I'm Not Satisfied

Floored

I feel a fool—
flashed messages through transparencies
and texts galore,
but I don’t ever know what to do—
striving diving flying through inconsistencies
starving choking scarfing up desire
and fate.
I want.
I need.
But I am a fool.
A fool searching found out secrets
and drowning in assumptions—
it kills me.
Struggling playfully as I fall
and fall again.
Aspiring failure,
catastrophically crumbled,
void of further expectation.
Flippantly begging for love, compassion and need
until solitude sets in again, like a fox in a burrow—
cunning as it rips me to shreds.
Urging me to break,
being the fool I am—
useless
listless
left wanting


the Moment

panic sets in.
overrides you
complicates you
breaks you out and keeps you in
your head
worries galore
—myriads of them
feasting away your logic
confidence
buoyancy devoured
sunk into a state of confusion
full illusions confound you,
trap
and banish into oblivion
waste you
trash becomes you
into the pieces you are
broken
fret
palpitating, pulsing, gasping
RUN.

Here is the rough draft of chapter two. If you read it, please leave me a comment. Thanks and I guess I should probably disclaim that I do not own GossipGirl, or The Vampire Diaries (unfortunately they belong to various people involved with the CW, otherwise Amy would be a rich lady). This story is a work of fiction that shall not be copied or distributed without my permission.

Vanilla with Salt
Chapter 2: It's not just Gabriel Garcia

At 6AM on any given weekday Momoko was awake and fixing her hair, today was no exception. Her thick, silky and perpetually straight black hair fell to the middle of her back, and she was prideful of its beauty. Though despite knowing her hair was prettiest worn down with the ends curled, she usually wore it in one long, loose braid because she couldn’t stand hair hanging in her face. It got in the way of her adorably nerdy Buddy Holly glasses. She wore the glasses instead of contacts because despite saying contacts were a hassle; she childishly thought glasses made her look more studious in her neatly pressed uniform.

Once she was done dressing, Momoko reluctantly went to the kitchen to pack lunches. The bentos usually consisted of leftovers from the night before colorfully arranged between a mixture of cute animal shaped fruits, vegetables, and miniature low calorie snacks. She loved hearing praises from the girls at school for her lunches’ novelty and craftsmanship.

Though the credit was largely due to abuelita who had perfected boxed lunches years ago. First abuelita had started off with packing homemade scrumptious Spanish feasts for her husband to take to work, and then advanced to more attractive lunches for her children. By the time of Momoko was in junior high and ready to cook for herself, abuelita had become a boxed-lunch artisan. It didn’t take long for Momoko to catch up, and abuelita pushed her on to more difficult tasks and advanced cooking. Momoko’s skills at cooking turned out to be a godsend, since there was no way Becca could have picked up her mother’s slack in the kitchen and still pay the bills.

Once the lunches were complete, Momoko had just enough time to wake her mother and eat breakfast before walking to school. Homeroom at Ascension was the usual clamor of gossip, prayer and announcements, which she enjoyed with her friends in the next row. She listened politely as they giggled about Greg Harris and other hotties in the senior class or shared their opinions about the newest drama on the CW. Momoko had missed it, since she only watched TV twice a week to catch Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries. They claimed she was missing out, but she doubted it. Soon the bell rang and everyone scurried off to first period.

Her classes passed by quick and were unmemorable. At lunchtime she joined her clique on the steps outside of St. Anthony’s, the new English building. William Harris, the owner of several Honda dealerships around town, had donated most the funding for St. Anthony’s last year. It was rumored the donation was a bribe to diocese to prevent his son, Greg, from being expelled after he had been caught smoking marijuana on campus last spring. Though, Momoko felt the story was probably true since the supposed heartthrob was in her math class and perpetually reeked of a disgusting mixture of weed and Armani cologne.

