by Reni Huang
She was unaware of the time when the savory aroma of dumpling soup came wafting in through the door and Julia looked up from her reverie to hear laughter coming from the common area of the dormitory suite. Closing her laptop and carefully marking the page of her journal before placing it back into the cardboard box, Julia stood up to see what was going on down the short hall from her dorm room.
Julia was surprised to see people lounging around the common area, some sitting in front of the small TV playing Wii with Elliott, while others sat around the low coffee table, their hands dusted white with flour, scooping spoonfuls of raw meat, cabbage, and ginger on small circular dumpling wraps.
“Hi, Lia!” Lexi called from the small stovetop in the corner of the room, her cheeks speckled with flour. “The first batch of dumpling soup is almost ready!”
Who were all these people? Some looked familiar but Julia hadn’t taken the time to get to know any of her suitemates. Apparently this wasn’t the case for Lexi. She watched as her childhood friend laughed easily with these near strangers, drifting farther away from her.
* * *
“Lia, want to toss a Frisbee outside with us?” Lexi asked, with Vangy and Pamela’s little group crowded around her. It was Sunday afternoon at Leavesly Church and the youth group kids were finishing up eating their church food.
“Go ahead,” Julia said lightly, not much of a fan of any sport involving tossing or catching for that matter.
Up on stage Elliott had called an impromptu worship team practice and was working on getting the little band to end each song at the same time.
“Koda, you got to look at me from time to time,” Elliott said, “Especially at the end of the chorus. If I give you a nod it means we’re going to repeat the chorus. If I’m not looking at you it means we’re continuing on to the next verse. And if I give you this look it means we’re ending.”
Koda scowled. “That’s kind of a lot to remember. Can’t you just stop playing then I’ll do this,” he finished the sentence with the one and only drum combination he knew how to play which ended with him tossing the sticks up in the air with a spin.
Elliott sighed. “Alright, fine. For now let’s just say we’re going to sing each song through three times. From the top…”
Koda held the drum sticks high above his head and tapped out three beats before going into his usual tap rhythm. Last week Elliott tried to teach him a different beat but to no avail. Koda seemed to insist on remaining a one trick pony.
Chloe sat straight backed at the piano, and Shep stood next to Elliott plucking stoically at the bass guitar his eyes glued to the chord sheet on the music stand in front of him. It was clear it was going to take some time before they gelled together, but at least Elliott was starting to get them to play somewhat together.
Half an hour later their parents began wandering into the sanctuary looking to go home. Elliott and the guys put away their instruments and turned off the sound system. Julia and Chloe headed down the aisle towards the doors at the back of the room. They passed the last pew where Wynn sat during the practice, head bent over his laptop.
He looked up and said, “Good job, Chloe. The music is really coming together.”
Chloe blushed at the compliment but managed to keep a nonchalant expression on her face. “Thanks,” she said.
Then he turned to Julia and said, “You guys ready to head back to campus?”
“Yes, sorry for keeping you so late,” Julia said, chagrinned. They had gotten so used to being at Leavesly Church, sometimes she forgot Wynn was doing them a favor by chauffeuring them everywhere. “Let me go find Lexi.”
“No rush,” Wynn said, and slowly began packing up his laptop. Watching his leisurely pace, Julia felt somewhat reassured they weren’t detaining him from anything. She stood at the end of his pew debating whether she should wait for him or walk outside with Chloe to find Lexi.
“Well,” Chloe said after an awkward moment of silence, “I’ll see you guys next week.” She gave them a wave and walked away toting her thick Worship Music Binder.
Koda and Shep walked by then, both calling out their good-byes, followed by Elliott who sauntered up and leaned against the opposite pew to wait for Julia.
“Three more weeks until the big night,” Wynn grinned at Elliott, “Think we’re ready?”
“Any chance we can postpone Christmas this year?” Elliott quipped, and Wynn laughed.
