10

“Clear off your desks,” Mr. Carlson says gleefully as he begins to pass out our next calc test. “No rubbernecking—and Beth, no necking.”

Every time we have a test, Mr. Carlson says his famous necking line to either me or Beth. We both hate being the only girls in the class.

When the dittoed test plops on my desk, all my inner alarm bells go off. I can hear Michelle, Mom, and Father chorusing: “If you want to get into Harvard, first you need good grades.” I grip my pencil tighter.

“Okay, students, go to it.”

Twenty-three pencils hit the papers with a resounding thok-scribble-scrabble.

I scan the first problems, but nothing clicks. Already, Beth’s head is determinedly close to her desk, and she is writing furiously, an arm curled protectively around her paper.

When I move down to the story problems—Say we are on another planet, where the laws of physics follow the principles of integral calculus—they are a complete mystery whose secret is locked away somewhere.

With my stomach tightening, I move back to the short-answer problems, which are worth only two points each. But as I stare, the figures sprawl crazily before me, exponents rising and swimming away like protozoans.

I try to remember how to integrate. Finally, I recognize one of the problems as being similar to one we had for practice. I disassemble it, and the answer slowly forces itself into place.

After solving the first one, I crack the next ones like nuts, lining up the solutions neatly in their boxes and leaving the debris of my thought processes in the margins.

I check my watch and see how the precious minutes have slipped by. I jump to the story problems, but they still seem as mysterious as the Dead Sea Scrolls: If two trains are approaching each other at x miles an hour . . . I don’t even have a clear idea of how to draw a little diagram of the trains approaching each other.

I move back to the short-answer problems to check them, and some of my new answers don’t match. Is it the checking, or was I wrong the first time? My pulse speeds up.

I frantically do the two-point problems over again—and again—until I arrive at a consensus with the answers.

I hear a chair scrape. Beth rises and walks up to Mr. Carlson’s desk and places her test on it. Mr. Carlson smiles at her, his eyes crinkling into little raisins.

I hear another chair scraping, and my hand freezes on my pencil. There are fifteen minutes of class to go. If people are already getting up, I’ll never be able to concentrate, feeling like such a slowpoke.

My left hand, I notice, is curled into a fist on my lap. I open it and see the tracks of red crescent-shaped nail marks running down my palm.

I stare hard at one of the stubborn story problems, waiting for a mathematical epiphany. I wish I could just shake the answer out, like a marble, from my brain. Doggedly, I try to at least set up each problem.

“Five minutes, class,” says Mr. Carlson. Everyone is getting up now.

I flail and flail, drowning in figures and words that have suddenly become unfamiliar.

“Time to hand ’em in,” Mr. Carlson says.

I surrender my test. My nose is warty with droplets of sweat, and I sigh. The good thing about tests is that they have to end eventually; the bad thing about grades is that they stay with you forever.

I drop my calc book, as though it were leprous, into my bag before heading to gymnastics.

Even on the mat I can’t get calc worries out of my mind, and I am fervently praying that I’ll get partial credit for the story problems I set up but didn’t solve.

“Hey, ching ding-a-ling—watch it!” Marsha Randall’s voice reverberates through the gym. I am standing, with my thoughts, in the middle of the mat, in her way.

I step off the mat with leaden feet. Everyone else is looking away, like that day on the bus. I hear the hollow thunk-thunk of someone working on the bars. Satisfied, Marsha zooms down the diagonal to do a tumbling pass.

I gather my sweats and walk out of the gym, anger and sadness mixed inside me like oil and vinegar. I hear laughter spilling from the gym, and it all sounds so foreign.

I park myself, sweats and all, in Barbara’s office. It’s time to let her know that things have gone too far.

Amidst all the sports trophies, I sit on the hard wooden chair by her desk. There is a picture on the wall in front of me of Marsha Randall, smiling on the beam. I turn the chair so I won’t have to look at it.

Beth is the first to pass the office on her way to the locker room. She gives me a smile of encouragement but doesn’t stop. Marsha Randall and Diane Johnson flutter by, laughing and chattering as loudly as a bevy of quail. Neither glances at me when they pass.

Finally, Barbara comes in, lugging the heavy vault springboard. She stands it against the wall and then looks at me. “Can I help you?” she says.

“Yes.” I get up and shut the door. “I’d like to quit.”

“What?” she says, looking at me as if I’ve gone dotty.

“I want to quit,” I say. “I’ve had enough.”

“What are you talking about?” she says.

Where has she been when Marsha Randall has been saying these things? On Mars? From her office, you can hear everything that goes on in the locker room.

“I’ve had enough of people calling me names,” I say patiently.

Barbara looks at me. “Names?”

“Like ching ding-a-ling is not my name!” I have a sudden morbid urge to laugh.

“Ellen,” Barbara says, putting her arm around me like a sympathetic older sister, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—and you don’t have to name names—but I’m sure they don’t mean it.”

“I think it’s getting worse,” I say, stiffening.

Barbara paces around the office, her huge body seeming to fill the small room. “Oh, you know how kids can be mean to each other,” she says, rifling through some old score sheets. “Don’t take it personally.”

I feel my blood pressure rise. Don’t take it personally—easy for her to say! I feel like yelling this to her face, but I let the stony silence of politeness take over.

“Listen, Ellen,” she says, still rustling the score sheets. “You’re doing really well this year, and I was thinking of putting you on as an alternate for floor exercise if we go to state.”

An alternate for floor exercise? My ears unexpectedly perk up. That would mean a letter for sure.

“I don’t want you to quit,” she continues. “So how about it?”

My mind is swimming. Too much for one day.

“Well?” Barbara asks.

I remember how much I love gymnastics. I remember how proud I was the day I did a Valdez on the beam. I remember all the times I’ve envisioned myself in an emerald-green letter jacket. I can’t quit, I decide, just because Marsha Randall wants me to. If I quit, that would be one more triumph for her.

“All right,” I tell Barbara. “I’ll stay.”

That night I am slogging through more calc problems, trying to see where I went off the road during the test. Jessie is probably at home listening to music or watching TV. Isn’t that what the teen years are for—to hang out and be mellow? I never knew there was going to be this much stress or this much homework.

“Ellen, phone for you.” Mom’s voice is muffled against my closed door.

I flop onto my parents’ bed and grab their phone. When I pick it up, I hear the click of Mom hanging up downstairs.

“Hi, Jessie,” I say. “You’re calling early tonight.”

“This ain’t Jessie,” says a deep voice in my ear. “This here is Tomper.”

I grip the receiver a little tighter and sit up.

“Hi, Tomper,” I say. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” he says. “I just wanted to know if you’ve done the vocab assignment for English.”

“No,” I say. “I’m scheduled to give my book report tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah,” he says. “What’d you read?”

“The Bell Jar. What’d you read?”

“Nothing yet. I go next week.”

I can’t decide if I should be thrilled about his calling me or not. Lately, I’ve tried to give up on him, since I see him a lot at Marsha Randall’s locker—which means that they’re probably going steady.

“Well,” he says. “At least you don’t have to worry about the vocab assignment.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” he says.

“Yes, see you.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Bye.”

“See you later, Gator.”

“Would you hang up already?” In spite of my uncertain mood, I feel lightened.

“Right, Gator,” he says.

“Good night, Tomper,” I say.

When Mr. Carlson hands back our tests, I can’t look at mine. I keep it facedown and eye it warily; it’s like a bomb that might explode.

I crane my neck until I can see Beth’s score. An A sits like a happy tepee at the top of her paper. Maybe, by some act of God, the real answer to the story problems is that they are all unsolvable.

I lift the corner of my paper. A D-plus? How can that be? With all my troubles, I’ve never even gotten a C in here.

“How’d you do?” Beth asks me cheerfully.

“Awfully,” I say, whipping the test back over. I listen closely to determine if I can hear the doors to the colleges slamming in the distance.

From calc, I have to move right to English, where everyone is bustling more than usual because it’s the first day of our oral presentation of book reports.

“I heard Mike Anderson tell Marsha Randall that he just copied his out of Cliff Notes,” Beth says to me, her nostrils flaring with self-righteous fury.

“I believe it,” I say, although it seems silly of him because Mrs. Klatsen gave us the option of reciting a memorized passage from the book or just writing a summary and reading that; it can’t get much easier.

Marsha Randall goes first. She dramatically flips her hair back before reading her summary of National Velvet.

“‘Teenage Velvet was like any other girl who’s horse crazy,’” she reads, bending her platinum head close to the sheet. “‘But who else would dare chop off her hair, don jockey’s clothes, and enter the world’s most grueling steeplechase?’”

Beth looks at me and rolls her eyes. “That’s from the summary on the back of the book,” she whispers to me. “I know because I read it.”

“Mike, you’re next,” Mrs. Klatsen says.

Mike walks up to the podium, sets his paper down, and then squints at it as if it’s a script and begins.

“‘The Lilies of the Field deals with the interesting juxta . . . juxtapositioning of Homer Smith, an ex-GI on the open road, and Mother Maria Marthe, a nun topped off with the disposition of a drill sergeant.’”

I look over at Mrs. K., who is sitting impassively with a slight smile on her lips. I wonder if she is concerned about people like Mike and Marsha who try to sidle through high school without bumping into anything that might work their brains or teach them something.

“Ellen, you’re up,” is all Mrs. K. says when Mike is done. I leave all my things on my desk and walk up to the front of the room. Twenty-four pairs of eyeballs roll to stare at me. I clear my throat.

“This piece is from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar,” I say, surprised at how clear and resonant my voice can be. “I picked this passage because it captures the mood of the narrator slowly becoming depressed.” I fold my hands in front of me, forget everyone, and speak. Before I know it, I am done.

There is a loud noise as people break into applause; I’m back on earth. Mrs. K. is beaming. Feeling my cheeks begin to flame, I return to my seat.

“That was beautiful, Ellen,” Mrs. K. says. “Class, you should all take this as an example of a good reader and a good writer interacting. Ellen has managed to pick out a particularly sensitive piece of prose, and her delivery was excellent.”

“You’re a bomber,” Mike Anderson says admiringly to me. Mike Anderson, admiring me?

After class, I start walking to my locker, and Tomper follows.

“Your report was really good, Ellen,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say. “It was just memorization.”

“No, you’re really smart,” he insists. “And you care about what you do.”

I look at him. He’s just read me like a book—and I like what he’s seen.

“Thank you,” I say. “And you’re very smart, too.”

“In what way, I’ll have to find out—because it sure isn’t grade-wise,” he says, his eyes studying my face.

There is a cord of tension between us that is being stretched tighter and tighter. Who knows what will happen when it breaks?

“How did you do on your calculus test?” Father asks at dinner.

My fork accidentally drops. I bend down to the floor to pick it up.

“All right,” I say, carefully wiping it off.

“Did you get an A?”

“No.”

“What did you get?” Father’s voice rises.

“A B-plus,” I say, crossing my fingers. “It was a hard test.”

“Bs aren’t good enough,” he says. “I think you’d better stay in and study until your grade gets back to an A—that means no gymnastics, either.”

“No gymnastics?” I echo.

“No gymnastics.” The tone of his voice makes me stop in my tracks.

“Yes, Father.” What would he have done if I told him I’d gotten a D-plus? I must be the only kid in school whose parents are like this. Now how am I going to earn my letter, or get to go out with Jessie, or do any of that?

11

The next day, I ask Mr. Carlson if I can get extra help from him during lunch hours.

“Sure—you must have been having a bad day during the last test, huh?”

At our first meeting, Mr. Carlson opens a foil package and takes out a pastrami sandwich, the meat hanging out of the bread like a frill.

“Let’s go over integration again,” he says, then takes a bite and chews. “This is the building block of calculus,” he says around his food.

He maps out the basic integration principles in handwriting that is surprisingly clear given his sausage-like fingers. At the end of the session, I have three new calc road maps, slightly stained with greasy fingerprints, to take home and memorize.

In gymnastics, Barbara thinks I’ve gone crazy.

“First you want to quit, now you want to stay on but skip practice because of your homework?”

I squirm. “My father suggests I stay out of gymnastics just until I do a little better in my math class—maybe only three weeks.”

