The Girl Most Likely To

Chapter Seventeen

You know you’re reaching middle age when you can break down your life into different eras. My early twenties were a blur between Berkeley and summer jobs to pay for school. As much as I thought I was exceptional at the time, it turned out that scholarship committees did not. Then I had the great luck of graduating during a recession.

Despite my super-practical business degree from a big-name school, there weren’t any jobs.

In a panic, I messaged almost everyone I knew, willing to take any job that would have me.

It was Nat who helped me find my internship.

It paid nothing, but it was my foot in the door in Hollywood, something I dreamed about.

That dream kept me going through the years of instability and having no career ladder.

I had to out-hustle everyone else and keep my foot in entertainment.

By the time I turned thirty, the questions about settling down and getting married became more frequent and serious.

It was easy to brush off when none of my friends were married, but one by one, they were now finding someone to commit their lives to.

I started to feel the pressure.

By that point, it was hard to ignore that I’d had little success with dating.

The occasional fling with an aspiring actor hoping to make it big never lasted more than a few dates.

I was working at FreeStream by then. It was the beginning of my long-term relationship with my job, the only thing I was committed to taking all the way.

But then I ran into Josh in the most serendipitous way.

I had been thinking about going back to school to get my MBA to get a leg up in my career.

I was sitting at an information session when Josh took the seat next to mine.

We were both career-minded and talked easily.

There was also the fact that he still ran regularly and was built like a bodyguard.

It was hard to find a reason why we shouldn’t date and see where it went. We seemed to want the same things and were sufficiently attracted to each other. Thus began my Josh era, but it wasn’t meant to be. Some things work in theory but not in real life.

“Rachel,”

Josh said, a little annoyed that he had to repeat himself. He had to give me a break. It wasn’t every day that I ran into my ex-fiancé. He pulled me aside to a corner of the backyard, under a big orange tree, to get out of the way of pushy guests. “What are you doing here?”

“I was actually leaving,”

I said, standing on my tiptoes to look over his shoulder. I couldn’t find Danny anywhere.

“How are you? I heard from my mom, who heard from your mom, that you were in town.”

I’d have to remind my mom not to give Josh’s mom so many updates.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here, though,” he added.

“Things are good,”

I said coolly. “I was laid off.”

I spared him the rest of the details. He’d experienced his rounds of job insecurity, so I didn’t think I needed to explain that part.

Josh gave me one of those friendly “cheer-up”

pats on my arm. “You didn’t tell your parents yet, huh?”

This was a rhetorical question. Josh knew that if my mom knew, that meant his mom would know, which meant that he would’ve known. We might not be together anymore, but we were still in each other’s business, whether we wanted to be or not.

I shrugged. “I won’t if I don’t have to.”

“I can ask around if anyone’s hiring,”

he suggested. His way of being encouraging was offering solutions. He used to get upset whenever I rejected his ideas, telling me that actively working my way out of my predicaments was more productive than being sad. I was convinced that my feelings were a form of self-sabotage, but what if I considered the alternative? That instead of working against me, my emotions were telling me I wasn’t ready to jump into next steps? It was perfectly fine to take a break.

“That’s okay. I’ll figure something out.”

I wasn’t looking for more ways to stay entangled with Josh.

When we broke up, we both agreed to part ways as amicably as possible.

In many ways, our lives complemented each other’s.

We were both self-motivated and liked our own spaces.

I thought it was great that Josh was understanding when I was busy during our MBA program or when I had to stay late for work.

We were both doing it.

But once we started talking about settling down, not as another milestone to reach but to build a life together, we quickly deduced that neither of us wanted to give up our ambitions.

We started to fight about not spending enough time together.

We weren’t there for each other as much as we wanted to be, but neither of us wanted to make the sacrifice. We each thought our work was too important to give up. So, as much as I admired Josh for who he was, and even though I enjoyed his company, the writing was on the wall. It wasn’t enough that we made good partners. There wasn’t enough love to sustain what we wanted from each other.

Josh looked like there was more he wanted to tell me, but when he shifted his feet, an orange dropped from the tree and fell on his head. He ducked and rubbed his head as he bent down to pick up the offending fruit. “What the—”

I burst into laughter. The liquor had caught up with me and pretty soon I had a case of the giggles. Josh was so easily shaken up. He probably would’ve laughed too if I hadn’t pointed at him, but he eventually cracked a smile.

“I could’ve been hurt,”

he insisted.

