Three Keys Read online

“No,” Hank said. “It was about one hundred dollars a week for a small color ad right in the Metro section.”

  “That’s not too bad. That’s five customers,” Lupe said.

  Hank had a forlorn look on his face. “Yeah, but they didn’t want to sell it to me. They said it wasn’t just about the initial payment. It’s about my ability to pay long term.”

  Billy Bob put his hands on his hips. “This is outrageous! Fred and I will march right back down there with you and straighten this out!” They grabbed their keys from their pockets and put their sunglasses on.

  “You’d better go down without me,” Hank said, sighing.

  “No,” Mom said firmly. “We will not advertise in a newspaper that discriminates against people based on the color of their skin.”

  She looked into Hank’s eyes.

  “We will find another newspaper,” she decided.

  Hank found me by the pool later that day. I was sitting on the edge, my feet dangling in the water.

  “Why the long face?” he asked me.

  I kicked the water, thinking about how I said scapegoating wrong in class and how the paper turned him down. It was so unfair!

  Hank rolled up his pants and sat down next to me, putting his feet in the water too.

  “I’m mad at the paper,” I confessed, making a face. “And I’m mad at my teacher. She corrected me in front of the other kids, and they all laughed.”

  “I’m sorry.” Hank peered down at the water, his shoulders slumped forward, and traced his fingers along the surface. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been having a tough time at my job too,” he said.

  I sat up straighter.

  “Remember the Head of Security position?” Hank turned to me. I nodded, peering at him hopefully. “They picked this other guy,” he said with a frown.

  “What!” I kicked the water hard with my feet, and it splashed a little on both of us. How could they? Hank was the best security guard they had. He always got to work early and helped out on the weekends if they needed him. “Did they say why?” I asked.

  “They said I took too many vacation days,” he said, shaking his head. “That I wasn’t serious enough about my career.” He dried his wet hand on his T-shirt. “Even though the other guy took the same number of vacation days.”

  Unbelievable. I could count on one hand the number of vacation days Hank took—and they were never to go on actual vacation. They were always to help out at the motel.

  Hank sighed. “Ah, it’s probably for the best,” he said. “I don’t even like that place that much. You know, ever since the Pete Wilson ads came out, my supervisor has been making really mean comments about our Mexican customers. I should just quit and try to find another job.”

  That’s when it hit me, like a splash of cold pool water!

  “Hey, why don’t you work here?” I asked.

  Hank chuckled, like it was a joke.

  I clapped my wet hands together. “I’m serious!” I said. “The motel is getting so busy, and my parents are always cleaning. We need another manager for when Lupe and I are at school.”

  “It would be nice not to have to drive to work every day,” Hank said with a dreamy smile, kicking the water with his feet.

  “It would be amazing! All the customers love you! Plus, you have so many great ideas, like putting the AS SEEN ON TV sign up!”

  Hank put a hand to his chin. “I do have a lot of ideas!” he chuckled.

  “It’s settled, then,” I said, jumping to my feet and reaching out a hand to pull Hank up. After Hank and I dried ourselves off, we ran out the back to tell my parents the good news.

  “That’s wonderful!” my mom exclaimed.

  “Hey, you know what that means? We can finally get our medical insurance! We’ll have six employees!” my dad said. “Us, Mia, Lupe and her dad, and Hank—that makes six!” My dad went straight to the phone to call the insurance broker.

  “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to get myself a new shirt and some nice trousers. Look like a real manager!” Hank announced.

  “Great idea!” My mom beamed. “I’ll go with you.”

  My dad put the phone down. “Wait a minute, why do you two need to go shopping?” he asked.

  “Gotta dress for success, my friend,” Hank said to my dad, putting a hand on his back.

  “We’ll only shop from the clearance rack,” Mom added quickly.

  I could tell from the lines on my dad’s forehead that he wasn’t wild about this idea. But it was hard not to feel excited. The Calivista was a real business now! And we’d just made our first hire!

  I found my dad out by the pool later that night, gathering the leaves from the water with his net. I picked up my little leaf net that my mom bought me from the dollar store and started helping him.

