“No, my dad’s put up with crap from his boss for years. They’re only confrontational when it comes to me.”
Sophie laughs. “Too bad for them they’re not here,” she says.
I smile. “Too bad.” Turning back, I see Mei-Hwa watching us from behind Li-Han, who is scowling, texting on his phone.
Out of his line of sight, Mei-Hwa gives the cab a small wave before we round the corner.
A contingency of other Chien Tan kids are already rocking it up at Club Babe.
Sophie makes a beeline for Xavier at the bar. Boy Wonder’s here, too, and as it turns out, he’s a terrible dancer—big motions, no variety, just rocking to the baseline, nodding to the beat. Hallelujah, finally, an imperfection! But he doesn’t dance much anyways. He sticks to the bar with the guys like abalone shells on rocks, and in my book, the farther he is from my space on the dance floor, the better.
But during a lull in the music, I find myself ahead of him in line for a glass of water. He’s wearing forest green, a much better color for him. I keep my eyes on the pitcher of ice water ahead, pretending I don’t see him.
Then he taps me on the shoulder.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say, and face forward again.
“I’m sorry I was rude the other night. I was—I mean, I don’t really care if we get in trouble. It wasn’t your fault. I probably come across like Jekyll and Hyde. I just . . . I have a lot on my mind this summer.”
Why did he have to go and apologize? I’d already put him back on the proper shelf in my own mind. Now he’s a guy who not only recognized his own behavior but is big enough to say sorry. I want to ask what’s bothering him, but we’re not there yet.
“I’ve definitely noticed that about you,” I say finally, turning to face him.
His eyes flicker. “Really?”
“Yeah. But thanks for saying something.”
His shoulders settle. I hadn’t realized how tense he was. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you?” he says. “I mean, we were three stories high.”
“I’m afraid of lots of things.” I pour us each a glass of water. “Just not heights. I used to sneak out of my room at home like that.”
“I’m still poking around about your artist. You’re right. Benji’s a really good one. So are a few other guys.”
“Oh, um. Thanks. I didn’t realize you were checking.”
His smile is almost shy. “I said I’d help. Might help if I take a look at the evidence.”
Maybe he’s just being kind. Still, I fish the delicate sketch from my purse.
He whistles, and I can’t help a flush of pleasure. “You look—so real.” If Rick’s the artist, he’s a good actor. But, of course, he’s not—he’s the most devoted long-distance boyfriend on the planet.
“It could be Benji.” He tilts my sketch so my dancing figure catches the strobe lights, making me move on the page. “I’ve gotten to know him. I’ll get him to show me some of his other work. I’ll be discreet, I promise.”
He’s surprisingly committed. “Cool. Thanks, Rick.”
He sets my sketch on the bar and pulls a lamp closer to illuminate it. Traces his thumb down the curve of my hair, like he’s trying to unlock the secrets of the sketch. I watch him, resisting the urge to snatch it back from under his fingers.
We “sneak out” every night for the next week.
The game repeats—cat and mouse between us and our chaperones, whose attempts to catch us grow more half-hearted with each jail break. Mei-Hwa even starts looking the other way as we pad down the hall in our dresses and heels. I’d say she’s seriously neglecting her job, but this works out better for all. She can stay in her pajamas, and we don’t get sweaty sprinting for the gate.
Free drinks drive our agenda—we stop at Club Kinki for its complimentary booze hour, then grab a cab to Club GiGi, then on to the next. We stay out until four and wake before dinner, and no one bangs down our door; instead, everyone fails a pop quiz—another Wong Rule downed.
It’s a first for me, but I brush aside the pinch of guilt. Besides, with enough demerits, the conflict between the Tour Down South and Swan Lake goes away. When the Dragon marches toward me in the hallway, I spin on my heel and duck outside.
Three weeks in, the intensity of living together, eating together, studying, and breaking out together has bonded us tighter than I’ve gotten with most of my high school. Secrets, crushes, hurts, humiliations—every topic is fair game around the table of truth in the late-night lounge. Two more sketches appear: one under my door, the other tucked into my purse—me sorting I Ching sticks with a fortune-teller; me in a black dress, emerging from a cab, eyes lit with anticipation.
