Chapter 3 Lemon Meringue And Other Sour Beginnings
Lemon Meringue And Other Sour Beginnings
I never had any sisters, all my days before my thirteenth summer were spent with the boys.
That within itself is not a complaint because the boys were always amiable, always polite and always kept a keen eye on me.
Cahya, Soleh, Jax and his cousin Oliver who lived on Gilmore Street a few blocks away.
Sometimes the summers felt infinite and tedious, I found myself missing home, missing mom and the earth beneath my feet in Jakarta.
But I knew that I would never be alone so long as I had the boys with me, around me, just..
.having them there. Sometimes I’d be up in my room reading one of Jurie’s old classic novels, flipping pages all the way from Treasure Island to Alice in Wonderland.
I’d warn the boys not to disturb me under any circumstances, but I’d hear a faint knock on my door and when I’d open it, there would be a little bowl of fruit, cut into cubes, not rectangles because they always remembered the little things about me.
Or I’d be practising my posture in the living room mirror, making sure my muscle memory didn’t somehow develop amnesia over the summer holidays and my ballet teacher Madame Stacy wouldn’t be on my case the minute I was back in New York.
The frustration of it all would get to me, and I’d watch as tears began to well in my eyes and felt my feet beginning to strain in my pointed shoes.
But no amount of physical pain could ever amount to the shame and fear of never being good enough.
And so I did what my family always did whenever things got tough.
I endured, so much of my childhood became lessons in composure and endurance.
I recall Jax watching from the kitchen, never speaking a word about it, his sharp forest green eyes saw much more than he’d ever let on.
He knew I was embarrassed to have him see me like that, so raw and so very bare.
Struggling. He did not say a word as he took the fleece blanket from the sofa and threw it over the mirror to cover it so I couldn’t see myself anymore.
“It’s okay to breathe, Soh. You don’t always have to hold your breath,” he said to me and those words scorched themselves into my bones like a red hot branding iron. I never forgot them.
And yet, still, I hold my breath. I never quite learned how to breathe.
I had never had a rebellious phase as many teenagers often do, never cut my hair short and dyed it, never snuck out, never stepped out of line.
We’d been watching some old coming-of-age film in the living room together and whenever the scenes of the group of friends sticking it to the man or breaking out of the social path came on, I couldn’t help but feel excluded, I was distracted all night.
And Cahya and Soleh noticed. They woke me up in the middle of the night and we snuck out of Mirrorball House to go to the big beach by Rock Helena and we dived down into the deep.
Our lungs were not filled with dread and anguish but water and bubbling with the kind of sheer joy experienced only through childhood spirit.
We laughed and talked over frozen green grapes, we sipped sparkling water in wine glasses like we often saw the parents doing.
We wanted to feel a little bit more in control, a little bit older.
We talked about Phoebe Bridgers songs, dusty vinyl records and homework we had no plans of doing.
So yes, as you can understand. The boys were always with me, and yet, still…
deep down I dreamed of having a sister. I had Sydney and she was everything, she was my best friend, my darling trusted companion from sunset to sundown.
I couldn’t remember a life before her, it was almost as if she was always there from the very start.
But I was nothing if not selfish, I wanted what I wanted and world be damned if I didn’t get it.
Sydney was everything but I wanted more.
I remember the day the Kwon family moved in next door like it was yesterday—they just sort of appeared like stars in the night sky, like a ray of sunlight at midday, like a cold you can’t seem to shake off after getting caught in the pouring rain.
No one in Waverly Peak ever anticipated the twin palaces, Mirrorball and March House, would ever become triplets.
The house next to ours was always vacant, but we didn’t know that it would never be empty again…
at least not for the next four years to come.
That house would be filled to the brim with life, laughter echoing down winding hallways, lights on past midnight, hot food always on the stove and the television set on.
Everything happened within a flash; Jax seeing the moving vans parked outside, him riding his bike up to Mirrorball House to tell me, us racing down the wooden pathway to March House to tell Sydney.
