“Always so literal,” Mom says with a smile. “Every time I look at Isabella, I remember what you were like at that age. It goes by so fast.”
“You were better at eating, though,” Dad points out almost proudly.
I try to smile, but I realize whatever I’m doing with my mouth feels mega-unnatural. I’m not good at pretending I’m happy when I’m not. Mom and Dad seem determined to act like yesterday never happened, but that’s not going to make my feelings disappear.
Orientation day will be here soon enough. How much trouble will I be in if I don’t turn up?
Dad grabs another beer. Mom pours herself a glass of wine.
I count the seconds it takes for one of them to notice me.
Mom frowns. “What is it, honey?”
“I was just—” I start. Thinking about not going to school. Thinking about chasing my dreams. Thinking about how I wish you would try to understand me.
Mom and Dad watch me like I’m a mild curiosity in a museum. And I know that look on their faces too well—the look that says, Don’t say it. Don’t disappoint us. Don’t be disrespectful.
And the sinking feeling in my gut tells me that they’re never going to listen. It doesn’t matter if I say all the right words, or fill every hole in my argument. They’re never going to agree with me because we don’t see the world the same way. We don’t see my life the same way.
I pull my lips in and shake my head like the hope in my heart is splitting down the middle. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking about the new set list, that’s all.”
Mom’s shoulders relax. “I think you’re going to really love it. Rehearsals start next Wednesday, if you want to watch.”
I force a weak, flimsy smile.
Dad holds up his beer bottle. “Speaking of which, I’m sorry to disappear, but I’ve got work to do.” He kisses Mom on the cheek and nods toward me and Popo. “I’ve got about a thousand photocopies to make of all the new sheet music, and if I don’t start now, I’ll be up until three a.m.”
He vanishes back into the hallway like he was hardly here at all. Mom motions toward the living room. “Are you coming?”
I’m trying so hard not to cry, that Popo’s hand on my wrist makes me jump.
“We’ll be there in a minute. I want to talk with Harley first,” she says with the raspy, adoring voice I’m so fond of.
When Mom’s gone, Popo pats my arm. “Why don’t you go and get the present I brought you?”
The bag is still in the hallway, and when I get back, Popo is looking out the window like she’s remembering something from a long time ago.
I sit down next to her, and when Popo nods at me, I pull the contents out onto the table.
It’s a rectangular photo album, covered in bright red leather with gold flowers embroidered along the edges. In the center are some characters I’m not familiar with, but I am pretty sure are hànzì.
I run my finger along the metallic words. “What does this say?”
Popo’s eyes are fixed on me. “It’s our family name. Soong. From Taipo’s side of the family.”
Our family name. Like Popo thinks I have just as much of a right to the name as she does.
I turn the cover and find an old black-and-white photograph on the first page. It’s of a little girl wearing a short dress with her hair in a blunt, straight cut. She’s frowning at the camera like the sun was too bright, and there’s a woman standing behind her with her hands on the girl’s shoulders.
“This is my mother, Chin Choy. Your taipo.” She points to the little girl—a great-grandmother I’ve never seen before. Popo looks at the photo with heavy creases beside her eyes and points to the woman next. “And my popo.”
Curiosity sweeps over me. “Were you close?”
Popo doesn’t take her eyes away from the ghosts of her past. “She worked very hard, especially when my mother was younger. She was born in China, and her family was very wealthy. But then the war happened….” Her voice trails off, and she lets out a sigh. Popo doesn’t like to dwell on the negatives of the past, even when they’re from someone else’s past. “She took a boat all the way to Hawaii and married when she was only sixteen. She worked at a factory and would send all her money back to the housekeeper in China, but she found out many months later that the Communists had been living in her family’s home. They would give the letters to the housekeeper but keep all the money that was inside. After she found that out, she never wanted to go back to China. I know she missed home—but I know she loved Hawaii, too.”
“I never knew any of that,” I say, staring at the photographs.
“It was a long time ago,” Popo says. Sensing the end of her story, I turn another page. Her eyes light up with joy when she sees a photo of another small child, standing in front of a horse with flowers draped around its neck. “This was me when I was a little girl. I remember this afternoon very well.” She chuckles. “We had just finished watching the King Kamehameha Day parade. On our way home, a fire ant bit the bottom of my foot, and by the next day I had a blister the size of a half-dollar. Ma had to use a needle to break it open. I was so scared.”
I flip another page. And another. Popo tells me so many stories about her childhood, and her teenage years, and the day she met Grandpa Cillian, who passed away in the nineties from lung cancer. She tells me about the day she went into labor with Mom, and how Grandpa Cillian was so determined to come into the room when he heard Popo screaming that he fought off four nurses and a doctor to get through the door.
“The second he looked at me and saw all the blood, his whole body went wobbly and he hit the deck like a sack of rice.” Popo laughs until there are tears in her eyes.
“Do you miss him?” I ask quietly.
She nods. “Every single day.”
I turn a few more pages, soaking in the photographs with faded colors and clothing from the 1970s. Grandpa Cillian’s hair is so unmistakably orange, and I can almost see the freckles Mom is always telling me about. And Popo is beautiful, lithe and graceful as ever.
