by Kelly Yang
I grab Dani’s hand and pull her back to the house. Once inside, Dani asks me gently, “You want to talk about it?”
I shake my head at her. No, I do not. Not with her. As she walks back to her room, I lie on the couch, wondering where on a scale of shittiness is my kissing Zach versus her not telling me about Jay.
The next day, I find Zach at the pool, fully clothed this time. It’s a lot harder to swim fully clothed, but Zach’s coach makes him do it sometimes for practice.
“What happened cannot happen again,” I tell him.
He looks up, water dripping down his brow.
“Why?” he asks.
There is no why. It just can’t!
“Because I don’t want it to,” I say.
He puts his head into the water, submerging himself. I stare at the ripples on the surface, trying to make out his face.
When at last he resurfaces, he looks all calm, as if nothing happened, and asks, “You hungry? Want to get a bite to eat?”
“Huh?” I ask.
He pushes himself out of the water, shakes his head, and gets me all wet as if he were a golden retriever. I scream. Zach smiles at me.
“C’mon, let’s get something to eat. My treat,” he says, leading the way.
I open my mouth to say no, then I realize I’m actually kind of hungry. I haven’t had anything to eat all day. I follow him out of the pool.
He takes me to Norms, a diner so American, it’s like walking into a country song. He gets the cheeseburger while I order the spinach salad.
“You’re gonna need more carbs if you want to swim faster,” he says.
For as long as I can remember, my mom’s been trying to get me to eat less carbs, saying my butt is too big, my arms are too big—something’s always too big. Even Jay teases me about my calves sometimes. I raise my hand and change my order to a turkey burger. I tell the waitress to hold the fries.
Zach smiles. “That’s more like it.”
We sit in silence, pruned fingers clutching our ice waters, waiting for our food to arrive.
“So how long have you been swimming?” he asks me.
I shrug. The waitress arrives with our food. I stare at Zach’s fries, curly and golden crisp. Zach laughs, takes a bunch and puts them on my plate.
“How old were you when you started?” Zach tries again.
“Three,” I say as I reach for a fry.
“And why’d you stop?” he asks in between bites of his burger.
I debate whether to tell him. “My mom made me quit because she said I would get big shoulders if I kept swimming. And that’s not a good look on a girl. . . .”
He puts down his burger. “Wow,” he says, so loudly the couple from the next table looks over. Zach shakes his head. “First of all, you look amazing. Second of all, who cares about broad shoulders? Just the feeling of being in the water, doing what you love . . . that’s the most beautiful thing ever.”
I look at him with glowing eyes. No one’s ever said that to me before.
“That’s sexy,” he adds.
I blush. A cozy quiet falls over us.
“I’m glad you’re swimming again,” Zach says as he reaches across the table and touches my hand.
Fifty-Eight
Dani
I pore over the annual-fund donation pamphlet in the school library. It’s a list of donations made to the school last year, embarrassingly organized by student, amount, and parent. I look up my name and cringe at the big fat zero next to it. As if that’s not bad enough, there’s an asterisk next to my name announcing to everyone I’m a full-scholarship student, in case there was any doubt from my ripped socks.
I flip to Heather McLean and see that her family gave $50,000 to the school last year. No wonder she made headmistress commendation.
Ming and Florence walk into the library holding hands. It’s good to see the two of them no longer hiding their relationship. Florence kisses Ming on the cheek and waves goodbye to her as Ming walks over to me.
“How are you doing?” Ming asks me, sliding into the seat next to mine.
“I’m okay,” I say. I lean toward her. “How are you?”
“So great.” She beams. “It’s amazing not to have to sneak around. I’m even thinking of telling my parents when I pick them up from the airport Saturday night.”
“Really?”
Ming nods.
“When did you decide this?” I ask her.
“When she took the plunge and came out to all her friends,” Ming says. “I’m so proud of her. Her parents are gonna be at the concert too.”
“I’m so happy you’re finally going to tell your parents. Are you scared?” I ask.
Ming shrugs. “What’s the worst that can happen? We’re already a continent apart, right?” She pauses and adds, “And it’s not like they can cut off my tuition . . . I’m already on a scholarship.”
“True,” I chuckle. She points to the donation pamphlet.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, I’m still trying to figure out the connection between xomegan.com and the school,” I say. I look up and see Heather. I quickly put the donation book away as she walks by.
“Can’t wait to see you lose at Snider, Thunder Girl,” she hisses.
I roll my eyes, sick and tired of her harassing me. “Can’t wait to see you get busted for lying on your college applications.”
Heather stops walking. “What did you say?” she asks.
“Buying recommendation letters?” I turn to Ming. “What do you think? Is that a felony?”
“It’s got to be,” Ming says, nodding.
The blood on Heather’s face drains. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I reach into my backpack and take out the hideous rubber hand she stuffed into my locker.
“Here, you can keep it.” I throw it at her. “Unlike you, I don’t need a helping hand.”
Ming high-fives me as Heather walks away.
I grin and go to put the donation pamphlet back. As I’m placing it on the shelf, I thumb through it one last time. I stop on a page called Headmistress’s Circle. It’s a list of major donors who gave more than one million dollars to the school last year. There are five names I don’t recognize on the list, followed by a company name.
