THE COPS DROVE weird cars here. Or maybe they weren’t weird; maybe they were exactly what North Carolina cops should be driving. Cars for muscleheads, silver gray, with a black racing stripe, the kind of thing that would zoom in front of you as soon as the light turned green, a douche like Johnny Delahari at the wheel. The cops themselves, though, seemed pretty much just like cops in L.A. and Santa Barbara. Tough but not tough, standing around with their walkie-talkies going off and not really doing anything. God, all they’d done since getting there was block off a lane of traffic with their dick cars and set up a ring of those flame sticks. Grace held her breath for a second. Smoke, sharp and sulfurous, crept up her nostrils, itching the inside of her brain and casting shadows on the wreck of their poor car.
Their poor, poor car.
Its nose was bashed in, its windshield was shattered, and all four of its tires had exploded, making it look like it was sinking into the asphalt. It had rotated around completely so that its nose was pointing at oncoming traffic. She could see her collapsed suitcase through the half-open back door.
Grace felt dazed. Maybe they’d all crawled out of that car seconds ago, maybe it had been hours. Maybe they’d been waiting on the side of the highway forever, and they’d never do anything else with their lives. When everything had finally stopped spinning, Grace pulled on the door handle and it swung open, too easy. Surprised, escape the only thing in her mind, she’d fallen right out on the side of the highway, a pile of battered limbs.
The world ended, and then it didn’t.
Now her elbow oozed blood, and she had a scratch on her face that she was pretty sure she’d made with her own torn fingernail. Her father held an ice pack against his blackening eye, and his shirt was ripped along the back. Barbra had it the worst—the paramedics had cleaned and bandaged a long, ugly cut along her shoulder and a constellation of little scratches across her face and chest.
“Tell me the truth,” her father had demanded. “Are we okay? Nothing so bad? Everyone okay?” And they’d finally nodded even though the paramedics had wanted to bring all three of them straight to the hospital. But Grace wouldn’t leave without the picture of her mother, her dad wouldn’t leave without trying to salvage their luggage, the police wouldn’t let them back into the car until they were sure it wasn’t going to blow up, and Barbra wouldn’t go alone, so they were all just still there in the middle of a middle-of-nowhere highway.
On either side of Grace, several feet apart, Barbra and her father leaned against the highway divider, not talking. Grace stretched her bare legs out in front of her. They were still shaking and would probably bruise and look trashy, but she didn’t even care. She pulled them in again, laying her head on her knees.
After the paramedics had checked them out and treated all of their scrapes and wounds, they had gathered in a huddle away from the police, laughing over something. After a while, one of the paramedics walked towards her. As he got closer, he shook out the rough woolen blanket that he was carrying in his hands and draped it over her shoulders without even asking if she wanted it. He massaged across her neck with cold, sneaky fingers as he arranged the blanket, murmuring, “It’s okay, you’re safe, you’re going to be okay,” over and over, quiet and low. Grace wondered vaguely if her father was watching and what he might think.
Even though she knew it was gross, the attention had felt almost reassuring until he’d pulled back, and said, “So, where are you from?”
“L.A.,” she’d answered, knowing what was coming next.
“No, but where are you from from?”
She’d stared, her mind still half caught in the accident itself, not quite believing that it was over.
“Like, are you Japanese or Chinese? Definitely not Vietnamese.”
Maybe, thought Grace, her mind underwater, they needed to know for some reason. Maybe there was a census for accidents. A study on who was the worst driver.
“Konichiwa? Ni hao ma?”
She shook her head.
He crouched down, thrusting his head into her space. “You’re just a little doll, aren’t you? You know, my brother’s married to a Korean lady. They have flatter faces, Koreans. I don’t think you guys are Korean. Maybe your mom though,” he said, head tilting towards Barbra.
“She’s not my mom.”
He smirked. “See, I knew you guys weren’t Korean!” Her dad wasn’t even paying attention. Maybe he didn’t realize what was happening. He was a guy, but that didn’t mean that he knew the way guys could be. “I can always tell. It’s a talent.”
Sometimes in these situations the only way to get out was to play dumber than dumb. She shook her head and shrugged. “We’re from L.A.” And then she dropped her head onto her knees, grateful for the coziness of the blanket despite its source. Five seconds. Ten. He stayed crouching, close enough that she could hear his breath wheeze in through his nostrils. What was wrong with this guy? Was he so desperate to get it on with an Asian girl that he didn’t care that she’d just gotten in the most insane car accident that she’d ever seen? Actually, why wasn’t he celebrating the fact that their survival was basically a miracle?
Grace peeked through her bangs. “Okay,” she said. “I’m tired now.”
Another five seconds until finally he huffed and pushed himself up. “You’re welcome for the blanket,” he said, sarcastic. Grace shrugged to herself. Whatever. It wasn’t like she’d ever see him again. Anyway, he was the asshole first, not her.
When it felt like he was far away enough, she raised her head again. It was hard to stop looking at the wreck. All her life, that car, her mom’s old car, had been parked in their garage, pretty and powder blue, driven only by Ama. It used to look totally old-fashioned to Grace, but lately it had started to seem cool and vintage. But now here it was, smashed up and done.
Oh my god. Smashed up and done. That could have been them. Death with no choice. Smeared across southern blacktop. Dead, dead, dead.
How were they not dead?
They weren’t dead.
They weren’t dead and they didn’t want to be!