She taps her finger against the book. “You can finish looking through it later. I don’t want to be greedy with your time when you have so much family in the other room. But I wanted you to have this—I wanted you to know where you came from.”
I look back at my grandma with confusion at first, and then resignation that I’m not as good at hiding my feelings as I sometimes wish I was.
“My history is your history,” Popo says. “Don’t ever forget that.”
“Thanks, Popo,” I say, and I lean over and give her a hug, breathing in her soft perfume and lemongrass soap.
When I pull away, something occurs to me for the first time in my life. “What made your parents name you Jane? I mean, it’s a great name—Jane Austen is my literary hero—but do you ever wish they had given you a name like theirs?” When people see my name on paper, I know they’ve already erased half of me in their heads. A girl named Harley Milano isn’t supposed to look like me.
But Harley Yoshi Milano—I feel like it’s proof that a quarter of me exists. Even if it’s not fair, sometimes names feel like a statement.
Would I have less of a right to my family’s cultures if I had a different middle name?
Would being called Harley Jane Milano somehow make me less Asian than Harley Yoshi Milano?
I want to believe it wouldn’t, but sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I’m at the mercy of racially judgmental purists who are forever finding reasons why I can’t be in any of their clubs.
“I was born in a time when people thought a name could make the difference between standing out or blending in. Back then, people wanted their children to have the best chance in a world that was not always eager to accept them. Names were lost, and so were languages.” There’s life dancing behind Popo’s eyes. “Names can change, Harley Yoshi, but your family—and where you come from—that can never be taken away from you.”
Popo gets up to join everyone in the living r
oom, and before I put the photo album back in the bag, I trace the lines of Popo’s family name once more, and I hope that if I do it enough times, it will feel like my name too.
CHAPTER FIVE
The late-afternoon sun casts an apricot hue across the skyline, and the parking lot is still empty. I’m early for a change.
Billy is standing outside talking on his cell phone when I approach the back door of Teatro della Notte. When he notices me, he leans the phone against his shoulder and tilts his head toward the door.
“Just a heads-up—it’s tense in there today,” he offers.
I pause in front of the entrance. “What happened?”
Billy shakes his head and sighs like there’s too much to explain. He settles for a single word. A name. “Tarbottle.”
My stomach drops like I’ve lost my grip on the silk ropes fifty feet in the air. Billy lifts his phone back to his ear and says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m still here,” and I’m already halfway through the door.
Everyone is either hiding their awkward grins or nervously keeping their eyes to the floor. It’s clear the gossip has already made the rounds backstage, but Tatya isn’t in her dressing room. I wonder if she knows what she’ll be walking into tonight.
Whispers fill the hallway, and I catch a snippet of conversation coming from one of the other rooms.
“I can’t believe she’d leave us.”
“I hear Maison du Mystère pays well.”
“But where’s the loyalty? I don’t care how much they pay. I couldn’t do it.”
“I just can’t believe she didn’t tell us.”
“Do you think Kenji and Delilah know?”
When I pass by the doorway, I don’t have to look inside to know it’s Elise and Katy, the two halves of a contortionist sister act. And I don’t blame them for taking part in the gossip fodder—they don’t know the whole story like I do—but I’m in a hurry to get to my parents, and I’m not interested in giving them more information than they already have.
They notice me, as evidenced by the hushed whispers of embarrassment that follow.
My parents’ office door is slightly ajar, and I catch a glimpse of deep burgundy carpet from the hall, a pair of shadows strewn across the floor.
Mom looks surprised to see me. She’s sitting behind her desk, one arm across her chest and the other folded up toward her shoulder. It’s the way she always sits when she’s thinking hard about something.
Dad shifts his gaze to look at me. He seems flustered, almost like they’ve been arguing, which would be strange. They never argue.
The words fly out of my mouth before my brain has the decency to think. “If you’re fighting about Tatya, the rumors aren’t true. She’s not joining Maison du Mystère.”
Mom leans forward so her elbows rest on the desk. “How do you know about that?”
I throw a thumb over my shoulder. “I mean, anyone walking through that hallway right now would know. But I saw Simon earlier—he basically cornered Tatya outside. She didn’t even keep his business card.”
Mom looks at Dad, who shrugs, like maybe it’s true, and maybe it isn’t.
“You don’t believe me?” My voice carries a sting. They never take me seriously—even when it doesn’t have anything to do with me.
“We believe you,” Mom counters, standing from her chair and making her way toward me. She closes her hands around my arms and squeezes like it’s supposed to be reassuring. “But there’s been a lot of hearsay today, and there’s no point in discussing anything without Tatya in the room to speak for herself.”
“What I told you wasn’t hearsay. I was there,” I argue. And then my stomach coils. “Is Tatya in trouble?”
“Of course not,” Dad says with a sigh. “Any performer has the right to interview with other troupes. I mean, we’d hope she’d at least finish out the rest of her contract, but if Tarbottle is paying her what I hear he pays his current lead aerialist, I don’t know if that would stop her.”
“I just said she’s not taking the job—” I start.
