Chapter 5
After the shock wears off, reality sets in. For the next two weeks, this is our new home.
I start to unpack, only to realize there’s nowhere to put my clothes.
Even the closet consists of a lone bar without any hangers.
It seems like a delayed response, but I’m just now realizing there’s no usable furniture here.
Bedframes without mattresses, a kitchen table with no chairs, lamps without light bulbs. The list goes on…
“What exactly did you have in mind when you bought this place for retirement?” Gavin asks the question that’s been on my mind since we arrived.
“We weren’t going to live in this house, obviously,” Dad says, taking inventory of the place. “We were going to tear it down and build a small but nice house, while the rest of the property would be farmed.”
“We planned to grow produce like cabbage and radish that I could make kimchi with, and make herbal teas with ginger and ginseng,” Mom adds. “It was meant to be a retreat from the city.”
The more they talk, the less sense it makes. Farm? Cook? Make kimchi? I haven’t seen them do any of those things, and by the look on Gavin’s face, he’s just as baffled as I am.
Dad opens his bag and begins riffling through it, looking for something in particular. And despite his grand plan of retiring quietly on a farm, the essential items among his things don’t corroborate any of his story.
Dad’s essential items:
Suits, suits, and more suits
A laptop
Mysterious cables
Briefcase full of work documents
His autobiography
If anything, the contents in his bag would suggest the opposite: that Dad has no plans of staying here for the long term.
The only thing in his suitcase that seems out of place is the framed family photo we took last year.
I’m sure he brought it to keep up pretenses that we are the perfect family for when this ordeal is over, since I have never known him to be the sentimental type.
I’d be more offended by his dishonesty if it weren’t a testament to his level of confidence that it’ll be business as usual in no time—a kind of reassurance that we’ll be out of here before we have a chance to settle in, which is a relief.
Because I have a life to get back to. Speaking of…
I pull out my phone only to realize it’s still in airplane mode. I’m about to switch it off when Mom stops me.
“You can’t use that, remember?” she warns me. “There’s no cellular reception or Wi-Fi here.”
“We don’t even have Wi-Fi here?” The gag reflex that comes after I say this out loud is involuntary but understandable. Just yesterday we were living in a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion, each of us with our own wing of the house. The dramatic fall from grace is going to take some getting used to.
“I need to get in touch with Kiki. I’m sure she’s flipping out right now over all my events being canceled.”
“You can’t,” Mom says matter-of-factly.
“You can go back to the limelight after we win the appeal,” Dad says confidently.
“If you’re sure we’re not in the wrong, then why does it matter if I talk to the press?
I bet Extra or Access Hollywood is dying to get an interview,” I say, trying desperately to keep us in the good graces of the media.
“Besides, it might help make our time here go by quicker. We might even get a show out of it. People love watching the rich slumming it. And just because it’s temporary doesn’t mean we couldn’t use the extra cash to make the living conditions here more… livable.”
The sound that comes out of Gavin is full of so much disdain, it startles me.
“We can’t just Simple Life our way out of this mess.
This isn’t a reality show. What we are going through is just reality.
In fact, we’re trying not to get the attention of anyone, remember?
So that means there can be no cameras and definitely no media involved.
” Of course. Leave it to Gavin to be the responsible one.
“Gavin,” I say, spinning on my heel to face him. “To quote Sister George Michael from Derry Girls, ‘You will go far in life. But you will not be well-liked.’ ”
“That’s enough.” Mom preemptively stops us from going at it again.
“Gavin is right,” she says, and I don’t know what’s more offensive: Mom’s declaration or the smug smile on Gavin’s face.
“While the appeal is going on, our family’s reputation will be scrutinized more than ever.
Frivolous articles about what you’re wearing, what you’re eating, what yoga pose you can contort your body into will not help our cause.
This place is a blessing in disguise. The accusations are already painting us as greedy and out of touch with reality.
With no high-speed internet or Wi-Fi, news about us hopefully won’t reach these parts.
” Mom turns to me, pointing a finger. “So if you want to help the family, don’t cause a scene here. ”
Before I can remind them that causing a scene, as they put it, is what’s bankrolling our lives these next two weeks, I get distracted by Dad firing up his laptop at the kitchen counter after connecting it to a cable that fits in the uniquely shaped jack in the wall.
