It's Not Like It's a Secret
Page 8
“A for Awesome Asians,” quips Elaine. “We should get T-shirts!”
“Yeah—it would be like when Hester put gold thread on her A, like she didn’t care about what people thought, you know?”
“Yeah, like she was proud of it, like she refused to feel ashamed! Just like us, right?” Elaine is getting excited. “Maybe if there was a group of girls like Hester, like with As on their chests, maybe if they all stuck together, maybe they could have changed things. You know, friends, community, power!”
I love California. I love my new friends.
“Yeah, or maybe they all would have been burned at the stake for being witches,” says Jamie.
A week later, Jamie and I are sitting on the floor in my bedroom after practice, drafting analytical essays on The Scarlet Letter. Jamie’s been coming over to do homework regularly, pretty much every day except Thursdays, when we have meets.
“Anyway, Hester put gold thread on the A to make herself feel worse, not better. She was just as fucked up as the rest of them,” says Jamie.
“Aw, don’t say that. You just ruined it.”
“A for Asian. You think being in a group changes what people think about you? Try wearing an M for Mexican. That’s like Hester. It doesn’t give you more power. It doesn’t change people’s minds. It just makes people judge all of you together. They stop seeing you as an individual.”
“That’s not true.” I think about how much more myself I feel with my Asian friends than with my white friends.
“It is. Think about Christina. Eight kids applied to work at the school store, three white, four Asian, and one Mexican. How come only Christina had to get extra letters of rec? She gets good grades. It’s not like she’s a criminal. It’s because she’s wearing an M for Mexican.”
“Yeah . . .” It’s plausible. But how can anyone really know for sure? I remember what Hanh said a while back. “What about . . . I mean, I heard that Lowell likes kids to brownnose. Maybe Christina . . . I mean, I’m sure she’s nice and everything. But like that day with the Emily Dickinson book. She comes off kind of . . .”
“Bitchy?”
Well, yes. But I’m not going to say that, am I? “Maybe. Kind of.”
Jamie grimaces. “I know. I mean, that day. It was . . . well. She’s had a hard year and she was worried about getting the job. And when she’s worried it sometimes comes out as anger, you know? Like kind of a defense mechanism. It’s not personal.”
I doubt that. It felt very personal. And about as defensive as a punch in the nose.
“But I bet you’re right,” Jamie continues. “She probably got upset with Lowell because she was worried about not getting a spot. But I know for a fact that no one else got asked for extra letters. Not Janet, and Christina says she’s late all the time. Not even Jason Cole, and he’s an asshole, even to teachers.”
“Yeah, but Jason’s like, the smartest kid in our class.”
“It shouldn’t matter. If Lowell was being fair, she should’ve made him and Janet get extra references, too. But she didn’t. Christina might’ve been a bitch to Lowell, but mostly she got screwed because she’s Mexican, and she didn’t want to play Lowell’s game. Because she’s part of a group that Lowell doesn’t trust.”
When she puts it that way, I guess it makes sense. “Okay, you’re right. I get it. But I still think that having friends who are like you is better than being the only one. It’s better than being alone.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Jamie wraps her arms around her knees and rests her chin on top. “So was that what it was like for you in Wisconsin? Did you feel alone?”
“Yeah.”
“But not anymore, huh.”
“It’s different here. I have friends who get where I’m coming from, you know? And I have you.” Oops. Too far? I look away, because somehow it feels like looking somewhere else will separate me from what I just said.
But Jamie seems pleased. “Aww, really? Thanks.”
“Even if you are a nerd.”
She laughs and says, “Actually I’m glad I got you, too. I mean, I got my friends and everything, but . . .” She nudges me with her shoulder. “I feel like I can really be myself around you. I can relax.”
“Oh. Yeah, me too.” Which isn’t a hundred percent true. Like right now. My senses are on high alert. I can smell the citrus shampoo she uses in her hair. The spot where her shoulder touched mine is practically tingling. The whole situation is making me nervous. “But what about Christina and them?” I say, just to say something.
