Another honk outside; I could read Erik’s impatience in it. “Look,” I said hastily, “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”
As soon as I hung up, Karin was shaking her head while leading the way downstairs. “Erik is here. Right here. That Goth guy” — she spun around on the landing to point accusingly at my cell phone as if it was the culprit himself — “was a tourist. He’s in Seattle. Five hours away.”
“I know that.”
“Five hours,” she repeated, as though I didn’t know. As though I wouldn’t ever be worth a minute of anyone’s commute. “Okay, so forget Erik for a second. Why would you start something now with a guy who’s still going to be in high school when you’re off in college? It doesn’t make any sense. And how can you be going all the way to China with him? You don’t even know him.”
The small details of Jacob’s life — who his friends were, what his favorite movie was — those may have been unknown to me still. But they were topographical features I could fill in later. We knew each other — or at least, he knew me — in all the ways that truly mattered, the shape of my fears, the contours of my dreams. Everything, I thought guiltily, except for one thing: I had a boyfriend who was waiting for me in the driveway.
As usual, Erik didn’t notice me until I was inside his truck, his loud music crowding me to the door. Our regular routine. I wanted to jump out of my skin, I felt so stifled. Between the music that I didn’t even like to all of my false assurances — “I’ll break up with Erik tomorrow” — and all the lame excuses for why today wasn’t the day to end our relationship, I was suffocating. And shocked that he was still my boyfriend just as Mom was stunned that she hasn’t lost an ounce since Christmas and Karin that she hasn’t toned her thighs. Inertia is so easy — don’t fix what’s not broken. Leave well enough alone. So we end up accepting what is broken, mistaking complaining for action, procrastinating for deliberation.
So what if Karin was right? What if distance had only made my heart grow fonder? I now stared unseeing at the long line of cars stretched in front of us on the highway while Dad barked out his coughs, each one making Mom flinch in the front seat. Maybe my conversations with Jacob were nothing but spiderwebs, sparkling with the fresh dew of newness, stringing us together, but gaping with holes? Karin had a point. Five hours away was still five hours away. We hadn’t seen each other once since Christmas. And he still had a year left in high school; I was heading to college.
I didn’t have to wonder for much longer how it would be when Jacob and I were finally together again.
We arrived at the SeaTac airport.
Dad maneuvered cautiously across three lanes, so slowly he lost our place at the curb, not once but twice. Through the gap between his seat and Mom’s, I could see how he gripped the steering wheel, the sinews of his hands ridge lines of impotent furor. That’s how his temper worked. It pushed out of him like newly formed mountains.
“It’s okay, Grant. We’ve got plenty of time,” soothed Mom.
Dad made an impatient, silent gesture at her to shush. Berating Mom should have been second nature, but apparently thinking up all those precisely aimed insults commanded more brain power than I had assumed. He had lost his cough, too, I noticed.
Once parked, Dad shot out of the car. I followed him more slowly to the trunk, where he was efficiently hauling out Mom’s tote bag and my backpack, our two other pieces of wheeled luggage, and throwing them like so much garbage onto the ground. Dad didn’t breathe hard from the effort of ejecting us.
I lugged the bags to the curb, feeling every ounce of our jackets, extra medication, and back-up shoes. Norah had cautioned us to pack light. But how do you do that when you need to be prepared for all the emergencies and tragedies Dad had so generously shared with us?
“All right, everyone, move on!” the traffic cop shouted, blowing his whistle. He pointed at us. Dad waved I know at him before hissing at Mom, who was checking her purse: “Hurry up, Lois.”
What she was looking for, I don’t know. I myself had triple-checked that both of us had our passports, tickets, and boarding passes.
“People are waiting.” Dad aimed a sycophantic smile at the traffic cop, who was now glaring at us.
“Oh! Sorry!” Mom apologized automatically. Her forehead and nose glistened with sweat and oil.
“Wipe your face.” Dad mimed the motion roughly. She could have been a toddler, incapable of focusing on a simple set of verbal directions.