Barbara looks at me sternly. “I don’t know about this, Ellen,” she says. “I can’t guarantee your place on the team.”

“I know you can’t,” I sigh.

“I hope I see you soon, Ellen,” she says.

I leave her office and try to block out all the gymnastics noise coming from the gym. I make the cold trek home, because I’ve missed the bus, doing my best not to cry, because the tears would probably freeze.

“Are we going to the hockey game tonight?” Jessie asks me on Friday when we’re at our locker. Just the other day, I heard Marsha Randall congratulating Tomper for having been voted co-captain of the hockey team.

“Jess, I can’t,” I say. Jessie’s eyebrows rise.

“My parents are really on my case about my calc grade,” I say. “I’m sort of grounded—no gymnastics even.”

“Grounded? What are you getting in there?”

“A low B, I guess.”

“Holy moly.” Jessie slaps her hand against her forehead. “They’re grounding you for having a B average? That has to be unconstitutional.”

“It’s this Harvard stuff,” I say unhappily. “All this attention to grades. My parents will kill me if I don’t get all As.”

“Harvard.” Her face turns dark. “It must be one hell of a nerdy place.”

“Are you mad at me?” I say.

Jessie drums her fingers on the locker door, then on her chin. “At you, no. At your parents, a little. No offense, but not only are they punishing you, they’re also punishing me. I can always get Shari—Miss Party Animal—to go with me, but it won’t be half as fun without you.”

I sigh. I don’t feel like studying tonight anyway.

Jessie looks at me, and she gets that soft look in her eyes. “Cheer up,” she says, hugging me a little. “Did I tell you that I might have a crush on Mike Anderson?”

“Mike Anderson?” I say, momentarily forgetting my misery. “I would never have guessed that one.”

Jessie’s cheeks are pink.

“We’ll have to go to more hockey games, then,” I add.

“I want to read your applications before they go out,” Father says to me. His outline looms, like the Grim Reaper, in my bedroom door.

“What?” I say, before I can think to be polite. Luckily, at this moment I am studying calc.

“You heard me,” he says. “I did it for Michelle, and she was very grateful.”

For Michelle. Of course she would be grateful: her essays were perfect. Why does Father have to monitor everything I do, as if I’m going to become a delinquent if left to my own devices? I already asked Mrs. Klatsen to help me with my essays—what can he possibly catch that she, my English teacher, can’t?

“Yes, Father,” I say, because there is no other answer.

12

“This essay is really excellent,” Mrs. Klatsen says to me during our after-school meeting. “Especially the epigraph: ‘Like Homer’s Odysseus, my parents set sail from home to a new land. Maybe like Odysseus, one day they’ll return home. But where will I go? Born on the journey, I’m not sure where I belong.’”

I feel the red hands of a blush creeping up my cheeks. “Well, you’ve really helped it come this far,” I say.

“You’re a very good writer, Ellen,” Mrs. K. says. “Have you thought about studying literature in college?”

“No, I want to be a doctor.”

“You could study literature and still be premed—that’s the beauty of a liberal arts education,” she says, sitting up on her desk and letting her long legs dangle. “In fact, there are a lot of doctor-writers that you might like to read, like Walker Percy or William Carlos Williams—or even Anton Chekhov.”

“Wow,” I say, trying to digest everything at once. “Do you think there’s a chance that I’ll get into Harvard?”

“Ellen,” she says, squinting to look at my face, “why do you think Harvard is the only place in the world?”

My cheeks flame up again. I must sound so pushy—so desperate.

“For one thing, it’ll make my parents happy,” I mumble.

“But what will happen if you don’t get in?”

“I really don’t want to think about it,” I confess. “Where did you go?”

“Macalester,” she says. “The little college in Saint Paul.”

“And you liked it?”

“Loved it,” she says. “There are a lot of places where you can study literature and biology, and that includes Brown and Wellesley.”

“Yes,” I say, but I am still thinking of my parents.

Right before Christmas vacation, I send all my application papers in. Father actually lets them go without comment. Did he feel uncomfortable reading about himself and my feelings on the page—especially one that’s to be read by the distinguished admissions people? The whole time he was reading my Odysseus essay, his lined (yet scarless?) forehead did not budge. Maybe I was hoping the essay would touch him on a deeper level. But all he said was, “There are no mistakes, Ellen. That’s good.”

“Do you have to stay in and study again?” Jessie asks the next Friday night.

“Sorry,” I say, although I could easily disobey because Mom and Father are out of town for the weekend. “Anything exciting going on?”

“Not really,” she says. “Supposedly there is something going on at Rocky Jukich’s house, but I heard that on Monday and haven’t heard anything since.”

“Well, maybe you can come over tomorrow, and we can make a snowman and drink hot chocolate,” I say. “That’s staying in—for me, at least.”

“Okay,” she says, brightening. “See you tomorrow.”

Jessie is probably going to go out with Shari and have a great time. When will it be my turn to go out and have fun, the way teenagers are supposed to do?

I dig out a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner. The first time I ever made this, Father scowled and noted that only in America can you cook a dinner out of a box. I think the whole concept—not to mention the neon-orange color—annoys him.

Naughtily, I eat my dinner straight from the pot—to save dishes—and I read while I eat, which is another thing I’d never do if Mom and Father were home.

After dinner, I make myself a cup of instant coffee. I’m mad, but full, and I settle down to study. At about 9:00, the phone rings.

I pick it up. The noise of traffic and wind rushes in the background.

“Hello,” I say, putting my finger on the hang-up knob, just in case it’s an obscene phone call.

“Is Ellen home?” A male voice. More sounds of the wind.

“This is,” I say carefully, making a mental note to be sure not to mention that I’m home alone. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, hi, Ellen—I can barely hear you. It’s Tomper.”

My finger falls from the hang-up knob.

“How are you?” I say.

“Cool,” he says. “Just calling to see if you know of any parties.”

Right. Calling me for party information is probably about as helpful as asking Mrs. O’Leary for fire prevention tips.

“Uh, how about the one at Rocky Jukich’s?”

“That one never happened,” he says.

“Well, the only other one I can think of is the wild one over here.”

“Oh, yeah?” he says, suddenly full of interest.

“I’m just kidding,” I say quickly. “My parents have gone to Minneapolis for the weekend, and I’m just hanging out.” So much for my resolution.

“What if I came over to visit you? I’ve never seen your house before.”

“Well,” I say, then I hear a squawk on the line.

“Hang on,” Tomper says. “The operator’s asking for more money. Lady—I haven’t got another dime.”

I hold my breath, thinking of the fragile connection between Tomper and me.

“Hey,” he says. His voice resumes, clear. “This thing takes quarters.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“So what do you think?”

My brain feels as if it’s somewhere else, not in my head.

“Uh, not right away—I need to run an errand,” I say, my eye on the macaroni and cheese pot soaking in the sink. “How about in forty-five minutes?”

“Sure,” he says between incessant honks in the background. “I’ll go grab a burger or something. Is it okay if I bring some beer over?”

“Uh,” I say, trying to measure the possibility of Mom and Father suddenly deciding to come home. “All right.”

“See ya in forty-five, then.”

From the phone, I run to the bathroom, rush through a shower, put on deodorant and perfume, and then reapply all my makeup. Then I streak to my room and throw on my favorite lilac-colored sweatshirt.

From my room I run around, picking things up, washing dishes, and shoving the living room couch’s pillows back into place. I wish I had a minute to stop and look at myself; I must look ridiculous.

Finally, the house is in order, and Tomper isn’t there. I sit down at the kitchen table and reopen my calc book. I have a test on Monday—my big chance to pull my grade up—but I just stare at the page. My thoughts spin around and around. Why am I doing this when I’m supposed to be studying? Even more, why am I doing this at all?

The doorbell rings, and I jump.

“Hey, Gator,” Tomper says, grinning in the doorway. His hair looks like a halo again, backlit from the streetlights.

“Hey yourself,” I say, and reach over to help him with the paper bag that he’s carrying; I almost drop it because it’s so heavy. “My God, what’ve you got in here?” I ask, peering into the bag. Inside are two six-packs. “You aren’t planning to invite people over, are you?” I ask with a gulp.

Tomper’s eyes crinkle. “Cheez, Ellen, of course not,” he says. “You’ve known me all this time and you don’t know how much I drink? I could have a six-pack for breakfast, easy.”

“Oh,” I say.

I put the beers in the refrigerator and then notice that Tomper hasn’t followed me. He has lagged behind in front of the glassed-in souvenir case in the hall.

“These sure are neat,” he says, peering in as closely as he can without touching his nose to the glass.

“My parents like to travel.”

“Wow,” he says. “What a great way to remember all the places you’ve been.”

“I guess that’s why they’re called souvenirs,” I say. “It’s French for ‘to remember.’”

“Hey, that’s neat,” he says. “I didn’t know you spoke French.”

“A little,” I say. I thought everyone knew what souvenir meant.

“How about a beer?” he says.

“Okay,” I say. What does he want to do here, anyway? Play Monopoly?

“Hey, what’s this?” he says. He is stuck deep inside our refrigerator. He drags out a huge mason jar full of Father’s kimchi.

“Oh, that’s just kimchi,” I say. “Korean pickles—it’s stuff my mom and dad eat.” Stinky pickles, I want to add, but I don’t.

“Can I try some?”

“I don’t think you’ll like it,” I say quickly. “It’s really spicy.”

“I love spicy stuff,” he says. “Please? I’ll only take a little.”

Oh, we have tons more downstairs, I almost say, thinking of the jars and jars of it lined up neatly on the basement shelves, but I don’t want him to think that we sit around eating stinky things all day.

“If you really want to,” I say reluctantly to his sincere and eager face.

He unscrews the cover and uses the fork I’ve handed him to spear a piece of the pickled cabbage. He sniffs at it like a curious cat, before depositing it in his mouth. He chews thoughtfully. I hold my breath.

“Hey, this is pretty good,” he says. “Only it isn’t all that spicy.”

“Really?” I say. “All Mom and Father ever do is talk about how spicy it is.”

“You mean you’ve never tried it?”

“No, but it’s always around if I want to.”

Tomper spears a generous piece from the jar and bolds it out to me at face level. “Here.”

“That’s okay, Tomper,” I say as the wilted leaf, mottled with angry-looking red spices, dangles in front of my nose. The garlicky vinegar smell is starting to seep into my nostrils, so I hold my nose.

“Ellen,” he says. “What’s the point of life if you aren’t up to trying new things?”

The piece of kimchi hangs plaintively in front of me. I guess it’s not going to go away. Still holding my nose, I take a small bite. While I’m chewing, I let myself smell a little. The taste isn’t so bad—it’s pleasantly garlicky. A second later, it sets my mouth on fire.

I run to the kitchen sink. It takes a full glass of water to put out the fire. “Oh my God, that was hot,” I say, thankful my seared tongue still works.

“It’s not hot.” Tomper laughs as he eats the remaining piece on the fork. He screws the top on and carefully puts it back in its place in the refrigerator, next to the milk.

“Aren’t you going to give me a tour of the house?” he says, a little devilishly. My stomach quivers, and I gulp my beer. Then we head down the hall.

“This is a nice room,” he says, surveying the shelves that have books lined up on them like straight toy soldiers. He pulls out the one that has the constellation Orion on its cover. The Stars, it’s called.

“It’s all about celebrities,” I say. He has already cracked it open.

“You’re such a goof,” he says. “Where’d you get all these great books?”

“My father—he’s always trying to get me and my sister to read more.”

“I wish my parents were more into what I do,” Tomper says slowly. “The only guidance I ever get is them telling me to stay out of jail.”

“Stay out of jail?”

“Yeah,” he says. “One of my brothers, Rick, was in jail once—DWI.”

“How many kids are there in your family?” I ask.

“Just me and my two brothers,” he says. “My brothers are both older: thirty-two and thirty-three.” His eyes, now as blue as robins’ eggs, focus on mine, as if he’s searching for something.

“That’s quite an age disparity,” I say slowly, as if by cautiously letting out the line of my words I can haul them back in quickly if I need to.

“I think,” Tomper says, drumming his fingers on his chin and keeping his eyes on me, “I think I was the little accident that came along way after they decided they didn’t want to have kids anymore.”