“Who could it be?” Sophie marvels as we slip down the hallway for a night at Club Omni.
“I don’t know.” All three sketches are set in public places with dozens of Chien Tan kids. “He’s doing a good job hiding.” There’s a thrill in my heart. A secret admirer. When except for that brief flame that was Dan, no guy has ever been interested in me.
At the club, I dance with Debra and Laura under pulsing green lights to one awesome song after another until I collapse beside Rick at the bar and drain his water in three gulps.
Somehow, I always wind up next to Boy Wonder.
“Hey,” I gasp.
“Hey.” A brief smile flashes then fades. His mood’s swung tense again: his elbow on the bar, his right thumb running over the inside of his fingers in that fidgety gesture. Now that he’s warned me about his moods, I don’t mind as much. I hope whatever’s bothering him ends soon. The strobe lights illuminate four pale scars across the inside middle of each finger.
“You must have needed stitches.” Only a few days ago, I wouldn’t have asked. “What happened?”
He closes his fist and drops it. “Just a little accident last year.”
“Did you try to scale a wire fence?”
“Something like that.” Turning to the sharp-boned bartender, he orders two guava cocktails, my new favorite, in Mandarin. I’ve added more key food words to my vocabulary.
“I’ve got mine.” I dig into my pocket, but he’s already paid.
“My treat.”
“Um, thanks. I’ve got the next round.”
Rick clinks his glass against mine. “It’s not Benji. He draws comics. Not the same style at all. A few guys are after you, but I have more artistic ability in my pinkie toe than they have in their entire bodies.”
“A few guys?” I splash more water from a pitcher into my glass. “Who?”
“Not your type.” Rick waves them away, chaff on the wind.
“Well, whoever it is, he struck again.” I pull the new sketches from my purse. “Maybe I haven’t met him yet.”
Rick holds the pictures to the light. Studying them. “Oh, you’ve met him.”
“What? How do you know? Wait, do you know who?”
“No, but he’s talked to you. See, look.” Rick points to my sketch’s mouth. “Your lip quirks like that when you’re excited. Wouldn’t be able to see that if he wasn’t talking to you.”
I laugh, self-conscious. I feel my mouth quirking like the sketch. “Um. No one’s ever pointed that out before.”
Rick’s still studying my sketches and I pull them from his fingers and tuck them away. He glances up at me, surprised.
“Well, what about you?” he asks. “You have any leads?”
I’ve met dozens of guys on Loveboat, from all over the United States and Canada. I’ve definitely felt some sparks here and there, another thing that’s new for me.
“Well, Sam and I had a good talk about me growing up the only Asian girl in my class and him growing up half-black, half-Chinese in Detroit.”
“Sam’s cool. I’ll check out his drawings. What about David? You’ve become his premed adviser, from what I hear.”
“And guys say that girls gossip.” I face the dance floor, hiding a flush of pleasure. “I’m so not helpful. These BS/MD programs fol
low a different process. I won’t have to take the MCATs.”
“I’m sure you were helpful.” He sets his elbow on the bar, brushing my arm. “You told him interviews were key.”
“He told you that? That’s from my guidance counselor. They find out what kind of human being you are then.” I frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just remembering.”
“Your sketches?”
“Applications. Killing myself over the Krebs cycle, all those hours writing essays. Interviews, waiting, agonizing. I never want to go through that again—but it’s only the beginning.”
“Yeah. Senior year was hell. That’s why I’m here—I needed a break. Simplify life for one summer before the shit hits the fan again, you know?”
“I’m happy to be here,” I admit. “I didn’t think I would be.”
The band switches to a popular slow song and a collective sigh floats from the dance floor. As arms snake up around necks, my smile freezes. He’s not going to ask me to dance, but why must my mind even go there? My eyes fall on Sophie, her fiery-orange dress pressed like flower petals to Xavier’s all-black, her white arms around his back, cheek on his chest, swaying with her eyes closed. She really does seem to like him, although I wish she wouldn’t constantly urge him to buy her things—pineapple cakes, a stone pendant. They feel like her way of keeping score.