Mom pulled out a Kleenex, dabbed her face as she was told. Still, she made no move to vacate the car, a panic attack away from calling this trip off, I could tell. I abandoned the luggage at the curb and held out my hand to Mom, waited for her to take it. For a moment, she hesitated. Then, relieved, I felt her smooth palm, her soft fingers that were too wide for her wedding ring, slip into mine. I eased her out to me.
As soon as I shut the passenger door, Dad ducked his head so I couldn’t read his face.
“You have everything,” he said, not quite command, not quite question.
“Everything that we need,” said Mom.
The cop’s whistle blew again. Dad jogged to the driver’s side, but not before I saw an odd shifting in his face. Under his shellacked irritation was something else. Not quite regret. More like loneliness. I hadn’t seen that expression before. Or maybe, I thought as Dad gazed out the window at Mom for one brief moment, it was just that I had never allowed myself to notice it.
The car engine started with a burst of burnt smoke. The way Dad drove off, you would have thought he was making a quick getaway with a couple of hot maps, newly stolen, in the backseat.
Mom stared after Dad’s car like she had misplaced something.
“He’s not good at goodbyes,” she explained to me softly.
“I know,” I chimed in the wake of Mom’s excuse. I was just as guilty of burnishing our family’s outward perfection as she was. “Ready?”
She crossed her arms, chilled more from Dad’s abrupt departure than the pleasant spring breeze. I swung my backpack onto my shoulders and rolled the two suitcases behind me, one in each hand. That left Mom with the lightest tote bag and her purse. As we were swept into the airport filled with people who knew where they were going, I kept close to Mom, my hot map that I refused to lose.
Chapter nineteen
Orienteering for girls
ONCE THROUGH THE SECURITY LINE, I bent down to retie my sneakers, making a note to travel in slip-on shoes the next time. Next time? Swaddled in my thick sweatshirt and wool socks (Lydia had warned me that airplanes were always cold), I was sweating. Profusely. Focused on collecting all our bits, I couldn’t have cared less if my makeup was streaking. Travel was so overrated.
Naturally, our gate had to be the farthest possible point from where we stood. I waited for Mom, who had plopped herself down on a bench, legs splayed, to put on her shoes. Almost without realizing it, I scanned the crowd for a Goth guy and his mom, even though we had agreed to meet at the gate. When Mom straightened, she was huffing, proving that traveling was heavy exertion. Up ahead, an upscale food court gleamed, an oasis after the security detail. Grayish light filtered in through the windowed wall, spanning three stories of sheer glass.
“Maybe I’ll get us a little something,” Mom said, gazing appraisingly at the Starbucks kiosk. She glanced sideways at me. “Remember how Merc says they never feed you on the airplanes anymore.”
I swiftly calculated the time we had before boarding. Over two hours. “Sure.”
Intent on finding us an empty table, I nearly barreled into a guy who stepped in my path. What the hell? Considering the momentum from the weight I was carrying on my shoulders, both my thirty-two pound backpack (I had weighed it at home) and Mom’s bag, I barely stopped in midstride.
“Excuse me,” I muttered, not bothering to make eye contact with the dolt until he spoke.
The one voice that could make my heart whip in circles like a compass gone awry now said, “I knew you missed me, but
I didn’t know how much.”
I looked up, grinning, and then did a double take. Gone was my Goth guy with dark eyes outlined in kohl and lips painted in black. In his place stood a fresh-faced skater dude, wearing a faded T-shirt, long baggy shorts and — no way . . .
“Flip-flops?” I asked, incredulous.
His answering smile was long, lopsided, familiar in that unfamiliar face. “Yeah.”
“Don’t you know those are the worst shoes to wear on an airplane? All the books say you’re supposed to have your feet covered so your toes don’t get smashed during an emergency. . . .”
Without warning, Jacob folded me in his arms. That, too, felt familiar somehow. Into my hair, he whispered, “I’ll tell you what. If our plane goes down, I’ll still let you save me.”
