Girl Overboard (19 page)

“Well,” Lillian asks, “aren’t you going inside?”

Choose your partners wisely; that’s what Baba advises. Hire people who are smarter than you are. Unquestionably, Lillian Fujimoro has more brain cells than most of my class combined, including me. And there’s no better investigative reporter.

“Hey, Lillian,” I call, mounting the staircase until I share the same step as her.

“Yeah?”

I find myself saying the three words that are hardest for a true Cheng to admit because it means making myself vulnerable, losing precious control, conceding imperfection: “I need help.”

“You do?”

I nod.

“What do you need?”

“How would you find someone who just died in Vancouver?”

“Check the obits,” she says with no hesitation, as if she does just that all the time.

“Obits.”

“Who are you looking for?”

I’m about to lie,
no one,
until I recognize the concern, not curiosity, in Lillian’s dark eyes. So I tell her, “My grandmother.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” I wait for Lillian’s follow-up questions, the ones that tease out the best information from her interviews and turn up in her incisive, fact-filled, tell-all articles. But she doesn’t pry, doesn’t ask a single question, such as why on Earth don’t I already know where my grandmother is?

Instead, Lillian looks as though she understands that some topics are off-limits, even if the subject of my mystery grandmother tempts like forbidden fruit in my walled-off Garden of Ethan.

“Do you want me to show you how?” she asks.

Yes,
I want to know where my real po-po is.
But
what tenfold bonus will you want from me in return? So,
no…

I stop at my automatic no and take a deep breath. Today may have been pruning day for Mama, but it’s the start of harvesting season for me. Slowly, I open the rusty gates of trust.

“Yes,” I tell Lillian. “I’d love it if you could.”

T
his early in the
school day, the library is a ghost town, and Mrs. Hodgkins, the librarian, is the lone, frizzy-haired tumbleweed knocking around the bookshelves. I fully expect her to kick us out because Lillian and I are supposed to be in our homerooms, along with the other two hundred and twelve high schoolers. But the beauty of Baba’s advice to choose the right partner becomes eminently clear when Mrs. Hodgkins sets eyes on Lillian and becomes a one-woman welcome wagon.

“Lillian, I’ve got something for you.” She bustles to her desk, dirndl skirt billowing behind her, and ducks down so all that’s visible are her short red curls, tied back with a long scarf. Mrs. Hodgkins hands a small scrap of paper to Lillian. “I hope it’s what you were looking for.”

While Lillian studies the note, Mrs. Hodgkins studies her, sympathy softening her thin face.

“Thank you,” says Lillian, clutching the paper so tightly it could be the Pulitzer Prize.

Mrs. Hodgkins brushes off her gratitude. “Okay, girls, just holler if you need any help.” But she smiles, pleased, automatically lifting her hand to hide her oversized teeth and wide swath of gums that’s earned her the nickname Horsekins.

“How’d you do that?” I whisper as Lillian and I head to the bank of computers occupying the far end of the room.

“I’m in here a lot.” Lillian hesitates. Her face is so guarded she reminds me of me. “Independent research.”

But I’m not like her pseudo-friends, The Six-Pack, who mock her go-the-extra-credit-mile mentality to both her face and her back. Especially when I suspect that her independent research circles around the survival of a tiny snowboard tot.

“Let’s get you started,” says Lillian. “Then I’ve got stuff to look up.”

I slide in front of a computer, expecting Lillian to take the terminal next to mine. But she’s eyeing the computer one over, like the grass is evergreen thataway.

“I don’t have any communicable diseases,” I say. “Not even rich girl-itis.”

Which must have been the right thing to say, because Lillian laughs and settles in the chair beside me instead of giving me, an untouchable social leper, space.

“So I was thinking I would just Google ‘Vancouver newspapers’ first,” I say.

“Good idea. See, you didn’t need me at all.”

“But I’m glad you’re here.” I smile shyly at her before we both belly up to our keyboards and begin our separate searches.

