Shadow Girl

by Liana Liu

  “Um. Are you sure Henry won’t mind?” I’m sure he will. I certainly do.

  “I’m sure Henry won’t mind,” says Vanessa.

  “What won’t I mind?” Henry saunters into the library, and for the first time ever I’m glad to see him. I want him to reject this carpool plan so I don’t have to.

  “She’s going to the city to pick up the party invitations, and since you have your meeting tomorrow, I thought you could drive her,” Vanessa explains.

  “You don’t have to. I don’t mind taking the bus,” I say. Or, more accurately, I don’t mind taking the taxi to the ferry to the bus to the subway. In fact, I’d prefer it.

  “I’m happy to drive you.” Henry grins as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  “Really?” I stare at him in disbelief.

  “The two of us in the car together for hours and hours and hours?” he says. “We’re going to have so much fun.”

  PART II

  THE CITY

  1

  IT’S A LOVELY MORNING, BLUE SKY AND GENTLE BREEZE, AND we barely make it past the metal gate before we start bickering. It begins when Henry asks if I want to take a turn driving later.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t,” I say.

  “Because you can’t drive?” he asks.

  “You don’t have to drive when you live in the city.”

  “So you don’t drive or you can’t drive?”

  “I don’t know how to drive,” I admit. “You don’t have to in the city.”

  “But are you always going to live in the city?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why do you sound so sad?”

  “I don’t sound sad.”

  “You do. You sound totally depressed.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “If you say so,” he says. “Anyway, this car is really fun to drive.”

  “I bet. It’s like when an old man has a midlife crisis and gets rid of his wife for some hot girl, and exchanges his minivan for a car like yours,” I say.

  Henry grimaces.

  I shrug. What else can he expect with a car so ridiculously red and fast and fancy? So obviously expensive and extravagantly unnecessary?

  We turn into the ferry terminal and park at the end of a long line of cars waiting for the boat to come. As I watch it chug toward us, I do some calculations: it takes approximately four hours to drive from the island to the city, and we’ve been in the car together for twenty minutes. Therefore we have three hours and forty minutes to go, and the probability of one of us murdering the other during that time is 98 percent.

  The ferry docks. The cars roll on one by one. On the boat, in the car, we bob across the ocean in silence. I do some more calculations. If we don’t speak during the rest of the ride, the probability of murder drops 33 percent.

  Unfortunately, Henry does not seem to realize it. As we near the mainland, he starts talking again. “Are you excited to go home?” he asks.

  “Of course I am.”

  “You sound depressed again.”

  “Are you ready to meet with your vice principal?”

  “Why aren’t you excited to go home?”

  “How are you going to convince him to let you graduate?”

  “Is it your family? Do you hate your family?”

  “What will you do if he won’t let you graduate?”

  “Why do you hate your family?” he asks.

  “I don’t!” I say.

  The ferry stops with an abrupt lurch. The cars roll off one by one. Three hours and fifteen minutes to go. And the probability of murder has increased a whole percent.

  “Do you mind if . . .” I don’t finish my question. I lean over and turn up the volume on the radio until the music is so loud it hurts, so loud that there’s no possibility of conversation. Thus we make it safely through the next hour of our trip.

  Then Henry stops for gas, and I go to use the bathroom. When I get back to the car, he’s sitting in the front passenger seat. I knock on the window. He rolls it down. He’s smirking. Of course. How I hate that smirk. I ask him what he’s doing.

  “I got a great idea! You’re going to drive now,” he says.

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m not joking. I’m going to teach you.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “But everyone should know how to drive. What if there was a driving emergency one day? Wouldn’t you want to be prepared? Get in the car.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Come on, it’ll be fun. Don’t you like fun?” he says.

  I don’t understand his insistence. Though he claimed he wasn’t joking, I can’t help thinking that this is a joke and the punch line will be me—Henry Morison laughing at me. And suddenly I’m angry, angry about a thing that hasn’t even happened yet, but too angry to care that it hasn’t. I speak in a harsh voice that isn’t my voice at all.

