by Sword Stone Table- Old Legends, New Voices (retail) (epub)
“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t bring anything fancy.” My throat is tight and my face is hot.
I officially hate myself for waiting until the last minute to pack again. And for being so boring I hadn’t even been able to muster the fantasy of an evening out. Not that I would’ve found anything good in my closet anyway.
Instead of packing for a new and improved me, I’d sat myself down in front of my dusty old carry-on to fold threadbare cotton underwear and come up with a script that would make me sound more interesting and accomplished to my relatives. My grades and the assurance that, yes, I would be going to college would have to do the heavy lifting. Those were the thrilling thoughts that had consumed me as I rolled up outfits for sweaty walks, public transportation, and messy breakfasts of roti canai the day before we left for Singapore.
Now I tug at my wrinkled outfit, holding my breath as Nenive stares. Near-translucent skin stretches tight as a drum across her brow.
But her smile returns, and the charge that always lingers around her dissolves until you almost can’t tell it’s still there.
“You wore the pendant,” she says, and hooks her arm in mine.
“I’ll never take it off,” I’m quick to say.
“And never forget who gave it to you.” Nenive laughs, but her words stick.
How can I forget?
A week after we arrived in Singapore, Mom and I went sightseeing by the waterfront with my aunts and uncles and their children. I’d fallen farther and farther behind, desperate for a moment alone with my thoughts. When the kids cried for ais kacang to eat while we took a break to watch the bumboats, I claimed fatigue and stayed behind, trudging alone to the steps leading down to the water. That’s how I found her.
A girl rose from the foggy waters of the Marina Bay wearing a bikini as bleached as the Merlion, dripping in the shadow of that legendary marketing beast. She was tall and lean and pale, her long hair slick against her skin. She was every young woman in the countless luxury brand advertisements I’d seen around the city. I stood there gaping, waiting for someone to notice and pull her back up to safety or give her a talking-to.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to swim here.” The warning sounded idiotic the second I blurted it.
When she didn’t immediately acknowledge my existence, I took the opportunity to play at being another tourist admiring the water spewing from the Merlion’s open mouth.
But movement in my periphery forced me to look back in her direction. Her arm was outstretched. She looked right at me and said, “Found it.” She said it casually, as if we’d been having a conversation all along and it had been interrupted by whatever she was up to.
I squinted at the winking mound of moon dust in her hand.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“A gift for a friend.”
A sterling silver sword lay against a bed of microscopic gemstones. My fingers itched as I studied the impossible scrollwork on the little hilt.
“You like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” I answered. I couldn’t take my eyes off the pendant and thought my brain was magnifying the details, but no. The girl had appeared on the steps in front of me to bring the piece up to my nose. Her hand smelled like the river and something metallic. Blood? I don’t know why I thought that—it was only the pendant—but the thought made me aware of how close she was, and I took a step back, embarrassed.
“Go on, then, take it.”
I had a hard time looking at her again and a harder time declining. “I can’t. Your friend—”
“I don’t have a friend, but I’d like to make one.”
Nenive. I don’t know if she introduced herself then or later or ever. Maybe she smiled by way of introduction because, better than anything else about that exchange, I remember the way her face transformed. All canines and beetled brow. Its vulnerability, its quirkiness and charm took me by surprise. I try to picture her face before she handed me the pendant—the way she’d looked at me from the water, or when she’d stood so close to show me her gift. It’s like trying to remember a stranger from a dream.
“Look, I promise it’ll bring you your hopes and desires or whatever,” she assured me, nudging the pendant closer. “But it’d help if you gave it a chance to find out what they are.” Nenive waggled her brows.
I told myself to be cool, to riff like I was used to shooting the shit with people, but her intensity sent my gaze away again. That’s how I noticed other people finally beginning to acknowledge her, staring as if bobbing around the Marina Bay was nowhere near as strange as the act of standing beside me. Nenive wasn’t looking at them. She’s the sort of person who doesn’t consider what others think of her. It’s as easy to pick her type out of a crowd as it is to lose mine in one.
