by Misa Sugiura
“Shut up,” I say. I refuse to take the bait. He’s trying to sabotage my renewed sense of hope, but I won’t let him. Not after I’ve worked so hard to build it back up. “Anyway, you have to take this in context. I told you what she said to me the other day, after Baba got lost.”
“Yeah. And may I remind you that she didn’t actually finish the sentence? I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation. What’s it going to take for you to wake up to the truth?”
“She didn’t have to finish the sentence, Max! Context, remember? Also, body language! I told you what happened on Hawk Hill.”
“Okay. Right. Sure.”
“There was significant sexual tension, Max.”
“Sexual tension?” Max shakes his head. “Uh-uh. That’s one of those things that’s easy to misinterpret. Maybe you feel it and the other person doesn’t. Or maybe you feel it and it’s good, and the other person feels it and is like—” He makes a cross with his two forefingers and pretends to cower away from me.
“You weren’t there, so you can’t judge,” I say.
“You know what I was there for, though?”
“What?”
“When Dela brought Baba back.”
“What does Dela have to do with any of this?”
“Dela showed up for you.”
“So?”
“So . . . ?” He gives me a loaded look.
“I’m not interested in Dela, and she’s not interested in me. We’re both involved with other—” At Max’s raised eyebrow, I walk it back. “Dela’s involved with another person. And as far as she knows, so am I.”
“All I’m saying is, Dela was there. And there was something going on with the two of you.”
“There was not.”
“And Willow could have stepped up and helped with Baba, like given you some moral support, but she didn’t. And I think if she really liked you, she would have.”
“She offered to. I told her she didn’t have to come.”
“And what does that say about you and how you really feel about her?”
“I didn’t ask Dela to help, did I?”
“Fine. Point taken,” he concedes. “Maybe the thing with Dela isn’t real. But . . .” He shakes his head. “I don’t get how you can dismiss Dela just like that”—he snaps his fingers—“and at the same time believe that this thing with Willow is real. It makes zero sense.”
I haven’t dismissed it just like that, I want to tell him. But that’s an argument I’d rather not wade into.
“Look, I just—I want to be with Willow, okay? There’s nothing wrong with that! Just let me want what I want!”
“Fine. Have it your way,” says Max, looking resigned. “But can I give you some advice?”
“What.”
“Stop fucking around. Stop pretending you’re dating and letting that be enough. If she likes you the way you say she does, she needs to step up and own it. No more of this ‘if things were different’ bullshit. Tell her that you’re into her, and if she’s into you back, then make it real. Otherwise, shut it down. Because this fake-dating stuff is manipulative and dishonest, and it’s going to bite you in the ass if you don’t stop.”
I leave Max and his Rice Krispies treats in the kitchen without responding. But my mind is churning. Maybe he’s right. If I really want to be with Willow, if I’m really, truly committed, maybe it’s time to make a stand.
32
I GO TO MY ROOM TO LOOK UP “LIPSTICK symbolism,” which leads me down a rabbit hole about feminism and red as the symbol of both power and sexual promiscuity and questions about whether makeup is a joyful form of self-expression or if it’s pandering to the male gaze and the beauty industry. I’m just starting to wonder if wearing makeup to pander to a female gaze indirectly supports the patriarchal power structure that has always defined feminine beauty standards when Mom calls.
After some awkward chitchat about my “sweetie,” as Mom insists on calling Willow, she says hesitantly, “Do you think you might consider softening your stance on staying with me and Roy? Or your stance on me and Roy generally? I understand how difficult it must be for you, but it would mean so much to me if you could just—”
“No.”
“Zomi, come on. Be reasonable.”
“Mom, I think it’s reasonable to be upset about you moving in with my former English teacher literally weeks after you moved out of the house.”
We go a few rounds over whether this is appropriate, whether it matters that she’s an adult and I am, in her words, “a child,” and I’m just getting to a very important point in my argument about how it’s unwise for anyone to make a decision like this after only two freaking months when she says, “It hasn’t been two months, Nozomi, it’s been nine!”