  “Don’t you remember telling me I’m no fun? And a suck-up? It’s too bad you didn’t manage to get rid of me that first day, but you didn’t. So whatever game you’re playing now, stop it. It’s not funny. It’s stupid. It’s so stupid and we’re stuck together for the next two hours and fifteen minutes and the only way we’ll both survive this is if you shut up and get into the driver’s seat.”

  Immediately I regret it. Not because it isn’t true. Because it isn’t nice. And I’m supposed to be nice. Especially to the son of my employers.

  But before I can apologize, Henry gets out of the car. He waits for me to get in, then shuts the door. He walks around and slides back into the driver’s seat. He clips in his seat belt and turns on the engine. But he doesn’t start driving. Instead he says, “I’m an asshole. You shouldn’t listen to anything I say. I’m sorry.” His face is red.

  I can’t believe it: Henry Morison is apologizing and . . . blushing?

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No,” he interrupts. “I’m a total asshole.”

  “Not a total asshole,” I say.

  He half smiles at me. “Thanks for that.”

  “Besides, you’re right. I can kind of be a suck-up.”

  “Kind of?” Henry raises his eyebrows.

  “Okay, a huge suck-up. And sometimes I’m not that fun. And I did say that your car was an old man’s car. I guess I’ve been totally mean to you too.”

  “Not totally mean,” he says.

  I half smile at him. “Thanks for that.”

  “Anyway, I kind of like it when you’re mean.”

  “That’s not possible,” I say.

  “Why not?” he asks.

  “Nobody likes it when you’re mean.”

  “Not true. I like it. I just said so.”

  “You’re the exception that proves the rule.”

  “What does that even mean? People are always saying that, but it makes no sense. Don’t exceptions disprove rules?” he says.

  “It’s a proverb from Latin. It means that if you exclude the exception, it makes the rule stronger in all other situations,” I say.

  Henry stares at me. “Do you know everything?”

  “Except how to drive and how to swim,” I say.

  Then he laughs, face bright and eyes glinting and perfect teeth flashing, and I suddenly notice that Henry Morison is sort of cute. If you’re into that preppy white-boy thing.

  We get back on the highway with the music on loud, but not too loud for conversation.

  “So how about we start over?” Henry says.

  “You think starting over is possible?” I say.

  “Maybe not. Maybe it’s better if we just continue on. Onward and upward! Except now you know I’m not trying to be a jerk, and I know you aren’t a fun-hating suck-up.”

  “And I’ll be mean to you because I know how much you like it.”

  “And I’ll try not to be such a smartass. Though I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “I can tutor you,” I say.

  “Great,” he says with the most trag
ic sigh.

  “Lesson one,” I say. “Don’t ever sigh like that again.”

  Henry sighs like that again. “Seriously, though,” he says. “This summer has been rough with the maybe-not-graduating, maybe-not-going-to-college, father-in-a-rage, mother-freaking-out stuff.”

  “I can imagine. What are you going to say to your vice principal?”

  “I don’t know. Apologize? Beg? Cry? What do you think?”

  “Lesson two,” I say. “When meeting with your high school vice principal to discuss how you passed out drunk during your final exam, apologize profusely, express sincere remorse, tell him how grateful you’d be for another chance to take the test. But don’t beg. Don’t cry, either, but do blink hard, like you’re bravely holding back tears.”

  “Like this?” Henry winks.

  “Lesson three,” I say. “Never ever wink.”

  “As soon as you tell me not to do something, I feel compelled to do it.”

  “Yeah, you and all my students. But they have the excuse of being eight.”

  He winks. “Not my sister, though, right? How’s the tutoring going?”

  “It’s getting better now that she’s more comfortable with me.”

  “Good. Ella’s had a rough year. The girls she’d been friends with forever suddenly kicked her out of their group,” he says.

  “What? Why?”

  “She and her friends got caught doing some prank and they all blamed Ella, though it wasn’t her fault. I’ve never been so angry at a bunch of little girls before.”