I removed a leaf out of his hair. “You’re gonna live. I promise.”

“Rachel.”

Danny cleared his throat as his eyes darted quickly between Josh and me. “Hey, Josh, long time no see,”

he said with a friendly pat on the shoulder, even though they were merely acquaintances back in high school. “You okay there?”

I couldn’t imagine what was going through Danny’s head. His face was unreadable.

“Hey!”

Josh said with a little too much enthusiasm. He wasn’t subtle when he shot a questioning look my way. Josh was never good with names and faces. I mouthed Danny’s name. “Danny!”

he announced with a hint of uncertainty. “How are you, buddy? What are you up to these days?”

Buddy? I tried to keep my cool during this charade. They had nothing in common.

“Good.”

Danny stuffed his hands in his pockets, but his posture was stick straight. “Business is good. I run my own executive coaching business.”

“Oh, do you specialize in anything?”

Josh asked.

“No. I was doing a lot of team-building for a while, but I’ve recently limited my time to managers and executives who want individual coaching. They like to keep me on their schedules. I split my time a lot between here and the Bay Area. What about you?”

Danny asked, prompting Josh to complain about tax season, which I remembered all too well. It was a perennial topic.

This was the most Danny had spoken about his job. Was he . . . bragging? The only time I’d ever heard Danny brag was when he landed a flip off a bench at Almansor Park. A visceral memory unlocked and suddenly I heard the scrape of his board in my ears. His hands catching me when I fell after my first skateboarding lesson. I hugged myself to help contain the overwhelming sensation.

“You okay there, Rach?”

Danny’s arm wrapped around my shoulders. “Are you cold?”

“I-I came straight from the office,”

Josh stammered at the same time.

“Ah, a late night for you,”

Danny commented before I could respond to his question, deftly returning to his conversation with Josh. I might as well have been invisible.

“Uh, yeah,”

Josh replied, then nodded. Danny nodded too. I was surrounded by bobbleheads.

“Um,”

Josh said eventually, ending this nod-fest, “there’s actually something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Rach.”

Eyeing Danny, he added, “Privately.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Danny let go of me, but snuck a glance, making sure I was going to be okay. I nodded, missing his warmth right away. “I’m going to see if Felix and Nelson are here.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Danny replied with a half-hearted wave and dragged his feet as he left like he was on his way to get his wisdom teeth pulled.

“Is there something going on there?”

Josh said, not taking his eyes off Danny as he walked away. Then, with a touch of amusement in his voice, “No way.”

When we were still together, I once told Josh about my crush on Danny. I didn’t think he’d remember it. “We’re just catching up.”

Josh didn’t believe me for one second, but he didn’t need to know. I wasn’t sure what was going on myself. “What did you need to tell me?”

Josh scratched behind his ear, which made me nervous because he only did that when he had bad news. “I thought I should be the one to tell you that I’m dating someone.”

“Yes!”

I clenched my fist. Now my parents could stop harassing me about us getting back together.

“What?”

“I mean, congrats!”

Wait a minute. If he was dating someone, how come my parents were still nagging me? “You haven’t told your parents yet.”

This was a recurring theme between us. We were children to our parents first, adults second.

“This is why I wanted to tell you. Our moms will take the news hard.”

“They can still be friends,”

I said. “We’ll sit them down and let them know that our breakup wasn’t their fault.”

Josh and I had agreed that we were too alike to make it work long-term. We were too focused on ourselves to bring the best out in each other. “They’ll get over it.”

“I hope so.”

Josh gave me a single pat on my arm, the same kind he’d give one of his bros. “I’ll see you around?”

“Sure,”

I said. I didn’t plan to run into Josh again, but if this night had taught me anything, it was that anything was possible. I pushed my way back into the crowd. I said hi to a few people I recognized from Math Club. I caught a few stares from strangers who probably now recognized me as the person who gave the sad emo speech. I suppressed the urge to defend myself and save face. Viv somehow found me in the fray.

“I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Viv unzipped a black pouch to display vials of a violent mix of fragrances. It had me seeing double faster than all the drinks combined.

“Not now, Viv.”

I had to get away from her before the smell poisoned me. “I’m trying to find Danny.”

“Say less.”

Before I could stop her, Viv twisted my arm and dabbed a potent floral perfume on my wrist. “This is ylang-ylang, perfect for relieving blood pressure and a known aphrodisiac. Do you like it?”