“Oh, Tomper,” I say. “I’m sure they really love you.”

“I’m sure, too,” he says. “But I also think they couldn’t deal with the thought of having another bratty kid grow up in the house. I know I always felt that. You know, I learned to cook for myself when I was only five years old. I used to stand on a stool by the stove and make Rice-A-Roni.” He puts his hands together and shakes them to demonstrate the proper technique.

“That must have been cute—you setting the house on fire,” I say.

“Cute, nothing.” His eyes crinkle wisely. “I had to eat.”

A lock of his blond hair falls into his eyes, and he brushes it away with a careless, impatient motion that lets me see him as a little boy.

“Here’s Ursa Major,” he says, opening the book. “And this clump here is the Pleiades.”

The stars are so dense on the page that they look like salt spilled on a black tablecloth. With a practiced eye, Tomper traces out Orion’s three-star belt.

“Take the book home with you,” I say. “I don’t think I’ll feel like reading it again anytime soon.”

“Oh no,” he says, cradling the book in his hands as carefully as he might hold a puppy. “I might lose it.”

“You won’t,” I say. “And keep it as long as you want.”

A grin spreads across his face, like molasses making its way down a pancake. “Thanks, Ellen,” he says. “You know I like the stars and all.”

“Can I ask you something?” I say, feeling suddenly bold.

“Sure.”

“Are you going steady with Marsha Randall?” The words hang in the air for a few seconds.

“We’ve gone out a few times,” he says slowly. “But it didn’t quite work out.”

“Hm,” I say.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” I want to say: Then why don’t you ask me out? You always act so interested, then you pull back.

Tomper slowly sets the book down and moves closer to me. Closer and closer—our lips touch. It feels so good to be close.

And because it feels so good, I push myself away from him.

“What’s up?” he says softly.

“Nothing,” I say, then it hits me. “Tomper, I really like you, but I think you have to make up your mind about things. You can’t just come over out of the blue and expect me to be glad you want to kiss me.”

A pause hangs between us like a heavy weight.

“I guess I know what you mean, Ellen,” he says finally. “It’s just so much simpler here, where it’s just you and me. You’re right, though—it’s not fair to you.”

I hand him The Stars, which he takes.

“Are you mad at me?” he says before he leaves.

“No, I’m glad you came,” I say, and I am.

“Goodbye,” he says.

I can’t help wondering if he means goodbye forever.

13

On Monday at lunch, I try to eat some extra carbohydrates to give me energy for the big test. Mr. Carlson, between bites of his pastrami, patiently reviews the chapter with me.

“Ellen,” he says, straightening up and mopping his brow, “you’ve done the homework problems and the extra ones I gave you. I’m sure you’ll do fine on the test.”

I give him the best grin I can, considering my nervousness, and I pull out the list of questions I’ve compiled. I’d much rather bother Mr. Carlson now than face Father later.

When I finally do get the test, I am surprised. This time I know what to do, and I have to keep myself from getting too scattered, like when I’m doing a crossword puzzle and know the answers faster than I can fill them in. I am done five minutes before the bell.

I sail, happy and confident, into English. Tomper comes in after me, but our eyes don’t connect during the entire hour.

More of the same, I think. I am glad now that I didn’t let him keep kissing me. It’s time to go on with my life.

That Friday night, I show my parents my calc test, which has come back with an A, and I ask if I can go out with Jessie. They look at each other. Finally, Mom says, “Please be home by midnight.” I give a whoop of joy and turn to the phone.

However, Jessie and I find ourselves without wheels. Father is on call and Mom needs the Blazer to go to a baby shower. Jessie’s dad needs their car to go to his curling league game.

“Let’s get dropped off at the Pizza Palace,” Jessie suggests. “Maybe there we can go trolling for rides.” Mom drops us off, and Jessie and I take a booth near the door. We both order Cokes.

In a bit, a blast of frigid air hits us, and Rocky Jukich and a bunch of his friends walk in. Their faces are red with cold.

Jessie’s eyes light up. “Hey, Rocky,” she says as they sit down at the booth across from us. “What are you guys up to tonight?”

“Nothin’,” he says disgustedly. “A totally dead party scene.”

“Mind giving us a ride somewhere, then?”

“Where you want to go?”

Jessie looks at me. I shrug.

“How about Erie,” Jessie suggests. Erie is the next town over, where we occasionally go to shop.

“Okay,” says Rocky agreeably. “Maybe things are more lively over there.”

Jessie and I squish into Rocky’s old Firebird. I have to sit on Jessie’s lap.

“Anything particular going on in Erie?” I ask Jessie.

“No,” she says. “But if it’s boring there, we can always come back to the good old PP.”

The ride doesn’t even take twenty minutes. The town is bigger, but not any nicer than Arkin. In fact, for some reason, Erie keeps its Christmas decorations up year-round, and year after year of Minnesota winters and baking summers leave bedraggled and sad-looking pieces of tinsel and fake holly twisted grotesquely around all the lampposts.

Main Street does have more stores, though.

“What clever names these bars have,” Jessie exclaims sarcastically as we pass the Quart House and the Beer Hut.

“There’s a place we go to sometimes that’s pretty fun,” says Rocky.

“Want to go?” Jessie says to me.

“We’re underage,” I remind her.

“They don’t care at all,” says Rocky, as if I’m such an amateur.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” says Jessie.

I think of the alternatives, then decide, What the hell. This is my first night out in a while.

Rocky parks, we meet up with the rest of his gang, and we all troop over to a bar called the Watering Hole.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” I whisper to Jessie right before we go in.

“No one in Erie knows us,” she responds confidently.

We enter the bar, and no one stops us. A few people who are watching the Vikings game at the bar turn around, but I think they are only scoping to see who it is.

“Thanks for the ride,” Jessie says to Rocky. “We’ll catch up with you later.”

Jessie and I make our way over to a raised area with tables and chairs. In the corner, a jukebox brays out country tunes. We install ourselves at a table.

“What’ll it be?” A girl in a halter top, tight jeans, and high heels has come up to us.

“A whiskey sour,” Jessie says casually. I gulp and glance at the girl. She chews her gum impatiently, leans on one leg, and looks back at me.

“A whiskey sour, too,” I finally choke out. I wait for her to slap the handcuffs on us, but all she does is write our order down and wobble away on her high heels.

The girl returns with two small cylindrical glasses, each with a skinny straw in it.

“I’ll get it,” Jessie says generously as she hands the girl some money.

“Cheers,” I say, and we toast. I take a tentative sip: it tastes like medicine. Now I wish I’d ordered a beer.

“A pretty good crowd,” Jessie observes.

Some guys have a fine red-orange layer of iron-ore dust covering their jeans and work boots. They must have come straight from work. Most of the women are in nice tops and jeans. The atmosphere reminds me of a grown-up Sand Pits party.

“Want to play some foosball?” Jessie asks.

“Sure.” We make our way to the foosball table on the other side of the room. It is lit by a huge blatz beer hanging lamp. Under it, two guys are already playing.

Jessie boldly clinks two quarters on top of the table. The blond guy farthest from me looks at her, then smirks at his partner, whose face I can’t see.

The smirking guy loses.

“Damn, damn, damn!” he yells, spinning the goalie lever around and around in frustration. “Fucking shit, man!”

Jessie approaches the table, and I follow. The smirking guy makes a big show of letting us have the table, as if he owned it or something. Jessie ignores him and inserts the quarters into the table.

Jessie hands the first ball to me, and I push it through the hole, onto the “field.”

Wham! Jessie sweeps it up and shoots it onto my side, narrowly missing the goal.

I think: These plastic foosball guys are so weird. Head and torso painted with a doll like realism, but the legs fused together into a peculiar peg shape.

While I’m ruminating over this, Jessie scores.

Plunk, plunk, plunk. I feebly try to get my guys to kick the ball out of the way, but I fail. Then again, I probably wouldn’t be able to kick very well if I had those mutated club legs, either. I take a sip of my sweating drink.

“You girls look like you could use some help,” says the smirking guy to me. Under the light, the shaggy stubble on his chin looks like a porcupine’s. He smiles, and I see that his teeth are tobacco-stained and slightly bashed in.

“No, thank you,” I say politely to Ickyteeth, and I continue to futilely defend my goal. I make a lucky shot, then I accidentally knock the last ball into my own goal.

“Here, let’s play two-on-two,” says Ickyteeth, sidling up to Jessie. “We’ll pay.”

I expect Jessie to knock him clear into next week, but instead she smiles and says okay. My mouth drops open.

“Hi, I’m Mitch,” says Ickyteeth’s partner as he grips two of the handles on my side. There are four levers, so I can’t possibly keep my hands possessively on all of them.

“What’s your name?” he asks. He has brown hair and is better looking than Ickyteeth, but he does have acne craters all over his face.

“Jane,” I mumble. I can’t figure Jessie out. Why would she want us to play with these guys?

Ickyteeth and his friend Mitch start right in, as if this is the World Series Foosball Tournament. Ickyteeth almost slobbers with excitement, Mitch’s arm muscles bulge, and both of them slam the levers so hard that the table shakes. A couple of times, Mitch’s hip sort of brushes mine.

As usual, I’m a terrible goalie.

“Hey, man, we won!” gloats Ickyteeth. He puts his damp arm around Jessie’s waist, and to my surprise, she acts as though she doesn’t notice.

“Sorry,” I say to Mitch, and I turn my back on him and head to our table. Then I see that all three of them are following. The two guys pull up chairs.

“What did you say your name was again?” asks Mitch.

“Ellen,” I say. Then I remember that I said “Jane” earlier, but it doesn’t look like he’s caught it.

Ickyteeth grabs the girl in the halter top and orders another round of drinks. When it comes, I fish out some dollar bills and hold them out to him.

“Hey, no problem, Eileen,” he says.

“I insist,” I say, and mash the bills into his fist. I give Jessie a look to convey “When are we getting rid of these bozos?” But she looks like she’s having the time of her life: face all flushed, laughing at something Mitch is saying, hair looking vaguely Einsteinian.

I get up to go to the bathroom, and when I come back, only Mitch is sitting there. “Where did Jessie and Ick—your friend go?”

“To play another round,” he says.

I am suddenly aware of an annoying buzz in my head; I have no idea how long it’s been going like that. Wearily, I sit down and sip my drink.

“So,” says Mitch, glancing at me curiously. “You from China?”

“No,” I say hotly. “From Arkin.”

“No, I mean, where are you from?”

“I was born in Arkin,” I say. The buzzing gets louder. I try to change the subject. “So, Mitch, what do you do for a living?”

“Work at Erie Taconite.” He guzzles the rest of his beer while staring at me. I notice that his flannel shirt is soaked through. The mingling smells of sweat, old beer, smoke, and—faintly—laundry soap make me want to rush from the bar to the sharp, crisp air outside. Then he pulls out a cigarette and lights it, despite my polite coughing.

“You got a boyfriend?” he asks.

“Yes,” I lie.

“Is he nice?” He blows columns of smoke out of both nostrils. For a second, he looks like a walrus. I start laughing uncontrollably.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I sputter. My head feels heavy and light at the same time. All I want to do now is go home.

“We’re ba-ack.” Jessie reappears, with Ickyteeth still surgically attached to her waist.

“Can we go?” I say. My voice sounds a million miles away.

“Sure,” Jessie says, kissing the top of my head. “Gary, let’s go.”

“Huh?” I say, shaking my head. I can almost feel my brain cells floating in alcohol. “Where’s Rocky?”

“Oh,” Jessie says matter-of-factly, “he split.”

“Wh-at?” I say in disbelief. “Our ride.”

“Don’t worry, Eileen.” Ickyteeth leans close to me; his breath reeks of old hamburger and onions. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

“Oh, boy,” I say in a tiny voice. What can I do? Call Mom and Father and have them pick me up at some bar in Erie? I swear that if I get out of this alive, I won’t ever go out again.

Like a condemned prisoner, I follow everyone out to the street. Ickyteeth’s car, at least, is a large, safe-looking Oldsmobile. Maybe I was unfair to expect a black Trans Am with skulls painted on the back.

