by Misa Sugiura
I’m wearing a brand-new outfit in honor of my first day: high-waisted jeans, a black mock turtleneck, and an oversized tweed blazer that I stole from Dad’s closet. And I flat-ironed my hair and put on some makeup: a touch of eye shadow and a dark red lipstick that Max says makes me look like a clown, but what does he know. Lance did a chef’s kiss when he saw me at breakfast, and that was exactly the boost I needed. I feel very hip and artsy.
The Harrison Collection building looks like something you might make out of Legos—a flattish beige box stacked on top of, and overshadowing, a smaller box made of glass, which I find really uninviting. But as dull and boring as the outside looks, once you step through the doors, it’s light and airy and attractive, all pale wood floors, white walls, and high ceilings. It makes you want to keep going and see what else is inside.
“Before we get started on your jobs, I want to introduce you to Cliff’s daughter,” Stephen says to me as we enter. “Remember I told you about her at Baba’s? You should come, too, Max, and see what they’re working on. You’re going to love it. Especially you, Zozo, my contemporary art–hating little philistine. The concept is right up your alley.”
Stephen leads us toward the back of the museum, which surrounds a sun-filled courtyard dominated by the beginnings of the wooden frame of a house-like structure. The smell of sawdust fills the air. On the far side of the frame, two people in ratty jeans, work boots, and dirty T-shirts are stacking freshly sawed lumber. One I recognize as Cliff. The other must be his (gossipy whisper voice: gay) daughter. Her hair is cropped short, and she’s wearing a pair of sunglasses under the baseball cap that shades her face. The sleeves of her dark gray T-shirt are rolled up over her shoulders, and her arms are toned and muscular.
As we approach, they stop their work and turn to face us. Cliff arches his back, hands on his hips. His daughter takes her hat off, wipes her brow with her forearm, and pushes her sunglasses up over her damp brown hair. Stephen introduces us and we all shake hands. Cliff’s hands are like giant paws, but Dela’s are surprisingly small, with narrow, tapered fingers, though her palms are calloused and her grip is strong. With her hat and sunglasses off, her gaze is intense, and not particularly friendly. The freckles dotting her cheeks do hardly anything to soften her sharp, angular face.
“Dela’s an artist in her own right, as I’ve told you.” He smiles at Dela, who smiles back.
“I’m terrible at drawing,” I tell Dela with my own friendly smile.
Her smile vanishes and she nods, as if she expected me to say this and she doesn’t care.
Unnerved by her rudeness, I start babbling. “Yeah, I’m the worst. Remember, Max, when I went through that horse phase? I loved horses so much. Remember I used to give you all those horse drawings?”
Max rolls his eyes. “How could I forget?”
Dela doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile, nothing. Desperate for a reaction, I continue, “I used to try to copy this one painting, you know that one of Napoleon? On a big white horse? You know which one I mean? I loved that horse.” Still nothing. “I bet you’re good at drawing horses,” I finish, in a final, feeble attempt to make her smile.
“My work is mostly in other media,” says Dela smilelessly. “It’s pretty abstract and conceptual. Not like drawing horses.”
I feel my cheeks redden. Cliff looks mortified, and I feel a little sorry for him. It must suck to see your own daughter treating people like this. It’s not like I still draw horses and think they’re art. I’ve taken art history classes. I can appreciate good conceptual art. And what’s wrong with horses, anyway?
“I like horse drawings,” says Max, and I feel my heart swell with gratitude.
“Right? Who doesn’t love a good horse drawing?” says Stephen smoothly. “Anyway, I’ve seen Dela’s animal studies, kids, and rest assured, she can absolutely draw a horse. But you should see the concept art she did for this installation. It is spectacular. Dela, could we prevail upon you to show Nozomi and Max sometime?”
“Oh,” Dela says, “I don’t want to make anyone—” at the same time that I say, “No, it’s fine, she really doesn’t have to,” but Cliff cuts us off.
“Come on, Dela,” he says. “It’ll be fun to make friends with some new people. And you should be proud of your accomplishments.”
“I’m plenty proud, Dad. It’s more that I like to decide for myself who I want to be friends with.” Her gaze flicks over at me, and I want to disappear. Either that or kick her in the shins.
