Trade Me

by Courtney Milan

  Fuck them. Fuck them all.

  My tears come back, blurring the forest. I pass a cluster of buildings that are labeled as some kind of observatory. Only fitting; here the stars are out in force, burning down on me, letting me know exactly where I belong.

  I start on the descent.

  The road lies before me like a skein of snarled yarn. I untangle it the way I untangle everything else: at thirty miles an hour.

  When I first started on this road, its contortions felt comforting—a reminder that it was okay for me to go slowly when the conditions demand it. As it goes on and on and on, it begins to feel like a cage.

  Maybe that’s why, as I descend past pinyon pines, as the land flattens out into wide meadows, I let myself accelerate.

  Thirty gives way to thirty-five; thirty-five slides into forty. The car is utterly silent; only the tires make noise as we move forward. It’s shockingly easy to get used to speed. So easy I can’t believe I’ve never done it before.

  It feels like an act of defiance to watch the speedometer go up, like I’m flipping off the entire universe. Maybe I can’t have Blake—but just for a little bit, I don’t have to play it safe.

  It’s still dark, but the brights on the car illumine the road on the way down. The car grips the road, turning without a single squeak of complaint.

  I don’t have to play it safe.

  There’s something powerful about going fast in a car that’s built for speed. Instead of feeling out of control, I feel like I’m finally in charge. The car whips around a turn, and then another. Gravel spits up on the side of the road, but I don’t care. The turns are getting broader as we head down. The foothills give way to long lazy curves, barely even descending, and then, finally, the road spits me out onto an empty highway, a long, straight shot heading into the dark.

  I pass through a silent town in a matter of minutes and find myself on a wide road, vacant this early in the morning.

  I’m going to give up this life in a few days. Why not let it all go? Why not find out now, after all these months of being careful, what I can really do?

  There’s nobody around to hurt, nothing nearby. Nothing but orchards, fields green with plants reaching tentative leaves skyward toward lightening skies.

  It’s a straight road, a road that was made for sixty-five.

  Hell, sixty-five doesn’t hurt. In fact, it seems natural. So natural I almost feel angry. All this time, I’ve been going thirty when I can do this instead?

  Sixty-five turns into seventy and then eighty. Orchards whip by. There’s a single railroad track running parallel to the road. I push harder. If this car had wings, I think I could lift off.

  With no vibrations from the engine, I can’t even tell how fast I’m going. I whip by a speed limit sign; it accusingly reminds me that I shouldn’t be going above seventy miles an hour. I’m at ninety-five.

  Fuck it. You only live once. I’m out of that cage of a road. I’m never going to have the chance to live this way again. And suddenly, I’m so goddamned sick of being safe.

  I slam my foot on the pedal and the car surges forward smoothly, as if everything up until now has been mere child’s play. The acceleration slams me back in my seat; the world whips by. At this speed, I don’t have to think. I don’t have to feel. I don’t have to hesitate or wait. I don’t have to be a good daughter or a good student. I don’t have to be good at all. I can just be me, whoever that is.

  You need to be careful, Xingjuan. There are some words that are embedded in me, like a fishhook stuck in my heart. I can tug at them, but they don’t come out. I shake my head, trying to deny it.

  But I know the truth. I’m only speeding down this unknown road because I’m trying to escape the truth. I’ve been falling in love with Blake, and I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to be careful with him, and I’m scared of getting hurt. I couldn’t even open my mouth tonight. His dad had a heart attack; he’s taken on a burden so tremendous that it’s been eating him alive this last year. I knew how much he needed me, but I couldn’t even speak up. That’s how scared I was.

  You need to be careful, Xingjuan.

  Those tears I’ve pushed away come back in full force. I’m tired of being careful.

