Page 36 of This Time It's Real
Progress. Kind of.
“I’m sure you will find someone, Ai-Ai,” Ma says. God, now she’scomfortingme. This is so not how this conversation was supposed to go. “You’re a very bright girl, and you’re funny, and you can—you can eat spicy food, and you . . .” She trails off with a vague gesture, evidently searching hard for more positive qualities of mine.
“You are very good with those carrots,” Ba offers.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s really nice of you guys. But I’m literally trying to tell you that Ihavefound someone. In fact, you know what?” I snap my fingers together, struck by a lightning bolt of inspiration. “I have proof.”
As my parents exchange puzzled, if not somewhat alarmed, glances, I wipe my hands on my shirt, take out my phone, and open up the selfie I took with Caz. The one of me kissing his cheek.
“This is where I was the other day,” I explain, spinning it around so they can see. “With him.”
I resist the urge to melt into the floor as everyone leans in and inspects the photo closely from every angle, as if it’s some rare, endangered specimen never captured on film before.
“Well,” Ma says at last, sitting back, her poker face falling into place again.
For a moment, I can’t decide what’s worse: my parents refusing to believe that I could be dating Caz Song, even with photographic evidence . . . or my parents believing in my lie fully. Trusting me. A needle of guilt pricks my stomach at the thought.
Then Ma clasps her hands together on the counter, all businesslike, the bread now totally forgotten beside her. “I suppose I’m just curious to know . . . How exactly did your . . . this”—she points at the screen—“ begin?”
And so I tell them. I tell them the exact same story I wrote about for my essay, because the more consistent your lie is, and the fewer versions of it you come up with, the better. It’s easier to keep all your facts straight that way.
When I’m finally done, and most of the bread has likely gone stale, Emily claps a hand to her mouth.
“Oh my god. Are you going to invite him over?” she asks, eyes wide. “We should all meet him. And if we ask him for some autographs, we could sell them—”
“No!” I yelp. Bringing Caz home is one boundary I definitely do not want to cross.
“What do you have against money?” Emily demands.
“I’m not talking about the autographs.” Though there’s no way I’m lettingthathappen either. “I just want to hold off on the meeting-my-family thing, okay? It—it’s too much, too soon. And besides, you’ll probably see him around school anyway.”
“Your sister’s right,” Ma tells Emily, coming to my rescue. “We don’t want to scare the boy off.” Then she turns to me. Smiles, the faint lines of her face softening, her Super-Professional Businesswoman mannerisms melting away. She’s just my mother, who always lends me her shoulder as a pillow during long plane rides and boils sweetened mung bean soup for us every summer to help stave off the heat. “You shouldn’t waittoolong either. I remember that I first introduced your father to my parents shortly after we graduated.” She winks. “Obviously, it turned out quite well.”
There it is again. The needle in my stomach.
But still, I make myself say it: “Yeah. Okay.”
Despite what I’ve told Emily, I don’t actually expect her to bump into Caz at school. After all, the primary and senior schools run on different timetables; we’re always stuck in class during the primary students’ lunchtimes or assemblies, and vice versa. It’s why I’ve only ever seen Emily at the start and end of the school day, when we’re waiting for the driver together, or when I deliberately seek her out in her classroom.
But on Friday, in an unfortunate twist of fate, our English class is dismissed twenty minutes early—right when the primary school kids are having their break.
I spot Emily the second I step out into the sun-flooded courtyard, Caz somewhere close behind me. She’s playing that traditional Chinese ti jianzi game with at least eight or nine other girls her age. It’s a simple game, more speed than strategy, requiring that the players pass a shuttlecock between them using mainly their feet.
I stop to watch them play, my books hugged to my chest.
They’re all giggling madly, yelling at one another whenever the shuttlecock looks close to falling, dashing forward and back again every time they see the flash of colored feathers.
It doesn’t take long to dissect the group dynamic; years of quietly observing my classmates at new schools have honed my skills.
Even though Emily and her friends are technically all standing in a circle, the prettiest one—the one with the polka-dot hairband and loudest, tinkling laugh—is clearly the leader. She keeps barking out names and instructions at the others, and it’s her who takes the shuttlecock from whoever’s retrieved it without so much as a thanks.
And Emily, I realize with a small, anxious jolt, is hovering somewhere toward the bottom of the social ladder. None of them seem to bother passing the shuttlecock to her, and when she does manage to kick it, none of them cheer very loud.
I feel myself frown. This isn’t supposed to happen. Emily has always been the social butterfly of the family, likable and adaptable in all the ways I’m not.
But then again, maybe all the moving around hasn’t been quite as easy for Emily as I believed. Or maybe there’s something about this school in particular that has made it harder than usual.
“Is that your sister?” Caz asks, breaking through my thoughts. He’s pointing straight at Emily.
