The Latte Rebellion (28 page)

“Isn’t it?” My dad kept on, relentless. “I can think of one big thing you’ve been hiding; two if you count these letters. I found some other paperwork, too, that you probably thought was cleverly hidden. A pledge to participate in the sit-in? Honestly, Asha, do you think we’re oblivious? You lied. You’ve broken our trust in you.”

My mother sighed, exhaustedly. “We’ve been so worried about you ever since your grades slipped last fall … and now …”

“Mom, I really thought it was
important.
” My voice was harsh and ragged, but I couldn’t help it. I was just so angry. “I really thought that colleges would be interested in the fact that I was involved in something socially aware. And not just colleges. You even heard about it on the news. People are interested in this. I’ve actually helped create something that could change people’s lives.”

“I know,” she said, softly. “But when that takes away from everything else, from who you are …”

“It
is
who I am,” I said, just as quietly. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said.

Later that night, as I was lying in bed contemplating my punishment—which was essentially being grounded for the rest of eternity—I thought back to what I almost said to my dad in the vice principal’s office, what I could have said. That my dad was brown on the outside and white on the inside. A coconut. An insult. One that we’d made light of and tried to reclaim in the Latte Rebellion Manifesto, but for my dad, it would have been deadly serious.

Grandma Bee and my Gramps had raised my dad to speak only English and taught him never to make a big deal out of his ethnicity—they were afraid it would attract the wrong kind of attention. Like when their house was vandalized back when they lived in Texas, before my dad was born. When I was little, I begged Grandma Bee to teach me Spanish, but she always claimed she’d forgotten everything. When I got older, I realized that couldn’t be true. She just
wanted
to forget.

I pulled the pillow over my head and sighed. My dad had basically grown up a plain old mainstream American. And was I really that different? Sure, I probably ate a hell of a lot more curry than the average person. I had a small collection of nearly new
shalwar kameez
shoved to the back of my closet.
I had a Nani and a Nana on my mother’s side, and a Gramps and an Abuelita—who insisted on being called Grandma Bee—on the other. You’d never mistake my skin for white, although it wasn’t all that dark brown, either. But what did any of that matter? All I’d thought about on a regular basis—before the Rebellion, anyway—was how many days were left until we could graduate and get out of here. What did that make me?

And then there was what my mother had said, about being so involved in something that I was losing myself. I didn’t think that was true about me, but she had a point. I’d spent all this time feeling responsible for the Rebellion, feeling like it was somehow my fault that everything got out of hand (and my dad wasn’t helping with that); my fault that Carey and Miranda were in various kinds of trouble—not to mention Maria McNally and David Castro—and that the school had briefly become a battle zone.

It
was
my fault that I’d gotten distracted and let my grades slip and blown off all those application essay workshops, which probably resulted in my rejection letters and waiting lists. But I’d done what I could about that; I’d gotten my grades back up, and I’d already sent in my letter of appeal. With that letter, hopefully Robbins College would realize what I already knew: that I was more than just the sum total of my grades, or the exact composition of my DNA. And nobody could take those accomplishments, that knowledge, away from me, no matter what happened at the disciplinary hearing.

The Latte Rebellion … well, it
had
meant a lot to me, and it still did. But it was way bigger than me now; way beyond Carey, Miranda, or me; it truly did have a life of its own.

I threw the covers off and went to the window, sitting on the floor below the sill and staring out at the starry sky. Maybe it was time to finally let some of this go.

The next morning, a call came from the front office. My mom picked it up—she hadn’t quite run out the door yet—and after a few terse “yes” and “no” answers, hung up and turned to where I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cornflakes.

“Well, the school has set your disciplinary hearing for next Monday,” she said, putting on her sweater and picking up her car keys. I could tell she was still disappointed that they’d decided to consider expulsion. And I wouldn’t be allowed back at school in the meantime. Suspended. I couldn’t even conceive of it. I hardly ever even stayed home sick.

Oddly, though, the time passed quickly. All I did was eat, sleep, pick up my assignments from the front office, and do homework. Except for those quick trips to school, I was pretty much stuck at home, since my dad made a point of coming home for lunch and my parents took turns calling me on the home phone every hour or so to make sure I didn’t go anywhere else. I had to get all my gossip via email.

Sunday, though, I was allowed a
very
brief study session with Carey and Miranda, who brought some extra worksheets from an AP prep workshop they’d attended. The first thing I found out—in whispers, when my parents had left the kitchen—was that there had been no Roger Yee at school, either. Thanks to the zero tolerance policy for violence, he’d been summarily expelled, but I didn’t feel much satisfaction at the news. Well, maybe a little. But it was tempered by the fact that he’d already arranged to finish out the school year at Seward High across town, thanks to his dad knowing someone on the school board. Rumor also had it that he was being forced to do some kind of community service.