Phoenix Capital Limited.
That’s the private equity fund that’s one of the shareholders of xomegan.com! According to the pamphlet, last year they donated a whopping 1.5 million dollars to the school. Why would a private equity fund donate $1.5 million to a random private school in East Covina?
The band room shakes with the cacophony of voices and instruments as Mr. Rufus tells us to settle down. He announces he’s making some changes to our seating arrangement for the spring concert this Saturday. I sit up, putting the donation pamphlet I’d borrowed from the library back in my backpack. I pick up my flute. Please don’t move me away from Zach. Please don’t move me away from Zach.
“Zach,” he calls out.
I look over at Zach, sitting on his chair texting. He looks up, distracted.
“I’m making you fourth-chair clarinet,” Mr. Rufus tells him. “Go ahead and move one chair over.”
“Yes!” Zach jumps up and high-fives the other clarinets, and I cover my face, trying to shield my disappointment. As he scoots away from me, triumphantly holding his clarinet, I realize he has no idea how I feel about him.
This is ridiculous. I should just tell him. The next time we’re alone. If Ming can tell her parents about Florence, I’m brave enough to tell Zach my feelings.
Fifty-Nine
Claire
Jay finally gets through to me on my cell later that day.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jay asks. “I’ve been calling you like a hundred times.”
“I’ve been busy,” I say.
“Well, get unbusy,” he replies. “My dad’s coming to town next week and—”
“I don’t really want to meet your dad. . . .”
/> Jay sighs into the phone. “Please, Claire,” he says. “It’s important. I don’t want to do this alone.”
Oh, but when it’s my parents, it’s okay to bail on me? Jay tells me to be at his house on Tuesday night and wear something nice. After he hangs up, I stare at the ceiling and groan.
On Tuesday, I don’t go over to Jay’s house. Instead, I head over to the pool after school. Zach’s there, as usual, waiting for me. It’s become our thing, swimming together after school and grabbing dinner afterward. Sometimes I paid, sometimes he paid. I’ve come to like American diners, especially the free lemonade refills. So far we’ve had five dinners together. During our conversations, I tell him about my life in Shanghai. He says he has a tough relationship with his mom too. He tells me he’s here on a scholarship, which I think is really amazing. I guess that’s why he takes swimming so seriously.
The more we talk, the more I find myself drawn to him. He’s so different from Jay. The way he talks about swimming. Getting a full-ride scholarship somewhere. I love his passion and his drive. Even the way he talks about pulling up his grades. It’s clear he has a lot of respect for Dani. He swears up and down they’re just friends. And I believe him, even though I thought I detected a trace of something when I walked in on the two of them watching Titanic. But maybe I was wrong, I think as we work on the butterfly stroke.
Zach helps me get into position. Gently he puts his hand on my stomach. It tickles, and I giggle.
“Quit squirming,” he says.
He moves his hand, and I laugh some more, accidentally dunking my head into the water. He reaches a hand out to me, and I wrap my legs around him. Our eyes lock. Gently, he pushes my body to the edge of the pool, leans in, and kisses me. The kiss starts off soft and gentle, then becomes firmer. I moan, breath quickening, until it’s clear: we both want more.
He looks around. It’s just the two of us in the pool. I can feel him pushing into me. He moves his hand down to my chest, and I close my eyes.
“Is this okay?” he asks, looking into my eyes as he touches me.
I nod.
“Have you ever . . . ?” he asks.
“No,” I say. I search his baby-blue eyes. There are tiny specks of gold as his irises expand and contract. “Have you?”
“No,” he says. It fills me with such comfort and relief that I’m finally with a guy as inexperienced as me. That we might both enjoy something together that we’ve never tried before and remember it for the rest of our lives.
Gently, Zach moves his hand down. The warm water laps around us. His fingers find my bikini bottom.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks. His warm lips press against mine.
“No,” I say.
And then it’s happening. He’s inside me. We move in perfect harmony, my legs wrapped around him. With every thrust, he asks me if this is okay, and I bite my lip, the happiness exploding inside me, for I am with someone I trust, someone who respects me, and someone I admire.
Afterward, Zach drops me off at home. We linger in the car, kissing, then I walk inside. Jay’s sitting in the living room waiting for me. Dani’s mom let him in. My face flushes at the sight of him. I remind myself that I have nothing to feel bad about. He’s not my boyfriend anymore. Not after what he said to me.
“Where have you been?” Jay asks. “It’s Tuesday. My dad’s here. You were supposed to be at my house an hour ago.”
He glances at my wet hair.
“Did you go swimming?” he asks. “In the school pool?” He makes a repulsed face, like I’d just gone swimming in a swamp.
I walk by him and go to my room.
“I’m tired,” I say. “I don’t feel well. I don’t think I can—”
Jay follows me into my room. He closes the door and starts going through my closet, trying to pick out something for me to wear.
“You’re not listening to me,” I say.
He turns to me and pleads with me, pressing his hands together.
“Please. Just one dinner.”
