Chapter Three
So, yeah. Life is super great. And things don’t get much better the next morning.
I find Mom standing in the kitchen. We greet each other in Mandarin Chinese.
I’m not really fluent, but we use it when nobody else is around or if we don’t want eavesdroppers to know what we’re saying.
It’s kind of like having a secret language, except the secret language is spoken by over a billion people.
Sunshine-yellow scrambled eggs sizzle on the skillet. She’s an amazing cook. She should have her own restaurant. Her food is utterly wasted on my stepdad.
“Remember when you used to make those with tomatoes?” I ask. A classic Chinese dish. But Mom hasn’t made it in years. Michael has the palate of someone who thinks Applebee’s is fine dining.
She smiles. “The most important ingredient is soy sauce.”
When’s the last time we even had soy sauce in the house?
Anyway, she seems to be in a good mood, so I decide to ask. “Um, so, did Michael mention anything about my money?” Maybe this isn’t a total L. Maybe she can talk to him for me.
Her spatula freezes mid-scrape. “What money?”
I swallow hard. “I had this envelope with cash. He took it yesterday. He stole it.”
“How much was in there?”
“About two grand.”
Now she looks at me, lips parting in surprise. “Where did you get all that?”
“I have a job at school.” Maybe I should’ve told her. I guess it was just easier not to. I don’t know when I stopped talking to her about my life.
She turns back to the stove. “Money is hard lately. Some of Michael’s sales didn’t go how he wanted.”
“Mom.” My voice cracks a little. I can’t believe she’s making excuses for him. Well, no, I can, but I don’t want to believe it. “It’s my money. I earned it.”
“I know, baobei.” Precious baby. But I don’t feel like much of her precious anything.
She slides the eggs onto a plate. “But right now we can’t cause trouble. Your stepfather is very stressed. Just until—”
Just until what? Until Michael hits it big at blackjack? Because given how bad he is at gambling, we might as well start buying Bitcoin.
But I don’t get the chance to ask before my stepsister traipses into the kitchen. “Hi, Quinn! Oooh, eggs.” She doesn’t acknowledge me.
Imagine you’re using a public bathroom and then a stranger slides into the stall right next to yours.
All you can see are their Converse high-tops, but you’re getting a full symphony of toilet-related awkwardness.
And after the flush, as they use the sink, you sit and wait for them to dip because you absolutely don’t want to put a face to the sounds you just endured.
Yep. That’s Olive and me. Two people who happen to be using the bathroom at the same time.
I don’t hate Olive or anything. It’s more that I don’t trust her anymore.
When our parents first got hitched, we were total besties.
I’d vent to her about how Michael was making Mom cook greasy crap I didn’t like or whatever.
Then my complaints would magically trickle their way to Michael, and he’d get wasted and take it out on us.
So I learned to stop talking to Olive.
Anyway, if she’s up, Michael’s probably not far behind, and it’s better for everyone if I’m not around by the time he drags himself into the kitchen like a swamp monster. And enlisting Mom’s help is a lost cause. So I disappear out the front door.
I get to homeroom early, which means I hear way more tea than normal.
Everyone’s buzzing about a sophomore named Thayer who got busted for dealing, but nobody is sure about the specific drug.
I hear three different versions of this same story before first period.
By the time the bell rings, Thayer is apparently a peddler for pot, ecstasy, and something so illegal nobody even knows the name.
Anyway, I have to tell Lola about the money, even though I’d rather step on a Lego. Thank God my morning is AP Chemistry and AP English Language, since she’s not in either. Life’s looking grim if molecular orbital diagrams are the fun choice.
But I can’t procrastinate this convo forever. At lunch, I spot Lola at our usual table.
Quick backstory: Lola Garcia and I became friends in sixth grade, after I walloped her in the face.
My family had just moved to Chinook Shore. Olive and I enrolled in school here, but we had different lunch periods, so I was doomed to the double-whammy friendlessness of being the new kid and the only Asian kid.
In the cafeteria, there was this boy; his name was John or James or something. He moved away years ago. So let’s call him John, because who cares.
John’s dream was to be like the president. Not to get elected president someday. But to be exactly like the current president, even though he had more in common with a garden slug than with a New York real-estate billionaire.
So John was squawking that Lola’s mom, who worked at the school as a custodian, was gonna get deported.
Maybe it’s bad, but these days, when people say racist stuff, I don’t always call them out. It feels hopeless and overwhelming, like moderating a Reddit community for incels. But at age eleven, I’d just moved from Portland, so I didn’t get that blatant racism was accepted here.
So I went up to John and tried to windmill-kick him in the head, but he ducked and my foot connected with only air.
(Why did I go for a kick instead of literally anything else?
Probably I thought it’d look cool. There is literally no limit to how much a sixth grader will debase herself to look cool.) My arms flailed as I fought to regain balance.
Suddenly Lola clutched at her nose, wailing. I’d struck her with my elbow.
Anyway, even though she went to the nurse’s office and I went to the principal’s office and John got away scot-free (something he did have in common with the president), Lola decided that we were besties after that. I don’t know. Eleven-year-olds are weird.
