Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
Marcus,
Answers to your 3 questions.
Yes, yes, yes. And once more in case you’re confused: yes.
Just below my belly button…mm-hmm. Yep. I’m sure of it.
Maybe, maybe not. You’ll have to wait and see.
I love you,
Mei
M y autopilot feature is back in action. Thought it broke when we left San Francisco, but as I scan boxes, moving them, stacking them, my head’s nowhere near this warehouse. It’s already at Stanford. Already on the soccer field. Settling into a new place with Mei in the best of all possible worlds. Wish I could call Dad and tell him. but then again…no, I don’t. Our worlds are now two very different places.
I bend and lift a heavy box to burn off the hurt and anger that always slips in when I think about Dad. I toss the box into the passing trailer, not even breaking a sweat. This job has kept me in shape, but that’s about it. I definitely won’t miss it when I walk away from it next week. Except I’ll miss the paycheck. The agreement was that Mei and I would work for Jerry for free rent and a small stipend, but he’s paid me every week and paid me well. I’ve saved a bunch of money. It’s not enough, but it’ll help us get settled at Stanford. Just not sure where yet, even though we’ll be there next week.
I’ve said a lot of panicked but grateful prayers this week, and my mild panic is the only thing keeping me from wishing we were leaving today. Also, after talking to my coworker on lunch break, I wanna take Mei somewhere cool before we head to Stanford.
He told me the perfect place for a mini vacation. A mini vacation…or a honeymoon. If this is gonna be my new life, I want it with Mei, and thanks to Wen and all her prompting, marriage has crossed my mind about a hundred times, making a few permanent tracks through my head.
My cell phone chirps, and I set down my scanner, pull the phone out of my pocket, and glance at the number. My thumb immediately slides over the button. “Hello?”.
“Hi, Marcus? This is Sherina returning your call about on-campus housing.”
“Oh—yeah, hey. Thanks for calling me back. Just curious about the process to get into your couples housing. I have a full-ride soccer scholarship, but my girlfriend’s coming with me so we need an apartment, and I was wondering if my scholarship could help us get campus housing.”
“I’m happy to go over all your options if you have a minute.”
I glance around, looking for my manager’s orange hair, which is usually pretty easy to spot in a world of cardboard and metal, but he’s nowhere, and I gotta take this call, so…if he fires me, he fires me.
I walk down the wide aisle between towering stacks of boxes and forklifts whizzing past me and head outside where there’s less beeping. This conversation could mean a place for Mei and me to live. Together. Motorcycle, Stanford, Mei. Happiest Marcus ever.
I ask Sherina a thousand questions, she gives me two thousand answers, and when I hang up, I set my phone on the cement picnic table I’ve been sitting on, my butt numb because I didn’t move so I could catch every detail. But holy freak.
An ant strolls across the cement table, navigating around all the holes that are probably more like craters to him. I wonder what he’s after and hope he gets it, because I just got everything I wanted, plus some. If I marry Mei, we can apply for grants for her to go to culinary school. My scholarship will pay most of the rent. If I marry Mei, she stays with me forever, starting right now. If I marry Mei, our life begins officially, and no one can end it. It’s ours. Nick can do nothing about it, even if he wasn’t in jail. Mei and I can put everything that’s happened in the last six months behind us. If Dad thought me dating Mei was crazy, he’ll give birth to a donkey when he hears I married her. If I ever talk to him again, which is doubtful.
I blink away from the ant and back into my world where the craters I was navigating this morning have disappeared. I squint into the hazy sun. Marry Mei? Yeah. Definitely. Right now, though? Like…this week?
I scan the gray metal buildings. They’re stuck in one place, rust creeping onto them. Doing the same thing they did yesterday and who knows how many days before that.
Not gonna be me. I’m marrying Mei. We’re doing this life thing together.
So if I’m gonna marry her, I need to propose. And it has to be like…soon. Tomorrow, actually. We have to be married before Stanford. Six days. It’ll take that long for us to get there if I take Mei to San Juan Island. Three days there, two days driving…one day left.
My heart picks up speed and takes a crash course through my head. Every corner I turn has a flashing “MARRY HER” sign, and there are no brakes on any of these thoughts—just full throttle toward Mei.
I snatch my phone and jog back inside the warehouse, looking for orange hair, which I spot bobbing above row 38. “Darrell!” I yell, and he whirls around, his orange safety vest reflecting the florescent lights.
“Yeah?”
“So…change of plans. Today’s gonna be my last day.”
I don’t remember driving home because my thoughts were nowhere on this motorcycle, nowhere close to Seattle, but I bump into the driveway, cut the engine, and grab my backpack before racing to the cottage. I toss my warehouse name badge in the garbage bin as I pass. Good riddance to swing shifts and the required twice a month graveyard. If I stay up all night from now on, it’ll be because Mei’s keeping me up.
The idea pumps adrenaline through my veins and swims through my head. I smile to myself and unlock the door, tossing my backpack on the table and looking around the cottage for proposal inspiration. Silence pounds against my ears, and the next six days stretch in front of me like a timeline. Propose tomorrow. Get married day after. Honeymoon on San Juan Island. Life could not get any better. I mean, okay…maybe there are a few things I’m dying to add, but then I’ll really have it all. If Guo can marry us like she hinted at doing before we left San Francisco.
I flop on the couch and scoot forward, elbows on my knees. Phone clutched to my ear, I wait for her to answer. Come on, come on…
“Wei?”
“Guo?”
A gasp, a shriek. “Marcus Miller, is that you, boy?”
“Guo! I miss you!”
“Oh, you. Not as much as I miss you and Mei Li. It’s too boring around here. Nothing but tourists and fried rice. Bah.”
I laugh. “You should come to Seattle, then. Like…day after tomorrow, maybe? Wednesday?”
“Why should I come so quickly, Marcus Miller…?”
I collapse back against the couch, running my fingers through my hair as I smile at the ceiling. “I got back into Stanford so…I’m gonna ask Mei to marry me tomorrow. And I want you to marry us. You mentioned once you could do it for us if we ever needed it…”
I flinch when she shrieks rapid-fire Chinese in my ear. Then I laugh and swear. “Wow. That was a reaction.”
“I AM SO HAPPY, MARCUS MILLER! You just know exactly how to make all the women in your life so happy.”
“I got your excitement loud and clear. And it might be the last thing I ever hear.” My heart squirms a little, pushing tears too close to the surface. I’ve missed Guo’s energy and shady guidance in my life. “Think you can do it? I only want the Love Hunter to marry us, no one else. I’ll even give you full credit, even though I had serious doubts.”
“Yes! Marry her, please! It is all I will ever ask for. Yes, yes, yes. You and Mei Li were meant to be together. I knew it long before you ever met.”
“How’s that?”
“There was an invisible red thread tied from your ankle to hers. It got very tangled with all the different paths you took around each other, but it’s straight now, and it will never break. You are meant to be. I see it, you feel it. I’m right. The end.”
“I definitely feel it, Guo. Wish I’d listened to you a lot sooner so I could have had Mei in my life for longer, but now…she’ll be in it forever.”
“Oh you. It melts my heart to hear you speak about her. I told you that you would love her deeply, and I hear it in your voice. It has happened. You love her more than even yourself, and I will be in Seattle on Wednesday to make it permanent.”