“Picking up trash,” I suggested, flipping a page in my calculus book.

“Um … being a big brother to disadvantaged children,” Miranda shot back.

“Disadvantaged
mixed-race
children,” I added. We laughed. Carey looked up briefly from her Barron’s AP European History and smiled distractedly.

I sobered. Carey had definitely been distant the past few days, throwing herself into studying extra hard after Wednesday’s catastrophe, even though she didn’t really have anything to worry about. She’d been let off the hook as far as the “riot” was concerned. So it wasn’t like she needed to study
that
hard—she’d already gotten her scholarships.

As for me, I wasn’t sure how I felt about my own prospects, but at least I knew that my friends were rooting for me—including Thad, though I hadn’t been able to do more than email him since my parents had temporarily taken custody of my phone. “Unjustly imprisoned,” I’d written. “Please send chocolate.” And when he’d sent me a hollow chocolate Easter rabbit with a nail file inside, I had to laugh.

After the days of enforced lockdown, I was looking forward to—hopefully—going back to school, even though I got really weird looks when I showed up in the office to pick up my classwork. People had heard about my speech, about the firecrackers; some of them had even seen the footage online at the Latte Rebellion unofficial site. I didn’t know what Kaelyn or the other gossipmongers might have said, or whether they were silently blaming me for what happened, but it put me on edge. When I ran into Ayesha Jones coming out of the front office that Friday, she gave me a sympathetic smile and a hug, but it didn’t make me feel much better.

I still had my disciplinary hearing looming over my head, for one thing, even though Miranda was sneakily helping me prepare. She’d even brought me a handbook from the American Civil Liberties Union talking about my rights during the expulsion-hearing process, and insisted on making sure I wasn’t being “taken unfair advantage of.” I gave her a huge hug, but I wasn’t sure how this was going to help me if the school board had already made up their minds, like my parents had.

Meanwhile, the Rebellion blog was brimming with comments and inflammatory rhetoric about how violent incidents only proved the importance of the Latte Rebellion mission, blah blah blah. It got so that I stopped visiting any of the Rebellion websites. Even when I visited the original page that we’d set up back in October, it felt like I was looking at something somebody else had invented, a long time ago.

Of course, I felt like it was important for people of mixed ethnicity to have a voice, an identity. There was no question about that. But I still wondered: was all this—this chaos, this cacophony of voices—what a movement really was? Was that the only way for us to be heard?

I felt like my one lonely voice had been drowned out in all the shouting, and I didn’t know what I was trying to say. I wished, more than anything, that I was in a place where
my
voice mattered.

14

There were murmurs throughout the boardroom as Kaelyn stood in front of the disciplinary hearing board in her short skirt and Roger Yee’s letterman jacket, smiling slightly and not looking in the least nervous.

Unlike me.

“Well?” the hearing officer said impatiently. “You asked to make a statement.”

“Yeah,” Kaelyn said, in a speculative tone of voice I didn’t much like. “I just thought the panel should be aware that Asha and her friends were probably planning this from the very beginning.”

My mother inhaled sharply next to me, and I heard a brief burst of mumbles from the audience. The photographer’s flash went off and I hoped he hadn’t been taking a picture of me. I was livid.

“I knew they were responsible for this Latte Rebellion stuff ever since the Inter-Club Council pool party last summer,” Kaelyn continued. I seriously doubted that part, since we hadn’t even come up with the idea for the Latte Rebellion at that point. I half-stood, not caring if I was interrupting.

“What, are you psychic?” I said, scornfully. “If you knew all along, then why didn’t you just blab to Mr. Malone before all of this happened?”

Kaelyn turned around. “Oh, I thought I’d let you girls have your fun.” She winked at me slyly.

“Ms. Vander Sar,” the hearing officer snapped. “You realize you could be in serious trouble, if you’re determined to have been withholding information that could have prevented these events.”

He had her there. And though I knew for a fact she was bluffing about her knowledge of the Latte Rebellion, I’d be willing to bet she’d been hiding something about Roger, about his intentions to get back at us.

Kaelyn was quiet for a moment, thinking.

“Well, it was more like a good guess, sir,” she said innocently. “I really didn’t
know
, and I never thought all
this
would happen. But I do know that Asha and her friends were the ones who instigated the whole feud, picking a fight with Roger at that pool party.”

“Oh my,” said one of the more elderly school board members, and the audience threatened to become unruly again. I shot up out of my seat, ready to give Kaelyn what for, but before I could say anything, the ace that I had up my sleeve sort of … slipped out a little early.

