Troublemaker: And Other Saints Paperback - 2002

  “Nobody”

 

It’s snowing. My fingers itch from the cold, but still, I can’t go in. The house is too quiet, too empty. Without Grandma, it’s got that too big, hollow feeling. It’s been three whole weeks, but still, whenever I get home from school, there’s a part of me that goes, Please be there. When she isn’t—when she doesn’t call, “Meme-ah? Is that you?”—I feel this hole getting larger inside me, and if I don’t watch out, it’ll swallow me up.

            Grandma once said, “When someone dies, Meme-ah, maybe she becomes a bird or a butterfly.” So who knows? I go around to the back of the house, move Grandma’s lawn chair to the wall of bushes between our house and the Sheng-Stevensons’, and plant my butt in its snowy seat. The lawn is frosty white and full of animal tracks. Birds. Maybe squirrels. They disappear into the woods, where the ground is covered with pine needles.

            I take out my book and read—slowly and clearly, the way Grandma liked—and what comes back is her pruny-mouthed smile and those fogged-up blind eyes. Snowflakes slip into the back of my collar. I shiver.

Romeo            Tut, I have lost myself, I am not here.

            This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.

Benvolio            Tell me in sadness who is that you love?

Romeo            What, shall I groan and tell thee?

Benvolio            Groan? Why no, but sadly tell me who.

Romeo            Bid a sick man in sadness make his will?

            A word ill-urg’d to one that is so ill.

            In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

           

A branch twitches in the woods. A gray squirrel hops into the yard. It sees me and freezes.

            “Grandma?”

            My voice scares it. The squirrel scurries up a tree. It hops from one to another, and is gone. Snow falls harder, sticking to my lashes. I wait. But no more squirrels. No birds. The sky hangs dusty white. Scattered clouds drift around like sad feelings. Soon it’s too dark outside to read. My butt’s all wet and frozen, and I’m shaking all over. I know I’ve gotta go in, but the house is so dark and lonely.

            Next door, Sarah, a girl in my English class, comes out on her back porch. Every day it’s the same thing. She smokes one Camel Light, finishing it before her mom comes out of her study. Sarah leans against the porch railing and stares at the woods. She listens for the six-o’clock train to pass.

            Does she see me? I duck low in the chair and pull the top of my jacket over my mouth.

            Sarah puffs and exhales as if the world’s this huge problem.

            Yeah, right. What problems you got, huh? Sarah’s got Chinese eyes but a tall American nose. She streaks her hair blue and paints her nails silver. She wears big turtleneck sweaters with really short mini-kilts. She blasts her music so loud the whole world can hear it, and she doesn’t turn it down, not even when her mom yells. Thing about Sarah is that she goes out with this senior, Evan, so she’s got a trillion friends.

            It isn’t like I care or anything. Grandma once said, “One good friend is better than ten bad ones.” She also said books were more reliable than people. They could disappoint you, she said, but they never just up and disappeared on you. Not like some people I know.

            “Tryouts are Monday,” Sarah says.

            “Yeah?”

            It’s a guy’s voice, so I think it’s Todd, Sarah’s brother, who’s the biggest jock in the whole school.

            I peek through a hole in the back of the chair. Gross—it’s Evan, not Todd, behind her, kissing her neck. He sticks his hands up the front of her sweater. She squeals.

            Gross. I shut my eyes and turn around.

            “I’d make a good Juliet, don’t you think?” Sarah says.

            “Fuck the play,” he says. “You’ve got your Romeo.”

            Sarah giggles.

            “What? Am I not or am I not?” he asks.

            Blah, blah, I think, wishing she’d finish her cigarette already.

            “Really, Evan,” she says. “It’d be so totally phat being up there in front of everyone.”

            I shouldn’t look, I know I shouldn’t, but I peek over again. Evan takes a puff from her cigarette. Smoke funnels out his nose. “Hair’s a little blue, don’t you think?”

            “So I’ll dye it back.”

            Evan smooshes her boobs. From the look on Sarah’s face, it can’t feel good. “I don’t know,” he tells her. “I don’t want some dumbfuck feeling you up onstage.”

            The six-o’clock train blows by. The rails clink, and all at once it’s gone. Sarah puts out her cigarette. They go inside.

 

Mom and Dad bring takeout for dinner. General Tso’s chicken for me, mapo tofu and beef-and-broccoli for them. We eat Chinese style: chopsticks and a bowl of white rice, the dishes in the center of the round table. I’ve changed into dry jeans and a thick sweatshirt. My toes and fingers still burn from the cold. Dad takes off his tie and jacket and hangs them on the back of his chair. He runs a hand through his hair as though he’s got a lot of it. Outside, the sky is black and moonless. My throat feels funny. Maybe I’m going to be sick. Then I’ll be stuck at home by myself. No Grandma to collect snow in the frying pan to make red-bean ices. No Grandma to read to.

            “What should we do about that Ametex order?” Mom asks Dad. They’ve got a textile-exporting business, and they love to talk drapes and upholsteries.

