Shadow Girl

by Liana Liu

  “Almost drowned in some vodka?”

  “Actually . . . ,” I say. Then I remember that I don’t care what my brother thinks. Besides, I suppose it’s possible that my pounding head and dried-up mouth are symptoms of a hangover and not a near drowning. “Never mind. Where’s Mom?”

  “She’s watching the kids while Auntie Jeanie goes shoe shopping,” he says.

  I make a face. Andy makes a face. Here is something we can agree on, perhaps the only thing: Auntie Jeanie takes advantage of our mother’s kindness; our mother lets herself be taken advantage of by Auntie Jeanie’s bossiness.

  A flood of dizziness overtakes me, and I nearly fall over a basket of magazines. I steady myself against the bookcase, but I lean too hard and set the shelves shuddering. “Why is there so much stuff in here?” I grumble.

  “Don’t blame the stuff for the fact you’re hungover,” my brother says.

  I try frowning at him, but my mouth spasms uncooperatively. I must look pretty bad, because Andy says, “Drink a bunch of water and eat something greasy. It may be hard to get down, but you’ll feel better afterward. It always works for me.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

  “How’d you like keeping Mom up all night worrying?”

  “I didn’t keep her up all night!”

  “You sure?” Andy smiles.

  I stomp into the kitchen. I was fairly certain I had come home before midnight. But I can’t remember exactly when. Or how. In fact, I can’t remember most of the party. Except that I almost drowned. And that people were calling me Amber and I, for some unfathomable reason, responded. When I try to remember more, my head hammers in protest. So I stop trying.

  I drink a glass of water and then another. I heat up the leftover rice noodles in the refrigerator and gag them down. I drink another glass of water. I almost throw up. I manage not to throw up.

  Andy goes out to play basketball, or so he claims. He’s still laughing at me when he leaves. “Now who’s the bad one?” he says.

  I ignore him and stumble back to the bedroom. I’m about to collapse into bed when I notice my bra and underwear on a hanger by the window. They’re dry but still smell of chlorine. I didn’t hang them there. I vaguely remember putting my soggy clothes in the laundry basket when I got home last night. So it must have been my mother.

  I cringe. I hate that she had to pick up after me the way she always picks up after my brother . . . the way she always used to pick up after my father.

  The front door creaks open. All I want to do is to collapse into bed. I go out to the living room. My mother’s face crinkles with concern when she sees me. “Nĭ zěnme yàng?”

  “Hi, Mom! I’m great!” I smile broadly.

  You got home so late last night. Almost two in the morning.

  “Oh. Um. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have stayed up.”

  You didn’t tell me you would be home so late.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say again.

  “Méiguānxì,” she says. It’s okay.

  I wait for her to ask about my underwear, so I can explain about the swimming pool. She goes into the kitchen and starts putting the groceries away. When are you leaving? she asks.

  “Soon. In about half an hour.”

  “Wŏ xiànzài kāishĭ zuò.” I better start lunch right away then.

  “No, it’s okay. I ate the leftover chăofěn,” I tell her.

  Nonetheless, my mother starts chopping and peeling, and soon the air thickens with the smell of hot oil. There’s a stormy crackle when she throws the garlic into the wok. A pungent aroma fills our apartment. I go into the bedroom and shut the door and sit on my bed, my fingers clamped over my nose and mouth. I gag. I am never, ever, ever going to drink again. Never. Ever.

  Henry texts me to say he’s on his way. I force myself up. I grab my underthings dangling in the window and throw them into the laundry basket. I stuff my clothes back into my duffel bag. I gag.

  There’s a gentle tap on the door, and my mother comes into the room. “Lái chīfàn,” she says. Come eat lunch.

  “I told you I already ate. Anyway, I have to go now,” I say.

  All right. She goes back into the living room.

  I hang my bag on one shoulder and the bag of Vanessa’s purchases on the other. When I walk out, my mother swings another bag toward me. I know what it is without asking: fried noodles with slivers of roast pork and leafy green vegetables with hard stems. It’s the lunch she made for me.