That shuts me right up.
“What?” I say, finally. I can’t quite believe what I’ve just heard.
“It hasn’t been only two months, okay? Roy and I have been dating for almost nine months now, which is plenty of time for two grown people to decide it’s time to move in together.”
I’m still trying to catch up. “Nine months? As in, since last November?”
A pause. Then, quietly, “Yes.”
As the initial shock begins to subside, the implications of what she’s just confessed begin to rise. She lied about when she started dating Mr. Jensen—she was already deep in the relationship when she moved out this spring. Which means . . . “You lied about that lightbulb moment in April. You didn’t finally give up trying to make things work—you stopped trying last fall! In fact, you actively made it worse! Does Dad know this, or did you lie to him, too?” I’m so furious with her, I can’t sit still. I get up and start pacing around the room.
I hear her sigh before she says, “He knows. And it was a lightbulb moment, Zomi. I’d been sneaking around and feeling guilty about my relationship with—”
“Your affair, you mean?” I say snidely.
“My relationship with Roy,” she continues as if she hasn’t heard me, “and this spring, I realized it was pointless to pretend there was any reason left to stay. I decided it was time to honor what I had with him and let go of what was clearly an unsalvageable marriage with your dad.”
“It wasn’t unsalvageable until you wrecked it.”
“I didn’t wreck it, Zomi. It was far beyond saving at that point.”
“Dad didn’t think so. He told me he wanted to do couples therapy and you refused.”
There’s a pause before Mom says, “You’ve got it wrong, Zomi. I tried to make it work. I tried for years to get him to go to therapy, and he refused. You must have seen how unhappy we were toward the end.”
Dad refused to go to therapy? That’s . . . new. And really upsetting, if it’s true. But I’m too angry to concede any points right now.
Another sigh. “Nozomi, you just can’t understand the desperation I felt. I hope you never have to experience it. It’s soul-crushing.”
That’s it. I draw the line at self-pity. Because she ended up with what she wanted, didn’t she? I say, “I think I’ve had enough of this conversation. Goodbye.”
I hang up and realize that my heart is racing and my breath is coming in short gasps; I’m filled with an anger so ferocious, I feel like it’s going to eat me alive. She lied to me. It was bad enough that she lied about having an affair—that she had an affair in the first place!—but then to pretend that leaving Dad was the honorable thing to do? And spin it as a last, desperate attempt to, what—find true love? I get that she was unhappy with Dad. I get that the magic was gone. But—my phone rings. I let it go to voicemail and then block her number.
“Max!” I rush downstairs to find Max, who has left the kitchen and is practicing shooting pool in the living room. “Did you know that Mom had an affair? With Mr. Jensen. Before she moved out.”
I expect him to react like I did, with shock and outrage. But his gaze only flicks up briefly from the cue ball before he goes back to it and nods. “Mm-hmm.”
“Wh—what? How? Did she tell you? Did Dad?”
“I figured it out on my own. And then I confronted her and she admitted it.”
“When?”
“February.” He shoots, and a ball drops into a pocket with a thunk.
February. Long before Mom moved out and started dating Mr. Jensen—before she told us she was dating Mr. Jensen, that is.
“But you haven’t even been home! How did you figure it out from college?”
“I had eyes and a brain,” he says before sinking another ball. I want to shove the remaining balls around the pool table and ruin the rest of his game, but I want even more to hear how he figured it out, so I content myself with sneering at him.
“I just kept seeing all these restaurant-food pictures on her Instagram, and barely any of those big group shots of her and her middle-aged lady friends at restaurants. And you know how much she loves a group restaurant shot.”
I nod. Way back when we were still going out to dinner as a family, she never failed to corral some poor waiter—or worse, a random patron on their way to the bathroom—into taking a photo of us at the table.
“So I thought, what’s she hiding? And I asked her, point-blank, and she told me.”
