I drafted this novel about 20 years ago and recently unearthed and revised it in light of the renewed specter of anti-Asian hate in the United States. While one of its two main plots is a first-time romance, its other contains some dark themes, including racism, violence and suicide. So if you’re hoping for a lighthearted sexy romp, this isn’t the story you’re looking for. If you came here because you like other stories I’ve written, thank you! I hope you’ll like this one too. — Van
Copyright © 2021 to the author.
**
As usual, Luke had overslept. His mother didn’t try to hide her vexation with him as she shook him awake. As the boy stirred, a book slid off his bed and tumbled to the floor.
“Get up!” she said. “It’s the first day of school and you don’t want to be late.”
Luke opened his eyes and blinked at the blurry face above him. He groped for his glasses on the nightstand and put them on. His mother’s frown sharpened into focus.
“Huh?”
“First day of school,” she repeated. “Get up. You’re late.”
It took him a moment to comprehend her words. When they sank in, he sat straight up and stared at his mother in panic.
“Ohmygod!” he said. “I forgot.”
The lines between his mother’s eyebrows deepened.
“Watch your language,” she barked. “Now get up and take a shower and I’ll fix you something to eat on your way to school.”
She spun around on one tiny foot and stalked into the hallway.
“Such a lazy son,” he heard her say as her heels clacked down the stairs. “Why did God give me such a lazy boy?”
Years ago, such words would have, and did, hurt the sensitive boy. He never meant to irritate his parents, but seemed to have a special talent for doing just that. At the family’s restaurant in Queens, they had learned he had no skill at all with the cash register. He nearly sliced off a finger with a cleaver as a cook tried to teach him food prep. And last spring, the night before a gunman robbed his father of hundreds of dollars, he had dropped a tray on a family of five. He still cringed at the memory. The dishes had not broken, but the food had missed no one. His parents had had to replace the food, pay for their dry cleaning and apologize until the family left.
“He looks a little skinny to be hefting trays anyway,” the man had said, trying to help. The remark had reminded his mother of the strong, coordinated son who had died.
“Go to the kitchen,” she ordered as Luke bent forward to help dab the Kung Pao chicken from the woman’s blouse.
For the rest of the night, he had washed dishes, the one task he did well. He had done nothing since but wash dishes and fill rice boxes for takeout, at least until his parents sold their thriving restaurant to start again, here in Pennsylvania.
Luke turned on the shower and clambered in, clipping one foot on the edge of the tub as he often did. He winced, then put aside his thoughts of pain and restaurant failure to consider the coming day.
Those thoughts held equally little pleasure. At his last school, Luke had not fit in with the other kids. All he wanted was peace and freedom to read his books and write his stories. From the first day, other kids had taunted, teased and punched him when they could. They soaked his precious books in the toilet. A couple had stolen his lunch money. Only when his younger brother stepped in did he get any respite, and that never lasted.
As water sluiced down his body, Luke wondered why he and Mark had turned out so differently. Like John, Mark had no trouble taking care of himself — but then, Mark worked out and did martial arts, something Luke had tried exactly once and quit. He hated the kicks and punches, and couldn’t bring himself to hit anyone else. Besides that, his weak right leg made him a target, something the other kids in the class had figured out within two minutes.
But underneath his muscles, Mark had an inner toughness too, just like John. No one dared to call him names. And although he was smart, earned good grades and played in the band, no one called him a geek and a loser.
Luke sighed. He would never be as good as his brothers — the dead or the living.
He turned off the water, dried himself, and walked back to his room. He could hear his brother, sister and mother talking downstairs and that reminded him to hurry. He put on the first shirt and pants he found and slipped on socks and sneakers. He ran his fingers through his thick hair. It seemed damp, but it would dry on the way to school. When it came down to it, he didn’t really care how it looked anyway.
He clomped down the stairs and stepped into the kitchen in time to see Mark and Mary carry their plates to the sink. Too late for breakfast, he thought wistfully. Then his mother turned and held out a thick sandwich wrapped in a paper towel.