  She tells me there are two containers, one for me and one for the boss’s son.

  “Thanks.” I loop the plastic bag around my wrist. “Mom, I looked through the mail, but I didn’t see the electricity or gas bills. Do you know where they are?”

  “Nĭ gēgē zuòle.” Your brother already paid them.

  “Oh. Um, good. Well, I guess tell Andy I said bye.” I kiss her soft cheek. I place my arms around her delicate frame. I breathe in her scent of citrus soap and cooking oil and the medicine she uses for her muscle aches.

  Then, as quickly as I can, I leave.

  Henry is already there when I get downstairs. He gets out of his ridiculous red car when he sees me hobbling over. The sun on his glowing face, it’s too much brightness, and I can’t look at him directly. He takes my two heavy bags, and I’m too woozy to refuse his help.

  “How’re you doing? Moving a little slower than usual?” he asks.

  “Yeah, sorry. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  “It’s fine. I’m just happy I got to win this time.”

  “What?” I hold my hand over my eyes to block out the light.

  “Remember? Last night you said everything’s a competition.”

  “I can’t remember much about last night.”

  “No way,” he says. “You’re not getting out of this that easy.”

  “Getting out of what?” I ask.

  Henry grins. “You remember.”

  “No,” I say. Then a memory flutters in my mind. “No.”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “No, no, no,” I say.

  Because suddenly I remember. My arms around his neck. My lips against his lips. Did he kiss me back? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe just enough to be polite. I can’t remember. Though I remember him laughing afterward. Laughing exactly like he’s laughing right now.

  “Oh no,” I say, covering my face with both hands.

  “Oh yes,” Henry says. Laughing.

  “I was extremely drunk. I’m sorry,” I mumble through my palms.

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “That’s impossible.” I walk to his car, open the door, and get into the passenger seat. Then I cover my face back up with my hands.

  Henry gets in. Laughing.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “You have to stop apologizing,” he says.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, can you explain what you’re apologizing for?”

  “Um, because, um, totally drunk and embarrassing and uh, almost drowned. And then I did. That thing. Why. I don’t know. You must think. Oh god.” I groan.

  I still have my palms over my eyes so I feel him, don’t see him, grip one of my wrists and then the other. His fingers are very warm. He gently tugs. When I resist, he tugs with slightly more force. My hands come down one at a time. I force myself to look at him.

  Henry is no longer laughing. He’s not even smiling or grinning or smirking. His expression is serious, and this serious expression is so unnatural on him I almost want to giggle. But I don’t. I gaze back with equal seriousness.

  “I know all about getting drunk and doing things you wouldn’t normally do. You know I know,” he says. “So don’t be embarrassed, okay? Stop apologizing. All you did was kiss me. And I didn’t mind. So you don’t have to apologize for that. Please don’t.”

  It requires all my effort not to apologize again. I nod.

  His fa
ce relaxes, and Henry looks like himself again. He smirks like himself again. “Besides, I’m used to it. It’s a tough job being irresistible, but someone’s got to do it.”

  “Yuck. You’re the worst,” I say.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Henry turns on the car engine and pulls out of the parking space. There isn’t much traffic, so we’re soon speeding across the bridge, leaving the city. I don’t look back. I recline in my seat and close my eyes.

  “What’s that smell?” Henry asks.

  I open my eyes. Vanessa’s scented soaps and candles are packed in the trunk, so I know he’s asking about my mother’s cooking. A greasy perfume oozes from the plastic bag.

  “My mom made food for us,” I say. “But you don’t have to eat yours.”

  “Why not? What is it?”

  “Fried noodles with pork and vegetables.”

  “Yum. Can I have it now?”

  “Can you drive and eat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Noodles?”

  “Maybe not,” he says sadly. “I’ll wait until we stop.”

  “And I’m going to take a nap.”

  “But who will entertain me then?”

  “You have to learn to entertain yourself.”

  “Never,” he declares.