The terror that had held me back from making friends countless times before returned. There was life before the color-coded cliques and the quizzical stares of high school, before I turned myself into a ghost to avoid being deemed a square peg, and there was life after. Loner became my status, and certain that I’d never find belonging, I stopped searching for it and disappeared.
But this spectacular girl had found me and had chosen me to wear this spectacular treasure.
“I know you want it.” Nenive’s reedy song whistled warm across my face.
Squinting hard, pushing down the urge to flinch away from her charm, I took in the mercurial ripples of here-and-gone sunlight illuminating her skin, the fuel oil lacquering her arms. I smiled back and accepted her gift.
It was warm in my hands and released that earthy, metallic perfume I’d caught earlier. The scent, the winking light, and the heat made my head spin until I remembered to breathe.
Nenive reached around my neck to unclasp the chain I wore. The charm it held sounded off as it skipped across the ground. I crouched to recover it, dropping it into my pocket. Meanwhile, Nenive had strung her heavy pendant on my naked chain. She clasped it around my neck and studied it with satisfaction.
“As long as you have that, you have my friendship. And as long as you have my friendship, well—”
Anything is possible. The thought arrived out of thin air, delivered with Nenive’s posh English accent. And I believed her words like they were my own.
* * *
—
Outside of Nani’s apartment, Nenive lets go of my hand. I look up at the building, expecting to find Mom staring down at me, Mamu Jam patting her shoulder. But there are too many windows, and they all look empty to me.
We leave in two days. I thought she would understand. We can come back to visit family anytime, but I don’t know if I’ll ever see Nenive again. When I consider that possibility, it’s like I can feel the point of my pendant’s sword digging into my chest, in search of my heart.
“Pre-drink.” Nenive pushes a travel bottle of vodka into my hand.
“Where’d you get this?” I say. I can’t remember Singapore’s drinking age or the rules about public intoxication. I can’t remember because I don’t drink. I look up and down the street to make sure nobody’s watching.
“Drink it,” Nenive says.
The bottle is cold in my hand. Condensation rolls off and joins the brooding humidity. I imagine Nenive pulling the little bottle out of a fridge. Does she have one in her hotel? Is she staying with her family?
I’ve spent the last three weeks biting back questions about her life outside our activities together, hoping to learn anything by asking broad questions about her feelings and thoughts in the moment.
The first time she called me to hang out, a strange number appearing on my phone’s screen—a number I now understand will change each time she calls—we got to talking. We were planning our day together when I capitalized on a lull in the conversation to ask about her friends back home—whether she had many, what they were like. She told me she didn’t want
to talk about any of that. She made me promise I’d never ask again. I agreed quickly, worried I’d ruined everything.
And now here she is with alcohol. I don’t think she’s older than me, but I can’t ask because the question might be off-limits.
So instead, I dare to say, “Please, Nenive. We can’t drink it here.”
In one swift motion, she throws back her own bottle and tosses the empty into the nearest hedge.
“Nenive!” I shriek at the shrub. I’m sure I am the picture of pearl clutching. I literally have my hand around the pendant.
“Pipe down and get to it,” she says. “Or I’ll pour it down your throat myself.”
Maybe she’s joking, but for half a second her features swing open and I get a glimpse of thrumming anticipation. I hurry up and swig the liquor, trying not to cough. She snorts when I stuff my empty bottle and cap into the pocket of my shorts. I’m grateful when she turns away to hail a cab because I was sure she was about to command me to litter on the sparkling streets.