            “What can we do?” Dad replies. “They want to hold off. See what happens.” He’s talking about Hong Kong. Grandma said the British took it from the Chinese and pretty soon they’ve gotta give it back.

            Mom sighs. The strand of white hair she plucked last month is back, the short stub poking in the air. Dad dishes beef onto his plate. He smashes it in his rice and draws his bowl to his mouth. He shoves it all in. “Did you bring home the fax?” he asks, his mouth full.

            “What fax? I didn’t see a fax.”

            “Can I get a dog?” I ask.

            “No,” Mom says, adding broccoli to the beef on Dad’s plate. She knows how he sneaks out of eating vegetables. This way, because it’s on his plate, he’s got to eat it.

            “The fax,” he snaps. “Asiatex. I gave it to you.”

            “Please?” I say. “I swear I’ll take care of it and walk it and feed it and you won’t ever have to do anything.”

            “I said no,” Mom says, spooning tofu onto her rice. It’s greasy red from chili sauce. She turns to Dad again. “You never gave me any fax.”

            “I did.”

            “Why not?” I demand. “Why can’t I? I’m the only one in the whole world who can’t have a dog.”

            “Laurel,” Mom warns. “We’ve talked about this before, and I don’t care to bring it up a hundred times. What about Yu? Don’t you like it anymore?”

            Right. Like a fish and a dog are the same thing?

            “If you have so much time on your hands, you should help your mother more,” Dad says, pulling a folder from his briefcase.

            Blah, blah.

            “She shouldn’t have to work all day, then worry about making dinner when we get home. Your grandmother wasn’t so good at this kind of thing because of her eyes—”

            Something catches in my throat, and I cough. Dinner? That all she means to you?

            Dad plucks a paper from the folder. “Ah—see?”

            I stare at my food and don’t feel even a little bit hungry. “May I be excused?” I ask Mom.

            “Finish,” Dad says, pointing at my bowl with his chopsticks. “Don’t waste. One must never waste.”

            No, I think, I won’t finish. I won’t, you can’t make me.

            I chew each piece of chicken twenty-five, twenty-six times before swallowing, and eat my rice one grain at a time. Finally, when he’s done with dinner, Dad leaves the table and goes to the living room. The TV switches on.

            I look at Mom. Now can I go?

            She tips her head: Go, then.

              Upstairs in my room, Yu sees me and swims to the surface of the water. She’s orange with black spots, and she has one clear eye and one solid black. Her tail fans out behind. “Don’t take it personal or anything,” I say, feeding her. She sucks a flake into her mouth and spits it out.

 

The next morning, I wake up sick. My cough’s so bad Mom tells me to stay home. After she and Dad leave for work, I get the courage to go into Grandma’s room. Incense, Vicks cough drops, dusty books. The smell of her is still there. Maybe it’s in the bed or the carpet. Maybe it’s the books. I lie down and close my eyes, and for a moment I can almost hear her reading to me. Thing is almost. All I’ve really got of hers are two shelves filled with books and a bureau with a porcelain Guan Yin. There’s also a small night table with a framed picture of me on it, and a twin-size bed with my old Pooh comforter.

            Before I know it, I’ve got my jacket on and I’m racing outside. I brush the snow away from the chair and sit down. While I’m reading, my breath comes out in smoky puffs. The cold makes me start coughing, but I don’t care. I can’t move until Grandma gives me some kind of sign: something, anything.

            Later on, the sun starts to go down, but I’m still waiting. An icicle drips from the gutter. Otherwise it’s all quiet. So far I’ve spotted a chipmunk and a couple of black crows. A swallow appears in the dogwood by the back door. I’m eyeing it when Sarah comes out to her porch. She bangs the screen door. The sound scares off my bird.

            I watch through the bushes. Evan’s there.

            Does going out with someone mean you’ve got to be with him every single minute? I mean, how could you think with someone squeezing your boobs all the time?

            Sarah lights a cigarette. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s just a play.”

            “You my girl or what?” Evan asks. “You want to be my girl?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Well, I need my girl with me,” he says, drawing her close. “You know, here by my side.”

            He kisses her and reaches a hand up the back of her sweater. All of a sudden he jams his fingers into the waist of her skirt.

            “Stop,” she says, holding his hand. “My mother.”

            But even I know it’d take an earthquake to get Sarah’s mom out before six, and so he reaches up her skirt and tugs down her pink panties. She grabs his hand and loses the cigarette. “Evan—cut it out.”

            “You a tease or something?” he says.

            I shrink into the chair. My chest gets that itchy going-to-cough feeling.

            “The guys are right,” he says. “Maybe you ought to go back to your crib.” He hops the porch to the snow-covered lawn and heads down the driveway to the street. I can hear the crunch of his boots in the snow. He gets into his Corvette and screeches away from the curb. Sarah kicks the railing and turns to face the screen door. Maybe she’s looking at her reflection, because she says, “It’s no fucking big deal. Just let him do it and get it over with, okay?”

            Then the worst thing happens. I cough.

            “What the hell . . .” she mutters.

            I peek over the bushes and wave my book. “I’m, uh, reading?”