  “Good night.” I close my eyes. Then I’m asleep.

  In my dream I’m looking for Ella. I search room after room, down long corridors, through narrow hallways, opening door after door after door in the Morisons’ enormous summer home. I circle around, I backtrack—or I think I do—but the house keeps shifting, growing, changing. A door appears in a place where there is no door. I knock, calling her name. I think I hear her calling out in return. I try pushing into the room, but I am pushed out by a mountain of stuff. A jumbled, towering confusion of objects. I take a tentative step toward it. Immediately it begins avalanching down and I fall and fall and—

  “Wake up,” a voice says into my ear. “Wake up, please, I’m so hungry. Soooooooooo huuuuuuuuuuuungry.”

  “Are we home?” I mumble.

  “No, home’s the other way.”

  “Oh. Right.” I force my eyes open.

  “You were muttering in your sleep,” Henry says. “Was it a nightmare?”

  “I dreamed I was looking for Ella and I couldn’t find her.”

  “Sounds scary.”

  “Yeah. It was.” I yawn and stretch and glance around. We are parked in a parking lot, facing a cluster of trees, sunshine flooding through the green. “So, you’re hungry? Or did I dream that too?”

  “Starving,” he says. “My mom is always on some new diet, so she barely has any food in her house, only these green . . . shakes? Smoothies? I’m not sure what to call them. I don’t know how my stepdad survives. I barely had any breakfast. I mean, she did get us some bagels, but nothing other than that bagel. With cream cheese. And lox.”

  “Sounds terrible.” I try unknotting the bag of food, but I’ve knotted it too tightly. I rip the thin plastic apart and pass Henry his container of noodles, and the plastic fork and napkin that my mother had also supplied.

  “Organization runs in the family,” Henry says.

  “I guess so.” I lean back in my seat.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  I shake my head. I feel better after my nap, but I’m still a little queasy.

  He takes a huge bite. “Yum. Your mom’s a great cook.”

  And though she really is, I have trouble believing that Henry really believes she is. But he slurps his food with apparent delight. And eats every last squiggle of noodle, every crumb of pork, every leaf and stalk of vegetable.

  Then we get back on the road. Henry puts on some music, I turn the volume up, and we bop along as we race down the highway, then chug across the water on the ferry, then cruise along the narrow roads of Arrow Island.

  But at the exact moment that we pass through the metal gate, the music is replaced by a fuzzy buzzing. I look quizzically at Henry.

  “It does that. We’re out of range now,” he says.

  “As soon as we get on Morison land,” I say.

  “I still think of this as Arrow land. You know our house originally belonged to Lionel Arrow, the son of the first Arrow on the island.”

  “Yup, your grandfather told me.” I reach over and turn off the buzzing radio.

  We spiral up the hill. Round and round we go as the road grows narrower and narrower, and the trees taller and taller, and the shadows darker and darker. Then the forest suddenly falls away, and we drive into a burst of light. The sun is bright above the house, shining sharply on its many windows so that it appears almost as if the whole place is burning, from the inside out. I drop my gaze into my lap. Henry parks the car and we get out.

  Vanessa comes out of the house, waving both her hands at us. Then Ella darts past her mother. She runs over and hurls herself onto her brother. She whispers something to him that makes him laugh. He whispers something to her that makes her laugh. When they are done laughing, Ella comes over to me.

  “I missed you,” I tell her. I open my arms to see if she’ll hug me and she does, though with more restraint than when she hugged her brother.

  She doesn’t tell me that she missed me too, though. What she tells me, in a very low voice, is “The ghost was mad you were gone. The first night she kept knocking on the walls. Last night I heard her crying.”

  I step back so quickly that we both almost fall. I catch myself, then I catch her. “Sorry, Ella,” I say.

  “Sorry for what?” Vanessa asks as she strolls toward us.

  “I tripped. I’m a little clumsy after being in the car for so long,” I say.

  She nods and flings her arms around me with none of her daughter’s restraint. “I’m so happy you’re back. It felt like you were gone for ages!”