  It’s funny that I hear my mother’s voice telling me to be careful, because my mother is the least careful person I know. She throws her heart into her work. She loves every person she assists. She believes them with all of her heart, works with all of her soul, weeps when she fails and rejoices when she wins. She’s the opposite of careful, and I don’t know how she ended up with me as a daughter. My mother has never told me to be careful in her life. She just laughs and tells me to make my boyfriend wear two condoms.

  And yet: You need to be careful, Xingjuan.

  That’s when I remember where I heard those words—the one and only time my mother ever spoke them to me. The memory hits me so hard, it’s almost physical. I can feel it. Her hand on my wrist, yanking me close. The air is dry with a hint of sand on it. Her mouth hovers down near my ear, my heart beating fast.

  Don’t say those things out loud, my mother is saying. You need to be careful, Xingjuan. You don’t know who will report you.

  And with that piece restored, other bits come floating back. I’d been playing with other children. I’d mentioned—unthinking—that my dad had gone to the park to practice after the government had banned Falun Gong. I was just six, too young to understand what I was saying.

  My mother grabbed me by the hand and told me to be quiet, that someone could hear. That if they did, they might take my father away.

  By the time we got home, it was too late. The authorities had picked up my father at work, and I didn’t see him for months.

  I don’t think I ever really did forget that. Not really, not deep down. All this time, I’ve been telling myself that I have to try harder, that I have to give my parents everything. Every time something has gone wrong, I’ve wondered what I did wrong, how I could have prevented it. I’ve always known that I failed them, and I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since. Maybe I’ve hoped that if I do, that one day I’ll make up for ruining everything.

  I imagine telling my mother that. She would look at me with one eyebrow raised, shaking her head. And for the first time in my life, I hear the actual words my mother would speak rather than the ones I’ve held onto in my head.

  “Don’t be silly,” she would say. “Whoever said you ruined anything? Take the best you can, and don’t look back.”

  I can’t stop crying.

  It’s too much. I’ve been stupid, so stupid, afraid to embrace the best thing that has happened to me simply because I was afraid I didn’t deserve it, because I was certain it would be yanked away from me.

  Maybe I am just setting myself up for heartache—but maybe, just maybe, I deserve to give myself a chance.

  I look down at the speedometer. I’m going…a hundred and thirty? Holy fuck. What am I doing? What was I thinking? I tap the brakes once, and then again, slowing, slowing. The speedometer drifts down. One twenty. One ten.

  I hit a hundred, and that’s when I hear it—the slow wail of a siren springing to life behind me. I glance in the rearview mirror. Red flashing lights reflect into my face.

  It shouldn’t be funny, but somehow it is. I’m laughing as I hit the brakes, laughing as I slowly maneuver the car to the side of the road.

  It just goes to show. All this time, I’ve been holding back, afraid to drive at a reasonable speed, trying so hard to be careful for fear that something would happen. It always does to us mortals, doesn’t it?

  I drove fast. And here I am. Something has happened. And somehow, it doesn’t seem that bad.

  21.

  TINA

  The cop took my license ten minutes ago. He hasn’t returned yet. Instead, his car sits behind Blake’s Tesla, red lights strobing across my passenger seat. The sky is still dark; the moon has set, and out here, the stars make a glimmering net overhead.


  I wonder what my mom would say if she could see me now. Her advice for dealing with police is…legally sound, perhaps, but not conciliatory. Not ever conciliatory. I’m pretty sure that what I need right now is more than conciliatory. Something closer to abject as hell. I don’t know how fast the officer clocked me, but it was probably over a hundred.

  That may well be enough to push me into the “arrest for reckless driving” band, and that is the last thing I need right now.

  When he comes up to me, I’m going to apologize.

  I plan what I’m going to say. The officer will be back any second now. He’ll give me a whopping fine and a huge lecture. But another minute passes while I hyperventilate, wondering what is going on. Then two. The officer finally gets out of his car again and I breathe a sigh of relief. But he doesn’t come toward me. He faces away from me, looking down the dark road.

