Alice Chen’s Reality Check

Chapter One Hell Is Having to Make a Phone Call

Chapter One

Hell Is Having to Make a Phone Call

The heat in my classroom has gone out.

It’s not the first time. In fact, it happens so often that I’m beginning to suspect the district is secretly turning off our heat to cut costs. Or the universe just hates me. Normally, I prepare for the cold by layering my fleece jacket under a puffer vest and counting on my natural performance anxiety to ratchet up my body heat. But today, right as I was heading out the door, my mom called to ask about a hospital bill, and I left all my warm layers on the kitchen counter while frantically reassuring my mom that everything was totally and completely fine.

So here I am, hours later, making do in my frigid classroom with only my anxiety and a lukewarm cup of coffee to power me through six hours of hyping up eighth graders like a Peloton instructor with a passion for algebra.

“Ms. Chen, it’s freezing. Can we start a trash-can fire?” a student asks.

The class clamors in agreement. I’m so cold that I briefly consider it.

“Don’t worry, we’ll warm up with some hot quadratic equations,” I say, flourishing a stack of tests at him.

He groans but takes a paper before passing the rest back.

“It’s Friday and we just finished a module, so you know what that means!” I say with my trademark over-the-top enthusiasm.

“Test day!” the whole class shouts back with the same way-too-dialed-up energy.

“You know the drill. Bring the tests up front when you’re done.” I spot a hand shoot up from the middle row. “And yes, Michael, you may go to the bathroom first.”

Michael leaps up from his desk and Naruto-runs out of the classroom to gales of laughter.

I settle back in my chair as the sounds of pencils scratching and paper rustling fill the room. I have about ten minutes before Inez, our resident genius who skipped two grades, turns in her test early. Just enough time to get answers for my mom. Hopefully.

I log in and out of various health apps, trying to find out which doctor billed us for what. The specialist consultation and the labs from a month ago were paid off already with the last of my mom’s savings and my latest paycheck. The only outstanding bill we should have is for the hospital visit from a week ago, but I thought we’d already talked to someone about a payment plan.

When I can’t take it anymore, I text Chase. Not because he’s my fiancé of three years who I can count on for anything. To be honest, there isn’t much I can count on him for. He’s great, don’t get me wrong, but I once caught the guy trying to microwave a Hydro Flask full of clam chowder. What he’s good at, though, is encouragement, and I need that.

ALICE

i’m dying in 2-factor authentication hell

save me

CHASE

u got this babe

His next text is a grainy image of a cat hanging from a tree, meowing “Hang in there!” in sparkly Comic Sans. It’s the kind of thing his grandmother forwards to him every week—and, by transitive property, the kind of thing Chase sends me when I’m feeling low.

CHASE

guess what

i’ve got super amazing LIFE CHANGING news!!!

The last time Chase told me he had “life-changing” news, he came home with a giant bottle of truffle parmesan oil with Guy Fieri’s face on it. He’d won the bottle in a raffle at work.

ALICE

i could use some good news.

You’re not at Costco are you?

if so, can you get me a hot dog

CHASE

i’ll explain everything when i see you tonight

you’re gonna be BLOWN AWAY

By sixth period, I realize I’m going to have to call the hospital. Their billing department closes at 3 p.m. on Fridays because of course they do, which leaves me a very narrow window. I survey the class and start compiling a to-do list in my head:

Buy groceries

Cook dinner for Mom

Grade tests

Email admin about heating (again)

Sleep (6 hours hopefully)

I mentally add “call the hospital.” Hopefully, I’ll have enough time on the drive over to the supermarket to make it past the automated phone tree and reach a real human being.

I’m halfway through reviewing my to-do list again—and cutting down the amount of sleep I get to have—when my first student turns in their test. A flurry of tests come in after that, which means everyone either aced it or gave up early.

A hand shoots up.

“Ms. Chen, can we do Rapid Fire Friday?”

It’s Theresa Ramirez, one of my other star students who could give Inez a run for her money. Theresa lives for extra credit, which I deeply relate to.

Rapid Fire Friday is a game I invented back in September after a lesson plan fell through. I bring it back whenever it’s too late to start a new assignment but too early to let the kids roam free in the halls. The game goes like this: One student volunteers to sit on the hot seat, aka my chair. Whoever’s on the hot seat has to answer rapid-fire questions posed by the rest of the class. To ask a question, you have to solve a math problem. And if you’re on the hot seat or if you ask a good question, you get extra credit—dispensed at my discretion, of course.

