The third Saturday in January, I am up before the sun, eager for my secret day of errands, and early enough to cross paths with Dad and Luke in the kitchen before they’re off to the bakery.
“Baby.” Dad frowns. “What are you doing up?”
I shrug. “Can’t sleep. Thought I might as well get up.”
“You’re coming tomorrow, right?” Luke asks carefully.
“Yes,” I say. “Definitely. What’s tomorrow?”
“Harp!” Luke says.
“Moving day!” Dad says. “You better be kidding.”
I’m not. I have completely forgotten Luke is leaving, which just shows (a) what a horrible sister I can be, and (b) just how down in it I am.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m there. Yes.”
They leave me to wait around until the sun rises, and it’s time to go.
My legs hurt. Not dancing, not stretching for hours each day for the first time in years, is wreaking havoc on my body. Lindsay has reportedly taken over teaching my babies, which is definitely better than Simone unleashing her nuttiness on them. Unless they pick up Lindsay’s barre-clutching habits. Then it’s a wash.
Kate came back from New York with second- and third-place wins for both her solos in the Grand Prix, and went right back to attending class with Simone while she waits for an offer from a company. Which could be any day. When she first came home, I begged Kate to tell me everything—how class was, who was doing what—but then I couldn’t bear to hear any more. Her sleepovers became visits, which became phone calls, which have now been reduced to texts.
My heart aches for her the way my legs do for turns.
I think of Owen in the spaces that ballet and Kate aren’t filling. He is there in the mess of longing, and he calls and texts, and I return them all and we’ve spoken a little, and he is being incredibly respectful in regard to my pleading for being left alone just now.
But I miss him.
Mom and Dad have kept their promise to not chase after Simone for a “talk,” but she tracked them down instead.
“ ‘A hundred messages I have left Harper,’ ” Mom reported Simone said. So they went to the studio, and she explained about my hips. And my feet. My arms and neck, all the reasons why, no matter how much of my life and heart and everything I give to it, it will never change the truth.
“But you love it so much,” Mom says night and day. “You can’t just stop. Please don’t let it go.”
She doesn’t understand. And honestly I don’t, either. I just know going to the studio seems more impossible than not going. So I don’t. And I think about Antarctica instead. Better than dwelling on the eighteen rejection emails I’ve gotten from the video auditions.
At 7:31 a.m., I leave the house, stop by our mailbox, and peer inside. My high school diploma. Perfect. I walk to West Portal Avenue, and in front of the bookshop, Hannah is idling in a car. I climb in and kiss Willa’s sleeping face in the booster seat behind me.
Hannah cranks up the heater.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I tell her.
“Better save the gratitude till we see how the day goes. You never can tell.”
“Got it.”
And we’re off, on a marathon tour of the Bay Area, one government building and doctor’s office at a time.
First up, our family dentist, who, like our doctor, thinks my parents know all about the National Science Foundation forms I’m filling out for them regarding the state of my teeth (X-rays, thorough cleaning) and my general physical well-being (blood work, internal exam).
Wintering Over means living on The Ice for months with no way to leave. No way for anyone to come in. Too cold for planes to land, too stormy. Medical emergencies must be avoided at all costs. Only healthy people are allowed to Winter Over. I’ve been eating. I can fake my way through this. And all those years of fastidious personal hygiene are about to pay off.
While Hannah and Willa wait, I go into a nondescript office park in Oakland to take an hour-long multiple-choice true/false quiz about my mental health, answering a couple hundred questions such as, Yes or No: I hate my mother. And Yes or No: My close friends have often told me I have a drinking problem.
I am increasingly, maybe foolishly hopeful. One of Mom’s past teaching assistants is on The Ice and staying through winter. Hannah says this woman absolutely loves Mom. She may be my way in. I’ll clean the Antarctic toilets—I don’t care—just so I get there.
Hannah’s miserable about keeping secrets from Mom. I’m guilt-ridden asking her to—but we’re both still doing it, which is a testament to how worried Hannah is about me. And how worried I am about myself. The intense purposefulness that went into preparing for my life with Kate in the San Francisco Ballet has now found itself poured into getting me on a plane in March to Antarctica. To the frozen dark. To the resting place of explorers, even those I’m not related to by blood, whom I have begun to feel a true kinship with: their years of preparation, laser-beam focus, the all-consuming joy felt in the attempt—and then in a moment, it is gone. Nothing matters. Without ballet, without Kate and our Plan, I am nothing, and when I think about it, I can barely stand up straight. I need the frozen dark in a way I cannot describe but that Hannah seems to understand. And so she is helping me.
