Mismatch

by Lensey Namioka

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Also by Lensey Namioka

  Copyright Page

  For Saburo Namioka

  1

  As she headed toward the auditorium, Suzanne Hua knew she would nail her audition with the Lakeview High School Orchestra. She had been one of the best viola players in the orchestra at her old school. She had decided to audition at Lakeview because her sister, Rochelle, thought it would be a good way to meet some cool people. Sue didn’t make friends easily, so any opportunity to meet other kids who loved music seemed worth a try.

  As soon as Sue slipped inside the doors, she was entranced by the music coming from a violinist playing on the stage. Sue looked up at him, curious to see who could create such a beautiful sound, and saw that he was Asian American, like her. He had a slim build but wide shoulders, and he moved in a relaxed, sexy way. When he finished the passage with a brilliant run, Sue could feel her heart beating in time with the music.

  “He’s something, isn’t he?” asked Mia, a girl Sue recognized from some of her classes. Mia sat in the second row, probably waiting for her own audition. “I think he just got one of the solo parts in a double concerto.”

  Mr. Baxter, the Lakeview conductor, walked over to the violinist, and from the way they were nodding and smiling, Sue guessed that Mia was right.

  Before she could learn more, Mr. Baxter called Mia’s name.

  “Wish me luck,” said Mia. “I play clarinet in the band, but I want to try out for the orchestra because they might go to Tokyo this year.”

  Tokyo! Sue managed to smile and wish Mia luck, but her heart thumped against her ribs. She groped her way to a seat and sat down, repeating the name Tokyo over and over again in her head. Tokyo might be a fun vacation for Mia, but for Sue, it presented a world of problems. What would her mother say? Maybe Sue shouldn’t even audition? Wait. Mia had said the orchestra was only hoping to make the trip. Why worry before I need to? Besides, there were so many other things to think about . . . like that cute violinist, for one.

  Mia played pretty well, and when she finished, Mr. Baxter gave her a thumbs-up sign. Mia jumped off the stage and waved her clarinet as she passed Sue. “Hey, I made third chair! Good luck on your audition!”

  Sue smiled and waved back just as Mr. Baxter called her name. She walked up to the stage, tuned her viola quickly, opened her score, and breezed through her audition piece, the way she’d known she would.

  “Good work, Suzanne,” said Mr. Baxter. “I’m putting you in the second row of the viola section for now. But I’m pretty sure you’ll be moving up soon.”

  Sue just grinned. In her old school she had also started in the second row, but the conductor had moved her to the first row after a couple of months. She wasn’t worried.

  Sue was still getting used to high school in the suburbs. Her family used to live in the central area of Seattle, where they had been surrounded by families of various races. Then Sue’s father had been promoted, and her mother had convinced him to move to a suburb with bigger and more expensive homes.

  “You’re an associate professor now,” Sue’s mother had argued. “We need to entertain a lot more, and we’ll need a nicer dining room.”

  “As long as you cook one of your great Chinese dinners, our guests will be happy,” her father had said.

  Then her mom had put on a wistful look, the look that never failed. “I’ve always wanted a big yard with a sunny corner where I can grow roses. I’ve dreamed about it for years and years.”

  So Sue’s dad had given in. Now their neighbors were mostly white. When Sue started her junior year at Lakeview High, she found the majority of the students to be white. Sue missed her old school, where, if she hadn’t exactly been popular, at least she’d been comfortable. After three weeks at Lakeview, Sue hadn’t said much more to her classmates than “Is this seat taken?” The kids weren’t mean to her and a few, like Mia, were actually friendly. But even in her old school Sue had been a loner. She didn’t make friends as easily as her older sister, Rochelle, who seemed to be able to fit in just by flashing her smile.

  When Sue walked from the auditorium to her bus stop, Mia was already standing there. “So did you make it into the orchestra?”

  Sue gave a modest smile. “Yeah.”

  “Great! You’ll like Mr. Baxter. Everybody says he’s sharp and doesn’t miss a single mistake, but he isn’t mean when he corrects you.”