I enjoy a guilty moment of peace on the sidelines, relaxing against the seat of the cab while Nenive directs the driver. Taking control comes easily to her, and she doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that I’d rather not. Nenive knows her way around better than I do, anyway, and she has a knack for pointing us in the direction of adventure. I get to be a tourist for once. Until now, Singapore has looked like my family’s collective backside, their living rooms and bedrooms. I’m herded from place to place, the glassy-eyed, loose-necked lamb dawdling behind the flock. With Nenive, I’m free to wander far and wide, spectating. Even if we get lost, nothing matters except that we’re together.
And, together, we talk and laugh loudly, letting everyone know we’ve arrived. What would my classmates back home say if they saw me with Nenive? Would they recognize me from three years of sharing space and wonder at the stranger I’ve become?
“Wake up, we’re here.” Nenive pushes open the cab door, letting neon-pink light and muffled beats into the cabin. I hurry out of the taxi after her, almost forgetting to pay the fare.
In my desperation to catch up, I manage to stumble on the curb and stub my big toe. I’m frazzled by the time I reach the club, and Nenive is nowhere to be found. Falling into line, I scan the entrance because I don’t know what else to do except pop my head out of the crowd now and then in case she’s looking for me.
There she is. Chatting up the bouncer.
Nenive is an animated conversationalist, pantomiming, performing. The bouncer’s face goes slack while he eats it up. I might be the only person in the world who’s seen her truly at rest. It’s a privilege. And a burden, I guess.
We were hanging out at East Coast Park last week, scarfing down fries on the beach, when I caught her in a rare moment of silence. It was like someone had flicked her switch to off. She didn’t blink, looking at the muggy horizon. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until my lungs screamed, and I dropped a fry in the sand while I gasped for air. Nenive started.
“What’s wrong with you?” She shook her head at me and flicked away the fallen fry.
At the time, I thought she should’ve asked herself the question. But the more I think about it, the more I see that she’d been minding her own business, probably thinking about her friends and life back home. I should have left her to her thoughts.
As Nenive picked up her fries, returned from wherever she’d been, I’d searched the water for the object of her attention and found only phantom memories of Dad.
“I know you’re lonely,” Nenive had said suddenly.
I drew a shaky breath, worried she’d finally figured out that I was nobody.
“I heard you calling my name,” she said. “That’s how I found you.”
I let out a little laugh.
“I didn’t know your name,” I reminded her. “We hadn’t met yet, Nenive.”
Nenive is like that sometimes. Disoriented. Or maybe I don’t get her jokes. That day, I was too happy to have her attention back to let it bother me. I spent the rest of that afternoon struggling to make enough noise to keep her present. Because when Nenive forgets herself, it’s like the whole world slides out of focus with her.
* * *
—
Outside the club, I linger in place, uncertain and unable to cross the invisible barrier standing between me and the front of the line. But Nenive’s hands are quiet now. She looks over her shoulder, finding me immediately. Although our eyes meet, there’s no recognition in hers, and in that moment I’m struck by the urge to duck back into line and out of sight before she’s certain. Blood thumps in my temples, but when the pendant burns hot against my chest, I know she’s identified me.
Nenive mouths, Come on, impatience knitting her brow. “This is my friend,” I hear her say to the bouncer as I approach. To me she says, “He’s going to let us in.”
“This the girl you were talking about?” The bouncer looks me up and down, and I curl my battered, naked toes. He halfheartedly waves in my direction. “Can’t let her in, too young.”
I know I look younger than sixteen and that Nenive is taller, even more so in heels, but she also doesn’t look old enough to get into this club. Of course, age has nothing to do with the bouncer’s decision to let her in and not me. The thin pretense makes the situation even more galling. As if he assumes I’m stupid as well as unattractive. I distract myself from the struggle of masking my emotions by studying the crowd.
These women standing in line are smiling and whispering onto one another’s shoulders. They’re like colorful, fragrant bouquets, and any one of them could be related to me. They’d never guess it.