At last, we are done. Nothing more to do now but wait for NSF approval, and for some scientist at the bottom of Earth to take pity on me. It is an agonizing wait. An audition for The Ice.
It is a gorgeous day in the Presidio. Rolling green hills and perfect white stucco officers’ homes, renovated into beautiful single-family and rental houses, rise in the blue winter sky. The house Luke is moving into has peekaboo views of the Golden Gate Bridge from the second story. It takes dividing the rent four ways to make it possible, but anyone could see it is worth it.
I’m scared and impatient to see Owen, hoping he’s not here one minute, praying he is the next. I’ve had to be single-minded of purpose to get this chance for Antarctica figured out, but not one day has gone by I haven’t missed him, haven’t wanted to see him. He texts and leaves messages, and I answer them—but maybe he’s done trying to get me to act like a normal person, with common sense and manners. He doesn’t know about Antarctica. No one does. Just Hannah. Well, and Willa.
My hair is down. I’m in my best jeans, a cute sweater.
I’m terrified.
Dad climbs into the back of the U-Haul pickup he’s rented for this auspicious occasion: Luke’s first foray into independent adulthood. His stuff is covered with a blue tarp—a small pile of recent Craigslist finds. Preassembled, barely used Ikea bed; an estate sale dresser; rugs and lamps from various garage sales. Boxes of game junk are labeled and carefully taped. I put my Antarctica: Terrible Beauty book aside to heft one of the smaller boxes up flagstone steps and through the front door of the house.
Wood floors, tall windows.
Owen.
“Hey,” he says. Smiles.
“Hey.”
Two weeks, but I have not forgotten how very dark his eyes are. And those arms. His voice.
“Come take a tour.” He holds out his hand. The safety pin hand.
I give him mine.
Dad and Luke unload the truck, and Owen takes my box under one arm, up a narrow staircase to the sunny second floor.
“Bathroom, bedroom, other bedroom, other bathroom, Luke’s room…” Here he sets the box onto the bare floor.
And then we step inside the last room. He closes the door quietly. We are alone.
“I missed you,” I say, barely audible.
“I missed you.”
“You did?”
He just stands there, looking at me. My heart races.
“You have no idea,” he says. And then my back is against the wall, his hands in my hair, blood thundering in my ears, and we’re kissing like he’s been away in battle, like it’s been years—
“Harper!” Dad’s voice calls up the stairwell. “Come bring up some of this stuff! Let’s go!”
“Oh my God,” I pant, pulling reluctantly from Owen’s arms. “Luke can live in the car. I don’t care….”
“Me neither,” Owen breathes. We move to sit on his neatly made bed.
“Harper!” Mom’s voice comes through the open window facing the ocean.
“Ignore them,” I whisper. “They’ll go away eventually.” And then he stops kissing me because he’s laughing.
I sit up. “This isn’t funny,” I say. “I missed you.”
“Yeah, well, whose fault is that?”
“I’m in the midst of a crisis!”
He hugs me, one of comfort, and pushes my hair off my face to kiss me again and ask, “What have you been doing?”
“Wallowing,” I admit. “Trying not to.”
“That’s fair.”
“But I may have figured out what to do about it.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Suddenly, his hand in mine, Antarctica seems like a horrible idea. But maybe it won’t happen, so it won’t matter anyway.
Owen smiles. “Listen, I’m not going to keep promising to not come around anymore. This is stupid.”
“Okay, stalker.”
“Whatever. Get a restraining order.”
“Harper!” Dad practically yodels. Owen stands and pulls me up.
“Let’s go,” he says.
“But”—I pull him back—“I missed you.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I can see that, and the feeling’s mutual, but your dad will kill me if he thinks we’re up here doing what we’re doing, so let’s make an appearance.”
He opens the door and reaches a switch above his head. Two lightsabers, crossed and mounted above the door, glow red and blue.
“Oh, brother,” I sigh. “How old are you again?”