Jessie and Ickyteeth get in front, and Mitch and I sit in the back. When we pass the last wilted merry christmas sign on our way out of town, Mitch puts his arm around me. My first impulse is to push it away, but then I think about how I might hurt his feelings.

At a stoplight, Ickyteeth looks in the rearview mirror, sees us together, and cackles. Thankfully, we go straight home. As usual, all the outdoor lights at our house are blazing.

“My parents are very protective,” I tell Mitch as I fumble for the door handle in the car. “If I’m not home in time, they’ll call the police.“

“Really?” he says. Then he grabs my head and mashes his lips against mine—his sluglike tongue pushes roughly into my mouth, and I can’t breathe. I push against him, but his hands are like a vise around my head.

When he finally lets me go, I gasp and sob for air. A vitreous bridge of saliva hangs between us. Jessie looks back, her eyes opening wide. Ickyteeth laughs.

Ickyteeth stops laughing when Jessie’s fist hits his mouth. She jumps out of the car, flings open the door on my side, and pulls me out. Then she sticks her head back into the open door and says to Mitch: “You have ten seconds to leave, or you’ll be spending the night in Arkin’s jail. My dad’s the police chief.”

Ickyteeth, with one hand still over his mouth, already has the car in reverse. Mitch, however, sneers at Jessie.

“I’m not scared of you, bitch,” he says to her. “Or you”—I know what’s coming next—“chinkface.”

He shuts the door in our faces.

Jessie and I go into the house. By some miracle, Mom and Father appear to be asleep and undisturbed by the commotion. Hot tears are already dripping out of my eyes, and I feel that I’m going to be sick. I run to the bathroom and throw up. Jessie comes in and holds my head.

“Are you okay?” she asks. When I lift my head, I find that I actually feel better, purged of everything—even tears.

“Jess,” I say, low. “Can you stay over? If I take the car out now, my parents might wake up and freak out.”

“Okay,” Jessie whispers back. “If it’s okay with you.”

Jessie quietly calls her dad, and in my room, I give her one of my big Sid the Killer shirts to sleep in.

“I’m sorry this night was such a mess,” Jessie says, sitting tentatively on the bed. “I guess hooking up with those guys wasn’t the smartest thing to do. They could have been ax murderers, for all we knew.”

“Why did you do it, then?” I fight to keep my voice from boiling over. “Anyone could see a mile off that those guys were bad news.”

“I don’t exactly know,” Jessie says gloomily. “I guess . . . I guess I was looking for some adventure—you know, sometimes I just want to bust out of this stinking little town so bad! I was thinking that maybe things’d be different in Erie, but that bar made me think of how things are gonna be if I stay here in this town and have to grow old with people like Brad Whitlock and Marsha Randall around.”

Poor Jessie. All this time I’ve been making such a fuss about leaving, about going to an expensive school out east. I have a choice: my dad’s a doctor, so he has all this money to send me all over the place. I never thought about what it would be like if I felt I was stuck in Arkin.

“I’m sorry—I’m to blame, too, Jess,” I say. If I’m going to go to college next year, I think, I’m going to have to quit acting like such an immature little kid. If I didn’t like being with those guys, I should have said something. Why was I waiting for Jessie to do something? And I should never have let that stupid Mitch lay one pinkie finger on me. It’s about time I took some responsibility.

“Let’s just pretend this never happened, okay, Jess?” I say. “I’m going to take a shower and wash off all those Mitch germs.”

“Better scrub,” she says, smiling a little.

I make the shower as hot as I can stand.

14

I feel headachey and awful the next day, and it’s weird to think that Mom and Father don’t have any idea that I was just in a bar in the next town, talking to strange men. Monday morning comes, like normal, and Father even says that I can return to gymnastics if I want.

Of course I go right back, but I find out that the season is ending early because we were beat out by Hibbing for a seat in the state tournament. I practice extra hard, and for the remaining meets, Barbara puts me on varsity.

A week after the last meet, we have our end-of-season party, complete with stale potato chips, in the gym.

Barbara calls us together so she can pass out the gold certificates, which we will take to Miller Sports to order our letter jackets. The younger girls watch enviously as Marsha starts the procession by getting hers, and then, since she’s captain, calling the rest of the names.

People squeal and clap when Diane goes up to get hers—her third. People clap more politely for Beth. Barbara just passes out the certificates, like an uninterested Santa. Marsha goes down the line, then calls the last name.

It isn’t mine.

Gretchen Wendell, a freshman who’s been on junior varsity with me for most of the year, goes up, flushed and surprised, to get her letter. Everyone claps, and I follow mechanically.

When everyone starts talking and eating again, I grab Beth’s arm and lead her to a corner of the gym where there’s some privacy.

“Why do you think I didn’t get a letter?” I whisper. Her certificate flashes seductively in the gym light.

“Ellen, I really don’t know,” she says compassionately.

“How does Barbara decide?” I am embarrassed at how desperate I sound. “How many varsity meets do I have to be in?”

Beth shakes her head. “I have no idea how she decides.”

I glance over at Barbara. She is surrounded lovingly by her entourage of Marsha and Diane and all those girls. I couldn’t break through the crowd now. Besides, this is supposed to be a party.

I know I can’t rest until I talk to Barbara, but it’s tough. I make up excuses for myself: it’s almost the end of letter jacket–wearing season, the jackets are expensive, I don’t really want one.

Then I admit to myself that I really do want a letter jacket, and after working so hard these past years, it’s not unreasonable for me to get one.

I keep heading down to Barbara’s office at lunch and chickening out before I get there. Once I even bump into Barbara en route, like in some weird comedy; after we say hi, I keep walking.

“Ellen,” Jessie says, “nothing is going to happen unless you actually talk to Barbara. You don’t get points for wearing out shoe leather.”

“I hate confrontations.” I groan.

“Try thinking of it from Barbara’s perspective,” Jessie suggests. “Say she somehow forgot your letter; she’s not going to suddenly remember it unless you say something. Or say she didn’t give you one because she’s mean—are you going to let her get off the hook so easily?”

“All right,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

I make myself march until I walk right into Barbara’s office. She is there, eating a sandwich.

“Hi, Barbara.” I try to sound casual.

She looks up, midbite, then puts the sandwich down.

“Hi, Ellen,” she says curtly. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh, I wanted to ask you why I didn’t get a letter.”

“Why you didn’t get a letter?” she repeats. I nod.

Barbara heaves herself out of the chair and gets out her official score book, all the while looking at me as if I’m just a bit crazy.

“Ellen, you missed too many meets,” she says, closing the book.

“But I was in at least as many—or more—varsity meets as Gretchen Wendell,” I point out.

“Coming to practice counts, too,” she says. “I judge it on a person’s overall commitment.”

How much more committed could I be? I want to say. What about all those times I had to work extra hard so Mom and Father would let me attend practice?

Barbara looks at me as if she wants to get back to her lunch.

After school that day, I take the pictures of Mary Lou and Nadia off my wall. Next year no one will even know I was once a gymnast, because I won’t have a letter jacket to show for it.

Michelle had said to me once that she didn’t mind studying all the time because she had the feeling that if she just got all As, everything would be all right.

I know that’s not true now.

Getting all As didn’t get me the letter jacket I wanted so badly, and it didn’t protect me from some bad men in a bar. What can grades do, except get me into Harvard? And there’s not even a guarantee that they’ll do that. I think of how all my life Mom and Father have treated good grades like the answer to life. They aren’t.

I hope they know something I don’t, I think as I unstick the last picture and put it into the trash, along with all my emerald-green letter jacket dreams.

15

Letterless, I ace my final in calc.

“You’re such an awesome brain,” Jessie says to me after looking at the report card she’s swiped from my hand. Since we don’t have gym or swimming in senior year, my grade point average is a perfect 4.0.

“You’ve got your A in music,” I say. “That’s great. Maybe you should think about going into music.”

“Yeah, right,” she snorts. “And I’ll end up like Mrs. Matheny, left to teaching bratty kids like yours truly.”

“What’s going on here?” says a voice behind us. We turn to see Tomper standing there, grinning. Was he listening to us the whole time?

I discreetly take my report card back from Jessie and stuff it into my folder. Tomper is still smiling. I gather up my books.

“Are you carrying all that stuff home?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Well, here,” he says, extending his arm. “Let me take them. I’m sort of walking your way—I’m going over to Mike’s house to play guitar with him.”

Jessie opens and shuts her eye in an exaggerated wink. I’d wink back, except I know Tomper can see my face. Could it be that he’s made up his mind—in my favor?

We walk the road heading to my house. On the way, the bus passes us.

“How’d you do on your report card?” he asks. His arm swings my ton of books as if they are weightless.

“Okay,” I say. My breath is silver in the cold. “How’d you do?”

“A new record,” he says. “Two point six.”

I can’t tell if that’s a new high or a new low, but Tomper seems pretty happy.

“Congratulations,” I say.

Tomper smiles. His teeth are very white and straight.

When we get to my door, we stare at each other. I’m praying that Mom’s not looking out the window at this moment.

“Uh, remember when you said that I needed to figure some things out?” he says.

“Ye-es,” I say slowly, not daring to even hope.

“Well, I have.” He grins. “I figured out that I want to ask you to a movie on Friday.”

My face cracks into an involuntary smile.

“Why not?” I say. Trumpets play in the background.

“Good,” he says. “We’ll talk more at school.”

He heads on to Mike’s, and I float into the house—only vaguely worried about how Mom and Father will react.

When I show Father my report card, he nods and says “Good job, Ellen” in the same tone that he uses to say “Thank you” to the person bagging his groceries. Mom, at least, keeps saying she is impressed. She makes my favorite dinner, real macaroni and cheese with big chunks of cheddar and Jenny Lee macaroni. She also hauls up an extra jar of kimchi for Father.

As we eat, I keep thinking that this is the perfect time to tell them about Tomper. But how do I break this? Father always talks so approvingly of how Michelle waited until she was in college to date.

I decide to just say that I am going over to Jessie’s on Friday. This is going to be a sort of trial-run date anyway—what if we don’t get along? If something good happens, I’ll tell them. But in the meantime, why risk the trouble? I have only one semester left of my senior year.

On Friday night, I drive over to Jessie’s early. Tomper, thank goodness, didn’t think it was odd that I’d want to be hanging out with her before our date.

“Here, this purple eye shadow will really bring out the colors of your eyes,” says Jessie, playing makeup artist.

“Don’t you think it’s a little bright?” I ask. I turn over the case to see the name of the color: Sparkly Grape.

“Let me try it. I’ll wash it right off if you don’t like it.”

“We-ell, okay,” I say.

“You really have beautiful eyes, Ellen,” Jessie says, sponging the color on my lid.

“I do?” I say, eyes still closed. When I think of my eyes, I think of a blah brown color, weird lids, and stubby lashes. Jessie has brown eyes, but hers are milk-chocolate-colored, with lashes that curve gently outward like inverted clamshells.

“They have a ring of dark purple around the brown,” she says. “Did you ever notice?”

“You’re kidding, Jess,” I say. “My eyes are so dark that they look like one big flat black pupil sometimes.”

“No, look.” Jessie scrounges around for a mirror. “The shadow brings it out.”

I squint at my face in the mirror. The grape sparkles make my eyes look vaguely alien. I stare and stare at my brown irises. I think I might actually see a band of color around them, but if so, it’s barely wider than a thread.

“Maybe you’re right, Jess,” I say. “But I don’t know about this eye shadow.”

“It definitely makes you look sexy,” Jessie says. She sticks out her index finger and smudges each eyelid. “There, is that more subtle?”

My dark eyes stare back at me in the mirror. I’ve always thought light-colored eyes were more expressive, more precious, like gems. Marsha Randall’s eyes would be emeralds, Tomper’s would be sapphires, and even Jessie’s would be citrines or something like that.

“You look beautiful,” Jessie declares. “And it doesn’t even matter. Tomper really likes you. I can see it in his eyes—he’s gone.”

Precisely at 8:00, a polite rap sounds at the door. Jessie and I both jump.

“You’re going to have such a great time,” Jessie says as she runs to the door. I hear it open, then I hear Tomper’s voice and the stamping of feet.

