Page 9 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
I made my way out of the parking structure. Every time someone walked past me, I stared at them, studying everything about them—their outfits, their hair, their walks. And, above all, the way they talked. I played the phrases over and over in my head, tasting them, running through the words until they were etched into the curves of my brain.
Hey, man, how’s it going?
Babe, did you—
No thanks, buddy.
Random phrases around me that I would never hear in Indonesia. I felt an almost overwhelming sense of homesickness followed by anger. Mostly at myself, because here I was in Los Angeles, and instead of being excited, I was scared. I wanted to hide in a dark corner before someone noticed me for the fraud I was. Though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was being fraudulent about, exactly. My fingers twined and twisted together as I walked with my head down, glancing up once in a while to check that I was headed in the right direction.
I spotted the bookstore from a distance; there was a long line of students snaking its way out of the building. My heart sank. There were only about twenty minutes before my first class began, and I doubted this line was going to move all that fast. What if I didn’t make it through the door before my class started? Would I get in trouble? Did they take attendance in college? No, wait. This wasn’t college. It was community college. Did they take attendance here? Which would be worse—to be late for class or to not have the textbooks with you? The questions came to my mind in quick succession, like bullets spittingout,rat-a-tat-tat, completely overwhelming. But without any other choice, I joined the line and tried not to panic at how slowly it was moving.
“You got your class schedule?”
It took a moment for me to realize that someone was talking to me. Then it took another moment for the words to sink in. And another moment for me to parse through the quickness of her words and her accent, both familiar and unfamiliar.
“Um…did you hear what I said?”
I looked up. And up.
I don’t know if you’ve met the love of your life yet. I hope you haven’t. It is a tragedy to meet them at the age of sixteen. Especially when she’s nineteen. And a she. Who knows? If I’d met her just a couple of years later, all might’ve worked out. I like to think that we’d have given it a good go before crashing and burning. And we would’ve crashed and burned, I’m sure, because, god, I was a mess in my twenties, and—I found out later—so was she.
But right now, standing in front of the PCC Bookstore, I didn’t know that. In this moment, all I knew was I was looking at the most enchanting person I had ever seen in my life. And that was how I met Ellery O’Shea. The love of my life.
An Interlude
IZZY
“Whoa, whoa. Hold up.” My mind is a freaking mess. It’s not so much racing as it is zipping in reverse and crashing everywhere. I look closely at Nainai. She looks back patiently. “You can’t say she’s the love of your life.”
“Is this one of your ageist things again?”
“No! It’s because of Yeye. Remember him? The guy you were married to for the last—oh, I don’t know—fifty-something years? Had a family with.”
Irritation flashes across Nainai’s face, and I get the sudden sensation that I’ve seriously miscalculated here. Just because Nainai has been talking to me so candidly about her past, I’ve let my guard down and am speaking to her like an equal, when she is anything but. It’s like skating down a frozen river and hearing the ice crack beneath your feet. “Uh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
The moment stretches painfully, her sharp gaze slicing intome. Then she says, “When I was your age, I hated people saying things like: ‘You are so young. You’ll understand when you’re older.’ But Izzy, you are so young. And youwillunderstand when you’re older.”
I hate people saying that to me too, but when Nainai says it, it’s clear that she doesn’t mean it in a condescending way.
Then she adds, “Well, I could be wrong. You could be exceptionally thick, in which case you won’t understand even when you’re older.”
“Nainai,” I groan.
She smirks at me. “I’m just fucking with you, Izzy.”
“Nainai!”
She laughs. “Am I not supposed to say ‘fuck’?”
“Definitely not, and definitely not to your grandkids. Jesus, Nainai.”
“My, lots of rules for seventy-three-year-old women.”
“No more than there are rules for sixteen-year-old girls.”
Her smile fades. “I know.” We continue walking, arm in arm, quietly for a while.
“Please continue your story, Nainai.”
