by Kelly Yang
The mobile park is a lot bigger than I thought. There are, like, two hundred RVs in the lot. I ask some boys sitting on an old picnic table whether they know where I can find Zach, showing them a pic of him from the school online portal. They point to an RV parked three lanes down, laughing as they ask, “What you want with that fool?”
Zach answers the door in a tank top and shorts. His face sort of panics when he sees me, the way my mom’s does whenever the property tax accessor comes around. His eyes jump from the empty beer bottles outside to the plastic bucket over which he’s drying his swim trunks, and I immediately feel bad for not calling before I came.
“I’m sorry, I came to give you this.” I hand him the textbook.
I hear his mom’s voice from the trailer.
“Zaaaccchharrry,” she slurs.
Zach holds up a finger to me. “Just a minute,” he says.
I hear banging and footsteps inside the small trailer. What’s going on in there?
“Is everything all right?” I ask.
“Fine, fine,” Zach calls out.
The front door swings open. Zach reappears, sweat beads collecting on his face.
“Actually, no,” he says. “It’s my mom. I think she’s really high.”
He goes back inside the trailer, and I follow him. I see his mom, arms and legs spread out on the floor. She’s rail-thin. Her eyes are bloodshot, her skin full of rashes and ghastly white. Next to her is a trash can that she’s been puking into. The stench hits me in the face; I temporarily forget all about Mr. Connelly and rush over to help.
“Can you get her up?” Zach asks. He pours water from the tap into a glass and wets a rag.
I bend down and lift his mother with my arms.
“Whoooo’ss she?” his mother asks.
“This is my friend Dani, Ma. We’re going to help you sober up,” Zach says. I hold up his mother’s head in my hands while Zach gently pours water into her mouth. “C’mon, we need you to drink.”
“What did she have?” I ask.
Zach shakes his head. “No idea.”
He wets her face with the rag while his mom mumbles incoherently. “I didn’t do nothing . . .”
My eyes slide down her arms to the needle spots near her veins.
“She’s been getting better, honest,” Zach insists. “She’s been holding down a job, going to meetings. But . . .” He wipes the corners of her mouth. “She relapses sometimes.”
Zach’s mom closes her eyes. We lift her onto the bed so she can sleep it off. When she’s quietly dozing, I ask Zach whether they’ve thought about rehab.
“You know how much rehab costs?” he balks at the suggestion. “We don’t have the kind of money for that.”
He tells me they have no family nearby, and as I look around the trailer, it’s bare, save for a few swimming medals and a poster of Michael Phelps on the wall.
We leave Zach’s mother in the trailer and go outside. I sit on the curb next to Zach, staring at the sky above us shifting and changing colors. Zach takes a rock and throws it on the ground. “I didn’t want you to see me like this . . . ,” he mutters. He looks so naked sitting there, his pain exposed, I want to wrap a blanket around him.
“So what’s going on?” he turns to me and asks.
Suddenly, I don’t feel like telling him. My issues seem so small compared to his.
Zach bumps his shoulder lightly against mine. “C’mon, out with it,” he says.
I look down at the dirt, stalling, not knowing where to begin. I don’t want to tell Zach that it started with him coming to see me at training, because then he won’t come see me at training. And I liked that.
“I’m just having a rough day. My debate coach was crazy harsh to me at training,” I say. Then quickly shake my head. “It’s nothing.”
“No, that’s real,” Zach says. “I get that. My coach can be an ass too. Once, he said, if I don’t swim faster, he’s going to kick my poor ass back to the trailer park.”
I turn to Zach. He said that? I tell him I’m sorry his coach is such a douche. Though at least with swimming, there’s a clear winner, unlike debate, where it’s up to the judge.
“I don’t know how Mr. Connelly can go from loving my speech to hating it, in the span of less than four hours. What happened? What’d I do?”
“I wouldn’t overanalyze it. Guys can be dicks sometimes.”
I chuckle and nod, though I don’t want to believe it. Mr. Connelly is not a dick.
