She turns around and smiles at me and Jamie. “Let’s go. We’re late,” she says in English. “Be nice to your uncle Dennis. He wants to impress you.”
After Mom climbs out, Jamie says under her breath, “Doesn’t that mean he should be nice to us?”
“Be good,” I say, but I grin at Jamie to show I agree with her.
Mom and Dad herd us down the sidewalk, past bakeries with windows fogged by steamed buns and dumplings, past restaurants full of boisterous diners who spill out onto narrow steps, past the Chinese travel agency and the Chinese hair salon and the Vietnamese grocery store. Ocean Garden is crowded too, and as we push our way through the tiny vestibule, I take Jamie’s hand so we’re not separated.
Ocean Garden isn’t huge, but there are mirrors on the two side walls that make it seem like it expands forever into hundreds of round tables and glass-topped lazy Susans covered with platters of food. Uncle Dennis is at a round table near the far-right corner, standing and waving at my mom. He’s wearing a shiny leather jacket over a white button-down shirt and pressed jeans, and when my dad arrives, they shake hands vigorously, patting each other on the opposite shoulder. I’m reminded of awkward photos of politicians pretending that they like each other.
The woman standing slightly behind Uncle Dennis steps forward, and Uncle Dennis puts his arm around her and says in Chinese, “This is my girlfriend, Lin Xiaoli.”
She is petite, with a tiny waist and a delicate frame that she shows off in a skintight short-sleeved pink tee over shiny black leggings and high-heeled boots. Her black hair is cut sharply so that tiny pieces frame her face and long strands fall over her shoulders, like an anime character from when I was a kid. Her eyebrows are plucked so thin they look like black pencil marks arching in eternal surprise. She nods and smiles at my parents, who nod and smile awkwardly back at her. They introduce Jamie and me, and she acts super excited to meet us, actually clapping her hands together like a baby.
“Dennis has told me so much about you both! You can call me Sherry,” she says with a slight Chinese accent.
“Hi. I . . . I like your nail polish,” Jamie says hesitantly.
Xiaoli—or Sherry—laughs and looks at her hands. Her nails are painted sky blue with little birds on them. “Thank you! You’re so sweet. I can give you a manicure if your parents let me.”
Jamie’s eyes light up. “Really? Mom, can I?”
Mom frowns. “Jamie, you just met Auntie Xiaoli. Give her some time to sit down first.”
Sherry shakes her head. “Oh, it’s no problem. I work at a salon and I would love to do it.” She turns to me with the same overeager smile and says, “And you must be Jessica.”
“Hi,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets.
“You’re just as pretty as your uncle Dennis said,” Sherry coos.
Uncle Dennis has a carefully blank smile on his face, the kind you put on to cover up what you really think. I pull out a chair and slouch into it, saying nothing. Jamie sits next to me.
“I thought maybe you could go down to Xiaoli’s salon sometime and she could give you a makeover,” Uncle Dennis says.
“Only if you want,” Sherry chirps.
I refuse to look at them. I pick up the chopsticks next to my plate and pull them out of their red paper wrapper, then snap them apart. Tiny splinters jut out from the ends, and I rub the sticks together to smooth them out.
“That would be very generous of you,” Mom says, and places a hand on my shoulder. “You know I always tell Jessica that if she would grow her hair out and put on some makeup she would be so pretty.” Mom brushes her hand over my hair.
I jerk away from her. “I don’t want to grow my hair out.”
“Some girls take a little longer to blossom,” Sherry says soothingly. “And I don’t think you need to grow it out either.” I glare at her, but she pretends like she doesn’t see my dirty look. Instead she turns to Mom as if they’ve already agreed on a plan of action. “I would suggest giving her a little trim, reshape it, make it more feminine. It’s harder with Asian hair because it’s so straight, you know? But I do it all the time.”
“I’m not getting a makeover,” I snap. I push my chair away from my mom, the legs scraping against the floor.
Mom gives me an impatient glance as she takes her own seat. “Don’t be so rude, Jessica. Your auntie Sherry is being helpful. You should be grateful. She’s a professional stylist!”
