Picture Us In The Light(12)
“Yeah, maybe don’t say that in front of Chris.”
When we’re all back outside, blinking in the sunlight, everyone gathers at the corner and Regina turns on her bright public smile.
“Thanks everyone for coming,” she says. “Okay, so the guy was kind of douchey, yes?” People laugh. I see Esther whisper something to Lori and Maureen. “That aside, I thought he had some really good points about how important it is to not let your school or anyone else dictate what you can and can’t say.” I obviously have no standing to say this since I actively stopped listening, but the parts I did hear—that didn’t quite sound like his point. And she’s done controversial stories before—one about this mom who always complains to the school board about sex in books we read, an interview with an anonymous classmate (she wouldn’t even tell me and Harry who it was) who’d had an abortion. I don’t remember getting this same speech any of the other times, even though there were people, Esther especially, who didn’t think we should publicize abortion. “I just think it’s so important that we—that we be brave in the stories we want to write. And that we remember we have this platform and this influence, and if we aren’t using it to tell people what matters, even if it’s risky, then what’s the point?”
“Every city should be laid out as a grid,” Harry says as we’re trying to find our way back to the car. “Like, seriously”—he motions to the map pulled up on his phone—“the hell is this?”
“I like San Francisco,” I say. “What kind of dull city is all straight lines?”
“New York, for one.”
“You’re just crap with directions.”
He elbows me. We find Jackson Street. I doubt where we are here in Chinatown looks anything like Shiyan; still, it’s hard not to draw comparisons to the few things I’ve heard my parents talk about. When I was a kid my mom used to tell me sometimes about the food they grew up eating there, savory donuts and sea cucumbers and shaomai. We go by clothing stores with touristy sweatshirts spilling from the storefronts, cheap blue Chinese vases and bamboo cuttings and bright plastic toys all laid out on sidewalk displays, and when we pass by a bakery, its windows steamy, Regina turns to Harry and says, “You know the way you were talking to Chris today? Don’t do that.”
Harry stiffens. “He was just being so negative.”
“People are allowed to be negative.”
“Why bother? There’s so much crap in the world already. Suck it up and find the good.”
“You’re so…optimistic,” she says after a little while, and it doesn’t come out sounding like a good thing.
Harry watches her a moment, then says, more mildly than I was expecting, “True.” He’d never say it, but I think he’s a little hurt. And, I mean, I get what she’s saying, because it annoys me about Harry sometimes too—in his world there’s always a right solution, always a reward waiting if you put in the work, always a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. But it’s one of the best things about him, too. It’s nice to have someone in your life you don’t have to worry about as much, someone you know will always be okay.
It never used to be like this with her. I would never in a million years describe Regina as mellow, or laid-back, but there was always a kind of easiness to her intensity, too. Or maybe that’s the wrong word; maybe it’s just that just about anything feels easy when you believe your friendship with someone is unshakable.
And I would’ve said ours was. I’ve known Regina forever, ever since I moved here and wound up in the same kindergarten class as her and Sandra. Regina and I were both new to Cupertino that year, me from Texas and her from Taiwan, and I knew I wanted to be friends my first week of school when Mrs. Welton yelled at Jincent Wong for knocking over a stack of papers on her desk and Regina gave her a look of such disgust it would’ve withered my heart. “It was an accident,” she said, and then sat glaring at her desk with her arms crossed the rest of the day. At Regnart we were always pretty segregated by gender, and I spent most of my time roaming the blacktop and the field in noisy clumps of boys. But Regina’s was the friendship I’ll always look back on as the most important one I had growing up, the person who always knew me best and whose opinion I always needed before I was sure how I really felt about anything.
We both went to Primary Plus for after-school care and we’d hang out at the tables and I’d draw and she’d write news stories about the people in our class. Sometimes we’d make little books together (I still have some) and we’d imagine a whole future for ourselves, bringing what we wanted to life on our stapled pages. You know people by what it is they want most. When I broke my arm in sixth grade she bought me a left-handed notebook so I could try to sketch with my left hand; she knew how restless I felt, my mind all congested, when I couldn’t draw. And she used to come over sometimes when she was fighting with her parents, which was often. Nothing she did was ever good enough for them, her schoolwork or her violin or her helping around the house or her attitude, the way she looked or the things she wanted for herself. One time, I remember, sophomore year just after she’d gotten her license, it was the middle of the night and she’d gotten into a screaming match with her mom about the future and her mom—who said a lot of awful things to her, but this one always stands out for me—told her she was too ugly to be on TV. I snuck out of the house with a blanket and we lay out on my front lawn and looked up at the stars. It occurred to me to wonder if I should feel guilty (by then she was with Harry already), but lying there like that with her didn’t feel like anything, so I didn’t. She never liked talking about whatever was going on at home, so after we got bored of stargazing (ten seconds, probably; not much to stars when you’re this far away) we watched cat videos online and laughed about stupid stuff for hours and then I woke up at dawn, damp with dew, and then I had to shake her awake and hurry inside, all clammy in my shirt, before my parents came out and saw us.