“I’m sorry,” Zach says, putting an arm around me. He looks up at the red and gold rays in the sky and all the trailers parked beside us, and I lean against his shoulder. “I promise, one day, we’re both gonna get out of this godforsaken place.”
Twenty-Nine
Claire
Jay and his friends partied with us all night at Florence’s house. Jay stayed by my side, pouring me drinks. Every couple of hours, he asked me if I was hungry and wanted to get out of there and grab a bite. But I didn’t want to ditch my friends.
“Such a gentleman,” Jess said, leaning up against me as we waited for our Uber. Nancy and the other parachutes had already gone home. I could smell the sticky sweet alcohol on Jess as she whispered in my ear, “I think he likes you.”
I laughed. “I think you’re drunk.”
“That may be true too,” she said, stumbling.
My phone dinged. Speak of the devil. It’s a text from Jay.
You looked cute tonight. Text me so I know you got home safe.
I showed the text to Jess, who laughed into the velvet sky.
“I knew it!”
“He just wants to make sure I get home safe,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Girl, he wants some late-night Snapsex!” Jess teased.
Yeah, well that’s not happening. Jess cozied up to me, and we both looked at the stars. In China, it’s so rare to see stars because of the pollution, but here they sparkle like diamonds.
Jess whispered softly, “Hey, Claire, I’m really happy for you.”
“About Jay you mean?” I asked. “Or my English class?”
“No, about your dad,” she said. “My old man would never come all the way over here to have dinner with me.”
Oh, Jess. I quickly reminded her my dad has a business thing.
She shook her head. “Still.”
As we waited for our Uber, I put my arm around Jess and hugged her close. She tucked her head in the nook between my shoulder and chin. I hoped she knew, I’ve got her. Even if her parents don’t, I’ve got her.
I didn’t return Jay’s text that night, or the next day. After what happened with Teddy, I think I’m going to lay off boys for a while. I remind myself I’m here for an education. I’m here to be the hero of my own journey—I don’t need some guy. And now that I finally got into the class I want, I’m not going to blow it.
I go to the bookstore on Sunday and buy all the books on the English III syllabus Dani gave me. I bet she gets straight As, that Dani. She doesn’t have to deal with idiot boys getting mad at her if she just wants to talk. She’s going to be so massively successful when she grows up.
My dad says success isn’t about what you know but who you know and the relationships you form. I think about our date later this week. So far, he hasn’t canceled yet. Just seven more days until he gets here.
On Monday, I go to my new English class. There are seven white kids in my class, a black kid, two Hispanic kids, and three Asians. I look hopefully at the Asian American girls and recognize Emma Lau, the one who argued with Jess in the cafeteria. She’s in this class too? Great.
“Listen up, everyone!” Mrs. Wallace shouts, an intense-looking white woman with gray hair and reading glasses, which she holds tight in her hands and points at us like a baton as she talks. The students take their seats. “Today we have a new student in the class.”
She turns to me. “Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, Claire?”
I look down at my laptop in my arms,
feeling the intensity of all the eyeballs on me.
“Hi, I’m Claire,” I start to say. “I like to watch American movies.”
“Over here they’re just called movies!” one of the white kids in the back calls out. The whole class laughs.
“All right, that’s enough,” Mrs. Wallace says. She points to an unoccupied desk toward the back. “Take a seat.”
Despite the glances and snickers from the other kids, the hour passes quickly. I try to channel my inner Dani and sit up as straight as I can, ignoring them and focusing on Mrs. Wallace. She talks about The Great Gatsby and how it’s a reflection of the social elitism of the time. As she’s talking, I raise my hand.
“Yes, Claire,” she calls on me, surprised.
“Actually, I think the elitism still happens today. The way people look down on ‘new money,’” I say, doing air quotes with my hands, and feeling very American. “Just because they amassed their wealth quickly. That’s more reason to respect them, not less. It means they’re smart and they worked hard.”
Emma Lau raises her hand to respond.