“It’s going to be a snowy one, Ellen,” he says, shaking a few last flakes out of his hair.

“Right,” I say, waiting for my voice to crack like lake ice when the pressure of temperature becomes too much. “Jessie’s lucky she gets to stay in.”

“You betcha,” Jessie says, running to get my coat, just like a fairy godmother.

When Tomper and I go out into the fresh night, big, fluffy flakes are wafting down. In a few seconds, I can see flakes hanging off my eyelashes.

“I wonder if this is going to be the last one this winter,” he says, taking my hand and looking up at the February sky.

“I always like winter,” I say, thinking how the lush carpet of snow covers everything with a glittery, clean whiteness. Even the air sparkles. New England winters, Michelle says, are blustery and gray.

We drive over to the Star movie theater, where Ghostbusters II is playing. The movie is perfect—not scary, lukewarm funny. Tomper and I finally kiss—warm, real kisses; it’s a balm that eases those awful memories of the night in Erie.

After the movie, we go to the Pizza Palace, which is crawling with Arkin High kids. In fact, Mike Anderson and Brad Whitlock are at the table next to us—and staring.

“Hey, guys,” Tomper says, as nonchalantly as if this were a hockey practice. I wave. Mike, at least, smiles back. Brad gapes as if Tomper is bringing in his pet tarantula.

Tomper and I order a pizza that’s loaded with spicy pepperoni slices. I try to be ladylike as I eat and not make long mozzarella strings across the table.

After we’re done, Tomper reaches for my hand. I can’t believe this is happening, I think for the millionth time.

He drives me back to Jessie’s, where my car is parked, and helps me brush the snow off it. Flakes are still coming down.

“I had a really nice time,” I say when we’re finished.

“Me too,” he says, putting his hands on my shoulders. I suddenly have this perception of him growing while I shrink—his huge hands swallowing up my tiny shoulders. Everything about him seems big, while I’m small and insignificant.

“I can see all sorts of constellations in your hair,” he says, leaning close.

We kiss again, and again. The snow keeps falling gently around us; the air is cold, his mouth is warm.

He stops once to murmur, “I don’t know what took me so long, El. I must be really stupid.”

I silence him with a kiss.

16

Tomper and I go out the next weekend, and the next, and the one after that. I just keep liking him more and more—but I still carefully keep him away from my house, scared that Mom and Father’s intervention could hurt.

One day after school, I go to meet him at his locker. As I come down the hall, I see that he is having an animated conversation with Brad Whitlock. I hear Brad say something like, “Why are you going out with her?” Then Tomper says, in a cheerful but firm way, “None of your beeswax, buddy.”

They both shut up when they see me. Brad turns on his heels and leaves.

“Were you talking about me, by any chance?” I say uneasily.

“Hey, don’t let Brad bother you,” he says evenly. “He just has funny ideas.”

“That’s for sure,” I say, but I still feel unsettled. Brad Whitlock is so popular that he could probably turn the whole school against me if he wanted to.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I say. “You know, about me, us.”

“Mind what?” he says, as if I’m crazy. You’re the best, smartest girlfriend I ever had.”

I take him at his word, and even let him hug me before I start my walk home.

On the good side, even though I’m not exactly sure if my going out with Tomper has anything to do with it, Mike Anderson has been stopping by our table at lunch to chat with Jessie and me—and I notice that he always gets an extra twinkle in his eye when he’s talking to Jessie.

“You’ll never guess what Mike did,” Jessie says as we park ourselves at our usual table in the lunchroom. She pulls out a music book. “He brought me Chopin’s ‘To My Friend Pierre,’ which I’ve been dying to find,” she says. “Remember how I kept calling Schmidt’s Music and the boneheads there were no help? Well, he goes and finds it in this book in his mom’s piano bench.”

“He knows about classical music?” I ask. “I thought he just played rock ’n’ roll guitar.”

“Oh, he’s crazy about classical, too,” Jessie says as she begins to unpack her lunch. “He’s the first guy I’ve known who doesn’t think a sonata is a car.”

“Or a treble clef something you get on your chin,” I add.

Jessie giggles as she breaks into a bag of Cheez Doodles. “Or a high octave a kind of gasoline.”

Jessie throws a Cheez Doodle at me just as Tomper takes a seat by my side. It bounces off his elbow like a tiny orange boomerang.

“Hey, cool it, girls,” he says, but his eyes are twinkling. Our giggles are still spilling over. Tomper looks grave all of a sudden. “Ellen, can I talk to you after school?”

“Sure,” I say, panic rising from my stomach. “Is anything wrong?”

“I just need to talk to you,” he says. Then he smiles, as if trying to lighten the moment.

“Okay,” I say, my appetite flying away. “I’ll wait for you.”

When he leaves, I am gray with apprehension.

“Jessie, what could he want?” I moan.

“I don’t know,” Jessie says, handing me an Almost Home cookie. “But you know you can handle it, whatever it is. Look, you got all As, so how complicated can a boyfriend be?”

Tomper is at my locker after school, and he still looks somber. Jessie has already gone to her piano lesson, so we’re alone.

“Ellen,” he says, leaning against the wall of lockers. I can smell his smell again, woodsmoke and soap. I grip the open locker door for support.

“Do you, like, like me?” he asks.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Do you like me?”

“Of course I do,” I say. The locker door is growing warm and sweaty under my fingers. “A lot,” I add.

Tomper takes a deep breath and then lets it out. “Then why do you keep hiding me from your folks?”

“Huh?” I say.

“Come on,” he says, looking at my eyes. “Tell me that you spend every Friday night at Jessie’s and that you’re always the one to pick up the phone at your house. Ellen, I thought you were one of the most honest people I know.”

“Tomper,” I say, “of course I don’t spend every Friday with Jessie.”

An “aha” look comes into Tomper’s eyes.

“So you are embarrassed by me,” he says.

“Oh, Tomper, that’s not it.”

“What is it, then?” he says, still staring at me intently. You never let me get within ten feet of your house when your parents are home.”

I sigh. Tomper has every right to be suspicious of me.

“I have been putting off your meeting my parents,” I say. “But not for the reasons you think.”

Tomper looks skeptical but remains respectfully quiet.

“My parents are really strict,” I go on. “My older sister didn’t date until she went to college, and I have the feeling they want me to wait, too. I guess I was afraid my parents would tell me I couldn’t date yet, so I decided not to take the chance of asking—because I like you so much.”

Tomper rocks back and forth on his heels. “I believe you, Ellen,” he says gravely. “But that’s not the best way to go about it. Don’t you think you owe it to your folks to be honest?”

“You don’t know how strict they are,” I say, finally releasing the door. The heat of my misery has fogged prints into it. “If they say no, it’s no.”

“I’d like to think I’m a pretty likable guy,” Tomper says.

The janitor pushes his sweeping compound past us.

“Do you still want to go to the party Friday?” Tomper asks.

“Yes,” I say.

He looks at me.

“Is it all right if I drop by your house at seven?”

“Okay,” I say finally, another knot starting to form in my stomach.

17

I sweat until Friday night’s dinner. I show Mom and Father my A-plus chemistry test; then, with a gulp, I tell them that “my friend Tom” is coming over to take me out.

“Who is this person?” Mom immediately wants to know. She dishes a few spoonfuls of sticky rice onto my plate.

“Just a friend from school,” I say, watching the steam rise off my rice. “The one who called about the vocab homework.”

Father keeps his head close to his plate.

“Michelle did not go out with boys until she was eighteen,” he says.

“I’m not Michelle,” I say faintly.

Mom and Father look at each other.

“I don’t think you should if Michelle didn’t,” Father says, keeping his eyes on his food.

“But Michelle didn’t want to. I want to, and I got all As.” I stop with surprise. This is the first time I’ve ever argued with Father.

“Why would you want to?” Mom chimes in. “You’ll meet a lot of nice boys in college.”

My heart is sinking. I should never have let Tomper make me do this.

“Please,” I plead, looking at my watch. “He’s coming over at seven—maybe he’s already left his house.”

Father’s face darkens, but he doesn’t say anything. Mom dishes out more rice for all of us.

When Tomper arrives, a little early, I am sick with apprehension.

“Hello, Mrs. Sung,” he says politely as Mom lets him in.

“Hello,” Mom says back. “You must be Ellen’s friend Tom.”

“Yes,” he says. “You have a very nice house.”

Father is standing in the kitchen doorway. He is so tight-lipped that his mouth looks as if it has been drawn on. Tomper offers his hand, but Father looks at it like a foreign object. Then he looks at Tomper with a pained expression—as if he’s just about to sneeze.

“Ellen needs to come in by ten,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” says Tomper, but Father has already turned away.

“Ellen, all your homework is done?” Mom asks.

“Yes, Mom,” I say as I usher Tomper out the door and over to his car.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Tomper says cheerfully.

I am sure I’m a picture of mortification. Why did Father refuse to shake Tomper’s hand, as if he were some unsavory character? Did he dislike him because he could tell that Tomper wasn’t an honor roll student, or was it just because he was some boy taking me out? Are they going to yell at me when I get home?

“At least they let me go,” is all I can think to say.

We drive over to the Lakeview, to the annual hockey bash hosted by Mike Anderson’s dad. The reception room is already crowded with the hockey team and the cheerleaders.

“I’m going to get a pop,” Tomper says. “Would you like one?”

“Yes, thanks,” I say, and I watch him walk away.

“Hi, Ellen.” Marsha Randall is smiling at me. At me?

“Hi, Marsha,” I say. “What’s up?”

“I’m sort of bored now that gymnastics and cheerleading are over,” she says, throwing a handful of her cascading hair over her shoulder.

“Uh-huh,” I say. I can’t figure out why she’s talking to me. Is she sorry for the mean things she said to me before?

“How’s Tomper?” she asks, touching my sleeve.

“He’s fine,” I say. It sounds silly, but it’s hard for me not to like her when she’s so pretty. “How are you?”

Just then, Tomper returns with our pops. “Hi, Marsh,” he says.

“Hi, Tomper.” Marsha looks past him to the other side of the room. “I think my boyfriend is waiting for me. Nice talking to you, Ellen.”

Tomper hands me my pop.

“Who’s her boyfriend?” I say, half to myself.

“Who knows? She’s got a new one every week.” Tomper takes my hand.

A little later, he says, “El, do you think we might leave a little early? It’s nine already.”

“Sure,” I say, squeezing his hand. “My, how time flies when you have to be in by ten.”

On our way out, Brad Whitlock and I accidentally bump into each other. He glowers at me and mumbles something that sounds like “fucking chink.”

“Excuse me,” Tomper calls out good-naturedly to Brad, “you gave Ellen a little bump.”

Brad doesn’t bother turning around.

“Did you hear him say something?” I ask Tomper.

“No, like what?” he says, his eyebrows raised.

“Oh, nothing.”

Tomper drops me off a little before ten. He doesn’t try to kiss me in front of the house, and I am grateful. Inside, Mom and Father are getting ready for bed.

“Did you have a good time?” asks Mom as I pass their room. I stop in the doorway.

“Yes. Thank you for letting me go.”

Father is reading in bed, and he doesn’t even look up. I feel scared for a minute, but then I realize I haven’t done a thing wrong—why should I get the silent treatment?

“Good night,” I say. I haven’t done anything wrong, I repeat to myself. I’m just asserting myself.

18

Tomper and I continue to see each other without incident, except that Father makes it a point not to talk to him. Mom, however, tries to be nice, and she even tells me that she thinks he’s nice looking.

Pretty soon, of course, there are new worries. April Fools’ Day comes and goes, and the red-lined April 15—college notification day—looms closer and closer.

I start getting bad stomachaches and can’t eat. Mom worriedly makes me her cure-all, chicken-broth-and-rice gruel.

“You will hear from the colleges sometime in the next two weeks,” Father says as I listlessly try to spoon the gruel into my mouth. Today Mom has cracked an egg into it, so it is bright yellow.

“That will be a relief,” Mom says.

What if I don’t get in? That won’t be a relief. I hadn’t talked to God in a long time, but lately I’ve been praying every night: Please let me get into Harvard or Brown or Wellesley. I hope He doesn’t get annoyed that the only time I think about Him is when I’m in trouble.