“Don’t be late,” she warned him as he took it from her. Then she surprised him by standing on her toes to kiss his cheek. He couldn’t remember the last time she had done that. She stood back and looked up at her eldest son.
“It’s your senior year. You have an opportunity to start over this year. Nobody knows you. I want you to promise to try hard. Be diligent and make your father and me proud of you.”
As he gaped at her, her face changed, just a little, and he saw in her eyes that she didn’t expect this year to be any different either.
“I will,” he said, trying to sound sincere. “I will.”
**
Mary’s middle school started later than the high school, so Mark and Luke left without her. Neither spoke as they strode down the sidewalk, Luke because the ham and bread in his mouth prevented speech and Mark because he normally said nothing if he had nothing to say. The people who saw them figured Mark for the older boy. His muscular body contrasted sharply with Luke’s skinny, shorter frame. Mark walked with the easy confidence of an athlete, while Luke hunched his shoulders and stared at the ground, almost as if apologizing for his existence.
In the last couple of years, Mark had tried a few times to coach Luke on how to walk and stand so that bullies would not single him out as a target, but Luke seemed to slide naturally and inevitably into a slouch the second he left the house.
“People won’t respect you if you hunch over like Igor in Frankenstein,” Mark had said during their last such session. “You’ve got to look like someone not to mess with, and that means not wandering around in a daze all the time. You walk like a tourist, not a New Yorker. And you’re too skinny. Why don’t you work out with me and put some muscle on your bones? I could use a workout partner.”
The thought of spending more than two seconds in a sweaty, smelly weight room had filled Luke with horror, and he had glanced down at his leg.
“Don’t even start with me about that,” Mark had snapped. “Three months of working out with me and it would be just as strong as the other one.” He shook his head. “I just don’t get it. Why do you want to look like a victim?”
“It shouldn’t matter what I look like,” Luke had argued. “People should respect my rights anyway.”
Mark had shaken his head.
“You just don’t get it. Sometimes you have to make people respect you. My teacher always says bullies look for weaker people to pick on because making someone else feel bad makes them feel better. Or they just want to take out their anger on someone who won’t fight back. Remember that kid who used to beat you up on the playground?”
Luke had nodded. It had happened the year after John had died, and Luke had just returned to school after months of painful rehab, joining Mark’s class at school and feeling like a failure. That boy, Mike Bartlett, had zeroed in on Luke and made his life a miserable hell until the bully had stopped showing up for school. No one ever heard what happened to Mike, but some of his classmates had whispered that the cops had come and arrested Mike’s father for beating up the whole family, and the county had taken the kids and put them into foster homes. But even the memory of the humiliations he had endured at Mike’s hands did not change Luke’s mind.
“It shouldn’t matter what I look like,” he’d repeated, glancing down at his latest pick from the public library.
Each attempt Mark had made had ended like that, with Luke picking up a book and shutting out his brother and the world. He appreciated what Mark wanted to do for him, but Luke knew it would never work. He was destined to be a target.
Chewing the sandwich and wishing he had a drink, Luke thought about the book he had stayed up late reading the night before. During his Saturday trip to the library, he had stumbled across a series of fantasy novels that had completely hooked his imagination. Oblivious to the neat rowhouses and lush green park around him, Luke wondered what it would feel like to have a telepathic link to a powerful creature that loved only him, or to be able to leap on the back of a dragon and fly away from everything.
He came out of his daydream when Mark grabbed his arm. He blinked to find himself in front of White Rose High School. Despite the colorful banner welcoming the classes of 1992 through ’95, the cinderblock and concrete building reminded him of a prison. He wondered idly if anyone ever escaped alive. He heard Mark say something and turned to him.
“Huh?”
Mark frowned.
“Come back to the planet with the rest of us,” he said. “Now look. Mom’s right. This is a chance to reinvent yourself. Nobody here knows anything about you. You have a chance to make friends and leave New York behind.”
He paused.
“So don’t blow it.”
He turned and disappeared into the crowd of laughing, chattering students. Luke fought back a surge of panic. This was it. He lifted his head to see the school’s front doors and the kids passing through them. He swallowed, then took a deep breath, unconsciously hunched his shoulders and took his first step into the unknown.