“Well, yeah, of course I’m myself around them. But like, I dunno. Like I’ve always wanted to go to Stanford and be a doctor, right? So they’re totally supportive and they totally think I’m gonna go and like, find the cure for cancer or something. But sometimes it just feels like a lot of pressure, you know? And . . . they have a thing about honors kids, like you guys are a bunch of snobs, and why would I want to hang out with you. I mean, it’s true, I don’t fit in, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to, sometimes. So that’s hard.
“And teachers treat me like I’m this special snowflake just because I’m Mexican, like I should be doing average at best, or getting pregnant or something. They’ll pat me on the back and bend over backward for me even if I don’t get As. And I know there’s kids who think the teachers are going easy on me because I’m Mexican, which is bullshit—but sometimes I think, what if that’s true? What if I fail? My mom and everyone would be so disappointed. And the haters would be all, ‘I knew she couldn’t do it.’ So I have to work extra hard to make sure none of that happens.”
She heaves a sigh, and we sit in silence for a while, the weight of her burden heavy between us. Her knees are still tucked up under her chin. She starts picking at a stray thread on the cuff of her jeans and says, “That’s one reason I like running. I can just leave all that behind for a while, you know? I can just be me, and run.” Now she leans into me. “That’s kind of how I feel when I’m with you. The pressure’s off. I don’t have to be anyone but me.”
I nod. We’re just sitting there, arms touching, looking at each other, then not looking. After a few seconds, I don’t think I can take it anymore. I’m in a movie where the boy and girl are moments away from kissing, and I realize with a start that that’s exactly what I want to happen. Not just a hopeless and confused daydreamy wondering how it might feel, like with Trish. Not just a momentary flutter, like with Mark. This is for real. I want us to kiss. I want us to kiss now. I think Jamie might want the same thing. I turn to her, my heart pounding, and say:
“So. The significance of light and dark imagery in The Scarlet Letter. How many examples are we supposed to include?” And we’re back in the safety of Hester’s illicit love affair.
After Jamie gets on the bus, I wonder how Hester and Dimmesdale first kissed. In the woods—the dark, romantic, uncivilized woods, where anything goes. I imagine the time before they kissed, both of them wanting it but unsure if they should go for it. I wonder if they were happy when it finally happened. Probably not—the whole novel is so depressing.
But me, I’m happy. I know something, for once. I know what I want. I want to kiss Jamie, and I also want to spend days at the beach with her, spend winter vacation and Valentine’s Day with her, read poetry with her, go to prom with her. I want it all. Actually, I guess I’ve kind of wanted all of that since the beginning, but the difference now is that I’m not scared of wanting it anymore. I’m not scared of what it means. I don’t know if Jamie wants the same thing. That’s what scares me now. But if she does want what I want, then oh. Oh, how amazing that would be.
For the rest of the evening, it’s Jamie-land in my head. Jamie loves poetry. Jamie wants to be a doctor. Jamie’s talented and smart and tough and scared and she’s fighting her way toward a real goal—I don’t even know what I want to do next year, let alone with the rest of my life, except be with her. Jamie said she can be her true self when she’s with me. Jamie’s arm touching mine. Jamie’s face, so close to mine. Jamie.
“Mom, do you know anyone who’s gay?”
She wrinkles her nose and gives me a funny look. “Nandé?”
“It uh . . . came up at school. In history,” I lie. “How uh . . . social attitudes toward different minority groups change over time.”
Mom blows on her tea and shakes her head. “Just your math teacher from sixth grade. Mr. Freiberg?” I nod. Mr. Freiberg was a walking stereotype. “You know,” she continues thoughtfully, “Shizuka-obasan married a gay.” Mom’s baby sister? I know she was divorced once, when I was a baby—is this why?