I braved a whiff and I had to admit that it smelled nice when it wasn’t right up against my nose. “Yeah.”

Surprisingly.

“Glad to be of service,”

Viv said, zipping her pouch of samples back up. “This is what I enjoy most—helping people in need.”

I didn’t give Viv enough credit. She had found her niche and she loved it. What more could you ask for? “Thanks, Viv.”

“Anything for a friend.”

She handed me her business card. “Hit me up if you want to order a whole set. Use the code VIVSCENTS for an introductory ten percent off. And when you’re free, I’d love to share how go-getters like yourself can take control of your own life with this opportunity of a lifetime.”

I respected Viv’s hustle. No one could deny her persistence. I flicked the card between my fingers. “I’ll let you know.”

I kindly removed myself from the conversation and power-walked away before Viv gave me a full sales pitch for a multilevel marketing scheme. I broke away from the crowd in case Danny was looking for me. There was no way we’d find each other within the mass of people. Danny must’ve been thinking the same thing because I spotted him alone in the far corner of the yard, leaning against the cinder-block fence, checking his phone. It wasn’t like him to be a wallflower.

I sidled next to him. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He seemed happy, almost relieved, to see me, but he didn’t budge from his spot. “You guys have a good talk?”

I shrugged. Running into Josh had dampened the mood. “Yeah.”

Danny picked leaves off a nearby shrub. “I didn’t know you guys were still friendly.”

“We talk here and there, only because our parents still talk. I don’t have any other reason to stay in touch with him besides that.”

“I get it. You don’t have to explain.”

But I did. There wasn’t anything to hide. It would do us more good to put it out in the open. “We weren’t really a good match.”

“You were engaged. That’s pretty serious.”

Danny stood up, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I saw the picture of you and Josh, showing off your engagement ring. You looked happy in it.”

Danny saw the pictures? It felt like we were starting our conversation in the middle and I didn’t know whether to go back to the beginning or forge on. The picture Danny was describing had been Josh’s profile picture while we were engaged. Josh proposed to me on the beach, which had no special meaning to us other than it made for a nice photo. Everything was staged. We coordinated our outfits, and I had my hair done. We couldn’t find parking because everyone went to the beach before sunset, so we had to rush through the proposal. It wasn’t as romantic as the pictures led everyone to believe.

“Social media can be deceiving,”

I said. “That’s what you do when you get engaged. You post a picture of the ring, let everyone congratulate you. But when you break up with your fiancé, you quietly disappear and hope no one notices.”

Danny must know this after getting a divorce. “But I wasn’t happy.”

“How come?”

“You know how I’m usually early?”

Danny nodded. “Well, one time I was late.”

Danny didn’t seem to catch on to what I was implying, so I continued. “I thought I was pregnant, and I took a test. I was relieved when it came out negative, which upset Josh. He thought, with our engagement, the next step was having children. That was when things fell apart. He had a whole vision that once I had kids I’d slow down from work to make more time to raise our family. He had all of these ideas without discussing them with me, and they didn’t align with what I wanted.”

I was raised with the Spice Girls shouting “Girl Power!”

I couldn’t give up my career so easily, and that expectation put a strain on our relationship.

“You don’t want kids?”

Danny asked carefully, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask.

“I do, but not the ‘picket fence, two-point-five kids’ version Josh had in his head.”

I shrugged. “But I don’t know. I’m almost forty.”

Having kids was still a possibility, but biology wasn’t working in my favor. Once that window closed, that was it. There were no loopholes, and no amount of negotiating would keep that option open for me. “If I don’t have kids, I’ll be okay with being a cool aunt. What about you? Do you want kids? Do you have kids?”

Danny laughed, but his whole face turned a telltale shade of pink. “Not any that I know of.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I always thought I’d have kids, but my ex-wife didn’t want any.”

“Was that why you divorced?”

“Not specifically. We grew apart, and it made me realize that we were fundamentally different people.”

I wanted to ask Danny a ton of questions, but I could tell I was the only one who wanted to dissect his divorce. Danny diverted his attention back to the party, with a faraway look in his eyes, tapping his fingers to the beat of the music on his thigh. It was like he was hiding in plain sight, appearing to be engaged while putting up his emotional wall. If we weren’t standing inches apart, I might’ve missed it.

“This conversation got too deep, didn’t it?”

Danny’s mouth curved into a wistful smile. “Yeah. Just like old times.”

April 2003

“You brought me here?”