Fast-forward to now. Lola is drawing in her sketchbook with her right hand and shoveling food with her left. Next to her elbow sits the metal tin of Prismacolor pencils I got for her birthday last year.
She’s working on her portfolio, the one she’s going to submit for the scholarship. Right now she’s doing a strapless spring-green slip gown that reminds me of Tinkerbell’s dress. Seeing it makes my stomach twist.
For a wild moment, I consider seeking refuge with the other Advanced Placement nerds, who are huddled at the opposite end of the cafeteria.
They’re these guys from chem that I sometimes check answers with, but I’ve been avoiding that crowd ever since I overheard them trying to guess my bra size.
It wasn’t even that they were being gross.
It was that their estimations were completely off, which made me seriously question the credibility of their lab results.
Anyway. I’m no coward. I’m not going to flee. I’m going to talk to Lola.
“Hey,” I say, plopping down my tray of UFOs (Unidentifiable Food Objects).
She glances up. “Did you get it?”
That’s the thing about Lola. No bullshitting around. No Hi, Char, beloved friend of mine, how are you on this lovely spring day?
“No. I’m really sorry.”
Her pencil stops scritching. “But you said—”
“I know what I said.” I fiddle with a loose thread on my sleeve. “Some family stuff. I couldn’t get the money.” Maybe she’d get it if I explained Michael. But I don’t go there with anyone. It feels like letting them read my diary or something.
She’s quiet for a sec. Then she sighs. “It’s whatever. I’ll ask Mari.” Lola is the type to call adults—yep, even her mom—by their first names.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “I didn’t want to because, ya know, with everything going on with her treatments and the medical bills… And I didn’t want to tell her about the scholarship and, like, make it a thing.”
“I’m so sorry, Lo.”
“Stop apologizing. Mari’s always saying I should let her help me anyway.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say. There’s this awkward silence, which Lola always hates.
“Okay! Change of topic. Lookie there. Why’s your man hitting up your stepsister?”
She jabs in a vague direction with Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencil in Spring Green, and I follow with my eyes.
By the vending machines, Drew is all up in Olive’s space.
Every so often, he throws his head back and guffaws.
There’s no way my stepsister is that funny.
She’s the kind of person who says “LOL” instead of actually laughing.
I shrug. “He can do what he wants.”
Lola slaps a hand over her mouth in exaggerated surprise. “Did you break up?”
“Kinda?” I don’t know if there was anything to break up. “He said he doesn’t want to make out anymore.”
“You can’t be that bad of a kisser.”
I stick my tongue out at her. “That’s not why. He asked to get more serious, whatever that means, and I complained about his casual racism.”
She kisses her teeth. “Rookie mistake, darlin’. You can’t accuse white people of being racist.”
“Lola, he called me Mulan.” And I guess I sat there and took it.
“Mulan is the best Disney Princess,” she says. “Well, after Lesbian Elsa. And the Little Mermaid. Okay, she’s top five.”
“You rank Ariel over Mulan?” I shake my head. “Ariel loses her voice for a man. Mulan saves all of China!”
“Yeah, but consider.” And then Lola launches into a rendition of “Part of Your World” in her rich alto voice. When people begin to turn and stare, I kick her in the shin.
“Oww!” She clutches her leg in mock pain. “But I get you. Did I ever tell you why I broke up with Sarah?”
“Because she kept posting Bible verses about homosexuality on her Instagram story?”
“No, that was Church Sarah. This is Hot Sarah.”
“Oh. Then no.” I try to recall Hot Sarah’s face, but I’m pretty sure my brain’s just defaulting to Sadie Sink.
“She wanted me to speak Spanish while hooking up. I don’t know if she had a Latina fetish or she was too lazy for Duolingo or what. I tried to go along with it, because she was so absurdly hot. Case in point: she was a natural redhead. And she was obsessed with yoga, so her butt looked—”
“Lo,” I say.
“Okay, sorry. The last straw was when she asked me to recite Pablo Neruda poems in bed. Girlie, I’m not even doing the required reading for English class, you think I’m gonna read something with line breaks for fun? So I had to end things.”
“Tragic.” Personally, I might’ve tried to stick it out with someone hot enough to earn the nickname Hot Sarah. But Lola has more self-respect than I do.
We watch Drew’s fingers graze Olive’s bare shoulder. She giggles and flips her blond ponytail. I imagine a nature documentary voiceover: Here, we observe two American teenagers in their natural habitat, engaging in a primitive mating ritual.
Lola scoffs. “That dude is. Pa-the-tic.” She punctuates each syllable with a tap of her fork against her plastic lunch tray. “He’s probably doing this to make you jealous.”
“Probably,” I say, more to placate her than out of any real anger.
Drew shifts, and I catch a glimpse of his face. He’s got this dazed, dopey look.
I force my eyes away. Maybe I should be heartbroken. Like, I was fully ready to lose my virginity to this guy yesterday, and now he’s trying to slide on my stepsister. That’s messed up, right? So shouldn’t this hurt more? Maybe something is wrong with me. Maybe I’m a heartless bitch.
But then I remember my mom, and how my dad broke her heart cleanly in two, and how my stepdad now chips away at whatever remains. Bit by bit, day by day. Maybe it’s better to be a heartless bitch.