Faking Reality Read online

  “There was a small community of Japanese Americans and their Japanese immigrant parents farming in this area too, including my grandfather who started his journey from Hokkaido in 1900 and eventually settled in Arizona in 1915,” Mom continues one of the mini-history lessons that she’s known for. “My Japanese grandparents would’ve never been able to afford or legally own such a grand house like this. That’s why we chose to call this rebuild Akagi House instead of Jansen House in honor of all the immigrants who came to Phoenix in search of the American Dream.”

  Jordan the Camera Op swoops in for a close-up of the hand-refurbished kitchen table and the period-specific antique vase Mom discovered recently at an estate sale. Mom pulls one of the purple tulips out of the vase as Jordan opens back up to the full shot.

  “One thing that would’ve been in our 1930s Phoenix home: flowers. Obaasan Akagi, my maternal grandmother, wasn’t the only one taking advantage of Phoenix’s mild winters for gardening. The Nakagawa Flower Farm on Baseline Road near South Mountain took off after World War II, despite the anti-Japanese sentiment still present in this area. The acres upon acres of flowers were once a popular tourist stop. The flower fields are history now—and the land made into single-family homes—but we are going to keep fresh flowers in Akagi House to honor the Nakagawas’ entrepreneurial spirit even in the face of adversity. Stay tuned. Next week, I head slightly northwest to Glendale to find another staple of our 1930s Phoenix home: strawberries.” Mom picks a strawberry from the tray a PA is holding off-screen and holds it up in front of her. “Next time, on If These Walls Could Talk.”

  Mom takes a bite out of the perfect specimen of a strawberry and chews until Phil yells, “And cut.”

  Mom puts the strawberry back on the plate. Now that Mom is done filming, Dad and I can finish installing the chandelier for real.

  “Ready?” Dad says, not to me, but to the PA whose actual job description is: the guy who breaks Dakota’s fall if she loses her balance on the ladder or falls off the scaffolding. On days when things get boring, I wobble on the ladder to make sure he’s still awake.

  “Yes, Mr. McDonald.” Toby, aka Dakota’s spotter, grabs the base of my ladder as I climb back up it.

  “Cut power,” Dad says. All the lights except the one running on the generator go out. “Make sure you use extra safety precautions when doing electrical work, Dakota.”

  I flip my safety glasses down. Toby hands the cordless drill with the Phillips-head bit up to me. Though we filmed the setup multiple times already, the lighting wouldn’t be good enough for us to install it in real time.

  “Gotcha, Santa.” I push the chandelier’s electrical wires to the side so Dad can screw in his part.

  Dad talks me through hooking up the electricity and finishing the install. He talks to me the same way whether cameras are rolling are not. Dad tugs on the chandelier to test its stability before turning the power back on. I wobble on the ladder for real with the amount of wattage suddenly in my face.

  “Now for a little TV magic,” Dad says to me before yelling over his shoulder. “We’re ready, Phil.”

  We film it in two sections, but it will look seamless to viewers.

  First, a close-up on Mom at the chandelier’s light switch. “Ready, Doug?”

  Then, a medium shot of Dad and me still on our ladders—with Toby out of view, of course—as we pretend to have just finished installing the chandelier.

  “Let there be light!” Dad says with an arm flourish.

  We pretend to be surprised when the chandelier lights up perfectly. Viewers get another bingo space because Dad says, “Let there be light!” every time he installs a light fixture of any kind. It’s been twenty years since he first made the-joke-that-refuses-to-die, and yet Phil doesn’t try to change him. Maybe because it’s one of the many Dougisms printed on T-shirts and sold on the HGTV website.

  “Cut!” Phil says. “That’s a wrap. Enjoy your vacation, everyone. See you back here on January eleventh bright and early.”

  “Hey, Dakota, can you come over here?” Stephanie yells across the set. I notice a tall, tan guy standing behind her.

  Toby hands my cordless drill off to someone else on the crew so he can spot my descent down the ladder. I tip my safety glasses up on my head like sunglasses and smooth out the sides of my hair. I wish I could double-check that the massive zit on my chin is still adequately covered with makeup, but there’s no time. Stephanie holds out my jacket for me to slide on.