Five minutes ago my mom didn’t even know her name. I tug my phone out of my pocket to check if Angie has texted me back. I hear Mom sigh dramatically, and then she switches to Chinese and asks Dennis what he wants to order.
I don’t have any messages. I fight the urge to text her again. I should give her some time; she’s probably really busy at work. I pocket my phone and stare at the empty white plate in front of me, at its faded red border that shows it has been through the dishwasher thousands of times. I concentrate on it, trying to forget about my silent phone, and I count eighty-eight tiny squares around the border. A lucky Chinese number. I guess they did that on purpose.
—
I keep checking all throughout dinner, but Angie doesn’t respond to my text. Finally I text her again in case my first one didn’t go through.
“Put your phone away, Jessica,” Mom says.
I finish texting Angie first. Dinner sucks big time. Mom and uncle’s new girlfriend want to give me a makeover. Fuck no.
Mom gives me a stern look but I ignore it. They’ve ordered lobster with ginger and scallions, as well as a whole pan-fried sea bass in a tangy sauce. They’re going all out, and if Mom and Dad are paying, I wonder who’s trying to impress whom. Mom serves Uncle Dennis’s girlfriend portions of the fish, spooning the glistening reddish-brown sauce over the white flesh. Uncle Dennis plucks out the white eyeballs and eats them.
The dishes keep coming, far more than we can eat. There’s deep-fried tofu with shrimps embedded in the middle. There’s General Tso’s chicken because that’s the only Chinese food Jamie will eat. There’s a platter piled high with roast duck, white fat layered beneath the crispy skin. When the seafood noodles arrive, I make sure to avoid the purple octopus tentacles. I force down a few mouthfuls of stir-fried water spinach because Mom always makes us eat the vegetables. By the time the sweet red bean soup is served, I feel like I’ve been chained to this table for weeks. There’s still no text from Angie, and she hasn’t posted anything on her social media sites either. I push the last grains of my white rice around on my plate, spreading them along the border.
“Stop playing with your food,” Mom admonishes me.
I let my chopsticks clatter onto the plate. I hold my leg tense, extra alert for the feel of my phone vibrating in my pocket.
Jamie leans against me and whispers, “I’m bored.” She stretches out the word bored into at least five syllables.
“Me too,” I say. “I think we’re almost done.”
“Can you draw me something?” she asks.
“I don’t have anything to draw with.”
“Ask Dad,” she says.
“You ask him.”
“Dad!” she shouts, and everyone at the table turns to look at her. “Can I have something for Jess to draw with?”
He slaps his hand at his jacket pocket and takes out a black ballpoint pen and a receipt. “Here,” he says, passing it over to me before returning to his conversation with Uncle Dennis.
“What do you want me to draw?” I ask, pushing my plate aside.
“Something cute,” Jamie commands.
On the back of the receipt I draw a little girl who looks like Jamie, except I give her huge manga-style eyes and put her hair into two Sailor Moon topknots. Jamie giggles. I also give her a big, curved sword and kind of a wicked grin.
“She doesn’t look very nice,” Jamie whispers.
“She’s supposed to
be badass,” I say. “But also cute.” I color her hair in with the pen, adding a few loose strands to make it look like the wind is blowing.
Jamie loves it. She picks it up and says, “Mom, Dad, Uncle Dennis, look! Jess drew this picture of me!”
“Very nice,” Dad says.
“So cute!” Sherry squeaks.
Mom says, “Jess is good at drawing.” She looks at me while she spins the lazy Susan to get the last of the lobster. “It’s good that you can draw for your sister, but remember you need to focus on your schoolwork. Don’t spend so much time drawing. Your brother didn’t waste his time with drawing, and that’s why he got into MIT.”
—
I flip off my bedside lamp, but I’m not sleepy. Angie never texted me back. Sometimes she doesn’t respond for a couple hours, but this is really weird. Maybe her phone died. Maybe there was a family emergency. I’m halfway to deciding I should walk over to her house to check on her when I realize how crazy that would be. It’s almost midnight and her parents are in bed already.
