Trade Me

by Courtney Milan

  He comes out wearing jeans and…and… Nope, that’s it. Jeans.

  I wad up an advertising circular that’s sitting on his desk and throw it at him. “Put on a shirt.”

  “Am I distracting you?” He smiles, like he knows that he is.

  “Yes. You’re going to catch a cold, idiot, and then where will you be?”

  He turns to me, which does not help. Transitioning from hot shower to cold room has made his skin tighten all over, pebbling his flesh with goose bumps that cry out to be smoothed away.

  “Hey, science genius,” he says, “germs don’t work like that.”

  “Fine. Freeze. I don’t care.”

  He turns away—alas, not to put on a shirt. Instead, he takes an apple from the kitchen counter and comes to lean against the desk near me. He doesn’t say anything at first, just passes the apple from hand to hand.

  My imagined reconstruction of his chest, it turns out, isn’t as sexy as the real version. I forgot about his tattoo—that weirdly translucent circuitry tracing down his left arm. He’s looking me over frankly, his eyes traveling slowly down my body. It should make me feel uneasy. Out of place.

  It doesn’t. I just feel warm.

  “Here.” Instead of looking at him, I open my laptop—a brand-new lightweight Cyclone model in black matte metal. “This is what I have for the script so far.”

  He picks it up and opens the file. He scrolls through the pages one by one. I hate feeling like I’m waiting for his approval. His face doesn’t change as he reads. He just keeps going. When he’s done, he looks up at me. And instead of telling me what he thinks, he asks his own question. “So, what do you think?”

  “I think this part here—” I scroll through the file until I find it “—isn’t funny enough. We’re going from one serious part to another. We need to break that up.”

  “I agree.”

  “I think we need something way better to demonstrate the relatively smooth video tracking that Fernanda can manage. Something escalating—so at first, mild hand gestures. Then bigger ones.” I demonstrate. “Then something completely over the top—juggling, maybe? It has to be something that looks super-cool on screen but gives us stable video. We’ll need to do some experiments.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And then there’s the Blake and Adam Show. It doesn’t feel quite right to me.”

  He stiffens, not looking at me. “Yeah.” That comes out a little lower.

  “So,” I say with a sigh, “I guess it’s back to the drawing board.”

  “Hell, no.” He raises an eyebrow. “This is the part where we upload it to the team, give them the direction you just gave me, and have them brainstorm. They’ll do the testing. They’ll generate ideas. That’s what they’re there for.”

  “So it’s okay?”

  “It will be more than okay by the time everyone’s done with it.” He makes a few tiny alterations and then uploads the file.

  “Congratulations,” he tells me dryly. “Now you’re going to start having to mediate arguments about whether a or the is the proper article to use.”

  “Fine.” I reach for my purse. “That’s it, then. Next week, same time?”

  He simply raises an eyebrow. “You can’t go yet. You’re holding out on me.”

  “I am?”

  “Yep. We spent this whole time talking about my life.” He takes a bite of the apple he’s holding. “Trade me: Why is your mom terrifying?”

  I shake my head. “Trying to explain my parents is a futile endeavor.”

  “Too bad. Rule one: your life is as important as mine. We just spent half an hour on the piddly details of my life. And here’s the thing: I’m working hard. I’m exhausted. I’ve never had this little money in my life. But I’m not terrified by your life. So what am I doing wrong?”

  I thought he would never notice that he’s missing the bulk of my life. I hadn’t planned to press the issue, because what good could come of it?

  But he’s looking at me now as if he expects some kind of explanation.

  I let go of my purse and tilt my head back. “You’re never going to be terrified.” My voice is low. “Because if something goes seriously wrong—if you get sick, if the laptop stops working—you can always cheat. I can make you walk a tightrope, but yours is only a foot off the ground. If you work so hard you can’t keep up with your classes, you get Cs…and then what? It makes no difference. I would lose my entire future plans.”

  “Okay.” He runs his hands slowly over his bare arms. “I get that. But you said your mom was terrifying. Not just your life. How does that play out?”