“Dela!” Cliff looks horrified, as well he should, if you ask me.
“Sorry,” says Dela, though she doesn’t look like she means it.
“It’s fine,” I say, and I definitely don’t mean it.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Max repeats, and I know he doesn’t mean it, either.
Dela clears her throat and looks at the ground, and then up at the sky. She puts her hands into her pockets and grinds her toe into a pile of sawdust, clearly eager for this encounter to be over.
“Well. Maybe some other time, then,” says Stephen, stretching polite optimism very, very close to its breaking point.
“Yes, maybe,” agrees Cliff. He can’t be serious. I get that Dela being half Japanese and both of us being gay might have appeared to him and Stephen like a great foundation on which to build a beautiful friendship, but it is clearly not enough, so why push it? Why lie and pretend we’re all going to be BFFs when it’s obvious that Dela thinks she’s better than me? Just because she won some stupid grant. I should have told her I’m the Digital Archive Intern. That would have shown her.
Though probably not. Ugh. Pretentious snob.
“So that was Dela . . .” It’s clear from Stephen’s tone that he’s not being snarky and sarcastic, but after Dela pretty much kicked me in the teeth, I can’t help myself.
“. . . and I will never have to see or talk to her ever again?” I say.
“Zozo. Be. Nice.” When I roll my eyes, he sighs and says, “Look, honey, I know she’s not exactly a drop of golden sun, but if you could just try to get to know her—”
“Stephen. She made it pretty clear that she didn’t want to get to know me,” I remind him.
“I can’t say that I blame her,” says Max, and I give him the finger.
“I know, I get it,” says Stephen. “But it would mean a lot to me if you’d give her another chance. Cliff tells me she could use a friend. Do you think you could do that? Especially you, my sweet, loving, kindhearted niece?”
I sigh. Before my very eyes, my perfect summer is slowly turning into nothing but a long and thankless effort to be nice to people who I don’t want to be nice to. But it’s not like I can say no.
“Fine,” I grumble. “One chance.”
Stephen hugs me. “You darling. I knew you had it in you. You won’t regret it, I promise. Once you get to know her, you are absolutely going to fall in love with her.” His phone beeps, and he glances at it and says, “Okay, I have to take care of something, but it’ll only take a minute. Meet me upstairs and I’ll get you started on your jobs.”
As soon as he’s gone, I return to the subject of Dela, because I, for one, am not done griping. I ask Max that timeless question: “Who the hell does she think she is, anyway?”
Max shakes his head and snickers. “Seriously.”
“It wasn’t like I was all, ‘Ooh, I love horses can you draw me one?’ I was just trying to be friendly.”
“I know,” says Max. “What a bitch.”
“I mean, who acts like that?” I put my hand on my hip and say in my snootiest, snottiest voice, “I mostly work in other media,” sneering and waving a fake cigarette for effect. “My work is abstract and conceptual, you uncultured swine.”
But instead of laughing or telling me that I am an uncultured swine, Max goes pale and clears his throat. He’s looking over my shoulder at someone behind me.
I freeze.
It’s Stephen. Please let it be Stephen.
But if it were Stephen,
he’d already be in my face looking disappointed and tragic, and he’s not. There’s one more beat of silence, during which my shoulders hunch up and my eyes squinch shut, and someone stalks past me, and when I open one eye to check, I see Dela’s back rushing away from us, down the hallway toward the back door.
I glance at Max, who looks as guilty as I feel.
“Oops,” he says.
“Shit,” I say.
I’m not a mean person. I’m really, really not. I want to defend myself to an imaginary audience, to say, What did she expect? She was loathsome. Aren’t I allowed to vent about loathsome people?
The thing with not being a mean person, though, is that you feel guilty when you are mean. Especially when you get caught. It’s a really inconvenient side effect.
“I hate her,” I say as we trudge down the hallway to find Dela.
“You’re an asshole,” Max says, grinning, “and you’re going to hell.”
“Shut up, Max. You’re an asshole.”