“It’ll be good,” Julia assured them. She knew the Christmas performance wasn’t going to be as elaborate as Lexi had envisioned, and the music wouldn’t be recording label level. But the kids had memorized their parts and learned their songs. They had come a long way since the first rehearsal.
Wynn and Elliott stared at Julia’s confidence. Smiling, Elliott turned to Wynn and said, “It’ll be good.”
Wynn laughed. “Ok, then. Good it is.”
Chapter Twelve
The next three weeks flew by and soon two big deadlines marking the end of this year arrived. The first being Julia’s full-length and completed Memoir assignment. The second being the youth group dress rehearsal which was scheduled for the Friday before Leavesly Church’s Christmas performance.
The stack of journals had dwindled down to the one box containing Julia’s childhood years. She had emptied out the shredder more times than she could count. She wasn’t sure if the frantic pace at transcribing her diaries were due to paranoia, or as an act of procrastination from working on her Memoir paper.
After her last class of the day, Julia trudged through the heavy downpour, mentally preparing herself on how to edit her memoir assignment. When she wrote in her journals, she could be completely honest because she knew no one was going to read it. Growing up, she wrote little skits for Lexi and Elliott’s entertainment. They were fictional rather than autobiographical, so she still felt that protection behind the element of fantasy. In her stories Julia was The Girl stuck behind the glass mirror. The first time Lexi heard that she nearly cried and protested, the thought of anyone being trapped behind glass too morbid for her young mind to comprehend. But when Julia explained that the world behind the mirror was actually magical, a safe haven protecting her from The Ice Queen, Lexi was intrigued.
And so began their adventures within Julia’s fantastical world. Lexi was The Vapor, because she insisted on having the power to escape from within the glass walls in order to rejoin the real world. Julia secretly thought this was fitting, especially as they grew older, because Lexi was like vapor: hard to hold on to. She was seemingly everywhere at once and at times notorious for disappearing when she was needed.
Elliott was The Warrior, or as Lexi liked to tease him, the Slumbering Warrior. He had the potential to be strong and protective and fierce. But Lexi was right. More often than not, he seemed to be only half-awake and not too interested in being heroic.
But this assignment was demanding something more, something until now she had only allowed to be expressed in the privacy of her journals. Was she willing to take on this challenge to face her fears? Or would she end up taking the coward’s way out and giving only a halfhearted effort at revising her paper.
Her dorm room was dark except for the dim grey light from the window. Julia wondered if Lexi and Elliott were taking a “study break” at the library after class. She decided against calling them. Knowing Lexi, she’s just end up persuading her to join them, and Julia knew she could no longer afford to waste time. The assignment was due tomorrow.
Tossing her dripping jacket along with her soaked socks in the laundry basket, Julia padded barefoot over to the microwave in the common room to heat a mug of water. Back in her own room, she changed into new layers of clothing. Pulling thick wool socks over her cold feet, she started to feel a little bit warmer by the time the microwave beeped down the hall. Tearing open the small square packet, Julia dipped the tea bag into the hot water and watched as the tea leaves seep dark amber.
Setting her mug within reach on the night stand, she
climbed into bed, wrapping the thick comforter around herself. Twisting her rain damp hair away from her face and neck, she pulled a beanie hat firmly over her head and curled into a comfortable huddle and tried to clear her thoughts.
In her American Society and Culture class, the professor had completed the section on influential people, and was now wrapping up the second half of the curriculum by focusing on major events that shaped the nation. One section covered the Japanese Internment Camps that were designated during World War II.
Julia remembered learning about this back in high school. The same nauseating feeling that had overwhelmed her back then resurfaced as she listened to her professor’s lecture on the fear and paranoia that had overwhelmed the nation on the heels of the bombing on Pearl Harbor. About how that had led to the inexcusable act of forcibly relocating over 120,000 innocent Japanese-Americans in prison-like camps, just because of their outward Asian features.
The reading assignment included articles and testimonies from various Japanese-Americans who had endured these internment camps personally. Their shared stories of hardship, humiliation, and despair over losing their jobs and homes and reputations because of their ethnicity pierced her mind. Some clung to the hope of rebuilding their lives, of making the best of a tragic wrongdoing of another’s hand, suffering their consequences.
