PART 1: Why Baby Wanted Proof

I want to say immediately that nobody framed me.

I lied.

At my own kitchen table.

With witnesses.

It was Tuesday mahjong, three weeks before my seventy-second birthday, and Baby Fontanilla had just finished another story about her son Nolan.

“Nolan upgraded me again,” she said, arranging her tiles. “First class to Maui. He said, ‘Ma, your knees deserve better.’”

For six years, Nolan had apparently been carrying Baby around America like she was a visiting queen.

Nolan sent flowers.

Nolan booked suites.

Nolan knew somebody at every airline.

My son Rommel is also a good boy.

Rommel once remembered my birthday two days late and texted me a picture of a chocolate cake he saw at Safeway.

So I smiled across the mahjong table and heard myself say, “Rommel is flying me to Vegas for my birthday.”

Ludy stopped chewing.

Pacing said, “Ay!”

I should have stopped.

Instead I added, “First class.”

Baby’s hand froze over the tiles.

“The Bellagio,” I said.

Diyos ko.

Why not say the Pope was meeting me at baggage claim?

For eleven beautiful seconds, everybody looked impressed.

Then Baby said, “Which airline?”

“The blue one.”

Pacing coughed into her hand.

Baby narrowed her eyes.

“Send pictures, Neneng.”

“Of course.”

“The seat too.”

“Obviously.”

“And the room. And the lounge.”

She smiled.

Not kindly.

I knew that smile. I had been losing mahjong money to that smile since Clinton was president.

That night I booked myself to Las Vegas.

Spirit Airlines. Seat 31E. Middle.

The hotel was not the Bellagio.

It was the Sandcastle Inn, forty-one dollars a night, four miles from the Strip, with photographs clearly taken during a better century.

I put everything on a new credit card because humiliation is expensive.

Then I started researching.

I studied first-class seats online.

I studied the Bellagio lobby.

I wrote a fake itinerary on the back of a church bulletin.

Thursday: spa.

Friday: show.

Saturday: birthday buffet, the expensive one with crab.

I even bought a travel-size hand lotion because I decided first-class women moisturize in the air.

The morning of my flight, my neighbor Roy dropped me at SFO at four-thirty.

“Where’s Rommel?” he asked.

“Meeting me there.”

Another lie.

They were breeding now.

On the plane, I squeezed into 31E between a man with a guitar and a woman who went to sleep before takeoff and stayed asleep with the determination of the dead.

I wore my neck pillow.

I wore my good earrings.

I smelled faintly of expensive-looking hand lotion.

Twenty minutes before landing, I got up and walked toward the front.

The first-class seats were quiet because everybody up there was sleeping.

Perfect.

I stood in the aisle, angled my phone, and took seven selfies with the large seats behind me.

A flight attendant appeared.

“Ma’am, you need to return to your seat.”

“I’m looking for my son.”

“Is your son on this flight?”

I looked around.

“He moves around.”

The flight attendant stared at me.

The man with the guitar, five rows back, shouted, “You got this, Tita!”

I was escorted back to 31E.

Still, two pictures were excellent.

From the airport bathroom, I sent the best one to the mahjong group.

FIRST CLASS!!! SARAP!!!

Ludy sent hearts.

Pacing sent champagne emojis.

Baby replied immediately.

What seat number?

I stared at the message.

Then another one arrived.

And show me the hotel towel.

The towel?

Who asks for the towel?

That was the moment I should have realized something was wrong with Baby Fontanilla.

Instead I decided she was trying to destroy me.

And I decided I would rather die in Nevada than let her.

PART 2: What the Towel Betrayed

The Sandcastle Inn had no castle.

It also had no pool.

It had cracked concrete behind a chain-link fence and a sign that said POOL CLOSED.

My room was 214. The air conditioner coughed every ten minutes like an old man refusing medicine.

There was also a rooster somewhere.

This was Las Vegas.

There should not have been a rooster.

The first evening, a vending machine ate my dollar. I slapped it, got nothing, and then kicked it with my right foot.

My big toe made a small, terrible pop.

“Ay, put—”

I stopped myself because my mother was dead, but I still feared her.

For the rest of the trip, I limped.

Please remember the limp.

The next morning Baby started texting.

Where is breakfast?

Pool picture!

Neneng where is your robe hahaha

She was enjoying this too much.

So I put on my good blue blouse, fixed my lipstick, and took one Sandcastle Inn towel from the bathroom.