Each year Momoko became more aware of the students of Ascension Academy being just as guilty of drugs, alcohol and unwanted pregnancies as most public schools. The only difference seemed to be the money their parents paid to keep these dirty secrets hidden; hidden from pretty colored pamphlets that advertised Ascension’s stunning academic record and pristine Spanish style campus. The aristocracies of Ascension made Momoko feel a little sick at times, but she did her best to ignore it. Luckily, thus far she had managed to steer clear of the untouchably popular and obscenely rich sector of the school, living her school life largely unnoticed despite being best friends with Alexandra Brown.

Lexie was one of the many people at Ascension Momoko knew since elementary, including another one of her lunchtime buddies, Tyler Duncan. Despite her mousey appearance, Lexie was one of the most outspoken people in the school. Momoko knew this was because Lexie was one of six Brown children, and used to having to fight to be heard. She was pretty popular at Ascension, being a star soccer player and vice president of student council, so most the people they sat with were friends of hers. Tyler Duncan was no exception.

He and Lexie had been together since confessing in the “Do you like me? Yes/No” fashion of junior high. Momoko had been the one to pass Tyler the note, so Lexie liked telling people that it was Momoko who got them together, making her out to be some kind of note-passing-Cupid. Though in all honesty, Momoko had regretted giving Tyler the note since the second she watched him nervously mark “Yes.” The regret was not sprouted from jealousy of her friend getting a boyfriend, as Lexie assumed, but from Tyler stealing her best friend.

Over the last few years Momoko had noted a decline in their friendship. As Tyler slowly stole her place, filling in their Friday night slumber parties with dates and integrating himself into all of their conversations, Momoko tried her hardest not to resent her friends, and instead accepted the distance growing between them for what it was. They had just been growing apart and not for the reasons Lexie thought.

“Momoko?” Lexie asked, between bites of the bologna sandwich she was sharing with Tyler.

Momoko was in the middle of explaining the algebra homework to the boy who sat next to her in the next class, Ricky Philips, and trying her best not to be annoyed as she explained matrices for the eleventh time, “Yes, Lexie?”

“What do you think about Gabriel Garcia?”

“Who?”

“You know him, doesn’t she Tyler?” It killed Momoko a little every time Lexie asked her boyfriend to confirm something about her. She couldn’t stand how he seemed to be her only reliable source; as if Lexie and Tyler knew her better than she knew herself. So she looked away as he shrugged.

Lexie used her tongue to clean the white bread off her teeth before she continued, “Well, he’s Tyler’s friend from baseball. I swear you’ve met him.”

“Is he the tall tan guy who dated Deana Winters freshman year?” She asked politely, instead of saying “Isn’t he the chauvinistic right-winged Catholic pig who kept saying in ethics last year that all ‘fags’ would burn in hell?” She would have said it if she and Lexie were talking in confidence, but she couldn’t, because as usual she was being publicly interrogated and knew whatever she said was for the record.

“Yup, that’s the one!” She looked pleased with herself, and Momoko sighed.

“What about him?”

Lexie smiled with determination, “I asked him to come with us to go grab pizza after school on Friday.”

Only Ricky could see the pencil in Momoko’s hand shake with fury, “Isn’t that nice.”

“Well, aren’t you going to ask me why I invited him?” Her lips pursed tightly when her friend didn’t goad her to continue, “I invited him because I was talking to him in class the other day, and he not-so-subtly let on that he’s pretty interested in you. So I thought lunch might be a good opportunity to hang out with him before… you know…”

“I know what?”

Lexie’s face contorted into a full on scowl by this point. Momoko knew she was wondering why her friend couldn’t just appreciate a good deed, “Homecoming, of course! And then who knows! Maybe the two of you will even hit it off.”

“And what? He’ll become my boyfriend?” she spoke through her teeth, ignoring the tension flaring up in the rest of the lunch circle.

“Momoko, worse things could happen than you getting a boyfriend.” Lexie giggled with a few of the girls sitting with them and pinched Tyler’s cheek. He just ignored her and kept his focus on their sandwich.