“But let’s be honest, who are these new-money people in Gatsby?” Emma asks. “They’re people who come and drink his wine, eat his food. They don’t even bother with an invitation; they just show up. And when he dies, no one even comes to the funeral. That’s why they’re not worthy of respect, they’re fundamentally self-absorbed, hollow people whose only care in the world is consuming material goods.” Emma turns to me and adds, “Just like the crazy-rich Asians at our school.”
Hot blood heats my face. I look to the teacher, and when she doesn’t say anything, I wait in suspense for my own voice to emerge, but the rage chokes my throat.
“That bitch!” Jess exclaims at lunch when I tell her what Emma said. She gets up from her seat and zeroes her eyes in on Emma. I pull her back down.
“And the teacher just sat there?” Nancy asks.
I nod.
Florence shakes her head. “Unbelievable,” she says, texting on her phone. Whoever she’s texting is not texting her back, and Florence frowns in frustration at her phone.
Jess shoots death stares at Emma sitting at the ABC table. “She’s going down!”
Florence looks up from her phone and reaches for her boba tea. “Why do they always have to distance themselves from us?” she asks, chewing her boba. “Don’t they realize that when white people look at us, we all the same? We all yellow to them?”
Nancy looks to me. “She’s just trying to intimidate you, Claire,” she says. “But it won’t work. We’re tougher than iron.”
Florence nods, chewing on her boba while I look down at the green WeChat app on my phone. At times like these, I miss Teddy. I miss his little Chinese messages throughout the day comforting and reassuring me. I glance over at Jess and sigh. How did she get over her boyfriend so quickly? I know it was only physical, and the guy was scamming her parents, but she still slept with him. Does sleeping with someone make it easier or harder to get over them? I wonder.
Thirty
Dani
On the Friday before the tournament, I change into my black debate dress and run down the hallway to meet my teammates and Mr. Connelly to go to the airport. We’re flying to Seattle for a tournament, our last one before Snider.
As I’m walking down the hallway, I see Claire standing by Emma Lau’s locker. I’ve never cleaned Emma’s house because her mother insists on cleaning it herself, but once she called up Rosa and asked if she could book us to help her cook for a Bible study party. When Emma opens her locker, rice comes gushing out onto the floor.
Emma screams at the thousands and thousands of little white grains.
A crowd gathers. Emma is freaking out. She steps on the grains in her platform sandals, nearly losing her balance. Her eyes zero in on Claire.
“Did you do this?” she demands.
Claire, who’s standing there with her friends, shakes her head. She looks every bit as bewildered as the rest of us. I know for a fact it wasn’t Claire. She doesn’t even know where we keep the rice in the kitchen, and she certainly hasn’t ordered any from Amazon.
Mrs. Mandalay arrives at the scene in time to break up the crowd. “All right, that’s enough!” she says. “Let’s get the janitor to clean this up.”
As Mrs. Mandalay ushers the crowd out of the hall and the janitor cleans up the mess, I glance over at Claire.
“You okay?” I ask her.
“Dani, we’re all waiting for you!” Mr. Connelly calls me from the end of the hall. “Hurry up!”
I leave Claire and run after Mr. Connelly and my teammates.
On the flight to Seattle, Mr. Connelly sits between me and Heather. Heather makes small talk with him while I look over my notes, reviewing last-minute case studies. Usually, on these off-site tournament trips, there’s a parent chaperone, but Mrs. Berstein, Gloria’s mom, had to cancel at the last minute because something came up with her other daughter.
The flight attendant walks down the aisle, and Mr. Connelly orders a Bloody Mary. He turns to me and tells me our team assignments. Thankfully, I’m not paired up with Heather this time. Instead, I’m paired up with Josh, and we’re told we’re going up against Marlborough, the elite all-girls private school in LA.
Mr. Connelly swirls the Bloody Mary in his hand. “The team they have this year is quite good,” Mr. Connelly says. He looks at Josh. “Don’t worry, I have full confidence we’ll still beat them!” He smiles. “If we place, we’ll go out and celebrate. Seattle’s fun!”