“That’s a
lie
!”

I whirled around at the shout. David Castro was standing a few rows back, glowering. “They never did anything like that.”

“Excuse me, Mr.—?” The hearing officer looked at him questioningly.

“David Castro,” he said, standing a little taller.

“Mr. Castro, if you don’t sit down, I’ll have to ask you to leave the room.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I have to agree with David,” said another voice, this one from the seats next to the door. It was Shay Saintmarie, dressed in a neat bead-trimmed suit jacket. “I was standing near them at the pool party, and I saw what happened. Roger made a stupid comment to Asha, and they all got into an argument. It was all just a misunderstanding. There is no ‘feud.’ ”

Kaelyn whirled around and shot her an incredulous look.

“Yeah,” David continued, though he hadn’t even been there at the ICC pool party. I had to love him for leaping to our defense, though. It was the moment I’d been looking forward to the whole agonizing morning—the time when I actually got to tell my side of the story, and got the audience to put in their two cents, too. The room erupted in noise this time, and it took the hearing officer several minutes to quiet things down.

The panel couldn’t ignore that, even if they tried.

“Is this true, Asha?” my mother asked, quietly. “About the argument?” I hadn’t told my parents that part. I hadn’t thought it mattered, but apparently now it was at the heart of everything.

“Mom, he called me a towel-head.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth. “Carey threw iced coffee at him. We all got into an argument. Then he took off. It was stupid.”

“That
boy
is stupid, if he thinks it’s acceptable to call people offensive names,” Mom said flatly. Suddenly I realized that the room was silent and everyone was listening to our conversation.

“Excuse me,” the hearing officer barked into the sudden quiet. “I find all this very touching, but I’m not sure why it’s relevant to whether Ms. Jamison should be expelled.”

“Because she wasn’t responsible for the fights at school, or the explosions,” David said, frustrated.

“But we’ve clearly established that she not only founded the organization, she continued to be involved, even against school rules.”

“Maybe Asha should get the chance to explain for herself,” Shay suggested. In the ensuing chaos of clapping and voices, I heard Miranda let out a whoop of agreement.

“Now, I’m still the one in charge of the proceedings here,” the hearing officer said hoarsely, above the din. Then it seemed like the whole audience was standing up, looking at me expectantly and shouting for me to tell my story. The school board members were shaking their heads, and the hearing officer looked ready to kill somebody. This was probably his worst nightmare.

It really
was
like a teen movie.

“Well,” I began, hesitantly. “Like Shay said … it all started with the pool party.”

The hearing officer declared another recess while the board took a break to discuss their final recommendations, but as I scuttled down the back hall to the least crowded bathroom, I was feeling surprisingly good. Not having to keep my role in the Rebellion a secret anymore … I felt like I’d been lugging around one of Nani’s giant, hard-plastic India suitcases crammed full of gifts for every relative under the sun, and I’d finally been given leave to let it roll down the hill without me.

As I re-emerged into the momentarily empty back hallway, someone stepped in front of me and I stopped short.

It was Roger Yee.

“Who let
you
in here?” I said, and I’m not afraid to admit I was outraged. I drew myself up to my full height, which was still a few good inches shorter than Roger, and glared up at him and his stupid floppy hair. “Back for more punishment?”

“Yeah, whatever. You’re the one who wanted an open hearing.” He sneered at me but didn’t meet my eyes. “You know, you have some serious ego issues. I have a follow-up appointment with the school board. I didn’t come here to have a fight with you.”

“Right, because last I heard, you eschew violence of any kind. You’re a veritable Mahatma Gandhi.” I paused, then stepped backwards. “Oh, no, wait—that’s right. You’d never be a Gandhi, because he’s one of those towel-heads.”

For a second I was afraid he
would
hit me, but then I asked myself if it really mattered. It was all over anyway. Just let him. I grinned mercilessly.

“Touché,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “Jesus. Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Are you ever going to stop saying stupid shit?”

He sighed. “Maybe one day,” he said, a little wryly. There was a long, awkward pause, during which I tried to figure out how to get the hell out of this excruciating conversation. I was amazed nobody had walked by yet.

“I have to say, what I can’t figure out is why you guys didn’t just join the damn Asian American Club,” he finally said.

Not him, too. “You’re the one who said I was ‘barely Asian,’” I pointed out. “That didn’t exactly make me
want
to join.”

“I
know
you’re Asian,” Roger said, shifting agitatedly from foot to foot. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “Don’t you want to, you know, represent?”

