Chapter 30

JACK

I find myself standing in front of a tank full of sea jellies at the Aquarium of the Pacific with Gōng Gong. “Happy New Year” event posters are still hanging around the aquarium from four weeks ago. We watch as the glowing marine animals propel themselves around one another.

“You know they’re older than dinosaurs?” Gōng Gong says, his face illuminated by the neon blue glow of the translucent moon jellies. “By three times!”

“I actually didn’t,” I say, surprised. “They look like they’re in zero gravity.”

In front of me, the jellies billow like little clouds in a glass-contained sky. The peacefulness of their movements soothes me. A sharp pang shoots through the center of my chest when I realize it reminds me of being underwater with Rooney.

“Is Rooney back in New York?” Gōng Gong asks, as though he had just felt my pain. It’s also possible he sees how miserable I must look.

“I think she went out there for the Lantern Festival. And to meet with the MoMA team,” I mumble. “We haven’t talked since the showcase earlier this week.”

Gōng Gong clasps his hands over his belly. “That show was spectacular. Sounds like this residency is a success.”

We linger in front of the tank, mesmerized. The jellies look like translucent portobello mushrooms with their curved umbrella-like bodies. Their short tentacles are thin, practically invisible strings. The aquarium would be an incredible space for Rooney to create an installation.

“No matter what happens with your job or promotion, you should be proud of yourself,” he adds.

“The showcase went well, the mission is moving along,” I say. “Other than the art program. Everything is going according to plan.”

“I meant proud of yourself. Not your work.” Gōng Gong leans closer to watch as the moon jellies fold into themselves before expanding again. “Change isn’t always the most apparent to spot in ourselves, but you’re a different man today than you were this time last year.”

“How so?” I ask.

“Look where we are. I felt a need to come here on a Sunday evening, and you agreed to take me. On a whim! We hadn’t planned it out, didn’t know what traffic was going to be like. The Jack of last year would have required a two weeks’ advance notice of any plans, period.”

“I wasn’t really like that, though. Was I?”

Gōng Gong chuckles. “My boy, you were that and then some.”

When I’m quiet, he continues, “It’s an endearing trait of yours.”

I cough out a laugh. “That’s one word for it.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of. You seem more flexible. You have for a while now. Heck, you even trespassed to wrap the Hollywood Sign. You’re evolving. Maybe you just needed some art in your life. And a little red,” he says with a tilt of his head.

More mentions of Rooney, as though she doesn’t already fill every crevice of my mind. In my head, I hear her commentary on what I’m doing, what’s around us. I glance around for something else to distract me. The jellies are annoyingly peaceful, given how I feel. The placard next to the tank explains how sea jellies don’t have hearts, brains, or respiratory systems. That would make life so much easier, not to have to feel or experience or think about love or emotions. For a second, I envy them.

I watch the light filtering through the tanks, twisting and turning over the concrete floors. We pass through to another area of the aquarium. Children have their hands and noses pressed up against the glass. When they run to the next tank, dirty streaks are all that’s left behind. Proof that they were here.

We stroll to the next tank, filled with sea dragons and seahorses, Gōng Gong’s favorite.

“Jack, look at this one,” Gōng Gong says, pointing out a leafy sea dragon, its yellow-striped body covered in long, seaweed-looking camouflage. It reminds me of Rooney hiding in plain sight in her red knitwear.

“You ready for your fun fact?” he asks. “You’re not too old for this, are you?”

When Gōng Gong took me to the aquarium when I was a kid, we’d spend the majority of time in front of the seahorses. He’d always have a new fun fact for me. Seahorses are like underwater butterflies as they, too, figure out ways to blend in with their surroundings. They’re terrible swimmers, but what they lack in speed they make up for in dexterity. It’s the males that give birth to thousands of baby seahorses.

“If you’re not too old, I’m not,” I say, crossing my arms in anticipation. “I’m impressed that you still have any fun facts left. I didn’t think that was possible. Let’s hear it.”

“You know why I love seahorses so much?” he starts.

“This sounds like the start of a bad joke. You love that they’re constantly eating?” I guess, not remembering this specific fun fact.

“Oh. Yes. But that’s not it. You must not remember. Ah, well, you were young,” Gōng Gong says. “They remind me of your grandma.”

“Those,” I say, nodding toward a two-inch-long seahorse, “remind you of Grandma?”

Gōng Gong holds his arms up as he wiggles his body. “Every morning, seahorses greet their partner with a little dance.”

