by Nicola Yoon
GIRL WHO HAS NO NAME is stopped at a crosswalk ahead of me. I swear I’m not following her. She’s just going my way. Her super-pink headphones are back on, and she’s swaying to her music again. I can’t see her face, but I’m guessing her eyes are closed. She misses a walk cycle, and now I’m right behind her. If she turned around, she would definitely think I’m stalking her. The light turns red again and she steps off the curb.
She’s not paying enough attention to realize that a guy in a white BMW is about to run that red light. But I’m close enough.
I yank her backward by her arm. Our feet tangle. We trip over each other and fall onto the sidewalk. She lands half on top of me. Her phone’s not as lucky, and crashes against the pavement.
A couple of people ask if we’re okay, but most just make a beeline around us as if we’re just another object in the obstacle course that is New York City.
No-Name Girl shifts herself off me and looks down at her phone. A few cracks spiderweb across the screen.
“What. The. Hell?” she says, not a question so much as a protest.
“You okay?”
“That guy almost killed me.” I look up and see that the car has pulled over to the side on the next block. I want to go yell at the driver, but I don’t want to leave her alone.
“You okay?” I ask again.
“Do you know how long I’ve had this?” At first I think she means her phone, but it’s her headphones she’s cradling in her hands. Somehow they got damaged during our fall. One of the ear pads is dangling from wires, and the casing is cracked.
She looks like she’s going to cry.
“I’ll buy you another pair.” I’m desperate to prevent her tears, but not because I’m noble or anything. I’m kind of a contagion cryer. You know how when one person starts yawning, everyone else starts yawning too? Or when someone vomits, the smell makes you want to hurl? I’m like that, except with crying, and I have no intention of crying in front of the cute girl whose headphones I just broke.
A part of her wants to say yes to my offer, but I already know she won’t. She presses her lips together and shakes her head.
“It’s the least I can do,” I say.
Finally she looks at me. “You already saved my life.”
“You wouldn’t have died. A little maimed, maybe.”
I’m trying to get her to laugh, but nothing doing. Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m having just the worst day,” she says.
I look away so she doesn’t see my own tears forming.
DONALD CHRISTIANSEN KNOWS the price of priceless things. He has actuarial tables in his mind. He knows the cost of a human life lost in an airplane crash, a car accident, a mining disaster. He knows these things because he once worked in insurance. It was his job to price the unwanted and unexpected.
The price of accidentally running over a seventeen-year-old girl who was clearly not paying attention is considerably less than the price for his own daughter, killed by a texting driver. In fact, the first thing he’d thought when he heard the news about his daughter was what price the driver’s insurance company would pay.
He pulls over to the side of the road, turns on his hazards, and lays his head on the steering wheel. He touches the flask in his inside coat pocket. Do people recover from these things? He doesn’t think they do.
It’s been two years, but the grieving has not left him, shows no signs of leaving until it’s taken everything from him. It has cost him his marriage, his smile, his ability to eat enough, sleep enough, and feel enough.
It has cost him his ability to be sober.
Which is why he almost ran over Natasha just now.
Donald is not sure what the universe was trying to tell him by taking away his only daughter, but here is what he learned: no one can put a price on losing everything. And another thing: all your future histories can be destroyed in a single moment.
RED TIE LOOKS AWAY FROM ME. I think he’s about to cry, which makes no sense at all. He offers to buy me new headphones. Even if I let him, new ones couldn’t replace these.
I’ve had them since right after we moved to America. When my father bought them for me, he was still hopeful for all he would accomplish here. He was still trying to convince my mom that the move away from the country of our birth, away from all our friends and family, would be worth it in the end. He was going to hit it big. He was going to get the American Dream that even Americans dream about.
He used me and my brother to help convince my mom. He bought us gifts on layaway, things we could barely afford even on layaway. If we were happy here, then maybe the move was right after all.
I didn’t care what the reason for the gifts was. These way-too-expensive headphones were my favorite of them all. I only cared that they were my favorite color and promised audiophile-quality sound. They were my first love. They know all my secrets. They know how much I used to worship my dad. They know that I kind of hate myself for not worshiping him at all now.
It seems like such a long time ago when I thought the world of him. He was some exotic planet and I was his favorite satellite. But he’s no planet, just the final fading light of an already dead star.
And I’m not a satellite. I’m space junk, hurtling as far as I can away from him.
I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER noticed anyone the way I’m noticing her. Sunlight filters through her hair, making it look like a kind of halo around her head. A thousand emotions pass over her face. Her eyes are black and wide, with long lashes. I can imagine staring into them for a long time. Right now they’re dull, but I know exactly what they would look like bright and laughing. I wonder if I can make her laugh. Her skin is a warm and glowing brown. Her lips are pink and full, and I’m probably staring at them for far too long. Fortunately, she’s too sad to notice what a shallow (and horny) jerk I am.