Of all places, Danny brought me to Almansor Park, mere blocks away from Commonwealth.

“You told me I could decide,”

Danny pointed out.

Oh my god. I gave up perfect attendance for Almansor Park. I should be in Spanish class right now. “I thought you’d take me somewhere . . .”

I stopped myself before I said “romantic,”

though it was on the tip of my tongue. “. . . I don’t know. Fun?”

“It is.”

Danny grabbed his skateboard from the backseat. “You just don’t know it yet.”

I didn’t become a truant to watch him skateboard across the big park where everyone in town exercised or got married.

“Do you come here a lot?”

I asked. Danny swooped down the windy path like he had it memorized.

“It’s a great place to skate. Do you want to try it?”

He steered away from the trail to the empty tennis courts. “How about here?”

“I don’t know,”

I said, warily.

“Come on, Ms. Scholar-Athlete,”

he teased. “I saw those tennis letterman patches collecting dust on your desk. This should be easy.”

My forehand skills weren’t going to help me any, but I motioned at Danny to dismount his skateboard. I could never back down from a challenge. “What do I need to do?”

I placed my feet in the exact spots where Danny was pointing and immediately wobbled. I screeched and grabbed onto his shoulders for balance. “You didn’t tell me that was going to happen!”

Danny laughed. “Try to even out your stance. Once you get your balance, try pushing with your right foot.”

“How?!”

That was physically impossible. I was going to fall flat on my face, which I wanted to keep intact. “I’m gonna get off—”

“No, wait—”

Danny’s hand shot out to my waist, holding me in place. Then neither of us spoke for a long time. I may have forgotten how to breathe.

“It’s okay,”

he said, looking up at me with shining brown eyes. “I got you.”

I hadn’t noticed that he let me go, until he said, “See? You got it. Try putting your foot down.”

I blamed my lack of sleep for not overriding my ingrained reflex to follow directions as I put my foot down and felt the momentum pushing me toward the net. As I glided slowly and shakily, a sense of awe and invincibility washed over me. “Hey. This is fun—”

I’d forgotten an important lesson from sports: always keep your eye on the ball. In celebrating my mild success, I didn’t see the stray tennis ball on court. I tried to swerve and the skateboard flew out from underneath me. When my body hit the hard court, I never felt more like a bag of bones.

Danny rushed to my side, checking my head. “Are you okay?”

I hissed when I saw the gnarly scrape on my elbow. “I got ahead of myself.”

“More like the skateboard got ahead of you,”

Danny said as he helped me up. He examined me from arm’s distance, checking for any other sign of injury. His careful touch was more disorienting than the fall. “Come on. You should sit down.”

We left the court and retreated to a shady spot on the grass not too far from the big gazebo. I winced as I sat down. My hip was banged up pretty bad. “How long did it take for you to skate better than that?”

“I don’t know.”

He sat with his legs crossed, leaning back on his elbows as he watched the ducks swim across the pond. “A day or two?”

I picked a handful of grass and threw it in his direction. “Show-off.”

He laughed. “Takes one to know one.”

“Pfft, whatever.”

I carefully lay down. Good thing I’d retired from my tennis career. My coach would’ve chewed me out for getting injured over this. It was kind of strange to feel sentimental about that now. I didn’t even cry like my teammates did when the season ended in the fall. It didn’t hit me that everything from now until graduation would be the lasts of my high school experience. I’d been so focused on hearing back from all the colleges I’d applied to that I hadn’t thought much about it.

“Where did you apply to?”

I asked Danny. I had never asked him about it before since he didn’t seem so concerned about his grades.

Danny shrugged. “Nowhere. I forgot to apply.”

My eyes widened. I couldn’t even fathom what he said. It was all my classmates talked about during the fall. “What are you going to do?”

“Work for a while. Jimmy’s been waiting for me to graduate so I can take more shifts at his booth.”

“You sound really excited about it.”

Danny side-eyed me for the sarcasm. “Not all of us want to go to Ivies. And what’s wrong with working?”

Danny replied defensively. “I don’t know what I’d go to college for when I can make money now.”

“I’m just saying . . . ,”

I said, backtracking. I actually didn’t know what I was saying. I hadn’t expected to touch a nerve, given how much Danny avoided talking about his brother. “I think you can do whatever you want to do. You’re capable of doing more, if you wanted.”

“Like what?”

he asked, surprising me that he was entertaining this conversation.

“I don’t know. Anything.”

