On the noisy voyage back, Jalen said nothing of what he’d witnessed, and again the trio fell quiet, entranced by the boat as it skipped along the surface.
“Can’t believe it,” Morg said. “Took the whole morning off and got skunked. What did we do wrong…” He trailed off, then answered his own question. “We didn’t do anything wrong, that’s nature. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. Plus, man has villainized this creature and almost hunted it into extinction. I’ll bring you guys back … it’s better in the fall.”
“I had a nice day anyway,” Hi Kyto called out cheerfully, the wind drying her long black hair that she’d clasped at her neck.
As soon as they were within ten miles of shore, Morgan fastened his Apple Watch to his wrist and began furiously tapping on it again. “So sorry, Julie…”
Jalen, for the life of him, could not get used to him calling her that. She was Hi Kyto. She created Hi Kyto. Julie didn’t fit. It was the name a parent gave a child so she could fit in in the United States. Julie was not a choice. Hi Kyto was who she wanted to be.
“I was hoping to spend the whole day with you guys, but I got a film crew coming in from the Netherlands to talk. So I gotta take them out, give them a presentation…” Morgan finished his tapping.
“That’s okay.” Hi Kyto looked at Jalen and smiled coyly. “We can figure out something to do for the rest of the day.”
“Hopefully, I can make it up to you tomorrow. Maybe we can hang out after work?”
“Well, Jay and I had planned to practice.”
Morgan shot Jalen a funny look. “Oh right, the tournament. You guys are playing. You don’t strike me as the gamer type, Jay. You seem too … built.” Morg laughed.
“Genetics,” Jalen offered, feeling his pulse slightly rise. He had put on some muscle weight in his short time at Valor. A few weeks of sunshine and hill runs, and his body had become what it was meant to be. “You a gamer, Morg?”
“Used to be,” Morg said, steering toward the shore that was now visible.
“Whatever,” Hi Kyto chimed in. “He was playing up until just a few weeks ago.”
“Don’t have time for that now. Gotta play games that matter in real life, ya know. You guys are lucky … still young.”
“Aren’t you like, eighteen?” Jalen asked. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen and a half. Just enjoy this time,” Morg said, ignoring Jalen’s question, “before responsibilities start to weigh you down.”
“Hi Kyto—I mean Julie—has got a pretty important job,” Jalen said. “Homeland security’s not responsibility enough for you?”
“My god. Yes, Red Trident, for sure. Julie’s phenomenal. But, it’s just … different.” He sighed. “So, where do you guys want me to drop you off?”
“How ’bout the Presidio Yacht Club?” Hi Kyto said, then turned to Jalen. “Wanna show you something.”
“Okay,” Morg said, a lilt of surprise in his tone. “You got it.”
“I know it’s nice now, but the weather might change and you’re a long way away.” Morg eased into the marina at the Presidio Yacht Club, which was on the opposite side of the Golden Gate Bridge from downtown San Francisco. “You sure, guys? I mean, at rush hour, it’ll be a nightmare getting home.”
“We’re sure,” said Jalen, who couldn’t wait to be rid of the Kid Captain.
After Morg had said goodbye and pulled away, Hi Kyto led Jalen down to the clubhouse. “What are we doing here?” Jalen asked, looking down at his T-shirt, unsure if it was tainted with pigs’ blood. “I’m not sure if I’m dressed for the yacht club.”
“Yacht club is a misnomer. It’s a little restaurant. And I needed to get off that boat.”
“Wanna get a table?” Jalen asked as servers bustled by.
“Sure,” Hi Kyto said, almost shyly. This felt strange, like a date. And he’d never really been on a proper date. I mean, there was prom and all at St. Mary’s, but a date for no reason. He’d never had the courage for that.
They took a seat, the cold air-conditioning worsening their chills in their wet clothes.
“So, Morg,” Jalen said, tracing the sweat beads on his water glass. “He’s a real good friend of yours, huh?”
“Yeah, he is … and he can be a nice enough guy. Sometimes I admire him and think he’s so amazing, but when he gets on his high horse it can get a little … annoying.”
“You said it, I didn’t.”
Hi Kyto laughed. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re thinking why would I hang out with a guy like that?”
Jalen took a sip of his water.
“I’m right, aren’t I? The truth is, I’m also kind of an asshole myself. And beyond that—”
The maître d’ came to the table and dropped a basket of bread. “Are you good with that menu?” the man asked Hi Kyto. “We also have a kid’s—”
She jerked the tall menu off the table and scowled.
“Sorry,” the maître d’ said. “I’ll just go…”
“Yeah, go do that.” Hi Kyto shook her head as he scurried away. “It’s like the two things I’m sick of—one: when people think I’m ten, because I’m Asian.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen … almost. Next Saturday.”
“Big plans?”
