Summer Bird Blue

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

  “I’m not playing in front of the whole school, Lea. It’s embarrassing,” I say. “Besides, it’s your guitar. If you want to make a scene, you can do it on your own.”

  She curls her hair behind her ears and purses her lips. “You have to play. I’m using my second wish.”

  I feel my heart pound.

  She holds her hand out like she’s waiting for her intro.

  I sigh. “You don’t get a do-over. Wishes are nonrefundable. You’ll only have one left for the history of ever. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

  “A wish is a wish. Play the song, Rumi.”

  I strum the melody of “Boy Wink Music,” and before I know it, I’m losing myself in the song, our voices harmonizing together like fire and oxygen. Every note makes our confidence grow, and midway through the song I realize there’s a crowd surrounding us. They’re as hypnotized by the music as we are.

  When the song ends, our schoolyard audience breaks into enthusiastic applause. My face burns fiercely and my chest is thumping rapidly, but I’m smiling wider than I have in weeks. Lea grabs my hand and forces me to take a goofy bow alongside her. I’m dizzy with adrenaline, and by the sound of her infectious giggling, she is too.

  She nudges me with her shoulder. “See? Wasn’t that fun?”

  My ears are ringing from the excitement of performing. Some people are still clapping and urging us to sing another song. I’m not going to lie—I’m ready to sing another ten.

  But I roll my eyes anyway because Lea wouldn’t recognize me if I didn’t. “I still can’t believe you wasted a wish on that.”

  “It wasn’t a waste,” she whispers. “Look how happy you are.”

  I can’t fight my smile. It’s stretched so far across my face that my cheeks hurt.

  Because I love the crowd. I love the energy of people who like my music—our music. It’s encouraging and inspiring and it fills my soul with motivation to keep writing. To keep creating.

  And Lea knows what the crowd does to me, the same way she always knew as a child how much I needed her to listen to me practice scales on a piano or strum clumsily along to songs on the radio.

  I like sharing music with the world. It’s one of the very few things I know I’ll never change my mind about.

  My sister used one of her wishes to give me a moment of happiness.

  I don’t think I’ll ever deserve her for as long as I live.

  Even when she’s gone, she’s still leading me back to music—back to what brings me the most joy. She’s selfless even in death, and I don’t know what to make of that.

  I miss her so much, and I’d grant her a thousand more wishes if it meant I could have her back.

  But I have her ghost. I have her in the music.

  I need that to mean something.

  When the song ends, I flatten my palm against the strings and look up at the faces across from me.

  Life buzzes over every inch of my skin.

  Izzy raises a fist in the air and lets out a melodic howl. “Eh, not bad, sistah. Not bad at all.”

  Camille smiles. “You definitely need to come to the Coconut Shack on Thursday.”

  When I look at Kai, he’s smiling too.

  “Maybe I will,” I say to him more than anyone else.

  Izzy reaches behind Camille and finds the football. Spinning it in her hands, she asks, “Who like toss da ball around wit’ me?”

  Gareth and Jerrod are the first to leap up. Kai starts to, and then remembers his hand and gives a sheepish wave to send them off.

  Hannah giggles, shaking her head at him. “That’s what you get for trying to act like the Hulk.”

  Kai buries his eyes in the crook of his arm and muffles his groan. “Don’t pick on me. I’m suffering enough.”

  Hannah keeps making fun of him, egging on his stifled laughter, but I’m suddenly tuning them out. There’s a guitar in my hands—I’m not interested in anything else but the hope of music.

  I strum a few more chords, slowly at first, and then I fall into a gentle rhythm that mimics the sound of the water, the dull laughter across the sand, and the football sailing through the air.

  I think of my words—the ones I’m having such a hard time finding. I think of what Jae-Jae told me—about missing the sparkle. And I look across at Kai, and even though his voice is drowned out by the music in my head, I frame my lyrics around his dark hair, his electric eyes, and the hope that maybe—just maybe—Lea lured me to him with the song on the radio.