  A moment later, a second police car pulls up. Shit. I am going to get arrested. I’m wondering if I should call someone. Blake? No, definitely not Blake. He has enough to deal with this morning, and I just left him. His father’s in the hospital. He has a product launch this afternoon. If he’s not seeing to his dad or preparing, he should be sleeping, not sorting out some sordid police matter involving the person who is, at the moment, definitely not his girlfriend.

  The longer I sit, the worse I feel about what happened. I wasn’t ready to hear his words. I didn’t let myself believe that we could be anything together. I didn’t know how to look at him and think that he would do anything other than break my heart. So I broke his instead.

  I still don’t know how we can be anything. All the old arguments apply.

  But one thing has changed: I want to figure it out.

  As I’m considering this, the second officer gets out of his car and then opens the back door of his vehicle. How cute. They brought backup for me. I almost feel important.

  But the backup that jumps out of the backseat is not an officer—at least not a human one. It’s a dog, an adorable yellow lab with big brown eyes and one ear that flops down. It has a goofy grin and its tongue hangs out. It’s so far removed from the typical authoritarian-looking German Shepherd that the police dog harness looks like a Halloween costume.

  Not good, something whispers in the back of my mind. I brush this aside.

  The officer guides the dog to the car. They start to walk around and then, right by the side door, the dog sits.

  It’s an absurd thing; for a second, I entertain an idle notion that the dog has gone off the clock. Despite my racing pulse, I smile. Maybe cop dogs aren’t as perfectly trained as the TV shows indicate.

  But the dog doesn’t do any of the things you’d expect a dog to do when it sits. No scratching, no licking, no curling up in a little ball. It just looks up at the officer holding his leash, its tail waving back and forth. Absurdly, instead of ordering the dog back to work, the officer hands it a treat and scratches its head. It’s cute, but it’s over too soon. The new officer puts the dog back in the car.

  Maybe the dog decided I wasn’t dangerous.

  Maybe…

  I swallow. The first officer unholsters his gun, comes abreast of the car door. My pulse was running swiftly before. It starts hammering now. I can’t think. I have no idea why he’d pull a weapon now, but there it is. Dark, lethal metal. The morning sun reflects off its edges.

  He raises it in my direction. “Get out of the car with your hands up.”

  My hands shake as I open the door. I have no idea what just happened. I can’t think. I don’t understand. This is all going so wrong.

  He gestures to me to turn for a pat down.

  I place my hands on the side of the vehicle. As I do, I look into the back seat.

  Blake took his bag with him when he went into the hospital. But he left something in the car when he went—a duffle bag scarcely the size of a backpack. I was so upset it didn’t even register. I’ve been so upset that I’ve been smiling at the dog, not realizing what I know all too well in the back of my mind.

  But it registers now. It registers with cold, icy clarity. I can almost hear the promise Blake made to his father. I’m throwing out all your stupid cocaine if I have to come through the house with a fucking dog.

  That wasn’t an attack dog; it was a drug dog. And when that cute, sweet lab sat down, it pointed a doggy paw at me and said, “This one!”

  This is not something I can simply talk my way out of. Abject won’t do it. Conciliatory won’t do it.

  I’ve just been pulled over by the cops while driving one hundred and thirty miles an hour in a car that doesn’t belong to me, and I have an unknown quantity of cocaine in my back seat.

  I am so fucked.

  They let me have one phone call. I entertain the idea of calling Blake, but he’ll find out—or his people will find out—eventually.

  But, I realize on the drive into the station, the only defense I have to offer is this: No, sir, this cocaine doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to Adam Reynolds. Arrest him instead. I’m not even sure Blake and I are on the same side anymore.

  Hell, even if Blake were willing to help, he has enough on his mind right now. He doesn’t need me bothering him.

  I tell myself all those things, but there’s one fundamental reason I’m not calling him. Maybe the stars have it right. Maybe mortals dabble with gods at their own peril. But then, those Greek gods of old? They never met my mother.

  I think she could take them.