Beside them, a couple locks lips on the dance floor. Another couple grinds slowly to the music, oblivious to the world. The air ripens with hormones. I avert my eyes, only to meet Rick’s.
My blush deepens. I set my glass between us. “So tell me why Boy Wonder quit piano to warm the football bench?”
The corner of his lip turns up, and I get the feeling he knows exactly what I’m doing. “You want the sanitized version? Or the truth?”
“Nothing’s straightforward with you, is it? Both.”
A dimple I haven’t noticed before flashes low in his cheek. “Seventh grade, the guy who played piano after me at Lincoln Center had music seeping from his pores. I wasn’t that guy. I could play, but I couldn’t feel it—not like he did. I realized it wasn’t piano, it was mastery I wanted. So, I figured out what I would be willing to put that kind of time in for.”
“Football.”
“Curse you, Woo.” Marc reaches past Rick and grabs his cocktail, his bangs swinging into his eyes. “That’s how you took my slot at Yale.” With a wink at me, he finishes off Rick’s drink. I grin.
“You’re running track for UCLA,” Rick retorts. “You’re one of the smartest guys I know. If it makes you feel better, Benji took my spot at Princeton, though he turned them down.”
“You can’t know that,” I object. “You can’t say you didn’t get in because he did.”
“Think about it.” Marc waves at the Chien Tan crowd. “Everyone here applied to the same schools. All of us Asian Americans are in the same bucket. One Asian American boy with perfect SAT scores gets in, another doesn’t. Quotas.”
“You and your Asian American soap box,” Rick says. “They say they don’t have quotas.”
Marc scoffs. “They say. Like they’d ever admit it.”
Rick’s thumb digs at his scars, his voice edged. “The world has way more space than the Ivy Leagues. If you’re good, you’re good.”
“So, the real reason you dropped piano?” I prod.
“I was the smallest guy through middle school. Half the girls got picked before me in gym. The team captains who got stuck with me would roll their eyes. Pure torture. End of eighth grade, the high school football coach came to recruit and promised undying glory and respect. I went home and begged my mom on my knees to let me quit.”
“And she agreed? Just like that?”
“She’s never been on my case about school or activities—not that she doesn’t have her own issues with my life.” A shadow flickers over his face. “Also, she has rheumatoid arthritis, so she’s not the toughest cookie in the jar. And my parents were going through a divorce. Guess that gave me leverage.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I chew on my lower lip. Jenny Lee’s mom has RA too, and she’s in a wheelchair. I was so wrong about him being some parent-driven drone.
“Bell-Leong, you in?” yells a guy from the game tables.
“Thanks for the drink, Woo.” With a playful salute, Marc slips off. Rick tucks a big green bill under Marc’s glass, then pushes a plate of sticky rice cakes toward me.
“So, what would it take for you to be a pro dancer?”
“Pro dancer?” I choke on a bite of cake. “You got that from seeing me clubbing?”
“Yep.” Unfazed.
“I’d have to audition for the New York Ballet. Or a Broadway show.” I make it sound as impossible as it is.
“Well, why not try?”
“Because no one’s a dancer.”
“No one’s a football player either, not that anyone goes pro out of Yale.”
“I applied to Tisch,” I admit. I haven’t spoken about it since Megan. “I got off the waiting list.”
“NYU, right?” Rick whistles. “That’s a serious program.”
Still feels presumptuous to say it. That someone who’d gotten an acceptance letter withdrew, then Tisch admissions pulled out their bucket of waitlist hopefuls and, somehow, picked . . . me.
“I turned them down. We could never have afforded it.” Even with that tiny scholarship I’d clutched at like a drowning person for a single afternoon. Quickly, I add, “But I’m auditioning Sunday for Swan Lake. Should be fun.”
“Cool. Where at?”
“Just a small ballet studio. I’m taking the Metro from your aunt’s.”
“Can I watch?”
“Seriously? You want to?”