  He was unusually quiet.

  “Are you worried about Hank’s salary?” I asked, chewing my lip. I knew I probably should have checked with my parents first before hiring Hank, but I just couldn’t resist. And they knew he was perfect for this job! “Don’t worry,” I said. “Business is booming. Just yesterday, I rented out twenty-five rooms! And Hank will more than make up for his salary, he’s so good with people!”

  “It’s not that.…” My dad sighed. “Sometimes I just feel a little guilty about what we have, compared to some of the other immigrants.…”

  I thought about the aunties and uncles from Mexico who came the other day for Mrs. Q’s class, the ones who had just crossed over.

  “I know,” I said.

  My dad put down his long leaf net and sat on one of the pool chairs. I took a seat beside him, and we looked out at the sky, stained red and orange. Softly, my dad told me about a guy he’d met the other day who worked as a window washer and nearly died when their scaffolding collapsed.

  “Things are hard for a lot of people.” He sighed, resting his chin in his hands. “Sometimes I just get a little sad.”

  I nodded, understanding fully. “But Dad, that’s no reason not to go forward,” I pointed out. “We’ve got to get medical insurance.”

  My dad patted my hand. “You’re right. And you know what else we’re going to get? Some shaved ice.” He held up a finger. “Uncle Zhang told me about a good spot in Monterey Park. What do you say this weekend, we go together?”

  I smiled and said sure, though to be honest, I didn’t really know what he was talking about. I figured shaved ice was another Chinese concoction, one I’d hopefully remember when I tasted it.

  The next day at school, I told Lupe the great news about Hank and qualifying for insurance.

  “Isn’t that amazing? We finally have six full-time employees!” I cheered, counting off as I flew high on the swings.

  But Lupe stopped swinging and dragged her feet on the sand. “You’re going to have to find two more people,” she said. “Me and my dad don’t count.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lupe kept her eyes on the sand.

  “Lupe, what’s wrong?” I asked her, swinging into her slightly.

  “Nothing. I’m okay. Just … give me a second.” She held one shirt sleeve to her face. Was she crying? I got off my swing and knelt down in front of her. Lupe lifted her eyes and looked into mine. In the smallest of whispers, she let out, “We’re illegal.”

  I wasn’t sure if I heard her right. Lupe? My best friend, who knew this country better than anyone?

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” she went on, blinking back tears. “We’ve been trying to get papers. We thought that maybe by investing in a motel, we could get an investment visa, but …” She shook her head. “The guy said we needed to have invested a lot more.”

  “What guy? And how much more?” I asked. Lupe and her family had already put in $10,000, which was more than my own parents had. More than even some of the paper investors!

  “You don’t want to know,” she groaned. “Anyway, we can’t apply for the medical insurance. We wouldn’t qualify.”

  I dug my feet into th
e hot sand, shaking my head. “You don’t know that. We can try—”

  “We’re not trying.” Lupe put both hands on my arms and looked at me hard. “No one can know about this.” There was an urgency in her voice I’d never heard before. “No one can ever know. Not with all the stuff going on.”

  Our foreheads touched, and I whispered, “Okay. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  The recess bell rang and we walked back to class. For the rest of the day, I sat at my desk, my mind racing over what Lupe had said and what it meant. Because if Lupe was undocumented and the new law passed …

  It meant she couldn’t go to school anymore.

  Hank and my mom came to pick me up after school to go to the mall. They were in high spirits, chatting about Hank’s new job title—Director of Marketing—and our new medical insurance plan. It had been years since any of us had been to the doctor for a real checkup. I sat quietly in the back of the car. I didn’t have the heart to tell them we weren’t getting the insurance. Not yet.

  At the mall, Hank headed into Ross while my mom and I hit JCPenney. It was not my first time in JCPenney, but it was my first time as an actual customer. We had money to spend. We weren’t just there to go to the bathroom!

  As usual, my mother went up to the perfume counter and started spraying herself with the sample bottles. You were only supposed to try one or two on your wrist, but she tried them all on, squirting generously all over her whole body.

