Love & Other Natural Disasters

by Misa Sugiura

  9

  STEPHEN BARELY LOOKS UP FROM HIS PHONE when I go downstairs for breakfast, which is disappointing because I tried a cat eye with my eyeliner this morning and I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. I sit down with a bowl of cereal, and Stephen absently pours us both a cup of tea, sinks into the chair next to me, and sighs heavily. He takes a sip, sets it down, and sighs again, rubbing his hands over his face.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  He’s received an email from Oak Vista, an “active elder community with continuing comprehensive care,” according to its signature. The place is in such high demand that there’s a wait list to get in, and the email is a reminder that a special auction for spots on the “exclusive wait list” is coming up—which is to say, it’s a reminder that the richest wannabe residents can buy their way ahead of the others.

  “I think I’m going to do it, Zozo. I could hire someone to take care of her here, but that’s just buying time. I wish I knew how to convince her to go.”

  I blow on my tea, do a test slurp, and put it back down, panting. How does Stephen drink it like this? His mouth must be made of asbestos.

  It has to be hard to think about leaving the house you’ve been in for, what—I do the math—she’s been there since before Dad was born, so that makes it over fifty years. On the other hand: “She’s a grown-up. I thought grown-ups were reasonable people.”

  “Ha.” Stephen smiles wryly at me and then fondly at Lance, who’s just walked into the kitchen. “Hey, love.”

  “Hey, love,” answers Lance. “Good morning, Nozomi. Ooh, that’s a new look for you, with the eyes. I love it. Very sophisticated.” He putters around, grinding coffee and preparing to scramble some eggs.

  “New look?” Stephen looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time this morning, and his face lights up. “I love it, sweetheart. I’m sorry I didn’t notice earlier.”

  Max walks in, tucking his shirt into his jeans, and yawns mightily, not bothering to cover his hideous gaping maw.

  “You’re disgusting,” I say.

  “You’re disgusting,” he responds automatically, and pours some coffee into a thermos. “Hey, Lance, is that a new coffee grinder?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is! Nice one, Sherlock.” That’s Lance’s nickname for Max, who notices everything.

  “Hey, Max.” I poke him with my phone and show him Willow’s Instagram. “Read the comments and weep.” He scans them and shakes his head, which is not the reaction I was going for. So I escalate. “She said the universe brought me to her at just the right time.”

  “Wait, what? This sounds like something I want to see. Show me,” says Stephen. I turn the phone toward him, a little embarrassed, though I don’t know why. There’s no need to feel embarrassed. It’s just a bunch of silly comments from people who think I could be Willow’s new girlfriend. (*does internal shimmy of joy*)

  Stephen’s eyebrows go down as he reads, and he says, “Wait . . . you and Willow are together?” He transitions to some light side-eye. “Did I miss something?”

  Ulp. Now that I think about this from Stephen’s point of view, it does feel a bit . . . well, much. “Um. Well, no, it’s—”

  “What? I need to see this.” Lance turns and gestures for the phone with one hand, still stirring the eggs with his other hand.

  “Here, sweetheart, let me take over,” says Stephen, reaching for the spatula, but Lance waves him off.

  “Sorry, hon, but no. I want to be able to eat these eggs.” Once he has my phone, he looks at it and reads, “‘Who’s that . . . mystery woman . . . stay tuned for further details?’ Zozo! New job, new look, new girlfriend—well done, you!” He takes another look at the screen. “So. When do we get to meet her?”

  Ohhhh. This is escalating a little faster than I intended.

  “Yes, dear sister. When will you bring your new girlfriend home for dinner?” Max gives me a saccharine smile, clearly enjoying my discomfort.

  Ergh. I should tell the truth before this gets out of hand. Only I don’t want to see the disappointment on Lance’s face (or the smug grin on Max’s) when I tell everyone what this photo really represents; and if I tell them why Willow commented Stay tuned, and what we’re planning to do next, they’ll say it’s petty and dishonest and tell me not to go through with it, which . . . I was really looking forward to going through with it. I try to hedge. “Shut up, Max, it’s only been a day. I mean, the emotions are very real. Obviously. But it’s not . . . We haven’t even had our first official date yet. So back off.”

