Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Sabrina
“You look different today, Chen,” Eva Kim said as Sabrina walked into the office carrying iced coffees for both of them. She was due to hang out with Dave later. “You got a hot date?”
Sabrina felt her face flush.
“I don’t,” she replied too fast.
“Someone you want to impress, then?” As she spoke, Eva Kim continued to trawl through her document with a yellow highlighter, never looking up.
Sabrina said nothing and hoped the questioning would pass. It did. And she felt a gratitude to Eva Kim for reading her, for seeing what she was willing to say and what she was not.
···
Sabrina’s captivation with Eva Kim grew stronger every moment she spent with her. Instead of rushing out the door at the end of every afternoon, she lost track of time until the summer sun started to dip.
She began to realize that Eva Kim’s office was a finely tuned chaotic web of order: papers scattered over every surface, binders stuffed with letters, pink folders covered in coffee stains.
Sabrina constantly felt the need to tidy the office, yet it was as though this tangled mess were a carefully constructed maze of clues that all played a vital role in whatever cases Eva was working on at that moment.
Sabrina watched from the only seat in the office that was not taken by a big pile of books and binders. The seat had become her desk. The back of the chair had a large crack that ran down the middle, which sometimes dug into her shoulder blade.
“So you didn’t think about applying to any colleges besides Penn State?”
Sabrina shrugged and shook her head.
“That is not a proper response, Chen. Did you?”
Sabrina stared at her hands for a moment and then looked up.
“There was one more, yes.”
“An Ivy?”
Sabrina nodded, and Eva Kim nodded in response.
The car horns down on the street were muffled by the window as one driver continued pounding the horn for what felt like minutes.
“Well, I need to look into it more, but I believe I’m probably more likely to get a full ride to Penn State than Princeton. Just from the sheer competition alone. It’s amazing I have the offer, but the financial aid is hard to get. It feels impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible. Pray tell, how was this news received at your prestigious fancy-pants high school?”
“CHA is public, Ms. Kim.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“Oh yeah, it’s a public school with ninety-eight percent higher-income attendees.”
A silence fell between them, and Sabrina watched the expression on Eva Kim’s face change. She stared into space ahead of her and began to shake her head, then she typed furiously onto her computer. She paused and looked up at Sabrina.
“Yep, you’re right. How could I have forgotten this. Those motherfuckers…”
Sabrina still felt shocked when Eva Kim swore.
“What do you mean? Who? Who are the mother…”
“I mean those fucking privileged assholes have leveraged all their social, snotty contacts to bring in all the top-notch private-school teachers and donations from that white, privileged cobblestone Chestnut Hill community to make a public school have all the frills of a private elite school while ticking off the public school checklist. It’s the ultimate flex of those with money making the system work for them.
All their rich snotty friends moved into the district, so those who are really in need of a public education are priced out, and voila, they’ve basically created a private school under the guise of it being public.
They’ve pumped up the school with donations from wealthy parents so they don’t have the fees but all the extras in this one school for their already privileged kids. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so?”
“I think you do. It’s basically benefits for all the people who have plenty already, and the kids who actually need the donations, and the help, and the input, they get pushed aside.”
Sabrina took a deep breath. Everything Eva Kim said was true, she just hadn’t looked at it face on until now. And the unfairness of it.
“And your trip? Your mom was fixing it, was she? She made quotation marks in the air when she said the word fixing . “Getting her old contacts across the river to get the documents together for you so you could travel in and out?”
“I couldn’t say for sure, but I guess so. I didn’t really have any other way of…”
Eva nodded and abandoned the topic completely, and Sabrina was so grateful again that Eva understood her without her having to say the words that were so painful to get out. That Eva Kim knew when to leave Sabrina alone.
It wasn’t until this moment that Sabrina started to consider the extent of the injustice of it—the complete imbalance she witnessed but didn’t fully understand.
She always felt like she was intruding in a place where she didn’t quite belong.
She felt a cloak of invisibility cover her as she boarded the school bus while others drove away in SUVs.
She felt embarrassed every time Lee Lee arrived at a parent-teacher event wearing the same faded green housedress with the hem frayed from too many washes, while the other mothers wore expensive dresses and designer handbags slung over their shoulders.
It was understood that most of her peers would attend any college they liked.
Every morning she walked into the school foyer to see the names of the Harrisons and Herzogs etched into the marble wall in order of their generous donations.
Show-offs , Lee Lee mumbled .
It was the first time that Sabrina had ever talked about her status with anyone, and something inside her heart felt unlocked.
The Harrisons lived in a four-story brownstone east of Rittenhouse Square in the Society Hill district.
Sabrina heard no traffic as she walked down the shaded street lined with swaying cherry blossom trees heavily laden with leaves.
Dave opened the door to her with a smile she had only seen a handful of times before.
The heavy door closed behind her, and beyond the stone steps and doorway, she found herself in a black-and-white marble entrance hall looking at her reflection in an enormous Art Deco mirror with a sizable globe-shaped glass light installation that she later heard Mrs. Harrison describe as “midcentury.” Further down the hallway, she could see a massive kitchen with a powder-pink marble island and baby-blue velvet upholstered stools lined up alongside it.