It originally started out as a way to kill time, but we ended up learning a lot about one another. We discovered that Kit Ahmad composes music, and Adrien Wooley is great at ballet, and Hailee Tanaka likes Oreos dipped in sriracha sauce.

“Sure, who’s in the hot seat today?” I ask.

“You are, Ms. Chen!” Theresa’s best friend, Adrienne, pipes up. “You said the point of Rapid Fire was to get to know everyone in the classroom, and you’re someone in the classroom.”

“I think you’re setting me up,” I say skeptically.

“Aw, come on, Ms. Chen! It’ll be fun!”

“We promise we won’t roast you, Ms. Chen!”

“Okay, fine,” I say. I give them a stern look. “But remember the rules: First person to answer the math problem on the board gets to ask a question. No hurtful, mean, or embarrassing topics. And as always, I have veto power.” I jot a pretty simple quadratic equation on the whiteboard.

My students start solving the problem with way more focus than they showed during their exam. Of course, Theresa is the first to get the answer right.

“Can you tell us about your fiancé?” she asks immediately.

I knew it. They were setting me up. I hesitate. I feel like I shouldn’t talk about my love life in class, but it’s not like they don’t know Chase exists. I usually don’t wear my engagement ring to school—both because I’m paranoid about losing it and to avoid tipping my hand about my personal life—but I slipped up and forgot to take it off before I left my apartment last week. Liam from third period spotted it, and the news that I actually had a life outside school spread like wildfire.

In the spirit of playing along I take a deep breath and answer. “His name is Chase. We met in college. He works in finance, and his favorite food is French fries.”

I put the next equation on the board, making this one twice as hard. I figure half the class will give up, but when I look back, every single student is furiously scribbling. Oh no.

Ravi raises his hand first.

“The square root of twenty?”

I didn’t even know Ravi knew what a square root was. He’s spent the whole year zoning out and doodling robots in his math notebook. But I guess he just needed the right motivation.

“That’s right,” I say. “Good work, Ravi. What’s your question?”

“Are you in love with your fiancé?” Ravi asks.

The class goes absolutely bananas, and I can feel myself blushing.

“Yes,” I say. “That’s why we’re engaged.”

The class groans. I can tell that’s not what they wanted to hear. I put another problem on the board that’s so hard, I know I won’t have to answer any more questions. I’ve just barely started teaching imaginary numbers. There’s no chance they’ll get it, except—Theresa raises her hand and answers correctly.

“Why do you love him?” Theresa asks. “Like, how do you know it’s really love?”

This is getting way too deep for Rapid Fire Friday. But from the way the kids are watching me, I know I can’t back out now. I might have veto power, but there’s no reason I can’t handle a simple question like this. I should know the answer.

“He’s thoughtful,” I begin. “He always remembers my birthday and Valentine’s Day. He cheers me up and takes me on adventures we’ll enjoy. And he always makes me smile.”

Nailed it.

“He sounds perfect,” Theresa sighs. One of my students makes an exaggerated gagging noise.

“He kind of is,” I say, laughing. Everything else about my life is a dumpster fire right now, but at least one thing is going right. At least I have Chase.

The bell rings, rescuing me from any more probing questions. Once the classroom’s empty, I rush to pack my bag. My fingers are stiff from the cold, and I fumble with my keys as I lock up.

I hustle to my trusty old Honda Civic, cutting across the parking lot as I call the hospital. In my car, I set the phone on speaker and head to Pacific Market, the Asian supermarket in my mom’s neighborhood. Jazzy hold music starts to play, the same staticky bop that I’ve long since memorized, and I try to decide what to cook.

Right after my mom got her diagnosis, I put about seventeen cancer cookbooks on hold at the library. I was determined to cook nutritious, nausea-friendly meals for my mom while she was recovering. Before she got sick, I never really made food for her. She’s an amazing cook, but I can barely steam rice to her satisfaction—though I’m not sure if that’s a product of my incompetence or her sky-high standards. I can never devein shrimp or stir-fry bok choy properly, so my cooking is like nails on a poorly fried chalkboard to her—mixed metaphor aside, you know what I’m saying. But now that her job is to rest and recover, she’s been grudgingly letting me cook for her with only a minimal amount of judgment.

I’m halfway through making my grocery list—and mapping out the most efficient path through Pacific Market to get everything in under ten minutes—when the music abruptly cuts off. A woman’s voice speaks, all crisp and formal.