The Google homepage is no longer decorated with hearts the way it was yesterday for Valentine’s Day. My mind meanders briefly to Age and Natalia, and I force myself to eyeball the list of newspapers in British Columbia.

Lillian glances over and says, “Go with the
Sun.
”

“Thanks.” When the newspaper’s homepage appears, I type “obituaries” in the search box and get a listing of “remembrances” for thirty-six people who’ve died in the last week. What happens to the people whose families don’t pony up the money for their “remembrances”? Are they forgotten?

I guess that Mama’s maiden name, Huang, is the surname of her adoptive parents, her uncle and his wife, but there’s not a single Huang listed among the Clarks and Davidsons and Featherstones. I keep scrolling until I hit on a Chinese name, Kwan.

Holding my breath, I click on it, only to find Sarah Kwan, a woman in her thirties who has “lost a courageous battle with breast cancer.”

I sigh at the same time that Lillian does.

“No luck?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “You?”

“There was only one woman with a Chinese name. I guess she could’ve remarried a guy who’s not Asian.”

“Or, if she just passed away, she might not be listed yet.” I must look despondent at that because Lillian quickly adds, “Or she married a white guy like you said.”

But the real reason I didn’t find my grandmother is because I rushed. On my trip back up the list, there it is, another Chinese surname. Nervous, I hold my breath the way I did before I flew off cliffs, and then click.

After that brief scan, I scroll to the bottom of the obituary.

My name that I’ve hated—Syrah for fitting not the girl I am but the wine my father loves and Cheng for eclipsing the rest of my name—is right there in the obituary, looking like it belongs with all the other beloved grandchildren.

“Did you find her?” Lillian asks.

“Yeah.” I scroll up to where I left off. “I found her.”

Except for me. I didn’t know her or her sense of humor or her kind heart. And I don’t know all these aunts, uncles, cousins. Some of them live not even a half-day’s drive away. How could my parents have kept me from my grandmother and the rest of my family? Why didn’t they tell me about them?

As the remembrance of my grandmother prints out, I ache to call Age and tell him what I’ve discovered: more than just my grandmother, but an entire family I didn’t realize I had, a clan that claimed me sight unseen, at least in this notice.

For what feels like the fiftieth time this morning, I check my phone, but Age hasn’t left a message.

Next to me, Lillian sniffles, as she stares bleakly at her computer screen.

“Hey,” I say, putting my hand tentatively on her arm. “You okay?”

“It’s not fair,” she snaps, shrugs off my touch, and grabs her backpack before darting out of the library.

“Wait!”

“Lillian?” asks Mrs. Hodgkins, getting out of her chair. But Lillian, perennial good girl, doesn’t stop for me or this authority figure.

“What happened?” Mrs. Hodgkins speed-walks my way so fast her earrings swing like twin wrecking balls.

“I don’t know,” I tell her, bewildered, and we both stare at the article on the computer screen from a medical journal, written in gobbledygook about autologous transplants. And I spot Dr. Martin’s byline. Slimy Dr. Martin.

“You’d think that there’s something we could do to help, wouldn’t you?” murmurs Mrs. Hodgkins.

That question ripples down my spine, the same chill I get when I watch a snowboarder nail an extraordinary jump. Like I’ve witnessed Truth in motion.

As I thrust my grandmother’s obituary into my backpack, I think about how I’ve never been a girly girl, the kind who knows how to do her face to match her every mood (sweet, sultry and all the looks in-between) or who religiously subscribes to fashion magazines as if they were life insurance policies for high school survival.

True, maybe
yo no hablo girly girl.
But all I have to do is think about Age and know that I want to speak True Friend fluently. The halls outside are crowded with kids as everyone heads for first period. Me, I go back to the front steps for my second clandestine phone call, this time leaving a message for Dr. Martin. And when I return inside the school, I don’t go to math, but back to the library.