  “You must be Alex Santos,” I say to the guy standing behind Stephanie. Her assessment was correct. Alex is conventionally attractive. Maybe not as polished and Instagram perfect as Jake Yong, but he definitely has a more relatable vibe.

  “I am. Ms. Stephanie has told me a lot about you. But still…” Alex nods at my ladder. “I’m impressed.”

  Alex immediately loses a point.

  “Ms. Stephanie says that you paint too. Now I don’t want you to see my car. You’ll be able to see all my painting sins that others can’t see.”

  Okay, he gets the point back.

  “You like to paint cars?”

  “Just my car. It started out of necessity after a slight mishap in the school parking lot. The dumpster was fine. The back panel of my Toyota … not so fine.”

  Stephanie gives him a hard look. “And my sister lets Vanessa ride in the car with you?”

  “It was my first and only accident, I swear, Ms. Stephanie. I’m vain and didn’t want to drive around with a dent in my car. The upside: I’m pretty good at car painting now. Though that’s because it took me a dozen tries and a hundred hours on YouTube to figure out how to do it. If I knew Ms. Stephanie worked on your show, I would have hit her up for the connection a long time ago. Like, before I tried to fix the problem with spray paint.”

  “Spray paint?” I’ve never attempted painting a car, but even I know that’s not going to work.

  “Like I said, now I’m afraid to show you my car. Can I deflect by saying Ms. Stephanie showed me the booth you built for your school’s Homecoming Carnival? That was lit.”

  “Since we’re done shooting, I’m going to duck out. I will follow up with you later, Dakota, before I leave.” Stephanie pulls a pair of safety glasses out of the Magic Handbag and hands them to Alex. “I had Alex come in boots, just in case you wanted to show him your workshop or something.”

  “This isn’t the workshop?” Alex looks toward the back of the build.

  “Sorta. Watch your step.” I lead Alex over the tons of cables littering the build’s floor toward the front door. “This one is for the show. Our personal one is in the backyard.”

  We take the shortcut to my backyard and walk over to the small building at the back. Since I was ten years old, the front corner of Dad’s cluttered home workshop has been my space. Mom even made me a sign: DAKOTA’S FAB LAB. My bedroom might be one step up from a disaster zone most days, but the Fab Lab is an oasis of cleanliness and orderliness in the rest of Dad’s borderline hoarder zone.

  “Tah dah.” I pull the old bedsheet off the project I’ve been working on when I’m not busy with my videos or feeling the gaping hole of not having Leo around like the good ole days.

  “It’s. Something.” Alex nods his head at the elaborate dollhouse mansion that I’m building by hand.

  “It’s a custom build for someone else.” It will eventually go to the Raising Hope Women and Children’s Shelter across town, but The Network won’t let me share that piece of information yet. Again, it started as a simple assignment for Mr. Udall’s class and then snowballed into something much bigger. Stephanie even talked The Network into paying for all the high-end materials since I will eventually showcase the project on DIY with Dakota.

  “Oh, okay.” Alex sounds relieved.

  “My mom built me a ridiculous dollhouse when I was five. I thought the … client’s kids would like a similar one.”

  Alex picks up the handmade bed I made yesterday and rotates it. “If you need someone to come do
a test run for you, let me know. My little cousins would lose their minds over this.”

  Mom reminds me weekly—sometimes daily, when the trolls are particularly nasty—not to base my worth on other peoples’ reactions to my work. Still, I let Alex’s words expand in my chest.

  “Thanks.”

  Alex gasps and points at my other recent projects. “These are all your designs?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been playing around with a couple of different things with varying results.” I lead Alex to the painting section of the Fab Lab. “Doing the nails for Nevaeh was the hardest. But the skateboard was pretty easy. I still need to seal it before I can ride it again.”

  “You skateboard too?”

  “Yeah. I’m not very good at it—there’s a reason why I usually wear pants—but I’m getting better.”