  Not because she wanted me to kiss him, but because she knew how much I needed a friend.

  I think of the words I want to write down.

  And when I get home, I scribble everything into my notebook so I’ll never forget them.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  For the next two days, I don’t stop writing. I write and rewrite and do it all again. I write late into the evening, strumming against the borrowed ukulele like it’s the very cure for everything I’m feeling.

  By Thursday afternoon, I not only have a song I like, but I have a song I want to perform. And feeling ready to perform feels so incredible and powerful that I don’t stop smiling all day.

  “What’s wrong?” Aunty Ani asks when she sees me at the table.

  “Nothing. I’m just in a good mood,” I say.

  “That’s exactly why I’m confused,” she replies.

  I shrug, but I’m still smiling.

  When Kai drives me to the Coconut Shack, even he notices something is different.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, his eyes filled with concern.

  I shake my head, cradling Mr. Watanabe’s ukulele in my lap. “I’m great, actually. I’m excited, and I haven’t been excited in . . . well, a while.”

  And then he smiles too, and I feel like I’m doing the right thing for the first time in months.

  Izzy, Camille, and the rest of their band perform first. They’re really good, and it doesn’t even make me nervous. I’m not sure if that’s strange.

  Jae-Jae turns up when I’m still waiting to go onstage.

  “Aunty Sun told me you were performing tonight. I didn’t want to miss it,” she says, giving me a huge hug.

  I bounce with giddiness. Giddiness. I don’t know what’s happening to me.

  More and more people go up to perform. Some of them are amateurs, some of them are seasoned pros, but all of them are up there because they’re passionate about music.

  I love every second of it.

  Kai, Hannah, Gareth, and Jae-Jae all sit around the same table drinking soda and picking at a nacho platter when I go backstage. There’s a problem with the list, so I wait off to the side while the manager squeezes in a couple extra singers.

  That’s when the nerves hit me.

  I’m jittery and jumpy and I feel like there’s lightning shooting through my fingertips. I squeeze the neck of the ukulele in one hand and tap the side of my leg again and again and again with the other, like I’m playing “The Flight of the Bumblebee.”

  And then I’m sitting in the middle of the stage with the lights shining down on me and a microphone at my lips.

  I don’t see the audience. I don’t see the room. I close my eyes and I don’t see anything at all.

  “Hey, guys. My name is Rumi.” Someone shouts and claps—maybe Kai, but maybe Izzy. I clear my throat. “This song is kind of a work in progress. It’s called ‘In Time.’ ”

  It was late at night,

  I was sitting in the dark,

  You found me on a driveway

  with a broken heart.

  You were looking at a ghost,

  but I don’t think you knew,

  All you saw was a girl

  that you somehow saw through.

  And I think you should know,

  you can’t erase the pain,

  but that doesn’t mean,

  I’m not ready to live again.

  I feel restless, hopeless,

  Useless, powerless,

  I feel a
s still as a photograph,

  I don’t know how to go back

  in time.

  And I’m not fearless, painless,

  Selfless or harmless,

  But whenever you’re near me,

  I find myself falling

  in time.

  My fingers shift across the fret board in time with the verses and bridge, and when I strum the final chord, I open my eyes and see the fluttering picture of cheers and applause rolling through the crowd.

  Onstage with my heart and ukulele, I’m beaming like the sun after an eclipse. The bright overhead lights make me flinch. I’m quickly trying to look for our table—for Kai—but I don’t see him. Just his empty chair and a half-empty glass of Pepsi.

  “Thanks,” I mumble into the microphone, hopping off the stool and making my way to the side of the small stage.

  People clap their hands on my shoulders as I walk past them, congratulating me on the song and telling me how much they enjoyed it. I keep muttering “Thank you” over and over again, my eyes forever scanning the busy room.

  For a moment my heart sinks. I don’t see Kai anywhere. Did he miss the song?