  For a moment, I don’t know how to respond. My throat closes, trying to communicate everything. Instead, I open my laptop again and navigate to a familiar website. I motion him to sit down next to me.

  It’s a mistake. He does. His legs brush mine; his shoulder is inches from me. When I look down, I see the circuitry of his tattoo.

  Here we are, sitting on the bed together.

  I take a deep breath and try to push away my awareness of him. It doesn’t work. He’s still there, so close. So warm.

  I give my head a little shake and log on to the website.

  My parents’ electricity bill comes up. I’ve been away from home for more than two years, and I’m still checking this website.

  “See?” I say. “Terrifying.” I point to the amount due—$83.26—and the due date—which is two days from now. “It gets worse,” I tell him.

  I get out my phone, find my mother’s number, set the call to speakerphone, and dial.

  It takes a few moments for her to answer.

  “Hi, Tina!” she says excitedly. “I just got home. Guess what happened today?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The big boss-lady showed me something cool at work. I’m on the blog again!” She sounds absolutely delighted.

  Since I immediately know exactly what she’s talking about, I put my head in my hands. “Oh, God. Mom. What did you do this time?”

  “Just what the customer asked,” she says, far too innocently. “Go look. You’ll like it.”

  “I’m bringing it up now.” I type in the URL for a blog that catalogs terrible professionally decorated cakes. I’m pretty sure that most cake decorators don’t consider it an accomplishment to have made the “worst of” lists for three years running, but my mother has a twisted sense of humor. She decorates cakes in the classical style known colloquially as OMG, what the hell happened here? with an occasional dash of WTF just for seasoning.

  I bring up the day’s offerings and scroll down. I know—immediately—which one is hers.

  “Mom. No.”

  “Exactly what they asked for,” she insists.

  The cake pictured is a large, white sheet cake, fringed in iced purple flowers. “Welcome back, Bonzo!” proclaims the main lettering.

  That’s not the bad part. Little bits of encouragement have been added around the edge. Things like, “Way to go!” in the upper left, and “Here’s to good behavior time!”

  “They said they were putting on encouragement for a man just out of jail,” my mother explains. “I just added the best advice.”

  Sure enough, she has. It’s in the lower right. “Only talk to cops with a lawyer there.”

  Blake, who is reading over my shoulder, puts his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

  “Don’t know why the family was so mad,” my mother continues. “I gave them what they asked for. Encouragement to keep him out of jail. It’s better than ‘You can do it.’ You have to be careful what you say to the cops. Everyone knows that!” She tsks. “Even the blog comments agree with me. Read them.”

  “Well,” I say dryly. “If the internet commenters agree with you, you couldn’t possibly be wrong.”

  “Speaking of internet. I got an email from Zhen Liu. Why didn’t you tell me you have a boyfriend?”

  Crap. I know Mr. Zhen because he owes my mom a favor. I should have known he’d talk to
her.

  “Oh,” I say as breezily as I can, not daring to look at Blake. “He’s not a boyfriend. Just a friend who is a boy.”

  “Not according to Zhen Liu,” my mother singsongs. “He says you came for him after work.”

  Shit.

  “Zhen Liu says he’s nice, for a white boy. He says he speaks Mandarin.”

  “Yeah.” I frown at Blake. “Seriously, Mom. He’s not a boyfriend.”

  “Is he rich?”

  God. I blush fiercely and grab for the phone to take it off speaker, but Blake takes hold of my wrist and shakes his head.

  “Do you think he’d be washing dishes for Mr. Zhen if he was rich?” I ask instead.

  “Ah. Too bad.” I can almost hear her shrug. “I thought—maybe, if you had a rich boyfriend giving you money—but no, never mind.”

  “Speaking of money.” I swallow. “Mom, is there a reason you haven’t paid the electric bill yet?”

  “Why? The late fee is not so bad,” Mom says blithely. “And they don’t disconnect for three months. No point wasting money.”