Momoko picked up and apple bunny from her bento and chewed on it for a moment, counting slowly to ten and thinking about what Dr. Lewis would want her to do before replying sweetly, “That’s true Lexie. I guess going to lunch won’t hurt, but you know better than anyone that I’m not looking for a boyfriend.” It was so unfair how she could stick Momoko in these situations in front of all her friends.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—you don’t believe in love and all that jazz. Well, lady, you just wait until the bug bites you and then you’ll be telling a different story.” Lexie said as she rolled her eyes and let Momoko go back to tutoring helpless Ricky, who looked mildly petrified.

Momoko hoped that he hadn’t been using his ignorance in math as an opportunity to get closer to her, but it wouldn’t have been unusual. Momoko never needed anyone’s help to find a date, despite how Lexie might like to portray needing to find someone for her poor bestie. She got asked out all the time. From boys in her classes to bag boys at grocery stores, after all, she was a quiet kind of pretty. But Momoko had no time for such nonsense, even if she did read all those girly comics, because she had heard her mother cry herself to sleep over too many times to hold any false ideologies about love and romance. She was fine on her own.

Momoko hated feeling happy to hear the bell ring, but as she restacked her barely eaten bento and picked up her bag, that was how she felt. She waited for Ricky before walking through the reluctant crowd of upperclassmen toward Assisi, the building across campus for math and sciences. As they walked, Ricky spoke to her in the awkward way people spoke with other people they shared little in common with. She tried to ignore him when he asked if she was just not looking for Gabriel Garcia to be her boyfriend or if she really wasn’t looking for one at all.

Intermediate Algebra might not have been her favorite class, but Mr. Kurosawa was definitely one of her favorite teachers. He was a little old Japanese man with a biting sense of humor, usually at Greg Harris’ s expense, and an silly laugh comparable to Santa Claus. Still, many students complained about his classes because he had an accent and always assigned a lot of homework. She wondered what they had expected from a man named Kurosawa—he was Japanese and only assigned them the work that he knew they were capable of doing, instead of the minimum required. She also liked him because he added honorifics to all his student’s names and she secretly liked being called Momoko-chan.

She listened to Kurosawa’s lecture with interest and before she knew it, the bell rang and the day was over. Though, after her conversation with Lexie at lunch, Momoko didn’t feel like hanging around campus after school, so instead she grabbed what she needed from her locker and left. As she walked, she considered going to the café but when she saw it packed with other Ascension students, she changed her mind. One of the few problems with living so close to school was that there seemed to be no real escape from Ascension other than going home.

She continued to walk, humming along to Belle and Sebastian, however as she came close to reaching her house, she half considered turning around and going back to the library. There was a moving van in front of the neighbor’s house, which wasn’t too surprising since the Salinas house had been for sale since the drop in the housing market ages ago. What was surprising was that the new owners had decided to move in on a Wednesday afternoon and were being more than a little loud about it. She could hear them shouting three houses down, and diverted her eyes as she walked past a scruffy mover taking a cigarette break.

“Ah, first fight in the new house.” He scoffed as she passed and took another hit from his cancer stick. Momoko’s shoulder’s stiffened as she stopped for a second, not quite sure how she should respond to his statement—she wasn’t sure if he had meant it to be rhetorical.

If she were Lexie, she would be nosey and presumptuous enough to say something like, “Oh, they’re only fighting because they love each other,” or “Don’t you have some work to do?” But she wasn’t Lexie, and she knew they were fighting for the same reason all couples fought. Not because of couch placement or missing dinner, but because one of them was already looking for something better. Maybe the mover was thinking something similar, but Momoko felt it wasn’t her place to ask. Plus, there were only three hours until Becca came home, and she had more important things to do than to worry about the neighbors.

She decided the best response would be a sympathetic look, and turned her head to face him, only to find the mover was a lot younger than she expected. He was probably only a few years older than her, if that. Then again, it wasn’t any of her business, so she continued on toward her empty house. There she went straight to her room, where she finished her bento and started her math homework.

She worked diligently before starting dinner, which was grilled lemon chicken and salad. She had cooked, packed, and eaten the majority of her dinner before Becca had come home in her usual whirlwind fashion.

“Hola mi amour!” She called from the hall, “Did you see we got new neighbors?”