She felt tired and exhilarated all at once. A bright fizz ran through her, a soda-pop high. She thrust her arms up, dropping the blanket behind her, and then let herself plop down on top of it. Phew. The stars weren’t out yet, but the sky glowed a fading rose gold and the ground was dewy and cold. The sorry grass that covered the median pricked her legs, but it was kind of a miracle that it managed to grow at all, surrounded by six speeding lanes of freeway, choked by gas fumes and battered by empty soda cans and Krystal burger bags.
She looked up at her father. No one looked that attractive from below; that’s why short people should never be allowed to be photographers. His head was tilted back so that she could see up his nose and his eyes were closed. He was getting older. His chin wobbled and new patches of gray hair glinted in the moonlight. He was old, but he was alive, and in the unflattering angle there was something unashamed about him. He looked almost beautiful there, standing so straight and still. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with being pretty, the way Grace knew she was, thank god. Maybe she should start taking pictures of adults instead of kids. In English class this year they had to memorize a poem, a Tennyson poem about a king. She liked memorizing things. She whispered it to herself now. Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in something . . . um . . . To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Was she going crazy? Did the crash make her crazy?
Everyone got old. It seemed impossible, but she would get old. If she didn’t die first. Her mother would never get old; she would be forever the beautiful thirty-two-year-old with the dimple, about to step into a helicopter. Her father probably never thought that he would get old, but he did.
He’d gotten old, but he wasn’t dead. And neither was she.
I almost died I almost died I almost died we almost died we almost died we almost died we almost died we almost died.
No other life could be as sweet and complete as this one. Not in the whole wide beautiful world.
The whole wide world. She whispered the words, letting them roll slowly through her lips. The world was wholer and more wide than she’d ever understood. Even broken, it was whole. The starry sky above was vast and perfect, each bright pinprick a brave echo of light. If they were on the side of the freeway in L.A., there wouldn’t be any stars like this to look up to.
The whole wide world was so beautiful that she could hardly stand it.
Grace could feel tears pooling in her eyes, rising up even though she was lying down. A liquid puddle of them, balancing on the curve of her eye, blurring her vision so that even the streetlights looked like stars. What if everything was beautiful? It made as much sense that this would be true as it did that it wouldn’t. Really, what if everything was beautiful? That could be a whole philosophy. Maybe she could be a guru. She’d wear amazing white silk gowns and complicated braids with gold chains woven in them, and people would feel blessed just being around her. The tears spilled down her cheeks now, drop piling on drop, and she felt like she might never need to blink again, that her eyes would just always be hydrated because she’d never stop crying.
It had happened before, the crying. When Grace was nine, their dog Lady died. Lady was actually a boy, a scrappy thing, gray, with four neat white paws and wiry hair that always looked matted no matter how much she brushed it. He died, and for a whole day afterwards, Grace had been numb. So numb, in fact, that she was almost blind, like the world had stopped existing. The next morning, getting out of bed, she’d stepped on Lady’s favorite fire-hydrant-shaped chew toy, slipped, and banged her knee hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Once they came, they didn’t go away, and she’d sobbed for nearly two weeks, running into the bathroom at school, crawling into Andrew’s bed at night and snuggling against her brother the way Lady had snuggled against her. She’d felt perpetually wrung dry in those weeks, miserable and lonely, unable to believe that Lady had really died and sure that she could have saved him if only she’d known that the problem was real, that not eating was a serious thing for a dog.
She’d looked up once, in the midst of one of those crying jags, to find her father standing over her, looking distraught.
“Please, Gracie, please. Bao bei. Bu yao ne me shang xing la. Ku go le.”
Barbra had appeared in the doorway, shaking her head. “She love too hard for a girl. Too, too hard.”
Barbra had said that, and she was wrong. So wrong that she couldn’t be any wronger. Loving too hard was the only option. Grace was glad that she’d loved Lady too hard. And Greg Inouye. The boy who got her sent away. They didn’t talk anymore, but she still loved him, and she probably always would. She would never forget the first time they’d spoken. They went to some of the same parties, but he was a grade above her and spent most of those nights in a tight circle with his friends, passing a joint around. Still, they’d smiled at each other once or twice. Then one day she was standing in line at the sandwich station, a tray in her hands, wearing her mother’s cashmere sweater. She’d pushed the sleeves up but they’d drooped down again, the right one about to puddle into her salad. And Greg Inouye had walked up to her and rolled each one up, gently and deliberately. “There,” he’d said, with a smile.
She should call him. If they ever got off this highway, she would call him.
Her father and Barbra were holding hands now, looking at each other over Grace’s head. Did they love each other too hard? Something panged in Grace’s heart and she scrambled up, leaving the blanket on the ground. How long had it been since she and Barbra had really talked to each other? Grace charged at her now, wrapping her stepmother in a hug, holding on until Barbra squeezed back. And then her father gathered them both up.
“Wei she me?”
“I just needed to. Why don’t we hug more often?”
Grace buried her face in Barbra’s neck, feeling the tendons move as she nodded. “We should,” said Barbra. “We should.”
They finally let go and Grace saw that the paramedic was staring at them. Even though it was gross because he was totally unattractive and probably kind of had a fetish and she was only sixteen, despite all those things maybe he just wanted to find a way to talk to a girl and that was the only way he knew how. Of course, it might have been better if he’d asked if she was hurt, or scared, or where they were headed, but in the end, he’d done the only thing he knew how to do; he’d reached his hand out and tried to make a connection, and even though she didn’t want to come anywhere near touching that hand, even that was beautiful.