  “Ma.” I wince. “You know how this works. If you put it off another month, you’ll have to pay more than twice as much then. You have to keep on top of these things.”

  “I meant to,” she protests. “I just forgot about it earlier. You know. Jack Sheng’s appeal. When I gave him the money, I didn’t think about this.”

  “I gave you a checklist.” I put my hand to my head. “You’re supposed to go through it every month before you give away money you need to pay bills.”

  I can almost hear her indifferent shrug. “I don’t remember where you put my checklist.”

  “Mom.” This is always what it’s like. My mom just doesn’t take care. She doesn’t pay things; she brushes off late fees. I’ve tried letting her fail to teach her a lesson. She never learns her lesson. She just keeps on failing.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’m paying it.”

  “Tina, you’re a student. You need to keep your money for your studies. You give us too much.”

  Those are just meaningless words. If she wanted me to give less, she would pay attention.

  “It’ll be worse if I’m worrying about you,” I say shortly.

  “But Tina,” my mother says, “how are you going to take your boyfriend out on a hot date if you spend all your money on us?”

  “He’s not my—” I shake my head, biting off the words. “Stop distracting me. Mom, you have to take care of yourself first. Stop giving away everything.”

  There’s a noise on the other end, one I can’t decipher without the aid of a picture. “Of course,” my mother says, her tone obstinately polite. “Just as you say. I’ll stop as soon as I forget.”

  I feel a lump in my throat. I don’t really remember China. We left when I was six. I remember flashes, sensations. Sometimes, though, a stray smell—a whiff of car exhaust or the scent of roasting duck—will bring back a profusion of poorly understood feelings, things that tap into parts of my brain I don’t understand. I’ll find myself besieged by emotions I can’t quite place: fear, guilt, happiness, and something deeper, something that squeezes my heart like a vise. As if all my childhood memories are still there, waiting for me to rediscover them.

  The only thing I really remember is my mother’s hand squeezing mine as we walked onto an airplane with fake papers and fake smiles. I don’t even know if that’s a real memory, either, or something I’ve reconstructed after the fact from being told the story too many times. I don’t remember facts at all. I just remember being afraid, so afraid that they’d find out and take Dad away. Again.

  I don’t remember, and even I can’t walk away from my feeling of obligation.

  “Mom,” I say instead, my voice shaking, “you and Dad have to be careful.”

  Mom sighs. “No more cakes on the blog, huh? I told my boss it’s good for us. It brings in business.”

  I try to laugh. I really try. It comes out kind of sickly. “No more cakes on the blog.”

  I hit the end button. But it’s not over. I can feel Blake’s eyes on me. I can almost feel his pity and it pisses me off.

  I don’t look at him. I curl my toes in my shoes and stare at the far wall.

  “She’s not stupid,” I say in a low voice. “She remembers every immigration filing deadline for every friend she ever talks to. She doesn’t remember the utility bill because she doesn’t want to.”

  “Tina.” Blake is still too close to me. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to look in his eyes. But I do anyway. “I was not going to suggest that a woman who makes cakes celebrating Miranda rights was stupid.”

  I let out a shaky laugh.

  “How long have you been handling your mother’s bills?”

  “Since I can remember. At first it was because I was the only person in the house who wrote and spoke English well enough to understand them. Then I kept doing it because I was the one who did it.” I shrug. “Now… Maria says I’m enabling my mother.”

  “Are you?”

  “Maybe. But it’s not like she has a drug habit. She’s helping people. Someone should enable her.” I don’t look at him. “It’s stupid, but all I want out of life is to be able to put my parents’ bills on my autopay. I don’t want to worry that she’s skipping an insurance premium. But I’m afraid that if I do, my mom will just find new ways to give away money. At least a drug habit is finite—there’s only so much coke you can do in a day. This? There’s no end to it.”

  He doesn’t say anything. He’s so close to me, so close I could lean over an inch and set my head on his shoulder. So close that he could slide his arm around me in comfort. And part of me wants that. I want it so much.

