“What?”
“Your face is, like, turning red. Like you have a sunburn.”
I rush to the bathroom to check the mirror. I’m flushed and my eyes look puffy, as if I’m having an allergic reaction. I’m about to start trying to remember what I’ve eaten when I take another look in the mirror and recognize someone: Mom. I look just like Mom when she has a glass of wine with dinner. Dad, too, come to think of it.
I realize it’s the alcohol, and I don’t dare take another sip. Plus my head is starting to throb, and I have a feeling it will get worse the more I drink. Great. Leave it to my parents to make it genetically impossible for me to fit in—as if my hair and eyes weren’t enough to make me stand out in a crowd of white kids, now I can’t even get drunk with everyone.
Trish makes sympathetic cooing sounds when I tell her I can’t drink, but then something catches her eye, and she squeals. “Ooh, Sana, look—there’s Mark Schiller! He told me when we got here that he thinks you look hot! I bet he’s looking for you! Come on, let’s go dance!”
She grabs my hand and drags me to the dance floor, collecting members of the hive on the way. In a couple of minutes, the guys wander over as well. Trish vanishes for a moment, then reappears. And suddenly, despite my genetically enforced sobriety, I’m feeling pretty good. Pretty great, actually. I mean, look at me. Here I am dancing, surrounded by the cream of the social crop with Trish by my side and ignoring Daniel for once.
Then it gets even better. The first notes of that old Beach Boys version of “California Girls” start to play, and Trish shouts, “I requested this for you, California girl!” She gives me a hug while the entire hive shrieks, “Sanaaaa!” over the music, and now I feel positively giddy. I wonder if just that little bit of vodka and orange juice was enough to get me drunk, after all.
The Beach Boys begin cataloging the different girls in the United States—the hip East Coast girls and the Southern girls with sexy accents, and when they get to Midwest farmers’ daughters, we all raise our arms and scream our Midwestern hearts out. We scream for good old-fashioned Midwestern values and hospitality, for prairies and cornfields, for the Heartland. No matter what, I vow, I will always be a Midwesterner. Things are pretty good here, really.
Soon, Trish decides it’s time to get back to the business of eating and drinking. As we retrieve our plates and cups, Maddie Larssen turns to me and says, “Hey, Sana, you know during ‘California Girls’ when they were like, ‘Midwest farmers’ daughters’ and you were all, ‘Wooo!’ like, super loud? That was so cute!”
“Well, I’ll never get to do that again,” I remind her. “I’ll look like a freak if I yell for the Midwest when I’m living in California.”
“Omigod, Sana, you look like a freak yelling for the Midwest now!” She giggles. Everyone laughs. “I mean, you do not look like a Midwest farmer’s daughter!” A dense, cold fog blooms in my chest, and all I can do is stare.
“Oh, honey, we’re not being mean. It’s just so . . . sweet,” Trish says. “It’s like you forgot that you’re like, Asian or whatever. I totally forget, too. But that’s good, right? Like it doesn’t matter that you’re not white, you know? You’re like, one of us!”
“I guess,” I mumble.
Emily Whittaker puts her arm around me. “You’re not mad, are you?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not like we’re being racist or anything,” adds Trish. “It’s just cute how you forgot. Come on, Sana, we love you!”
And with that, all the girls chime in: “We love you, Sana!” What can I do? I swallow my pride and give them a smile. Gaman. Hah. Mom would be pleased.
With the racism issue safely behind us, the vodka flows, and Trish drifts toward Daniel. Mark appears at my side to escort me to the golf course.
Oh, right. I’d forgotten about Mark. I study him. He is cute, in a golden retriever kind of way. He’s a swimmer, so he’s tanned and muscular, with chlorine-bleached hair that keeps falling over his big brown eyes. Kissing him might be fun. It would certainly be less complicated than kissing Trish.
We sit in a circle on the grass, and I find myself snuggled up next to Mark, with his arm draped over my shoulder. Daniel wants to play “I Never,” where one person says something they’ve never done, and everyone who’s done it has to drink. Even if I were able to drink, I’d have to stop now—I’ve never done anything. I’ve never cut class. I’ve never been high in front of my parents. I’ve never crashed my car into a tree.
Predictably, the game starts getting dirty. I’ve never sexted. I’ve never done it in my parents’ bed. I’ve never done it in a car. “I’ve never done it outside,” someone says, and Trish and Daniel don’t drink. The group starts chanting, “Do it! Do it!” and the two of them grin at each other and stumble off into the darkness to whoops and cheers. The icy fog that’s been hovering in my chest congeals into a hard gray ball. Fine. I scooch in closer to Mark. When he asks me to take a walk around the course, I agree.
It’s a nice night for a first kiss—a star-spangled sky, the silver bangle of a crescent moon suspended above the trees. We sit silently at the edge of a sand trap, so close our legs are touching. Then Mark leans in to kiss me, and in the moment before his lips touch mine, my heart flutters. Maybe this will be magical. Maybe it will sweep me off my feet.
But the moment passes and my first kiss turns out to be just a lot of his tongue in my mouth, and all I can think is ick. I put up with it for a couple of minutes in case it gets better.
It doesn’t.
His hand strays toward my butt. I push it back. It starts creeping up my shirt. I push it down. Between getting my face sucked off, worrying about where Mark’s hand is going to go next, and wondering what I’ll do when it gets there, I can’t—
“Relax,” he says. “Stop fighting.”
“I’m not fighting.”
“You’re all tense. C’mon, just let go. Have fun.” He moves in again. “You’re so hot,” he whispers. And there’s his tongue again. And his hand. Hands. Must. Get. Out of here. Think. Think of an excuse.
I push him away, a little harder than I mean to. “Um . . . I feel a little weird kissing you out here. It uh, doesn’t feel very private.” Which is true.
He nuzzles my neck. “Don’t worry. No one cares.” Also true, unfortunately.
“Yeah, but . . . maybe another time.” I stand up, and Mark stands up with me.
“You sure?” he says, wrapping his arms around me and slobbering on my ear. Ew.
“Uh, yeah. I’m sure. Maybe you can text me.” I twist away and try to smile. Mark shoves his hands in his pockets and walks back to the group with me. He doesn’t look at me again.