by Misa Sugiura
I’m sitting in front of it and slogging through articles comparing the artist’s work to Stonehenge (What???) and crammed with gobbledygook phrases like “an agent for the dematerialization of the object” when Willow texts.
Help me stop thinking about Arden? I hate it SO MUCH
I look at Glass Cube. I should really stay here and figure it out. I text her a photo of it and type:
Tell me what this means
Willow: wtf
Come down here and talk to me
Pleeeease
With a sigh, I go; I’ve discovered I’m pretty good at cheering Willow up. I love that she relies on me this way, and I love being the one she trusts with her secrets, but I do sometimes wish she didn’t have quite so much to share. Especially since the bulk of what she shares are sad thoughts about Arden. I mostly nod and say nothing, which has led her to believe that I am wise and thoughtful.
I’ve been thinking about what Max said, though, about facts and the real world, and with our practically real date on the horizon, I’ve resolved to try something new.
When Willow sighs and tells me “I’ve been better lately, but I also keep thinking about her birthday party. We definitely have to go, but it’s going to be so hard to go and see her with Dela,” I’m ready.
“You know how we said that Arden would want you back after she saw you looking happy with me?” I begin, and she nods. “I think maybe looking happy isn’t enough. What if you focused on being happy without Arden for real, instead of acting? Like, if you forgot about getting back together with Arden? Hear me out.” I put my hand up when she starts to protest. “You can still get back together in the end. But there’s all these movies where couples break up and they only get back together after both of them, like, grow or whatever. And then they each see the other person at their best, and that’s what brings them back together.”
Willow nods slowly. “You know what? You’re right. Faking being happy in front of her is making me miserable. I’ve been obsessed with her, and it’s not good for me.”
“Yes, exactly! You need to stop worrying about her all the time and try to find happiness where you are. So like, when you’re with me—for example—try to be happy with me, instead of being sad that you’re not with Arden.”
“Yeah, I get what you’re saying . . . hey!” Her face lights up. “Our sightseeing trip tomorrow will be the perfect place to start!”
“Yes!” I say, elated. This is just what I was hoping for.
“Okay. I’m going to do it. I won’t talk about Arden, I won’t think about her—nothing. I will be totally, one hundred percent in the moment.”
“Exactly!”
Willow sighs. “It’ll be good to feel that way again—really, truly happy.” Then she looks worried. “Do you think I’ll be able to?”
“I know you will,” I say stoutly. “I’ll be with you, won’t I?”
“Yeah, you will.” She smiles. “I’m so glad I met you. I don’t know how I would have made it through these weeks without you.”
My mind goes blank, like it always does whenever she says something like this, so I just smile modestly.
“Life is so ironic, isn’t it?” Willow muses. “Being happy without Arden is the only path to being happy with her.”
“Mm-hmm!”
Sigh.
When will she open her eyes and see the path to being happy with me?
Stanford Cal Pomona Northwestern
Please let me give birth to a healthy baby
a long-term relationship
I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener
I look at the growing pile of folded wishes, a rainbow of delicate winged creatures on the table. Stephen finally showed me Dela’s drawing of how the installation will look: it’s a grove of bamboo trees in ceramic pots, glowing in fairy lights with origami wishes suspended from every branch; at the center is the pavilion, a vaguely Asian-looking gazebo made of blond wood with a spiral staircase leading to an upper deck, where a flame burns in a glass bowl. It’s a space for wishes to be honored, showcased, and tenderly cared for before being released to the heavens. It’s magical. Hopeful. And still baffling to me that it was all born in the mind of Dela the Harbinger of Doom.
“Have you made a wish?” I ask Dela.
She shrugs. “I don’t really believe in that kind of stuff.”
Again with the prickly cynic act. “You must have made one.” This is the mind that dreamed up the Tanabata Pavilion in the first place, the heart that insists that each and every one of those wishes I lost is given back its chance. I refuse to believe that a person with that mind and that heart is as staunchly anti-wish as Dela makes herself out to be.