We find Dela sitting on the bumper of a slightly battered van in the alley behind the museum, scowling ferociously into the middle distance as if she can see something vile that’s invisible to the rest of us. She’s put on a leather jacket and her cap is off, her hair standing up all spiky, and she looks so much like an anime bad boy character that I half expect to see her blow a stream of cigarette smoke up into her bangs and tap some ashes onto the concrete. If she weren’t so loathsome and pretentious, I’d actually find it kind of sexy. Minus the cigarette, obviously.
I look at Max. Max looks at me. This is so not going to be fun. Max raises his eyebrows and jerks his head at Dela, which I take to mean that I’m the one who has to apologize, which is unfair since technically we’re both guilty of being mean. It’s not my fault that I’m the one she heard. But I take a deep breath and step forward.
“Hey.”
Dela doesn’t move.
“Hey, I’m sorry. That, uh. Wasn’t very nice of us—of me—to, uh, make fun of you like that. Behind your back.”
This time, Dela takes a big breath, then lets it out, s-l-o-w-l-y.
“We’re actually very nice people,” offers Max, which causes Dela to glance sideways at us for a second before she goes back to murdering the invisible beast with her eyes.
A few more supremely uncomfortable seconds drag by, during which I’m sorely tempted to tell Dela that she was mean first, so it’s really her own fault that I made fun of her. But I’ve read enough self-help articles (courtesy of Dad, who’s been forwarding them to me regularly since Mom left) to know that reminding people that they started it isn’t the most effective tool if you want to stop fighting.
“Just leave me alone, please.” Her voice is flat and she’s still not looking at us.
Well. If that’s what she wants. I look at Max, who shrugs. “Okay. Have a nice day,” I say, and I might have let that sentence dip its toe into sarcasm, but really, can you blame me? I have been the very picture of forbearance until now, have I not?
“Bye,” says Max, and the two of us go inside, leaving Dela and her invisible demons back in the alley.
6
WE WALK UP THE GENTLY SLOPING RAMP IN THE atrium to the light-filled upper gallery to find Stephen waiting for us. Stephen shows me how to use a tablet to check the information in the database against the actual physical piece, and where to write my little interpretive blurbs. He’s just handed me the tablet when we hear someone calling from behind us. “Stephen!”
We turn to see an Asian woman, tall and thin and elegant in white palazzo pants and a silky sleeveless turquoise blouse. Her hair is pulled back into a chignon to showcase a long, slender neck and dangling golden earrings. She embraces Stephen and air-kisses him; he air-kisses her back as if this is the most natural thing in the world. It’s all very fancy and chic. “Daphne! You’re ravishing, as always.”
“Oh, stop it, Stephen.” She waves off the compliment, but I can tell she’s lapping it up like fancy champagne.
Stephen introduces us and tells us that Mrs. Hsu is chairing the summer fund-raising gala for the museum. The theme: “Fantasia.”
“It’s pronounced ‘Fahn-tah-zia,’” she informs us, when Stephen pronounces it to rhyme with “Asia.” “I think it sounds so much more sophisticated and magical that way, don’t you?”
She’s going to have the whole place decorated to match the theme (like prom, I can’t help thinking, and I have to swallow a giggle), and she wants Stephen’s input on a few logistical details, like whether a fog machine would ruin the artwork.
Stephen introduces me and Max, and tells her why we’re here. Mrs. Hsu is very excited.
“Digital interns! What a wonderful experience!” She beams. “I was just telling my husband that we should have pushed our daughter to do more this summer. When I was a teenager in Taiwan, I worked so hard all the time, but all my daughter wants to do is play with makeup. Oh!” She straightens as if shot through with electricity and claps her hands once. “You know what? You should meet her. She’s working in the gift shop this summer, as part of her volunteer experience. Come. Come with me. You can get back to your job after I introduce you. And then I need to talk to you about the table arrangement, Stephen. The caterers want to set up low tables in the atrium, can you imagine?” She takes Stephen’s arm and gestures to me and Max to follow her down to the first floor.
The gift shop is completely open to the central atrium, and you can see most of the inside as you approach. I catch a glimpse of the clerk’s profile behind the counter and gasp. Momentarily at a loss for words, I smack Max on the shoulder.