Wow.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
“She asked me not to.”
“Ever?”
He shrugs. “You know now, don’t you?”
I feel betrayed by everyone. How could Mom have cheated on Dad? And why has Dad been such a doormat about it? (And how dare he lie to me, too, about the couples therapy?) And how could Max have kept this to himself and allowed me to skip along like a child for months, completely oblivious to the ugly reality right in front of my face?
“They would have split up eventually anyway,” says Max.
“What a comfort.”
“Yeah, well. Reality sucks. I told you.”
“Ha. And now you know why I prefer living in a dream world.”
Only I’m tired of feeling like the universe is playing tricks on me because I’ve been closing my eyes against the truth. I think about Willow and tomorrow night and my rededication to my plan. If I’m serious about living my life with my eyes open . . .
Except I’m so close. I’m not exactly ignoring reality. I know it’s a long shot. And there’s evidence in my favor. If things were different, she said. She wanted to come sit with me the night Baba got lost; if I hadn’t pushed her away out of pride, maybe things would be different now. It’s my own fault, really. And I don’t care what Max says—that lipstick means something, when you put it together with everything else.
I’m going to trust my instincts just this one last time. If I’m right, then Willow will do something that even Max will accept as proof that she likes me. She’ll finish that sentence. She’ll kiss me for real. Something.
And if I’m wrong . . . that will be the last trick the universe plays on me.
Please, universe. Let me be right. I really need a win right now.
33
WILLOW’S BEDROOM IS EVEN BIGGER THAN THE one I have in Stephen’s house, with an actual vanity set: table, mirror, and chair. “Here, sit down. Let’s prep your face,” she says as she leads me in, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to think about makeup—and not just because it’s Willow. I’ve been chewing myself up inside since Mom called, and it’s nice to think about something as small as making myself pretty for a party.
I sit down obediently, and she arranges a bewildering and slightly terrifying phalanx of facial-care and makeup products on the table. They span a spectrum ranging from neutral grays and browns to wild colors like teal, dark plum, and bright orange. I see a dark shade of foundation and wonder if some of these are for Arden. That’s okay. It’s okay. So what if she’s kept them? In fact, maybe they’re not even just Arden’s. Willow probably does makeup for lots of people.
Oh my god, Nozomi. Calm. Down.
Willow pulls up her own chair, selects a few bottles and a box of cotton balls, and proceeds to swipe my face with a series of potions, creams, and powders, declaring, “When I’m finished with you, you’re going to look amaaazing.”
I smile, but the questions immediately begin ricocheting around my brain like ping-pong balls. Does that mean that she sees something in me that others don’t? Or does it mean I’m not good enough as I am? Or does it mean nothing? I feel like I have to pay extra-close attention to every word Willow says, every gesture, every glance that might sway things in my direction so I can feel confident about my putting my heart on the line tonight.
She dips a brush in a pot of eyeliner and dabs off the excess. “Okay. Eyes closed.”
I close my eyes. “This is going to look so great,” she murmurs, and I almost forget to process her tone (focused? romantic?) because this feels so good, and eventually I lose myself entirely to sensations. The cool tip of the brush skimming along my lash line, and the heel of her hand where it rests on my cheek. The silky caress of the blush brush. I have to concentrate on breathing slowly, calmly, so I don’t accidentally sigh with pleasure. And when Willow uses her fingertip to dab lip primer on my parted lips, and then again to blend the lipstick—the lipstick—it feels so sexy that I can’t help smiling. I’m practically kissing her right now. The lipstick was symbolic.
“There!” she proclaims, finally. “What do you think?”
I look in the mirror and gasp. I’m unrecognizable. My skin is flawless. My lips are a plummy pink, and she’s done something to my cheeks and my eyes that makes me look like a supermodel. I look glamorous and self-assured. Like a girl Willow would fall in love with. I’d fall in love with me right now. “Wow.”