“Represent?” I echoed, incredulously. “Roger, tell me, what do I represent? Do you want me to choose a side? Is the Asian part of me somehow
better
than the other part?”

Roger goggled at me and opened his mouth, but I didn’t let him interrupt me. “Let me tell you, I’m definitely not Indian enough to fit in with my Indian family. And I don’t exactly fit in the mainstream either, now do I? So what am I supposed to represent? Who am I obligated to represent
to
? Not you, that’s for sure.” It seemed like my words were inadequate to what I was feeling. “I’m way more than just my genes, or my family, even. When is that ever the whole story? Can’t you just let me be who I am without having to put a label on it?”

I remembered Carey telling him,
I don’t call
you
Fu Manchu
. And I didn’t know what else I could say to him.

So I walked away, back to the hearing room, leaving him standing there confused and scowling.

“… and here I am, basically on probation until they tell me I’m off the hook,” I said, carefully chopping an onion, my eyes watering from more than just the pungent juices.

Nani glanced up at me. I tried not to meet her scrutinizing gaze, and after a moment, she turned back to the heavy wooden cutting board where she was cleaving a raw chicken into stew-sized pieces. “Suspended expulsion,” she said, as if testing the sound of the words in her mouth. “So you could still be expelled, even after all this.”

I sighed. This was the last thing I wanted to talk about. “Only if I violate school rules again. Which I’m not going to do,” I concluded in a resentful mutter, wondering why I had to rehash a story she’d already heard from my parents.

“I’m quite sure you won’t,” she said. Her tone was light, but I still felt defensive.

“And if I’m a
model citizen
,” I said through gritted teeth, no longer even pretending to chop the onion, “they’ll strike the expulsion hearing from my record.”

“Asha,” Nani said, putting the chicken down and washing her hands at the sink. I cringed a little internally, waiting for whatever disappointed lecture was surely coming. Finally, she turned toward me and leaned back against the counter, tiredly, the lines around her dark-brown eyes seeming even more pronounced than usual. “
Beti
, listen to me. Nobody expects you to be perfect. Do you understand?” She smiled a little sadly. “I know it can be difficult to live up to what others expect of you. But remember that it’s not always others’ expectations that are the issue.”

I wiped an oniony tear from my cheek and sighed. “That’s the thing.
Nothing
turned out the way I expected.”

“In some good ways too, though, am I right?” She moved closer and enfolded me in a soft hug. I hugged her back, smelling dish soap and spices. “That’s always life. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s Mom and Dad’s job,” I said sardonically, moving back to my station at the cutting board.

“
Whsht—
be respectful!” she said, but I could see that she was hiding a smile.

And I felt a little better. Even though I still couldn’t cook for crap—I hadn’t even managed to chop a whole onion—and even though I was almost-but-not-quite-expelled.

A few weeks after my probationary return to school, things had finally calmed down; people were done gawking at me, and everything went more or less back to the usual routine.

I was still technically grounded, but my parents had hardly criticized me in days. I was allowed to study with Miranda as long as we stayed in the kitchen where we could be under surveillance. I felt like life was almost back to normal—as long as I went into denial about everything that had happened over the past couple of months, and as long as I didn’t think too hard about the fact that Carey wasn’t a regular part of our study group anymore. We still ate together at school most of the time, but after her testimony at the hearing, I just wasn’t ready to have things go back to the way they were. She’d done what she thought she had to do, but I won’t lie—I was angry and hurt. And she knew it, and there was nothing more to say.

Then something happened that changed my life yet again.

It was a Friday. I was exhausted from a week of AP testing in English, Physics, and Calculus, and I pulled into the driveway with a huge sigh, almost looking forward to a weekend of being grounded because I’d get to stay inside and sleep. But the minute I slammed the car door shut, my mom came running out of the house, a barely suppressed smile on her face.

I was immediately filled with trepidation and had to force myself to be optimistic. I hadn’t broken any regulations lately, so the school couldn’t have called, could they? If they did, it had to be something else, like maybe they’d miraculously decided to call off my suspended expulsion early. Or maybe Mom got that classroom materials grant she was all excited about. I tried to brace myself, but I wasn’t prepared for her to suddenly grab me in a tight hug.

“What’s this all about?” I gingerly hugged her back, then pulled away and made for the front door.

“There’s … mail for you on the kitchen table,” she said, a note of excitement in her voice.

“From where?” I threw my backpack down in the front hall and went into the kitchen, my stomach fluttering nervously.

“Just look,” she said, following behind me. I shuffled through the pile of mail on the table. There was … a fat envelope. Not the junk mail kind, but the kind that meant you’d definitely gotten into a college. It was addressed to me.