I GET HOME AFTER PRACTICE ON FRIDAY AND wolf down a snack. Reggie, Hanh, and Elaine are coming to pick me up in ten minutes so we can go to Valley Fair Mall. Mom has agreed to let me go, since it’s Friday and I have all weekend to do my homework.
Reggie drives up to my house in her mom’s Honda Odyssey with Elaine riding shotgun and Hanh in the back. I buckle up as Reggie inches back out into the street and Hanh applies a little extra eye shadow. With maybe the strictest of all our Asian parents, Hanh hardly ever gets to go out unchaperoned—not even with girlfriends during the day. Reggie got Hanh’s mom to let her come by telling her that Mrs. Lin, Reggie’s mom, would be with us. Which is sort of true. Reggie’s cousin Sharon just got engaged, and she’s going shopping for a mother-of-the-bride dress at the mall with her mom and Mrs. Lin. They’re going in Sharon’s car, an hour from now, but that’s not important. The point is they’ll be at the mall, and we’ll be at the mall. Hanh’s mom doesn’t need to know that we don’t plan to cross paths.
“I just wish my parents would trust me,” grouses Hanh.
“They do trust you. They trust that you’re with my mom. And they’re wrong. So you can’t blame them for not trusting you,” says Reggie, not unreasonably, I guess. But I still feel sorry for Hanh.
Valley Fair is an endless maze of atriums and walkways, and I follow the others’ lead, glad they know where they’re going. At Forever 21, Reggie examines a cute pink long-sleeved tee trimmed with sequins and says, “Hey, Janet wants to go to karaoke after homecoming. Her sister’s at Santa Clara University, and she said she’d help us reserve a party room and bring some alcohol. Wanna go?”
“Yeah, right,” says Hanh. “Last time I checked, both of my parents were Asian. Janet’s so lucky her mom’s white. She gets to do everything.” She pauses, then adds, “Try that top in charcoal.”
“No, I talked to Sharon,” says Reggie, holding up the charcoal top. “She’ll tell your parents that we’re having a sleepover at her apartment and that she’ll be there. It won’t be a lie, ’cause I’ll just drive us there after karaoke.”
“Reg, you’re a genius!” I say, and Reggie takes a bow.
We call our parents, give them Sharon’s phone number, and set up next weekend. I can hardly believe it. Never was I ever invited to go out drinking in Wisconsin, unless you count the country club, which I don’t because I invited myself. Even if I’d ever been invited, I had no one to lie to my parents for me. But it seems so natural now, so easy, like in movies where teenagers go to parties all the time.
Reggie buys the charcoal top to wear to the party, and we all decide to buy something, too. The rest of the afternoon is a flurry of “Is this too see-through?” “Does this make me look fat?” “Can I borrow your pink flats to go with this?” and “Do you think Jimmy will be at karaoke?”
All the while, despite the girl bonding, my mind keeps going to Jamie. When I try on a top, I wonder if she’d like me in it. I wonder if she’s going to homecoming, and if I should invite her to karaoke with us. And what that would mean. I mean, Elaine isn’t about to invite Jimmy, but Jimmy isn’t her friend, not really. Jamie and I, on the other hand, are friends. Reggie invited me, and she’s my friend, right? But what if Jamie wants her friends to come? Like Christina, who hates me? And before I know it, I’m asking a question.
“Hey, if you’re like, kinda friends with someone, and like, you’re kinda interested in them, but you think their best friend might not like you, so you don’t really want to hang out with their friends, is it cool to say that to the person you’re interested in, or should you wait until you’re like, dating or whatever?”
And even though Elaine has just found the cutest top ever, no one seems to care about it anymore.
“What? Who? Who’s your friend?”
“She said she’s kinda friends with them. Not real friends, right?”
“Girl or boy?”
“Boy, duh. She said she wants to date them. Right? I mean, you’re not gay, are you?”
“Of course she isn’t, she’s way too normal to be gay!”
“Who is it, Sana?”
“Is it that guy, that goth—Caleb? Didn’t you eat lunch with him and his friends the other day? Omigod! Is it him?”
They’re fluttering and cooing like pigeons around popcorn. I should have known this would happen. “Stop!” I say. “Jeez, I’m sorry I said anything. It’s not important. It doesn’t matter.” But it does to Elaine, Hanh, and Reggie, and without my help, they decide that it has to be a guy—who likes me. But who? They proceed to guess the names of a hundred different guys, and they only back off when I promise to tell them who it is later.
“Like, how much later?”
“As soon as I know what’s up.”
“What if you don’t know what’s up for like, months? It happens, you know.”
“I’ll tell you in a month, no matter what.” Oops. Where did that come from?
“Swear?”
“I swear.”
“Jeez, you’re so secretive.”
“Inscrutable Asian.”
Why can’t I keep my big mouth shut?
I’m sitting in the food court saving a table while the others go and get a ton of food to share when I get a text from Caleb.
What are you doing?
At the mall with Elaine, Hanh, and Reggie AZN grl
Whatever
I’m just finishing up when Reggie arrives with her tray of food.
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, that guy, Caleb.”
“I knew it! Is he the ‘friend’ you were talking about before?”
“No!”
She raises her eyebrow at me. Elaine and Hanh are now sitting down and arranging their trays and food. “I thought he was flirting with you during trig!” exclaims Elaine, clapping her hands.
“He’s a little weird, but he’s cute! Do you think she should go for him?”
“Oh. My. God. It is not like that, I do not like him that way.”
“It’s totally like that, and you should give him a chance. He’s nicer than he seems at first.” Elaine is really excited about this, for some reason.
“How would you know?”
“I sat next to him last year in Algebra Two, and we had to be partners all the time. He was always all ‘Everything sucks.’”
“I know!”
“Right? But he’s kidding. Plus he’s smart. And kind of funny.”
“Then why don’t you go for him?”
“Jimmy, duh.”