I wonder how her night went at the Creamery. I wonder if Margot showed up. I imagine Margot smiling at her, getting close to her.
My whole body stiffens as if to reject that thought, to push it out of me as far as it can go.
I turn onto my side, curling into a fetal position. I pull my blankets over my head. It’s hot and stuffy, and the blankets magnify the sound of my blood pulsing in my ears: an insistent, pounding Angie. Angie. Angie.
THE PEARSON BROOKE ARTS CENTER HAS SEVERAL studios with different equipment, including a computer lab especially for art. Kim puts me in Studio B, because it has a row of drafting tables lined up to catch the light coming through a wall of windows. Three workbenches run perpendicular to the windows, and that’s where Samantha sets up her wires and cans. Along one of the interior walls is a series of storage units for supplies: tall slots for canvases and frames, wide flat shelves for papers of all sizes and colors, boxes of pencils and pens, neatly labeled bottles and tubes of paint. There must be thousands of dollars of art supplies here, and it’s all available for the taking.
At West Bed the art room is one room with two long pockmarked wooden tables. There’s a reason that Samantha makes her sculptures from leftover cans and wires, and drawing black-and-white comics only involves pencil and paper. For the first time, I think about branching out, trying one of the Wacom tablets Kim shows me, or maybe learning how to color my panels in Photoshop. Today Kim gives us an assignment: to depict autumn in our chosen medium. I spend some time messing around with a tablet, but it’s new to me so it’s easier for me to go back to pencil and paper. At Brooke, though, there are really nice mechanical pencils and Bristol board, rather than cheap No. 2 pencils and printer paper.
By the time I get myself set up to draw, I’ve figured out where I want to go with the assignment. In a series of panels, Kestrel and Laney are going apple picking. I’ve drawn both of them so many times that it’s easy to sketch them out. Kestrel has wavy hair in a ponytail that bounces as she moves. I draw the curves of her body; I put her in jeans and a T-shirt with a bird on it. Laney is shorter, with buzzed hair that sticks up at the crown of her head. She wears baggy shorts, a striped shirt, and high-top sneakers. She carries a heavy bag of apples, munching on one as they move from the first panel to the second, where a farmer stands underneath a tree, the limbs bowed down with fruit. He has wild hair, like Einstein on steroids. I give him ripped overalls and worn boots. I put a sharp axe in his meaty hands.
Kestrel’s going to kill him.
I study the farmer again and realize that he must be a mutant. I give him a bulbous blister on his forehead. I turn it into a twisting horn. His eyeballs pop with veins, and I erase his Einstein hair and substitute rough patches like a mangy squirrel’s. He lunges toward Kestrel and Laney, axe held high.
Kestrel finds a dead branch on the ground and uses it to knock the farmer’s axe out of his hand. Laney picks up the axe, tests the edge on her fingers. Laney’s always looking out for Kestrel, but Kestrel does the fighting, so in the next panel Kestrel’s holding the axe. I don’t draw the moment of the farmer’s death; instead I draw a panel showing only Kestrel’s eyes, fierce and determined, beads of sweat rising on her forehead. Finally, I draw the mutant farmer with his head cut off by the panel frame, drops of blood splattered on the ground like a Jackson Pollock painting.
It’s all still really rough. I wanted to get the flow of the scene down first. I’ll have to refine it and then decide if I want to scan it in, maybe try some color. I’d love to see it in fall shades: deep golds and oranges, earthy browns, bright red apples half bitten, the flesh bruised by oxidation. The farmer’s blood could splash out of the frame in a bright crimson trail.
Kim comes by to check out what I’m doing. “You draw this character a lot, right?” She adjusts her glasses as she leans closer.
“Yeah.”
“What made you think up this story for her?”
“I guess . . . I don’t know, fall in New England?”
“Usually apple picking doesn’t involve murdering a farmer,” Kim observes.
“Yeah, but this is Kestrel’s New England.”
