If I'm Being Honest(9)

Mom’s quick glance to the side confirms my hunch. “You know I’m between jobs,” she says with clearly forced nonchalance.

I recognize the edge in her voice, and I decide to walk it. “Yeah, but what about interviews? I could help you look—”

“No thanks!” She picks up her drink, her cheery expression tight. “I’m not ready yet. Next week.” Glass in hand, she shuffles to the couch and eases herself down, pulling her favorite leopard-print blanket over her lap and flipping on the TV.

I take a deep breath. I’ll have to email Dad for money, I know in the pit of my stomach. Even though he pays our rent—enough for us to live forty minutes from the school he pays for, no closer—he probably won’t respond well to emails requesting more. I can’t even blame him is the thing. It’d be different if Mom were looking for a job. But what incentive does he have to help her when she won’t even try to help herself?

“Hey,” I venture, knowing before I say it that it’s a terrible idea, “what about the acting school Morgan took classes at over the summer? I bet you could teach there.”

“Teach?” Mom echoes, her eyes not leaving the screen. “Teach those spoiled kids? No thank you.”

I ignore the slight to my friends, even though I’m pretty sure she intended it. “But you’re good, Mom, really.” I overheard enough auditions and watched enough rehearsals to know that. “Morgan said you were the first to point out how she overused her lip twitch. I think you’d be great—”

“Enough, Cameron,” she cuts me off, her voice hard and petulant again. “I said I’m not in the mood. You think I need to be reminded every day of how I failed as an actress? No thank you,” she repeats, definitive this time.

“Sitting on the couch all day doesn’t remind you?” I snap, unable to contain myself any longer. I hate her on mornings like this. Mornings when I’m just trying to get to tomorrow and she’s trying to go nowhere. “Fine. Don’t try. Let me know when I should write to my dad to beg for more money.”

I grab my keys and head straight out the door.

Every time I have the urge to cry, I run instead. Tears reach your nose first, not your eyes. If you’re good, you can quench them before they ever touch your eyelids. You breathe in from your mouth once, then out.

You get good eventually.

I run in the opposite direction I usually do with Andrew, up the hill on sidewalks dotted with old gum. The apartments in my neighborhood have wrought-iron fences, and the billboards above them advertise dentists and DUI lawyers. I run onto Sixth and pass Chungmuro, the restaurant where Mom and I went for my birthday. Koreatown’s not a rough neighborhood—here I am, a seventeen-year-old girl running by herself on the street—it’s just not the nicest neighborhood. It’s certainly a far cry from the polished sidewalks and perfect lawns of Beverly Hills, where I run with the cross-country team on school days.

I push hard into the second mile of the run, the pain in my chest changing from heartache to exertion. Mom never tries hard. Never. Not even when I’ve told her how fears I feel too young for—healthcare, rent, making ends meet—clutch at my throat when I drop my guard.

I don’t want to ask Dad for money. Every time things get rough, it’s him she depends on. It’s not like there are no repercussions either. Begging him is bad enough, but in the instances he decides to come and check in on things, everything gets . . . worse. I’m no saint, but Dad has half my patience with her. He’s not kind. They’ve had an on-and-off relationship for years, off the great majority of the time, and the expectation of nights together when he’s in town for business does nothing to weaken the withering criticism he heaps on her.

I stumble on an uneven curb but catch myself before my knees hit the sidewalk. My parting remark to my mom went too far, and now I feel guilty. I know the truth can hurt, even when you need to hear it. Which she does. She just refuses to listen. Every time she hears she’s unmotivated and flippant, she gives up a little more. She sinks into the couch, or she doesn’t leave her laundry-littered bedroom for days.

Never does she think of me. Of what I need from a parent. Of the cross-country races and open houses she’s bailed on, the bills she’s neglected—the things I need to feel secure and cared for. I’ve never hidden from the truth of our relationship. The cold, hard reality is that I’m just her meal ticket, her excuse to wring my father for what she won’t work for herself. I’ll always resent her for it.

The thought burns into me like fuel, and I push myself up the next hill. I’ll never understand why she doesn’t try to prove my dad wrong. He tells her she’s lazy and helpless, and she takes it, and then she puts herself right back in the position where she’ll inevitably hear it again. It makes me so mad sometimes I snap, and I find myself echoing the harsh words of my father.

I stop on the corner of Sixth and Oxford, my side splitting. While I catch my breath, I pull my phone from my armband and write an email to my dad.

    From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Carol

Sorry to bother you. She needs help again. It’s been four months and she’s not even looking for a new job.



Once I hit send, I start running. It’s times like these I wish I could live with my father. He’s been very clear about that, though. He legally acknowledges I’m his daughter, he just doesn’t have room in his life for that kind of relationship. His firm boundaries were made apparent to me when I was six and asked if he could come to Disneyland with us for my birthday. He told me he was too busy for that kind of thing.