A woman at a luxury pool has a towel. That is the picture.

Without the towel, you are just a woman standing near water in a blouse.

I took two buses to the Bellagio.

At the pool entrance, I slipped in behind a family with six children. I made it maybe ninety seconds before a young employee walked over.

“Room number, ma’am?”

“Two fourteen.”

He checked his tablet.

“We don’t have a 214.”

“There is where I’m from.”

Then I unfolded my towel.

Diyos ko.

SANDCASTLE INN was printed across the middle in giant blue letters.

I folded it so fast I almost trapped my hand inside.

The employee looked at the towel.

I looked at the employee.

Then I limped away with dignity.

I still got the picture.

In every photo, I was holding that folded towel against my stomach with both hands like police had just handed me evidence.

Baby replied within thirty seconds.

Why are you holding the towel like that?

“Bwisit,” I said to my phone.

Thursday afternoon, I took lobby pictures under the glass flowers. A woman took eleven photos and kept saying, “One more!” like she had invested in my fraud.

Thursday evening, I watched the fountains from the sidewalk. That part was real.

The music started. The water went up. My toe throbbed.

For one minute, I forgot I was lying.

Then Baby texted:

Show the room!!

I went back to the Sandcastle Inn.

Friday was the expensive crab buffet on my fake itinerary.

In real life, Friday was a twelve-dollar buffet on Fremont Street.

There was no crab.

There were shrimp.

I arranged six shrimp on a plate, cropped the picture very tightly, and sent it to the group.

Ludy replied:

OMG THE CRAB PLACE!!!

I wrote SOBRANG SARAP and turned my phone facedown.

Then I ate my twelve-dollar shrimp like a criminal.

Saturday morning was my birthday.

Seventy-two.

I woke up alone with the air conditioner coughing and the rooster screaming somewhere behind the motel.

My phone buzzed.

Baby.

Neneng. Same blouse Thursday and Friday.

I looked through my pictures. Blue blouse at the pool. Blue blouse in the lobby. Blue blouse beside six fraudulent shrimp.

I had packed four blouses. I kept wearing that one because it made my arms look smaller.

Another message arrived.

Rich people own two blouses.

That did it.

I called her.

“What is your problem?”

Baby laughed. “Nothing.”

“You are inspecting my vacation like immigration.”

“I’m interested.”

“In my sleeves?”

“Grabe, Neneng. Relax.”

“No. You asked for my seat. You asked for the towel. Now you are counting my blouses.”

She went quiet.

Then she said, “Just make sure no hotel name is showing.”

I stopped. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Baby.”

“Ay, I have to go.”

She hung up. I stared at my phone. That was strange.

But I was too angry to investigate strange.

I put on the green blouse.

I packed the towel.

I took the bus back to the Bellagio.

I needed one photograph Baby Fontanilla could not question. One good picture of myself looking rich.

At four-twenty, limping through the lobby, I saw a brass luggage cart beside a pillar.

It was tall and shiny, with carpet on the bottom and a rail across the top.

Perfect.

A woman beside a luggage cart looks like a hotel guest.

A woman standing on one looks like she owns luggage too important for the floor.

I handed my phone to a young tourist.

“Can you take one picture?”

“Sure.”

I stepped onto the cart with my bad foot. My toe screamed, so I hopped to bring the other foot up.

The cart moved. Just a little.

The tourist lowered my phone. “Ma’am?”

I grabbed the brass rail. The cart kept moving straight toward the lobby doors.

And outside, the fountain music started.

PART 3: Who Was at the Fountain

I need everyone to understand that I was not flying through the Bellagio.

The cart moved at walking speed.

That made it worse.

It rolled calmly across the lobby while I stood on it gripping the rail, unable to jump because of my stupid toe.

“Ma’am!” somebody yelled.

“I KNOW!”

The Sandcastle towel slipped out of my tote bag and opened behind me.

SANDCASTLE INN.

Blue letters.

My entire financial situation was now flapping over my shoulder.

A hotel employee started running toward me.

I passed a man with two tiny dogs.

I steered around him.

I want credit for that.

Then the cart crossed the open lobby doors, and the sidewalk sloped more.

“Oh, Diyos ko.”

The fountain show was starting.

Hundreds of tourists stood at the rail with their phones raised.

Every camera was pointed toward the water.

Unfortunately, I was now between them and the water.

The cart rolled straight toward the railing.