But she just shakes her head. Infuriating.
“Well, then why are you doing this?” I challenge her. “Why are you sitting here folding all these things?”
“Because you ruined all the original ones,” says Dela.
“You know what I mean. Why are you doing this?” I gesture around at the wishes.
She shrugs.
I hate having conversations like this, where it’s all me trying to keep it going. Why does she have to make this so hard? I know we’re not the Best of Friends, but I would think that after the whole Ice Cream Bar incident, things might be a little less hard. I press her, mostly because there has to be more to her than what she’s showing me. And, I’m sorry-not-sorry to say, a little bit out of spite.
“Did you fold all of the old ones yourself?”
“Some of them.”
“Who did the other ones? Your dad?”
“My mom.”
“Oh. Well, can you get her to help us fold these ones, then?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“She’s dead.”
Oh. Of course. This, I realize, is why it got so awkward way back when I asked if Dela’s mom was Japanese. I feel like such an oaf. How do I keep missing these things? Why don’t I ever think before I open my big mouth?
Is this why Dela is so angry all the time? I can’t help thinking about Mom and how angry I am at her for all the things—but it’s better than being angry that she’s dead. Dela and I keep folding wishes, with the fact of her mom’s death spilling silently into the room and surrounding us until I think I might suffocate in all the unspoken emotions.
Finally, I say, “I’m sorry.”
I look down at the crane in my hands. I’ve just finished folding it and pinching the narrow corner of the neck to make a beaked head. I tug on the tail and the head a little, to make the wings flap, and I imagine it taking flight, rising up into the sky, to the River of Heaven and Princess Orihime’s father, Tentei, whispering into his ear. Before I can stop it, a question comes out. “Was one of these wishes hers?”
There’s a long pause before she says, “A thousand of them were,” and then I know what happened. But Dela tells me anyway. “She died last year. Cancer.”
“The ones that were in that box. When I knocked into you. The ones that blew away . . .” I’m afraid to finish the question because I know what the answer is. There’s an old Japanese belief that if you fold a thousand origami cranes, the gods will grant you one wish. And there’s a story about a girl who folded a thousand paper cranes while she had cancer. But she died anyway.
Dela nods, and my whole body suddenly feels as tired as hers looks. No wonder she was so upset when they all blew away.
“Only some of them were ours, though. I kept a few for myself and burned the rest. Most of the ones in the box were from this list.” She gives the spreadsheets a shake.
That makes me feel a little lighter, but not much.
“I entered the concept art and an essay in the grant contest while she was sick. Then she died, and the next week, I found out I won. Victory. Woo-hoo.” She pumps her fist and smiles grimly at the pale purple butterfly in her fingers. She presses her lips into a line and blinks hard a few times.
“Oh.” I feel my own tears welling up, and my voice g
oes hoarse around the lump that’s risen in my throat. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, well.” She glances at me, then quickly looks away. “Stop crying. She’s not your mom. I’m fine.” She sniffs and grinds at her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“You’re not fine. And I’m not—I don’t—I didn’t mean to cry,” I say a little defensively. “You can’t get mad at me for that.”
“Can’t I?” Her voice sounds strangled, and she takes a few shaky breaths. “Shit.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you can’t. Of course you can. I just meant—”
“Can you just shut up for a sec?” Dela growls, and I can tell she’s losing her battle for control, but I don’t know what I can do to make her feel better. I want to tell her it’s going to be okay, or to encourage her to look at the bright side. I also kind of want to run away, because it’s really uncomfortable to watch someone cry. Because it’s not going to be okay, not the way she wanted it. It’s excruciating, not being able to do anything about all that pain. But miraculously, I squash all the things I want to say and sit there and let her cry.
Finally, she starts taking slow, deep breaths again, and sniffles. “Can you get me some tissues or something?” she asks, her voice muffled by her arms. I run to the bathroom, relieved to have something to do and a little annoyed with myself for not having thought of this on my own.