“Ow! What are you doing?” he says, and smacks me back.
“It’s her,” I hiss. “It’s Willow! From the Moonraker!”
“What?” He shakes his head violently, as if to clear the debris inside so he can hear me properly. “Who? From the where?”
“It’s Willow,” I repeat between clenched teeth. “From the Moon. Raker.”
Stephen glances back at us. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s great!” I reply. Stephen gives me a funny look; I feel slightly out of control, and I’m sure my face shows it. Meanwhile, Max is alternately gaping at me and squinting at the clerk, openmouthed. Oh my god. Nothing like this ever happens to me. This is amazing. This is perfect.
I take a big breath in, and exhale slowly. Think, think, think. What should I do? What should I say? I’m so glad I spent extra time on my hair and makeup today.
Okay, I’ve got it. What I’ll do is, I’ll wait till Stephen introduces us, and then I’ll say very casually, “I think we already met at the Moonraker,” and give her a shy smile. No, a friendly smile. Or maybe a dazzling—
No, wait. I’ll never be able to pull that off. Maybe instead I’ll peer at her for a moment, then open my eyes wide in sudden recognition and go, “Hey, are you the girl from the Moonraker? Willow, right?”
Yes, that’s better. And she’ll say, “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I am!”
No, wait. Scratch that. Maybe I should—
I nearly bump into Max, who’s stopped abruptly, and I realize we’re standing in front of the counter, and just like that—click—my mind goes blank.
But not for the reasons one might think (she’s gorgeous, I’m pathetic). Well, not only for those reasons. The main reason is that the girl in front of me is not the girl I met over the weekend.
What I mean is, she’s the same girl, but she’s giving off a totally different vibe. Her body is curved over her phone in an angry C, her eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and her nose is red, and . . . she’s been crying.
Correction: she is crying. A tear wells up in each eye and she wipes each one carefully away with a tissue, to keep her makeup from smudging, and then does a secondary sweep with the backs of her thumbs.
Mrs. Hsu clucks her tongue impatiently and says, “Willow. Please pull yourself together and say hello.” To us, she says in a stage whisper, “Her girlfriend broke up with her over t
he weekend, and she hasn’t been handling it well.”
What. I gawk at Mrs. Hsu. Did she really just say . . . girlfriend? And . . . broke up? A mob of emotions rise up and begin jostling for space inside me, and they are loud and raucous and screaming, “OH! MY! GODDDD!” I’m being given exactly what I wished for. For a brief moment, I think, What if I’m magic? But that’s too far-fetched, even for me.
“Mom!” Willow says in a choked voice, her eyes still downcast. “Please. Could you not?”
Mrs. Hsu heaves an exasperated sigh but continues as if she hasn’t heard her daughter. “It was their one-year anniversary. Ha! Teenagers. One year is such a long time for them. They have no idea, do they, Stephen?”
Honestly. You’d think she’d have a little more compassion. A year is a long time! Willow must feel awful. She was going to meet someone that day at the Moonraker; I wonder if it was her girlfriend—ex-girlfriend. I wonder how it happened. Did they break up right after we met? Did she know it was coming? But as I take a closer look at Willow, my curiosity evaporates almost immediately. She looks like she’s literally crumpling under the weight of her heartache, and I feel my own heart begin to ache in sympathy.
At last, Willow looks up at us, and a flash of horrified recognition crosses her face before she composes herself and her mouth forms a brittle smile. She’s not happy to see me at all. This is not good. But, I remind myself, she’s just had her heart broken. Which is . . . well, it’s not good, but it does increase my chances, doesn’t it? Her gaze flits between me, Max, and Stephen, and I can see her trying to figure out how we fit together.
“Willow, this is Nozomi and Max, Stephen’s niece and nephew,” says Mrs. Hsu.
“Hi,” she says stiffly.
“I’m so sorry about your breakup,” I say. “But it’s great to see you again.”
She blinks at me, apparently rendered speechless by my insensitivity; I look at the floor and wish I had invisibility powers. The dreadful, yawning silence is cut mercifully short by Mrs. Hsu, who asks, puzzled, “Do you two know each other?” She looks at Stephen, and he shakes his head, equally puzzled.