Chapter 26
I’m trying to figure out what I did to upset my sister this time around.
Did I forget to put her clothes in the laundry?
Did Ms. Abad tell her I was napping during chemistry?
Did she hear more gossip about Seph and me being MOMOL buddies?
All options could be a possibility at this point.
After dismissal, Achi always tells me to meet her by the school’s exit gate so she can swipe me out.
She’s already pissed whenever I’m late and make her wait (even if I always have very valid reasons!).
But even when we have a shouting match or don’t speak to each other for weeks, she’s always on time during dismissal. Until today.
No message, no call, no advance notice.
I check the clock affixed atop the guard’s post at the gate. At this point, she’s over an hour late.
This is one moment when having a ghost father who could spy on people would be very useful.
Since he stayed home to go through some things, we decided to meet back at the condo.
Now that he has solid hands, I should probably give back Pa’s phone so I can at least reach him when we’re apart.
Unless he’s like my sister, who already has a phone but can’t be bothered to check it.
hello?????? I message her again.
Nothing.
pls reply so i know you’re alive
Oh god.
What if something happened to Achi? She’s usually all alone in her office, clueless to the world with her headphones on. What if she’s in danger, called Ma, but Dr. Derrick is the one who picked up, and now he’s currently moving in his sloth-like pace while my sister is in danger?!
“Achi, Achi!” I barge through her guidance office and find my sister …
… at her desk.
She slides down her headphones. “Nika, doors exist for people to knock on them.”
My head turns from the door to my sister. She seems to be relatively fine. The office doesn’t look like it was the site of a guidance counselor hostage situation.
“Did you not check the time?”
Achi jolts from her seat when she glances at her phone. “How is it five already?” she mumbles while clearing the papers on her desk.
“You’re the best, Nika. Thanks for being so patient, Shobe. Sorry for making you wait,” I say, motioning my hands like a conductor when I receive zero apologies.
Achi scoffs. “Please. It wasn’t even that long.”
“You once assigned me to write a reflection paper on ‘being considerate’ after I was late by two minutes,” I remind her, and she brushes that off. Shocker.
My attention then drifts to the headphones still plugged into the computer monitor. “What were you busy with anyway?”
“The days before Christmas break are like hell week for faculty,” she says, rolling up her charger.
“They shouldn’t call it a holiday with the amount of work they pile on us, plus all the wedding suppliers seem to have forgotten how to answer their phones, so I’m stuck with a million more things to do. ”
Achi being Achi, she requested that all of Ma’s wedding planning go through her. She’s the one coordinating with the venue, the food, the supplier who agreed to Dr. Derrick’s bizarre request of handing out travel-size toothbrushes as wedding giveaways.
But if I know more details about the wedding, maybe I can figure out more ways to stop it.
I make my move when she’s distracted. The moment my achi isn’t looking, I rush behind her desk and see …
Pa on her computer screen. My whole body goes still when the details sink in. The video title, the outfit Pa used to wear every Sunday, the faces in the crowd that I now recognize from watching this video a million times.
The screen is paused on the same video I always watch—Pa playing the Mariah Carey song on the mall’s piano.
Is my sister the reason why the video keeps getting so many views?
Achi then freaks out when she sees me using her computer. “So do you just not understand the concept of boundaries?”
She grabs the mouse and quickly exits the page showing the video.
My mouth’s struggling to voice all my questions when I watch her close countless tabs of the University of Florida website, the professors at the Counseling Psychology program, multiple Google searches on Florida (even one article about a Florida alligator that chased a golf cart).
I always thought that Achi was immune to strong emotions, that she was genetically built to be less affected …
but maybe she feels them all too. Achi’s still pissed off by the time she logs off her browser.
“I knew, I knew you always go through my things, but you don’t even have any boundaries in my workplace,” she grumbles, and stuffs files into her binder.
“My favorite leggings, Nika? I’ve never seen them since you ‘borrowed’ them. ”
“I’ll give back your leggings before you move to Florida.”
And it’s like my sister stops breathing.
“You wouldn’t be looking up the school so much if it was a joke,” I say, gesturing at the computer that had a hundred different open tabs on Florida. “You obviously want to go.”
Her voice is barely a whisper when I hear her say, “I can’t.”
My heart wants to leap out of my chest. Just agree with her! She said she can’t go so don’t let her go! But then I keep remembering her scratchy writing on her vision board notebook. My dream is to get a PhD and see the world.
“I was just exaggerating about the alligator stuff,” I tell Achi, ignoring the part of me that’s begging my mouth to shut up. “Their stamina on land is actually really bad, so if you manage to outrun them the first few minutes, you could probably survive.”
She sighs. “I’m not worried about the alligators.”
“Is it the money?” I guess. “Because I remember your offer letter mentioned some fellowship and that they’re giving you funding.”