            Her face gets all scrunched up. She jumps the porch and pushes through the bushes. She comes at me. “You fucking lesbo pervert,” she says.

            “I wasn’t—” I jump to my feet. “I didn’t—”

            She’s shaking she’s so mad. Her hand jerks into the air.

            She going to hit me? I wonder. Everything goes into slow motion. Her arm swings down. I go for the block and grab her wrist. I hold it there, and she stares. Stunned, she pulls free.

            “If anyone finds out, you’re dead meat,” she says. “Got that?”

            I look at her. Yeah—I got that.

            “You’re a fucking nobody,” she says. “A big fat nothing. Know that?”

            She retreats into her house. I’m still standing there when the train rushes by. The woods are dark. Somewhere out there, the rails clink like loose keys.

 

I lie low for a few days. My body’s this giant shell ready to crack open. Sarah’s right—I am a big nobody, a nothing. I’d be better off dead. In English, Mr. A gives another pop quiz. I look at the five questions, and think, Who cares what Mercutio says? How’s foreshadowing important in real life? I write my name at the top of the sheet and hand it in. I tell Mr. A that I’m going to the bathroom.

            In a locked stall, I sit and try to get my head right. There’s a chance that Mr. A has looked at my quiz by now, so I’ve got to kill time until the bell rings. The stall is green and covered with graffiti: “Wild girls ’99.” “A.H. + Z.W.” “Eric S. is short for shithead.” I notice purple marker: “S.S. thinks she’s so cool.” “S is for slut.” “For a good time, call Sarah . . .”

            The bathroom door bangs open. A bunch of girls pile in. A lighter clicks on. One of them says, “Right there, fucking in the backseat of his car.” From the purple boots, I know it’s Sarah’s friend Diane.

            “He told you that?” someone else asks.

            “Tells me everything. Says Sarah just lies there. He calls her ‘dead fish.’”

            “No! That’s so gross.”

            They start laughing, and I’m thinking, They call each other friends? Then, all at once, they go quiet, and I know they see me. I get up and flush. When I come out, they look at me all relieved. Oh, it’s only her. They brush their hair and put on more lipstick. Diane takes her cigarette from the edge of the sink and disappears into a stall with a thick purple marker. I wash my hands and hurry out.

            Mr. A snags me the second I get into the hallway. The bell rings and everyone in the classroom files out. Sarah meets up with her phony friends. Mr. A motions with the crook of his finger for me to step into the classroom. From the look on his face, I know I’m in deep shit.

 

After an hourlong “discussion” with Mr. A, Mom and Dad bring me home from school. Dad drives. He clears his throat a trillion times. Mom shakes her head and sniffles. She’s got to be thinking about Chrissy, my older cousin, who’s so totally perfect and pretty and smart. Neither Mom nor Dad says a word the entire way home. I look out the window and think, Now what?

            At the house, Dad loosens his tie. “Sit,” he says.

            “It’s not my fault,” I explain.

            Mom takes the paper from her purse and shoves it in my face. “Not your fault? Whose? The devil erase everything? He sign your name at the top?”

            “It’s just a quiz,” I say.

            “Just a quiz?” Dad retorts.

            I shut my trap and cross my arms over my chest.

            Mom shakes her head and looks at me: How could you do this to us? “To go and tell your teacher—a stranger!” she says. “Tell him you want to die. To die. Imagine. What do they think about us, your parents, uh?”

            “I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “It’s not like they think anything.”

            “Oh? They think those Chinese parents don’t know how to raise a child. They think our daughter’s crazy—needs to see jing zeng bing doctor.”

            “Ungrateful pig,” Dad adds, his nostrils flaring large and round. “You know how hard your mom and I work? Morning to night. Think we enjoy to do this? Think we work so hard because we feel like it? We have fun working ourselves to death?”

            “No.”

            “You have it too easy, I tell you.”

            Mom nods. “Too easy, too easy.” She digs leftovers from the fridge and sets them on the table, then sticks yesterday’s rice into the microwave. I watch the timer count down from two minutes.

            “You don’t know,” Dad says. “So spoiled. We should send you back to China. Taste bitterness. See how you like it.”

            So, send me back, see if I care. Hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

            “Look at her face,” Dad says, waving a finger at me.

            Mom shakes her head.

            “What?” I say.

            “You know exactly what,” Dad says, his voice quivering.

            That’s right—I hate you.

            Mom sighs. “Okay, enough. Say you’re sorry, Laurel. Say it and promise it won’t happen again. Let’s eat.”

            No, I won’t eat. I won’t. If Grandma were here, she’d give me one of those “Do what your parents say” kind of looks, and then I’d have to. But she’s not here, she’s not, so I turn to Mom and say, “For what?”

            “You dare talk back?” Dad yells. Mom squeezes his shoulder, and he stops.

            I know I should say it—that it’s an easy one-word solution to a bad thing about to happen—but my jaw clenches, and I just can’t.

            “Your mother,” Dad says to Mom now. “See how she’s ruined the girl?”