And then he released me.
I breathed out, annoyed by his words, even more annoyed that I wanted to stay in his arms. Just like that, my fear that we might be awkward around each other — or more accurately, that I would be too self-conscious to talk to him — vanished.
“You bet I’d have to save you.” I pointed at his bruised toenail. “I cite evidence A. Cover your feet.”
Just as I lowered my backpack to the empty chair at my side, Jacob hefted it up, testing its weight, and then quirked an eyebrow at me. “So, Control Freak, let me guess. Three guidebooks, a month’s worth of PowerBars, and your own portable medicine cabinet.”
I flushed and decided now was not the time to correct him: that would be four guidebooks. A half dozen granola bars. An entire drugstore’s inventory of hand wipes and antibacterial goop. And a medical supply worthy of a doctor’s respect — Benadryl, Tylenol, Metamucil (you never knew). Really, it was a miracle Mom and I hadn’t been mistaken for drug mules.
“You know, I liked us better on the phone,” I told him, swatting his hand off my backpack.
“I don’t.” Jacob flushed red and busied himself with adjusting the straps on his backpack that had fit him just fine a moment ago.
“I don’t either.”
“So,” he said, his voice gruff, “you walked right past me.”
“I didn’t recognize you.” I waved at his new look, glad that one thing hadn’t changed: his hair. That was still spiked up, but no longer orange-tipped. “Why’d you change?”
“Why did you?”
For the first time, I felt his stare on my cheek, spackled with thick makeup. I flinched, glanced away, unable to answer. Thankfully, Mom approached us, loaded with four coffees and a huge paper bag, no doubt filled with enough provisions to last our entire flight. “Jacob!” she cried. “It’s good to see you again. Where’s your mom?”
“Waiting for you at the gate.” He easily slung my backpack over one shoulder and Mom’s carry-on bag over his other. When I protested — “I can do it” — he said, “Just let me, okay?”
It was hard to let someone help me, though, when I was conditioned to believe that help was for the weak. What was even harder was watching Mom with Norah, their heads bowed together as they chortled over something or another in the waiting area. They couldn’t have looked more different, Mom in her matching pale pink sweatpants and sweatshirt and bright white tennis shoes, and Norah, the picture of the world traveler, poured into brown suede pants. A camel-colored pashmina shawl was draped casually around her thin shoulders. She had lost weight since we last saw her, and I remembered that a week from now, her ex — Jacob’s dad — was getting remarried. Trevor had decided he wanted to wear a tux and be the ring bearer in the wedding.
“You sure you don’t want to be at the wedding, too?” I asked Jacob now.
“I wouldn’t go if he was giving free tickets to . . .” He waved with the last of his cinnamon twist.
“The Galapagos.”
“Exactly.” Again, the grin that I had missed so much. He took the final bite of his donut and still looked voracious. So I gave him the rest of mine. “Thanks. So Mom’s quitting her job.”
“You’re kidding. But it was everything she worked for,” I said, thinking wistfully of the company jet she flew in, the countries she traveled to, the Range Rover she drove . . . all the security money could buy except for stability at home. I leaned toward Norah and Mom, wondering what they were talking about two seats down from us. My efforts to eavesdrop didn’t go unnoticed.
“They’re doing fine,” Jacob assured me both then and again a half hour after take-off when he switched seats with Mom so she and Norah could keep each other company.
For the fifth time since she left our row, I leaned across the empty aisle seat to make sure Mom was okay up in the roomier business class section where Norah, as a frequent flier, had been upgraded. She didn’t return my look, too busy chattering with Norah.
“Do you want to switch seats?” Jacob asked. “Look out the window for a while?”
“No, thanks.” The window seat made me feel trapped, confined. I didn’t like losing my ability to jump up and out if I needed to, whether to help Mom or escape if the plane went down.
“Just so you know, they’re ordering wine.”