At school, the Asian kids thought I was trying to take something from them when they caught me drinking cartons of soy milk or eating shrimp chips on the farthest outskirts of the quad and were shocked when someone (Mike Quincy, one of five other Black students at school) loudly corrected himself about my ethnicity in AP Bio. All along he’d thought I was high yellow when I was actually Blasian, he announced after Mr. Connors asked, for the fifth time, if Mike and I were related. To Mike, it was obvious that we were not family. To the Asian students, it was unbelievable that I, Ranch 99 receipts in hand, could also be counted among them.
Here in line, standing beside Nenive as we’re turned away at the door, I imagine I’m lumped into the ignorant foreigner category. I fantasize about saying something clever to the bouncer in Malay, and the small brown girl in my head opens her mouth to let jargon in the shape of the language fall out. Clutching the pendant, I consider the many things I wish I could change about myself.
“Well, I’m not going in there without her,” Nenive is saying. “She’s paying my way. Do you see this?” She prizes the pendant out of my hand to bare it at the bouncer. “Do you know how much this is worth? Do you know how much she’s worth?”
The bouncer shows no interest until the pendant presents a dazzling display. He freezes, and the crowd and music fall silent as the stones around the sword, and the sword itself, continue to catch light from some unseen source. I squeeze my eyes shut when it blinds me.
In the darkness I hear the rush of blood, cries of death and heartbreak, the shush of a blade thrust into dark, fertile soil. I am the conqueror.
I force my eyes open and music floods my ears. The bouncer is looking from the pendant to me, as if trying to work out the math. If he’s seen or heard anything unusual, he doesn’t show it. I struggle to regain composure, but I’m feverish and weak, still recovering from the vision.
“Get inside,” the bouncer says to Nenive.
My friend throws a triumphant wink at the man and drags me into the club after her.
As the thrill of the vision fades, self-awareness returns. My sweating skin, my acne breakouts, a fold of what Mom insists on calling baby fat chafing against the waist of my shorts.
And the
n there’s my hair. Waiting for Nenive’s arrival, before my mom nearly upended my plans, I had tried to work my frizzy curls into submission with the cheap flat iron I’d begged Mom to purchase at Bugis, willfully forgetting the fact of Singapore’s humidity. As Nenive and I dance our way around the club, I try to ignore the tickles across my scalp, the sensation announcing the undoing of my hard work. Mom and her cavalcade of hairdressers never know what to do with my curls, nor do I; right now, I can tell my hair is assuming the shape of its most recent cut, turning my head into a conical mesa abbreviated by my face.
My hair, my body, my clothes all mock me for thinking I could be anyone else simply because I have Nenive.
I swipe sweat off my brow and focus on navigating the crowd, bobbing across the floor moored to Nenive with the tourists and expats she gathers in her wake.
This happens almost every time we’re together. Nenive thought it was funny when I dubbed her persistent admirers Satellites. After a while, some of them drift off to rejoin their friends, giving one long look back at her. Others remain with us. They jostle me as if unaware of my presence, threatening to push me out of the circle as they make for their target. But I’m small and nimble. I wrap my hand around the pendant to remind myself that Nenive chose me. Steadied by a surge of adrenaline, I dart through the Satellites and am rewarded. Nenive’s fingers reach out to dig into my arm, holding my position beside her.
A song throbs to a close, bleeding into the next track, and the man who’s worked hardest to unmoor me whispers in Nenive’s ear. I shift away, not wanting to become a third wheel, but her grip tightens.
“Come on, free drinks,” she shouts, already tugging me to a high table. While the man orders from the bar, his friends who had also remained in our circle on the dance floor gather around as if to pen Nenive in.
She makes small talk with them. I used to listen in on these conversations in case she dropped some information about her life. I figure she’s British because of the accent, but that’s about all I’ve got. I don’t even know if she’s visiting with her parents. Or if she has parents. Anyway, I don’t bother to listen anymore. The Satellites are always so busy selling themselves that they never get around to asking her questions about herself. I doubt they’d think to, even if they took a breather from competing with one another for the next word.