  God, I hope not. I needed him to hear it. I needed him to get it—not just the words, but what it means to have finished a song at all. To have written something that was Rumi without Lea and not have it destroy me completely. I need him to know he’s been helping with that, just by being my friend.

  But I don’t see him anywhere.

  I look out toward the table one more time, and I see Gareth and Jerrod demolishing the rest of the nachos. Izzy and Camille are talking to themselves, their eyes skipping around the crowd now and then like they’re waiting for someone—probably me.

  I bite the edge of my lip and take a step toward them. I don’t know where Kai is, but I don’t want to be alone right now. I want to talk about what happened onstage. I want to talk about the music and how it made me feel, and—

  I feel his fingers brush my arm before his voice reaches my ears. “Hapa.”

  I turn around and see Kai, his irises glinting like tigereye stones—brown and gold and warm. I clutch the ukulele closer to my chest.

  “You like walk with me?” he asks, and I’m nodding before he’s even finished the question.

  We go downstairs, weaving through tables and groups of people waiting at the bar, and make our way across the parking lot toward the sandy beach. The sky is a deep plum, and if it weren’t for the scattering of stars above, I’d find it hard to see where the sky ends and the ocean begins.

  The scent of burning coals on a barbecue from the restaurant across the road makes my mouth water. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast because I was too worried I’d vomit onstage.

  But now my stomach is rumbling, and Kai’s silence and indiscernible expression in the darkness are making me nervous.

  “So,” I say, because the silence is heavier than a beluga whale.

  “So,” he says back, and I’m relieved to hear the grin in his voice. “You wrote a song about me.”

  “I did,” I say. “But not in an Adele kind of way.”

  “What’s that exactly?”

  “The I-wrote-a-song-about-you-because-I-feel-emotionally-attached-and-maybe-still-have-romantic-feelings-for-you-but-I’m-too-scared-to-tell-you-in-person kind of way.”

  His laugh sounds like wild raindrops covering the entire earth. I take a breath and inhale the sea.

  Kai shrugs. “You don’t have to say anything. I get it.”

  “You do?”

  I can see the movement of his nod—the shift of shadow and moonlight. I know he’s beautiful, but just because something is beautiful doesn’t mean I want to kiss it. Someone can be beautiful and I don’t want to have a romantic relationship with them.

  There are other kinds of relationships I find more important. Family. Friendships. Music.

  What I have with Kai—it’s helping me to heal. I didn’t realize it at first, but that’s because I was too stubborn and confused and angry at the world. I used to think I could be happy alone, but that’s when I still had Lea and Mom.

  With them gone . . .

  I don’t want to be alone.

  I shouldn’t be alone.

  Being friends with Kai makes me feel connected to the world again. It makes me feel grounded.

  I don’t know how he could possibly understand all of that without me explaining it to him.

  Kai crosses his arms. Uncrosses them. Scratches the side of his head. “You’re not a ghost, you know.”

  I swallow a lump in my throat I didn’t even realize was there.

  “I know you think you are, but you aren’t. I’m not saying you don’t feel broken or lost or incomplete without your sistah, but you’re whole. You’re a whole person. Your family might not look the same as it used to, but you’re whole. And you don’t have to worry that I’m going to stop being your friend.” He stops walking, and I look up at the whites of his eyes, which glint in the darkness. “It’s okay that you don’t like me like that. You need a friend, and I care about you. So I can be that friend. I know that’s all it’s ever going to be, and that’s okay. And . . . you don’t need to worry I’m going to stop being your friend. Or that I’ll leave you and you’ll be alone again. Because I think maybe that’s why you wrote that song.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “I know what a big deal it is that you finished writing a whole song and that you were able to perform it onstage. But I think you wrote it fo’ me because you’re worried we’re going to stop being friends or something.”

  “That’s not true,” I say.

  He lifts his shoulders. “You didn’t go along with kissing me because you were afraid of telling me sooner that you didn’t like me that way?”