“Grace Hospital, billing department.”

I unmute and run through the spiel I know by heart. “Hello, I’m Alice Chen, calling on behalf of Florentina Chen. And, yes, I know her patient account number.” I rattle off the twelve-character alphanumeric code from memory, with her birth date and invoice number for good measure. “My mother received a bill this morning and was surprised by the amount. We’re on the payment program currently, so I’m a bit concerned that there’s been a mistake.”

“Let me look at your account, honey.” I hear the clackety-clack of keys as the lady on the line types. Finally, she sighs and says, “I’m sorry, Ms. Chen. The amount listed is part of the plan, and your first payment is due in the next two weeks and then every month after that. Do you want to know the total amount due?”

I don’t want to know anything, but she names a number that’s twice as much as my rent. I can make this month’s payment if I hit pause on paying back my student loans, but the month after that? I have no idea.

“Check or card, honey?” the lady asks, and the cold stiffness in my fingers has now crept all over me, spreading down my legs and up my back. I shiver as she continues, “If you use card, I have to tell you there is a three percent—”

“I’ll, um, pay online.” I hear myself cut her off. “Thank you.” I hang up, my mind reeling. How am I going to pay this new bill next month? Where am I going to get the money? I can take on more shifts at the private tutoring center where I work for extra cash, but there’s only so many hours in the day. Maybe I can sell my eggs. I wonder if I could get away with selling goop in a jar on eBay if I said it was Henry Cavill’s spit.

I’m snapped out of my spiral by a honk behind me. I curse and focus on the road. I’ll take it day by day. Payment by payment. I can make the numbers work. I have to.

Ten minutes later, I’m in the grocery store with a basket in hand. As I pass by the snack aisle, I remember the little paper cylinder of haw flakes my mom used to buy me when I was a kid. I always wanted to savor the fruity, coin-shaped candies, but I couldn’t seem to make a roll last beyond the car ride home. Part of me wants to take a detour down the aisle and throw some snacks into my basket—haw flakes, lychee jelly cups, sachima cakes, sesame egg rolls, and wasabi peas. But it’s a luxury I can’t indulge in.

Instead, I veer away, picking up fresh noodles and tofu and Chinese broccoli neatly swathed in plastic wrap over white Styrofoam trays. My mom claims that dark leafy greens can cure any illness, and the aunties in her Bible study agree, so it’s my daughterly duty to make sure she gets her fill.

On my list of priorities, getting my mom healthy is at the top. Figuring out how to pay for it all is a distant second.

After checking out, I park down the street from my mom’s place and do a weird sidewalk dance as I juggle the groceries, my coffee thermos, and my purse. I create another list of steps as I go:

Prep the veggies (bok choy, mushrooms)

Get stock going

Make garlic paste

I’m jogging up the stairs to my mom’s apartment when two things strike me at once.

There’s the piercingly shrill alarm blaring, the sound growing louder and louder as I go up.

And there’s the gray haze I can see billowing out of a window.

Mrs. Stewart from down the hall pokes her head out the door and shouts something, but all I can hear is that alarm. I drop everything and sprint up the steps.

“Mom!”

The heavy smell of something burning hits me as I wrench open the door. All I can see is a thick wall of smoke and the faintest outline of furniture, nothing else.

I should call for help.

But there’s no time, and it’s just me here.

I run in. The smoke is everywhere, stinging my eyes.

“Mom!” I scream. That’s a mistake. I immediately start coughing.

I duck my head low and cover my face with my jacket, my mind frantically dredging up the fire safety and first aid classes I took to become a teacher.

It’s a good thing I know my childhood home by heart. I grope my way to the kitchen, where I can smell burnt rice and oil. Flames are leaping up from the stove, and on the floor, beside a cutting board and scattered vegetables, is my mom. She’s lying still, too still.

My heart plummets. My legs feel like lead, and I drop to my knees as I feel the moment spinning out of my control. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think.

Then I hear her cough. I jolt back into what’s happening, like I’ve just grabbed a live wire. I crawl to her side.

I take hold of my mom and manage to get her out, lifting her with a strength I didn’t know I had. I leave her with a crowd of neighbors, all older aunties and uncles, then dash down the hall, grab the fire extinguisher, and blast everything in the kitchen with foam.

When I’m done, I dial the hospital. I don’t know if I’m crying from relief or stress as I take my mother’s hand, and she weakly squeezes my fingers back.