“Mrs. Hodgkins,” I say, stopping in front of the nonfiction section where she’s shelving books about the underground railroad. “Do you happen to have a copy of my dad’s book?” At her furrowed eyebrows, I straighten to my full height the way Bao-mu does when she’s about to fight for what she wants. “I think I know a way that I can help Lillian.”

For once, Mrs. Hodgkins doesn’t mask her toothy smile behind her hand. She beams, beautifully. “I had no doubt that you would. Come.” She leads me to another stack and removes Baba’s book, autographed for the school. “I’ll let Mrs. Prefontaine know that you’re doing some independent research.”

“Thanks,” I say, and settle down at a table and prepare to work on my first business plan for Ride for Her Life, a snowboarding event to raise awareness for Amanda’s plight.

T
he last thing I
expect while queuing for the van at the end of the day is a ball of furless dog to explode at me, yipping like I’m trespassing at my own school.

“Mochi, down!” I say, firmly.

Naturally, quasi-guard dog doesn’t listen. All eight pounds of him start to leap onto my legs, less attack than annoyance. A couple of kids snicker as they walk by us. One girl actually starts to kneel with an “awww, how cute,” until Mochi growls at her.

“Grace, call him off!” I plead, knowing that wherever Mochi goes, Grace is soon to follow.

Luckily, I’m right. Just as I think I’m going to have to retreat all the way back inside the school, Grace walks lazily toward me in her expensively cut pantsuit, snapping her cell phone shut.

“So the prodigal daughter needs help.” Her words may have their regular bite, but her tone delivers none of its usual sting. It’s like hearing Mama speak Mandarin with her Cantonese intonation, right words, wrong accent.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. Directed at any other person, the question would be rude, but given Grace’s rare, unwilling appearances at The House of Cheng, much less at my school, it’s a valid one.

“Your mom called me in a panic. Halfway to Hong Kong, she realized that she had forgotten to arrange a driver to pick you up from school. Apparently, I’m first on your emergency list.”

The slightest breeze could have toppled me at that moment. I’m even more surprised by Grace responding to Mama’s SOS call than I was with her driving me home after the Evergreen Fund debacle the other night.

Grace glances around the school campus, swinging her car keys around one finger. “So this is Viewridge. Very posh.”

Here we go,
I think to myself as I huff toward her car,
the guilt treatment.
Yes, I get to go to a private school while she and Wayne were consigned to public. Behind me, I feel Grace’s eyes cataloguing my butt, the muffin lid of fat hanging over my waistband, the way my bra cuts into my back blubber. I look back at her where she, sure enough, is studying me from five steps behind.

“What?” I demand.

“I’m trying, Syrah,” she says softly.

I draw in my breath, sharp, but tell myself that I must have misheard. For sure I’ve stepped into some new, weird, alternate universe.

The thing is, I know that Grace is trying. She rescued me the night St. Mama picked up her humanitarian award at that Evergreen Fund dinner, and she’s here right now. But patterns are hard to break, and hurt is hard to forget. So while part of me wants to talk to her about my grandmother I didn’t know I had, or how conflicted I feel about Age and snowboarding, the safer route is to stay quiet. And that is what I do on the ride home.

As soon as we reach the house, I head upstairs to my bedroom and dig through my backpack, scrounging around the scary, crumb-filled bottom for the remains of my manga-journal. Tucked inside, I find the obituary for Evie Leong, long-lost grandmother. It’s weird how holding that paper reminds me that there’s more to life than being paid to snowboard. Like discovering a family. And helping homeless kids. Or finding a cure for a sick one.

I take the obituary, my thinned-down journal, and my laptop to bed. After I draw the silk curtains, I nestle against my pillows. It’s tempting to read the obituary, savor every word in this short story I don’t want to end. But The Ethan Cheng Way is to do all your work first and reward yourself afterward. So I set aside the remembrance and open the PowerPoint presentation I worked on at school and start to refine.