  Max rolls his eyes, and Stephen seems to be keeping his face carefully neutral. But I’m not lying, exactly. I didn’t actually say that Willow and I were seeing each other, did I?

  “Aw, look at you blush. Well, you’re smart and beautiful and you deserve a fun romance, so here’s hoping it works out.” Lance gestures with the spatula, and it slips out of his grasp. “Whoops.”

  “Sweetheart!” Stephen yelps. “Now there’s egg everywhere!”

  “It’s not everywhere. It’s just a little bit right here,” Lance says. He grabs a rag and kisses a grumbling Stephen. “Don’t be such a drama queen.”

  Max still looks skeptical. “She seems like kind of a drama queen.”

  “Whatever, Max. She’s just—” What did I say yesterday? “She’s just passionate. And not afraid to be vulnerable.”

  Max takes another slurp of coffee and says, “No offense, Zo, but I just don’t see it. I’d get out now before she comes to her senses and dumps you.”

  “Shut up, Max!” I’ve so had it with him.

  “Max!” says Stephen sternly.

  He looks shocked—shocked, I tell you! “I was just giving her some friendly advice!”

  “Why do you always have to be such a dick?” I gripe.

  “Why do you always have to be such a crybaby?”

  “Dear sweet children,” Stephen says. “Please shut your pretty little pieholes and stop fighting so I can eat my breakfast in peace.”

  Once we get to the Harrison, I look to see if Willow’s in the gift shop, and . . . yes. There she is. She looks up and I wave, and she smiles and waves back, and suddenly it’s as if the world has been dipped in a sparkle filter. I think I’ll drop in. Why not? We’re almost-girlfriends, after all—at least, that’s what Stephen thinks—or that’s what I hope he thinks—so really it would be strange if I didn’t go over.

  “Can you take a long lunch?” she asks me as soon as I’m close enough. “I have the perfect location for our first date photo shoot.” She shows me pictures of the Fairmont Hotel. “Isn’t it gorgeous? Everyone will be so jealous.”

  I ooh and ahh over the images, agree to meet her at eleven thirty in the atrium, and rush after Stephen to get his permission to take a long lunch.

  “On your second day of work?” he asks.

  “Please? It’s our first real date!” I say, using my best puppy dog eyes, and he caves immediately. I feel a little guilty about lying, but you could argue that it is our first date, kind of—so it’s not exactly lying.

  I don’t even get a chance to savor this little victory before Max starts singing quietly in my ear, “Let it go, let it gooooo . . .”

  “Shut up, asshole.” I give him a death stare and quicken my pace.

  “Be. Nice,” says Stephen to me, which is so unfair. “And no swearing in the museum,” he says over his shoulder as he peels off for his office. Which is fair.

  When Max and I reach the door to the staff room, he shocks me by saying, “Hey, I’m sorry I was a dick. It’s just . . . okay, I’m not trying to be mean, but this has rebound written all over it. And I don’t want you to get into another situation with a girl who leads you on and then breaks your heart.”

  I’m touched that he’s being so sweet. I wish I could tell him the whole story, but then he’ll try to make me feel bad for lying to people. Anyway, Willow’s not Helena.

  “It’ll be fine,” I say.

  “I don�
�t think it will.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I do. Because you always do this. You tell yourself some wild story about the way you want things to be, and you totally ignore all the signs that point to anything you don’t want to see. Like, remember when you convinced yourself that Rosie Demetrius liked you? And I kept telling you she was just using you to do her homework? And you refused to listen? What happened?”

  “I didn’t listen because you always assume the worst of people, so why would I trust your opinion? Anyway, I was younger, and Rosie was . . . she was sneaky.”

  Max snorts.

  “I’m sorry I’m not a grinch like you, Max. But I’m not as naïve as you think, either. I know the risks. I can see the challenges.”

  He gives me a long look, and sighs. “Fine. Just . . . try to manage your expectations, okay? Try to stay within the realm of reality.” He really does seem genuinely concerned. Maybe I should tell him about my plan, to prove that I’m not blundering into this with my eyes closed.

  I take a big breath and say, “I have a plan.”

  “A plan? What, to make her fall in love with you?”