When I return and offer her a giant wad of toilet paper, she takes it silently, tears off a bunch, and honks her nose a few times, so loudly that under different circumstances I might be tempted to laugh. She dabs at her runny eye makeup with the rest. “I must look like shit,” she says.
I shrug. “I mean. You just cried your eyes out, so I’d say you’re entitled to look like shit.”
“Ha.” She blows her nose again. “My mom would have said the same thing, probably. She was unflinchingly honest.” She makes a noise in her throat that sounds a little like a laugh, and a little like a sob. “Except for when she didn’t tell me she was dying.”
“She knew? And she never told you?”
“She did. Toward the end, the last couple of months. Right after I submitted my entry for the contest. It wrecked me, and not just because I was sad she was dying. I felt like all that optimism, all the hope, all the work that went into the origami had been for nothing. And then after she died, I found out that she’d known the whole time—the whole time I was designing the pavilion, the whole time we were folding all those cranes, for months, she knew—and my dad knew—that she was going to die. They let me hope and wish and dream, and they knew it wasn’t going to come true.”
Wow. “Are you mad at her for not telling you earlier?”
“Some days I think I understand what she was doing. Some days I’m still furious that she lied to me and let me keep hoping for so long. My dad, too. And then I feel guilty about being mad because she was only doing what she thought was best.”
“Stephen and my parents say that’s a Japanese thing,” I tell her. “You hide bad news from people to save their feelings.”
Dela nods. “That sounds just like my mom.” Then she adds, “Though, you know, looking back, I should have figured it out myself. She kept getting thinner and weaker, and she stopped doing chemo and radiation . . . but I didn’t want to see what I didn’t want to see.”
“Ha,” I say, without really thinking. “That sounds exactly like what Max said about . . .” Just in time, I stop myself from saying “me and Willow.”
“About what?”
“Nothing,” I say hastily. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” What is wrong with me? First I blunder into making her tell me her mom is dead, then I almost tell her about Willow, which is a) wrong and insensitive, and b) obviously not an option.
“Tell me,” she says.
“No, really. It’s so different from your situation, it’s like, offensive.”
But she seems to take this as a challenge. “Try me.”
“No.”
“Come on,” she insists. “I could use a change of topic.”
Ugh. I can’t tell her the real story. What else might Max have been talking about? Who else only sees what they want to see? Then it comes to me. “My grandmother. He said the same thing about my grandmother.”
“Oh, right.” She nods. “The whole retirement home thing?”
Of course. Because Cliff’s been working at Baba’s house. He’s probably told Dela about the job and why Stephen’s hired him to do it.
“Yeah, that,” I say, relieved that I won’t have to go into it. “She thinks she’s going to live at home forever.”
“That’s not that offensive.”
“No, I guess not,” I say. “I didn’t want to upset you. Especially after I kind of pushed you into talking about your mom in the first place.”
She honks her nose again and says, “It’s fine. I’m tired of people trying not to upset me all the time. Honestly, I don’t even know for sure what’s going to upset me from day to day. I might have been able to handle you asking about my mom on a different day. As long as you don’t tell me everything’s going to be fine, or that my mom is in a better place now, or everything happens for a reason, you can say whatever you want, and if you upset me, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay. Cool.” That’s . . . mostly reassuring, I guess. I do feel kind of proud of myself for having earned her trust.
We go back to folding. Eighty wishes later, we tidy up the work space, I snap off the lights as we exit, and Dela locks the door and says, “Thanks.”
“Huh?” The movement sensors turn the hall lights on as we pass through them into the atrium.
“For listening. For getting it about my mom. And for not pretending everything’s fine.”
“Oh. Uh. You’re welcome.” We’re walking through the atrium now, and it lights up, the white walls glowing softly.
“There’s just not that many people I’ve been able to talk to about this,” she continues.
“What about Arden?”