“You mean a gay person?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. She married a gay,” she repeats, thinking that I am expressing shock, rather than correcting her language. “That’s why she’s divorce and no children. So I know about the gay people.” She looks at me across her cup of tea. “I’m not as innocent as you think.”
“Naïve, Mom. Innocent means you didn’t do it. Naïve means you didn’t know it.” Suddenly I am sure that her look means that she does know it—about me. Quelling my panic, I return to the subject of my former uncle. “How did she know he was gay?”
“It was arrange-marriage,” she says, as if that explains everything.
“So?”
“So after they got married, he didn’t want to have a sex. So she figured out.”
“But why didn’t she figure it out earlier? Like while they were engaged or something?”
She draws herself up and says haughtily, “Japanese people have moral. They don’t have a sex all the time before marriage, like Americans.”
I happen to know that this is wrong, because in Health Ed last year we had to research attitudes toward premarital sex in different countries, and the teacher gave me an article about the huge popularity of Japanese “love hotels” that rent rooms by the hour to unmarried couples. “What about love hotels?” I say.
Mom turns up her nose and sniffs. “Only the loose-moral people in the city go to love hotels.” Of course that’s what she thinks. But as always, there’s no point in trying to change her mind.
So I just ask, “Why did he even marry her in the first place?”
She shrugs and sips her tea. “He wanted to get married like the respectable person.”
“So then why did he tell her after he married her?”
“He didn’t tell her. I told you, she figured out.”
“Huh?”
She sighs with exasperation and puts the cup down. “Only the gay man doesn’t want to have a sex with the new bride.” Oh. Well. She sighs again, deeper this time, and gazes into the cup between her hands as she continues, “She just told everyone that they couldn’t get along, so he didn’t have to tell that he was a gay. It was very nice of her, so he and his family didn’t have to be ashame. In Japan it’s not good to be a gay, you know. It makes the other people upset. Many of the gay get married so they don’t make their families ashame.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” I blurt. “There’s no shame in being gay.”
“Ha!” she snorts. “Here, all the gay just think they should tell everyone. They say oh, be yourself is the best way, no shame, and everyone else should accept. It’s selfish.” This is one of Mom’s favorite complaints about America and Americans. Selfish. Disrespectful. Inconsiderate. Women were happy before feminism—until those selfish feminists had to go mess everything up and demand equal treatment. Same with Black people. Forget individual freedoms and differences—it’s all about making the majority feel comfortable.
On the other hand, if her big complaint about gay-rights activists is that they’re selfish—well, it could be worse. Maybe the ice isn’t as thin as I thought.
“Asking for acceptance and equal rights isn’t selfish. It wouldn’t be an issue at all if other people accepted them instead of thinking of them as freaks.”
“They are the freaks. That’s why it’s selfish to make a big protest. They should accept the society because they are living in it.”
“But that’s wrong. That’s unfair.”
She drains the last drop of tea from her cup and stands up. “That is the life. No one can have perfect life without suffering. People have to accept.”
“But you can try to make it better, at least.”
Mom puts the teapot and cup in the sink, and turns to face me. “You are young, so you think everybody should get everything they want. But one day, you will see. Life is not so simple.”
“How would you know?”
“Ha! I know.”
And suddenly, I get the feeling that she’s not talking about social justice anymore.
“What? What do you know?”
“I am grown-up. So I know.”
“Know what?”
“I don’t need to tell you. It’s just life.”
She turns her back and starts washing the dishes. Conversation over. Though to be honest, I’m not sure I want to hear what she’s not telling me, anyway. So I say, “Hmph,” so she knows I’m not conceding, and get up from the table.
“Chotto. Tetsudai-nasai.”
I go to the sink to help her. We wash the dishes, put away the leftovers, rinse the sink, and wipe down the counters. When we’re done, the kitchen is neat and clean and shiny. Meanwhile, our secrets whirl around us and obscure us from each other like a cloud of dust.