  “No, stupid.” But I realize with sudden clarity that it is, in fact, a plan to make her fall in love with me. I see his face and hear the derision in his voice, and I understand that I can never tell him anything. “It’s a plan to . . .” To what? “To manage my expectations,” I say triumphantly. There. He’ll like that.

  “Hmm.” Max looks somewhat mollified. “Well, be careful. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “Aw. My big thtwong ovohpwotective bwutha.” I bump him companionably with my shoulder, but the timing is off and I guess I bump him a little too hard, because it throws him off balance.

  “Hey!” He steps back to catch himself before knocking into me accidentally-on-purpose, and we keep bumping each other this way, harder and harder until it’s full-on human bumper cars in the staff room and we’re bashing into each other and laughing and shouting, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” and, “No, pardon me!” until finally Max lunges and I lose my footing and fall right into Dela, who (I swear) wasn’t there a second ago.

  My momentum sends the two of us staggering. I manage to catch myself on the wall, but Dela, after some highly comical windmilling, unfortunately tumbles to the floor.

  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” I yelp. “Are you okay?” And maybe I’m a bad person, or maybe I’m still giddy from playing bumper cars, but a slightly hysterical giggle rises up and I have to disguise it with a cough. Because of course Dela would walk in just in time for me to bowl her over. Come on, it’s kind of funny.

  But I can tell that Dela can tell that I’m not really coughing, and that she does not think it’s funny. Great.

  “Here, let me help you up,” I say meekly, and extend my hand, but Dela practically slaps it aside, glowering as if I’d knocked her over on purpose, as if I’d thought to myself, what can I do to make Dela hate me even more? and crouched behind the door, eagerly waiting for her to walk through so I could pounce on her and embarrass us both.

  “I’m fine,” she says brusquely, and gets to her feet without looking at me. “Stephen said he’d set aside some space in here for me to store a couple boxes.”

  “Um.” Max and I look at each other in confusion.

  “It’s fine. I’ll figure it out myself,” she says, and then, finally, she looks at each of us. “Excuse me. Do you mind?”

  We step aside silently.

  She opens the door, then pauses and turns halfway around and says, “The stuff inside those boxes I’m bringing in is pretty fragile, and I don’t want anything damaged. So seeing as you guys seem to have trouble walking without knocking things over, I’d appreciate it if you could stay away from them.”

  Max turns so Dela can’t see his face, and his mouth makes the shape of the words what the fuck, which is the exact feeling that I am having.

  Being a mature young adult, however, I look at Dela and say, “Okay, no problem,” instead of snickering, or opening my eyes wide at Max and silently mouthing back, I KNOW, which is what I really want to do. Though I do make a face at her back when she leaves. Because really. Come. On.

  10

  GOLD-COLORED MARBLE PILLARS SWIRLING WITH gray and red veins rise all around me in the lobby of the Fairmont to a cream-colored ceiling embellished with elaborate gilded wood scrollwork. A bellhop in a green jacket trimmed with gold braid strides across a gleaming white marble floor, wheeling a cart loaded with Louis Vuitton luggage. It’s hard not to feel a little intimidated by all the grandeur, but Willow sweeps through it with an easy nonchalance. “I had my sixteenth birthday party here,” she says. “Isn’t it great?”

  I sit down carefully on a burgundy velvet armchair. “It’s like a palace or something.”

  “I know, right? When I was little, I used to pretend I was a princess and this was my palace.” As she says this, Willow sinks onto the chair opposite mine and crosses her legs at the ankles, like she is an actual princess. I’m about to cross my ankles so I’ll look as casually elegant as she does, but then I notice that the cuffs of my jeans are a little scraggly, so I settle for tucking my feet under the chair.

  “I used to pretend I was a princess, too,” I say. “And then I said once in kindergarten that I wanted to marry the princess, and all my friends said if I was going to marry the princess, I had to be the prince, and I cried. It was the worst. My mom had to have a talk with the teacher.”

  “Oh my god, same!” Willow exclaims. “Only I told everyone that I wanted to be a princess who married other princesses, and if they didn’t like it, they could fuck off.” Willow laughs. “My mom got called in because of the swearing.”

  “No!” That’s so badass. “You’re my hero,” I say, and I’m not even kidding.