Sixty
Dani
The smell of chlorine stings my eyes, filling me with regret. Regret at having gone to the pool after school, thinking I was going to watch Zach practice and then tell him I like him, only to see him with Claire. The look on her face as she opened her legs, the sounds they made.
I stood in the back of the pool, silently watching them. The light from the window shone on Zach’s blond hair, creating an aura around him, as he pushed inside her. And I just stood there, my feet soaking wet, arms lifeless by my side. I should have screamed. I wanted to scream. I even opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I was too bewildered.
Afterward, I sat in the corner of the locker room, too shocked to leave, too chicken to stay. Claire came in and she didn’t even notice me—that’s how wrapped up in her own world she was. I watched her as she showered. Her perfect body. Hands running up and down her back as she lathered herself with soap.
Later, she stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection, her rosy cheeks flushed pink. She was probably thinking about Zach, playing back details that I can never recall.
And I’m filled with the most untamable envy.
Sixty-One
Claire
Just one dinner. I still can’t believe I agreed to go with him. We arrive at Jay’s house. My chest rises and falls in my white chiffon dress as I think about what just happened with Zach. Jay tells the professional catering crew that has taken over his kitchen that we’re here.
Jay’s dad walks down the stairs. He’s tall like his son, looks about forty-five, impeccably dressed in a blue suit and silk tie. He glances at me and manages a thin, tight smile before his face defaults back into a frown. We sit down in the formal dining room, which Jay and I never use. We usually eat on the terrace or around the kitchen island. Jay sits next to me and puts his hand on my lap.
“So Jay says you went with him to see Fashion Island?” his dad asks. “What’d you think of it?”
“I like it,” I tell him. “It’s beautiful and right on the water.”
He shakes his head to his son and points to me with his fork.
“Women. All emotion and no logic,” he says to Jay as he cuts his filet mignon.
I feel the heat rush to my cheek.
“You know what ‘right on the water’ says to me? It says distraction. Who wants to go shopping when the beach is right there?”
“Actually, Claire has a good eye for real estate. She’s the one who spotted the house I told you to buy in Balboa. It’s a good investment property,” Jay says, beaming at me.
Jay’s dad takes a generous gulp of his wine.
“I took a look at that house,” he says.
“And?” Jay asks his dad, his eyes round and hopeful.
Jay’s dad makes a face. “Terrible,” he says. “First of all, there’s grade sloping back toward the home. This is going to lead to all sorts of foundation problems. It already is! Some of the windows are out of the square.” He glances at Jay. “Frankly, I’m shocked you didn’t notice. Maybe if you weren’t so . . . distracted.”
Jay’s nose flares. He stares straight ahead at the Zhang Xiaogang painting on the wall and doesn’t say a word.
“I’m disappointed in you, son,” Jay’s dad continues. “You wasted my time and my energy.” Maybe it’s the wine or the echo in the formal dining room, but his voice grows louder and louder as he scolds Jay.
“I was just trying to—” Jay says.
“I know what you were trying to do! You were trying to show off to your new girlfriend. You were thinking with your dick and not your head!”
Jay’s eyes plunge to the table. It’s heartbreaking to watch.
“No, he wasn’t! We looked everywhere!” I say. “At the cracks, the floor. We didn’t see any windows out of the square!”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t look hard enough,” Jay’s dad says. He frowns at Jay, pointing at him with his knife. “You’re lazy and soft, just like your m
other.”
Later, I find Jay in his room. His dad’s downstairs on a call with Beijing. His voice booms in thunderous bursts we can hear even in the master suite. I take a seat next to Jay on his bed. Neither of us speak for a long time. Then, ever so gently, Jay takes my hands in his. “Now you know why I need you,” he says.
His eyes are red and swollen.
“I’ll wait for you as long as you need,” he says, his voice raw.
He buries his head in my lap, and I hold him.
Dani and her mom are both already asleep when I get home. I fall onto my bed. My legs are bone-tired, both from the dinner and . . . other activities. But I can’t go to sleep yet. There’s something important I have to do. I pull out my phone, and Jess answers on the third ring.
“Hey, it’s me.” I chew nervously on my lip. “Do you happen to have the morning-after pill?”
In the excitement and passion of our underwater adventure, we did not exactly use protection.
“Yeah, of course. I have some from Hong Kong,” she says. “I can give it to you tomorrow.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“I thought you and Jay were having a fight,” she says. “Did you guys make up?”
“It’s not Jay . . . ,” I whisper.
“Oh,” she says. Her bed squeaks. I picture her sitting up. “Who is it?”
I press my lips together, anxious and excited to finally share my secret. “I met someone from the swim team, this guy Zach Cunningham,” I tell her.
“A white guy?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
She doesn’t say anything at first.
“Be careful, Claire. Don’t ruin what you have over some white guy you don’t even know,” she says. I know she’s been burned before, that that’s where this is coming from, but it still stings. “Jay cares for you. He adores you.”
“He adored me enough to go AWOL for three days,” I remind her.
“But he came back,” she says. “I see the way he looks at you. That’s real, Claire. If I were you, I wouldn’t throw that away.”
I think about Jess’s words as I drift to sleep.