            I jump up. “Don’t talk about her like that! You’ve got no right—”

            Dad leaps to his feet and upturns the table. Everything goes flying. I stumble back into my chair. Dishes smack against my chest and crash to the floor. The rounded edge of the table lands in my lap.

            This weird numbness fills me up. There was that spanking I got a few years ago—Dad tried to beat the stubbornness out of me—but Grandma put a stop to it. “You want to hit her again, you’ll have to strike through me first,” she said, shielding me with her body.

            Now when I look at Dad, I want to say, Go on, you big jerk, beat me up if it makes you so happy. See if I care.

            Mom looks as though she has a trillion things to say all at once, but when she opens her mouth, everything sticks at the back of her throat.

            “Just go,” Dad snarls at me. “Get out of my sight.”

            Mom lifts the table enough for me to get up. She thumps the thing to the floor. I take my knapsack and go upstairs. I don’t hurry. My legs throb and it hurts to climb each step. A piece of chicken drops from my shirt to the carpet. In my room, I lock the door. As soon as the light goes on, my fish swims out of her castle and turns a quick circle. She rises to the surface of the water. Her fins look silky and soft.

            “They’ll be sorry,” I say. “You’ll see.” I picture myself at my own funeral. I’m lying in a casket, and Mom and Dad are standing next to me. They cry and cry, and say, If only we hadn’t been so mean . . .

            The fish’s mouth puckers and opens, puckers and opens. Maybe she’s trying to say, Love you, love you. I know I should feed her, that those flakes of shrimp food are really what she’s looking for, but that empty feeling fills me up again, so I switch off the light, hug my legs to my chest, and listen to Mom and Dad arguing.

 

In the morning, I’m out of the house before Mom and Dad get downstairs. A yellowish black-and-blue welt cuts across both my legs. It kills me each time my jeans rub against them. In the yard, Grandma’s chair lies on its side. My book sits in the snow, its pages crackling in the wind. I head straight into the woods. Twigs crunch under my sneakers. I push past prickly bushes and pines. Branches flick me in the face, but I don’t stop until I get to the tracks. The rails shine coppery orange but stink of engine oil and damp rot. They run across the bridge to the other side of the stream, where there’s a low bank. The thing that flashes into my head is that Road Runner cartoon. He gets tied to the tracks before an oncoming train. But just in the nick of time he goes free, and instead Wile E. Coyote winds up getting smashed as flat as a pancake. The cartoon used to make me laugh. Like it’s so funny?

            I step onto the tracks, pebbles crunching under my feet. The sun breaks out from behind a blank sky. I follow the rails to the other side of the bridge. Halfway across, I look at the water gushing over the rocks. It feels too open out here, as though the slightest breeze might knock the whole bridge down. Snowflakes fall and disappear into the water. Sarah’s right, I think. You’re a big, fat nothing. Nobody cares. Not even Grandma cares anymore. I bang my fists against the steel bridge and yell, “Oh, yeah? Well, I don’t care either—I hate you, too!”

            The rails clink. I make my way back over the bridge. I’m about to jump off when the ground starts to tremble under my feet. Vibrations run up my ankles into my knees and body. The air sucks in its breath. And then the train appears. It comes around the bend, and it’s not what I pictured. It’s got a flat face—a dark eye for a window and a bent grate for a mouth. My jacket flutters like a scared bird. The horn blares, and the world shakes under my feet.

            I think, One small step. Just one. A tingly, hot feeling runs through me. My heart beats fast and crazy. This is it, this is your chance.

            But the horn blows again, and my head gets all scrambled. What about Yu? Who’ll feed her? One step back, and I’m standing next to the tracks, watching the train blow right by. It speeds away and disappears into the thicket.

            I’m standing there, shaking all over. My heart’s going a trillion miles a minute, and I’m floating above myself. Then it hits me: It’s gone, the train is gone, and I’m still here. My sneakers stick in the mud, and I’m me again. All I can think is, Look at you, you’re the biggest chicken in the whole universe. Stupid coward. Can’t you do anything right?

            After a while, I give up. It’s quiet when I get home. Too quiet. Mom and Dad have left for work, and the house looks emptier than ever. The snow has melted. The lawn squishes under my feet. The icicle drops from the gutter and smashes on the ground. My body feels like I’ve fallen into a pond with my clothes on. I set Grandma’s chair right and pick up the book. The pages are wet and stuck together.

            I sit and peel them apart. My head feels tired and too heavy. The sun melts my eyes shut. I sink into the dark. Somewhere a bird chirps. It flutters in front of my face, its feathers tickling my cheeks. “Hello?” it calls.

            “Grandma?” I say.

            But she continues to flap her wings. “Hello?” she repeats. From the milky layers at the surface of her eyes, I can tell she’s still blind. “What are you doing?” she asks. Before I have the chance to answer, she takes off into the woods. Branches shake like a cheerleader’s pom-poms. I open my mouth to scream, I’m reading! but what comes out is a high chirp I can’t understand. The sun flickers, waking me.

            “No, wait,” I stutter.

            “Um, okay.”

            I open my eyes. It’s the blue streaks I notice first.

            “Huh?”