“Yeah, think I’ll use my EVO money to throw a party.” Hi Kyto looked out across the water, eyes twinkling. “Maybe I’ll rent a party boat … Would you come?”
“Depends if you’re going chumming for sharks…” Jalen smiled. “What’s the second thing you hate?”
“When people think I’m a guy, because I’m an Asian girl.”
Jalen cleared his throat. “Don’t think anyone’s mistaking you for a dude.”
“Trust me. I put on a baseball cap and you’d guess I was in a Korean boy band.” She laughed. “But the thing with me and Morg … we have a special relationship. He actually used to be a helluva gamer and he’s smart. I think I like smart people.”
For the first time in a long while, Jalen started to feel suddenly, inexplicably out of his depth. This notion of smart people. Of course he knew he wasn’t dumb. In fact, he’d always scored well when he even slightly applied himself. But he wasn’t a child prodigy. He didn’t have a photographic memory, and he couldn’t build a freakin’ Venice-like floating recycling system to save the ocean. But he was a tough kid. He’d learned how to survive by himself. He learned at Valor that above all, he was resilient. But being around Hi Kyto—who was, by all measures, a genius, and who was feeling insecure herself around a genius—made him feel almost like a Neanderthal.
“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” she said, twisting her long hair into a knot.
“What?”
“That look on your face. You just went off somewhere.”
“Guess I’m wondering,” Jalen said. “I’m not like your other friends, I’m not brilliant or saving the planet. So I’m just wondering what happens when you figure that out. Will you still want to hang out with me?”
The words had come out of Jalen’s mouth surprisingly without thought. Here he was, trying to find out if she was a murderer, a terrorist, and he felt insecure, shy, asking why she liked him.
“I like you,” she said. “Because you’re kind and safe. I mean, there are all these macho guys in San Francisco, all these ‘bros’ trying to outsmart each other. All these Type As. And you’re normal … sweet.”
Jalen didn’t know whether to laugh or be truly offended. Here she was, calling a bunch of computer nerds Alphas, while he was her sensitive buddy. Soft, Darsie had said.
“Yeah,” he said, biting his tongue for the hundredth time that day. “Guess I’m just not like them.”
“And that’s okay.” She reached out and put her hand on his. “You know what I also see in you?”
“What’s that?” Jalen said, trying not to be distracted by the warmth of her hand.
The maître d’ again approached the table, and she slid her arms to her lap.
“Ready to order?”
“Yeah,” Julie said dryly. “Kid’s chicken fingers.”
“And for you, sir?”
Jalen nodded at his glass. “Good with water.”
“It’s okay,” Hi Kyto said to Jalen. “I’ll pay.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m not hungry.”
“But you didn’t eat on the boat.”
Jalen looked out over the water. The boats coming and going. He should be hungry. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
“Another kid’s chicken fingers,” the maître d’ repeated the order, not bothering to hide his irritation.
“With fries and a cherry Coke. Jay, you?”
“The same.”
“Guess you won’t be needing these after all.” The maître d’ snapped up the adult menus.
“Actually, make those Shirley Temples,” she called out. “What was I saying?” she asked Jalen.
“Well,” Jalen said. “You were psychoanalyzing me. I’m not really sure what was coming next.”
“Oh, sensitive,” she said, smiling. “But for real, what I was saying is that as sensitive as you are, there’s also something dark.” She looked into Jalen’s eyes. “Something happened to you.”
Jalen suddenly found himself pushing back from the table. “What if we get those chicken fingers to go? I feel like moving.”
“Okayyy. Where to?”
“I saw a bike rental stand. Why don’t we get a little exercise?” Jalen signaled for the check.
Hi Kyto went to the bathroom and again Jalen pulled out his phone, which was still turned off. He thought for a moment. He knew he should check in with Wyatt. But he slipped it back into his pocket, still off.
With doggie bags dangling from the handlebars and sweatshirts wrapped around their waists, Jalen and Hi Kyto jumped on mountain bikes and rode up into the Marin Headlands. It was a steep series of cliffs and hills that looked west, out into the Pacific. The trails were great for mountain bike riding, especially for Hi Kyto, who was clearly new to the sport, and the rides, while challenging, were not too much of a strain. Not that Jalen was all that experienced, but unlike Hi Kyto, he’d at least grown up riding a bike around his neighborhood. They rode, talked a little, ate their lunch on a park bench, found a trash can, and were riding some more, up and down the hills and along the cliffs, when, as often happens in Northern California in the summer, the fog came rolling in like an offshore cloud and completely enveloped them. The air, which had been bright and clear, now swirled with moisture, beading on their skin. Like they were in a steam shower in a cold steam room. The sky grew dark, and they could hear thunder in the distance.
“I can’t see.” Hi Kyto stopped pedaling. “I’m not sure about this.”
Jalen heard something for the first time in her soft voice: fear.
“It’s okay,” he said calmly. “Let’s just get out of the way, in case someone else comes riding through.”