  Suddenly, a deeper voice piped up behind them. “I heard you audition today. Sounded smooth!”

  Sue turned around and felt herself blushing. It was the violinist she’d admired—musically and physically.

  “Thanks,” Sue and Mia said at the same time. Sue wondered which of them had impressed him. Or maybe he meant both of them? Maybe he was just trying to be friendly?

  The violinist turned to grin at Sue. “Maybe we can set up our instruments and play a duet sometime?”

  Sue laughed nervously. He was talking to her!

  Mia smiled. “Sue, this is Andy Suzuki, our superstar violinist.”

  Sue opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Luckily, her bus pulled up just then. Looking from the bus to Andy and back, she jumped onto the bus in a daze.

  As she slumped into a seat, she replayed his name in her mind. Andy Suzuki. There was something about that name. . . . Then, all of a sudden, it hit her with the force of a speeding train. Suzuki! He must be Japanese. Sue caught her breath, trying to brush it off. After all, what’s wrong with flirting with a Japanese American boy?

  But Sue knew the answer. Her grandmother would kill her. And her mother would be furious if she dated a Japanese boy. That was what was wrong.

  But hey, he was only flirting. He hasn’t asked for a date yet. He doesn’t even know my last name. Who knows, his parents might be the same way. He might be turned off if he finds out I’m Chinese.

  Sue rode home in a daze and spent the rest of the day with her thoughts churning. She answered her parents’ questions about school, about the audition, about whatever, but when she went to bed that night, she realized she couldn’t remember a word she’d said.

  The next morning, when Sue and Rochelle were heading into the school, Mia came up and poked Sue’s arm. “You and Andy really seemed to hit it off yesterday.”

  Rochelle turned to stare at Sue. “Who’s Andy?”

  Sue shrugged. “Just a violinist in the orchestra.”

  Mia laughed. “I bet he wants to be more than that,” she teased. “I saw the way he looked at you!”

  Sue felt her whole body tense. Shut up, Mia! Not in front of Rochelle! She spoke between clenched teeth. “Mia, you could have an awesome career writing romance novels! You’re so good at creating a big romance out of nothing!”

  Mia and Rochelle gaped as Sue stomped off to her homeroom.

  For the rest of the morning, Sue was so busy in her classes that Andy faded to the back of her mind. But at lunch, she was standing in line for the hot meal when a deep voice spoke up behind her, making her jump. “I’d better warn you that the chili here is pretty hot. I’d go for the lasagna, unless you like hot stuff.”

  Andy Suzuki. For a moment Sue’s face turned as hot as the chili. “Uh, thanks. I guess I’ll take the lasagna.”

  “Over here!” called Mia from one of the lunch tables after they’d both paid. “We c
an squeeze in two more.”

  Sue glanced at Andy and found him smiling back at her. “Shall we?” he asked.

  Sue couldn’t help smiling back. “Yes, we shall.”

  As they approached the table, Mia introduced the boy sitting next to her. “This is Nathan. He plays trumpet in the orchestra.”

  She introduced a couple of other kids at their table, who also played in the orchestra. Soon they were all talking about the trip to Tokyo and whether the school could come up with a way to pay for it.

  Sue listened but couldn’t bring herself to join in. Even if the school came up with the money, Sue wasn’t sure her mother would allow her to go. It would be so depressing to miss out on such a great opportunity. Sue’s lasagna seemed to turn to rubber in her mouth.

  Andy must have noticed that Sue was preoccupied. “What’s the matter, Sue?” he asked quietly. “Something bothering you?”

  Sue heard real concern in his voice. He cares about how I feel. But Andy was the last person she could talk to about her family problems. “No, I’m fine,” she murmured, following it up with what she hoped was a decent imitation of one of Rochelle’s smiles.

  Later, as Sue and Mia walked to their social studies class, Mia said, “I heard what Andy said at lunch. He’s nuts about you.”

  “Cut it out!” Sue told her. “He was just being nice.”

  But in the hallway one of Mia’s friends had obviously been let in on the Sue-Andy thing.