He immediately smacked into someone.
“Hey! Watch it,” an unfriendly voice said. Luke turned his head and found himself the object of a cold glare. He shrank back.
“Sorry,” he said faintly.
The tall husky blond boy added a sneer to his stare.
“Yeah, you are sorry.” He gave Luke a once-over, as if it to memorize his face and form. Then he stepped away and lost himself in the sea of students.
Luke’s heart pounded. He felt the blood rush to his face. He felt like a small bird that had narrowly escaped a cobra. Mark wouldn’t have handled that blond, freckly ape that way, he thought miserably. Mark would have stood up for himself.
His eyes shining with tears, Luke hurried through the front doors, hoping nobody would look at his face. Already he felt the year was a hopeless cause.
**
As the other students swirled around her, Melina Taylor looked at the large block building before her and wondered why unfamiliar schools always seemed so cold. As an Army kid, she had attended more schools than she could count on one hand. No matter where her family went — Texas, North Carolina, Germany, Alaska, Japan, Maryland and now Pennsylvania — the schools all had the same forbidding look.
She listened to the other kids shouting hellos at friends they hadn’t seen since June. Chatter about who had which class and who had broken up flowed around her. She clutched at her notebook. She hated this day, hated her alien status, hated her father for putting her through this every couple of years. It was so unfair. Other kids didn’t have to leave their friends and start over at new schools practically every September.
She sighed and stepped forward, joining the river of kids pouring through the school’s front doors.
Well, at least she’d had a chance to walk around the school this time, she thought, her sense of fairness asserting itself. She turned right and bumped into another kid. She muttered an apology. The boy shrugged. Both turned to walk up the stairs to homeroom.
She trudged through the double doors and looked up to the staircase landing. Yes! She saw the mural of a knight clutching a white rose and felt a tinge of triumph. Yesterday, after registering for classes, she’d taken a few minutes before her band tryout to do a trial run of how to get to her classes. She remembered the mural. She relaxed, just a bit.
Noise echoed in the stairwell. Above and below her, kids laughed and gossiped. She wished she could join them.
At the head of the stairs, she passed through another set of double doors and swung to her right. From the corner of her eye, Melina noticed the guy she’d bumped still behind her. He wasn’t smiling or talking to anyone either. Maybe he had just moved here too.
Walking slowly, she scanned the numbers above the doors, searching for her homeroom. There it was — two-seventeen. She snaked through the oncoming kids and into Mrs. Cowden’s classroom, the boy right behind her.
“Good morning,” the teacher said. Both teens walked to her desk. The woman looked up at Melina. “What’s your name, please?”
“Melina Taylor.”
“Taylor, Taylor,” the woman said, sliding an index finger down a list of names on a computer printout. Near the middle, she stopped, picked up a pencil and made a check next to Melina’s name. She glanced at the boy.
“And what’s your name, please?”
“Mark Tang,” he said, pronouncing it “tong.”
“Tong,” the teacher repeated, again running a slender finger down the list. She came to the final name and frowned. Mark saw her expression and spelled his name for her. The woman’s face lightened as she checked off his name.
“Oh. Mark Tang.”
“It looks like the drink, but it’s pronounced like the forceps,” he said, correcting her.
Mrs. Cowden laughed.
“Mark ‘Forceps’ Tang,” she said, pronouncing it correctly this time.
The boy grinned back. Mrs. Cowden had a nice smile. He thought it made her look smart and friendly at the same time.
“Well,” she said briskly, noting three more students walk in, “go ahead and take any seat for now. After I take roll, I’ll assign seats alphabetically.
“In fact,” she added, glancing again at the list, “it looks as though Mark will be sitting in front of you, Melina, unless someone with a last name between Tang and Taylor joins the class unexpectedly.”
She directed her gaze at the students behind Mark and Melina, and they pivoted to face the students already seated.