She looks up from her broken headphones. As our eyes meet, I get a kind of déjà vu, but instead of feeling like I’m repeating something in the past, it feels like I’m experiencing something that will happen in my future. I see us in old age. I can’t see our faces; I don’t know where or even when we are. But I have a strange and happy feeling that I can’t quite describe. It’s like knowing all the words to a song but still finding them beautiful and surprising.
I STAND UP AND DUST myself off. This day can’t get any worse. It must eventually end. “Were you following me?” I ask him. I’m crankier and testier than I should be with someone who just saved my life.
“Man, I knew you would think that.”
“You just happened to be right behind me?” I fiddle with my headphones, trying to reattach the ear pad, but it’s hopeless.
“Maybe I was meant to save your life today,” he says.
I ignore that. “Okay, thanks for your help,” I say, preparing to leave.
“At least tell me your name,” he blurts out.
“Red Tie—”
“Daniel.”
“Okay, Daniel. Thank you for saving me.”
“That’s a long name.” His eyes don’t leave mine. He’s not going to give up until I tell him.
“Natasha.”
I think he’s going to shake my hand again, but instead he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Nice name.”
“So glad you approve,” I say, giving him my most sarcastic tone.
He doesn’t say anything else, just looks at me with a slight frown, as if he’s trying to figure something out.
Finally I can’t take it anymore. “Why are you staring at me?”
He blushes again, and now I’m staring. I can see how it might be fun to tease him just to get him to blush. I let my eyes wander the sharp planes of his face. He is classically handsome; debonair, even. Watching him stand there in his suit, I can picture him in a black-and-white Hollywood romantic comedy trading witty banter with his heroine. His eyes are clear brown and deep-set. Somehow I can tell he smiles a lot. His thick black hair is pulled back into a ponytail.
Observable Fact: The ponytail p
ushes him from handsome to kind of sexy.
“Now you’re staring,” he says to me. It’s my turn to blush.
I clear my throat. “Why are you wearing a suit?”
“I have an interview later. Wanna go get something to eat?”
“What for?” I ask.
“Yale. Alumni admission interview. I applied early decision.”
I shake my head. “No, I meant why do you want to get something to eat?”
“I’m hungry?” he says, as if he’s not sure exactly.
“Hmmm,” I say. “I’m not.”
“Coffee, then? Or tea or soda or filtered water?”
“Why?” I ask, realizing that he’s not going to give up.
His shoulders shrug, but his eyes don’t. “Why not? Besides, I’m pretty sure you owe me your life since I just saved it.”
“Believe me,” I tell him, “you don’t want my life.”
WE WALK TWO LONG BLOCKS west toward Ninth Ave and pass no fewer than three coffee shops. Two of them are from the same national coffee chain (have you ever seen anyone actually dunk a donut?). I choose the non-chain, independent one because we mom-and-pop places gotta stick together.
The place is all mahogany and dark wood furniture and smells just like you’d think it would. It’s also just slightly over-the-top. And by slightly, I mean there are several oil paintings of single coffee beans hanging on the wall. Who knew coffee-bean portraiture was a thing? Who knew they could look so forlorn?
There’s barely anyone else here, and the three baristas behind the counter look pretty bored. I try to spice up their lives by ordering an overly elaborate drink involving half shots, milks of varying fat content, and caramel, as well as vanilla syrup.
They still look bored.
Natasha orders black coffee with no sugar. It’s hard not to read her personality into her coffee order. I almost say something, but then I realize she might think I’m making a race-related joke, which would be a very poor (on a scale from Poor to Extremely Poor—the full scale is Poor, Somewhat Poor, Moderately Poor, Very Poor, and Extremely Poor) way to start off this relationship.
She insists on paying, saying it’s the least she can do. My drink is $6.38 and I let her know that the cost of saving a life is at least two elaborate coffee drinks. She doesn’t even smile.
I choose a table in back as far away from the non-action as possible. As soon as we sit, she pulls out her phone to check the time. It’s still working, despite the cracks on the screen. She runs her thumb along them and sighs.
“Have to be somewhere?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, and turns the phone off.
I wait for her to continue, but she’s definitely not going to. Her face dares me to ask her more, but I’ve reached my quota of daring things (1 = following cute girl, 2 = yelling at ex-boyfriend of cute girl, 3 = saving life of cute girl, 4 = asking out cute girl) for the day.
We sit in a not-at-all-comfortable silence for thirty-three seconds. I fall into that super-self-conscious state you get into when you’re with someone new and you really want them to like you.
I see all my movements through her eyes. Does this hand gesture make me seem like a jerk? Are my eyebrows crawling off my face? Is this a sexy half smile or do I look like I’m having a stroke?
I’m nervous, so I exaggerate all my movements. I BLOW on my coffee, SIP it, STIR it, playing the part of an actual human teenage boy having an actual beverage called coffee.
I blow too hard on my drink and a little foam flies up. I could not be any cooler. I would totally date me (not really). It’s hard to say, but she may have smiled ever so slightly at the foam flight.
