Fiona and Jane(69)

In New York last month, I’d looked for his birthday in those date paintings at the Guggenheim. I’d searched for his death date, too. Some sign from him, telegraphed to me from the ether, beaming through one of those canvases hanging on the immaculate gallery walls while I spiraled down, and down.

He wasn’t there.

“I needed you,” I said quietly. “I needed you when it happened. When he—”

Fiona was silent.

“You left.”

“I had to leave,” she said.

“Why?” I asked. “Because of Jasper?”

“I’m sorry,” Fiona said. “I just had to.”

“Why’d you have to leave?”

“It wasn’t Jasper,” she said. “Maybe at the time, I thought he was the answer.” She shook her head, her brow furrowed in thought. “I needed to get away from my mom, my family.” She paused. “Didn’t you ever want to leave LA?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I was waiting for you to come back.”

The waitress brought the next platter of meat, the marinated strips of pork belly. Fiona used the tongs to lay a few pieces across the hot grill. She asked if I still talked to Julian, and I said no.

I didn’t tell her that sometimes Julian still texted me. I am still alive. I got up today. I am still alive. I never answered him, but I read the texts, and I feel something loosen inside me each time. Sixteen years since my father died, and I was still alive. I got up, every morning. I lived, day by day.

I had my best friend, Fiona Lin. I had Mah, still, despite everything. Won was here, too—he was working late tonight on a magazine shoot, but Fiona and I had plans to meet up with him later, after dinner. The three of us together again. He’d probably complain that we stank like garlic crisp and charcoal smoke. We were moving fast now, everything sped up; the years seemed to fly past like nothing. I thought of Miss King, our second-grade teacher, who was probably retired by now.

“I have a new idea,” I said presently. “For a thing I’m writing.” I hesitated a moment. “It’s about us.”

Fiona shot me a suspicious look. “What are you talking about?”

“Remember your hoopty we used to ride around in?”

“Shamu!” she cried. “You still owe me gas money.”

“Remember those janky fake IDs we got from the swap meet?”

Fiona lifted a finger to get the waitress’s attention and ordered another soju. We waited for her to bring the green bottle.

“Is it really about us?” she asked. “What’s it going to be called?”

“Jane and Fiona,” I said. “Our stories. All the shit we got into—”

“You know what I think?” she said. “Fiona and Jane has a better ring to it.”





Acknowledgments


Thank you to the following for grants, residencies, and other material support: The Mastheads; MacDowell; Vermont Studio Center; Yefe Nof Residency; Barbara Deming Memorial Fund; UNLV English and the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute; USC English and USC Dornsife. Thank you to the workshop spaces where parts of Fiona and Jane took shape: VONA/Voices; Napa Valley Writers’ workshop; Kundiman; Community of Writers; Bread Loaf; Tin House.

Thank you to my agents, Ayesha Pande and Serene Hakim, for your belief in this project, and your vast patience for my tender neuroses and deranged tweets.

Thank you to my editor, Allison Lorentzen, for asking the right questions of this manuscript. Thank you for your wellspring of intellect, confidence, and enthusiasm, from which I borrowed in order to carry on my work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you also to Camille LeBlanc, and to everyone at Viking.

Thank you to my writing and literature professors, who are all so smart and also very good-looking: Jim Krusoe, Richard Wiley, Doug Unger, Maile Chapman, Jane Hafen, Vincent Perez, Dana Johnson, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aimee Bender, Emily Hodgson Anderson, David Treuer, Danzy Senna, and Percival Everett. Thank you to Laila Lalami for kindness during an especially difficult time. Thank you, Maaza Mengiste, for introducing Edward P. Jones’s Lost in the City into my reading life. Thank you, Vanessa Hua. Thank you, brilliant Kundiman faculty (2015, 2017, 2018): Gina Apostol, Sigrid Nunez, Peter Ho Davies, Lan Samantha Chang, Sabina Murray, Matthew Salesses, Jon Pineda, lê thi diem thúy, and Karen Tei Yamashita.

Thank you, Janalynn Bliss, for your wisdom. Thank you, Dr. Angela Liu, for teaching me how to be a person.

Shout-out to the high school besties forever and the hard-boiled editors and the 199 Orchard crew and the ceramic ladies and the SGV food club. A Charleston Chew for Julian Sambrano Jr., an angel on Earth. I stole these words from Sarah Jung, “men are like sharks, they can smell another dick on you like blood in the water”—thank you, wife. Thank you to Sunyoung Lee and Duncan Williams for letting me write in your house, and for all the food and dharma talks. Emily Yamauchi and Sarah Fuchs are two moons in my sky. Fried chicken and a pitcher of beer at the Prince to Neela Banerjee and Ky-Phong Tran. Many rounds of happy hour cocktails at the Stakeout to Brittany Bronson, Regina Ernst, Jessica Durham, and Sam Samson. Thank you, Cynthia Shaffer, a meteorite gemstone. Thank you, Lilliam Rivera and Kima Jones, for the years of encouragement. Thank you, dear Jamel Brinkley. Thank you to the many writers and colleagues I’ve met through USC, especially Safiya Sinclair, Muriel Leung, Vanessa Villarreal, Amy Silverberg, Lisa Lee, Mike Powers, Mary-Alice Daniel, Nikki Darling, Sam Cohen, and Chris Chien—it’s an honor to pursue a doctorate among your giant, wrinkly brains. Thank you, beloved Vickie Vértiz and Kenji Liu (and Momo). Cathy Linh Che, you have my heart. Thank you, sister Monica Sok. Maurice Carlos Ruffin, thank you for bearing witness. Thank you to Angela Flournoy and Ian Blair for the apartment swap, excellent writing vibes, and taking care of my plants. For Xuan Juliana Wang: a mushroom mirror to see your teenage self again. And lastly, I bequeath $300 million each to Jade Chang and Aja Gabel (when my dogecoins hit).