  A salesclerk came rushing over to her. “Here, use these,” she said, and held out little white strips of paper, like the pH strips we used to test the Calivista pool.

  My mom shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  The salesclerk’s smile was wearing thin. “But you’re supposed to use these,” she said.

  Gently, I tugged on my mom’s shirt.

  “Fine,” my mom said, taking the strips from the lady. She took a whole bunch and stuffed them in her purse, whispering to me, “I can use them later for a math game.” The saleslady shook her head at us as we walked away.

  We were poking around in the clothing clearance racks when we bumped into a trio of Chinese ladies.

  “Will you look at this?” one of them said in Chinese. “This shirt has a lipstick stain on it.”

  “Pity, because it’s so nice,” her friend lamented. She glanced down at the tag and added, “And cheap too.”

  The three ladies huddled around the shirt and carefully studied it. “You can’t get that out. It’s silk,” they decided, frowning.

  My mom looked over. “Actually, you could probably get it out with some tape and talcum powder,” she suggested. When it came to getting out laundry stains, my mom was a wizard. You wouldn’t believe the makeup stains some of our customers left on the pillowcases. Still, they were no match for Mom’s cleaning tricks.

  The three Chinese ladies turned to my mom and gawked. “Tape?” they asked.

  She nodded. “Transparent tape. Lay it over the stain, smooth it down, then quickly rip it off.” She glanced quickly at me. Should we tell them? Her eyes twinkled. “We … uh … we own a motel.”

  The three ladies raised their eyebrows, impressed.

  “I’m Zhou Tai Tai,” one of them said, using the Chinese words for Mrs. She extended a hand. She had long, slender fingers adorned with various rings, unlike my mom’s dry, bare ones.

  “I’m Tang Tai Tai,” my mom introduced herself in Chinese. “This is my daughter, Mia.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  That afternoon, Zhou Tai Tai, Fang Tai Tai, Li Tai Tai, and my mom searched through the clearance section with the intensity of hunters on a safari. They spoke in Mandarin to one another, but every time one of them spotted something really nice, they would exclaim in English, “Look at!” And the others would immediately come running over. After they searched through every last thing on sale, Mrs. Zhou and Mrs. Fang moved over to the regularly priced items section, and I looked nervously over at my mom. The regularly priced items section was a serious no-no, a high-stakes poker table you can walk by—but you do not sit down.

  Well, my mother sat down. And the first thing she picked up was so beautiful that all the other Chinese ladies flocked around her. It was a deep red satin dress that went all the way to the floor. As the ladies oohed and aahed over how gorgeous it was and how nice it would go with a pair of heels and an evening clutch, none of which my mom had, I reached for the price tag. My fingers froze. It was $187.99!

  “You should try that on!” Mrs. Zhou encouraged my mom.

  “You think so?” she asked.

  I yanked on her arm. “Mom, no,” I whispered. I looked around for Hank. Anybody! Help! But my mother escaped with it into the changing room.

  As I waited for her to change, I paced outside the door, thinking of my dad’s face if he knew this was happening.

  Two minutes later, my mother emerged, looking stunning, positively radiant, like Cinderella about to go off to the ball. I wanted to cover up the full-length mirror with my hands so she wouldn’t see how good she looked.

  Her new friends raved. “You have to get that,” Zhou Tai Tai gushed.

  As she twirled around in the gorgeous red dress, I held my hands up for old times’ sake.

  “Eggplant!” I said, and pretend clicked, like I was holding a camera. It was this thing my mom and I liked to do, especially whenever we tried on something nice at the mall. We’d pretend to take a picture of it and say eggplant because that’s what we used to say in China instead of cheese. It was just a fun game, because of course we couldn’t actually buy the dress.

  Except today my mother didn’t smile. She pretended to not hear my “eggplant.” Mrs. Zhou asked me what I was doing, and I quickly put down my hands.

  “Nothing,” I muttered, glancing at my mom. Why wasn’t she into it?