At the back of the room sat a clump of kids — two girls in cheerleader uniforms and three boys in football jerseys, all deep in conversation. Along the far wall sat a girl with braids, engrossed in a book. Kids staring outside filled the window seats. Melina saw a group of empty desks and set her notebook on one near the back of the room. If she had learned anything in all the schools she had attended, it was not to choose a seat too near the front. That looked eager, and therefore uncool.
Mark swung into the seat in front of her and turned to face her.
“Might as well get used to it,” he said with a smile. “Are you new too?”
“Yeah. Where are you from?”
“New York. How about you?”
“Gaithersburg, Maryland. Outside of D.C., to the north,” she added, noticing the blank look on his face. “We just got here last week.”
“Lucky you. At least you got to spend the summer with your friends. We moved in June.”
He softly drummed the fingers of his left hand on her desk. Melina noticed small muscles in his forearm, near the elbow, rippling rhythmically. Mark in no way matched the bulk and size of the football players behind them, but she had a feeling he spent plenty of time at the gym.
The bell rang. Mark turned around to face the teacher, giving the room a quick scan as he did. Seeing no other Asian faces, he sighed. Mark, he told himself, it’s official: you’re not in New York anymore. Meanwhile, Mrs. Cowden walked to the door and leaned out, craning her head to spot any stragglers. No one seemed headed in her room’s direction, so she closed the door and walked to the front of the classroom, her full skirt swirling about her legs.
“Good morning. I am Mrs. Cowden, your homeroom teacher. I teach American history. Now, everyone get your things and come up to the front of the room. It’s time for that timeless ritual of alphabetical seating I’m sure you all know and love by now.”
The students picked up their notebooks and shuffled to the front of the room. The teacher returned to her desk and picked up a thick notebook.
“David Abbott.”
As the students moved to their seats, Melina studied them with interest. The cheerleaders and football players didn’t particularly interest her, but some of the other kids did. A stunning blonde stepped forward after Mrs. Cowden called out “Darcy Fitzwilliam,” but only one of the other kids seemed to notice, a dark-haired girl who sniggered. Melina frowned. Normally you could count on a couple of boys to react to a girl that beautiful, but silence reigned as Darcy sat down quietly. Well, maybe she was new too.
Melina tuned out, knowing there was no point in listening until the teacher reached names beginning with “S.” She wondered what her sister was doing at that moment in college. This would be her first morning of classes, too. Melina considered the last time she had seen Julie, in her dorm room, surrounded by boxes, looking for places to put things. Melina sighed. She’d be a freshman herself in only a couple of years. She tried to picture herself in a dorm room, but her imagination refused to cooperate, and her thoughts returned to Julie. She was probably showering after a run, or maybe eating breakfast, Melina decided.
“Ann Smith, take the first seat in the next row,” Mrs. Cowden called, and Melina’s attention returned to the classroom. One of the majorettes stepped forward to take a seat in the next-to-last row.
“Jasmine Smith.” A pale, heavy girl took the seat behind Ann, who rolled her eyes at the two football players still waiting for a seat.
“David Steele.” One player sauntered to the desk behind Jasmine.
“Bryan Steuben.”
“Benjamin Strine.”
“Mark Tang, take the first desk in the next row.”
“Melina Taylor.”
“Lakeesha Thompson.”
“James Wilson, and I think that’s everybody,” Mrs. Cowden said, passing out cards for the students to fill in with their names, addresses, next of kin and hospital preferences, in case of emergency. All the kids were restless by the time they finished.
“Easily the most boring task of the year,” Mrs. Cowden said she collected the cards. “American history is much more interesting.”
Somebody groaned and Mrs. Cowden looked around, trying to identify the culprit. A sea of innocent faces stared back at her. She decided to ignore it and move on.
“Much more interesting,” she repeated. “But we don’t have to go into that now. For those of you who are new to White Rose High, I’ll summarize how homeroom works. It’s a fifteen-minute period at the start of each morning. I take roll and send someone to the office with the roll sheet to turn it in, as attendance taking has not yet entered the computer age here. On a normal day, this process takes about five minutes. Five minutes into homeroom, morning announcements are read over the public address system. With any luck, roll call and announcements take no longer than this period. Usually, we wind up with a few extra minutes, which you can use to study or frantically do homework you forgot the night before, or daydream, or even talk quietly.”