POETRY JOURNAL, HONORS AMERICAN LITERATURE
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
“Loose Woman”
by Sandra Cisneros
I’m not really comfortable with swear words in poetry. But I can see why Sandra Cisneros used them in hers—just the b-word, actually.
“Loose Woman” is sort of like the bold, loudmouthed version of “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” Instead of being Nobody, the speaker is a “b****” and a “beast.” But she’s proud of it. Most of the poem is the speaker boasting about who she is and what she does, though, so maybe she’s like the Somebody who says his name all day in Dickinson’s poem.
This part toward the end is probably my favorite:
I’m an aim-well,
shoot-sharp,
sharp-tongued,
sharp-thinking,
fast-speaking,
foot-loose,
loose-tongued,
let-loose,
woman-on-the-loose,
loose woman.
Beware, honey.
There’s a lot of stuff about talking: sharp-tongued, fast-speaking, loose-tongued. But it’s a different kind of talking than a frog repeating its name all day long. It’s speaking your mind, not just your name. Each line is short, one after another. Maybe it’s supposed to be like a stream of bullets (because of “aim-well/shoot-sharp”)??? Maybe it’s like words are her weapons? So that would make her dangerous? (“Beware, honey.”) Who is she threatening? Her oppressors? Society in general? Is she angry, or is she kind of joking a little?
But she also says she’s an outlaw, and that she breaks things, and generally makes people uncomfortable. So all of that would make her like Emily Dickinson’s Nobody. Except I feel like that kind of person is a Somebody.
I’m not sure I would like this person if I knew her, but I admire her strength. Because she’s the opposite of me and I tend not to rock the boat, even though I sometimes wish I could.
14
I’M AT THE STARTING LINE FOR OUR MEET against Cupertino High School. I’ve been in four meets so far, and every time, I get so nervous I think I might be sick. My insides tie themselves in knots and I wish I could hit the bathroom just one more time before the race. Janet keeps telling me, “Don’t worry. What’s the worst that could happen? You get tired an
d slow down? You don’t win? So what?”
I know in my head that she’s right—it’s just one race, and really there’s nothing at stake except for a few points—but my body doesn’t care. My mouth still goes dry and my heart still thuds away like something terrible is about to happen. “Find your stride. Find a good pace and stick with it,” Coach Kieran keeps saying.
The gun goes off, and I start running. It’s a three-mile race today, so I have to stay loose in the beginning, which is difficult, what with the adrenaline coursing through my veins and everything. At least I’ve improved enough over the weeks so that I know that I can keep Janet in sight for most of the race without flaming out at the end.
I cross the finish line and barely make it off to the side, I’m so exhausted. Bent over double and heaving, I feel Janet’s hand on my back, and Coach Kieran’s, too. Someone shoves a water bottle in my face, and I stand up to take a sip.
“Great race, Sana,” says Coach. “Way to finish strong! That’s what I’m talkin’ about—reaching down deep. Great job. Go warm down.” He gives me another pat on the back and is off looking for the next runner.
“Way to go, Sana!” It’s Caleb. What’s he doing here? His friend Ginny is at his side, waving. Thom is on the other side looking bored, but he gives me a thumbs-up. I wave back.
“Omigod, that’s Caleb Miller! And Ginny and that Thom guy. What’re they doing here?” asks Janet, staring.
“I dunno,” I say. “I’ll ask them later.”
“You know them?”
“Well, yeah. Caleb sits behind me in trig. I have lunch with them sometimes.”
“Really.” Janet looks at me curiously. “Are they as weird as they look?”
“No—yes. Well, kind of.”
We focus our attention back on the finish line and cheer as Melinda Tsai crosses, then Sruthi Agrawala. When I turn around to see what Caleb, Thom, and Ginny are doing, they’re gone. Janet sees me looking and muses, “I’ve never seen any of them at a meet before. . . . And the only person they cheered for was you.” She narrows her eyes at me. “I think he likes you.”