North of Beautiful

by Justina Chen Headley

“You’re kidding.”

  “Unfortunately, no. Mom’s making up for lost time, learning all the crafts she’s always wanted to do.”

  “My mom didn’t mention this to me.”

  “They’ve been conspiring. We’re supposed to pick up my mom now. Ready?”

  From behind me, I could feel Karin staring at us through the window, confused and irritated, trying to determine if I had completely lost my mind. Maybe. But I found something else instead.

  “Ready,” I said and opened the door to his truck. My seat was still warm.

  “You could make a killing on these in Seattle,” Norah said, examining the candles Mom had set out earlier on the kitchen island as examples. Those, Mom had made months ago in preparation for Merc’s homecoming. Vanilla scented the air thick as a bakery while the candles burned.

  “On these?” Mom shook her head skeptically. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “With the right packaging, boutiques would snatch them up. Trust me, you could price these at forty dollars apiece and they’d sell out.”

  “Forty each?” Mom squeaked.

  “Maybe even fifty.”

  As if this were a lab class, Mom had divided the kitchen into different work stations: the display area for finished and cooling candles at the island. The microwave — which I was manning — to melt batches of soy wax. At the kitchen table, Jacob and Trevor had been put to work spooning wax flakes into Pyrex measuring cups. Originally, Norah had been in charge of pouring the melted wax into glass votives, but she hadn’t mastered the art of straightening the wicks. So Mom had reassigned her to cutting the wicks into equal seven-inch lengths.

  Now, I twisted away from the microwave and saw for myself what Norah meant by the candles. They were beautiful, but naked. With the right labels, the perfect packaging, the candles could be stunning, not to mention more valuable. How come I never thought of designing professional labels for Mom? How hard would that have been?

  Over at the kitchen table, Jacob encouraged Trevor, “Right on, little man” as Trevor spooned flakes messily into a glass measuring cup. They may not have looked like brothers, but you could feel their bond every time Trevor looked up at Jacob for praise. Something tightened inside me, the familiar ache for my own brothers. Maybe Mom and I should brave China. There, I could make amends with Merc.

  “I don’t know,” Mom said again. Dad’s skepticism had worn away her confidence as surely as running water to rock, eroding it layer by layer until there was nothing left but sandy insecurity. She chuckled now, sounding eerily like Dad when he was denigrating an idea. “Could you even turn a profit on these?”

  “It’s all about sourcing the right raw materials at the best price, no different from coffee beans,” said Norah authoritatively. She picked up one of the unlit candles, held it up to the light. “Maybe in China or India.”

  The microwave beeped just as Mom cried, “China!” She tempered her voice to a confiding tone, “That’s so weird. My son wants me and Terra to visit him there.”

  “Really? I love China,” said Norah enthusiastically. She set the candle down and picked up her scissors to clip a few more wicks. I noticed that the uniform seven-inch lengths Mom had specified were getting progressively shorter. “Where?”

  “Well, he lives in Shanghai.”

  “Shanghai is one of my favorite cities. You’ll love it. When are you going?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. . . .” Mom brushed her hair nervously behind her ears.

  Norah snipped a piece of string decisively. “I’ll take you.”

  “What?” asked Mom.

  I echoed her sentiment, almost dropping the hot Pyrex measuring cup that I was removing from the microwave. “I’ve been meaning to bring Jacob back there,” said Norah, “visit his orphanage, try to track down his birth mother.”

  Hastily, I set it on a hot pad and then swiveled to face Norah. As I did, I found myself searching Jacob’s grim expression.

  Oblivious to Jacob’s look of horror and annoyance, Norah continued, “It’ll be fun. I’m sure I could figure out where you could buy all the materials you needed for these candles or whatever else you wanted. And then we could hit the fabric markets, have some clothes made.”

  “Really?” Mom lit up, incandescent as the burning candles around us now that someone other than me would guide her. I couldn’t blame her for not trusting me. Dad was right; I spun around three times and lost all sense of direction. How could I navigate China?

  “Mom,” Jacob cut in, his tone sharper than I’d ever heard him, “this isn’t even logical. It’s against the law to abandon a kid in China. So there aren’t any records at the orphanage. Zero. Zilch.”