“I am nineteen years old. But Jedis live forever.”
“Do they?
“I don’t know.” He kisses me once more and raises a bamboo shade off the window, and the room is bright. Blue bedspread. Probably hiding Star Wars sheets. Dresser. Lamp. Rug. Books.
“Should I have ignored your request and just come over? What do you think?”
I smile. “I think you are the kindest person I’ve ever met. Thank you for not.”
“Okay.”
“How are you? Work good and all that?”
“Sure.”
“Good.”
“Was showing up at the audition a total creeper move? Because, I swear to God, I didn’t mean it to be. Honestly.”
“Owen. You saved me. That was a bad day. There’ve been a bunch of bad ones since, but that day…Thank you. If I forgot to say it then, which I’m sure I did, thank you. So much.”
We stand in the doorway, breathing quietly. He closes the door with his foot.
“Just two more minutes,” he says in my ear.
“Two or five,” I whisper, and he backs me toward the bed again until, through the open window, we hear Luke call, “Hey, Kate!”
I get up, despite Owen’s pulling my hand back, and go to the window. Kate’s crossing the front lawn.
Owen comes to the window to see for himself, hugs me, and says, “Want to hang out here? Hide in the closet or something?”
“Yes.”
But I follow him reluctantly down the stairs.
“Hey, Kate!” he calls. I drop his hand. Kate walks up the steps toward us, lugging a laundry basket of books.
“Hi!” She smiles brightly at Owen and hopefully at me. He takes the basket from her and jogs it upstairs to Luke’s room. I move forward and hug her.
She squeezes back, so hard I think my lungs will collapse, and, oh, I’ve missed her skinny, strong arms. “Hi,” she says again, beaming.
“I’m not carrying any more of Luke’s tighty-whities. Come on.” We sneak around the house to hide in the back and sit on the grass beneath Owen’s window.
“I miss you,” she says, “in class.”
“Me too.”
She pulls at the grass, plucks tiny white daisies from the lawn. “I heard from New York.”
“Oh.” My voice is suddenly high, constricted. “Who?”
“New York City.”
“Oh God. Wow.”
“And ABT.”
New York City Ballet. American Ballet Theatre.
My head is spinning.
“That’s—Kitty. That’s amazing.” I hate myself that the words are nearly impossible to say with genuine enthusiasm. “As a student?”
“Positions,” she says quietly. “Apprentice. In the company.”
“Wow,” I whisper again.
“I mean, just corps, but it’s…I don’t know what to do. I have to decide by next week because I’ll start the following at either one. They want to know.”
“You’ll start the following week—so in two weeks you’ll be in New York.”
“Yeah.”
“Professional ballerina.”
She draws circles on the dirt with a stick. “Yes.”
We sit in silence.
“Hey, ladies,” Owen calls, materializing at the side lawn. “Hiding from the heavy lifting?”
Kate stands. Smiles. “Maybe.”
Owen reaches down and pulls me to my feet.
Kate’s smile falters.
We get everything up the stairs and into Luke’s room, and then Dad tries to be cool by offering an Igloo chest of beer, which Luke can’t drink physically or legally, and Owen also underage, politely refuses. I take one, and Mom snatches it from my hand, whacks Dad on his arm for plying children with booze, and gets on her phone to order pizza.
Luke gives Mom and Dad and Kate the official tour. Owen hangs back with me in the sun on the front steps.
“Where are the other two Jedis?” I ask.
“Surfing. You’ll meet them later.”
I nod. “Break Luke in easy.”
“He’ll be fine. Excited to have your own bathroom?”
“Hell yes. Tossed his Axe spray and foot-fungus cream already. It’s all potpourri and fancy soap up in there now.”
He smiles. “You’re gonna be okay, Harp.”
“Did I say you could call me Harp?”
“Dude. It’s one less syllable. Everyone else does it!”
“Everyone else knows me.”
“Not the way I do.”
“Oh my God,” I sigh, smiling.
“How’s that?” Kate says. She steps around us to stand on the path at our feet.
“How’s what?” Owen asks.
“What way do you know her?”
“He doesn’t,” I say. “He’s joking.”
“I’m not,” Owen says. I give him a small shove and a look.
Kate’s smile is strained. She looks from me to Owen. “What’s up, Harp?”