  “Heard you’ve got a boyfriend, Sue,” said Ginny, who played cello in the orchestra.

  “He’s not my boyfriend!” said Sue, her face growing hot.

  “You and Andy are just made for each other,” said Mia.

  Sue frowned. “What do you mean we’re made for each other? I just met him yesterday!”

  Mia looked at Sue. “What’s your problem? You’re both Asian, aren’t you? And you both play in the orchestra. So you’re perfect together.”

  “I’m Chinese!” cried Sue. “Andy is Japanese!”

  Suddenly she realized that other kids were turning around to stare. She lowered her voice. “My name is Hua, which is a Chinese name. His name is Suzuki, which is a Japanese name.”

  “Chinese, Japanese, what’s the difference?” asked Ginny.

  Sue felt the heat rising in her face. If her mother heard Ginny talking like this, she’d grab her by the throat and shake her until her teeth rattled.

  But then Sue looked around. She realized that everyone was white, except for her and Juan Arroyo, the foreign exchange student. Ginny and Mia couldn’t know that much about Asian culture, so they probably weren’t aware of the sting their words carried. Sue bit her lip and some of her anger drained away. She’d never really thought about the ways the Chinese and Japanese were different. The two languages were completely different, of course, but that was too complicated to explain. She tried to speak more calmly. “First of all, we wear different clothes. Japanese women wear kimonos, and Chinese women wear cheongsams.”

  But even as she spoke, Sue realized that clothes were a bad example. Not many Chinese women wore cheongsams these days, and probably even fewer Japanese women wore kimonos. In both countries, the women mostly wore Western clothes.

  She tried to think of something else. “The Chinese and the Japanese also eat different kinds of food.”

  “Aw, come on, you both eat tons of rice, don’t you?” said Ginny.

  Sue took a deep breath, trying not to get upset. “Even the rice is different. Japanese like short-grained rice that’s sticky. We Chinese like rice that’s long-grained and not sticky.”

  “You’ve got to admit you both use chopsticks,” said Mia.

  “Our chopsticks are different, too,” said Sue. “Ours have flat ends. Japanese chopsticks have pointy ends.”

  “Come on, chopsticks are just two sticks!” said Ginny. After a moment she added, “Frankly, I can’t tell the Chinese and Japanese apart.”

  Sue lost it then. She felt herself shaking with anger. To somebody like Ginny, with her ash-blond hair and light blue eyes, all Asians probably did look the same.

  “That’s right!” Sue whispered violently. “All Chinese and Japanese have straight black hair, yellow skin, and slanty eyes! No wonder you can’t tell us apart!”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. It was a relief when the bell rang and they went to their next classes. Although she was still seething, Sue knew that she had been unfair to Ginny. She herself couldn’t always tell whether somebody was Chinese or Japanese or Korean, at least until she learned his or her name. She definitely hadn’t guessed that Andy Suzuki was Japanese from just looking at him.

  Andy. She thought of the way he’d smiled at her in the lunchroom. His being Japanese didn’t make a difference—not to her. But it would make a huge difference to her mother and to her grandmother.

  Sue felt a sudden pang of longing for her old school, where people came in different colors. If she had talked to an Asian boy there, no one would have paid any attention. No one would have decided that the two of them were made for each other.

  But what if Andy and I are made for each other? Sue closed her eyes and pictured the two of them playing a duet . . . dancing together . . . holding hands at a movie . . .

  Stop that! she told herself. She was beginning to think like Mia and Ginny. All Andy had done was talk to her at the bus stop and sit next to her in the lunchroom. Then she remembered the way he’d looked at her when he’d asked her if something was the matter. He definitely cared.

  Sue shook herself. She was thinking way too far ahead. By tomorrow, Andy might be sitting next to somebody else—probably that girl who was his stand partner in the orchestra. They could be . . .

  “Going to meet Andy after school?” asked Mia, banging her locker closed.

  Sue felt herself thud back to earth. “I wish you guys wouldn’t keep talking about me and Andy,” she snapped.