  I inhale the sweet clean of her perfume, the same smell as in the bottle in the trunk of the car. “I bought all the things on your list,” I say.

  “I appreciate it,” she says. “And I’m sorry to have asked you—I was thinking about it and it really wasn’t fair of me. It’s not the job you were hired to do.”

  I’m startled. I’m touched. “It’s all right,” I say.

  Vanessa pats my shoulder, then turns to Henry and kisses him hello. “Your father just left,” she tells him. “He told me to tell you he’s sorry he missed you, but he had an urgent dinner meeting tonight.”

  “On Sunday?” he asks.

  “Apparently,” she says.

  Together the four of us go into the house, into glass and stone and perfect angles and gleaming surfaces. Past the stylishly modern furniture, past the spacious rooms. Up the solid, polished stairs. Then Henry goes to his room with his bags and Vanessa goes to her room with her purchases. Ella goes with her brother. And I go to the pink bedroom.

  As I twist the knob, I feel strangely apprehensive. But then I open the door and the room is immaculate, just as I left it. The rosy walls warm with afternoon light. The white rug perfectly fluffy. The floral quilt smooth and straight on the bed. I don’t know why I expected anything would be different.

  I go into my own bathroom to wash my hands and face. I smile at my reflection, even though my reflection is still a little hangover gray around the edges. Then I unpack: put away my toothbrush, fold my clean clothes and stack them in the mirrored wardrobe, squash my dirty clothes into the laundry basket.

  When I dip my hand into the bottom of my duffel bag, it touches something unexpectedly hard and cold. I recoil. I pull the bag wide open to look inside. And flinch. I know I didn’t put that hard, cold thing there. I know my mother didn’t either; she couldn’t have. Yet somehow there it is, there she is, nestled in my gray sweater.

  The porcelain ballerina figurine.

  PART III

  THE ISLAND

  1

  THE NEXT MORNING, ELLA STARTS AS SOON AS I GET TO THE library: “The ghost was crying so I told her no
t to cry. Then I asked what her name was and she said Eleanor Arrow. She’s Lionel’s daughter, like I said.”

  “Eleanor?” I say. “Ella-nor?”

  “Yes,” Ella says. “Eleanor.”

  The worst thing would be if I laughed. I manage not to by chewing my lip and twisting my eyebrows and trying to look as if I’m thinking hard. Which I am. “But I didn’t hear anything last night. Did you?” I ask.

  “I think she was quiet because you’re here again.”

  “Why would I make her quiet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right. How about we work on our reading now?”

  “Okay.” She opens her book but continues looking at me.

  “Yes, Ella?” I say.

  “I’m glad you came back,” she says.

  “Of course I did.” I smile at her, touched, but now she is gazing down at her work.

  While Ella reads, I walk around the room. I pause at the window and glance outside. Henry is lying by the pool: shirt off, neon swim trunks on, sunglasses over his eyes. The sun brightens his hair into the same golden tan of his chest.

  I realize I’m staring. I jump backward, feeling as if he’s caught me. Which he hasn’t—Henry looks more asleep than awake down there. I remind myself that he didn’t think it was a big deal that I kissed him.

  “Done,” Ella announces.

  “That was fast!” I rush back to the table.

  We go over the questions and answers together. She got nine out of ten right, and the tenth was tricky. “That’s amazing. You did a really excellent job,” I say as I stick a cluster of gold stars into her workbook.

  She blushes and fidgets and stares down at the stickers. And I feel a wave of frustration. I want Ella to be happy about her accomplishments. I want her to recognize how great she’s doing. I want her to recognize how great she is.

  “Ella,” I say, “think of how much you’ve improved.”

  “Because you taught me.”

  I shake my head. “You did all the hard work. I just helped. I’m really proud of you, and I hope you’re proud of yourself too.”

  Ella keeps staring into her workbook. But then she says, “I guess I’m proud.”

  “I’m glad. Now give me your hand,” I say.