Page 34 of Let's Talk About Love
“No,” he said, cleaning up the cards. “That’s yours. I want you to keep that card.”
“But it will ruin the deck.”
“It won’t. I want you to keep it. I want you to have something miraculous to hold on to when everything seems awful.”
His smile was kind—and her heart softly fluttered for a moment. She pressed her hand to her chest, cleared her throat, and tried to memorize that sensation. Tried to evoke that gentle feeling of surprise again on her own.
She couldn’t.
“When you feel like you don’t need that card anymore,” he said,“give it back to me. I’ll teach you how to do it, and then you can show someone else.”
She stopped herself from setting the card back down. Giving in to anger, being combative, wasn’t who she was or wanted to be. Graciously accepting his kindness felt true to her soul. It wasn’t magic—she knew that. But the gesture made her feel warm. Made her remember that moment when she saw that itwasher card, the feeling of seeing him completely confident and knowing. She’d rather have the card than know the secret.
(Or pass it on.)
“Okay,” she agreed. “My turn. I don’t have anything impressive to go along with it, but I am sorry. You were right about what you said earlier. I’ve been in a shit mood lately, and I’ve been taking it out on people who don’t deserve it. Like you.”
“That’s okay. Everyone has moments when they’re less than their best.”
She bumped his shoulder and smiled. “Did you steal that off a Hallmark card?”
“Don’t insult me, Alice.” He raised an eyebrow. “I can come up with my own cheesy lines without resorting to petty thievery.”
“My apologies, good sir.”
“But,” he said, “I was beginning to think you seriously didn’t like me, which with the year I’m having would make sense.”
“What do you mean?” She placed her elbow on the table and cradled her chin in her hand.
“I mean, I thought I must have done something and now you hated me because of it.”
“I got that part. And for the record, I don’t hate you.”
“Good to know. I was one glare away from deducting cute points.”
“No, not the points!” She gasped in mock outrage before laughing.(God, did that feel good to do.) “I don’t hate you. Not even close. I’m just… exasperated.”
“With me?” He looked confused.
Alice decided to sidestep the truth. She didn’t plan to lie, just sort of hopscotch around it. She settled on “I have a lot going on right now.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“Not really,” she answered immediately. “And, uh, I didn’t mean to be rude earlier when you complimented my hair. Well, maybe I did, but I’m sorry. I get questions about it, and I hate feeling like I’m forced to explain every little detail about braiding and my hair, because if I don’t, then they’ll say I’m being mean or something because they ‘just want to understand’ and touch it, so I get defensive anyway and it’s a terrible trap. But yeah. Thanks.”
Takumi nodded. “My friend Melissa told me about that. She had an afro for a while and she would get really upset because her coworkers kept touching her hair without asking, but she couldn’t show it because, um, what did she say?” He thought for a moment. “They’d say she was an angry black woman or something like that? Is that it?”
“Yeah. That’s, um. Yeah, that’s it,” she managed, staring at him. “It’s super weird to me for some reason that you actually know that. Hearing you say it kinda messed with me for a second.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I said ‘for some reason’ for a reason,” she joked.
He crossed his arms, sitting back in the chair with a thoughtful expression on his face. “It would be more surprising if you knew any stereotypes for Japanese Americans. Not Asian Americans in general, but my people.”
“Well, you’re not wrong,” she agreed. “I mean, but that’s a good thing, right? That I can’t think of any?”
“Not really.” He had the same look on his face that her dad did when he was mildly disappointed in her about something but wouldn’t say why. Like she was supposed toknowbetter.