I tried to step off. Toe said no. I tried to turn. Cart said no.

The railing arrived.

The cart stopped.

I did not.

I went over the rail and landed flat on my back in the shallow fountain with the Sandcastle towel over my face.

The water was freezing.

Nobody tells you that.

I sat up while violins blasted from the speakers and people screamed, laughed, and filmed me.

The towel slid into my lap.

SANDCASTLE INN faced the Las Vegas Strip.

Then I heard one voice above everybody else.

“NENENG?!”

I knew that voice.

Nineteen years of Tuesday mahjong. Nineteen years of gossip. Nineteen years of Baby Fontanilla saying Nolan this and Nolan that.

I looked up.

Baby was standing at the railing.

She had her phone in one hand and a visor that said LAS VEGAS on her head.

“BABY?!”

Her face changed.

Then she climbed over the low barrier and stepped into the fountain in her good pants.

“What are you doing?” she cried, grabbing my arm.

“What are YOU doing here?”

“I’m helping you!”

“You’re supposed to be home!”

“So are you!”

We stood there dripping while the fountains exploded behind us.

I looked around for Nolan.

No Nolan.

No son waiting with a suite key.

Just Baby, a cheap tote bag, and a plastic bus-ticket sleeve hanging from her wrist.

I stared at it. She saw me staring, and her shoulders dropped.

“Oh,” she said.

I pointed at the sleeve.

“You took the bus?”

“Ay, Neneng.”

“Baby.”

She closed her eyes.

“Fifteen hours.”

I started laughing. I could not help it.

“You asked for my seat number!”

“Because I know what fake airplane pictures look like!”

“You asked for the towel!”

“Because last year mine said Emy’s Guest House!”

I laughed harder. Baby splashed me.

“Stop! Nakakahiya!”

“Where is Nolan?”

That ended the joke for one second.

Baby looked away.

“He doesn’t take me anywhere,” she said. “I stay with Emy in Henderson.”

“What about Maui?”

“Old picture from my cousin.”

“The suite?”

“Lobby.”

“The flowers?”

“I bought them.”

“Baby!”

“Ano ba? You are in a fountain wearing a motel towel. Don't judge me.”

I had no defense against that.

Then she said, quieter, “Everybody talks about their children. I got tired of having nothing to say.”

I looked at her. There it was. The whole stupid reason.

“My son forgot my birthday last year,” I said.

“Nolan forgot Mother’s Day.”

“Rommel sent me a picture of a Safeway cake.”

“Nolan sent me a thumbs-up.”

We stared at each other. Then we both started laughing again.

A security man reached the edge of the fountain.

“Ladies, can we get you out of there?”

Baby wiped her eyes. “Yes, please.”

I pointed at the water.

“Can somebody get my towel?”

Baby screamed, “LEAVE IT!”

By the time security gave us two real hotel towels, my phone was vibrating nonstop.

Somebody had posted the luggage-cart video.

Then Rommel called.

“Ma, why are you in Las Vegas?”

“It’s my birthday.”

Silence. Then, “Today?”

Baby covered her mouth. “Yes, anak. Today.”

Another silence. This one hurt.

Then Rommel said, “Ma, don’t leave tomorrow. I’m coming.”

The next morning, somebody knocked on room 214.

I opened the door.

Rommel was standing there holding a Safeway cake.

Blue icing covered the top:

FIRST CLASS TO ME, MA

I stared at it.

“You paid money for this sentence?”

“The bakery lady helped.”

“She should be arrested.”

Then I hugged him until the cake tilted.

Baby picked up her purse. “I’ll give you family time.”

Rommel looked at her.

“Tita Baby, where are you going?”

“To Emy’s.”

“No. Sit down. I brought enough cake.”

She blinked.

I pulled out the other chair.

“You climbed into a fountain for me. Sit.”

So Baby sat.

We ate Safeway cake for breakfast in a forty-one-dollar motel while a rooster screamed outside.

Then Rommel put two boarding passes on the table.

First class.

Mine and Baby’s.

Baby picked hers up with both hands.

“Real?” Rommel laughed. “Real.”

She looked at me. “Picture?”

“No.”

She waited. I sighed. “Fine. One.”

Tuesday mahjong had a new rule when we got home.

Pacing taped it to my kitchen wall.

NO SON OLYMPICS.

Baby read it and frowned. “This is targeted harassment.”

I dealt the tiles. “Good.”