  “Okay, okay,” said Mia. “You don’t have to get mad. It’ll be our little secret.”

  “What secret?” asked Rochelle, coming up.

  Sue shrugged. “Mia’s imagination runs wild sometimes.”

  Rochelle gave her a look, but to Sue’s relief a couple of senior boys came up, and Rochelle abandoned her interrogation.

  Sue didn’t like keeping things from Rochelle. When they were little kids, Sue and her sister had been close. Rochelle used to read to Sue, and they told each other everything. But things had changed when Rochelle discovered that she was pretty. These days she spent three quarters of her time either looking in the mirror or talking to boys.

  Sue’s first rehearsal with the orchestra was Monday after school. She found that the music wasn’t all that hard. Mr. Baxter was a good conductor, and Mia was right when she said he was strict but not mean. Even Mia could be fun, when she wasn’t winking at Sue and glancing at Andy when he was around.

  Andy. As she waited for her bus, Sue had to be honest with herself and admit that he was the main reason she liked the Lakeview orchestra. And she thought about him a lot—the way his eyebrows danced when he was playing a lively passage, the way his eyes almost closed when he was concentrating hard . . .

  A deep voice startled Sue out of her reverie. “I’m starving! Want to go to Hero’s?”

  Sue opened her eyes. Andy stood before her. He’s asking me out! But before she could get too excited about that, panic struck: What’ll I tell Mom? Her voice faltered as she said, “It’s getting late. My parents might be wondering . . .”

  “Aw, come on,” he said with a smile, “your folks know you have orchestra after school on Mondays. They don’t expect you back too early.”

  “I am pretty hungry,” Sue admitted, trying to figure out a way to make this work. I’m just going to get a sandwich. I don’t have to make this into such a big deal!

  “ ’S’ right,” he said. “You need a fuel injection after swinging that viola bow!”

  Hero’s sandwich shop was just two blocks away, and Sue was relieved whe
n she didn’t see Mia, Ginny, or any of the girls who were monitoring the Great Romance. Sue asked for a six-inch, no mustard but plenty of mayo. Andy ordered a whole hero sandwich with everything on it. He didn’t offer to pay for Sue’s sandwich. She was kind of relieved, but also a bit disappointed. Did that mean he wasn’t asking her out? Was he really only interested in her as a friend?

  After Andy took a big bite and wiped the ketchup from his cheek, he asked, “Do you eat mostly Chinese food at home?”

  So he did know her family was Chinese. He probably knew that Hua was a Chinese name. She wiped her hands and crumpled her sandwich wrappings. “Yeah, my mom cooks Chinese food more than any other kind. How about your family? What do you eat, mostly?”

  “Let’s see. . . . I guess we eat some of everything. My mom likes to try out recipes she sees on TV cooking shows. So we eat Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian—you name it.”

  Andy didn’t seem bothered at all that she was Chinese American, not Japanese American. Sue sighed, thinking about the unfairness of it all. If only things were so simple for her!

  In the next few weeks, Hero’s became a regular Monday-afternoon stop for Sue and Andy. At first, Sue was nervous about what her family would think, but her snacks with Andy remained strictly platonic: a sandwich, a conversation, some warm smiles, and goodbye. Still, Sue was glad that Mia and the others didn’t know about Hero’s. She was even more glad that Rochelle hadn’t found out.

  As they ate, they often talked about the pieces they were rehearsing. “I like music with tricky rhythm,” said Andy one Monday after they’d rehearsed a Copland piece.

  “Me too!” said Sue. “I like certain kinds of jazz, the kind with syncopation. It keeps you guessing, you know?” Andy smiled at her, and Sue’s heart did its own syncopation.

  Later Sue brought up sports and admitted, “I was always the last one chosen to join a team. I guess people can tell I don’t have the killer instinct.”

  “No team spirit, you mean,” said Andy.

  “That’s true,” admitted Sue. “I guess I’m not good at joining the crowd and playing together with others.”

  Andy grinned. “I hope you play together with the other violists, at least.”