Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Sabrina
Lee Lee’s impression of Kit was formed in elementary school, and it never changed.
She hated the sight of small children crying and throwing tantrums in public.
Americans are so indulgent, loud, look at me , she would snap, the center of her lips pinched down, as though the most sour lemon had found its way into her mouth.
To Sabrina’s mother, the constant need for self-expression was one of the worst qualities of their adopted home.
This would never happen in China. A person must learn to endure.
The first time Lee Lee saw Kit was in pre-K, when she threw herself down on the school playground, arms thumping and legs kicking. Sally Herzog insisted they needed to go home, but Kit simply refused, wailing that she was going to stay.
“No, go home yourself!” she shrieked at Sally, whose face had turned a deep scarlet.
Lee Lee’s lips pinched tighter as she watched the exchange.
This was an expression Sabrina would always picture when she thought of her mother.
Years later, when she herself became a mother, she fixed her own face if she thought she might mimic the same bitter expression.
“This is terrible behavior from a child. Sabrina, this brings shame to a family.” Lee Lee tutted as she turned out of the school car park, on a rare afternoon that she collected her daughter at the end of the day.
“Everyone does it, all the kids,” Sabrina muttered. Lee Lee nodded and put her foot on the accelerator.
“Not us. We are respectful to parents. And we do not draw attention to ourselves like that,” she said, waiting for her daughter’s agreement.
This was the first time Sabrina realized that her mother wasn’t the same as the other mothers. She watched as her mother kept her eyes firmly on the road ahead of her, in spite of the static traffic jam.
“Mrs. Ward says it’s important to express yourself; she says this is how we can understand one another’s feelings better,” Sabrina said.
“That just sounds like an excuse to be dramatic and over the top with your feelings. Don’t listen to Mrs. Ward.”
“But she’s my teacher, Mama,” Sabrina said, her eyes widening.
“You listen to her when she teaches you reading, writing, mathematics. That’s enough. But you remember that is not how I’ve brought you up.”
Sabrina realized that Kit would never be tested in the same way, although she too was not an American , not wholly anyway.
Something in the tone of her skin, the ways her eyes were wider, almond shaped with that double eyelid and light brown hair.
She would never understand what it was to be put in a box and shoved aside.
Kit would live her life with one foot in one world and the other free to roam where she pleased.
The boundaries of Sabrina’s existence were clear.
She would not go to expensive summer camps or drive a Jeep with the hood down through the cobbled streets of Chestnut Hill.
She might go to the shore if the Herzogs extended an invitation, but usually she was working over the summer.
Sabrina learned to look on at her friend’s world without resentment.
The way a dog knew to wait outside a store, she was never invited in unless someone had left the door open accidentally.
···
Though she never begrudged Kit’s privilege, her looks, or her pseudo-popularity, she did envy one thing: her origin story.
This was how Kit referred to it, a precious tale to share with the chosen few, her unique badge of mystery.
The girl who was left and then found. Kit’s story took on a legendary status when they started their freshman year in high school.
They walked through the heavy wooden doors to the Upper School building on the first day of school, and Sabrina heard the mumblings.
That’s the girl who was adopted. And with each step they took further down the hallway, the story became more fantastical.
They found her on their doorstep. Her mom was a Japanese hostess.
She was a model who got pregnant with some guy and couldn’t go home.
She’d been through four different homes before they found her the place with the Herzogs.
Kit’s expression was flat during those first weeks of high school.
She kept her eyes ahead of her, on nothing in particular.
Sabrina always thought her cheekbones looked more prominent, her eyes wider than the other girls, to Sabrina Kit was poetic even.
Sabrina watched with admiration as Kit’s lack of reaction only increased her mystery and allure, especially to the sophomore and junior boys.
As though Kit were always destined to play this role of a mysterious new arrival, even though she had been there all along.
Soon people stopped talking about her murky origin story and instead it was how much she looked like an actress in the latest Netflix series.
Kit’s flattened expression morphed slowly into a smile that started to twitch at her lips. Only Sabrina saw it.