“Her contract ends in December,” Dad cuts in, his eyes the serious woodsy brown they get when he’s lecturing me. “Even if she isn’t going to take the job now, another job offer will give her grounds to renegotiate her salary. We might not be able to afford to keep her if it comes to that.”
I frown. “What are you saying?”
Mom lifts her hands and pushes down at the air like it’s supposed to slow us down. “We are merely thinking of all the possibilities, and whether we may need to think about taking interviews to find Nina a second if she ends up taking Tatya’s place. We’d be halfway through the season, and losing a contract renewal with one of our leads is not something we want to be unprepared for.”
Something sparks to life behind my sternum, like the tiniest flame in a cold, dark woodland. A second. For Nina.
Dad moves across the room with a thick folder of paperwork—most likely copies of all the new sheet music. There are folders just like it at home. He stuffs it into one of the enormous filing cabinets against the back wall and spins the combination lock a few times when the door is shut tight.
Mom plucks her pen from her desk and sticks it in the ceramic pot beside her computer monitor. She turns back to Dad, her mouth open like she’s ready to fall back into normal business talk, but I can’t let her. If I don’t say it now, I might never get the chance again.
The hope sears through my words, jolting everything in the room like I’m made of electricity. “What about me?”
Mom and Dad look at me with confusion at first, their brows matching with puzzlement and interest. I think Mom figures me out a moment before Dad does because she’s first to tilt her head forward and flatten her mouth. A sign that I’ve been heard—and am about to be ignored.
I keep talking, hoping I might be able to say something—anything—that will make them understand how important this is to me. “I would work so unbelievably hard. And I already have most of the routines memorized. Some of them I’ve even practiced when I’ve been in the gym. And I get along with Nina, so you wouldn’t have to worry there’d be any Tonya Harding–style sabotage behind the scenes. And I have the cheapest salary in the world because you literally don’t have to pay me a penny. I just want the chance to do this—the chance to learn, and to perform, and one day to do this as a living.”
I can see it in their eyes. They’re not even considering it. They just think they’re being good parents by letting me talk.
I fight the burning tears in the corners of my eyes. “Please. I promise I won’t disappoint you. Please—just give me a chance.”
Dad clears his throat. Mom crosses her arms and sighs.
Despite everything, I can’t stop the first tear from falling.
“It’s not going to happen. This conversation was already discussed and closed. You’re going to school, Harley.” Dad doesn’t even blink when he talks to me. It’s like he’s trying to burn the words into my memory, in case I forget them again.
But I didn’t forget them. I just don’t accept them.
Mom reaches for me, like this time she wants to give me a hug, but I’m waving my hand in her direction because I don’t want her to step a single inch closer to me.
Can’t they see how much they’re breaking my heart?
Why does it not matter to them?
I yank the door open and storm out into the hallway, but I only make it three steps before I’m face-to-face with Tatya.
All the brilliant charm and light I usually find in her blue eyes has vanished, replaced by something cold and stern.
She shakes her head, her auburn curls flinging from side to side. “How could you?”
My mouth falls open, clamps shut, opens again. What did she hear? What does she think? “No, Tatya, it wasn’t what it sounded like. I only—”
“You only want Nina to replace me, so you can replace her. I heard you perfectly, Harley.” Tatya pushes her tongue against the inside of her cheek.
She’s angry, and if I was anyone other than the boss’s daughter, she’d probably be shouting at me.
“I know it sounded bad,” I start, and now the tears are pouring. “But I told them you weren’t taking the job. I told them you weren’t going to leave. They were just talking about—”
“I trusted you. I wanted you to trust me. That’s why I gave you that card,” Tatya says in a dull, hurt voice. “Because family is supposed to have each other’s backs.”
“I didn’t mean—”
But I can’t get her to listen to me either, and the next thing I know, her back is turned and she’s walking toward her dressing room, and there are so many eyes peering out of their doorways that I feel like I’ve been set on fire.
Shame is the worst feeling I have ever felt in my life.
CHAPTER SIX
My pillow is a salty wet mess from the amount of tears I’ve cried since I walked through the front door. I want to text Tatya, to tell her she misunderstood and I’m not after her job, but I’m worried maybe some part of me is, even if it isn’t intentional.
I started off trying to make my parents see that Tatya isn’t going to leave. But by the end, when I saw an opening—a chance at my dreams—I didn’t hesitate. I wasn’t thinking about Tatya. I was thinking about myself.
Maybe that does make me the bad guy.
I think about calling Chloe, but then I realize I don’t know what I want from her. Reassurance that my dreams are valid? Affirmation that I’m not a horrible person deep down? Or hope that my parents might still change their minds?
Right now, I don’t think any of it matters. Because everything feels hopeless.
I think I’ve hit a dead end, and the realization that I’ve not only exhausted any chances of getting my parents to listen, but I’ve also forever ruined my friendship with Tatya, really hits me hard.
How can I ever train in Teatro della Notte’s gym again?
I can’t show my face there. Not after what she thinks I did. What I may have done.
I feel the circus slipping away from me like water through my shaking fingers. Panic sets in, and I don’t know how to stop it.
Harley in the Sky Page 4