“With what?”
“Come on.”
“Nothing! Nothing’s up!”
Owen frowns. “Nothing?”
Kate’s smile flattens.
“He’s just kidding,” I say again weakly.
“I’m not,” he says, looking directly at me. “Why would you say that?”
“I only mean, there’s nothing bad going on, there’s not…”
“Wait, hold on,” Owen says, “Is there a thing, like some conflict of interest happening that I don’t know about?”
Holy crap, guys can be dumb.
“I don’t know,” Kate says, kind of…mad? At me? “Is there? Harp?”
What the—what?
My gloom and anxiety are turning to anger as my addled brain assesses this screwed-up situation. “Wait,” I say. “Everyone just…Kate—did Owen ask you out?”
She stands there for a while. “No.”
“I told you,” Owen says. “She asked me.”
Kate’s eyebrows and vocal pitch are up. “You told her that?”
“I didn’t know it was a secret!”
Kate stands. “Harp, can we take a walk?”
For some stupid reason, my heart starts thumping in my chest. This is Kate—why am I scared? She is my sister.
“I don’t think Harper needs to go anywhere with you right now, Kate,” Owen says.
Kate’s perfectly pink cheeks flush bright.
“Please don’t speak for me,” I say, low.
“People!” Dad calls from the door, “We ready for pizza?”
“In a minute!” the three of us yell in tandem, which is kind of hilarious. I wish I could laugh.
“Harper,” Kate says, my full first name and in a voice I’ve never, ever heard her use. “I’m sorry. Honestly. I’m sorry I’m a better dancer than you.” Her voice breaks. “I’m sorry I can’t stay in San Francisco with you and live in a crappy apartment, waving a flower around in the chorus forever. I’m too good for that. It’s a waste of my talent. I can’t give up my entire life for you.”
“Jesus, Kate!” Luke says, standing behind us in the doorway.
“Jesus what? It’s true! I’m sorry, Harp, I love you. Enough to tell you the truth.”
“Okay,” I say. I push myself up off the step.
“Okay what?”
She’s…God, she’s so mad. How did this turn so fast—how am I the villain? She wants a fight. I’m too tired to give her one.
“I’m sorry, too,” I sigh. “I’m sorry I held you back. I’m sorry I don’t have the money you do. I wish I didn’t have to work so much, because maybe if I’d had the money for private lessons and more time to take luxurious naps, maybe I could have been better—but let’s be honest, never as good as you. I’m sorry a boy you like doesn’t like you back. I’m sorry he’s slumming it with your sidekick instead. I’m sorry for everything.”
I cannot believe these words are coming from me. Neither, clearly, can Kate.
Kate, my mind clamors, I don’t mean it. Forgive me. But those words don’t get spoken. Just the mean ones. I turn and walk toward the ocean. My MO as of late.
“Where are you going?” Mom calls. “Harper, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” I call back. “Home. Antarctica.” A bus passes me. I wave and run ahead to the stop, and catch it just in time.
Thank God for babysitting money and refunded, un-danced-in pointe shoes. (Except for the Maltese Crosses, still in their box in my closet.) Because REI does not hawk subzero winter gear for cheap. I pull an enormous parka over my bony arms, and my phone buzzes.
Owen.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hello. Where are you?” he asks.
“Hiking.”
“Meet me tomorrow. Union Square at two. Can you?”
“Owen.”
“Just be there. Where are you? You’re not hiking.”
“Maybe I am! You don’t know!”
“Tomorrow. Five o’clock in front of Tiffany.”
“Tiffany? Barf. And I can’t.”
“Why not.”
“I’m packing. I’m leaving.”
“Not for five days!”
“It takes a long time.”
“Look, I’m not going to beg. I’ll see you there. At two.”
He hangs up.
This parka is ridiculous.
The Muni is so crowded I nearly have a panic attack, get off three stops early, and walk fifteen blocks in cute but uncomfortable shoes to Union Square, which is also packed, and Market Street is blocked off.
Chinese New Year. I’m so dumb.
I fight through the crowds to stupid Tiffany. He’s not here. I should’ve stayed home and watched Mom cry some more. She and Dad have forgiven Hannah, but Mom is heartbroken I would do this—go to The Ice without telling her, not ask her for help—mostly just sad I’m leaving.