“Still happy you saved my life?” she asks.
I take too big a sip and burn not only my tongue but a path all the way down my throat. Jesus Christ. Maybe this is a sign I should just give up. I am clearly not meant to impress this girl.
“Should I regret it?” I ask.
“Well, I’m not exactly being nice to you.”
She’s pretty direct, so I decide to be direct too. “That’s true, but I don’t have a time machine to go back and undo it.” I say it with a straight face.
“Would you?” she asks, frowning slightly.
“Of course not,” I say. What kind of jerk does she think I am?
She excuses herself to go to the bathroom. So that I don’t just sit there looking uninteresting when she gets back, I pull out my notebook to fiddle with my poem. I’m still writing when she gets back.
“Oh no,” she groans as she sits back down.
“What?” I ask.
She gestures to my notebook. “You’re not a poet, are you?”
Her eyes are smiling, but still, I close it quickly and slip it back into my jacket.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. What am I thinking with my déjà-vu-in-reverse nonsense? I’m just putting off the future. Like my parents want, I’ll marry a lovely Korean American girl. Unlike Charles, I don’t have anything against Korean girls. He says they’re not his type, but I don’t really get the concept of having a type. My type is girls. All of them. Why would I limit my dating pool?
I’ll be a great doctor with excellent bedside skills.
I’ll be perfectly happy.
But something about Natasha makes me think my life could be extraordinary.
It’s better for her to be mean and for us go on separate paths. I can think of exactly no ways that my parents (mostly my dad) would be okay with me dating a black girl.
Still, I give it one last try. “What would you do with a time machine if you had one?”
For the first time since we sat down, she doesn’t seem irritated or bored. She furrows her brow and leans forward.
“Can it travel into the past?”
“Of course. It’s a time machine,” I say.
She gives me a look that says there’s so much I don’t know. “Time travel to the past is a complicated business.”
“Say we’ve gotten past the complications. What would you do?”
She puts down her coffee, folds her arms across her chest. Her eyes are brighter.
“And we’re ignoring the grandfather paradox?” she asks.
“Completely,” I say, pretending I have a clue what she’s talking about, but she calls me out.
“You don’t know the grandfather paradox?” Her voice is incredulous, like I’ve missed some basic information about the world (like how babies are made). Is she a sci-fi nerd?
“Nope. Don’t know it,” I say.
“Okay. Let’s say you have an evil grandfather.”
“He’s dead. I only met him once in Korea. He seemed nice.”
“Are you Korean?” she asks.
“Korean American. I was born here.”
“I’m Jamaican,” she says. “I was born there.”
“But you don’t have an accent.”
“Well, I’ve been here for a while.” She tightens her hold on her cup and I can feel her mood starting to shift.
“Tell me about this paradox,” I prod, trying to distract her. It works and she brightens up again.
“Okay. Yes. Let’s say your grandfather was alive, and he was evil.”
“Alive and evil,” I say, nodding.
“He’s really evil, so you invent a time machine and go back in time to kill him. Say you kill him before he meets your grandmother. That would mean that one of your parents is never born and that you are never born, so you can’t go back in time to kill him. But! If you kill him after he meets your grandmother, then you will be born, and then you’ll invent a time machine to go back in time to kill him. This loop will go on forever.”
“Huh. Yes, we’re definitely ignoring that.”
“And the Novikov self-consistency principle too, I guess?”
I thought she was cute before, but she’s even cuter now. Her face is animated, her hair is bouncing, and her eyes are sparking. She’s gesturing with her hands, talking about researchers at MIT and probability
bending to prevent paradoxes.
“So theoretically, you wouldn’t be able to kill your grandfather at all, because the gun would misfire at just the right moment, or you would have a heart attack—”
“Or a cute Jamaican girl would walk into the room and bowl me over.”
“Yes. Something strange and improbable would happen so that the impossible couldn’t.”
“Huh,” I say again.
“That’s more than a ‘huh,’ ” she says, smiling.
It is more than a huh, but I can’t think of anything clever or witty to say. I’m having trouble thinking and looking at her at the same time.
There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.
I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m experiencing right now. The only slight (possibly insurmountable) problem is that I’m pretty sure that Natasha is not.
I DON’T TELL RED TIE the complete truth about what I would do with a time machine if I had one. I would travel back in time and make it so the greatest day of my father’s life never happened at all. It is completely selfish, but it’s what I would do so my future wouldn’t have to be erased.
Instead, I explain all the science to him. By the time I’m done, he’s giving me a look like he’s in love with me. It turns out he’s never heard of the grandfather paradox or the Novikov self-consistency principle, which kind of surprises me. I guess I assumed he’d be nerdy because he’s Asian, which is crappy of me because I hate when other people assume things about me like I like rap music or I’m good at sports. For the record, only one of those things is true.
Besides the fact that I’m being deported today, I am really not a girl to fall in love with. For one thing, I don’t like temporary, nonprovable things, and romantic love is both temporary and nonprovable.