Yolk(43)

As soon as she said the word, it appeared on the movie screen at the back of my mind.

Slut.

It’s bizarre how the word loses its sting after high school. I hadn’t even thought about it since I saw it scrawled next to my name on the third-floor bathroom. JAYNE IS A CHINK SLUT.

I felt Ivy’s eyes on me. Impatient for a response. An acknowledgment of this gift of trust. I let the silence hang as I observed her naked need for my approval. It was so keening. She wanted it so badly I didn’t want to give it to her. The smoke curled out of my mouth. I could have asked her what happened. If the incident had changed her. If ever she went a little dead inside any time a dude touched her since. But I just kept my head turned to the street outside until she cracked a joke to fill the silence.

All I could think was how I didn’t want a friend who was anything like me. I have enough of me to go around.

“Bet you can still make that Tinder date if you leave now.” The line sounds practiced, but my gratitude at Patrick returning makes my heart thunder in my ears.

“Don’t do that,” he says, putting on his coat and fixing his collar. As he does, I see a tendril of tattoo lower on his neck, by his clavicle. I try to steal another glance but snag his attention instead.

“You want to talk about what just happened?” he asks.

My head’s swirling. “Nope.”

“Fair enough.” He nods.

“What does your mom think about your tattoos?”

“She’s glad they’re not in color because that would make me a yakuza poser, which is the only thing worse than actually being in a gang.”

“Wow. That’s cold.”

“She also thinks it’s my dad’s problem since she doesn’t have to deal with a criminal-looking son on her side of the bathhouse.”

She seems chill. Even if in appearance she looked like any other Korean Catholic golf mom. I still can’t believe she had an apartment in the East Village this whole time.

“Move to the left,” the bouncer bellows at us.

We duck next to the entrance of a Chinese takeout.

The black metal cellar doors have been left open, a yawning maw in the sidewalk, and Patrick steers me way out so we don’t fall in. A skinny Asian girl, about eight, pops up out of the stairs, as unexpected as a gopher, and is trailed by another a few inches shorter. Sisters. They both have wet hair. As a restaurant kid, I know this means that they went home at some point, showered, and then had to come back here. Probably for homework.

They file into the small restaurant, taking their seats at a corner table closest to the glass-front window, and set up an iPad. They share a single pair of earbuds. Watching them, I feel as though I got socked in the solar plexus.

I remember being a restaurant kid. How it sets you apart from others. I wonder if their mom and dad ever took time off work for a parent-teacher conference. Or if they’re able to help with homework beyond checking to see if it’s done.

“Do your parents speak English?” I ask Patrick.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling and putting his phone in his back pocket. “Mom works in NGOs, so she speaks French, Mandarin, Spanish, and conversational German, and she thinks it’s pathetic that we don’t. I guess Kiki speaks a little Spanish now though.”

I force myself to smile back. I only vaguely know what an NGO does.

“What about your dad?”

“He went to Berkeley, so…” Patrick clears his throat.

“Did you know we had a restaurant?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he says. “My parents went, I think. It’s off I-10, right?”

“And 410.”

Patrick watches me watch the girls and taps a cigarette loose from a soft pack out of his jacket pocket. He lights it with a black lighter that reads A24 in white.

“I should call Kiki,” he says, nodding at them.

I snatch the cigarette from Patrick’s mouth and take a deep drag. I haven’t smoked in a while. It catches deep in my chest, scratching the length of my throat, making me spasm in great whooping, mortifying coughs, coughs so seismic I can’t catch breath between them. I turn away from him just in time as a stream of scalding acid ejects from my guts.

I really should have eaten.

“Holy shit,” I hear somewhere from behind me. I can’t tell if it’s him.

“Ew,” another street voice chimes in.

I double over and wipe my lips with the back of my hand. “Whoa,” I breathe.

I open my wet eyes. My vision’s blurred. I’m in the street, staring at the dark hole of the storm drain. All the storm drains, since my eyes are crossing. They’re pulsing together along with my heartbeat. I experience a sudden stunning moment of clarity.

A gentle pressure on my elbow pulls me back.

“Come out of the street,” he says. I can’t look at him.

Patrick hands me a bandanna from his back pocket.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, covering my mouth, desperate to catch my breath.

It’s gauzy from many washings and smells like fabric softener. It’s such a tender personal gesture. “It’s clean,” he assures me.

“I’m so sorry.”

I feel a hundred times better for having voided my stomach. I always do.

“Don’t sweat it,” he says.