Dela shrugs. “I know Arden implied that we’re super serious or whatever, but things are actually pretty low-key with us. I’m trying to keep it light and fun.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet, Lemon Meringue. You’re so soft and sweet and sunny.”
A burst of laughter escapes Dela’s lips, which I suddenly notice do look soft and sweet. They don’t match the rest of her prickly personality. I look at her, all gloomy and brooding in her black moto jacket, black jeans, and Doc Martens, her short hair simultaneously spiky and silky and blowing in the wind over her wide, dark eyes as we step onto the sidewalk. I’m starting to see why Arden might be attracted to her.
I lock the door and turn back to see those eyes fixed on me. “Seriously, though. Thanks,” she says.
“You’re welcome.”
Dela’s hug is quick, and I barely have time to respond and hug her back before she releases me and turns away. “See you tomorrow,” she says, and walks off without a backward glance. I’m left with the lingering sensation of surprise, the scent of her leather jacket, and the feel of her cropped hair against my cheek.
25
AFTER BINGEING A SLEW OF ROMANTIC COMEDIES last night for moral support and reminding myself over and over of Willow’s decision to focus on being in the moment with me, I wake up feeling better than ever about tonight’s date. I spend extra time on my hair and makeup, and with my black skinny jeans, a new pair of boots, and a new oversized sweater that looks a little like the one Willow wore when we went to Golden Gate Park, I feel like I’m at the top of my game when I leave the museum. I low-key wish I weren’t skipping out on Dela, especially after what happened yesterday—she was definitely Not Pleased when I said I was going out with Willow instead of folding today, and I don’t blame her—but a date is a date.
When I announced my plan the other day for Willow and me to ride the cable car from the turntable at Market Street all the way over the hill and down to the Hyde Street turntable, Stephen advised against it, citin
g long lines of tourists. Max laughed and asked if I was trying to win Worst Date Idea of the Year. So naturally I begged Willow to do it, just to spite him.
I concede now that this may have been a mistake. We’ve been here thirty minutes and we’ve only made it halfway through the line. Instead of flirting, we’ve been staring at our phones, and I keep wondering if she’s checking Arden’s accounts despite her vow not to. Oh, and there’s a street preacher shouting at us from a few yards away about how the end times are nigh, and how homosexuals, baby-killing abortionists, Jews, Muslims, and other heathens need to REPENT NOW or we’re all doomed to the fiery fires of hell. Not quite the romantic experience I’d hoped for.
But as we near the front of the line, the preacher starts going off on the evils of alcohol and marijuana, and Willow finally looks up from her phone and grins at me. She says, “The first time I got drunk, I cut my own hair.”
“No.”
“Yeah.” She laughs. “It was at my friend’s house. Her fifteenth birthday party. I woke up the next morning and cried so hard.”
Then it’s my turn. “I got drunk with my friend and we made avocado masks and fell asleep before we washed them off. It was so gross—guacamole all over the sheets and the pillows.” Willow gasps in horrified delight. “Right?” I say, pleased. “Her mom was furious.”
“I drunk-hooked-up with Arden at the Midsummer Night’s Dream cast party . . . We were already so into each other, though, it hardly counts as a drunk hookup.”
I want to remind Willow that she’s not supposed to be talking about Arden, but it feels petty and jealous, so I keep my mouth shut as she tells The Story of Arden and Willow from the moment they met at the first read-through of that Midsummer Night’s Dream production. She tells me how Arden became Oberon, the Fairy King. How Willow offered to rehearse lines together, with her standing in for Oberon’s queen, Titania, which was when she learned that Arden’s boyfriend had recently broken up with her because he couldn’t handle how smart she was. How, after weeks of flirting, while Willow was doing Arden’s makeup on closing night, their eyes had locked—and how incredibly sexually charged that moment had been. How Arden, high from a magnificent closing performance, and Willow, tipsy on peach schnapps, had practically thrown themselves at each other at the party. And how—again—she couldn’t understand how Arden could just toss that kind of magic away.