Kit’s self-assurance ebbed and flowed like the water in the Delaware River. The winters of her self-doubt would freeze over, and it fell to Sabrina to thaw out its edges. But when it swelled over its banks, Sabrina had to run for cover and wait for the flood to subside.
That fall of freshman year, Sabrina looked at Dave Harrison as though she were seeing him for the first time.
He had always been in their classes, and part of Kit’s family circle, but now he stood in the hallway, his shoulders broader than they were before the summer began.
He carried his backpack slung over his gray varsity sweatshirt, and his hair looked like it had been brushed to the side with purpose.
Dave didn’t have the same movie star looks as his older brother, Brad, but his eyes were softer.
When they walked past him, his eyes lingered on Kit, taking inventory of her.
Sabrina felt pain and longing fill up her entire being, right up to her throat.
She watched his gaze, her feet becoming heavier as she walked beside her friend.
She watched his eyes follow Kit, and she felt the beginnings of a crack start to take shape inside her.
The summer before senior year began, Sabrina joined Kit down at the shore for a week.
It had taken her almost an entire semester to persuade her mother to allow her to go.
Sabrina kept hearing the Herzogs say to every family friend they invited over to their beach house that it was the hottest July for ten years.
She sat beside Kit quietly, waiting for the thundering beat in her chest to subside before she could open her mouth to join in the dining-table conversation.
Kit was relaxed and sat with her foot raised up on the seat of her chair, occasionally scolded by Mrs. Herzog for bad table manners.
Sabrina took care to keep her knees together, and chew with her mouth closed, heeding every instruction she had heard Mrs. Herzog make at the dining table over the years.
When the Harrisons arrived for the final three days of Sabrina’s stay, the thought of mealtimes filled Sabrina with a heavy dread all day.
Brad always sat beside Kit—the unspoken rule that the two eldest in the families should sit beside each other regardless of the age gap.
Sabrina did not say one word during the meals.
Nobody noticed. She pushed the flaccid string beans around her plate, she took small, lackluster bites of her hamburger, her corn was untouched.
She watched as the brothers ate two hamburgers each and fought over the last servings of baked potatoes.
Brad teased Kit, and Sabrina noticed that sometimes Kit’s arm leaned against Brad’s, or their knees would touch as they sat side by side.
Dave’s brother was the kind of popular older boy who intimidated Sabrina so deeply she found herself shrinking into whatever surface her back was against. Kit, on the other hand, took his taunts with a smile and flirted back furiously in a way Sabrina didn’t recognize.
Dave, too, became smaller around his brother.
Brad’s voice drowned out Dave’s, but Sabrina heard every word that Dave said.
The adults had begun to slur their words around the table, their voices rising with every glass of wine they drank.
Sabrina thought to herself that nobody had asked her a single question.
She had lost track of how long it had been since she had spoken.
Dave ignored his brother and turned to her.
What are you taking for AP next year? And her heart fluttered furiously.
She felt something stuck in her throat as she tried to summon up her voice. But Dave kept asking more questions, questions that weren’t just a way for him to talk about himself.
···
“What was up with you at dinner?” Kit asked as they sat together alone on the porch later, eating ice cream sandwiches. It was the Harrison boys’ turn to wash up after the meal.
“Nothing, why?”
“You were so quiet. You hardly said a word, just whatever you and Dave were whispering about. Is it Brad?” She nudged Sabrina with her shoulder. And Sabrina felt her face flush up to the roots of her hair.
“My god, no way.”
“Really? Doesn’t look like no way to me.” Kit smirked.
“He’s way better looking than Dave, in my opinion,” Sabrina offered.
“Do you…you know, like him?”
Kit shrugged and looked away. Sabrina listened to the hooting inside and wondered what made Kit so visible to every boy they met while Sabrina felt like a blank silhouette, a shadow that she merely filled, behind her friend.
The following night they were invited to a party. Sabrina stayed behind to talk to Lee Lee; she had promised to call that night. She agreed to meet Kit for sundaes on the waterfront before going to the party together. To line our stomachs , Kit had said.