Vân Ước woke up with a burst of adrenaline the morning of party day, tried not to think about last night’s disagreeable exchange with Jess, and was out the door by 6 a.m. for a run.
She came home and showered.
She changed her sheets and did some laundry.
She got through forty-five minutes of oboe practice, doing heaps of work on long notes and scales, and did as much homework as she could manage before lunch.
She texted Billy and wished him luck for the race—which, it turned out, was a series of races, first heats and then a final.
She supervised her mother’s tablet-taking.
She got her parents together for a three-way eye-contact meeting in the kitchen at lunchtime to dissuade them from coming along to the art briefing at school next week.
She worked her shift at Henry Ha Minh Rolls.
She and Jess treated themselves to a two-straw three-flavor Slurpee from the 7-Eleven on the way home, which (sort of) broke the ice of their cross (for them) words from the night before.
She spent an hour experimenting with filters on one disk image, and saved the file of comparative images to print later as a process note for her journal. Always, now, keeping in the back of her mind, What does it mean to me?
She showered again, sent out a prayer of thanks to the pimple gods that she was breakout-free, washed her hair, brushed it out, and sat down for a couple more hours of homework. Before she could settle to that, she spent (wasted) at least fifteen minutes rifling through her tragically understocked wardrobe, wondering what on earth she could wear to the party. She thought it should probably be a skimpy dress with spaghetti straps and high heels, like the outfits she’d seen in party photos her Reynolds housemates had pinned up last year, but she didn’t have anything like that in her wardrobe. Even if she had, her parents wouldn’t let her out wearing clothes like that.
And she was back to square one. How to fit in? What to wear—if not to look good, then at least to look inconspicuous? Billy had said it was a barbecue. That sounded quite casual. Maybe she could get away with wearing jeans. She didn’t feel close enough to anyone at school to call and ask, despite Lou and Sibylla’s kindness. It was a girlfriend conversation. Not a person-sticking-up-for-persecuted-underdog-classmate conversation. And she couldn’t call Jess, because Jess’s resolved position until Billy had proved himself worthy was firm disapproval. The best outfit solution was, sadly, still just the jeans and orange top she’d worn for casual clothes day the week before.
Billy had texted back, Rulers of the universe. See you later.
He’d said people were coming any time from seven on, so she figured if she left home at quarter to, she’d get there around quarter past and that would be okay.
As she was dressing, she heard her dad’s boss, Bác Bảo, arrive. Odd timing. Bác Bảo was part of the Friday dinner group, and he and her father played cards every second Wednesday. Like clockwork. Saturday night did not figure in their relationship.
“Bảo and I will take you to your community service night,” her dad said as she emerged from her room.
“It’s fine—I can get the tram,” she said.
“No problem. All organized,” Bác Bảo said. “The van’s downstairs.”
“Let’s go,” said her dad. “You’ve got the address?”
Vân Ước looked at the three smiling faces and knew there was no getting out of this one.
Her mother gave her a kiss-push-out-the-door.
She was going to be arriving at Billy’s party underdressed, too early, in a van that said Bảo’s Happy Chickens with graphics of, yes, very happy-looking cartoon chickens painted on its sides, and a large 3-D model happy chicken on the roof of the van.
Before this moment of new hell, the van had only ever been a vague philosophical conundrum: How could the chickens be happy, given that they were dead and destined for the dinner table? Now, it had been transformed into a weapon of torture designed for her personal mortification. She was spending a night in reverse-Cinderella land.
She sat in the front, perched up high in the traffic, nice and visible, beside her dad and Bác Bảo. She leaned her back in hard to the seat, as though it might decide to be kind and swallow her whole. Fortunately, the van was refrigerated, so there was only a minimal pong of chicken, tinged by the bleach used to scrub it out.
She directed Bác Bảo to pull in at the corner of Billy’s street with only the smallest glimmer of hope, because, as she feared, they insisted on delivering her to the house, so they would know where to pick her up.
She had a wave of nauseated anxiety when she imagined her father might want to come in and check out the community life rowing ceremony. Her cover would be blown and her parents would never let her out of the door again.
“Bye,” she said firmly, jumping down.
“We will be back at ten. Be ready.”
“Thanks,” she said, only daring to look around as they pulled away, with a blast of diesel this street would never before have experienced, once she was safely inside the (thankfully, unlocked) gate. It must be her lucky day. The coast was clear of mean girls.
One bullet dodged. But straight into the path of another.