  Alex looks at me. The corners of his mouth pull up into a smile. “Ms. Stephanie wasn’t exaggerating. You are cool.”

  Again, my worth is not based on what others think of me, but the positive attention is nice. Especially after some troll ripped my last video, commenting that my voice was “so annoying that HGTV should hire me a voice coach.”

  I decide to cut to the chase. “Would you like to go out on Saturday night for dinner? My treat.”

  Alex startles. “You don’t have to pay for me, but yeah, I’d love to. Could we push it back a little though? I’m going to Tucson for Christmas. Woo! I bet you are going somewhere awesome like Paris or the Bahamas.”

  “Nah.” Though I have visited both of those in the past. “We’re going to be homebodies this year.”

  “How about New Year’s Day?”

  “That day, I have plans. How about the Saturday after New Year’s at seven thirty p.m. at Matsuda? I hope you like authentic Japanese food.”

  Alex pulls out his phone and repeats back the details as he adds it to his calendar. “I can’t promise I’ll pronounce it correctly, but I like trying new things.”

  My phone pings.

  DAD

  It’s my turn to make dinner. So I ordered it. Will be here shortly.

  “I’ve got to go.” I wave my phone in Alex’s direction without elaborating. “But I’d like to see your car.”

  “Promise not to judge me?” Alex says as we head out of the workshop.

  “I think anybody who has the guts to try something new deserves a little grace.” I lock up the workshop and slide my safety glasses off. Alex hands his safety glasses back to me. “There are plenty of people who have never held a hammer, or in your case a paint gun, who are happy to point out everything you are doing wrong. It happens to me all the time, so I would be the last person to do that to you.”

  I shiver as a cold wind—well, at least by Phoenix standards—whooshes through my backyard. Alex pulls the sleeves down on his Desert Bloom High School sweatshirt with the giant burgundy-and-gold scorpion underneath the letters. I gasp when I finally see Alex’s car parked on the street behind Phil’s trailer.

  Alex bites his bottom lip. “It’s that bad?”

  “What? No.” I walk around the outside of Alex’s car. When he said Toyota, I thought he meant your standard, four-door Old Man–mobile. This is not that car.

  “It’s as old as I am and has over one hundred thousand miles on it, but I kinda love my Celica. Toyota doesn’t make them anymore, which added to the fun of trying to fix it. Lucky for me, it was the body that needed fixing and not the engine or something.”

  I do a second circle around the silver car with the spoiler on the back. “I can’t tell which side you redid.”

  Alex hams wiping his brow. “Whew.”

  I look Alex over one more time. A tiny spark arcs between us, despite my barriers being fully up. I nod. “You passed the test.”

  “Awesome. I look forward to seeing you the Saturday after New Year’s, then.”

  “Me too.” Yep, he’s miles ahead of Jake Yong at this point.

  “Can I pick you up, or would you prefer to meet there?”

  As I feel my chest expand instead of contract, I decide to take a chance. “You can pick me up here. Thanks.”

  “Will do.”

  Alex slides into his silver car and fires it up. He rolls down the passenger side window and gestures for me to come closer.

  “So my mom doesn’t kill me, would you give something to Ms. Stephanie for me since I forgot earlier?” he says, and I lean in to accept a potted mini rosebush. “Please tell her that Mom says thanks and that she’s bringing Derek to Ms. Stephanie’s New Year’s Eve party. Yeah, that feeling when your divorced mom starts dating again. Awkward. I have to give Ms. Stephanie props for her matchmaking skills though. Derek is still better than any of the other guys from the dating apps Mom’s tried.”

  I step back from the car wondering if Stephanie is secretly matchmaking here too. I guess there’s only one way to find out. “See you soon, Alex.”

  Alex slides on his stylish shades and cranks up the music on his mediocre sound system. When his car pulls away, I notice the Matsudas’ van peeking from behind the giant dumpster filled with old flooring currently sitting in our driveway. Leo skillfully maneuvers the family van into the narrow spot between Phil’s trailer and the dumpster.

  Leo slides out of the van with a confused look on his face. He holds up an insulated bag and says, “Dinner is served.”