“Yes, and they’re loud.” Momoko replied as her mom kissed her cheek before plopping her dirty lunch box on the counter.

“Loud? They didn’t seem too loud to me…” Becca bit her lip as she fiddled with the iPod, “Aw, I want to hear ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’—that’s my favorite.”

“Did you go talk to them?”

“Of course, because they were out front finishing up when I came home. That’s why I’m going to be late,” she seemed to remember as she scurried down the hall, with Momoko right behind her, “They were nice enough people. You should bake them something as a welcome, and drop it off later if you have time.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Kurosawa gave us a lot of work today and GossipGirl is on tonight.”

“Eh? Then don’t worry about it. I know Chuck Bass is more important to you.” she teased while kicking her dress pants off and unbuttoning her blouse, “Oh! And that reminds me. Their son is going to Ascension too, so I told them he could walk with you. He seemed like a nice enough boy, so I said you would be fine with it. Is that okay, mija?”

For some reason Momoko pictured a freckle-faced freshman living in that house with angry parents and it made her feel sort of bad, “No problem at all.”

“I knew my angel would be okay with it!” she squealed, while taking the v-neck Momoko was handing her, “He’ll be here in the morning because I invited him over for breakfast.”

“Breakfast?”

“Yes, darling. If you want, I can make it?”

Momoko remembered the burnt oatmeal and pancakes of her youth and shook her head. It wasn’t that Becca couldn’t cook; it was just that she got distracted easily, “No, I’ll make it.”

“Thank you mami! Well, I gotta get out of here,” and with that they fled to complete their evening routine, ending with Becca’s usual, “Adios, mi amour! Te amo! Te amo!” as she ran out the door and Momoko felt a chill.

It was time for distractions. She picked up her plate from the table and brushed what was left into the trash. Her hips swung to the beat of “If She Wants Me” as she washed the dishes, ignoring where she stood. As she sped through her chores she knew there was no way she would be baking anything tonight. The early winter night made the kitchen malignant, and she could almost feel the darkness swirling around her as she washed. She reminded herself it was all in her imagination, as Dr. Lewis had instructed, but it was too much. She practically ran to her room after setting the last dish on the rack.

That's right. A novel! The working title is Vanilla with Salt and I've decided to share a draft of Chapter 1: Burn Frijoles. If you make it through the entire chapter, or even if you don't, please leave me a little comment about what you think. ;) This story is a work of fiction that shall not be copied or distributed without my permission.

Vanilla with Salt
Chapter 1: Burnt Frijoles

She turned the key only to be greeted by the darkness and intrusive silence that comes from living mostly alone. It was 4:40PM; her mother would be coming home soon to pick up food before night school. Momoko neatly took off her Mary Janes and placed them next to the door, before rushing to change out of her uniform. She worried she wouldn’t have time to make a proper meal for her mother, but she was lucky enough to find some chicken breasts in the back of the freezer. She decided to cook up some pasta and broccoli to go with it.


After laying out the ingredients, she rummaged through her bag for her iPod and plugged it into the dock in the kitchen. Singing along to Camera Obscura as she ran the frozen chicken under scalding water, barely flinching as her long pale fingers burned with the defrosting chicken. Momoko had already taken all the steps she could to avoid this place, and now that she was here she tried her best to ignore the grief washing over her in waves.

After school Momoko had talked with friends until they had to leave for their various jobs and clubs. She then moved on to the school library where she staid until Sr. Bernadette kicked her out at four. Momoko didn’t understand why the nuns closed the library so early—it wasn’t as if they had a long commute or anything. The Sisters of Ascension Academy resided in the building next to the senior parking lot.

With nothing left for her to do Ascension, she slowly walked home. She stopped only once at the corner market to pick up some milk for the morning. She would have lingered longer, maybe stopped for coffee at a local café, further delaying the inevitable return to her empty house, but any more stops would trouble her mother. She needed to make dinner and finish her biology homework. Selfish urges to shrug off responsibility and stay out of that kitchen were not enough to excuse laziness.