“Six months,” I tell her over and over. “I’ll be right back.”
It doesn’t help.
A hand is on my arm.
“You’re here!” Owen says.
“Tiffany?”
“It’s an easy landmark. Now let’s go in and pick out a ring and get it over with.”
My hands go cold.
“I’m kidding!” he says. “You really are depressed. Come on.” He takes my hand. I hold on tight in this crush of people. He navigates through the crowds. “So explain to me,” he calls over the noise. “How exactly does this work? Where do you get the money to fly to…where do you go?”
“New Zealand first. I don’t. I’m an employee and also it’s a grant. For students. They send me.”
“Okay.”
“And they’ve got the hard-core cold gear. I get paid practically nothing, but there are no living expenses, so I can save a little stash. And then, when it’s over, I get a one-way ticket around the world in either direction. That’s it.”
“Huh.”
We make our way into Chinatown, which I cannot believe we’re going into. Belly of the beast.
“Is this the best idea right now?” I shout.
“Only option,” he shouts back. “Hang on!” We maneuver through the sea of people and music, vendor carts and craft tables. The festival is in full swing. He pulls me out of the crowd, down a small side street, into a dark hall, and up an even darker stairwell.
“Listen, if you’re going to murder me…”
“I would have done it already. Here.” He rings an apartment doorbell. “Take off your shoes.”
“Why?”
The door swings open. “Owen!”
“Dad!”
A smaller, older version of Owen grabs his younger self and kisses his head, then frowns at me.
“Oh, this is my friend, Harper,” Owen tells him. His dad smiles, gesturing for us to enter.
We take off our shoes.
“Sorry to shanghai you,” he whispers.
“That’s racist,” I whisper back.
“Well,” he says, “you can’t change a nation.”
“Dude.”
A roomful of people greets us. Afternoon winter sunlight streams into a huge room from picture windows that look down on the street. The party is going on directly below us.
“Gung hay fat choy!” everyone calls, and hugs and kisses.
“Mom,” Owen says, “this is Harper.”
His mom, taller than his dad and with a head of salon-styled curls, glares openly at me. Owen rolls his eyes.
“Harp, these are my cousins. This is my aunt, my uncle, Grandpa. This is Harper.” His grandpa looks like he’s around a hundred and three years old. He gives me his cool, papery hand. He smiles and nods. I do, too.
“It’s so nice to meet you all,” I say. Everyone else smiles and nods, too.
There is a long table in the dining room piled with food. Owen’s mom tries to get him to eat. He speaks Mandarin to her. Or Cantonese. One of the two, and I think he’s telling her we came by to say hello but that we are going to the parade now.
“Is Josie already gone?” he asks a girl cousin.
“Hours ago,” the cousin says, dipping some food thing into a bowl of some sauce thing.
“Okay,” Owen says. “See you after!” There’s more shouting and hugging and then we’re back in the dark hall.
“Thanks,” he says. “That was fun!”
I follow him down the stairs back into the alley.
“Who’s Josie?”
“Jealous?”
I stop walking. “Who is Josie?”
He sees my face, walks back, and whispers close, “I like you jealous.”
“I’m not—” I begin, but he kisses me.
“Josie’s my sister,” he says casually. “She left the party early.”
“Jackass.”
“I’m not the one with a jealousy complex!”
“Okay. So one sister? That’s it?”
“And a ton of cousins.” We’re back out on the street. “I grew up in that apartment.”
“Your mom looked mad.”
“Oh, she was.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re white. Cross here.” He runs, against the light, across the street and back toward Union Square.
“You can’t have white friends?”
“Not white girlfriends.”
“So she needs to chill. There’s no problem.”
“Oh, there’s a problem,” he says. “You like egg rolls?”
“No. Sorry.”
“You’ve deeply offended my culture. How about dim sum?”
I shrug.
“Is Luke right? Do you really not eat?”
“No, it’s…complicated.”
“Not really; it’s just food. Hold on. Don’t move. At all.” He leaves me on the sidewalk and runs to a food cart, takes a paper bag from the guy, ducks into a bakery, comes out with a pink box, and takes my hand again. We go up some narrow backstreet. He pulls down a fire escape ladder, we climb up, and we’re on a roof patio. Grass. Flowers. Adirondack chairs.