  “You guys are doing door-to-door service now?”

  “No. I was headed this way anyway, so I offered to deliver to our best customers.” Leo tips his head at my rosebush. “You want me to carry this in for you since your hands are full?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” Part of me feels obligated to explain the flowers. Part of me wants to let Leo wonder.

  I don’t say a word as Leo follows me into the house. Leo silently unloads the takeout boxes from the insulated bag onto our kitchen counter before he cracks.

  “So, who’s the rose guy with the dope car?”

  “Alex.” I walk the rosebush into Mom’s office. I leave it and the note attached to it on Stephanie’s table.

  When I come back into the kitchen, Leo gestures for me to continue. “Aaaaannd.”

  “He’s a friend of Stephanie’s niece.” I pull two bottles of root beer out of the refrigerator, open them, and hand one to Leo. “We’re going on a date during winter break.”

  “Oh wow. That was fast.” Leo collapses on one of the barstools at our kitchen island in fake shock. “Sniff. Our little Koty is all grown up and going on a date.”

  “Shut up.” I take a gulp of root beer. “We’re coming to the restaurant for our date, by the way.”

  “Awesome. Hold up, is this an audition or a real date?”

  “Honestly? I’m not sure. If the date goes well, Stephanie is going to see if Phil will do some screen tests with Alex after the crew comes back from vacation.”

  “I’m confused. So is Alex, like, genuinely interested in you?”

  I kick the leg of Leo’s stool. Root beer dribbles down his chin.

  “Hey!” Leo wipes his chin and checks to make sure he didn’t get soda on his white button-down shirt. “I’m not implying that you aren’t dateable.”

  “Pretty sure you did.”

  “No, I just know that you are very careful about who you let into your bubble. This Alex guy must be something, based on the smile that was on your face when he was telling you bye.”

  “Stalker much?”

  Leo kicks the leg of my barstool. “I was right there. I couldn’t not see it.”

  “I agreed to let him pick me up here instead of meeting me at the restaurant.”

  “Wow. First, he’s handing you flowers. Now, he’s picking you up at your house. Next thing you know, you two will be at Lookout Mountain Park stargazing and…” Leo winces. “I’m making things weird, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  Leo drains the rest of his root beer and lets out a burp. “Sorry. Gotta go. I talked my parents into giving me the night off for a change. Poor Aurora. Hashtag Sor
ryNotSorry.”

  My heart soars. “In that case, you should stay. You know my dad always orders enough food for ten people. We can play video games or watch a movie or something since finals are over.”

  Leo drops his eyes. “Raincheck? I’m going to Lindsay’s to watch a movie.”

  My heart plummets. “Oh. Okay. What movie?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “Have fun, and don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”

  “Yeah, definitely can’t promise that.”

  “TMI. Seriously.”

  It hurts my feelings, because Leo knows why I keep people at a distance—even the well-meaning fans who want to take a selfie with me or hug me.

  “For the record, I’m working on my trust issues,” I say. “I just move slower than most people, including you, apparently.”

  “And you should.” Leo puts his hand on my shoulder. “Take your time. Don’t rush into anything, Koty. Listen to your gut. If it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. And I mean that for every stage from holding hands to kissing to…”

  “And we’re done here.” I press the insulated bag into his chest. “Go have fun with Lindsay.”

  “While I still can,” Leo grumbles while following me through the hallway to the front door.

  “You couldn’t get your parents to budge on the New Year’s thing?” I don’t want to do our annual McDonald-Matsuda New Year celebration if Leo is going to be up in Flagstaff on a romantic skiing vacation with Lindsay and her family.

  “Nope.” Leo punches the insulated bag a few times. “I had Mom turned to the Dark Side and Dad too almost, but Ojiichan wouldn’t budge. I’m almost seventy years old. I don’t know how many more New Year celebrations I’ll have with my family … blah blah blah. Now we’re all stuck at home doing the same old thing. Just like every other boring year.”

  My heart crashes into the earth, but Leo is oblivious.

  “You’re still coming over, right?” Leo throws an arm around my shoulder. “To save the night from completely sucking?”