Wing Jones(57)

And just like that, the cloud floats out the window and far, far away.

I’m nervous all day. I’m nervous warming up, stretching, putting my shoes on, waiting at the starting line, nervous even as Eliza squeezes my hand for luck, nervous even as I see my dragon and my lioness a little ahead of me, ahead of the starting line. I’m nervous right up until the starting shot goes off with a bang, and then…

I’m running and everything disappears except me, the track, and the sky. I tear around the corner and fly across the finish line. I almost don’t stop.

My first race and I shatter the school record for the 400-meter.

And twenty minutes later, I almost, almost beat the record for the 200-meter.

I’ve never seen someone so happy to lose as Eliza. She’s crowing, strutting, grinning like she won. Aaron too. I didn’t see his race, but I heard he won, and the two of them… I might not have understood that feeling, of awe and pride in someone else, someone you care about, except I’ve been feeling like that my whole life about my brother.

It feels pretty good to have someone else feeling that way about me.

I don’t know if my daddy was watching, but a hell of a lot of other people were. News has gotten out about me. Apparently, I’m a “human interest” story because of everything that’s happened with Marcus. And maybe because of that little lie Eliza told at the pep rally about me qualifying for the Olympics. And breaking that record, well, that put a whole ton of kerosene on Eliza’s little flame of a lie. A local reporter comes up to me after the race.

“Miss Jones! That was impressive. Do you have a minute? Is it true that you just started running this year?” I nod, nervous again. “Athleticism seems to run in your family. Wasn’t your brother quite the star? Before his drunk driving accident?” The world bottoms out and I sway, sure I’ll fall over, but then Eliza is there and she grabs my hand and pulls me away.

“Don’t talk to anyone you don’t want to, Wing. You don’t know what they’ll say.” Then she gives me a big Eliza smile. “I’m proud of you, girl.”

As we walk off, I hear the reporter shout, “Miss Jones! Wing Jones! What about your brother? Do you wish he were here to see you run? Do you know if the family of the woman he killed has forgiven him? Does your running have anything to do with him?”

My sky-high joy from winning my races starts to fade and is replaced by a pounding anxiety, hammering away at my skull and my heart. After the accident, the story was in the paper for weeks, and then it fizzled out. I don’t want it coming back.

Eliza glares over her shoulder at the reporter. “Come on, Wing. We got more important things to do right now. Like celebrating.” She squeezes my hand and I squeeze back, because she’s right. We do.





CHAPTER 38


Even a nosy reporter bringing up the accident and Marcus and the bad things (I hate, I hate, hate how now my brother and “bad things” belong in the same thought) can’t stop me from having a good birthday. We go to the Chinese restaurant my mom manages, the one LaoLao now works at, down Buford Highway. We have a private room and everything. LaoLao makes the noodles herself; she says the younger cooks don’t know how to make noodles right for her granddaughter. I don’t know about the other cooks’ noodles, but hers are perfect. Long and springy and chewy and endless.

Eliza brings Annie to the restaurant. When Eliza introduces her as her girlfriend, LaoLao nearly falls over.

“Girlfriend? Friend who is girl or girlfriend like Monica is Marcus’s girlfriend?”

“LaoLao!” I exclaim.

Eliza smiles. “Girlfriend like romantic girlfriend, ma’am.”

“My word,” says Granny Dee not quite under her breath. “Well, I say that it takes all kinds and the Lord loves us all.” She squints. “Now, is one of you meant to look like a boy?”

“This is, what you call it, lesbian?” LaoLao says in between slurping noodles.

“Why don’t we talk about something else?” Monica interjects. “Like how proud we all are of our little Wing for winning her first race today?”

As everyone raises their teacups to me, smiles stretched wide across their faces, I try to smile back but can’t help but think that Marcus should be here. He’s never missed one of my birthdays. We’re going to see him tomorrow. I hope he knows it’s my birthday.

We eat noodles until we’re all fit to burst, and Eliza and Annie heap so many compliments on LaoLao, telling her over and over how they’re the best noodles they’ve ever tasted and she should probably go on a cooking show or at least enter some kind of competition, and on and on, that I’m surprised she doesn’t fall over. She hugs both of them on their way out, telling them she’ll make noodles for them on their birthdays, and they need to try her dumplings next, and asking is there anything lesbians don’t eat? Because she remembers that I had a friend once, April, who didn’t eat pork (LaoLao could not get over this, could not fathom someone not eating pork), and I have to interrupt her at this point.

“LaoLao! April didn’t eat pork because she was Jewish.”

LaoLao shrugs, unfazed by our giggles. “Well, maybe lesbians also don’t eat pork. I don’t know.”

Eliza hugs her again. “I can eat just about anything, especially if you’ve made it,” she says, and LaoLao beams back at her.