Chapter Fourteen Violet #3
“Kai’s father is a doctor,” Emi tells me in a conversational voice. “Which means, if things ever go back to normal, Kai is going to be a doctor, which is”—she gestures to Kai, who sways in place—“concerning for the future of public health.”
Emi reminds me of my old friends. Sophomore year, Bertha, Annette, and I decided to wear blue every Tuesday to school.
Soon, even the teachers said they knew it was Tuesday by the trio of girls in blue.
We called ourselves the Bluebirds. The memory catches on me, like a stitch in my side.
I wonder if Bertha and Annette miss me. I didn’t say goodbye.
I couldn’t handle it. It was too mortifying.
I always knew I was different from them. The boys in my school would date me, but I knew they’d never marry me, just as I knew I was expected to wed a boy from our community. It was easy to pretend my white classmates and I were the same, though. Until it wasn’t.
It was another possession I lost, one I didn’t know I had until it was gone. The illusion that I was a girl, nothing more, nothing less.
“But I’m not!” Kai lifts the flask in a salute to no one, staggering slightly. “I’m not going to be a doctor. Even if things go back to normal and they let us into college again. Everything is changed and I am, too!”
“Does your father know?” Emi asks, rolling her eyes.
“I’ll tell him! I’ll go home right now and tell him!”
“Whoa, Tiger.” Ren puts his arm around Kai’s shoulder and steadies him. A hint of a smile twists over his lips. “Here, take a seat.” He guides Kai to a crate and plops him down. “How about you make your career decisions tomorrow?”
“That’s the thing.” Kai cradles the flask with both hands and stares contemplatively into the fire, as though he’s a philosopher pondering humanity’s greatest existential questions. “It’s never been my choice.”
“Wow, getting deep, are we?” Humor brims in Ren’s voice, but he pats Kai sympathetically on the shoulder. I think he understands his friend well.
“I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to be…” It’s clear Kai hasn’t decided an alternative career, because the sentence trails off. Then he smiles gleefully. “A mechanic.”
“I support you, buddy, I really do, but you realize you could never get Delilah working?” Ren says.
“Delilah was Kai’s true love,” Emi explains to me. “She was also a Cadillac.”
“You’re right. She was my true love.” Kai lets out a deep, mournful sigh. “I should get James to tattoo her name on my arm with his pen.”
“Your father would surgically remove your arm himself if you got a tattoo,” Ren points out.
“He’d kill you, for sure,” Emi adds. “And then bring you back Dr. Frankenstein–style just to lecture you and kill you again.” She waves a dismissive hand at Ren and Kai and leans toward me.
Swathed in a blanket, you can’t tell Emi’s about nine months pregnant.
She might as well be me, a young girl on the cusp of adulthood. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Violet. I go to class with Kai and I…” The words trail off, and I’m not sure how to finish. Inextricably, my gaze latches on to Ren. No matter what I do, I keep looking at him, and no matter what, he refuses to look back. “I’ve met your brother.”
“That dope?” Emi asks.
“Yes, that dope.” There. Finally, Ren meets my eyes. I dare to smile at him.
It isn’t a friendly smile. It’s a flirtatious, audacious smile, one that rises to my lips almost of its own accord. He might be annoyed at me, but I’m not going to stay without us acknowledging each other.
It has the intended reaction. A sleek line of orange flinches across his cheek as his jaw clenches.
He stares at me directly, nothing hidden away.
Rawness and desire fill his eyes, the two emotions much brighter than the embers spiraling through the air.
Then he looks away again. I’m almost relieved that he does.
It’s like his gaze slipped under a defense I didn’t know I had up and went straight to my heart.
I turn to Emi, awkwardly clearing my throat. “Ren says you like to read. There’s a library where I’m going to volunteer. You should visit sometime while I’m there. Though the current inventory is woeful. There’s not nearly enough books…though strangely there’s four copies of the Farmers’ Almanac.”
“Really? That’s amazing. Farmers’ Almanac has been at the top of my to-be-read list,” Emi deadpans.
“Mine too,” I say, and we giggle. “You know, there’s a man who brings book donations. Are there any you’d like to request?”
“Oh, yes.” A smile breaks across Emi’s lips and her face becomes dreamy, as though she’s talking about her favorite thing in the world.
“Anna Karenina. I had a secondhand copy back home, but I had to leave it because it was one of my heaviest books. Choices had to be made.” She’s joking, but sadness tinges her voice.
Everyone in camp, no matter who they are, has winnowed everything down to essentials for survival and essentials for the soul.
For me, it was my sketchbook and drawing pencils, and for Emi, from the sound of it, it was books.