  “The best part is my mom totally missed the lesbian angle. She literally thought I was just ornery and liked bossing people around. When I came out to her, she was like”—Willow waves her hands frantically—“‘But you always wanted to be a princess!’”

  I’ve only met Mrs. Hsu that one time, but Willow does such a spot-on impression that I can’t help laughing. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t mean to laugh at your mom.”

  “No, it’s okay. I laugh at her all the time. She’s so smart, right? But she’s so clueless.” Then she rises just as gracefully as she sat down and says, “Okay, let’s touch up our makeup and take some pictures.”

  I follow her to the bathroom, which has a whole entire entry room with a chaise longue, a humongous potted fern in the corner, and a white marble vanity countertop in front of a giant mirror.

  Willow reaches into her bag and produces another bag, the contents of which she dumps onto the counter: a couple of eye shadow palettes, several lipsticks, a bag of brushes, and assorted pots and vials. “You want some of these face wipes so you can start over?” She proffers a little pack. “Or do you just want to touch up what you’re wearing?”

  Oh. Do I look that bad? And I worked so hard on my cat eye this morning. “Uh. I think I’ll just do a touch-up.” All I have with me is my lipstick—it never occurred to me that I’d need anything else. Why, oh why didn’t I think about that? Of course a perfect, beautiful girl like Willow would want to make everything perfect and beautiful for a planned photo op.

  Willow must sense my embarrassment because she says quickly, “Don’t worry, you look great. I just love playing with makeup, that’s all. Can you tell?” She laughs, gesturing at all the products spilled in front of us, and I smile weakly.

  “It’s kind of my passion,” she goes on. “Here, look. I was the makeup artist for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that we did in this arts program I was in last year. It’s where Arden and I met, actually.” She pulls her phone out and shows me photos of Puck, Oberon, and Titania. They’re fantastic—not just cool-fantastic, but fantasy-fantastic. Wild rainbows for an androgynous Puck, cool blues and silvers for Oberon (played by Arden, who lo
oks stunning), and sparkly gold and green for Titania. They look truly otherworldly and magical.

  “You should do this for a career!” I say. “You’re so talented.”

  Willow shrugs modestly as she chooses a lipstick and starts dabbing color on her lips. “Ha! I wish.”

  “No, for real. You could work in Hollywood and win an Oscar one day.”

  “Aww, you’re so sweet.” Willow beams at me. “I knew I liked you.”

  My heart flips over and I say, “I knew I liked you, too,” which, once I’ve said it, sounds like I like her–like her, so I walk it back, stammering, “I, uh, I mean, as a friend. Just as a friend,” which makes it a thousand times worse, so I laugh: “Ha-ha-ha!” Oh my god.

  But Willow seems to think I’m joking and just laughs along with me, thank goodness. I take out my lipstick and try to copy the way she’s applied her own. Then I watch as she expertly applies a new shade of eye shadow and fusses with her eyeliner before declaring herself camera-ready. She smiles at my reflection in the mirror and says, “Let’s go make some content, girlfriend.” Girlfriend. I smile back happily. I know she doesn’t mean it for real, but there’s something intimate and genuine about the way she says it—that twinkle in her eye, maybe—that gives me goose bumps.

  For the next twenty minutes, we wander around the hotel and take a million photos: sitting on the plush chairs and leaning against the marble columns in the lobby; eating tiny sandwiches in the restaurant; standing in front of the fountain on the rooftop garden with the city skyline in the background. We do duckfaces, we do sidelong glances, we do over-the-shoulder smolders. Willow shows me how to hold my arms and hands and how to place my feet so I look like a model; she reminds anyone who takes a photo of the two of us to hold the phone higher—no, a little bit higher. I screw up the courage to suggest we do one where we’re kissing, but Willow wrinkles her nose and points out that this is supposed to be a first date, so maybe we shouldn’t. Which stings a little, I’ll admit. But except for that, and the fact that it’s not real (of course it’s not real), it’s everything I could have hoped for. By the time we head back to the museum, I’m buoyant. The photos have been curated and posted (for the record, we look amazing, and Willow’s caption, my new mystery girl, is genius), and it feels like Willow and I have really clicked. Step One of Operation Make Willow Fall in Love with Me has been a success.