  I can envision my mother getting out of bed. Walking to the Felix-the-Cat phone she loves so much and frowning at it, wondering why it’s ringing at this hour of the morning. I can envision her putting her hand out.

  And somehow, just as I imagine her lifting the receiver, she picks up.

  She no doubt hears the recording warning her that the call is coming from a police station and that unless the other party is a lawyer, it will be monitored. I can hear her breathing. She’s probably wondering which of her friends is calling her this time.

  “Mom?” I say. My voice sounds thin.

  “Tina?” She’s shocked.

  I inhale. “Ma. I’ve been arrested.”

  She doesn’t say anything for one fraught second. Any other mother would be sputtering at this point. What did you do? How could you? What’s wrong with you?

  My mother switches to Mandarin. “You remember what I told you?” she tells me. “Never tell the police anything, not for any reason.”

  “Mom, I—”

  “No,” she interrupts. “Don’t tell me anything that happened, not even in another language. I’m not a lawyer. They’re going to record this. Don’t you know anything about the law? Don’t talk, not where they can hear you.”

  “I know,” I say. “Put it on my next birthday cake.”

  “Where are you?” she demands.

  I tell her. She doesn’t ask how I came to be in a police station near Modesto. She doesn’t ask what I’m doing. She doesn’t demand any explanations at all.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” she says. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “You have to be at work in an hour.” My protest is half-hearted.

  “This is what I do,” she says in English. “If I can’t do this for my own daughter, what good am I?”

  Maybe that’s what I wanted—no, needed—to hear. That I matter. That it will be okay with her if I fuck up, that my mother will still love me.

  “Don’t talk to the police, heh? They tell you lies.”

  This is my mother in fight mode—the way she is for all the people she works with. This is what Mom does. She’s there for people who need her. All those interrupted nights—she’s been someone’s first phone call.

  If there is one person I could have on my side against impossible odds, it’s her.

  22.

  BLAKE

  “Hey, Dad.” I sit by my father’s bed. “Are you coherent yet?” The room is finally empty of doctors, nurses, and other helpful personnel. Dad has
his own room in the ICU decorated in industrial gray. There’s a clip on his finger, attached to another machine nearby.

  “Huh.” He turns his head and rubs at his eyes. “I’m pretty fucking muzzy. What do they have me on?”

  “Some kind of painkiller. I can find out exactly what it is.”

  He struggles to sit up. “I don’t want it.” His hand finds the IV coming out of his arm. “Is it coming through here? Fuck. Make it stop. That shit’s addictive.”

  I stare at him. “Are you shitting me? You’re worried about that, now?”

  “Come on,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t be a stupid asshole. Cocaine isn’t addictive. It’s just habit forming. Medically speaking.” He frowns.

  “That’s reassuring,” I say dryly.

  But he stops short of ripping the IV out of his arm. “I guess I should ask. How fucked am I?”

  “They shot your arteries full of dye and made a little video of it circulating through your heart. You should make Dr. Wong show it to you. It’s pretty cool. No blockages anywhere. They didn’t even have to put in a stent.”

  Dad’s hand creeps over his heart. “Huh.”

  “The only reason they’re keeping you in the hospital is because you have a giant hole in your thigh where they put the dye in, and they don’t trust you not to open it up. Congratulations, motherfucker. You’re not going to die unless you keep trying to kill yourself.”

  His gaze falls inward. “Better than I deserve.”

  “Better than we both deserve,” I say. “It turns out that the back half of the product launch practically rewrites itself. We’ve got about five hours until we’re on. Think you’ll be up for a two-minute video check-in from the hospital?”

  “Yeah.” He shuts his eyes. “You know, Blake. I can’t…I don’t want you to take over. Not if it’s going to…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t need to.

  “I already talked to the Board. They’ve agreed that David will take over temporarily. And I told them we’re going to have to restructure the corporation—you obviously need to cut back. Even after rehab.”