“You’re not serious,” I say.

“It’s true. Their morning waltz reinforces their bond.” Gōng Gong bends down to smile at the seahorses. “So every morning, she and I danced. Just a little cheek to cheek. She insisted on dancing every morning,” he says. “When I got too busy or too serious, she’d still make me do it. I’m glad she did.”

“Grandma didn’t let you get away with anything.”

“No, she didn’t. You know, you’re like her in many ways. You’re both ambitious. She’d decide what she wanted to do, then follow through with it until she got it. She made literal plans, wrote them out in her planners, and referenced them every day. She loved to work, loved getting ahead. She’d test different schedules until she found the most efficient one.”

I inhale sharply. Will the word “test” make me think of Rooney every time I hear it? “I wish I had the chance to know Grandma,” I say.

“She loved you very much,” he says, his eyes glistening. “Did you know that seahorses mate for life?”

“Probably for survival reasons,” I guess.

“I like to think there’s something bigger at play,” Gōng Gong says. “Little seahorse soulmates. It makes me happy to think about.”

“As scientists, we want clear, definitive answers. The question of whether fate is real or not doesn’t fit into that category.” He’s studying my face when I look up at him. “Rooney believes in fate. I don’t.” I debate whether to tell him this last part. “She thinks I’m on the other end of her red string. Does that sound strange to you?”

Gōng Gong inhales slowly through his nose as he thinks. “I think we believe what we need to believe to give our lives meaning,” he says. “Or we genuinely believe in something because that’s what we’ve been taught, and that shapes how we view and live our lives. Like with me and your grandma, in my bones, I know we were soulmates. It wasn’t love at first sight for her. But when we got to know each other, it felt… big. So, no. Rooney’s red string is not so strange to me.”

“She puts so much emphasis on signs. It’s an unrealistic expectation I don’t know how to live up to.”

“And you’ve seen no signs? No clues at all?” Gōng Gong asks, gently prodding.

“Clues from the universe?” I ask. “I guess there have been a couple of odd coincidences.” I think of having picked Rooney’s Fate Note. “Well, maybe there have been a few.”

I think back to all the instances Rooney listed off at Hugh’s. My breath becomes shallower as it dawns on me that those might be what she meant by signs. They’re personal. Meaningful. And my intuition feels like it’s trying to say something. Maybe there have been signs all along. I just ignored them or dismissed them as something else. Maybe I didn’t want to see them.

“The only difference between fate and free will is perspective,” Gōng Gong says. “To some, like you, life is the sequence of choices you make when you decide how to live it. Small decisions add up. For others, it’s the individual moments that have meaning. Both are right.”

“You can’t believe in one thing sometimes and another thing at other times only when it’s convenient for you,” I say.

Gōng Gong lifts his shoulders. “Why not? Are we not complicated, contradictory beings? I want to be at the aquarium with you. I also want to be home making ice cream. Just because something is the way it is doesn’t mean it can’t ever become anything different. For her, and for you. Our main goal, when you really boil it down, is to get through the day and live to see another one.”

I frown. “You’re oversimplifying it.”

“And you’re trying to troubleshoot too much,” Gōng Gong counters. “It’s not one or the other, and a relationship isn’t a mission. Unlike a spacecraft, you can launch a relationship and see what it does when it’s in a completely new environment. If something fails, it isn’t a crisis. You can learn what the problem is, adjust, and try again. The stakes aren’t quite as high as they are in space.”

“It’s not only the fate thing. This thing between us is so strong. Too powerful, almost. Rooney will live a lot of her life on the road for her art, which is incredible. But I wouldn’t be able to go with her, and Mom and Dad always have ‘one more expedition’ left in them.”

“When your parents traveled, they didn’t do a very good job of keeping in touch,” Gōng Gong says. “I should’ve done more about that.”

“It’s not your fault,” I tell him, placing my hand on his shoulder. “When they left, we talked to them, what, once a week? If that. They were busy.”

“Something gives me the sense that Rooney would never be too busy for you,” he says. “Didn’t you tell me that she tried to find you, too, after New York?”

“She called every hotel in the Financial District,” I say with a small laugh.

Gōng Gong tilts his head. “Sounds like she really wanted to talk to you. I don’t think fate made those calls.”

No. Fate did not make those calls. Fate also did not go back to the print shop looking for Dave. Rooney did all of those things. Even as she made all of her string art pieces for the auction and created her installations, I never once felt like she didn’t have time for me. I feel like a complete ass. I am literally a Jackass.

