The Wangs vs. the World(91)

Grace peeked through her bangs. “Okay,” she said. “I’m tired now.”

Another five seconds until finally he huffed and pushed himself up. “You’re welcome for the blanket,” he said, sarcastic. Grace shrugged to herself. Whatever. It wasn’t like she’d ever see him again. Anyway, he was the * first, not her.

When it felt like he was far away enough, she raised her head again. It was hard to stop looking at the wreck. All her life, that car, her mom’s old car, had been parked in their garage, pretty and powder blue, driven only by Ama. It used to look totally old-fashioned to Grace, but lately it had started to seem cool and vintage. But now here it was, smashed up and done.

Oh my god. Smashed up and done. That could have been them. Death with no choice. Smeared across southern blacktop. Dead, dead, dead.

How were they not dead?

They weren’t dead.

They weren’t dead and they didn’t want to be!

She felt tired and exhilarated all at once. A bright fizz ran through her, a soda-pop high. She thrust her arms up, dropping the blanket behind her, and then let herself plop down on top of it. Phew. The stars weren’t out yet, but the sky glowed a fading rose gold and the ground was dewy and cold. The sorry grass that covered the median pricked her legs, but it was kind of a miracle that it managed to grow at all, surrounded by six speeding lanes of freeway, choked by gas fumes and battered by empty soda cans and Krystal burger bags.

She looked up at her father. No one looked that attractive from below; that’s why short people should never be allowed to be photographers. His head was tilted back so that she could see up his nose and his eyes were closed. He was getting older. His chin wobbled and new patches of gray hair glinted in the moonlight. He was old, but he was alive, and in the unflattering angle there was something unashamed about him. He looked almost beautiful there, standing so straight and still. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with being pretty, the way Grace knew she was, thank god. Maybe she should start taking pictures of adults instead of kids. In English class this year they had to memorize a poem, a Tennyson poem about a king. She liked memorizing things. She whispered it to herself now. Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in something . . . um . . . To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Was she going crazy? Did the crash make her crazy?

Everyone got old. It seemed impossible, but she would get old. If she didn’t die first. Her mother would never get old; she would be forever the beautiful thirty-two-year-old with the dimple, about to step into a helicopter. Her father probably never thought that he would get old, but he did.

He’d gotten old, but he wasn’t dead. And neither was she.

I almost died I almost died I almost died we almost died we almost died we almost died we almost died we almost died.

No other life could be as sweet and complete as this one. Not in the whole wide beautiful world.

The whole wide world. She whispered the words, letting them roll slowly through her lips. The world was wholer and more wide than she’d ever understood. Even broken, it was whole. The starry sky above was vast and perfect, each bright pinprick a brave echo of light. If they were on the side of the freeway in L.A., there wouldn’t be any stars like this to look up to.

The whole wide world was so beautiful that she could hardly stand it.

Grace could feel tears pooling in her eyes, rising up even though she was lying down. A liquid puddle of them, balancing on the curve of her eye, blurring her vision so that even the streetlights looked like stars. What if everything was beautiful? It made as much sense that this would be true as it did that it wouldn’t. Really, what if everything was beautiful? That could be a whole philosophy. Maybe she could be a guru. She’d wear amazing white silk gowns and complicated braids with gold chains woven in them, and people would feel blessed just being around her. The tears spilled down her cheeks now, drop piling on drop, and she felt like she might never need to blink again, that her eyes would just always be hydrated because she’d never stop crying.

It had happened before, the crying. When Grace was nine, their dog Lady died. Lady was actually a boy, a scrappy thing, gray, with four neat white paws and wiry hair that always looked matted no matter how much she brushed it. He died, and for a whole day afterwards, Grace had been numb. So numb, in fact, that she was almost blind, like the world had stopped existing. The next morning, getting out of bed, she’d stepped on Lady’s favorite fire-hydrant-shaped chew toy, slipped, and banged her knee hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.

Once they came, they didn’t go away, and she’d sobbed for nearly two weeks, running into the bathroom at school, crawling into Andrew’s bed at night and snuggling against her brother the way Lady had snuggled against her. She’d felt perpetually wrung dry in those weeks, miserable and lonely, unable to believe that Lady had really died and sure that she could have saved him if only she’d known that the problem was real, that not eating was a serious thing for a dog.

She’d looked up once, in the midst of one of those crying jags, to find her father standing over her, looking distraught.

“Please, Gracie, please. Bao bei. Bu yao ne me shang xing la. Ku go le.”

Barbra had appeared in the doorway, shaking her head. “She love too hard for a girl. Too, too hard.”