  I slanted a gaze at him. The look he returned was so forbidding, it was clear he didn’t want the trip to happen, didn’t want Mom and me to be part of any expedition to his orphanage. I didn’t blame him. A trip like that should be a private odyssey.

  Obstinately, Norah asked, “When were you thinking of going?”

  Neither Mom nor I had seriously considered traveling to China, but Mom now said as with the firm conviction of someone committed to an itinerary, “Spring break. That’s when Merc booked the tickets.”

  “What about Dad’s wedding?” Jacob asked, his tone goading.

  Norah’s face shuttered. “What about it?”

  “It’s the first weekend of April, too.”

  Norah glanced to see if Trevor was paying attention. But he was busy mounding mountains of wax flakes and running them over with his backhoe toy, complete with beeping sound effects. More quietly now, she told Jacob, “You can go to your father’s wedding. Really, it would be perfectly fine with me. In fact, I want you to go. We can always visit your orphanage at another time.”

  Jacob stood up, shaking his head. He raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t want to go.”

  Did he mean his dad’s wedding? China? Or both? It didn’t matter. Trevor glanced at him, concerned. Jacob managed a tight smile for him, ruffled Trevor’s hair, before heading toward the front door. “I’ll be back.”

  Part of me wanted to go after Jacob, especially when I heard his truck start with a disgruntled roar, but if anyone needed alone time, it was him. Besides, there was my mom to contain. We couldn’t go with the Fremonts; it was that simple.

  “Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Mom said, uncertain now.

  I echoed her doubt. “Yeah —”

  “Lois,” Norah interrupted, her voice low, urgent. “I don’t want to be in town” — she angled a furtive look at Trevor, censored herself just in case — “then. You’d be doing me a favor by going with me.”

  Mom returned to the soy wax cooling in the Pyrex cup. Slowly, she poured the wax into the waiting glass vessels, their wicks already superglued to the bottoms like the long pond-bound roots of lotus plants. Norah watched her, but I wasn’t sure how much she was paying attention. Her breathing was fast, uneven, the labored breath of the unwittingly trapped.

  I knew exactly what was driving Norah. Frenzied activity as a matter of survival was my modus operandi, too. People may have thought I was padding my résumé, but really, wasn’t I juggling a job, doubling up on coursework, not to mention signing up for virtually any extracurricular all to keep from spending any more time at home than I had to? This trip wasn’t about taking Mom to China or even bringing Jacob to his orphanage. It was all about escaping her ex-husband’s wedding.

  In her shoes, I would have done the same.

  By going to China, I knew I’d be overstepping some invisible boundary between me and Jacob. Maybe he hadn’t planned on us talking to each other once he went home to Seattle. Maybe he was no different from that tourist last summer who had picked up Karin, promised to call, and never did.

  That didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. Mom’s eyes sparkled, alive. I hadn’t seen her this excited about anything since before Aunt Susannah died — not even Christmas with Claudius and Merc compared to her blossoming enthusiasm.

  So when
Mom nodded and told Norah, “Let’s go, then,” I didn’t protest.

  “I’ll clean up, Dad,” I assured him as soon as he stalked into the kitchen, his lips tightening imperceptibly at the untidy pile of cut wicks, the boxes of glass jars for the candles, Trevor’s snowdrift of wax flakes powdering the table and the floor.

  “That’s okay,” he said amiably, playing the good-natured father for his audience. Norah, thankfully, was still here. He wouldn’t dare display his temper before her, not this powerful coffee buyer for a major company.

  “So it looks like I’m taking your wife and daughter to China,” said Norah brightly, almost too sweetly. I heard the challenge in her words, wondered how much Mom had divulged about our family to her when I wasn’t listening. Or was off with Jacob. She continued, “You’re more than welcome to come with us.”