“How does it differ from ours?”
“Her school is on top of a Doorway to another world, and the magic from that world bleeds through and mutates stuff in our world. Her world, I mean. So the farmer isn’t an ordinary farmer. He’s a mutant.”
Kim looks impressed. “You have a whole backstory and everything?”
“Yeah. I’ve been drawing Kestrel for almost two years now. She’s evolved a lot since I started.”
“I’d love to see some of your earlier comics with this character.”
“Well, some of the early stuff isn’t that good.”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with sharing is fine.” Kim gives me an encouraging smile.
“I guess I can bring some in next time.”
After she moves on to Samantha’s project, I examine what I’ve done so far. I need to work on the farmer; his proportions are off, and not in a good way. I pick up my pencil and get back to work, but my phone dings from inside my bag. I pull it out and find a text from Angie.
Can u come over after Brooke? Need 2 talk in person
I text back: Sure but I have to be home before dinner. What’s up?
She responds: I’ll tell u soon ur the best!!
ANGIE SPRAWLS ON HER STOMACH ON HER BED, LEANING over the edge to read her history textbook, which is open on the floor. She bounces up onto her knees as I enter her bedroom and says, “Hey! How was Brooke?”
“Fine.” I pull out her desk chair—which she never uses—and sit down, spinning around. “I drew a massacre in the woods.”
Angie laughs. “I can’t wait to see that.”
“Kestrel wins.”
“She always wins.”
“She’s the hero.”
“Are you going to give Laney more of a story line?”
“I don’t know. What do you want Laney to do?”
She shifts, crossing her legs. “I think she needs a love interest, don’t you? It would make Kestrel jealous.”
“Why would Kestrel be jealous if Laney got a boyfriend?”
Angie gets a mischievous look on her face. “Don’t you think Kestrel kind of has a thing for Laney?”
“No, you think Kestrel has a thing for Laney.” We’ve been down this road before. I don’t know why Angie insists on this; it’s not Kestrel who has a thing for Laney, it’s the other way around. And anyway, Kestrel is straight.
“Well, she should. It would be awesome!”
There’s a fervor to Angie’s comments that feels weird. She doesn’t often get this intense over my comics. “So what did you want to talk about?” I ask.
Angie seems to rein herself in, squashing down some of her zeal, and her face rearrang
es itself into a serious expression, eyebrows drawing together slightly. “I just wanted to tell you something in person.” She sounds hesitant.
“What?”
“You remember Margot Adams from Pearson Brooke?” Pink blooms on her cheeks.
I tense up. “Yeah. What about her?”
“She and I—” Angie looks super nervous now. “We’re seeing each other,” she blurts out.
I don’t think I heard her right. “What?”
“We’re going out, or whatever,” Angie says, her eyes not quite meeting mine. “She’s been texting me ever since we hung out in the park that night. And she’s come by the Creamery a few times.”
Angie works at the Creamery on Saturdays and a couple of afternoons during the week. It hasn’t been that long since we saw Margot in the park. Margot couldn’t possibly have stopped by the Creamery that many times. I’ve never seen her there, but during the week I don’t usually go with Angie.
“We went out last weekend,” Angie says.
Last weekend, I had that stupid family dinner in Chinatown. I feel sick.
Angie swings her legs over the edge of the bed and leans toward me. “I like her, Jess. And I think she likes me.” She can’t suppress her excitement; she trembles with it. Her blush has turned into two irregular splotches, almost feverish in appearance. “Say something,” she pleads. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
I should be happy for her; this is what best friends do. They get excited when their best friend meets someone they like. They support them.
I want to leave. I clutch the edge of the desk chair to keep myself there.
The elation on Angie’s face shifts into confusion, and then resignation. “I know you don’t like her,” she says.
It’s been five days since their date, and this is the first time she’s told me about it.
“I don’t—it’s not that I don’t like her,” I manage to say. “I just . . . don’t know her.”
Angie still looks sad. “That’s true. Maybe we should hang out sometime, the three of us.”