“My dad’s friend’s house,” he explains. “They’re out of the country and said we should use the roof. Have a seat.”
From the chairs we can see the avenues below us, lights and talking and a bright hum of music.
“The parade goes right past here,” he says. From the bags he pulls cartons of stir-fried vegetables, plain white rice. Pink box of almond cookies. “So, now, what’s your deal with Chinese food? Which, this isn’t even—this is American Chinese food.”
“It’s not the Chinese part; it’s the fried part.”
“Thought so.”
“Not sure how to navigate food. Lately. Or ever.”
“Okay. Well. It’s here if you want it.”
“Thank you.” He tosses me a bottle of water and breaks apart disposable wooden chopsticks.
“Talk to Kate lately?”
“She’s gone.”
“New York?”
I nod.
“Oh, wow,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“No, I mean sympathy. I’m sorry. For the loss.”
“I’m not like that,” I say. “What I said to her.”
“You were sticking up for yourself. She wasn’t being the nicest.”
“She’s not like that, either,” I say. “Not at all. Something’s wrong.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know. Her parents are kind of awful, but I’m too wrapped up in my own stupid tragedy to pay attention to anyone else’s and offer help. So.”
“Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Take all the blame. Belittle your sadness.”
“Because…other people have real problems. People are sick. And starving. And they have terrible families. I’m in perfect health with a family who loves me, and I’m moping about ballet. And not just moping—I’m fully agonizing. I’m destroyed. I don’t know what to do without it, and that’s…” I’m getting worked up to cry. Again.
“Okay,” he says. “Yes, you’re lucky you’re middle-class and white, and you’ve got a great family, and they paid for classes when you were little—fine. But it’s not luck that you’ve worked your ass off for the past fourteen years. If you were Chinese, my mom would be in love with you. She’d be planning the wedding.”
Drums and bells crash in the street below.
“That’s the second marriage reference you’ve made in the space of an hour.”
“Harp, it’s a huge, catastrophic fuck-up you’re getting through. It’s okay to be sad about it.”
“Can we ever talk about you?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You were premed. Now you make games. Your mom seems kind of racist. That it?”
He puts a bunch of rice into the vegetable container.
“I love science. I thought I wanted to be a doctor. My parents really wanted me to be a doctor. But it turns out? I also really love sitting around in my boxer shorts playing Halo.”
“I thought I made that up. Is that a thing?”
“Hell yes. It’s just reality.”
“Okay.”
“And there’s my guilt—I could be dedicating my life to helping people, healing them. And I choose video games?”
“So go back to med school.”
“Yeah,” he says. “You’d think. I was going to take just a semester off when Lucas first offered. Then it turns out that nearly every single minute of every day, I am so happy at work. Even when it’s really hard—especially when it’s hard.”
“Wow.”
“I know! And they do this thing, with Make-A-Wish—you know, where kids are really sick and they can have a wish granted, like the thing they love most in life to happen just once?”
“Yeah?”
“So, some of the kids choose to come see us making games. That’s their whole wish in the entire world—to watch us drawing, or see how we build the levels or whatever. A kid came in a few months ago, and she’s bald and super little, and you just think—if you could trade places. But the whole time she was there, she was so happy. And I thought, that’s a worthwhile thing; making something that makes people happy—that matters, too. That’s a life.”
The parade is starting. It is crawling along the wide streets below us, music and lights, convertible cars with political candidates waving from jump seats. Firecrackers.
“This is the Year of the Sheep,” he says.
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s a really good year. Fortune-full.”
“It’s going great so far.”
He smiles kindly, puts his hand on my knee. “And you were born in the Year of the Tiger.”
“I know. I’ve seen the paper placemats in restaurants.”
“So you know you’re spazzy and can’t settle down in relationships, but you’re an incredibly hard worker?”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m a Rat. Cheerful. Impatient. Supremely talented in a million ways.”
“Of course.”
“Harper.”
“Owen.”
“Tell me this is none of my business and to shut the hell up and I will, but—running away to Antarctica…doesn’t seem like it’s going to solve anything. I mean, isn’t the whole issue that you love to dance? Isn’t that the point? Why can’t you just…always dance?