            Sarah stands over me, blocking the sun. “I said, ‘What’re you doing?’”

            The book’s on my lap, so I say, “Uh, reading?”

            “No, I mean—you’re not trying out, are you?”

            Since when did she start caring what I do? Then I get it. Does she really think I want to be Juliet?

            “Why?” I ask. “Think it’d be too weird for a Chinese Juliet?”

            “No,” she blurts.

            Right—that’s exactly what she’s thinking.

            “Juliet goes beyond a face, you know,” I tell her.

            “Chill. I was just asking. ’Sides—I’m sort of Chinese, too, you know.”

            “Sort of.”

            Sarah winces, and then I feel bad. “Well, it’s not like you’ve got to worry,” I say. “I’m just reading.”

            “Reading?”

            “Yeah, just reading—that okay with you?”

            She pauses. From the skeptical look on her face, I know she’s wondering why I read out loud. “You’re weird.”

            “So I’m weird today, fucking nobody yesterday. Guess that makes me a weird fucking nobody. Yeah, I like the sound of that. Weird fucking nobody.”

            She kicks at the grass and takes up a clump. A thin blade sticks to her sneaker. “Listen, I’m sorry, okay?”

            “Whatever,” I say. “Blah, blah.”

            “No, really,” she says. “If there’s a weird fucking nobody—

it’s me.”

            From up the street, Evan sounds his stupid horn. Toot, toot-toot, toot-toot—toot-toot!

            “Oh, shit—” She gets all panicky and hurries back to her house.

 

On Saturday, a rustling sound from Grandma’s room wakes me. It’s late—my head feels full of Jell-O. I get up and go to Grandma’s door. Mom’s big butt is sticking out of Grandma’s closet. She’s rummaging through Grandma’s things. Hangers knock against one another. Mom’s already got a box of books packed. I storm into the room and return the books to the shelves. I mean, who does she think she is? She can’t just come in here and mess things up. “These are mine,” I say. “Grandma said I could have them.”

            Mom sighs. I’m wearing an extra-large T-shirt. She sits on the bed and folds Grandma’s favorite cardigan—the red fluffy one—and sets it in a plastic garbage bag. I arrange the books from small at top to large at bottom. “You can’t, you can’t touch these,” I say. When I’m done, I snatch the sweater out of the bag and put it on.

            “I know this is a hard time,” Mom says, glancing at the bruise on my legs. It’s bluish-purplish black and looks worse today than yesterday. I’m glad. She reaches to touch it, but I step away.

            She looks at me with sad-lidded eyes. “Your father loses his temper sometimes,” she says, “but he loves you.”

            Blah, blah.

            “If he didn’t care so much, he wouldn’t bother, would he? If it was that wild girl next door, think he would care less?”

            I wind Grandma’s sweater tight around me, and I want to say, Maybe he could care a little less, then? And I wish I were that girl next door, Sarah, anybody, just not me, definitely not me.

            Mom sighs again. “You know, if Grandma were here, she’d be very upset to find out you skipped school yesterday. They called, you know. You’re lucky your dad happened to be out of the office.”

            “If Grandma was here,” I say, “she wouldn’t have sat there and let him do that.”

            Mom gulps as though she’s trying to get down a hard-boiled egg. She says, “What were you doing all day?”

            “Nothing.”

            I mean, what am I supposed to say, I tried to kill myself but it didn’t work out?

            “Fine,” Mom says, her lips pressed together. She pushes up to her feet and turns back to the closet. “It’s nearly noon. Go wash up for lunch. Dad’ll be back any minute.”

 

I’m shampooing when I hear the doorbell ring, rinsing when Mom knocks at the bathroom door. I hurry out of the shower and pull on a clean shirt and jeans. I tie Grandma’s cardigan around my waist. Mom’s still going through the closet. I head to my room, brushing the tangles from my hair, and find Sarah staring at me with big mascara eyes from the other side of the fishbowl. What’s she doing here?

            “Totally bad fish you got,” she says. “What’s his name?”

            “Her,” I correct, my brush stuck in a knot. “Yu.”

            “Yu,” she repeats, saying it all wrong. “What’s it mean?”

            “Fish,” I answer, surprised she doesn’t know even a little bit of Chinese.

            Sarah checks to make sure I’m not joking. When I shrug, thinking, Sounds good enough to me, she cracks up laughing. Watching her, I do, too. When we settle down, she gets all serious. “Listen, can I ask you something? You see, tryouts start Monday, and well, I’m just dying to be Juliet, you know? Well, and I see you out there reading, and I was thinking that maybe, if you didn’t mind, I could sort of hang out and read along with you?”

            “You mean rehearse or something?”

            “Yeah,” she says, smiling. “Yeah, something like that.”

            I don’t get it. Why me?

            “Yeah, I know it’s kind of weird. It’s just, I don’t know, when you said that thing about Juliet being more than a face? Well, it got me thinking. You were totally on. Juliet is more than a face. I want to be that Juliet. I want to be more than just . . . this face.”

            No way. She thinks that?

            “I wanted to talk about it with Diane and them,” she continues, “but I don’t know, they didn’t really get it.”