The tournament kicks off the next morning, and Josh and I hold our own against the Marlborough team. Mr. Connelly’s right: they are pretty good. But our diligent planning in prep pays off. And unlike Heather, Josh does not steal my points. By the end of the first day, we’ve broken into the semifinals! Mr. Connelly suggests we all go out and grab some Seattle seafood instead of just eating the bland conference food.
“Sounds great!” Josh says. “We’ll meet you in the lobby at six thirty!”
At six thirty, I’m waiting in the lobby for Josh and the rest of my teammates, but only Mr. Connelly walks out of the elevator. He’s wearing a blue shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and jeans.
“Where’s everybody?” I ask.
He makes a pained expression. “Heather’s not feeling well. Josh wanted to come, but his girlfriend’s having some sort of meltdown, so he has to stay and Skype with her. And Audrey and Jake and the rest of them said they have a big physics exam. So they’re just going to get some sandwiches and study.”
“Oh.” I know Audrey and Jake and the rest of my teammates are in AP Physics. I’m the only one in AP Bio.
“Looks like it’s just going to be me and you, Thunder Girl!” Mr. Connelly beams. “C’mon, the Uber’s here.” He takes my arm and leads me outside to a waiting car.
Inside the Uber, I try to pull the hem of my white cotton dress down with my fingers. If I had known it was just going to be me and him, I would have worn something much longer. I glance at Mr. Connelly sitting next to me playing on his phone.
The Uber takes us to the financial district and, oddly enough, pulls up right in front of another hotel. “I thought we were going to get some seafood,” I say to Mr. Connelly.
“We are,” he says. “I just want to check out this place!”
I get out of the car and follow Mr. Connelly into the swanky hotel. He heads into a lounge full of people.
A bar?
“It’ll be fine. You’re with me,” he assures me.
I shake my head, but Mr. Connelly insists.
“Relax. You can order a lemonade.”
Reluctantly, I follow my coach into the bar. I take a seat on one of the plush leather sofas, digging my phone out of my bag and keeping it in my hand at all times. I feel more like an underage date than a pupil as Mr. Connelly sits down next to me.
The waiter appears. Mr. Connelly orders a vodka tonic for himself and a lemonade for me. The waiter doesn’t ask any question
s about my age or tell me I shouldn’t be here.
“You were incredible today,” Mr. Connelly says when the waiter leaves, beaming at me.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to look as casual as a teenager can be in a bar. Despite our location, it’s nice to hear such affirmation, especially after how our last training session went.
Mr. Connelly grabs a handful of bar peanuts. “I knew you could do it. Never doubted it for a second.”
“Not even at our last team practice?” I ask.
The light from the backlit wall shines on Mr. Connelly’s frown, and I regret bringing it up. “I was just saying that so the others wouldn’t think I was giving you preferential treatment. We have to be very careful about that type of thing at the school. You know how some parents can get.”
Really? Is that the reason?
The waiter returns with our drinks, and Mr. Connelly holds up his vodka tonic. We clink glasses.
He takes a long swig and studies me. His eyes fall on my hair, which is usually up in a ponytail or in a messy bun, but tonight is down over my shoulders. “You look nice,” he says. “You should wear your hair like that more often.”
The comment makes me self-conscious, and almost by reflex, I grab a fistful of hair and hold it up in a hand ponytail. Mr. Connelly reaches jokingly for my hair with his own hand, like, Nooooo.
Our fingers touch slightly, and he looks at me, his eyes lazy with alcohol. He moves over closer to me, almost like he’s going to kiss me, and I drop my hands and stare at the condensation on my lemonade glass.
“You’ve had too much to drink,” I mutter softly.
He laughs and swirls his vodka. “I have not,” he says. He asks me to wear my hair like that tomorrow.
“I don’t think so,” I say, shaking my head.
“Why not?” he protests. “You afraid of looking good and sounding good?” He holds his drink up at me. “You’re going to be dangerous in about ten years.”
I feel his eyeballs traveling up and down my upper body, and I squirm in my seat. This is getting really weird.