An enormous flatbed goes past, covered in little kids and poster-paint signs reading, WAH MEI SCHOOL.
“My mom,” Owen says, pointing. “She jumps on midroute. That’s her school. Mom! Mom!” She waves, smiles, looks up, and see us. Sees me and frowns.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “She’ll love our kids—the Chinese half at least.”
“Not even a ring on my finger and you’ve got me popping out kids. Plural.”
“I sent you to Tiffany. There could have been a ring, but nooo—oh, look, there’s Josie! There she is! Josie!”
“Where?”
“There, right there below us!”
“I can’t see past the Miss Chinatown float. I don’t see where you’re pointing.”
Miss Chinatown looks up, sees Owen, and waves.
“Oh…,” I say. “Right. Okay.”
“And she’s still premed.”
“Of course.”
“Plus her boyfriend is totally Chinese.”
“Well, sure. And you brought me to your childhood home to meet your family because you like to stir the pot.”
“What pot?”
“It means I think my being white is a thing with you.”
“A thing?”
“A novelty. A way to stay the black sheep.”
“ ‘Black sheep’? Now that’s racist.”
“No, it isn’t! That’s a saying!”
“Oh my God. Okay.”
“It is.”
“Harper,” he says. “Do you have to do this?”
“I need to.”
“Why?”
“I’m a Scott.”
“Are you scared?”
The dragon music is starting. The gorgeous silk-and-paper dragon puppet is snaking its way around the street, undulating and dancing.
An empty stomach makes a fierce dog, Scott said. My life is empty.
“No,” I say. “I’m not scared. At all.”
He leans close to me. “It’s obvious the biggest competition I have for your affection is San Francisco, and believe me, San Francisco doesn’t want you to go.”
“Don’t,” I beg. “Please. This isn’t easy.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t not say this. Please don’t leave. I don’t want you to go. You can figure it out here. Your family will help you—I’ll help you.”
“I’m trying to save myself. I’m so lost. Please don’t—”
“I am completely selfish. Stay with me.”
My head is light. Tingly. I’m barely breathing. Firecrackers explode in the street below us. I tilt my head up to the sky. No stars; too many lights.
“I wish I could,” I admit.
“You can! I just found you. Please don’t go.”
“I have to,” I say. “Already gone.”
“Stay. Please.”
Nothing to say to that. So I don’t.
I only kiss him back.
In the San Francisco airport there is a yoga room, and also there are therapy dogs walking around with trainers, and the dogs wear vests that read, PET ME. These things are supposed to calm anxious travelers. But I am not anxious. I am eager. Mom, on the other hand, has been in the yoga room for forty-five minutes, and the last time we saw her, she was practically French-kissing an Australian shepherd and holding on to his coat for dear life, and then the trainer awkwardly eased him away from Mom’s grip, while Dad backed Mom slowly toward the Cinnabon.
Luke is here. And Hannah, and Willa. Who has not forgiven me. She keeps asking if she can “help” by “holding” my boarding pass and ticket while eyeing the garbage can.
An unread letter from Owen, delivered by Luke, is in my backpack, but Owen is not here.
Because I asked him not to be. Because being near him would make it impossible for me to leave.
Kate is in New York.
I am alone.
“So, when does the last mail flight get to The Ice?” Mom asks for the bazillionth time.
“End of March. Don’t send anything later than next week. I won’t get it till August.”
“And you’ll be there when?”
“Three days. I’ll call from the hotel. And then I’ll email. Okay?”
Hannah and Dad and Luke hug me, Mom clutches me once more, and then I have to get in line. I take off my shoes and pull out my phone and passport. Willa makes a last dash to put her arms around my legs.
I pry her arms apart. “I have to go,” I whisper. “I’ll bring you a penguin, okay? Willster?” She’s crying. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back. I promise. Okay? I promise.”
“Bring me a polar bear.”
I get on my knees and hold her tight. “No polar bears,” I whisper. “That’s the North Pole.”
North in the Arctic—a word derived from the Greek Arktos, meaning “bear.” So Antarctica means “no bears.”
An entire continent named for what it lacks.
I am nothing now. I am only what I lack.
No bears. No ballet.
Willa runs back to Hannah, who picks her up, and they wave and walk away.
I am going. To be in the dark and quiet. To be frozen. To Winter Over.