“Be sure to call me at the hospital the minute you know,” Father says.

“Your Harvard letter came today,” Mom says as I gallop into the house. Today is April 17.

My heart sinks when I look at Mom. Why isn’t she all excited?

“I didn’t get in?” I say.

“I didn’t open it,” she says, a little shakily. “But it’s thick.”

“Michelle says they give out thick ones to the people on the waiting list, too,” I say. My pulse is jumping all around as I pick up the large manila envelope with the crimson Harvard/Radcliffe logo on it.

Open it, I say to myself.

But things will be so final after I do.

Rip.

“‘We are proud to announce that Ellen Sung has been admitted to the Class of—’”

I scream.

Mom screams.

“Myong-Ok, you did it!” Mom hugs me, and we jump up and down. I am laughing and sputtering and gasping for breath. I can’t believe it—I really can’t.

I look at Mom, and she has a tear in one of her eyes. She’s so happy for me, but next year, both of her children will be gone.

We call Father at the hospital, and for some reason, he wants to know if I’ve heard from Brown, too.

The next day, Wellesley accepts me. A few days after, Brown tells me that I’m on the waiting list, but that my chances are quite slim because in their experience most people who are accepted end up going there. Figures.

Brown is out, I decide. I sit down, look at the Wellesley catalog again, and dig out Caitlin’s number. Might I like Wellesley better than Harvard? I certainly think I preferred the close, comfortable feel of the campus. And how about classes with no dumb boys yelling out things all the time, like that guy Talbot Gray Suit will probably do if he gets in?

I call Caitlin, but she’s not home, so I leave a message. The colleges are giving me a few weeks to decide, so I might as well take advantage of it.

“Why haven’t you sent in your acknowledgment statement to Harvard?” Father asks me. I hadn’t realized he was monitoring the family mail so closely.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I say.

“What’s there to decide?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.

“Whether I want to go to Wellesley or Harvard,” I say.

“Harvard is the most prestigious university in the world,” he says. “There’s no question about that.”

I sigh. “But isn’t it great that I have a choice?”

“Maybe between Harvard and Yale I could understand,” Father says. “But you really perplex me sometimes, Ellen.”

I gulp. Yes, it would be so easy. Just send in the card, do not stop, go to Harvard. All the college books say it’s the hardest to get into.

“Father,” I say, “I’ll decide before the deadline, I promise.”

“Harvard has one of the best med school acceptance rates in the country,” Michelle says when I call her. “Also, there are a lot of resources in the graduate departments; I’ve had some bio tutors who were PhD candidates, and they got me really interested in research. If you went to Wellesley, which is strictly a college, you might miss out on some of these advantages.”

“That makes sense,” I say.

“And, Ellen, med schools are still much more male than female, so I think the sooner you start to slug it out with men in your classes, the better. Wellesley is a good school, but Harvard will set you up better.”

“Hm,” I say.

“Ellen,” Michelle says, as if she’s trying to coax a child, “send the form in—don’t upset Father any more than you have already.”

The form, the form.

Caitlin calls me back that night.

“My experience has been amazing,” she says. “I can’t tell you how much it’s helped my self-confidence.”

“That’s good to know,” I say.

“But, of course, single-sex education is not for everyone,” she continues. “If you’re into meeting guys in your classes and stuff like that, you have to realize that you just won’t do that here.”

That is something I have to think about, I admit. “Thanks for your honest opinion,” I tell her.

Finally, I go to see Mrs. Klatsen.

“That’s such wonderful news!” she says. “Which one have you chosen?”

“That’s my problem,” I tell her. “I need to decide—where do you think I should go?”

“Ellen,” she says, “they’re both such excellent schools. I don’t think you can go wrong at either of them. It just boils down to your individual preference now.”

“Remember when I was worried that I wouldn’t get into Harvard?” I say to Jessie as we lie in her room, listening to her new Sid the Killer album. “Now I’m an even worse basket case.”

“Well, even though it’s great that you got in, you’re right not to go blindly just because everyone thinks you should. You should be able to look back and be happy, not like ‘I wish I’d gone to Wellesley.’ What’s the use of living to a ripe old age if you have to carry regrets around?”

I take a long walk and think about regrets. I’ve regretted some parts of the way this year has turned out—mostly about Marsha Randall and Mr. Borglund and Brad Whitlock. And now, haven’t I gotten what I’ve worked so hard for—the chance to blast out of here, to Harvard? I really have wanted this, haven’t I? Maybe I was scared before that I wouldn’t measure up to Michelle; but Harvard accepted me, just the way they accepted her, so I must be ready to do it. So I will.

I put the acknowledgment card for Harvard in the mail. Father brings it out to the mailbox without saying anything.

One day, I think to myself, I will figure out how to please my parents without silencing my own voice.

19

“Boy, I don’t know where this year went,” Jessie says to me as we make up our faces for graduation.

“Me neither,” I say. No more sharing lunch with Jessie, no more Mrs. Klatsen, no more seeing Tomper in the halls.

Jessie sprays her hair and sets the ill-fitting, slippery cap on top of her head. “Maybe we should use staple guns,” she mumbles, her mouth full of bobby pins. I spray and spray my hair until it looks like a lacquered doll’s.

Finally, we start our walk to the high school, both of us stepping tentatively, as if we’re carrying big jugs of water on our heads. Jessie is clutching her pink Instamatic camera by its wrist strap. I didn’t bring a camera, because Father is so fastidious about documenting important family events.

At school, we meet up with Tomper, Mike, and Shari.

“You girls look very nice,” Tomper says gallantly.

“God, I hope this goes fast,” Shari says, a cigarette wiggling in the corner of her mouth.

“Hey, Ellen,” says Mike, “aren’t you giving a speech tonight?”

“I’m not the valedictorian. Beth is,” I say. “Her grades were so impressive that Macalester gave her a full scholarship!”

“Here I am,” says Beth, joining our group. “Fourscore and seven years . . .” I put my arm around her and Jessie takes a picture.

Mr. Olson, the new assistant principal, sticks his head out the window and yells at us to come inside and get in line.

“Sheesh,” Mike says. “Here we’re done with classes, and they’re still trying to order us around.”

We saunter into the dusty school—one last time.

The line that’s going to lead into the auditorium is alphabetical, but there are so many Ss—Sanderson, Sasso, Suikonnen—that I’m not even within shouting range of Tomper. We are all packed right outside the auditorium door, rustling restlessly like cattle before a stampede.

Finally, we are given the signal to move. I can feel my mortarboard slipping already. I shove a hairpin in fiercely, and it scrapes my scalp.

Once we’re seated in the reserved front rows of the auditorium, Beth walks up to the podium on the stage. The glare from the overhead lights makes her glasses look opaque.

“When we’re thirty,” she says, her voice sweet and confident, “the four years we’ve spent in high school will seem like no time at all. But all the friends we’ve made, the things we’ve learned—these things will stay with us.”

Beth goes on to talk about sports and homecoming, about teachers who helped shape us, and about silly things that people did in the halls. I feel a lump form in my throat—I guess I’m more nostalgic about high school than I thought.

When Beth is finished, the applause is loud and deep, like the roar of the sea. Beth smiles shyly.

Then the school organ starts wheezing out the first bars of “Pomp and Circumstance.” I can feel my hair stand on end. I don’t feel ready to graduate.

Our line gets up, and we start marching toward the stage. The principal, Mr. Richtarich, is standing in the middle of the stage to hand out the diplomas. Mr. Olson stands to the side, calling out names.

As we march up to the stage, I look back into the audience to see if I can spot Mom and Father, but the rows of heads in the darkened auditorium look anonymous, like a carton of eggs.

This is Mr. Olson’s first graduation ceremony. He is sweating under the hot lights, and when he starts calling the names over the microphone, he speaks so quickly he sounds like an auctioneer. Soon, there is a traffic jam of graduates around Mr. Richtarich because he can’t pass out the diplomas fast enough. He turns to give Mr. Olson a reprimanding look.

Mr. Olson blushes and slows down.

When Greg Suikonnen steps from in front of me to get his diploma, my heart immediately starts racing. I watch him make his way down the stage and shake hands with Mr. Richtarich.

“Ellen Sung,” says Mr. Olson.

I move toward the center of the stage, concentrating on walking not too fast or too slow.

“Chink!” hisses a male voice somewhere back in the line of seniors. My feet freeze to the stage. Otherwise the auditorium is silent.

“Carla Sunnonberg,” says Mr. Olson.

My legs start moving again, to my relief.

“Congratulations,” says Mr. Richtarich, shaking my hand. As if in a dream, I take my diploma and keep moving. All I want to know is, who has ruined this night for Mom and Father? Who?

After the ceremony, I push to find Jessie. The lawn is packed with parents and kids moving in every direction. I finally spot her with her father, and I run over.

“Jess,” I whisper as I touch the sleeve of her gown, “did you hear what happened when I went up for my diploma? Someone in line yelled ‘chink.’”

“Jesus,” I hear her say as I turn away, suddenly having spotted Mom and Father coming toward us. Father has the camera raised and ready, so I start smiling stupidly.

“My God, Ellen,” Jessie says to me privately after the pictures have been taken. “I can’t believe that happened. If I find out who did it, they’re dead meat, for sure.”

Just then, Tomper walks up to us. He hugs Jessie and kisses me on the nose.

“Tomper,” I say. “Did you hear anything funny when I went up to get my diploma?”

Tomper looks puzzled. “No, why? Did Olson say your name wrong or something?”

“Oh, never mind.” I could have sworn I heard a voice, Brad Whitlock’s voice. But why didn’t anyone else hear it? Am I becoming paranoid?

I ask Mom and Father if it’s okay for me to go back to Jessie’s, where we’ll change and then go to Mike Anderson’s graduation party.

“Of course—stay out late,” Mom says, beaming. “Myong-Ok, we’re so proud of you.” Mom kisses the top of my head.

“Yes,” Father agrees. His expression is the same as usual, and I’m glad. I really must be hearing things.

We go back to Jessie’s, change, and glop on more makeup. Then we head to Mike’s.

Almost two hundred people show up to drink beer, eat Cheez Whiz artfully arranged on Ritz crackers, and otherwise pay their respects to Mike. It is way past midnight when I finally stumble home.

There is a single light on in the kitchen.

Father is sitting under the light. On the table are the two photo albums I found when I was snooping in his study.

“Uh, hi, Father,” I say, trying not to stare too hard at the books as I make my way to the stairs. When I look back at Father, he looks so still, so strange sitting under that pyramid of light.

“Myong-Ok,” he says, “what happened to you tonight made me think of these books.”

So it had happened—and they had heard.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I call lightly from the stairs. “People in Arkin can be so ignorant.”

“It’s not just Arkin,” he says. Something in his voice draws me to the table.

“When your mother and I came to this country,” he says, looking at me gravely, “we were not prepared for the way we would be treated. People shouted at us, saying ‘Go home, Chinese!’ or just made it clear that they did not like the color of our skin.”

“Right,” I say, trying to gather my wits—and reminding myself to pretend that I’m not already familiar with these books in front of me. “What are these books?”

“They are the few memories I brought back with me from Korea,” he says. “I try not to look at them too often.”

“Why?” I say, thinking of all the stories I wanted to know, all the Korean Michelle and I never learned.

“When you leave a country,” he says, “it is like an animal caught in a trap that gnaws a limb off to free itself. You can’t dwell on what you’ve lost—if you want to survive. You have to go on with what you have.”

“Yes,” I say, my ears wide open.

“When I was a little boy,” he continues, “I used to stand outside the US Embassy for hours trying to get a glimpse of those mysterious creatures, the Americans. They were always so loud and happy—they fascinated me. When I was at the university in Seoul, the American GIs would give the students magazines they were going to throw away. My favorite one was Life. The colors on those pages! More vivid than anything you could find in any ancient Korean books—and here were these people throwing these magazines away. I thought America had to be a very special place if you could do that.”

“Especially wasteful,” I say, but he doesn’t appear to hear me.