I thought through my next response before I lost him. “You’re good at listening,”

I offered, more earnestly. “You know how when you talk to some people you can tell they want you to hurry up? I never feel that way with you.”

I might have embarrassed Danny. He looked away and silently picked at the grass.

“I thought about applying to community college,”

he said after a while. “I don’t want to go far away in case Jimmy needs me. I don’t want to leave him behind, not when he’s finally staying out of trouble.”

“But—”

Danny watched me with heavy eyes, and I couldn’t bring myself to finish my thought. He’d made up his mind. I didn’t want to ruin things by arguing. “That sounds good too.”

I wasn’t going to fault him for wanting to help out his family. I understood the feeling. Coming from Cambodia, my mom and dad saw education as a luxury they wanted me to have, so I never took mine for granted. My mindset about it was, if I continued to be successful, then I could help my parents in turn and they wouldn’t have to worry about my future. Everything should fall into place because I would make it so.

“That’s it?”

Danny asked. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight than that.”

“It’s your life. I don’t think my opinion matters.”

I was so confused. I was trying to be supportive.

“You’re wrong,”

he said. “It does.”

That would’ve sounded nice if he wasn’t defensive about it. “Well, that can’t be true because I’m rarely wrong,”

I said to annoy him. “Do whatever makes you happy.”

Silence fell between us and nothing seemed to move until a breeze swept through, rippling through the grass. I huffed, blowing out some steam, sending some tendrils away from my face while I stared at the sky through the tree branches. Then the quiet got to me and I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What are you doing this summer?”

Danny didn’t say anything. Instead, the tips of his fingers crawled over my hand and suddenly his face appeared in my view. I thought he might kiss me. Even though things between us had been strained, I would’ve let him. Kissing sounded like a good way to forget about this conversation. Talking about college reminded me how I wouldn’t see Danny every day anymore.

I zoned in on his mouth like it was my next target, but as soon as I set my sights on it, he looked up and moved a foot away.

“Hey!”

Someone was shouting from a distance.

I sat up and shook the grass from my hair. It was Felix, skateboarding down from the parking lot.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Danny was trying to play it cool, though he wasn’t fooling anyone with his pink cheeks.

“Dude! I got into UC Santa Barbara!”

Felix was so excited, he was out of breath.

I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the pain of my bruised body. “Admissions decisions came out already? Did it come in the mail?”

“Nah, it’s all online. You have to log into your account.”

“I have to go.”

I had to find the nearest computer. My future, everything I ever worked for, awaited. Fuck! What was my password? I was pretty sure I wrote it down in my planner. I took five steps before I remembered that Danny drove me here. I turned around to find him right behind me.

“What are you doing?”

he said. “Let’s go.”

“What about—”

I glanced at Felix, who seemed to think he was part of our conversation. He followed along with us, probably wanting to catch a ride too. “I can walk home.”

“I’d feel better if I could take you home.”

Danny’s skeptical eyes fell on my shaky hands. My nerves were getting to me. “Come on. You can tell me later.”

Danny gave me a knowing look and he didn’t need to say more. Later meant nine o’clock, on AIM. Our long-standing meeting spot.

After Danny dropped me off, I sprinted to my room. No one was home. My mom was at the salon, and my dad was showing a prospective buyer who was interested in the print shop. I wished Angela was there to calm me down as my shaky hands typed in the login information. Waiting for the portal to load felt like an eternity.

Dear Rachel,

Congratulations! I am delighted to welcome you to the University of California, Berkeley . . .

Tears spilled as I screamed. I did it. All the extra credit and extracurriculars I joined to curate the perfect application paid off. I clicked through the following screens to see my next steps. There were some forms to sign to accept my admission and fees to pay. That reminded me to check to see if I earned any scholarships. I searched for my financial aid package. I had some grants, but there was still an outstanding balance. There was information about loan options but nothing about scholarships. I kept clicking through, wondering if I’d missed it. Finally, I landed on the page that summarized my awards.

Scholarships: $0

I was confused. I was in the top 10 percent of my class, half of whom were valedictorians. My résumé spanned four pages of accolades and activities. Was it not enough? Or was I not enough?

Exhilaration was quickly replaced by worry. How was I going to pay for tuition? With Ba’s print shop gone, there was no way my parents had enough money coming only from the salon to pay college tuition for Angela and me both.

I shut off my computer. I couldn’t keep staring at the big zero any longer.