  “Your grandfather told me something about that,” I say. “What was the prank?”

  “They vandalized the girls’ bathroom, drew all over the walls and threw toilet paper everywhere. Dumb stuff,” he says.

  “Weird. That doesn’t seem like something Ella would do.”

  “I know. I can see her going along with it, but not being the ringleader. That’s why it’s especially messed up that they blamed her. She was suspended for two days.”

  “That sucks. I wish Vanessa had told me about it earlier.”

  “Are you really surprised? Ness likes to keep up a good front.”

  Then we are both quiet for a few minutes. I’m remembering Ella’s reaction to that kid’s book I gave her. “How can he forget his friend?” she’d asked. Poor Ella.

  “So . . . ,” Henry says. “What do you think I should say to my vice principal?”

  “You want to practice? I’ll be the vice principal. You be you.”

  “How about I be the vice principal and you be me?”

  “You sure you want me to be you?” I say. I smirk.

  “No, no, not sure. You be the vice principal. He has a big beard, by the way.”

  “Perfect.” I put my hand up to my chin and wiggle my fingers.

  “Wow, you look exactly like him,” he says.

  “So tell me why you deserve another chance,” I boom in my deepest voice.

  Henry makes a face, but he tells me. I give him some tips and make him tell me again. And again, so he gets it exactly right. And again, to annoy him. And again, to annoy him some more. And again, but then his explanations get so ridiculous (a rabid raccoon, an alien abduction) that we’re both laughing too hard to do it again.

  The city takes me by surprise.

  One moment I’m telling the story of when my student Adeline’s little brother asked me, worriedly, if it was true that eating too much put a baby in your belly. “Because then your stomach bulges out a lot, like this,” he said, lifting his shirt to show me his bulging stomach. I explained it wasn’t true, skimming over the concept of sex, and asked him how he came up with such an idea. It was, of course, Adeline.

  The next moment, I’m gazing out the car window, my nose nearly bumping the glass. For there in the distance looms the city, bigger and brighter and more overwhelming than I remember. Home.

  We drive across the bridge and into the streets. There is a lot of traffic, lots of pedestrians, everyone rushing everywhere. I give Henry directions to my apartment, and the closer we get, the more crowded it gets, and the more crowded it gets, the more trouble I have breathing.

  “Now where should I go?” he asks.

  “Pull over at the next corner. That’s my building.” I point at the brown high-rise. Even with the car windows closed and the air conditioner on, I think I can smell the usual smells of salt and herbs and rot. The usual neighborhood people swarm around the sidewalk. Elderly women teetering with their bulging bags of groceries. Loitering men in grimy undershirts scowling and scratching and smoking and spitting. Little kids with sticky faces tangled up in their mothers’ legs.

  Then I notice that one of the loitering men—in a T-shirt, not an undershirt, that appears reasonably clean—is my brother. Scowling and smoking.

  There is a sinking heaviness in my chest. I stop breathing completely.

  “You want help bringing your stuff up?” Henry asks.

  “No,” I say sharply. “Thank you,” I add belatedly. “And thanks for the ride. Good luck with your meeting, and I’ll see you Sunday. You have my number, right? Great. Have a good weekend.”

  He looks at me skeptically. I can tell that our new friendliness is in danger, but all I want is to get Henry Morison away from here, from the sights and sounds and smells of my real life. I leap out of the car and grab my bag from the back. I wave at Henry until he finally drives away. Then I turn around slowly.

  I know he’s there; I feel him hovering behind me. “Hi, Andy.”

  “Nice ride,” says my brother. “You dating white guys now?”

  “That was the brother of the girl I’m tutoring this summer.”

  “You dating the brother of the rich girl you’re tutoring? Even better.”

  I sigh. “I’m not. We’re just friends. Barely friends.”

  He laughs. “Sounds like a lot of excuses to me.”

  “Stop it.” I step around my brother and walk toward the building, elbowing past the loitering men, moving aside for the elderly women, darting around the little kids.