  Dad was stuck; I could see it in the set line of his jaw. He couldn’t order Mom not to go, not with Norah around. And he would never consent to visiting China himself, not the source of his humiliation. Still, without a word from Dad, without a shift in his expression, Mom clasped her hands worriedly. I could see our China plans wasting away in the tide of Dad’s unspoken disapproval. I clamped my lips together, swallowing any antagonizing outburst I wanted to make, forced myself to straighten a line of finished candles. In the hallway hung Dad’s prized collection of antique maps. All matter of monsters on these maps of Europe, Africa, and the Americas were called upon to scare off would-be travelers. But those monsters, beastly warnings, never really roamed our lands, not the two-headed flesh-eating creatures, not the gryphons, not the sharp-toothed dragons.

  I turned my back on those cautionary maps now to face Mom and reminded her softly, “You always wanted to travel.”

  Mom licked her lips, parched of confidence. Dad made an impatient sound. So I told him firmly, “I’ll plan everything with Norah,” glad that Jacob’s mom nodded her assent back at me. The expression on her face stayed resolutely unfathomable, completely unobjectionable so Dad had nothing to pick apart. I continued, “And we’ll be able to see where Merc lives and where he works.” With a meaningful look at Dad, I added, “Wouldn’t it be great to see how he’s really doing?”

  “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly.

  I returned to the candles, sharing a private smile with Norah and aiming a reassuring one at Mom. Like world describers before me, those mapmakers in the seventeenth century, I had laid down my first faintly drawn border. With that one tentative mark, my world expanded by a few freeing degrees.

  Part Two

  Terra Incognita

  Chapter eighteen

  Hot Maps

  THE LAST TEN WEEKS PASSED on hourglass time, each minute slipping grudgingly through the tight bottleneck of Dad’s mounting aggravation. It rankled Dad, every detail of our trip to China. So after his initial consent in front of Norah, he had become Scherezade, spinning out daily anecdotes about China, one more frightening than the next. Take the story about his acquaintance who caught some weird staph infection and almost had to have his leg lopped off. Or the kid who broke his two front teeth falling down on the Great Wall, and instead of fixing them, the dentist had yanked them out. It was no wonder that Mom’s enthusiasm for China waned the moment he knew we were going. Keeping her onboard was itself a full-time job, as I shored up the holes in her commitment made by Dad’s battering ram of grim cautionary tales.

  But here I was, on the way to the airport, hemmed in by Mom’s anxiety, Dad’s guilt treatment, and my own concern: how was it going to be between me and Jacob? I made the mistake of glancing into the rearview mirror. Rather than Dad’s cold glare — I knew he blamed me for taking Mom away — I caught a glimpse of myself. Back in full camouflage, my face looked as heavy as it felt with all my layers of makeup on. My birthmark, despite Mom’s protests otherwise, hadn’t lightened. I wondered what Jacob would make of me covered. Whatever he thought, it couldn’t be worse than him seeing me without any makeup.

  We hadn’t talked much when he first left Colville, mostly our moms corresponding with each other, and then me working out the details of our China trip with Norah. But as soon as I made it clear that Mom and I weren’t interested in visiting his orphanage, Jacob began warming to the idea of us touring China together and actually started to offer ideas about what we could do in Shanghai first, then Beijing. The plan was to split up for the last part of the trip, the Fremonts splintering off to Huangzhou to locate Jacob’s orphanage while Mom, Merc, and I went by ourselves to Xi’an to see the terracotta warriors and the starting point of the Silk Road. Then we’d fly home together from Shanghai.

  “I labeled all your lunches and dinners in the freezer for you,” Mom murmured from the front seat. “All you have to do is remember to take them out to defrost them.”

  “I just hope they won’t get freezer burn.” Dad hacked again, the slight cough that started (conveniently) two days ago had metastasized into volcanic eruptions of his lungs. What Dad needed was a good pounding, not coddling. Clearly, Mom’s nursing gene had skipped me.

  Mom cast him yet another worried look. “Are you doing okay?”

  “How do I sound” — cough! — “Lois?”

  “Maybe you should have another cough drop?” She had already retrieved and proffered the soothing drop before Dad could muster another dramatic death rattle. To his credit, those shoulder shuddering coughs were quite impressive.

  I choked down a snicker. Dad overheard. He glowered at me in the rearview mirror, never mind it was Merc who had given us our passage to freedom. I looked resolutely out the window to the Cascade Scenic Highway, newly reopened just two weeks ago. Enough snow had finally melted.