            Mom pulls a trash bag full of stuff out of Grandma’s room and drags it downstairs.

            Sarah sits on my bed. “You ever hang out and everyone’s having an awesome time, and well, you are, too, I guess, but somehow you still feel sort of alone?”

            Mom ascends the stairs with a new bag. She waves it open and returns into Grandma’s room. That space inside me aches again. I have to get out of here soon. “You mean lonely?” I ask.

            “Yeah, I guess.”

            I look at her and think, She’s got everything and I’ve got nothing, but Grandma was right—one good friend beats ten rotten ones. “Only, like, every day.”

            There’s the crinkling of plastic bag from Grandma’s room.

            “I could come over,” Sarah says, all hopeful. “We could practice here in your room. Yeah, Yu’s a Shakespeare-lover. Aren’t you?”

            Yu rises for air. Her mouth puckers and opens, puckers and opens.

            “See? She loves the idea,” Sarah says, tapping the glass. Yu torpedoes around the bowl.

            I shake my head, hear the jangle of metal hangers in Grandma’s closet. “Can’t be here.”

            “Well, we could do it at my house.” She picks at her nail polish. “It’s just that Evan comes around all the time now, and well, he’s sort of not into me doing this play.” Sarah stares at the fish hiding in her castle. She glances up at me. “Well, I guess you sort of heard that part, huh?”

            “I didn’t mean to . . . I was just . . .”

            “I know, I know,” she says. “We’ve been over that, remember? You’re a fucking nobody and I’m a big fat nothing.”

            This makes me smile. “Come on,” I say, leading her out of the room. “I know the perfect place.”

 

Outside, it’s all weird and too warm. We cross the bridge and get to the other side. The snow’s melted, and the bank has turned into a mini-island. We leap over to it. A baby icicle hangs like a stalactite from the bridge. A drop of water dangles at its tip and refuses to let go. We find a scene from the play and start to rehearse. Sarah turns into Juliet, and I am the Nurse.  

Juliet     What says he of our marriage? What of that?

Nurse    Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I:

            It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.

            My back o’ t’other side—ah, my back, my back!

            Beshrew your heart for sending me about

            To catch my death with jauncing up and down.

Juliet     I’faith I am sorry that thou art not well.

            Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me, what says my love?

            Sarah yawns every sentence. Finally I say, “Think you could maybe be a little more—I don’t know—in love?”

            “In love?”

            “Don’t look at me,” I say. “I’m not the one with the boyfriend.”

            We laugh. The rails make that chink-chink sound, and though we can’t see it yet, I know the train is coming. “It’s like this,” I say. “You’re all lovey-dovey. He tells you he wants to marry you. So now it’s like, does he still feel that way? Does he really love you like he said?”

            “Yeah, okay.”

            “And your grandma’s the only one who can help, so you’ve gotta be really, really nice.”

            “You mean kiss ass,” she says. “Who’s Grandma?”

            “Huh?”

            “You said ‘grandma.’” Sarah digs the heel of her shoe into the dirt. The train appears, gets larger and larger. It shakes up the whole world and pounds over the bridge above us—thump, thump, thump, thump—the cars bright orange or green. Cold droplets sprinkle over my face. Inside, I get this strange crackling feeling, as if a frosty ice cube got dropped into a cup of hot tea. Then it’s like: Grandma’s gone.

            “Woooieeee!” Sarah screams. Her hair swoops behind her. She kicks her heels into the ground. I join in, yelling and stamping my feet. The train drowns us out. It isn’t until it passes that I hear her saying, “Oh, Romeo, Romeo,” and I realize she’s crying.

 

It’s getting late when we head back. The woods are dark. We hold hands and watch the ground to make sure we won’t trip. The air smells of pine. Our feet crunch leaves and ivy and pine needles. Twigs snap. Branches pull at Grandma’s sweater. Sarah sucks at a cigarette.

            “He’s going to kill me,” she says, as soon as we step out of the woods.

            My foot slips in a patch of mud. I push the last branch out of the way, careful not to let it whip back and hit her. “You mean Evan?” I ask.

            “What about Evan?” Evan asks, from Sarah’s porch. He gives us this strange look. We drop hands. Heat rushes into my face. I’m stuck wondering, What’d we do wrong?

            Sarah goes over and hugs him. “Oh, honey—I was just saying I’d better get back—I had a feeling you’d be by.”

            “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he says.

            “Laurel’s grandma’s got Alzheimer’s, and well, we’ve been looking for her all day.” Sarah turns to me for confirmation.

            She does not, I want to say. But I say: “Once in a while she goes for a walk and forgets how to get home.”

            He glances at me, eyes my sweater, and I feel myself shrinking. “The guys are hanging out at Diane’s,” he says. “Told them we’d get over there. They’re doing ’shrooms.”

            “Yeah? Well, sorry, Laurel. Hope you find her.”

            “Thanks,” I say, backing toward my house. “For all your help.”

            Just as I turn around, I hear him say, “What’s with the sweater? She a dyke or what?”

