If You Could See the Sun (23)

God help me.

I know I have the kind of face that could easily be confused for a twelve-or thirteen-year-old’s, but the very last thing I need right now is adult supervision. Time for me to put my lying skills to the test, I guess.

“I am, actually,” I say. My voice sounds a few octaves too high. “Um, my parents are waiting for me over there”—I motion to a crowded line outside some Japanese BBQ restaurant in the near distance—“so I should really go...”

Without waiting for her to reply, I walk away at a speed that would probably impress our PE teacher, Ms. Garcia. I don’t stop until I’ve turned into a dark narrow alley, tucked between two stores and hidden from view, then crane my neck to see if the woman’s left.

She hasn’t.

Not because she’s searching for me, though, but because of the stout, gray-haired man heading her way, a wide grin stretching the faint wrinkles around his mouth.

Her father? I wonder.

Then he holds up a huge bouquet of roses that looks like a prop for a bad rom-com movie, and the woman squeals and runs to him, throwing her arms around his neck in a tight embrace.

So...definitely not her father then.

I’m about to leave and give the two of them some much-needed privacy, when the man spins the woman around, lifting his weak jaw up at an angle to offer a clearer view of his face, and I’m suddenly gripped by the feeling that I’ve seen him before, in a newspaper or—

The photos. Of course.

I pull out my phone again just to double-check, and sure enough, that same round plain-featured face is staring back at me.

But in the brief time it takes me to glance down and up again, the two have already broken apart, the woman now holding the flowers instead of the old man in her arms. She says something to him that I can’t make out, and he laughs, a loud rumbling sound. Together, they set off down one of the brightly lit lanes by the river.

It’s clear what I need to do next. I wait until there’s a few more yards of distance between us, then follow them, like a ghost getting ready for its first haunting.



* * *



It turns out that stalking people is much harder than I thought.

The crowds in Solana seem to grow as the sky darkens, and more than once I find myself almost losing sight of my target, or forced to take a step back by a group of very evidently intoxicated young men.

“Hey, meinu,” one of the men calls after me, making my skin prickle. Meinu means beautiful girl, which I guess is meant to be flattering, except people around here call pretty much anyone between the ages of twelve and thirty that. Even if that weren’t the case, I’d rather fail a midterm than have some creepy guy comment on my looks.

I pick up my pace, trying to get as far away from the group as possible—and almost bump straight into the back of the old man and his girlfriend.

Heart pounding, I quickly duck around the closest corner before they can see me. They’ve come to a stop outside what looks to be a fancy Chinese restaurant—the traditional kind, with crimson lanterns swaying from the painted overhanging eaves and images of coiled dragons carved into the front doors.

A waitress dressed in shimmering black comes out to greet them.

“Cao xiansheng!” she says warmly. “Please follow me upstairs. We’ve already prepared your favorite dishes, and you’ll be pleased to know the barramundi dish for today is...” The rest of her sentence is lost beneath an enthusiastic chorus of huanying guanglin and the clink of plates and champagne glasses as they move into the restaurant.

I try to follow. Now would be a great time to turn invisible, but of course my new curse—power, affliction, whatever—isn’t cooperating when I actually need it. Based on the detailed records I’ve kept in my notebook, the invisibility thing tends to happen once every two days or so, and only when I’m awake. And since I haven’t transformed in the past thirty hours, the probability of it happening sometime tonight should be high.

Should be.

But I know all too well that the universe doesn’t always work the way it should.

Case in point: I’ve barely taken two steps forward when another waitress at the entrance holds up a hand to stop me. She’s pretty in a mean-looking sort of way, her dark, eyeliner-rimmed eyes narrowing as they take in my appearance.

My gut clenches. Is it so obvious that I don’t belong here?

“Do you have a reservation?” she asks in a clipped monotone voice, like she already knows the answer.

“Uh...yes, yes I do,” I bluff, my mind scrambling for purchase. “My family’s waiting for me upstairs—”

“Upstairs is the VIP lounge,” she interrupts. Her eyes narrow further, and I can almost imagine the conversation she’s going to have with her coworkers the second I’m out of earshot: Did you see that weird little girl trying to get into the restaurant just now? You think she was trying to steal food or something? “I’m going to need evidence of membership.”

“Oh. Sure thing.” I make what I hope is a convincing show of searching my pockets for a card I most certainly don’t have. “Hang on—oh no. I must’ve left it somewhere... Let me just um—go get it...”

I’m rushing back out the door before she can think to call over a manager or security, cursing myself and my luck as I turn to hide behind the same corner as before. It’s not like I should be expected to produce a VIP card out of thin air, but I have a feeling someone like Henry wouldn’t run into the same problem. He could just stride in there with his quiet charm and confidence and perfect hair and they’d let him upstairs without a second thought.