Julia remembered back in high school, after learning about this scarred period in their nation’s history, she had gone home and asked her mother about it. Her mother had given her a sharp look as if bringing up the topic was offensive.
“Why are you asking?”
Julia took a step back, caught off guard by her mother’s angry response. It was uncharacteristic coming from her mother, who rarely showed any kind of emotion.
“It’s just, um, we’re learning about it in school,” Julia stumbled over her words. “I was just curious, that’s all.”
Her mother sat back with a sigh. She was silent for so long, Julia was about to walk away, when she finally said, “Our family was innocent. We’ve always been good citizens, loyal. Your great-grandfather was a surgeon, did you know that?”
Julia nodded slowly. She remembered hearing that. It was one of the few things she knew about her family, her past. It was something she knew her family was proud about, the fact that he was not just a doctor, but a surgeon.
“He graduated from the best university in Japan. He was a respected surgeon even here in California. My grandfather was a student at UCLA at the time. He was going to follow in his father’s footsteps. But then the war began. He was taken out of school. His father was no longer able to work at the hospital. The whole family was forced to leave their home, forced to live in the …” her mother swallowed, unable to say the words, as if the mention of the place was a curse on her lips.
Abruptly, she looked up sternly at Julia and stated in a firm voice, “That was my grandparent’s era. The past doesn’t affect us now.”
Even then, Julia had known that wasn’t true. The past did affect them. It either broke or strengthened them. These crucial points in their history altered them, and it effected the next generation that was learning from the previous, either trying to emulate it, or to run away from it, to avoid repeating the same tragic mistakes.
How much of her personality was the result of how God had made her, and how much was the outcome of her family life and past experiences?
A couple things came to mind: her parents’ aloof and physically unaffectionate behavior towards her growing up, being semi-raised by her best friend’s grandmother and tagging along with them to their church, and her Achilles’ heel of being perpetually shy. Julia took a deep breath and starting typing out the words the strung from her memories, revealing more than she was comfortable about her inner feelings and past.
It was a couple hours later when a knock sounded at the door. Was it Elliott? Or did Lexi forget her keys again?
“It’s not locked,” Julia called out from under the thick comforter where she was holed up with her laptop.
The door opened but no one entered.
Peeking out from under her blanket, Julia looked up to see Wynn leaning against the door frame.
“Cold?” Wynn asked, smirk in place.
Embarrassed, Julia quickly pulled off the beanie and sat up, pushing back her long hair as it came tumbling down around her.
“What time is it?” she glanced out the window disoriented and surprised to see it was dark out the dim grey daylight gone.
“An hour before A.A.C.F.’s large group meeting,” he said. “I ran into Lexi earlier at the library, and she said you weren’t picking up your phone. Some of us are going out to eat beforehand. Want to come?”
Julia scrambled to her feet to get ready. “Sure, where are Lexi and Elliott?”
“Mudd’s already giving them a ride. We’ll just meet them there.”
* * *
Walking to Professor Palermo’s office the next morning to drop off her Memoir assignment, Julia felt her heart pounding. She had stayed up all night, making the conscious effort to tell the truth about her past, even the part she wasn’t necessarily proud of, in hopes of showing how certain events and people shaped who she had become and strived to be.
She had to acknowledge the role rediscovering her journals had played. It gave her a different perspective of what God had been doing in her life. Although her different experiences had felt fragmented while going through them, when strung all together, they kept pointing back to one truth: God was faithful.
* * *
The night stung with a nippy chill and all the coppery golden hued leaves from the Cherry blossom trees had fallen, leaving the branches bare and vulnerable with their pale white bark exposed. The parking lot of Leavesly Church was nearly full and there was already a flurry of activity going on in and around the building.
“What’s going on?” Lexi asked. “They know the actual performance is on Sunday, right? Tonight’s just the dress rehearsal.”
