A bus to AC

There’s an Asian woman I sometimes see on the streets of my neighborhood, where there aren’t many Asians. She has big eyes and darker skin, so I knew she wasn’t Korean. One day, she spoke to me first, and we became friends. She told me she was an immigrant from the Philippines. Her husband is Polish, and they have two daughters.

She is very smart—her husband doesn't speak English well, but she can speak Polish to him. Their story is quite interesting. When she first arrived in the U.S. to work as a nurse, she met her husband while standing in line at immigration. They fell in love and got married just two weeks later.

She worked as a nurse and helped with her husband's construction business. When the business became successful, she stopped working and became a housewife. They own two buildings in our neighborhood, and also have villas in Florida and Colorado.

Her older daughter is a surgeon, and the younger one works at NASA. When her younger daughter was in high school, they even bought a house in Florida so she could take flying lessons. After 9/11, the FBI showed up at their door in the early morning because the terrorists had trained at the same flight school.

“They probably even know how many spoons we have at home,” 

she said, talking about how uncomfortable it feels to have no privacy these days.

I was a little jealous of her life—with a handsome and successful husband, and two beautiful and talented daughters. I became more curious about her and wanted to learn from her, so we met often. But she had her own secret troubles. She tried traveling and cooking classes, but nothing truly made her happy. She started calling me all the time. Then, her calls became less frequent. I figured something new had caught her attention.“I’ve been busy going to Atlantic City to gamble,” she told me one day. There’s a free bus from our neighborhood to Atlantic City, twice a day.

“I go to play games, walk by the ocean, eat, and just get some fresh air. Come with me!” she said. But gambling scared me, so I refused. After that, I heard from her less and less. Then she said, 

“Las Vegas gave me free flights and hotel stays, so I’ve been busy going to gambling tournaments.”

One day, I was walking around and saw a photo of her building at a real estate office. It was up for sale. I got worried—had she lost her property to gambling? I tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. Then, I saw her on the street. She looked poor and tired, wearing worn-out clothes and a hat pulled low over her face. She was walking with a cane. I wondered—did she lose everything to gambling?

I remembered a story I read in a magazine. It was about a mother who lost all her money gambling. Her daughter took her in, letting her stay in her home. But the mother kept disappearing. The daughter found her sitting at a bus stop, staring blankly. It was the bus stop for Atlantic City.

Now, whenever I think of my Filipino friend, I picture that woman at the bus stop in Atlantic City. I don’t know why—but I just do.