“They are?” I craned into the aisle again. Sure enough, the flight attendant was handing them two small bottles of wine. And then came Mom’s unmistakable snort, which meant she was really laughing, a belly laugh that was rare as an endangered species at home.
Jacob stretched his legs out in front of him. “I know it’s a foreign concept to you, but just kick back.”
“I can relax.”
“Yeah.” Again with the teasing grin. “So what’s up with the yoga poses?” He mimicked me maneuvering in my seat to spy on Mom.
I laughed so hard, the balding man in front of us turned around to shush me.
Chagrined, I sobered. But Jacob nudged my shoulder. “So Trouble Magnet, I bet that’s never happened to you at school. You’ve always been the ideal student. The good girl.”
“Well . . . ,” I hedged.
“It’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun corrupting you.”
“I’d be more scared if you were in your Goth getup.”
Now, he started on the scone Mom had bought for him, licked the sugar crystals off his fingers. “It’s all costume.” He plucked at his polo shirt. “This is, that was.”
“So why Goth and not . . . ?”
“Prep? Soccer guy?”
I nodded.
“Because . . .” He rapped his fingers on the tray as if he was uncomfortable. If we were on the phone, distance making intimacy safe, he’d answer me straight up. I thought he’d drop it now, use the flight attendant who was asking us if we wanted water to deflect this conversation. But as soon as she pushed the beverage cart on, he answered, “Because people stared at me whenever I went out with my parents. I mean, you might expect little Chinese girls to be adopted, but not boys.”
I hated to admit it, but I had done the same. I confessed: “I’m one of the lame ones. Sorry.”
He waved aside my apology. “So I figured if people were going to stare at me anyway, then I would choose the terms of their staring. I can dictate what they see.”
“So what’s with the surfer look now?”
“People aren’t going to be staring at me in China; they’ll be staring at Mom.” He smirked. “And you.”
“Oh, right.” I toyed with my cup of water, overly iced, but I had been too polite to protest when the flight attendant handed it to me. I admitted, “I had never thought of dress as costume.” Just makeup as mask. “So what’s next? Geek chic?”
When Jacob spluttered in good-natured offense, I didn’t even mind that the guy ahead of us turned around to scowl at us again. As Jacob and I cackled about that quietly to ourselves, all I have to say is that being corrupted felt oh so good.
Chapter twenty
Large-Scale Maps
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS INTO THE TRIP, I’d pretty much determined that traveling was all about waiting. Waiting for the trip to start. Waiting to load onto the airplane. Waiting to unload. Waiting to have o
ur passports inspected and stamped by grim-faced administrators.
“You doing okay?” asked Jacob.
To tell the truth, I was woozy from waiting around, partly because I had only dozed for a few hours on the plane — Jacob and I had spent most of the time talking — and mostly because of the crowds, waiting with us to have their passports checked. An old man in a modern Mao suit jostled past me and barked something at Jacob. He shrugged, replying defensively, “I don’t speak Chinese.”
It was Norah who answered in Mandarin, surprising me and the old man, who nodded brusquely and moved to another line after casting a final disparaging look at Jacob. He flinched, looked down at his feet. Norah missed that silent exchange, too busy telling Mom, “Jacob stopped speaking Mandarin almost as soon as we brought him home. I even went to Chinese school with him, but he refused to say a word. I have no idea why. So I just stuck with it.”
From Jacob’s reticent expression, I had an inkling why he had clung exclusively and stubbornly to English. As obvious as my birthmark was, at least I could cover it up. How could Jacob hide that he was adopted whenever he stepped out with his blond mom? And it wasn’t as if Norah wasn’t forthright about his adoption herself. I mean, she openly explained to us — veritable strangers — in Leavenworth that little boys were abandoned in China, too, not just unwanted girls. Maybe using English was one way Jacob blended in.
Ahead of us, Norah was confiding to Mom, “Being a foreigner now is no big deal, but two decades ago when I first started coming to China, I’d never been that stared at before.”
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