Gōng Gong walks next to me with his hands behind his back. “I know what it’s like to want to impress parents,” he says softly. “Making choices that will yield the best results so one day you have a piece of good news to share. But there’s so much pressure in that good news. It has to be the best news. And maybe, just maybe, that will earn you praise. Or a ‘good job.’ I know you felt your parents weren’t emotionally there for you when you needed them. You became self-sufficient, matured young. Became set in your ways on how things should be, how you wanted them to be. There wasn’t room to consider anything else.”

I let these words live in my head for a moment before I respond. “I don’t know why it still affects me so much. I’m an adult. Logically, I know I don’t need their approval anymore.”

“That feeling might never go away. They’re your parents. You have needs and expectations from them but feel let down when you’re not fulfilled in the way you need. That takes some adapting, too. But this is your life, and you’re the one living it. Not them. They’ve made their choices, got to do things the way they wanted. So should you.”

I grunt audibly. “I told her I wasn’t her stringmate. That we weren’t meant to be.”

“That’s not what you feel, is it?”

“I don’t know if that’s the term I’d use. All I know is I want to be with her. But I don’t know how to be. It… scares me,” I admit. “She brought out parts of me that I’m not used to feeling.”

“In this life, we get to decide who we want to be, for the most part. And other things that happen are us reacting to the circumstances. You can control yourself, the way you act. Trying to control everything else around you is a losing battle.” Gōng Gong pats my back. “Perhaps running into Rooney in New York was supposed to happen, for whatever reason. What is really so bad about that if you want to be with her?”

I shake my head. “I want her to want to be with me, not to think I’m The One because signs told her so. I want her to… to choose me.”

Gōng Gong nods. “In the way that your parents didn’t.”

This was a sore spot months ago when Rooney and I talked about my parents. The pain is still there. It probably always will be. But because of Rooney, for the first time in my life the ache is dulled. There’s room for more than just hurt. I want to let those other feelings in and not be ruled by my past.

“Does Rooney jump from person to person or something? Does she read into every little thing?” Gōng Gong asks, turning to face me in front of a tank filled with fuchsia-colored fish. Must everything serve as a reminder?

“She reads into the big things. She’s never been in a serious relationship before,” I say. Remembering this slows my racing mind.

“Sounds like she’s been careful and wanted to make sure the signs weren’t false leads. Perhaps she did that because she knows how important stability and commitment are to you?” Gōng Gong says.

“It does kind of sound that way,” I say, in disbelief of how foolish I’ve been.

“Do you know what I’d give for even just one more day with your grandma? She was gone too soon. I’d give everything I own for just one minute. Heck, just long enough to tell her I love her. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would be something.”

“And something is better than nothing,” I say, more to myself than to him.

Gōng Gong points at me, his curled finger directing me to pay attention. “You will always be busy chasing the next promotion, the next achievement. Rooney will, too, with her art shows. But you’re never going to get back the time you can spend together. When you find someone you want to dance with every morning, put on your dancing shoes and get stepping.”

His words resonate deeply. I thought I lost Rooney once. I don’t want to lose her again. I don’t want to waste any more time.

“And, Jack, my boy, if it can offer any comfort at all, I choose you every day. Remember that,” Gōng Gong adds, clasping my hands in his. We hug, like we always have and always will.

I walk Gōng Gong out to the car to take him home. The sky is inky black, the moon half-illuminated. As always, it’s right where it should be. Stars are speckled across our celestial dome, nothing obstructing their view. A few shine brighter than the others.

In the distance, right above the horizon, eight stars in particular grab my attention. I draw an imaginary line through them, connecting the dots until they look like pinned-up string against a blackboard.

It’s then that I see it. There, purposely winking at me and quite literally written in the stars, is the Big Dipper.

It’s the second-closest thing to a sign, next to a crumpled piece of white paper with words written in red ink. It’s as though the universe had been listening.

But just as Rooney was careful, I need to be, too. An idea forms, the beginning of a hypothesis. A new theory on how to test the Red Thread of Fate and to clearly see the signs Rooney has been talking about all this time. I know what I need to do.

Rooney’s smile burns brightly in my mind. My heart skips a beat at the image, and suddenly it’s as clear as the stars in the sky.

It’s 7:50 p.m. Not even close to midnight, and we’ve already eaten dinner. But dumplings would really hit the spot.

“Gōng Gong, have you ever heard of The Dumpling Hours?”