“One day, I came across the most beautiful rose color,” he says. “More beautiful than any flower I ever got for your mother. It was so beautiful that I tore it out and put it up in my little locker to inspire me to study hard—especially English. From that moment on, I knew I would be going to America—to Life.

“And now that I am here,” he says with a sigh, “I can buy all the Chuckles candy—we used to call them jellies when the GIs gave them to us—that I want. To think that those candies were like gems to me, once.”

I swallow and feel as if I have a piece of tissue stuck in my throat. “All in all, are you happy here, Father?” I croak.

Father looks at me and rubs his eyes under his spectacles. “I always hoped it would be better for you and your sister,” he says. “You have gotten into the best school, and I am sure you will both become fine doctors.”

“No,” I say. “How about you? Are you happy?”

Father looks at me, and for a moment, I think I see the flickering of a sad smile.

“There were times when I thought I would be able to go on with my research work,” he says. “But I soon realized that no matter how well a person is educated in another country, an immigrant must fight for work, especially if his skin is not white. It was lucky that my friend from the army found me this job here in Arkin, or we might have been sent back to Korea.”

Sent back to Korea? Michelle and I would have been Koreans.

“Is that why you and Mom pushed me and Michelle so hard—so we could succeed in America?” I ask.

“That is much of it,” he says. “When I went to high school, my parents sacrificed a lot so they could send me to Japan—at that time, all the best schools were in Japan. So I studied hard and was accepted to Seoul National University, the very best school in Korea. Many of my classmates have gone on to become big people in business, in medicine, and so forth, in Korea. Yet over here, all people cared about was that my degree was not American, which in their eyes meant not as good, not as smart.

“So now,” he continues, “you and your sister can do more than I or your mother ever could: you will graduate with degrees from Harvard, and nobody can say anything to you, because everyone knows Harvard.”

All this time I thought I was getting those grades for him and Mom. And Mom and Father just wanted to set me up for a better life.

For the first time, it really hits home that Mom and Father left a whole different country behind to come here. The change must have been frightening, and they must have felt alone and strange when they first arrived.

“Do we have any relatives here in America?” I ask.

“Most of your relatives are in North Korea.” Father sighs. “And that is another story.”

He turns the page of the album. The pink piece of paper is still wedged in the binding. The picture of the woman holding the moonfaced boy stares out at me.

“This is your grandmother,” Father says.

I see a thin film of water on my father’s eyes, but it evaporates quickly, like dew.

“Please tell me more about Korea,” I beg.

I notice, then, that the first light of dawn has turned the kitchen gray.

20

As the summer settles in, I do my best to enjoy my last set of lazy days before I start my college career. Michelle has never spent a summer at home: this year, she is spending it in New York doing some heavy-duty research project at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, which sounds appropriate. I keep wondering from time to time if Father is secretly happy that Michelle is showing such promise as a researcher.

Michelle did send me a list of books she thought I should read before going, and it is pretty scary: a lot of these books I’ve never heard of, much less read. There’s no way I’ll get them all done this summer, so I just go to the library and pick out a few each week.

Really, though, especially since Jessie and Mike have started to go steady, I just spend a lot of nights out with them and Tomper—I feel it sort of makes up for all those nights I had to stay in studying during the year. Somewhat surprisingly, Mom and Father don’t say anything—they just pretty much let me go my own way.

Tonight, I’ve gotten permission to stay over at Jessie’s cabin. What I didn’t tell them is that we’re meeting up with Tomper and Mike to go to the drive-in’s Buck-A-Load night. Buck-A-Load is a fun way to see kids from our class. Because going-out nights aren’t restricted to weekends anymore and because party info is much more haphazardly disseminated, Jessie and I have fallen out of touch with a lot of Arkin High people, which really isn’t all bad. I make sure I see Beth regularly, so there’s no one I really miss.

“What’s playing?” Mike asks as we drive in.

“Texas Chainsaw Massacre Two,” chortles Jessie.

“Ugh,” I say. “Those kinds of movies give me nightmares.”

“You’ll have to get used to the sight of blood if you want to be a doctor,” Jessie reminds me.

Inside, she parks but doesn’t hook up the speaker. Without the sound, the movie picture flickers fuzzily, benignly on the screen. Jessie cracks open a pop and passes cans of Bud around.

“Compliments of Dad,” she says. “Now that I’m a big girl, he says I can take anything out of his liquor collection as long as I don’t drink and drive.”

“Let’s hear it for adulthood,” Mike says, toasting.

We see Rocky Jukich and Shari walk by holding hands. Diane Johnson and some of the ex-cheerleaders—but not Marsha Randall—also go by. It’s funny how we can observe everyone like this, yet none of the passersby think to look in the car.

Brad Whitlock walks by next, carrying a huge tub of popcorn. I mentally will him to spill it on his pants, but he goes by safely.

“There goes a dickhead,” remarks Jessie.

“You can say that again,” says Mike.

“I thought you guys were really good friends, Mike,” I say, puzzled.

“We were,” he corrects. He turns around and looks at me. “You know, Ellen, I’ve felt really bad ever since that day Brad called you that name on the bus.”

“You still remember that?” I say, surprised.

“I remember that I should have said something then and there,” he says. “But you know, Brad’s the type who makes fun of everybody and everything, so it was kind of easy for me to think, well, he’s just playing around—hell, he and I have been going to hockey camp together for years—so I let it slide.”

“Nice going,” says Jessie.

“I know,” he says. “But then after I got to know you, Ellen, and saw what a nice girl you are, I started realizing that Brad really did mean a lot of what he said, that he really did hate, in a bad way. Then when he started pressuring Tomper—” Mike looks at Tomper as if he’s not sure he should go on.

“Pressuring you about what?” I ask Tomper.

He squirms. “Like I said, El, Brad just has funny ideas.”

“He wanted you to stay away from me because I am Asian?” I venture.

“Something like that,” he says.

“We all three came to a kind of disagreement,” Mike concludes. “Tomper was much more forgiving—I told Brad to go to hell.

“I guess what I mean to say, Ellen,” Mike continues, “is that I’m sorry I didn’t speak up at the time—I should have.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, feeling touched. “I needed to learn to speak up, too.”

In the dark, Tomper squeezes my hand.

The bunch of us go back to Jessie’s cabin after the movie. Jessie and Mike immediately retire to one of the bedrooms, and I tentatively go into the one I usually use. Tomper stands in the doorway.

“I could sleep out here on the couch,” he says. “Or I could sleep with you.”

I look at him, and I’m stuck.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“I wouldn’t mind being able to hold you—I’ll be nice,” he adds with a light laugh.

I nod, and he grins like a little boy just given fudge.

I go into the bathroom, brush my teeth, and change into an extra-large T-shirt.

Tomper brushes his teeth using my toothbrush and then joins me in bed, which sags like a hammock. He closes his big arms around me; the lumps of his muscles are hard even when his arms are relaxed.

“G’night, Ellen,” he says once we’re wrapped in a cocoon of warmth.

“’Night,” I say, already feeling sleep dragging me down.

Vaguely, in the other room, I hear the squeaking of springs.

The next morning, Tomper and Mike take off early to go fishing. Jessie and I sleepily putz around until noon. Jessie makes a double batch of macaroni and cheese, and we bring it outside—pot and all—on the porch. As we eat, we watch the lake swooshing and slapping the shore with a reassuring tempo. When Tomper and Mike got us up early this morning, the lake was still, like plastic wrap, with a soft mist rising off it.

“What’re you going to do next year, Jess?” I ask.

“I guess go to business school in Duluth,” she says.

“What about your music?”

“There’s really not much more to do,” she says. “I’ll never be a concert pianist, and I don’t want to teach.”

“What’s Mike going to do?”

“He’s going to be at the U in Duluth playing hockey.”

“That’s a nice coincidence,” I say. “When’s the wedding?”

Jessie blushes. “Actually, you know, the other day he said, ‘When we get married, do you want to stay in Duluth or move back to Arkin?’ He said it in his normal goofball way, but he sounded like he wanted an answer.”

“Wow, Jess, that’s great,” I say, although I can’t envision it for myself. I haven’t even begun my four years of college yet.

“It’s weird, though,” she says, rocking her legs against the rough wood of the picnic bench we are sitting on. “I keep wondering: if we get married and settled, say in Arkin, is that all there is in life? I mean, there’s got to be more to life than going to parties, shacking up, and having kids.”

“There’s got to be,” I say, and for some reason, I move to sit closer to her. I want to remember Jessie and this very day, even when we’re a thousand miles apart.

21

August drags in on lethargic legs. But still, it all seems too fast, too sudden. Tomper and I have been spending a lot of time together . . . and sometimes my body has been telling me that I want to do more than what we’ve been doing—and I’m sure he does, too. But we’ve both been hanging back, knowing that the end of the summer is going to mean the end of us. Tomper will be leaving Arkin, too: he’s going into the army, and he’ll be off to South Carolina in the fall.

“You’re leaving so soon,” Jessie says as we sit in my room.

We are staring at the open box in the middle of the floor. So far, all that’s in it is the new underwear Mom bought me and the Holstein clock.

“Well, it’s only three months till Thanksgiving vacation,” Jessie says hopefully.

“Four months until Christmas,” I tell her. “Michelle comes home only for the big holidays because it’s too much money and too much hassle.”

“Oh,” Jessie says, staring at the floor. “Ellen, let’s go out to the cabin, get on the inner tube, and float into the middle of the lake.”

I fish my swimsuit out of a drawer. “Let’s go.”

Two weeks before I’m scheduled to leave, Jessie, Tomper, and I decide to go to one last party, which Mike is having out at his cabin.

The party is mobbed with Arkin High graduates. Even Marsha Randall is there, flirting heavily with Mike and all the other guys at the party.

“I heard our friend Marsha couldn’t get into dental hygienist school,” Jessie says as we’re standing under the huge floodlights that Mike’s father has put up in the yard. “Figures, for someone with the intelligence of Barbie doll cereal.”

“Hm,” I say. Marsha is now wrapped around some guy who is raising his beer glass to her lips, as if he were giving her communion.

Tomper walks up to us, only I don’t recognize him for a second.

“Nice haircut,” Jessie says. All his beautiful wild golden hair has been shorn off. My heart beats painfully.

“Do you like it?” He grins. “It’s the army special.”

“I thought they cut it for you,” I say. Already, he doesn’t look like the Tomper I knew in high school.

“They do,” he says. “But my old man says it’s good to get used to it beforehand—there’ll be enough else to get used to later on.”

Jessie and I decide to climb down to the lake, where we sit on the dock and watch the moon dance on the water. On the other shore, voices and laughter carry over the acoustically conductive lake, right to our ears.

“You’re my best friend, Ellen,” Jessie says in the dark. “I would’ve never survived this year without you—without you around to make me laugh.”

“Make you laugh?” I say, surprised. “You’re the wit.”

“Hell,” she says, skipping a stone on the water. “We’re just a barrel of monkeys, aren’t we?” I know we can both feel the white heat of summer fading and the fall closing in.

When we climb back up to join the party, Marsha Randall suddenly comes up to me and shoves me hard on the shoulder.

“Hey,” I say. Her breath reeks of beer, mixed with the sickening scent of her perfume.

“Hey yourself, fucking ching chong Chinaman.”

“What did you say?”

“Fucking ching chong Chinaman,” she says in a high-pitched voice. “Chingchongchingchong—goddamn slitty eyes. You don’t deserve Tomper at all.”

Her twisted face is inches from mine, the rancid odor of her breath making me gag.

“You’re so ignorant!” I shout, as if I’ve found my voice for the first time. “You are a racist idiot!”

Marsha comes at me, clawing my face and my clothes with her long fingernails.

“Hey!” I hear Jessie yell. Marsha’s hands keep coming at me, nicking my eyelid, my cheek. I shut my eyes, pull my fist back, and punch with all my might. My fist connects with her jaw: I hear the sickening click of her teeth. She falls, in a tangle of hair, but she gets up, and I hear the breaking of glass.

The next thing I know, I am on the ground. Warm tears—although I don’t feel myself crying—gently flow down my face.

“Oh my God!” Jessie sobs, kneeling near my head. “Ellen, please don’t move. Hang on, hang on.”

