Chapter 5 Magnolia #2
Ellery laughed. “Really?” she said, mimicking me. “Said like a kid who was just told she’s going to Disneyland.”
My cheeks burned, but then she chuckled and said, “C’mon. My car’s parked right there.”
I hurried after her. She stopped next to a tiny gray Honda and unlocked the passenger door manually before going round to the driver’s side.
I slid in, and once we were both inside and the doors closed, the silence was so sudden that I didn’t dare breathe in case it sounded thunderous.
Then she turned the engine on and I released my breath.
I thought I should probably say something.
But what? I gnawed on my lip as Ellery navigated our way out of the parking structure.
“Did you just move to Pasadena?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Where from?”
Uh-oh. When Iris told me not to disclose the fact that I’m a FOB, she hadn’t bothered to expand on it, and I hadn’t thought of asking for clarification in certain situations, for example, when someone asks me where I’m from, what should I say?
What should I say? Oh god, I’d stayed quiet for far too long.
My anxiety bubbled over until the answer burped out of me. “America!”
Ellery raised her eyebrows at me. “Okay, smart-ass. Which part?”
Oh my god. Which part? Who the hell knows? How many parts are there in America?
“New York.” I didn’t know why I said New York, except that I’d watched enough episodes of Friends to know what New York City was. (It was a city where everyone was super cool. That was all I knew.)
“You don’t strike me as a New Yorker.”
Ohhh my god. My intestines turned into snakes, and the snakes were really not getting along with each other.
“New Yorkers are usually so snotty, and the first thing they do after revealing that they’re from New York is always to remind you that LA sucks, and—”
“I’m not from New York!” I said it so fast it came out like it was one single word: “I’mnotfromNewYork!”
Ellery stopped talking. Then she said, “I think I know where you’re really from.”
“Oh?” I wondered if we were going slow enough for me to simply jump out of the moving car right now.
“Let’s see. It’s gotta be someplace you’re not proud of. Someplace with a lot of fucked-up people.” She glanced at me appraisingly. “Florida?”
I squashed down the hysterical laughter threatening to come out of me. She thought I was American! Ah! Also, should I be from Florida?
“Texas? Nah, you don’t sound Texan. Unless you’re actually hiding a Texan twang. Are you hiding your real accent?”
She was right about me hiding my real accent, but she thought my real accent was Texan, and it was so surreal that I very nearly laughed out loud. “I am.”
“Really?” Her grin widened. “C’mon, let’s hear it. I wanna hear the famous Texan twang.”
I had no idea what that would sound like, and all I knew in this moment was that lying to Ellery felt so shitty. “I’m not from Texas. I’m from Indonesia.”
“Whoa. Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“No, why’re you sorry?”
“Because I said I’m from America. And I’m not.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.
“Oh. Well, that’s okay. I would’ve totally bought it though. You sound totally American.” There was not a single trace of anger or judgment in her voice.
“We speak English in Indonesia. Well, not everyone does, but the school I went to was a Singaporean school, so we spoke English all the time.”
“That’s so cool. Do you also speak, uh…Indo-lese? I don’t know, what do you speak there?”
“Indonesian. Yeah, I do. And Chinese.”
“You speak three languages? Damn!”
“Most Chinese-Indonesians do.”
“Wow. Most Americans only speak one language, and not very well,” Ellery said. “I only speak English. Always wished I could speak another language though.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Very handy when you want to bitch about things in public.”
“I bet it is. Oh, parking spot!” Ellery swung into an empty space on the side of the street and looked at me, her eyes dancing. “You’re my lucky charm.”
Not just any lucky charm, but specifically her lucky charm.
I swear, in that moment, every bone in my body turned into molten liquid.
But that was the thing with Ellery. She had no idea about the power of her word choice.
Already, she was sliding out of the car, whistling, not even looking in my direction.
She didn’t know that one word she just said had set my soul on fire.
We walked down the street, and before long, I was a few paces behind her. I had to do this weird little hop-jog to catch up with her. I should have told her to slow down, but of course I didn’t. She glanced over her shoulder and stopped short.
“Sorry, am I walking too fast?”
“No.” Yes.
“I’ll walk slower so your stumpy legs can keep up.”
“Stumpy legs? You mean so my normal-length legs can keep up with your freakishly long ones?” Holy shit. Where did that come from?
She cracked up. “Exactly. Yeah, you put me in my place, short stuff.”
I was still grinning by the time we got to the bookstore. It was filled with people—probably students like me—all of them shouting to be heard above the din.
Ellery called out, “Follow me!” and plunged into the crowd.
I did as she said, but it wasn’t long before we got separated in the throng of warm bodies.
Something came over me; it was the Ellery effect.
Iris was like a snowstorm, raging and sharp.
When I was around her, my body folded in on itself, curling up as tiny as it could go.
But Ellery was the sun, and her light made me unfurl.
It felt as though anything was okay with her.
Even then, on that first day, I somehow knew she wouldn’t get frustrated at me the way Iris would.
So I reached out and caught hold of the sleeve of her shirt.
She turned for a second. Our eyes met and she smiled, then she dived deeper into the crowd, my fingers still curled around her shirtsleeve, tugging me forward.
Though she hadn’t said a word about it, I got the sense that she was okay with me clinging to her.
The noise around us faded, everything focused on this one spot, my fingers on her sleeve.
No skin-on-skin contact, and yet still somehow unbearably intimate. I never wanted this to end.
It lasted about five seconds. Then we were at the counter and Ellery waved at someone. The spell broke, and I let go.
“Dahlia, hey. Wow, it’s madness in here.”
“No shit.” Dahlia grabbed a book from behind the counter, barely sparing Ellery a glance. “What do you need?”
“Give me your course schedule,” Ellery said to me.
I did so, and she handed it to Dahlia.
“Okay. Wait here.” Dahlia ducked underneath the counter and disappeared into the crowd.
“Did we just cut in line?” I said to Ellery.
Ellery looked shocked. “I would never!” Then she winked. “Don’t feel bad about it, it’s kind of a bookstore workers’ code, you know? If Dahlia ever came to the school bookstore, I would do the same for her.”
Somehow, that made Ellery seem even cooler to me.
Even though I knew it was bullshit, and technically we were very much cutting in line, which was very wrong and totally not something I would do on my own.
That’s love, isn’t it? It not only blinds us to the little imperfections but actively turns flaws into something beautiful.
But you know what? Even now, decades later, looking back with a clearer head, I’d still tell you the same thing I thought then—that despite all the little imperfections, like her cutting in line, I don’t know a better person than Ellery O’Shea.