Page 60 of Bad Words

I grinned. “Thanks, C.”

Christi gave a tight smile. “See, I listen.”

“A favorite!” our mother said. “Very exciting.”

“Anyone we’ve heard of?” Justin said.

“Stephen King,” I said.

“Wait, really?”

“No.”

Elena, Christi, and Kevin snorted. Justin made a dismissive gesture at the camera.

“Did you have fun last night, Manoy? Nene?” I asked the kids.

Their heads bobbed. Manuel’s enormous brown eyes strayed shyly away, but Jenna burst out, “Tito Kevin got me a dinosaur.”

“Oh, for real? What kind?”

“Stegosaurus,” she said, mangled by her lisp.

“Awesome. Can I see it?”

Jenna ducked down beneath the table and emerged with a stuffed mint-green stegosaurus the size of her body. When she squeezed its head, it emitted an electronic groan.

“So cool. What’s his name, Nene?”

“Roarasaurus.”

I raised my eyebrows at Christi. “I guess he can wander around the cargo hold on the way back to South Carolina?”

“He’ll have to. We don’t have an extra checked bag.” Christi glared murder at Kevin.

Kevin, texting, didn’t hear her. When he realized we were all looking at him, he said, “What?”

“Anyway,” said Mom, “when are you coming to visit, Pijay?”

“I don’t know. Since the book comes out in February, the next couple of months are going to be pretty crazy. Maybe March?”

“We’ll have to get it on the calendar!”

“Definitely.”

A moment’s silence.

“I wish I were there,” I offered, beginning to feel the strain. Scanning my family’s body language, I could see the discontentment running along the channels between them, like I was a plane flying above an oil spill in a delta. Kevin and Elena weren’t speaking, that was obvious. And when they all got to Manila, Justin’s wife, Courtney—whom Christi called Princess Courtney in private—would start making her little comments about the humidity and the traffic and the air conditioning in our Tita Eugenia’s place, and the trouble would really start.

“Wish you were here too, Park,” Elena said, picking at a scab on her elbow. She’d turned twenty-six last month, but something about the way she looked plaintively into the camera just then made her look years younger, like the fresh-faced girl who’d walked the stage at her graduation.

“I’ll meet Katy soon,” I said. “Promise. I can take the train up to Boston.”

“Cool. That’d be fun.” Elena made herself smile. She was miserable. I could feel her unhappiness rushing off the screen like wind.

“I see how it is,” said Kevin, half joking. “Some girlfriends are more important than other girlfriends.”

“Bro, you haven’t even told me your new girlfriend’s name.”