Wynn shrugged as he pulled into an empty spot on the far side of the lot. “I overheard my mom talking to some of the parents on the phone, sounds like everyone’s really excited and wants to show their support by coming out tonight to help with rehearsals and to feed us.”
At the mention of food, Elliott instantly perked up. “What are we having tonight?”
“Shabu Shabu.”
“Wow, they’re making a night of it, huh?” Elliott said, impressed.
Upon entering the social hall, several moms ushered them towards the decked out tables. Rows of hot pots were lined up, surrounded by plates of thinly sliced beef, a variety of vegetables, chopped up seafood, and bowls of savory dipping sauces.
At one of the tables on the other side of the room, Julia spotted Koda and Shep along with a group of tall teenage boys most of whom she had never seen before.
“Who are they?” Julia whispered to Chloe, who had rushed to her side the moment they arrived.
“Koda changed his mind and invited some friends.”
“Let’s go say hi,” Lexi suggested, and they made their way over between the crowded tables.
Shep looked up and nodded as way of a greeting, almost a perfect imitation of his older cousin. His mouth was full, chopsticks dangling from his hand.
“Hi, guys,” Lexi said, “How’s the food?”
“Good, you want some?”
As Lexi settled into a comfortable conversation with them, Julia reached for a pair of chopsticks and helped to add more meat and seafood into the hot pot. A few of the new boys were drooling over Lexi or the food. Julia wasn’t sure. But she did find out they were from Koda’s soccer team at school.
“Hey, Julia, you want some of this meat?” Koda offered, to her surprise. He motioned towards the empty paper bowl in front of her. Julia smiled and handed it to him.
“Thanks, Koda,” she said, feeling genuinely touched. Koda wasn’t usually very attentive of other people.
“Chloe?” he said after
passing the bowl back to Julia.
Chloe looked stunned but managed to pass him her bowl as well.
While Koda piled on the food, Julia glanced around the room to find out what happened to Elliott. She found him near the front of the room with Wynn, sitting at a table with Vangy and Pamela’s group of friends. The group of giggling girls seemed to have tripled.
It was a bit funny that everyone was so excited about a dress rehearsal, Julia was thinking, when suddenly the sound of a pop followed by the smell of gasoline exploded in the room.
The lights in the room went out, and a collective gasp could be heard. The darkness was followed by a moment of unsure silence that was broken by a faint curse from one of Koda’s friends.
“Aw, man. And I just cracked a raw egg into my bowl,” he muttered.
His comment was followed by a frenzy of voices.
“We must have blown a fuse.”
“It’s all these hot pots. I knew we shouldn’t have used so many extension chords.”
“Alright, nobody panic. We just have to flip a switch in the fuse box.”
“Somebody help me find the communion candles and the matches.”
From across the table Koda mumbled, “This is going to delay our night.”
He was right, it almost took a full hour before the lights came back on due to some debate between whether or not the communion candles were suitable to use in this situation. This was resolved when Wynn rummaged his old flashlight from his car, but it took some time to locate the fuse box and to find the right switches to flip. When the lights still refused to turn back on, Wynn called the fire department from his cell phone, and everyone sat in darkness while the practical jokes escalated.
First there was a squeal coming from Chloe. The guys erupted with laughter as Koda snuck back to his seat after placing an uncooked slimy squid on her neck.
“I should’ve know he couldn’t last being nice to me,” Julia heard her mutter in the dark. But Chloe soon retaliated by attempting to clip a crab claw shell on Koda’s ear. Only she was confused by the shadows and caught Shep instead, who growled irritably.
“Hey, I’m an innocent bystander,” Shep complained, swiping the claw from Chloe’s hand. This sent her scampering back to her side of the table. Then, Koda and his friends started daring each other to add different combinations of soy sauce to hot mustard into their cups of soda to drink. One of the guys was choking on his gulp as the guys around him hooted with laughter and pounded him on his back, when two small flickers of light appeared next to Julia.