He helped her take her bike off the path, and they sat on some rocks.
“I’m cold,” she said. “Could you scoot closer?”
She pulled her hoodie up, and Jalen slipped his arm around her, feeling her breath on his cheek. She took his other arm and wrapped it across her, pulling herself into a hug, using his body as a barrier.
What am I doing? Jalen’s whole chest felt flushed and heavy, as though he were under the influence of a drug. This girl might be a mass murderer. Probably she killed scores of people, Wyatt had told him. He sat there in intense silence and intense closeness. He thought about the theory of relativity and how a few minutes in a park next to a girl could feel like an eternity. He was stuck in a time warp, somehow endless, yet instant.
But then, as Morg predicted, the weather suddenly changed. The sky opened up and a light shone down. The fog lifted, and he almost felt angry when again they were under a clear, blue sky.
“Guess we can go now,” she said, turning to him, her nose almost brushing his lips.
“Yeah,” was all he could manage before she slipped from his arms.
“Think this is the way to get out,” she called out, rolling her bike toward the path. She mounted and took off down the mountain, with Jalen following all the way to the bottom, where they came out, somewhere near Sausalito.
“Ready to go back?” she asked. “It’s not that I haven’t had fun. I just need to get home. Can’t believe I’ve been gone the entire day.” She looked down at her phone, distracted.
Jalen was still trying to process his own thoughts. He didn’t want to go back. Not at all. “Yeah, me too,” he said.
They rode back to the yacht club, returned the bikes, and took a water taxi to downtown San Francisco. On the ride over, Hi Kyto seemed to be lost in her phone, texting someone rapidly in Chinese, her smooth brow growing increasingly furrowed.
Jalen also pulled out his phone. He turned it on, but did not put in his earpiece. He was gonna get an earful from Wyatt, but that could wait.
“What’s wrong?” Jalen asked her once they got in line to deboard the ferry.
“My parents … they’re just so nosy, always wanting to know where I am…”
“Yeah,” Jalen said, switching his own phone to silent. “I get it.”
“I mean, they’re following my location, asking what I’m doing away from my internship, spending the day with you.”
“They know who I am?”
“They remember you from Vegas,” she said. “But let’s just say they don’t refer to you as Jay.”
“What do they call me?”
She smirked. “Wàiguó rén. It’s Chinese. It’s like the Japanese word—gaijin.”
“Which means … handsome?”
“Foreigner.” She flashed a quick smile and went back to her phone. “Someone must have told them I was with you.”
“Morgan?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“So your parents don’t like the idea of me, huh?” Wondering if it was because he was African American or just American. “I understand the cultural difference, but I’m not a bad guy.”
“It’s not a matter of good or bad,” she said. “There’s a Douglas Coupland book. Do you know him?”
“No idea.”
“I’m such a nerd.” Hi Kyto laughed. “He wrote a book called All Families Are Psychotic. And it’s true. They are.”
Jalen’s own family flashed through his head: his mother, Ronnie, the years of au pairs who’d practically raised him. Yes, he could relate. “But your family seems pretty … I mean, your parents are professors and diplomats. They’re respectable.”
She laughed. “Respect has nothing to do with it. I’ve got secrets, too.” Her eyes piercing him, and in them, a flicker of anger. “Everyone does, and if I’ve learned anything at Red Trident, anything from John Darsie, it’s that everything’s a conspiracy. And I don’t want to live in a world like that.”
“He sees people as pawns in his master chess game.” Jalen changed his voice to mimic how he’d heard Darsie say it: “And the pieces don’t need to know what the master is thinking.”
“Oh my gosh.” Hi Kyto laughed. “That’s exactly what he says … how did you know that?”
“Uhhh, I’ve seen him on TV and in the news,” Jalen lied, realizing his slip. “Who hasn’t?”
“Well, anyway, my parents … they don’t like the idea of anyone who isn’t Chinese, female, and has already aced their PSAT.”
“Bet they like Morgan.”
“Funny, they actually do.”
Jalen grunted. “Well, you better get home.”
She started to walk away and then turned. “You know what,” she said. “I want you to steal me again tomorrow.”
Jalen smiled. “What do you mean, ‘steal you’?”
“Get me out of there tomorrow. Please. Out of Red Trident. Mountain biking, water, I’ve never done any of that before. Let’s not practice tomorrow … no video games … I just can’t be inside.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“What about Muir Woods? I’ve haven’t been since my parents took me as a kid.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“You’re awesome.” She leaned forward and gave him a hug, then a slow kiss on the cheek. “I need to put in at least an hour. Meet me at Red Trident offices at 10 a.m. We can leave from there.”
“All right,” Jalen fumbled. “I’ll see ya.”
She waved and bounded to the curb as an Uber pulled up and stopped. “See ya, Jay,” she said as she jumped in and drove away.