After all, it had already been two years since her abuelita’s death, and as her therapist had joked, no one was going to understand a kitchen phobia and exposure to the scene would only aid recovery to her PTSD. This argument had been the main reason why Momoko and her mother hadn’t moved out of abuelita’s home, that and frankly they couldn’t afford it. Momoko knew that she wasn’t going to come home again to find her grandmother’s lifeless body crumpled on the kitchen floor surrounded by the smoke from burnt frijoles. At the thought of the scent of those beans, her stomach turned. She knew her abuelita’s decease was a one-time deal, but she still felt sorrow every time she entered the kitchen.

Momoko added the pasta to the boiling water on the stove, before beginning to sauté the chicken and broccoli with a little bit of garlic in olive oil. The delicious aroma caused her mouth to water. After the chicken had browned and the pasta was drained, she began packing her mother’s meal away neatly in a bento. The box was made from an attractive dark wood with a lacquered finish and delicate cherry blossoms painted on its cover. It had been one of the many souvenirs left from her parents’ honeymoon in Japan. Momoko found it ironic that she learned how to cook and make boxed lunches from her abuelita and not from one of her Japanese relatives. But then again, she had never met any family from her father’s side, even before the divorce. Since in their opinion, moving back to Japan was the best decision Hiroto Yoshida had made in years; or at least that was the story her mother told.

Once the bento was packed and ready, she brewed some coffee for her mother to take with her to school, before sitting down and nibbling on her own dinner. The broccoli was perfect, hot, crisp and not too oily, her abuelita would be proud.

As she ate, Momoko kept her eyes focused out the kitchen window and on the driveway, waiting for her mother’s arrival. That way she couldn’t stare pained at the spot in front of the sink where she had found her. Dr. Lewis couldn’t possibly understand—two years meant nothing. Exposure therapy might have gotten rid of the panic attacks and most nightmares, but no matter how much exposure she had, nothing could erase the macabre of abuelita’s passing carved into her fourteen-year-old mind. She was relieved when her mother arrived a few bites into the meal Momoko had half forgotten to eat anyway.

“Hola mija!” Rebecca Castillo said as she kicked her heels off at the door and entered the kitchen to hug her daughter, “Something smells delicious! What did you make for dinner tonight, mi amour?”

Momoko returned the embrace, loving the warm scent of sweat mixed with oriental perfume that clung to her mother, “I found some chicken in the freezer, so I cooked it up with some broccoli and pasta. I already packed your bento, and there’s some fresh coffee waiting for you too. Don’t forget to put your lunch box in the sink before you go. I don’t want to have to clean out moldy rice again because you’re being careless.”

“Momoko, you’re so cute when you’re grouchy!” Becca beamed, ignoring the criticism and ruffling her daughter’s hair in affection, “I always told your father that we should have named you Angelica, but he liked Momoko because he always wanted a daughter who was soft and sweet like a peach. But I always knew you were an angel. My little angel,” she leaned in to kiss the top of Momoko’s head before dropping her lunch box onto the counter. Afterwards she stopped to fiddle with the iPod.

“Darling, I love you more than life, but why do you always have to listen to such depressing music?”

Momoko rolled her eyes, as her mother put on Madonna, “Whatever, mom. I don’t know if the Material Girl is really much of an upgrade.”

“Say what you want about Madonna, but she’s never depressing.” Becca teased while singing and dancing her way down the hall to her room. Momoko took another bite of her pasta before following her mother.

A few months after abuelita died, Becca announced that it was time for a change, so she and Momoko repainted the entire house and Becca moved into her mother’s room. When abuelita had been alive the room always had the musky scent of baby powder and Chanel No. 5, and been decorated with peach lace pillows, rosaries and little figurines of various Saints. Now the room had been painted creamy beige along with the furniture which they sanded down and turned chocolate brown. All the religious paraphernalia, except for abuelita’s favorite rosary (which had been from the Vatican itself), had been boxed up and sent away to Uncle Chico in Santa Cruz. Chico was far more Catholic than both Momoko and her mother put together, thus he agreed to let his sister keep the house if he could have his pick of abuelita’s belongings, and the few things left of abuelo. Becca had been sad to see her things go, but she knew her mother would have wanted it that way, which was why she let it go to Chico without a fight, despite Momoko’s protests.