            “Shut up,” Sarah tells him.

            I step through the trees. A pine needle sticks me in the eye, but I keep going.

 

On Monday, we get a test in English. I finished the book, but I’m all jumpy on account of the weird blackout last week. Turns out, I answer all the questions—everything including the bonus points. When class is over, I feel okay to stay and make up the quiz. Mr. A looks at me: You all right? I’m thinking, Why’d you have to go and tell my parents? Didn’t I say they’d freak out?

            On the way out of class, Sarah turns and winks at me. Wish me luck, she mouths. I want to talk with her, ask her about the dyke thing. Questions fly around my head. I mean, he doesn’t really think that, does he?

            Diane steps out of the bathroom and waits in the hall directly outside the classroom. She notices me winking back at Sarah. Her eyes narrow.

            Yeah, I want to say, she’s talking to me, and I’m a trillion times better as a friend than you are. Got a problem with that?

            Mr. A steps over to my desk and places the quiz facedown on it. He checks his watch and says, “Go.” I turn the page over.

 

At home later that afternoon, I try reading a new book but can’t concentrate. Every time I get to the bottom of the page, I stop and go, What was that paragraph about again? I reread it, but the same thing happens. It’s blustery out today—loose wisps of hair tickle my cheeks—but the snow’s totally melted. How will I know if Grandma’s a blade of grass? What if I accidentally step on her? I check my watch. It’s almost five o’clock, and I can’t help wondering how Sarah’s doing. Has she gone yet? Is she nervous? Is she remembering to be more in love? A part of me hopes she’ll get to be Juliet. Another part of me thinks, Like she’s going to want to be friends after this? She doesn’t need you anymore.

            That hole inside me gets larger. I stare at the blur of words in front of me until Sarah appears in the yard. She plops on the ground facing my chair. “I made callbacks, I made callbacks,” she yips.

            “Awesome,” I say, forcing a smile. I hate her.

            “What’s wrong?” she asks.

            “Nothing.”

            “Well,” she says, “okay, but . . .”

            After a pause that seems to last forever, I say, “I’m not a dyke.”

            “Oh . . .” She rolls her eyes. “Evan can be such an asshole—”

            “And Grandma doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. She’s never had Alzheimer’s in her whole life.”

            “It was the only thing I could think of. Was that bad?”

            I feel myself shaking. “She’s dead.”

            “Oh,” she says. “Sorry.”

            Just go away, I think. Leave me alone.

            Sarah gets to her feet. Just as I think she’s about to take off, she leans over and hugs me real tight, so tight I lose my breath. The world disappears behind a veil of soft blue hair. From the street, there’s the sound of Evan’s car braking to a stop in front of her house.

            “Shit—Diane opened her big mouth,” she says, hurrying back to her house.

            I go inside and up to my room. As soon as the light flicks on, Yu pokes her head out of the castle.

            My windows are shut, but I can hear Evan’s muffled yelling. I hate him just as much as I hate the woman up the street who sometimes kicks her dog. Sarah doesn’t say anything. I want to go, Stand up for yourself.

            “Oh, Juliet,” I say. “Wherefore art thou, Juliet?” Yu watches me with her black button eye. Her mouth puckers and opens, puckers and opens.

            Outside, everything goes quiet. I hear Evan starting the engine of his car. He roars up the street. Sarah blasts Nirvana from her room. I want to see if she’s okay, but somehow I know that she’s crying—crying over a jerk who tells her what she can or can’t do, and that’s just stupid.

            I sit at the edge of my bed and take out my book. Yu splashes the water. I start to read—slowly at first, but then quicker and quicker until I’m practically whispering. Yu pokes her nose against the glass. She fans her black-spotted fins. She’s listening, really, truly listening.

            An hour later, there’s the hum of the garage door opening. I haven’t done any of my homework, and I don’t even care. Dad hasn’t said a word since that night. He’s waiting for an apology, and the longer he waits, the angrier he gets. Mom gives me the eye, Just apologize. But why should I? He threw the table—not me.

            So it ends up like this: The three of us sit down to dinner. Dad eats without saying a word. Mom gives me that crumpled-brow look, Please—do it for me, Laurel.

            My bruises ache. I think, Fine, whatever. “Sorry,” I say, poking a piece of chicken with a chopstick.

            “What was that?” he asks.

            “I said, ‘Sorry.’”

            “Sorry, who?” Dad asks, shoveling rice into his mouth.

            I glance at Mom, and think, See? Told you he’d be a jerk about it.

            She nudges me under the table with her foot.

            “Sorry, Dad.”

            He puts down his bowl and chopsticks. He chews, swallows. “Let’s get something straight. If you are so unhappy here, feel free to go. No one is forcing you to stay—”

            Mom calls out Dad’s Chinese name, but he blocks her with a hand.

            “No one is forcing you to eat my food or sleep under my roof,” he says. “So if you want to die, go ahead, do what pleases you. But never disgrace your mother or me in front of strangers again. Got that?”

            I jab my chopsticks into the rice and push the bowl aside. “Got it.”

 

In the bathroom stall, I find new, thick purple marker: “laurel da lesbo.”