  “You’ve got no sense of humor.” Andy trails after me.

  “I don’t know why Doris thinks you’ve changed,” I say.

  “She said that?” He actually smiles.

  I go inside. My brother can’t follow because he’s still smoking his cigarette. “Hold on,” he calls out after me.

  But I hurry past the security guard picking his teeth with a toothpick, get into the tiny elevator, press the sticky button, and tap my foot as it lumbers up. On the eleventh floor the door jerks open. The air is musty with cooking smells. I stride across stained carpet, past stained walls, to the end of the corridor. I pull the key from my pocket and twist it in the lock. I press my palm against the scuffed knob and turn.

  Then I pause at the threshold.

  It’s all so familiar. This is where I’ve lived my entire life; of course it should be familiar. Of course I should recognize the scents and sounds and the freckles on the doorframe where the paint has chipped away.

  Yet it’s all so foreign. I’ve been away for only a month, yet it feels as if I’m seeing this place for the first time, this tiny, dingy place crammed full of stuff: old shoes, old clothes; used gift wrap and boxes and rubber bands and string; takeout containers meant to be thrown away, and plastic forks and spoons and knives and sporks; sticky roasting pans and a missing-handled pot; crumpled balls of tinfoil; all kinds of bags in all types of material: plastic, paper, cotton, canvas, polyester, nylon, leather, pleather; foil packs of mayonnaise; used twisty straws; a VCR and several stacks of videos; melted stubs of birthday candles; more than one leaky umbrella; a box made of Popsicle sticks; a mug in the shape of denim-clad hips; hot sauce blackened by age; photo albums with peeling covers; tins of stale crackers; time-stopped wristwatches; engraved goblets with fake-gold rims; teeny pots of strawberry jam and orange marmalade; a rusty watering can; yellowed notepads with cartoon covers; a shrill table fan; a lifetime supply of disposable chopsticks; a
n embroidered footstool; ancient bottles of spices that have probably lost their spice; old and very old phone books; remote controls that control nothing; a tattered floral rug; more than one plastic jack-o’-lantern; a mobile of origami swans; emptied egg cartons; a dead space heater; paper packets of sugar; a stack of out-of-date calendars; my father’s old stuff, all the stuff he left behind; and more stuff.

  I take a deep breath and step inside. I’m home.

  2

  THE APARTMENT IS QUIET. MY MOTHER IS AT WORK, BUT SHE must have rushed back during her lunch break, because there’s a cardboard container on the table with my name written across the top in her careful lettering. It’s my favorite takeout meal: rice noodles with bean sprouts in oyster sauce, and it’s still warm. I sit down and eat.

  The food tastes like comfort. And guilt.

  I don’t want to be here, but I’m ashamed for not wanting to be here. This is where my mother, the person who loves me most in the world, lives. This is where I eat and sleep and study and read and think and plan. This is where I grew up; this is where I’m from.

  So it shouldn’t matter that our apartment isn’t a fairy-tale mansion with an immaculately modern interior. It shouldn’t matter that it’s dingy and stays dingy no matter how much we scrub. It shouldn’t matter that it’s tiny yet overstuffed. Besides, I understand why my mother keeps everything. It’s what you do when you’re used to having nothing.

  I eat half the container of food because my mother will worry if I don’t eat at least half the container. Then I wrap up my leftovers and put them in the refrigerator. I step into my sneakers, double-knot the laces, and go. When I get downstairs, I look for my brother. I don’t see him. But I don’t look very hard.

  The calligrapher’s studio is only a fifteen-minute walk away from our apartment, but in an entirely different neighborhood. Here the sidewalks are calm and uncrowded. The shops are so spare that they appear to be selling nothing. There are lots of trees, tall and solid, full green in summer bloom.

  I ring the bell at the brownstone building, and the calligrapher comes out with two cardboard boxes. I thank her and carry the boxes to the public library a few blocks away. The only free seat is between a snoring old man and a disheveled woman who is whispering to herself. So there I sit.