  “The steering doesn’t work the way it used to,” Dad grumbled. Another accusatory cough. Another accusatory look.

  It was really too bad I couldn’t enjoy the drive, considering that my personal college savings paid for the car’s repair.

  Dad went back to sniping at Mom: “Why didn’t you pack the cherry Ricola? You know I hate lemon.” It was as if he finally realized that there was only so much nagging and criticizing you could do from halfway around the planet. So he was making up for it in the here and now.

  “Oh, Grant,” Mom sighed, and I willed her to remain silent, not to relent and tell Dad she had reconsidered the trip and would stay at home instead, nurse him back to health.

  The upper reaches of the mountains were still thick with snow and the sides of the road were crowded with boulders, evidence of the winter’s crop of avalanches. This early in the morning, there were only a few cars cruising the wending path, mostly obese RVs chugging past us in the opposite direction of the two-lane highway, heading toward our Valley. I wondered briefly if we were making a mistake, Mom and I, taking this trip.

  Now Dad was telling Mom, “I just hope you don’t get lost.”

  Mom had Dad’s doubt shadowing her. I had Karin’s.

  “Is it that Goth guy again?” Karin had demanded a couple of nights ago while we were studying for midterms and my cell phone rang. Jacob was always “that Goth guy” to her — as if her brain, which had instant and accurate recall of every potential Hollywood contact she made, couldn’t retain his name. “God, what is this? The second time you guys talked today?”

  “We’re just friends,” I told her, even though my heart sped when I recognized his number. I would have taken the call outside, but it was raining hard. So despite her watchful, disapproving stare, I answered the phone. “Hey.”

  “So help me out here,” Jacob said by way of hello. Once he started calling me regularly, our conversations had fallen into a routine; we dispensed with identifying ourselves and opened with a question. Today, his was: “What are you supposed to give your own dad for his wedding present?”

  “You got me on that one.”

  “I should have commissioned you to make the happy couple a collage.”

  “What? Out of a broken dollhouse framed in coffee grounds?”

  He chuckled,
and I pressed the phone to my ear, wishing I could see him, the way his eyes crinkled at the edges and his entire body bounced when he got laughing hard enough.

  Karin or no Karin, I laughed, too.

  “God, Trouble Magnet, you’re terrible,” he said, teasing, approving.

  “Me? I’m never terrible.”

  But the way Karin stared at me from her bed, I was. I turned my body totally away from her.

  “As if we’re not going to have Chinese food for the next week and a half,” he said, “Mom’s friends are taking us for a bon voyage meal at a Chinese restaurant tonight.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Nah. Afterward, Mom will have a page-long list of complaints about how Americanized the food was and all that. Don’t let her blond hair fool you. She prides herself on being more Chinese than the Chinese. Just wait until we get to China.”

  “I can’t wait.” From the corner of my eye, I caught Karin’s frown. Disgruntled, she abandoned the math book to check her teeth compulsively in the mirror. She had been white stripping them on and off since Christmas. “Everyone had gleaming white smiles in LA!” I was surprised she had any enamel left.

  “So,” said Jacob, “what’re you doing tonight — other than unpacking and repacking?”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have told you that!” I protested, but I was smiling. That is, I was until Erik honked from the driveway. I could lie, ply myself with excuses why there never was the perfect opportunity to tell Jacob about Erik. But here it was; a chance that couldn’t have been better scripted. Even Karin sensed the moment, narrowing her eyes at me meaningfully then, instead of at her reflection.

  Tell him, I thought to myself. Tell Jacob that I have a boyfriend. That Erik is leaving for Montana with his family tomorrow morning to get an early start on spring break and we are saying goodbye to each other tonight.

  But I didn’t. The truth was hard to admit: I hadn’t broken up with Erik because I was afraid that no one else could possibly want me. If Erik was my “stretch” boyfriend — the one Karin and everyone thought was a stretch for me — then Jacob was well beyond my reach, residing as he was in the realm of impossibility. He was urbane, jet-setting, wealthy (for God’s sake, he stayed at the River Rock Lodge for a week and a half!). What would he want with me? In all of our conversations, he had never once stepped over the line to hint at even being attracted to me.