  “You have the wrong idea about me,” I tell him. “You told me I’m focused. That I’m responsible. I’m not, really. I don’t know what I’m doing any more than anyone else does. I’m just too terrified to do anything else.”

  He doesn’t put his arm around me. He doesn’t touch me. He just looks at me like he wants to.

  “Out of curiosity,” he says, “that money I transferred to your account. Have you spent any of it?”

  I haven’t wanted to touch any of it. I want to let it build up, a huge sum to ward off any possible danger.

  Still, I slowly nod my head.

  “On anything extravagant? Anything silly?”

  I swallow. “I bought mangoes.”

  He smiles a touch sarcastically, and I reach out and give him a little shove. That’s a mistake. It puts my hand in contact with his shoulder. His bare skin is cool to the touch, and I don’t pull away.

  “Hey,” I say. “Mangoes are expensive.”

  He doesn’t laugh at me, even though I know that to someone like him—to someone who spends fifteen thousand dollars a month, something I can’t even contemplate, mangoes are nothing. Even though I haven’t moved my hand from the point where it rests on his shoulder, and my thumb itches to caress him.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he says. “I’ll pay your parents’ utility bill this month.”

  I have some idea how little money he must have. I know exactly how much that would cost him.

  “But—”

  “Hey,” he says. “No arguments. We’re trading lives. I’m taking that on. If you’re terrified, I should be, too. But you have to do something for me in return.”

  I still haven’t moved away, and I know I should. Sitting here this close to him, touching him—I’m giving him ideas. I’m giving myself ideas. Fuck, I don’t know what to do with these ideas. I have a sudden urge to slide my hand down his chest, feeling the ridge of every muscle, the whisper of short, light hairs against my fingers. I could undo his jeans. Find out precisely how much of that bulge there is fabric, and how much is him.

  “What?” My throat is hoarse.

  “I don’t care,” he says. “Something you wouldn’t normally do. Something risky. Something silly. Go skydiving. Buy a name-brand purse. Do something that terrifies you, somethi
ng you can’t get out of your mind, that you’ve been holding back on.”

  I look at my hand on his shoulder. I’ve never wanted to go skydiving. I’ve never lusted after purses. I’m just getting used to the luxury of the occasional mango. There’s really only one thing I want right now that terrifies me.

  “I’m thinking of something.” My throat feels dry. “Something blindingly stupid. Risky. Idiotic.”

  “Do you want to do it?”

  My mouth goes dry. “Yes.”

  “Then go for it,” he says.

  For a second, I’m frozen in indecision. It will change everything. It will start a snowball rolling down a mountain, and I’m not sure I’ll escape the avalanche.

  Still, I turn to him. I look into his eyes. My hands tremble.

  “Okay,” I say, and my voice trembles, too. “Here goes.”

  And before I can think better of it, I do the stupidest thing possible: I kiss him.

  BLAKE

  For a second, I’m too shocked to react.

  I don’t know why; this thing has been lurking between us for weeks, never dormant, always present. But she’s been wary, pushing me away, and I didn’t expect this.

  My surprise lasts almost no time at all. Just a second’s worth of her lips against mine, her hands, warm against the cool, bare skin of my shoulders.

  My last intelligent thought is that I’m not letting this go to waste, and then I’m kissing her back. Wrapping my arm around her, bringing her close so that her body lies flush against mine. My free hand tangles in her dark hair, wrapping it around my fingers, following it up to her scalp, the line of her ear.

  She tastes so good—sweet, like an apple. Her hands slide down my chest, leaving a trail of heat, coming to rest on my hips. Tina shifts her weight and then straddles me. My nerves light up at that, sparking with desire.

  Fuck, I want her. She’s wearing jeans. I’m wearing jeans. Doesn’t matter that there’s layers of thick denim between us; my body still recognizes the feel of hips pressing against my pelvis. The friction of fabric is rough against my cock, but it’s everything I could have asked for. Her hands rise again, sliding up my chest to rest against my shoulders.