“I know, right?” Willow says. She looks positively jubilant. “Wait, hang on.” She leans forward and rakes her fingers through my hair, zhuzhing it here, smoothing it there, before she looks into my eyes and smiles. “Beautiful,” she breathes. She holds my gaze for a lifetime. Is she admiring me, or is she admiring her work? Is she going to crush me and say something about my mascara or my eyeliner? I look for an answer in her eyes.
I think she’s admiring me.
I think we’re having a moment. A real one.
But then she straightens up and the moment is gone. But then she laughs and says, “Maybe I’ve been chasing after the wrong girl this whole time,” and there’s a sort of twinkle in her eye and a lightness in her voice, but . . .
She turns away from me and starts on her own makeup, gazing only at her own face in the mirror . . . oh my god. She just said she’s been chasing the wrong girl, and I didn’t even respond. What is wrong with me? I’ve been so busy collecting and analyzing all these moments tonight, I’ve been letting them slip by without acting on them.
I watch her as she sponges foundation onto her already perfect skin with deft, practiced strokes and feel that same thrill I always do. She’s so beautiful. So confident and strong. Everything I want in a girlfriend. The question is, have I become everything she wants in a girlfriend? Am I as beautiful, confident, and strong as she is?
Wait a sec.
A memory nudges me, pokes at me . . . It’s that thing Dela said the night Baba got lost. About me dating Willow for what she is as much as who she is . . . about being in love with an idea and not a person . . .
That’s absurd. First of all, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the kind of person Willow would fall in love with. Hasn’t that been my goal all along? And she just happens to fit into my . . . vision of an ideal . . .
Okay, reset.
Did Willow say that I’ve helped her be her true self?
Yes, she did. And I love that self.
And . . . has she helped me be my true self?
Stop. Just stop this right now. Obviously I’m nervous and letting myself get distracted, like before, like when a bride has qualms just before she’s about to walk down the aisle, and she wonders if she’s made a colossal mistake and maybe she should be marrying someone else. Yes. Yes, t
hat’s it exactly. I’ve spent my entire summer wishing I could be with Willow, and tonight could be the culmination—or the end—of everything I’ve been working toward. I’m just nervous. That’s all.
34
ARDEN IS CELEBRATING HER PASSAGE INTO legal adulthood in a private room at the DNA Lounge with live entertainment from her cousin’s band. The room is crowded with a mix of Black, Asian, Latinx, and white kids, but I see her spot us as soon as we walk in; it’s as if she’s been waiting for us—or for Willow, anyway. The expression of dismay on her face when she sees me and Willow stroll into the venue hand in hand is fleeting, but it’s definitely a thing that happens, and—I know this is small of me, but—it is profoundly gratifying. I’m wearing faded jeans, a vintage Violent Femmes T-shirt that Lance lent me, and a pair of Willow’s ankle boots. Add in my fashion model makeup, and I finally feel a hundred percent convincing in the role of Willow’s girlfriend; finally, I’m not worried that random passersby will ask each other, “How did that girl end up with that one?” I feel like Cinderella at the ball. I feel like the Beast transformed by Belle’s kiss.
“Heyyyy!” Arden says, and envelops first Willow, then me in a fragrant hug. She smells like jasmine and lemon. And she looks stunning. She’s wearing a bright orange top in a silky, clingy fabric, and artfully torn jeans and metallic blue ballet flats that give her an effortless everyday-casual-meets-high-fashion look that I could never pull off.
“You look great, Nozomi,” she says. “Did Willow do your makeup?”
I smile my biggest, brightest smile, and instead of, “How very passive-aggressive of you,” I say, “Thanks! She’s amazing, isn’t she?” and give Willow a kiss—just on the cheek, but I let it last long enough to make it kind of hot. I hope. We smile at each other for a second, and I see a look that gives me shivers and boosts my confidence. “Happy birthday, Arden,” I say, turning back to her. I look around. “Where’s Dela?”