“I’m fine,” I want to tell her, but I feel so tired all of a sudden. I wish everyone would leave me so I could go to sleep.

Next, I hear Tomper’s voice, deep and warm. “Ellen, it’s gonna be all right.”

I know, I want to say, but I’m so tired. Something soft snuggles up to my face, and then I realize I’m being lifted. I open an eye and see Tomper’s chest. He isn’t wearing a shirt. His skin, next to my cheek, is wet and sticky.

“I love you, honey,” he whispers into my ear.

I am at the drive-in, but I see Jessie, Tomper, and Mike drive away without me.

“Wait for me! You forgot meeee!” I shout, but my mouth is funny and no sounds come out. I run after them, but the car is picking up speed. Faster and faster, it is heading toward a bright light.

My eyes snap open. I smell that funny hospital smell Father always has on him.

“Myong-Ok,” Mom says, coming over to me and bending her head close to mine. She looks as if she’s lost weight overnight: her face is as gaunt as a ghost’s. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” I say, but when I see her face, my eyes fill up with tears.

“Does anything hurt? Tell us.” Father’s head is an outline against the strong sun pouring in through the windows.

“No,” I say, stifling a sob. “I’m just confused. Where’s Jessie?”

“Jessie’s at home. She called us from the hospital,” Mom says. “She said someone hit you on the head with a bottle.”

I remember screams. I remember Marsha Randall, Tomper, Jessie. I don’t remember a bottle.

I am slowly becoming aware of an itchy, crusty material on my face and bits of string trailing on my cheeks. I raise my hands to my face, but Mom stops me.

“Your face was cut, Ellen,” she says. “Those are stitches. Don’t touch them.”

For a minute, all three of us just look at each other. Father clears his throat. “Your friend—Tom is his name?—was very helpful,” he says, turning away slightly and rubbing his eyes under his glasses. “He used his shirt as a compress on your face before you got to the hospital.”

“As a compress?” I almost shout. “What does my face look like?”

Father hands me a small pocket mirror that he always keeps in his white coat. I gag when I see myself. I have three jagged lines running down my face and numerous little nicks. The large lines are held together by what looks like brown fishing line, and the stitching is messy and uneven; even Frankenstein’s monster had neater stitches. Clots of crusted blood the color of instant coffee cling to my face.

“I have to go to school in two weeks,” I whisper. “My face is ruined.”

Mom pats my shoulder with thin fingers. “We’ll talk about school later,” she says.

There is a clomping noise of a bunch of feet in the hall. In walk Tomper, Jessie, Mike, and Beth.

“Hi, Dr. and Mrs. Sung,” Jessie says. “Hope we’re not interrupting.”

“No, no,” Father says, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “I have to make my rounds now anyway.”

“I’ll be back this afternoon,” Mom says. “You’ll be having some X-rays, and then your father and I will take you home.”

The minute my parents leave, Jessie falls on my bed, hugging me. “Jesus,” she says. “I’m so glad to see you, Ellen. I didn’t sleep a wink. For a minute last night, I thought you were dead.”

“How’re you feeling?” Tomper says, patting me on the shoulder. It’s only now that I realize I’m wearing one of those ridiculous backless hospital gowns.

“You’re a contender,” Mike says. “You gave Marsha a major crack in the jaw.”

“Ugh,” I groan. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I brought you some reading,” Beth says quickly, handing me a copy of Love Story. Ryan O’Neal’s and Ali MacGraw’s faces smile brightly out at us. “It’s set at Harvard,” she says.

“Thanks, Beth,” I say.

An uneasy silence settles on us like dust. Tomper fixes the blinds so the sun doesn’t hit me as hard. I try to think of something funny to say, but I can’t.

Still, when everyone gets ready to leave, I am almost unbearably sad to see them go.

“I’ll call you at home tonight,” Jessie says, squeezing my arm.

As soon as the door shuts behind them, I feel like crying, but the tears won’t come. I reach for Love Story.

22

The police want to talk to you,” Mom tells me, just days after I’ve returned home.

“I don’t want to go, Mom,” I say. She is in my room watching me fill up a box—my third. I start stuffing the box with books off my shelf. “I just want to forget about it.”

“I know you do,” Mom says. “But they can’t punish that girl until they have your side of the story.”

“But I feel so ugly with my dumb stitches,” I say.

Mom reaches over and puts her hand on my head.

“Maybe this will help you heal, Myong-Ok,” she says. “From the inside.”

Mom drives me to the police station, where I have to sit alone with an officer.

“Hello,” the man says. He is a big blue whale in his uniform. He takes his police hat off. “My name is Al Griffith. Can I get you a pop, some water—anything?”

“No, thanks,” I say, sitting up in the chair. “I’m ready.”

“All right,” he says, taking up a clipboard. “Please tell me what occurred between you and Marsha Jean Randall on the night of August eighteenth.”

I tell him about her calling me names. I remember each name exactly. I tell him about the fight—including my hitting her in the jaw—and I tell him that I don’t remember the bottle incident, but my friends do.

He wants me to name my friends, so I do, one by one.

“That’s good, Ellen,” he says. “Now, do you want to press charges?”

“Press charges?” I say. “What will happen to Marsha?”

“Well, there are several counts you could press against her—reckless endangerment or assault, for example. If these charges hold, she could possibly spend some time in jail.”

I try to picture Marsha behind bars. After all this, I realize, I don’t hate her, I just feel strangely depressed: I think I can speak for myself now, but that doesn’t mean that racist people are going to go away. There will probably always be people like Marsha or Brad who won’t like me, without ever knowing who exactly I am.

“No charges,” I say, in a voice I can barely hear.

Mr. Griffith looks up at me, surprised. You’re sure, now. It looks like that young lady did you some serious injury.”

I carefully touch a fingertip to one of my cuts—it still really hurts.

“No charges,” I say, then sigh. “It’s not going to change things.”

The next week, my stitches come off. My cuts are bubblegum pink and puffy, like long worms trailing down my face. Some of the smaller nicks have scabbed.

“Ellen,” Mom says as she sees me dumping more stuff into another suitcase, “are you actually thinking of going next week?”

“Yes,” I say, carefully packing my Sid the Killer T-shirts.

“Your father and I thought it might be better to wait until the next semester.”

“No,” I say. “By next semester everyone will have made their friends. Besides, I’m not sick. I can go now.”

“But your face—”

I feel a sinking in the pit of my stomach.

“People are just going to have to take me as I am,” I say.

Mom looks at me. “You are making your own decisions now,” she says. I can hear a little grace note of pride in her voice.

Two days before I leave, Tomper and I say goodbye. We drive out to the Sand Pits, which is deserted. In the car, we are like peas in a pod under a huge sky.

“Do you remember that party out here last fall?” I say.

Tomper looks at me and grins. “How could I forget? I remember thinking, ‘That one, Ellen, is special.’”

We wrap our arms around each other and kiss, the way we did that first time under the rustling pines.

Maybe Beth is right, that when we’re thirty, high school will seem like an absurdly short time, but right now I am here and warm with Tomper, and I don’t want to let him go.

“I’m so sad, El,” he says, and I see a tear roll down his cheek just before he buries his face in my hair. “I’m just getting to really know you, and now we have to break up.”

I put my arms around him. I have never seen a boy cry before. Never.

“Please don’t cry,” I say, feeling my own tears starting to rise.

As we hold each other, I feel just a little bit better knowing that wherever I go, I will still have him and Jessie and Arkin stuck in my heart, like a tattoo.

I save my last night for Jessie. We try to draw the night out: first we go to dinner, then we sit around in my room, feeling miserable. We don’t even talk. We just sit there and watch the dumb clock—a portable alarm clock I borrowed from Mom.

Finally, the clock’s hands drag to midnight, and both of us are getting drowsy. Jessie gathers her stuff. Outside, by her car, we hug for a long time.

“I’m sure going to miss you,” she says, gulping for air like a fish. “You’d better write—or else.”

“Let’s stay best friends, okay?” I say, feeling my voice grow thin, tightwire-taut.

Jessie looks so small in the night. She digs out an envelope from her pocket and pushes it toward me. “Here, something for you,” she mumbles. “Don’t read it till I’m gone.”

She leaps into her car and drives into the night.

Back in my room, I open the envelope to find a poem:

 

We’ve been friends through the years,

Seen the laughter, seen the tears,

But though I’ve seen the sun rise and set,

There hasn’t been a single soul yet,

To be a friend more true and true,

For me, it’ll always be you.

 

I read it again, then slip it carefully into my suitcase before my vision blurs too much.

23

The next day, we all drive out to the Hibbing airport. There, a tiny shuttle plane will bring me and all my stuff to Minneapolis, where I’ll take a Northwest flight to Boston’s Logan Airport.

Jessie, Beth, Tomper, and Mike have all come to say goodbye to me. I’m scared, though. How am I going to say goodbye to Mom and Father and all my friends without breaking down and bawling?

I glance out the airport windows and see the needle-nosed plane fly in.

“Nice crop duster,” Mike says of the small and skinny propeller plane. Twelve passengers will sit in the tiny plane, which looks like a cross between a mosquito and a minnow.

The man who was out on the runway guiding the plane in helps gas it up, then reenters the building to collect tickets.

Father slips me some bills, neatly folded.

“You and your sister have a pleasant dinner,” he says. Michelle nicely agreed to meet me at the airport to help me carry my stuff back to Cambridge.

“Thanks, Father,” I say, my eyes misting already. I hug him and Mom at the same time.

Then I hug Tomper. He kisses me on the mouth—in front of my parents!—and grins. Mike cheers. Then I hug Beth, then Mike, each for a long time. I save Jessie for last.

“Thanks for the poem. I loved it,” I whisper into her ear. “Thanks for everything.” Jessie’s eyes are red around the rims, and I see her swallow and try to smile.

I grab my stuff and walk out into the bright sunlight. When I’m out on the tarmac, I look up at the sky and thank God for my family, my friends. After all that’s happened to me this year, the pain was worth it.

I sit in my seat, and I wave. The propellers start; first I hear the one on the other side, and then the one on my side turns into a blur. With its mosquito drone, the plane bumbles down the runway, then bounces up, tilting into the waiting sky. I keep waving and waving like an idiot, as if I’m waiting for my hand to fall off.

The airplane rises higher and higher, yet I wave. If I look closely, I can almost imagine Mom, Father, and all my friends waving from the tiny airport below.

Afterword

It was a surprise to me as much as anyone when BuzzFeed’s “15 YA Books From The ’80s and ’90s that Have Stood the Test of Time,” included Finding My Voice alongside groundbreaking YA novels like Stranger with My Face and Annie on My Mind. The second surprise was a press I admired wanted to bring this, my out-of-print first novel, back to life.

The novel will be 28 years old upon its reissue (its third). I myself was 28 when it was first published and, of course, the world has changed—but also not.

I am not that same 28-year-old writer—but that person is still part of me.

The issues that the novel explores—racism, immigration, parental pressure, bullying—have changed for the better—while also continuing on, even intensifying in places.

At the time of my adolescence, I turned to books with white protagonists, because that’s all there were. But I also wanted to see people like teenage me in novels, and that was part of my motivation for writing Finding My Voice. Thankfully, today, there are many more voices, including Asian American authors, in the young adult novel universe. It’s a beautiful chorus, and I’m delighted Finding My Voice not only has a voice to sing with, but can contribute as a historical piece.

Thus, it is my choice not to update the novel to a contemporary setting. There’s no social media, phones are things attached to the wall, and you dial, not swipe, and literally hang up. Also, people, including Ellen the protagonist, use words like “Oriental”—at least until she learns the pejorative implications, that Orientals are rugs, not people. I hope the story of Ellen Sung remains evergreen, but I also want to preserve the history of that time, the 1990s, where “snail mail” was just “mail,” and we had actual, reliable seasons—once it got cold in the fictional Arkin, Minn., it stayed cold. Brillo pads to some are now green, but to me they will always exemplify the chemistry teacher’s wiry gray hair.

The fact that you’re reading this now also means you are helping perpetuate the life of this book, and I thank you and hope you enjoy the reading journey as much as I enjoyed writing this.

 

Marie Myung-Ok Lee, 2020