  My mom ducked back into the changing room. When she came out, she was wearing her normal clothes and holding the red dress on the hanger. As she was about to put it back on the rack, Mrs. Zhou stopped her and said, “You’re not going to get that?”

  The other women all chimed in.

  “It would be criminal not to get that dress!”

  “Red’s such a good color on you!”

  “If I had your figure, I would buy two!”

  My head bounced from tai tai to tai tai, not sure which of their statements I should refute first. Before I knew it, we were at the checkout counter. I watched in horror as my mom pulled out the crumpled bills from her purse—$187.99, plus tax. There was no discussion. There was no pause. There was no asking me what I thought. She just slid the cash across the counter like it was Monopoly money.

  As the saleslady happily wrapped up the dress, I felt tiny bumps of panic all up and down my arms. Dad is not going to like this!

  Hank was waiting for us at the store entrance when we walked out, wearing a brand-new outfit: a crisp white button-down shirt, fitted tan blazer, and smart gray slacks. His new shiny leather shoes clicked on the marble floor as he made his way over to us.

  “Whoa!” I said when I spotted him. “You look amazing!”

  Hank chuckled. “Do I clean up real nice or what?”

  My mother’s new friends stared at Hank. “Is he your husband?” Mrs. Zhou asked my mom, alarmed.

  “No,” my mom quickly said.

  Mrs. Zhou put a hand over her chest and exhaled, like thank God. Hank, who couldn’t understand a word of Mandarin, smiled politely at the women. As Mrs. Zhou and the others exchanged numbers with my mom, I was still thinking about Mrs. Zhou’s question—Is he your husband? Why’d she have to make that face?

  In the car on the way home, I gave my mom the silent treatment. I was mad at her for not sticking to the clearance section and buying a dress on sale, for not posing for my camera when I said eggplant, and most of all, for making friends with those horrible snobs.

  But my mom was unusually quiet too. As Hank drove, she looked out the window. I wondered if she was thinking about my dad and the fight tha
t they were definitely going to have. I could almost hear the thunder in the car and nibbled my cheek in anticipation of the downpour.

  Back at the motel, my mother tried to smuggle the shopping bag into the manager’s quarters without my dad noticing, but of course he spotted it.

  “What’d you get?” he asked.

  Hank and I glanced at each other. I pointed at Hank’s new leather shoes, trying to distract him. “Look, Dad! Aren’t they cool?” I asked.

  “They feel good too,” Hank added, stomping around on the carpet.

  But my dad wasn’t interested in Hank’s shoes. “Oh, c’mon, let me see what you got,” he pressed my mom. He walked over and reached for the bag, and before she could stop him—she tried to hold it out of reach, but he was too fast—he pulled out the dress.

  We all watched as my dad touched the satin, his coarse hands moving like needles against the soft fabric. “You got this on clearance?”

  She pressed her lips together, a self-imposed silence.

  My dad looked at her, puzzled, and asked, “When are you ever going to wear this?”

  “I’ll wear it!” my mom insisted.

  But before she could say any more, my dad spotted the price tag, and it was like KA-BOOM!

  “Two hundred dollars for a dress? Are you crazy?” he yelled. He stuffed it into the bag. “You’re taking this back.”

  My dad was furious, and so was I—mad and scared. Was this what my mom was going to do with her new credit card? Swipe and sign all our money away?

  “It’s my money too!” Mom yelled back. “I work hard for it. And on top of that, I have to do the housework and cook all the meals.”

  “But you like cooking the meals,” my dad said.

  “I don’t like cooking the meals!”

  I thought about all the nights my mom stood over the hot stove after a long day of cleaning. Sometimes, she’d pull out pieces of paper with math formulas written on them from her pockets and look at them while she cooked. Or she’d sew up a hole in my backpack while keeping an eye on the rice. My anger at her thawed a little.

  Hank stepped in. “It’s okay. We’ll make the money back tomorrow. I promise. I work here now, remember?” Hank rubbed his hands together. “I’m going to give this motel a little something I like to call the Hank magic.”