“Is it true?” Sydney asked me through braces, freckled cheeks, and pigtails.
“Depends what exactly are you referring to?” I played along.
“Oh come on, Yesoh, let me in, I can keep a secret!” she insisted, and back then Sydney St James couldn’t keep a secret to save her life—just the week prior she’d snitched about the vase Soleh broke while playing ball indoors.
But that was then, now she is a vault and there is no breaking her.
Not a chance. “Is someone moving in or not?”
“There’s a moving truck outside the house that was being renovated,” Jax told her. She gasped slamming her tiny hand on the kitchen counter.
“Shut up, no way!” she refused, unable to believe us. “Someone finally moved to the desert.”
“Well, technically this isn’t the desert, it’s a wealthy suburb in Cal—” I began, but Jax hinted at me to shut up.
“Let a girl dream, won’t you, Yesoh?” Jax scolded me. I raised my hands in surrender. “But yes someone is moving here.”
Sydney immediately rushed to the window, propping herself on the step stool to see the truck, and I watched as her eyes widened in surprise. “Girls!” she yelled back to us.
“Huh?” Jax wondered. “Okay now I’m lost in translation.”
I arched a teasing eyebrow. “Oh, but I thought you were fluent in Sydney?”
“Yeah well now she might as well be speaking French,” he concluded.
“I mean there’s girls outside, they look around our age, Soh, come see,” she egged on, and I stood beside her peering out the window, and she was in fact correct, there outside helping a man I’d assumed was their father lobby their luggage inside were three girls.
The first time I saw the Kwon girls, I recall feeling this fantastical allure of sorts, this undeniable connection.
It felt similar to what Coraline had experienced in the novels when she longed for a different life and stepped through that little door.
Summer 13 was my very own portal into a whole new world.
It was my own pathway to experiencing the closest thing to magic I’d ever know.
The first time I saw them, I thought they all appeared the same with their backs turned, miles and miles of carefully spun lochs of long black hair.
Same almost unnaturally pale skin, but different in height, the two girls carrying the heavier boxes were taller.
“I want to know them,” I expressed—that was all I said as I stared out the window watching them, like I watched everyone.
“I’m so glad they’re girls moving in guys, Waverly has such few girls our age," Sydney said blissfully.
“Hey, are we not good enough for ya?” Jax grumbled in protest.
“You are just boys,” I reminded him.
“And that within itself is enough said.” Sydney turned to face me, holding my hands. ”Yesoh, friend, we may get to have girlfriends now.”
“Sydney, I wished on every shooting star every summer you have no idea." I giggled and she smiled, “We have to keep this secret.”
“What secrets?” Sydney’s mother, Elodie, said as she made her way into the living room. She looked just like her only daughter, she had a shawl wrapped around her as she came back inside from the porch.
“Nothing!” we all responded in unison.
“What did I say about keeping secrets dearest?” Elodie scolded, folding her arms sternly and we knew then that there was no arguing with her.
“Fine, there’s a new family moving in next door and they have daughters…we wanted to make friends,” Sydney explained to her mother.
“Really?” Elodie marvelled. “That sounds wonderful, let’s bake the nice family a welcome-to-the-neighbourhood pie.”
“You make the best pies, Mrs St James,” Jax complimented with great candour, as he always did.
Jax was the one all the parents loved, he was good at every sport, knew a lot about the kind of politics that didn’t make anyone privileged feel guilty, and he looked out for people.
But he was also cowardly and a people pleaser—he was not without his flaws.
He was right about one thing though, Elodie did make the best pies.
We all put on our aprons and followed the recipe Elodie read out for us.
Our cheeks were dusted with flour, tongues sour with lemon zest and hair sticking to our foreheads from the oven heat.
As we baked, we talked about what it might mean to have sisters or something close to it; we wondered if they would make beaded bracelets with us, if they wouldn’t mind braiding each other’s hair and wouldn’t complain like the boys, if they would listen to Gracie Abrams on replay with us and analyze the lyrics, collect seashells on the little beach. Things that just us girls could do.