“So did you get all of your homework done at the library today?” Becca asked as she threw her jacket and blouse onto the bed next to Momoko and began unzipping her skirt.

“Nope, not yet. I revised my essay for English, the reading and notes for Bible and bio, but I still have the lab left.”

“Dios mio, those teachers really pile on the work at that fancy school. What about your algebra? Did you review that with your teacher at lunch today?” Momoko nodded and her mother continued to speak while pulling on some jeans, “Don’t forget to review the notes from your other classes tonight before you go to bed. Especially Español! Isn’t that what Sr. Clara is always saying? If you don’t review that stuff before you go to sleep it won’t keep?”

“Yeah, yeah—that’s what she’s always telling us.” Momoko grumbled, while folding her mother’s clothes, “What about you? Did you get all your homework done?”

“Just barely, mi amour. The old boss man was working me real hard today but I still finished up my worksheets during my lunch break.” Becca was the office manager at a construction company. She was in charge of everything from the phones to bookkeeping to marketing proposals; it was a miserable and exhausting job but it paid the bills and kept them insured, but just barely. It was her father who paid for Momoko’s schooling, because private school was definitely not a luxury Becca Castillo could afford for her daughter. Though both she and Momoko reasoned that it was the least he could do after abandoning his family for that woman and fleeing to the other side of the world.

“Good for you mami,” Momoko smiled as her mother flopped down onto the bed with her.

Becca sighed, “Yes, I finished everything, but I’ve been thinking about skipping today.”

“What! Why? Are you sick?”

“No, I’m just tired, and I’m worried about you, mija.” Becca pouted, while playing with her daughter’s long sable hair, “I don’t like leaving you home alone all the time. You’re only sixteen and you spend all your time by yourself….”

Momoko looked away. She would love her mom to skip school and stay home with her, but she knew that her mom needed to take those business classes. The owner of O’Bryan’s was paying for them. That was where Becca worked Friday to Sunday nights as a bartender. Abuelita had known Mr. O’Bryan from church and gotten Becca a job there after the divorce ten years ago. Since then Mr. O’Bryan had become part of the family.

After abuelita’s death he had agreed to let Becca start working part time shifts so she could work a higher paying job at the construction company. But they also formed an agreement that if she got a degree in business Mr. O’Bryan would hand complete management over to Becca when he retired in a few years. Then she would gain ownership after he passed away. Abuelita’s death was at the root of that decision because at sixty-three, she had only been a few years older than Mr. O’Bryan. He also knew that other than himself, there was no one who loved his bar as much as Becca. Everyone knew this, especially Momoko, so she felt she had no right to interfere with her mother’s dream. Particularly since it had been the cost of her therapy that had forced Becca to leave her full time position at O’Bryan’s.

“Aw, mom! Don’t worry about me. I’m fine!” she contested with a big fake smile, that her mother wasn’t buying, “Come on! Could I make such delicious food if I was depressed?”

Becca grinned devilishly before tickling her little girl until there were tears in her eyes and her pale face was cherry red from laughing, “That’s better! I can’t stand you being so serious all the time. You’re a kid so be a kid!” She proclaimed before getting off the bed and checking her watch, “Mierda! I’m going to be late!”

Momoko ran to get the bento and her mother’s coat as Becca scrambled to check her bag for her homework. Once she was ready to go she turned to Momoko in her usual fashion and kissed both her cheeks while saying, “Adios mi amour. Te amo! Te amo!”

“Yeah, mom. I love you too!” Momoko grinned as her mother ran out the door, and she was left alone yet again.

She went back to the kitchen and changed Madonna back to Camera Obscura before returning to the table. She finished what was on her plate, put the leftovers from the pot in the refrigerator, did the dishes, and set the coffee pot up for the morning. When she was done she fixed herself a cup of tea, picked up her bag and iPod, and retreated to her room. Her time in the kitchen was done for the day. Though as she walked down the hall, she could almost smell the frijoles, but Momoko ignored it like Dr. Lewis wanted her to and got started on her lab.

