The Wangs vs. the World(26)
But now here they all were again. Almost all. Charles pushed the last of the magnolia-scented lotion out through the back door and slammed it shut, testing the knob to make sure that the warehouse was locked against any other interlopers.
十三
I-10 East
EVERYBODY BUT BARBRA was on the phone. She alone had no one to notify, no one with whom to plot or commiserate. Her everyone was in the seat right next to her, driving with both hands on the wheel and a phone wedged to his ear, edging his shoulder away from her as if that would be enough to keep her from overhearing. Grace chattered to Andrew. Even Ama talked—shouted, actually, voice sharp, face animated—to a someone.
Barbra nudged her husband. “How are all the phones still on?”
He took a hand off the wheel to cover the mouthpiece, and whispered to her, “Not end of month yet.”
And once it was, what then? Would they just be cut off from civilization, left to languish in Saina’s house, relegated to the role of poor relations? Barbra closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cool pane of the window, letting the family’s conversations wash together. They alternately spoke and were quiet, listening to the people on the other end of their lines with an intensity that exhausted her, ratcheting up their voices with each response.
CHARLES: That is all the names I have. What did they say?
AMA: Yi ding yao zuo fan la!
GRACE: Yeah, I thought tonight too, but they think it’ll be too late—
AMA: Shei ne me xiao qi? Qian, wo gei qian!
GRACE: Something Palms? Thirty-four Palms? Ninety-nine Palms?
CHARLES: Of course. Everything good also is difficult. No, no matter—
GRACE: Oh yeah, that’s it, Twenty-nine. So just tonight.
AMA: Hao le la, bu yao zai chao . . .
CHARLES: The money, don’t worry about.
GRACE: Seriously? Who, like a bounty hunter?
CHARLES: Enough for this.
GRACE: And they just showed up?
CHARLES: Okay, okay, I wait.
GRACE: Oh my god, Andrew, really? They just took it?
AMA: Hao, wo men bu jiou jiou dao le. Xiao Danzi zen yang ah?
CHARLES: Yes, I wait. You call me again when you have anything. Thank you.
GRACE: Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?
AMA: Ne jiou hao le. Hao, bye-bye.
GRACE: What did you do?
GRACE: (Laughing.)
GRACE: But seriously, I can’t believe it happened like that. Dad said something about giving it back, but I thought it would be something . . . civilized, at least.
GRACE: Yeah, okay. So we’ll see you tomorrow. God, lock your doors! Do you think they’re going to try to repossess your iPod or something?
GRACE: (Laughing.)
GRACE: Okay. Bye.
Barbra heard her stepdaughter sigh and, despite herself, felt a prick of worry for Andrew. “Grace? What happen to your brother? What are you talking about?”
Grace was quiet for a moment, then she searched out her father in the rearview mirror.
“Dad, Andrew said that a repo man came and took his car.”
Charles kept his eyes on the road.
“Did you know that was going to happen?”
Barbra watched her husband’s grip on the wheel tighten as he stared straight ahead. Then he shrugged, small.
“I don’t know, exactly.”
“But you knew that he had to give the car back. You said.”
Silence.
“What happened to the other cars? Babs, what happened?”
Barbra hadn’t taken her eyes off of Charles, but he didn’t seem to react to Grace’s question. Well, there was no reason she should be spared the truth. It could hardly have escaped her notice that she’d been pulled out of school, and soon they’d be bunking down in dingy motel rooms across America. She turned to face Grace.
“They were all repossessed last week. Your father didn’t want to ask Andrew to drive back home, so his was repossessed at school.”
“Daddy?”
Charles shrank into his collar. He really wasn’t going to reply. Nothing. In all the years of their marriage, in all the years since they’d met, really, Barbra’s admiration of Charles had never wavered. She respected the fact that he wasn’t an academic, someone with extant family money and a nearsighted squint; that he’d wrested a cosmetics empire out of the wilds of this foreign land. There had been a time, in the sex-soaked half decade that began their relationship, when the sight of him snapping a shirt straight before putting it on had been enough to send a weakening shot between her legs. But now, in the silence that sank into the pinpoints of the perforated leather upholstery, Barbra looked at Charles and felt curiously maternal. She had never even held a newborn before, but it must feel something like this, this urge to soften the world around him while simultaneously finding herself bewildered by the creature to whom she had once been so intimately connected.
Touching his arm, she pointed at a rapidly approaching In-N-Out sign, and said, low, “We should eat before we get there—we can’t ask her daughter to feed us all.” Charles turned towards her, grateful, and flicked on the right turn signal.
“Eh?” Ama called out. “Ni yao jia you ah?”
“Wo men qu chi In-N-Out, hao ma?” replied Charles.
“Bu bu bu, wo nu er yi jing zai zuo wan fan le.”