We then mustered up the courage to make our way down the wooden pathway past March House, past Mirrorball House, and all the way down to the house at the end of the street.
Tall pastel blue walls and so much potential for something so full of life.
I knocked and corrected my posture, awaiting a response, but when the door swung open, there were no girls, no, not at all but a boy.
“You are not a girl,” Sydney marvelled, nearly dropping the pie.
He was the exact same height as I at the time, his skin a warmer honey than the girls I’d seen before, but his hair was the exact same shade of suede black with a wispy white streak that reminded me of midnights.
His eyes were round and big, like two dark moons swimming in a starlit sea—they gave him this almost innocent appearance, he was doe-eyed like Bambi.
His nose was straight and slightly upturned, a beauty spot on his cheek.
His lips full and tinted rose. He wore a white shirt that was far too big for him and he appeared far too pristine, far too beautiful, for a world like this.
He was the first boy my gaze ever lingered on, the first one who was unlike all the others.
“No, I am not.” He shook his head in refusal. He had a slight English accent to his tone that took me aback. “Were you hoping for a girl to answer?”
“Yes actually,” Sydney answered because I was evidently still dumbfounded. “Where are—”
“Welcome to Waverly Peak, It’s nice to meet you, I’m Yesoh Yeo,” I said, taking the pie from Sydney’s grasp and into my arms to offer it to him. “A token from the parents.”
“The parents seem kind. Thank you.” He bowed, taking the pie from me. “We’re certainly grateful and can’t wait to meet everyone.”
“We?” Sydney asked, still persistent. “So there are others, huh?”
“Yes, my sisters, my father, and I,” he explained, “is that who you were hoping to encounter?”
“We saw them from the bay window and wanted to make a good impression.” I swallowed down my nervousness. “We hoped for friends.”
“Ah, I see.” He paused then acknowledged my words nodding slowly. “Well, they just left with our father to the town to buy groceries, sorry to disappoint you. There are no girls as of now.”
His voice carried a very slight blunt humor to it that I found rather amusing.
“Really?” Sydney huffed, folding her arms. “Well that’s certainly disappoint—”
“I’m not disappointed,” I interrupted, “I have only brothers, you see, I’ve grown accustomed to a life beside boys.”
“I only have sisters. I understand why you would be drawn to them and wish for friendship,” he disclosed, and the wind was immediately knocked out of me.
“Oh my god, you have three sisters?” Sydney gasped. “That’s crazy, you’re the only boy!”
“Is that so?" He responded humouring her but I caught onto his sarcasm.
“So you have a life with girls and Yesoh has lived a life with boys, oh this is something straight out of a film. I mean, the irony!” Sydney marveled in fascination, and I rolled my eyes at her.
“This is my best friend, Sydney, she’s…well you can see!" I introduced her to him, and she reached out a hand to shake his.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, new kid.” She nodded enthusiastically. “You’re going to feel right at home.”
“Maybe,” he mused, glancing down at the pie. “Thank you again for the pie, the girls will be over the moon, they happen to have quite the sweet tooth.”
“And you?" I wondered.
“I get told I’m rather bitter,” he corrected me, but I shook my head slowly in refusal.
“Hm. I don’t think so, we’ll see,” I replied.
“Come on, Yesoh, let’s head back home, It’s almost time for dinner.” Sydney grabbed my arm, but I stopped her.
“Wait!" I insisted, then glanced back at him. “I never quite got your name?”
“Kwon.” He held my gaze. “Kwon Wyn.”
“You mean Wyn-ter?” I wondered.
“Yes, but I am not often Wynter, I’m only Wyn.”
“And I’m not often Yesoh, I’m only Soh.” I matched his humour.
“I get the sense that I’ll be seeing a lot more of you, Soh.” He lingered in the doorway a little longer than he had to before disappearing inside and closing the door.
At the time, he had no idea just how much.