“I thought we didn’t have Wi-Fi here,” I say.
“We don’t. But we have dial-up,” Dad says as he waits for his computer to turn on. “Luckily I had enough sense to pack dial-up cables.”
I glance at Gavin for clarification, but he looks just as lost as I am.
Gavin furrows his brows. “But I thought we couldn’t use the internet.”
“It’s the old-fashioned way to access the internet. The connection goes through the landline, which doesn’t disrupt the radio frequency,” Mom explains while Dad types on his keyboard.
I only understood about half of that, but I don’t care. All I heard was that we have internet access. Things are not as dire as they seemed. Gavin must be thinking the same thing, since we’re both hovering over Dad’s laptop.
On the speaker it sounds like a series of numbers is being pushed on a phone, and then there’s a short ring before a god-awful static fills the air.
I flinch at the sound, plugging my ears.
A second later Dad beams. “Ta-da. Internet.” He opens up a Google tab and types a web address on the keyboard, then we wait. And wait. And wait some more.
“Nothing’s happening. Why is nothing happening?” I begin to panic.
“Is it frozen?” Gavin asks. “Should we restart it?”
“No, definitely don’t restart it.” Dad hovers protectively over the computer.
“Then what is it? What’s the problem?” I ask.
“Just be patient. This is how dial-up works.” Mom tries to calm us down. “It’s not high-speed, but it’s something.”
It doesn’t make sense at first, but it starts to sink in as we watch the page load line by line. About a decade later the website is up. I celebrate too soon, however. It takes another decade for the documents Dad needs for the appeal to download. After the last line loads, I finally make my move.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mom eyes me, wedging her way in front of the laptop.
I let out a squeak of annoyance. “You said I couldn’t call Kiki, but you didn’t say anything about email.”
“Elena, in case you haven’t noticed, it requires a lot of effort to use the internet here. We have to reserve it for business matters only,” Mom chides me.
“But what about my business affairs?” My brows furrow.
Mom, Dad, and Gavin stare at me with a shared look that’s all too familiar.
“My laptop is for essential business only,” Dad says, typing in another web address in the tab.
Of course when they discuss their business matters, it’s considered essential. However, my request to talk to my brand manager is dismissed as frivolous. Typical.
“What’s Ih-khee-ah?” I say, sounding out the big block letters that pop up on the screen.
“IKEA is a furniture store. Don’t you know anything?” Gavin rolls his eyes.
“Sorry for not knowing, like, all the furniture stores.” I glare at him.
“Why can’t we just order the same stuff we had from Restoration Hardware?
Don’t we have enough money—I’m sorry, I mean, don’t I have enough money—to pay for that, at least?
I did make ten thousand dollars at my last event.
And the cost of living can’t be that high here. Now, that would be criminal.”
Mom and Dad wince. I’ve noticed they do this anytime it’s mentioned that we’re living off of money I earned as an influencer. Like it’s drug money or something.
“No point,” Dad says, recovering quickly. “We’re not going to be here long, and we’re only going to get the necessities. Mattresses, tableware, and kitchen chairs.” He motions around the empty room.
“For all the meals we eat together?” I can’t help but snort at the notion of it.
“Now that we’re being stripped of everything, we’re going to be doing a lot of family dinners,” Mom says, as though it’s a punishment.
We haven’t had a family dinner since Gavin moved out almost two years ago.
And even then it wasn’t like we couldn’t find the time to meet up.
Gavin only moved downtown, less than an hour away from home.
Maybe it was because of Dad’s late nights at the office or my paid appearances becoming more frequent.
Or maybe it was because of Mom’s latest charity she’d be involved in or Gavin’s relationship with Sonya.
But regardless of what the excuse was, there was always an excuse.
Because when it comes down to it, having dinner as a family was never a priority for any of us.
After we select our furniture—though select is too generous a word; it’s more like settle on since the pages took so long to load that we just picked the first items that appeared—Dad signs off (whatever that means) and closes his computer.
The cost of the furniture didn’t amount to much, so we decided to splurge on next-day shipping. Small wins.