Page 29 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
Something unlocked in me then, and I whaled on her, swinging my fists and bopping her everywhere, laughing when the gloves made my hands bounce back harmlessly.
“Wow, Tulip, look at you go.” Ellery swung at me and bopped me in the shoulder. She was so much bigger than me that although the punch hadn’t hurt, it almost knocked me off my feet. “Oops, sorry.”
I pounced on her and she caught me, staggering back a little. We were laughing so hard that we lost our breath, and within minutes, we were flopping at each other, panting and giggling. A sound caught my attention and my head snapped up. Mama was placing the pot of spaghetti on the table and studying us. The way she looked at us made my insides clench, and I straightened up, feeling like a kid who’d just got caught stealing.But we haven’t done anything wrong!my mind screamed.
“Come help me set the table, Magnolia,” Mama said.
I pulled off the gloves, avoiding Ellery’s gaze, and scurriedinto the kitchen. Mama handed me a pile of plates. “You two seem very close,” she said in Indonesian.
I shrugged, willing my heartbeat to slow down. “Yeah, we’re buddies.”
“And she often drives you to and from school?”
“Sometimes.”
Mama took out a bowl of grated Parmesan cheese from the fridge. “Doesn’t she have friends her own age?”
“Of course she does, Mama.” I escaped from the kitchen.
Ellery gave me a look that said:Is everything okay?And I returned it with a smile. She took the pile of plates from me. I tried not to notice the way that our fingers brushed for a sliver of a second. As she helped set the table, she inhaled deeply. “This smells awesome.”
“Thank you,” Mama said, placing the bowl of cheese on the table. “Sit down, I’ll serve you.” She began ladling a heaping serving of spaghetti Bolognese onto Ellery’s plate, way more than she ever served me or Iris.
“That’s way too much,” I said to her in Indonesian.
“White people eat a lot.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“What did you guys just say?” Ellery said.
I could never lie to Ellery. “I told her it was too much food for you, and she said you’re white, so you probably eat a lot.”
“Magnolia!” Mama hissed.
Ellery guffawed. “I mean, you’re not wrong, Auntie.” She accepted her plate with a huge smile and dug in. “This issogood. It’s been a while since I had anything this good.”
I watched as Mama’s perpetual disapproving expressionmorphed into one of unabashed pleasure. Wow, somehow, Ellery was winning her over.
Mama placed my plate in front of me. It had less than half the amount of food she’d given Ellery. She turned to face the bedrooms and called out, “Iris, dinner!” Then she sat down and said, “Tell me about yourself, Ellery. What are you studying?”
Ellery gulped down her mouthful of spaghetti. “English lit, journalism, all sorts of writing, really. I’m not sure what I want to do yet, but I know I want it to be some kind of writing.”
I could practically see the thoughts swooping through Mama’s head. Writing wasn’t a very lucrative career, so obviously she wasn’t going to approve of that. Iris came out of her room then. Ellery said hi, and Iris replied with a grunt. She sat down next to Mama and stabbed at her spaghetti with her fork.
Mama smiled at Ellery. “Where are your parents? Magnolia said you live alone?”
“They’re in Ohio. I moved out here on my own.”
“How come you’re twenty and still a first-year student at PCC?”
“Ma!” I hissed.
“It’s a fair question,” Ellery said amicably. “I went through some stuff and missed a lot in high school, so I had to make up for it.”
I grimaced inwardly. Interrupted education was every Asian parent’s worst nightmare.
“What kind of stuff?” Iris said. Great, now she was choosing to partake in the conversation?
