figure it out.”
“I don’t want her to know.” The utter shame of it burst upon me now, like a garden hose turned on full blast.
“I won’t tell her. I’ll just say that you’re looking for something dirt cheap.” At my look, she added, “I mean, not expensive.”
“Take it from me, Kimberly, life in the suburbs is hell on earth.” Curt and I were taking a break from his tutoring session. He lay sprawled across the floor of the classroom we had borrowed, leaning on his right elbow, the math book closed in front of him. A few other books were scattered around him in a semicircle.
Life in the factory is hell, I thought, although aloud I said, “It doesn’t sound too bad to me.”
“You only say that because you’ve never been there.”
“How would you know?”
“Well, have you?”
I was stumped. “No. But when have you ever lived there?”
“Actually, never. But aside from this”-he tapped the paperback cover of Rabbit, Run by John Updike, which he was reading for English class-“I’ve seen movies about it, which naturally makes me an expert. Life in a suit, nine-to-five job, that’s not living.”
“What do you want, then?”
He was silent, and then he let himself fall backward on the floor. The mane of his hair spread gold across the dark carpet. “Greatness. To exalt myself. And to be free.” He sat up again and stared at me with his sapphire eyes. “No one can live an extraordinary life in the suburbs.”
“I don’t need to have such a special life.”
“You could never be ordinary. That’s why I like you.” He leaned over and kissed me.
I pulled away to answer. “I wish I were. That’s my dream: a satisfying career, with a nice husband, in a clean home, a kid or two. To achieve that, that would be extraordinary enough for me.”