            Diane, I think. God, I’ve got to find her. I go straight to the cafeteria. My heart is going a trillion miles a minute. All I can think of is smacking her right across her pretty made-up face. The cafeteria stinks of crusty tomato paste and greasy french fries. Rows of rectangular tables fill the room. People’s voices bounce all over. Someone chucks an apple into the garbage bin.

            Where is she, where is she, where is she?

            Then, right there, Diane appears.

            How could you? I want to say, but the words refuse to come out.

            She looks at me: Now who’s got the problem?

            “Why are you such a bitch?” I ask.

            The entire room quiets. Someone goes, “Oooh.” Other people snicker. Diane steps closer to me, and without meaning to, I step back. She’s not bigger than me. Still, I’m afraid.

            “Maybe I’m a bitch,” she says, smirking. “Beats being a lesbo les-bi-an.”

            “Stop it,” I say. “I’m not, I’m not.”

            “Les-bi-an,” she repeats, all pleased with herself. Everyone starts laughing. I glance at these people who hate me even though they don’t know me. I want to say, What did I ever do to you? Then I see Sarah. She doesn’t laugh, but she doesn’t say anything, either. She cowers and turns away. She doesn’t know me. I’m nothing. Nobody.

            Right there in front of everyone, I start to cry.

            “Poor baby,” Diane says. “Boo-hoo.”

            People laugh. I take off, running all the way home and deep into the woods.

 

The tracks smell extra bad of engine oil and muddy rot. I picture my funeral again. There’ll be flowers—the white kind Mom got for Grandma’s wake—and a trillion sad faces. Mom and Dad, and Sarah will be there, too. She’ll be there by my casket, reading her stupid lines and crying. Go ahead, cry.

            Hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

            The ground trembles. I step onto the tracks, and my legs take me to the middle of the bridge. There’s the stream and the trees and the tracks. There’s the small island Sarah and I rehearsed on, which is nearly underwater now. The sun dives behind a patch of clouds, and the world gets lost in shade. The rails clink, and I feel the train getting closer. I shut my eyes and pray, Help me, Grandma, please help me do this, but when I open them, Sarah’s on the tracks. “Laurel,” she calls.

            “Leave me alone.”

            She drops her books and comes after me. “I’m sorry, okay?”

            “Like it’s that easy. ‘I’m sorry,’ and everything’s okay again, right? Wrong.”

            Sarah catches me by the wrist. “O happy dagger. This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die.” She pretends to stab herself and falls onto the rails.

            The train appears from around the bend. The bridge rumbles. We’re paralyzed, watching the train coming closer. I look at Sarah, Why? Why didn’t you say something? She shakes her head and takes my hand. The horn blares, the sound ripping through me. I pull Sarah to her feet. Without another word, we turn and run for the other side of the bridge. Behind us, books crunch. Papers flutter like little white butterflies, and we still run.

 

- Reprinted from Troublemaker and Other Saints by Christina Chiu by permission of Berkley, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 2002, Christina Chiu. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

 

 

 

“Impressive…vivid glimpses of cultural and generational displacement and conflict. Chiu weaves gracefully among her characters’ several stories. Wonderfully involving and intelligent…a strikingly gifted new writer.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“A truly auspicious fiction debut.”—Vanity Fair

“I loved every page.”—Alice Elliott Dark, author of In the Gloaming

“These compelling tales of loneliness and loss, hunger and need, the pain and crazy love for family will break your heart and, strangely, leave you feeling uplifted.”—Mei Ng, author of Eating Chinese Food Naked

“Accomplished…brings the reader a wide range of perspectives and believable points of view.”—Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle

“[Christina Chiu is] a find.”—Detroit Free Press

“Troublemaker and Other Saints is full of intriguing situations and great conversations. In describing how Chinese immigrants deal with their American kids, Christina Chiu reveals all our misunderstandings and hopes. I loved every page and would read anything this woman writes!”—Alice Elliott Dark, author of In the Gloaming: Stories

“Honest, complex…unflinching and raw, this isn’t your typical immigrant story collection—it’s deeply satisfying.”—Entertainment Weekly

“A well-crafted collection of bright stories about straddling the old world and new…[Chiu] is a find.”—Detroit Free Press

“Fresh, daring, bold, Troublemaker and Other Saints eagerly explores the neither-here-nor-thereness of young Chinese-Americans as they bridge the gap between two complex and troubling social orders with humor, pathos, and heart. How often have you heard the phrase ‘a writer to watch’? Christina Chiu is a writer to read.”—Helen Schulman, author of The Revisionist

“These are accomplished stories, with the mark of a true storyteller who brings the reader a wide range of perspectives and believable points of view.”—Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle

“With her explosive Troublemaker and Other Saints, Christina Chiu has accomplished what only Lucinda Williams is able to do in songs—turn serious topics, such as suicide and unhappy romance, into celebrations of life…Her vibrant prose and unflinching voice restore our belief that no matter how up-and-down our lives can become, everything is bearable if it’s well told.”—Hal Sirowitz, author of Mother Said