  “No—I—that’s not,” I start, but I can’t untangle my words. Because the truth is, I hadn’t really thought about it. The truth is, maybe he’s right.

  “I think you know yourself more than you realize,” Kai says. “You don’t have to be afraid of who you are. Especially not around me. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

  I feel like I should argue with him and tell him he’s wrong. I feel like I should say a hundred different reasons why I kissed him and why I wrote a song for him. I want to insist that I’m not afraid of anything, and I don’t care if he wants to be in or out of my life, because I don’t need anybody and I’m fine by myself.

  But I can’t lie to Kai. I don’t want to.

  “Thank you,” I say instead.

  Kai is so stoic and serious. I feel like we’re supposed to hug, or cry, or . . . something emotional. And I’m halfway through deciding whether I should lift my arm and wrap it around his shoulder when he raises his hand and boops me on the nose.

  Seriously. He’s so weird.

  I blink. “Did you just boop my nose?”

  Kai laughs at the same time a wave crashes into the sand, which makes me feel like the entire beach is laughing at me. “I’m sorry. It was getting awkward.”

  “And you thought that would make it less awkward?”

  He shrugs. “You’re smiling.”

  “I am not. You can’t even see anything. It’s way too dark.”

  “I can see your teeth. They’re glowing under the streetlights, like one bigfin reef squid.”

  “What are you even talking about?”

  “Bioluminescence.”

  I try to keep a straight face, but there’s no point—the laughter pours out of me until my eyes are watering, and then I’m telling Kai he’s the one who’s lolo, and he’s telling me he loved my song.

  We’re friends, walking along the beach at night, and it feels like maybe the world is steadier than I realized.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  I don’t expect to see Aunty Ani when I get home because it’s almost midnight, but she’s sitting at the dining room table with her hands cradling a mug of tea. She must’ve taken a shower recently because her dark brown hair is heavy
and damp, and she’s wearing her purple bathrobe.

  I set the ukulele on the couch and stop in the middle of the room, like I’m standing at a crossroads between Aunty Ani and bed.

  “Were you waiting up for me?” I ask.

  She pulls her fingers away from the mug and lets them fall to the table. “Of course I am. You’re seventeen. You’re my responsibility.”

  I scratch the back of my arm. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “But I do.” She motions to the chair across from her. “You like keep me company fo’ a few minutes? Tell me how your night went?”

  I let myself fall in the chair because I’m too tired to argue. And also, it feels like I’ve been avoiding Aunty Ani for a long time. Maybe too long.

  It’s not her fault Lea died. It’s not her fault Mom left. I need to stop punishing her for events she had no control over.

  I let out a sigh, and I don’t think I’m tired from walking around the beach with Kai and spending the night singing karaoke with my friends—I think I’ve been tired for a while.

  “Come on, I’m not that bad, eh?” Aunty Ani makes a face.

  I smile and shake my head. “It wasn’t meant for you. It’s just been a long”—I pause—“few months.”

  She reaches toward me and places her hand over mine like she doesn’t want me to fly away too quickly. “I’m always here, you know. If you ever need anything. Even if you don’t need anything—even if you just like know somebody is here.”

  I think about Kai and Hannah and Gareth and Jerrod and Aunty Ani and Mr. Watanabe and even Poi. They’re all here.

  Losing Lea and Mom was sudden. It felt like the world threw me overboard and I was swimming in darkness. And maybe I’ve been terrified all change would be like that—scary and lonely and confusing. But maybe some change is gradual. It creeps up on you so slowly you don’t even realize what’s happening, until suddenly the world feels stable again.

  I don’t feel like I’m floating anymore. I don’t feel like a ghost.

  “She wants to see you. She’s desperate.” Aunty Ani’s eyes don’t leave mine. “Maybe you could just give her a few minutes? See what she has to say?”

  I withdraw my hand slowly and push it into my lap. Aunty Ani flexes her fingers before doing the same.