“Girl, don’t you be throwing shade at my rice. I’d rather die than not eat rice. See, I know you’re half Asian—Filipino and Chinese, right? But the problem is that your Asian soul never settled in your corporeal form. You’re a fake Asian. Whatever. If you don’t grasp my love affair with rice, you’re a hopeless Asian.”
“That’s because I’m part Spanish, Italian, French, and German too. I’m a mongrel. A mix. A kaleidoscope of everything unicorn-y.”
“Guess what? I wish I’m a magical unicorn with wings. That way I could flap away from your bullshit.”
“You love my bullshit. That’s the truth.”
“Let me tell you the truth. I can eat meat the size of my finger, but my serving of rice has to be the size of my head.”
“That’s why she can’t lose weight,” her mom said. “She keeps on eating rice. I told her just one cup every meal. Then eat one cup a day as soon as she gets used to it, but she wouldn’t listen. Talk to your friend, Kara.”
“Mrs. B,” I said in a strict voice. I looked at her directly, then I pointed at my ass. “Do you know how hard I wish I got her curves? Look at these babies.” I shook my tits. “Look at hers. I wouldn’t change a thing about her body.”
“You look like a model, Kara.”
“Why, thank you, Mrs. B. I do love how clothes look on me. That’s why I have a love affair with them. Naked is a dif
ferent story.”
Tala laughed and started cleaning up.
“Don’t clean up while Kara is still eating. You know what they say when you clean up while a single woman is eating.”
“What do they say, Mrs. B?”
She knocked on wood. “You won’t be able to marry.”
If the image of my gorgeous-as-sin blackmailer’s face came to mind at the word marry, I told myself it didn’t mean anything. “Good! I’m finished anyway.” I got up and brought my plate to the sink. “I’d just be a butterfly, hopping from one flower to the next.”
“Until someone catches you and breaks off your wings,” Tala interjected.
“Whoa, whoa. Such bitterness. What’s wrong with you?” I wanted to talk to her about Cameron, but it could wait until we were alone.
Tala didn’t talk until we were in her room, after I’d helped Mrs. B use the commode, settled her on the bed, gave her a bed bath and a massage, and turned on the TV so she could watch her Filipino soaps. She was settled in for the night.
I could do this in my sleep. When I was working at the nursing home, I had to get eight patients washed and ready before breakfast. In other nursing homes I worked at or the hospital, it was more. And night shifts could easily triple that number.
But today had been a long day, and I was starting to feel it.
“Thanks for coming today. Her worker called in sick. She didn’t want a different one to come in.”
“Anytime. She looks exhausted.”
“She’s almost always depressed. She wants to go home.”
Home meant the Philippines.
“So why don’t you take her on a vacation? On Christmas break. You’d get two weeks.”
“No, Kar,” she said in a grave voice. “She wants to go home. Permanently.”
My heart fell to my stomach. “What?”
“Maybe it’s the depression that’s talking. I don’t know.”
“If she goes, you go too, right?”
“Let’s not talk about it. There’s no point in stressing over it right now.”