It was a little after 10PM when Becca returned home, though with her headphones on while she reviewed her US history notes, Momoko didn’t hear her mother come in. Becca embraced her daughter from behind and giggled as she jumped, “Buenas noches, mi amour. How are your studies going?”

“Jeez, mom!” she complained.

“Aw, don’t be angry with me, darling! I couldn’t help it. You’re so cute when you are scared,” Becca goaded while poking at the notes on her daughter’s desk, “Did you finish your lab?”

“Yes. And I’ve reviewed almost all the homework due tomorrow.”

“Good girl.” Her mother crooned before yawning, “I think it’s time for a break. I picked up some dessert on the way home.”

Momoko’s lips puckered to the side of her face as she contemplated the offer for a moment, “What did you get?”

“What do you think, mami? I got your favorite, of course.”

Her eyes lit up, “Gelato?”

“Yup! Lemoné gelato.”

“But it’s so late…” Momoko reasoned as she glanced back down at the Civil War mapped out on her desk.
“Who do you think you are? Una viejita?” Becca teased as she yawned again.

“Who are you calling little old lady, huh? You’re the one who’s yawning,” Her mother pouted, “Okay. Okay, let’s eat dessert!”

“Yay!” Becca giggled as she pulled two small tubs of gelato out of a paper bag, “Aren’t they adorable? This woman in my class had one the other day, so I asked her where I could get them. I guess the supermarket carries them. Look they even have the little spoons on top!”

“Mm, yes. They’re really cute.” Momoko agreed, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, mi amour.”

“Do you have a lot of homework tonight?”

“Nah, nothing too terrible. Just a bunch more worksheets, but I still have to finish the paper for tomorrow.”
“Don’t stay up too late.”
“Aye, mami! That’s what I’m supposed to tell you!” They laughed and joked while they ate, until Becca said good night and left her daughter to go study. Momoko finished reviewing soon after, checked Facebook, and went to take a shower. She was in bed shortly after eleven, but not asleep. Instead she indulged herself in reading one of the manga she had picked up at Borders over the weekend. She might have lacked exposure to the Japanese side of her family, and whereas she might resent her father for his abandonment, she didn’t resent his culture.
Momoko liked reading the shoujo comics about cute Japanese girls with unrequited loves or open a book at random and get sucked into a different world. The graphic novels also gave her an insight to what life might have been like if her father had taken her with him to Tokyo. She liked to imagine herself at a communal bath, unfolding her bed on the tatami mats before going to sleep, and wearing Lolita styles from Harujuku like the Momoko from Kamikaze Girls. But most of all she liked to imagine the three of them living happily together, whether it be in America or Japan, in a world where that lousy Japanese woman had never been her father’s secretary and abuelita was still alive and healthy. Momoko’s indulgent fantasies were a little different than the other sixteen-year-old girls in her class who thought only of boys and beauty products, but then again Momoko was not much like other girls.

My Christmas present from my father was a one-way ticket to Jacksonville, Fl. I never thought of myself as someone who would flee to the South, but I have. Thus far my liberation from San Diego has gone well. Florida is lovely, the people are all exceedingly kind, and I get to be surrounded by family, something that has become more and more important to me as I have gotten older...By older, I am referring to my early twenties.

So St. Augustine really is a lovely place. Very simple, lively and artistic--and I haven't even been given the chance to explore all that much. Maybe I am just infatuated by it being something so different and far from San Diego, but then again both of them are quite similair in certain ways. Namely the Spanish architecture. Either way, at this moment I still find it wonderful and do not expect to be home for quite some time. I am too busy enjoying the freedom and the newness of it all.

Also maybe being here will give me the extra time needed to revise and post all my stories from last semester and maybe even some of my papers from Salinas' class. That is if I ever come over to my Aunt's house long enough to post anything...thus far, the biggest downside has been the face that her house is the only one with internet access. However, that might change once I get a job.

We'll see.