My sister logs off her computer. “Niks, I’m not leaving you and Ma. End of story, okay?” She reaches for her handbag and takes out her gigantic shades to wear in this office with very dim lighting. As she smooths out the crumpled pages in her binder, I don’t point out that I can hear her sniffling.
Usually, this would be my signal to back off, give my sister space. It’s against our unspoken rules for me to prolong the conversation.
“I watch that video of Pa a lot too.”
Her body freezes when I speak.
“It’s the only one I can find where he sings.”
Then she says, “He could play the piano in front of anyone, but he got weirdly shy about singing.”
“That’s because he picks the hardest songs in the world.”
“His love, Mariah,” she says, laughing. She looks at me then. “I wish he got to watch you last night. He’d be really proud of you.”
My heart squeezes at that, so naturally, I tell a joke. “But I really just joined Battle of the Bands to flirt…”
But apparently, Achi’s very determined to make me cry.
“You don’t sing anymore, Niks.”
I shrug, pretending like it’s no big deal that she noticed.
“You used to sing everywhere. Every single car ride, in the mornings I’d hear you from the shower.
I remember you singing when I went with you for your first day of kindergarten.
It felt so quiet when you stopped.” She sighs and shakes her head.
“It was hard for me sometimes since music was your thing with Pa … but I should’ve done something when you quit Trumpets… ”
“Ach, that wasn’t your job.”
“But I’m your big sister.” Achi’s voice trembles. “I’m supposed to look out for you.”
A beat passes, then I hear Achi say, “You’re my only shobe.”
Her words are making me tear up while she’s fixated on her damn binder. I wrap my arms around her, but she recoils from my grasp.
“I think you’re a star too,” I tell her.
“Ew?” she says, squirming and acting like she doesn’t feel the same way.
“Can you stand still so I can hug you?”
“This is disgusting,” she mutters.
“Agree.” I try again.
While I convince her to stay still long enough for an awkward embrace, I jump at the sight of a giant mouth under her desk.
“Did you behead someone?!”
I steer clear when Achi grabs the box with what looks like giant dentures inside. “It’s a teeth cake,” she says.
“A what?”
“Uncle Derrick’s sister makes cakes.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “She made this for the wedding. Apparently, it’s a special dental theme for her brother.”
Even if I wasn’t trying to stop this wedding from happening, I still think this cake should be banned from any celebration. It is offensive to everything Ma stands for—as a baker, and generally, as a person with eyesight!
Dr. Derrick’s sister could’ve at least made this a cute little cartoon cake. Who would want to eat dessert that actually looks like someone’s gums?!
“This is the third cake she’s baked,” Achi adds. “The others had icing that looked like tooth decay.”
Putting that image far out of my head. “Did Ma see them too?”
“Yeah, I’ve been helping her think of ways to let Uncle Derrick’s sister down gently.”
I turn the cake around so its head isn’t staring directly at me.
“I’ve also been meaning to ask you about song choices,” Achi mentions. “I started a playlist with songs that Ma might like, but I think we need more upbeat stuff. I only remembered how much Ma loved ‘Always Be My Baby’ when your band sang it.”
“Did you know that’s how Pa asked Ma to prom?”
Achi laughs. “You know, for a moment, I thought I even heard Pa’s voice while you were up there,” she says so casually as if her words didn’t just change everything.
My whole body’s already buzzing when I’m trying to figure out if I heard my sister correctly.
“I listened back to Pa singing in the video, and it’s fascinating how the mind works!” Achi says. “Some studies actually say that one in ten people will experience hearing voices at some point in their life.”
My hand shushes Achi before she goes further into psych mode. “Did you just say you heard Pa?”
“I didn’t technically hear Pa, Nika. It was an auditory hallucination.”
If my sister can hear Pa’s voice, too, does that mean …
Oh my god. Our plan is still working.
“Achi, something happened during Pa’s death anniversary.”
She doesn’t comment the whole time I recap the last few weeks. She doesn’t say anything when I tell her about Pa appearing at our condo, re-creating our parents’ high school love story, even when I tell her he was up onstage with me during the Battle of the Bands performance.
By the time I’m done, all she does is take out her phone.
“Ach?”
She’s typing.
“Did you hear me?”
She’s dialing.
“Do you know someone who’s had experience with spirits?”
“Hi, Doktora,” she says once the other line picks up. “So sorry to bother you, but I wanted to inquire if my sister and I can drop by to inquire about counseling?”
What? Counseling?! We need to figure out our ghost father situation, not counseling!
“Oh great, yes. We can pass by the clinic now. Thanks so much for squeezing us in.”
“We don’t need to be squeezed in!” I hiss at her, but my sister already has a death grip on my hand. She adjusts the sunglasses on her face before dragging the both of us to some counselor’s clinic.