“I had to read that book for school,” I say, thinking about how I struggled to wade through the giant tome. “Only practical thing I could think to do with a book that big was squash spiders.”
“Squash spiders? With Anna Karenina? I don’t think we can be friends,” Emi deadpans again, and we burst into another peal of giggles. Ren glances at us, and I notice his face soften at his sister’s laughter.
“Oh, but you must,” I say. “You can’t abandon me to only be friends with these dumb boys.”
“Dumb boys?” Kai asks indignantly. “Hey, I’m a gentleman and a scholar, and so is Ren.” He wobbles, contradicting his point. Ren remains impassive.
“It’s true.” Emi grimly shakes her head at her brother and Kai. “I can’t abandon you to be friends with these dumb boys.”
“Good. I’ll hold you to it,” I say, angling toward her. “I hope you can come out again soon. Ren…mentioned you haven’t been well.”
“I think the worst is behind me.” Emi’s hand goes to her stomach, and I finally see the convex curve of her midriff underneath the blanket. “All I want is for the baby to be in my arms. I feel like a powder keg about to go off, and everyone watches me like one, too.”
“Do you have a name for the baby?” I ask.
“I don’t have any boy names, so it must be a girl.” She speaks so confidently that I can’t help but think she must be right. “I like the name Cosette.”
“Cosette?” I’ve never heard it before.
“It’s French. From the book Les Misérables. Cosette is the daughter of a girl who…I understand. It’s one of the heavy books that made the cut. Ren trucked my books from Los Angeles to Santa Anita Racetrack to here for me, even after he hurt his shoulder.”
“And it damn near killed me,” Ren cuts in, overhearing. “I thought I was going to be crushed to death and a giant book was going to be my headstone.”
“What? Use one of my books as a headstone? Never. I’d have to mark your grave with a soda bottle.”
“Don’t worry, Ren. I wouldn’t let her do that,” Kai joins in. “I’d mark your grave with a wrench in honor of my future career.”
“You’re not going to be a mechanic,” Ren and Emi chorus together.
“Violet believes I will, don’t you?” Kai hiccups and turns to me in supplication.
“Sure, Kai,” I say with a grin. Ren and Emi groan while Kai puffs up in victory.
“Thank you, mi amiga. Your belief is noted. I’ll give you a discount. But you two”—he gestures toward Ren and Emi—“not a chance. Sugar in the gas tanks for both of you.”
Our laughter mingles with the music drifting over from the Tanabata festival.
It’s nice to be sitting by a crackling fire under a giant star-freckled night sky.
For a few moments, the fence with its razor-sharp burrs wrapping around camp isn’t present.
Only the heat from the flames and the beauty from the stars is.
I realize Ren is looking at me again. The fire is warm, but his gaze sends shivers down my spine. This time, I can’t smile. I can’t look away. I’m held by him and the unyielding focus in his eyes.
“I haven’t written a wish to hang on the tree,” I say, and I try to sound flippant, but I know I don’t. “Would you go with me, Ren?”
Kai and Emi glance at each other and then at us. Ren shifts. He doesn’t say anything, but he nods, one stiff dip of his chin. We leave the fire and head to the grassy knolls. Slips of paper, ribbons, and pencils are set up next to the bamboo wishing tree. I pick up a slip.
I write, Please heal Otōsan and bring him safely home to us. I fold the paper, kiss it, and use a green ribbon to tie it to the tree. Ren watches.
“Is green your favorite color?” I’m surprised he speaks first. His voice is unexpectedly husky.
“It is,” I say. “How did you know?”
“You—” He cuts himself off and stares bleakly at me. “Your hair ribbon is always green.”
My hand goes to the strip of satin binding my hair back.
“It is. I…” I waver, unsure if I should tell him the truth. He shuffles awkwardly in place, as though torn between staying and simply walking away. “I wear it when I know I’m going to see you.”
At that, he blinks. The vacancy in his expression disappears, dominated by a much stronger emotion. Longing. I keep going. “I—How are you doing? Since you realized your father is…is gone? I’ve been thinking about you.”
Once again, his jaw tightens. Everything about him is so tense. I wish I could touch him and ease some of the strain so he can simply be. But I don’t think such a thing is possible for him.
“It makes sense he’s passed. It’d been so long.
” He shrugs, as though that’s that. I nod slowly.
Then he adds, “I mentioned to Emi. Asked if she thinks he’s dead.
She says she always assumed there was a chance, so she wouldn’t be too upset if he was.
Makes me wonder why I—why it never occurred to me. ”
“You were so young when he left,” I say, trying to figure out how to continue. “I think it makes sense. You merely believed what you were told. And…maybe…”