“Professional curiosity. I’ve been to a dozen football tryouts but never a dance audition. Do they weigh you? Examine your muscles?”
I laugh. “You’re in for a disappointment. I do a short piece—”
A thump against my backside knocks me into Rick, splashing water from his glass onto us. “Oh, sorry—” Turning, I look up at a big, sandy-haired guy covered in tattoos of Chinese characters, ordering a mai tai from the bartender.
“Heeey, cupcake.” He grins down. “Wanna dance?”
Cupcake? Gah. “No, thanks. Taking a break.”
“How about taking a break with me? You’re the sweetest little Asian girl I’ve seen here.” Two hundred pounds of meaty guy crushes me against the bar. He reeks of alcohol and sweat. I shove back, but it’s like trying to move a brick wall.
“I’m”—shove—“good”—shove—
“Sorry, man.” Rick smoothly hauls him off. “She’s with me.”
Coolness. I’d like to kick the guy where it counts. Instead, I tuck my arm through Rick’s and flash the guy a sheepish smile.
“Hey, man, didn’t see you there. So sorry.” He practically falls on his face apologizing to Rick—and has Rick grown a few inches?
“Sorry,” Rick says to me, after he’s gone. “Didn’t mean to rescue you, but you weren’t into that guy, were you?”
“No, you read me right. Thanks.” I force my fingers to unpeel from his arm. “How annoying he apologized to you. Like I’m your property.”
Rick grimaces. “I know his type.”
Guys with Asian fetishes. “Maybe he’s not,” I say. But it’s one of those things I bet most Asian American girls have dealt with. I explained it to Megan last year over one of our long coffees, why it’s not flattering, why it’s based in stereotypes that have nothing to do with who you are, how it reminds me that I look Asian on the outside, no matter how I feel inside. I make a face. “I guess you know they’re out there, but it’s still jarring when you run into them.”
I reach for my glass, but Rick catches my hand. “Hey, do something for me?”
His palm is calloused. This close, I catch that grassy, outdoorsy scent of his, as though his days on the field have permanently infused his skin.
Suddenly, I can�
��t quite meet his eyes.
“What?”
“If you want to check someone out before you go for him, you can always ask me. I’ll let you know if he’s okay.”
My voice comes out high. “Why the interest in my dating life anyways?”
I’m still not quite meeting his eyes. But before he can answer, raised voices from the dance floor draw our attention, and he drops my hand. A pair of dancers yell as they’re shoved aside, then Xavier storms around them. He slams into me, his sweat-dampened shirt smearing my arm. Fury bubbles in his eyes as they meet mine.
“Watch where you’re going, man.” Rick’s tone is sharp as he grips my elbow and steadies me. Then Sophie leaps onto Xavier’s back, piggy-back-style, her orange dress streaming behind her like the tail of a comet.
“I didn’t mean it!” She clings to him while he tries to shake her off. Heads are turning all over the club. “Xavier, I’m sorry. I know it’s none of my business.”
“Sophie.” I seize her arm. What the heck is going on? I’ve never seen either of them like this before. “Sophie, please calm down.”
Xavier finally succeeds in peeling her off. As she grabs for him again, Rick catches her by the waist and tugs her back. Xavier vanishes into a mosh pit of grinding bodies.
“Soph, I told you, he’s not worth it.”
“Oh, like you of all people are the expert on that?” She shoves him off, sending his cell phone skidding over the floor. Then she flies after Xavier.
I’m sober as I retrieve Rick’s phone and hand it back. I didn’t miss the dig at Jenna, but I don’t have the courage to ask. As for Aunty Claire’s—will Xavier want to come now? Are Sophie’s plans over before they get off the ground?
Rick runs a hand down his face. “I hate it when she gets like this.”
“Like what?”
“About guys. She has the worst judgment. Four boyfriends and none of them deserved her.”
He’s so protective—she’s lucky to have him for a cousin. But he also seems to have a blind spot when it comes to his roommate.
“She usually seems happy with Xavier.”
“No one deserves that guy.” Rick frowns at his phone. The screen’s cracked and dark.
“You warned me off him—didn’t you say something to her?”
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