The hallway had a faint scent of figs mixed with a heady floral fragrance from the large display of lilies on a round glass table.
Unlike Sabrina’s house, there was no line of pegs for her to hang her bag or jacket by the front door.
She stood awkwardly as Dave said, “Hey, Chen,” and gestured for her to follow.
Should she take her shoes off? Where should she put her bag?
She started to untie her Converse.
“Hey, don’t worry about that. You want a cold drink? Looks hot out there.”
The cool air-conditioning hit her as she followed him to the kitchen.
“Uh, sure. What have you got?”
“Everything.”
She imagined what that would look like.
···
The den was darker, and Sabrina’s eyes took a moment to adjust. There was a whiff of laundry detergent in the air, the scent she recognized from passing Dave in the school hallways.
For a moment, she imagined burying her nose into Dave’s back, between his shoulder blades, and inhaling.
Then she thought of Kit doing that very thing, and her throat closed up.
She forced herself to black out the image, like the curtains they pulled on airplanes to separate first class from everyone else.
“So what’s going on with you, Chen?” Dave sat down on the couch and tipped his head toward the seat, inviting her to join him.
Sabrina shrugged, her mind racing to find a quick quip.
“How’s this internship going? What are you doing there?”
“It’s uh…kind of basic stuff, like filing, but I get to help this woman, she’s interesting, kinda weird, and kinda awesome.
She helps Asian immigrants who have no rights.
She works with them and represents them in court, helps them to get basic health care, gives those who are struggling a voice, I guess is what she would say. ”
“What’s her name?”
“Eva Kim. Her name is Eva Kim.”
“You like her?”
Sabrina paused, and she felt her heart fill up for a moment at the thought of Eva.
“I really do. She’s super tough, and foulmouthed, and she gets shit done.”
Dave’s eyes widened. “That’s the first time I ever heard you swear.”
“Yeah?”
“It suits you.”
···
“David! Are you here?” Footsteps interrupted them, the loud clip-clop of high heels on wooden floorboards.
“Yep, I’m down here.”
“Did you not get my messages? I need you to let me know if you’re coming to the Agarwals for dinner tonight. Rita needs numbers. Oh hello there.”
Mrs. Harrison swept into the room, a cloud of perfume following her.
“Hello, Mrs. Harrison.” Sabrina stood up quickly and bowed slightly, a gesture she immediately regretted.
“Oh, hi, love, how are you? I didn’t know you had company, David.” Mrs. Harrison’s eyes scanned Sabrina and rested on the country club logo on the left side of her polo shirt.
“I love this country club merch you’re wearing—David, we have to get some too.” She had moved so close that Sabrina could see where Mrs. Harrison had drawn between the fine hairs of her brows.
“Yeah, Sabrina came over after work. We’re just hanging out. Might catch a movie. So I won’t be coming tonight, Mom, sorry.” He shrugged and pulled his cell phone out.
“Sure. Make yourself at home, Sabrina.”
“Thank you. You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Harrison,” Sabrina said quietly.
“Oh, that’s sweet. Thank you. I do miss our big place in Chestnut Hill, but this little spot suits us so much better now that Brad’s at college, and Dave is leaving us soon too.” She waved her arm into the air.
“Mom, do you need anything else?” Dave asked.
“No, my darling, no. Otherwise, if you need anything, check in with Jona, okay? And have fun! Nice to see you again, honey,” she said as she clip-clopped back up the stairs.
“Who’s Jona?”
“Oh, she’s our housekeeper.”
“Riiiight…” Sabrina walked around the room and started to examine the collage of photographs on the pinboards.
Some were of Brad’s friends and girlfriends.
She noticed there weren’t as many of Dave’s.
In one, taken in front of the Colosseum in Rome, his brother’s arm was thrown around his neck, but Dave’s eyes always gave him away, those mournful eyes that looked out at the camera lens, his body leaning away from his brother’s.
“You think I’m a brat?”
“Well, I knew you guys were rich,” Sabrina said, gesturing around her.
Dave laughed, “Brutal…but yes, my parents are, and objectively speaking, I am a brat. What does your house look like?”
“We live pretty simply,” she replied quietly.
“As in, our house feels like excessive or something?” He gestured with his arm toward the PlayStation and enormous TV.
“Americans are so wasteful. My mom’s favorite subject.”
“Your mom says that?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“Well, we are. I mean, she would hate my mom. If the food is past its expiration date, even if it’s still good, it goes in the trash.”
Sabrina said nothing and thought about what her mother would do if she saw the Harrison’s house.
She imagined her mother’s eyes would be like saucers as they looked around the carefully curated artwork, the ornaments deliberately displayed.
A bowl of lemons on the kitchen counter.
What do they need so many lemons for? This was a different world from Sabrina’s, a way of living the Chens did not understand.
It didn’t even compare to Kit’s house. Everything about Dave’s home made Sabrina feel like she should be thanking Mrs. Harrison for allowing her inside.
“Yeah, it’s different in our house,” she said.