A ripple of mutterings greeted the last point. Mrs. Cowden grinned.
“Yes, you can talk. Quietly. As long as you keep the decibels down, I’ll allow it. If you start abusing the privilege, you lose it. Understand?”
Twenty-nine heads bobbed. A tone sounded for the public address system.
First-day announcements sounded pretty much the same everywhere, Melina thought. The welcome by the principal. Details of the first day’s Pep Rally. Where to sign up for clubs and groups. Et cetera. The familiarity reassured her, even it was kind of dull.
She stared at Mark’s back for entertainment. He definitely worked out, she thought, watching his shoulders move slightly under his shirt. His hair, almost a blue-black, looked thick and straight. It fell into a neat line halfway down his tanned neck. She wished she had gotten a better look at his legs. She couldn’t see them from where she sat. Behind her, Lakeesha leaned forward and said softly, “Cute.”
Melina shot a quick look at Mrs. Cowden writing in her book. Melina turned, grinned at Lakeesha and said, equally softly, “Very.”
The girl smiled back and Melina felt the year might have some promise after all.
**
The cheerful cacophony of musicians warming up greeted Melina as she opened the door to the band room for fourth period. She crossed the large main room to the smaller instrument closet, wondering what had possessed the school to choose such a hideous shade of brown for the carpet. Maybe it didn’t show stains, but what was the use of that if it was so ugly anyway?
She could barely push her way into the small chamber. She edged through the kids assembling saxophones, trombones and other large instruments and slid her trumpet’s case off its shelf. When she spun around, her case nearly hit someone putting together a sax, his back to her. She started to apologize, then realized he had no idea she had almost hit him and shut her mouth. It occurred to her then that she had seen the back of this particular head before.
“Mark?” she said, incredulous to find him in the band room. He hadn’t struck her as the musical type, somehow. He turned and smiled.
“Hey! You’re in band too? What do you play?”
“Trumpet,” she said, holding up the case as proof. She nodded towards the saxophone. “Tenor or alto? I can never tell the difference.”
“Tenor,” Mark said, sliding a wooden reed onto the black mouthpiece and tightening the metal ligature around it to hold it in place. He carefully fitted a short, curved tube to the saxophone’s body, then slipped the mouthpiece onto the end of the curved piece of metal. Attaching the instrument to a wide strap around his neck, Mark closed and latched the case and slid it into a large slot. He turned to Melina and tapped the instrument’s curved neck.
“You can tell by this curve. An alto’s neck is straight.”
She nodded. A bell rang and kids streamed out of the closet into the main band room.
“We’d better go,” she said, moving to join the others. “I still need to get my trumpet ready.”
Mark followed the girl into the big room and up the four shallow stairs that led to the practice tiers. She certainly had a nice back. Not every girl could carry off that shade of green, but it enhanced her wide green eyes. Mark noticed details like that; his mother often commented, in Mandarin of course, on female customers’ taste — or lack of it — and he always had to make some sort of response or suffer a scolding for not listening. Thank goodness Mary was old enough to handle money now, and he seldom had to work the cash register anymore. He loved his mother, but she drove him crazy with her detailed critiques. Mark kept an eye on Melina as she joined the other trumpets. She carried her case, and herself for that matter, with grace. His martial arts teacher would approve.
He stepped down to the second tier and sat beside the first chair tenor sax player, who made a show of reading through her music and ignoring him. Mark didn’t mind. He had more important things to do than waste time trying to win her over.
He flipped through the pre-game music. “White Rose March.” The school song, “Rose Warriors.” Something called “The Horse,” and “We Are the Champions,” an old rock and roll song that had lost something vital in the translation to a marching band arrangement. He had practiced all faithfully since band camp in early August. Not that he really needed to — the parts for tenor sax involved rhythm lines rather than melody, and he could play ninety-six bars of dotted quarter and eighth notes in his sleep. To warm up, he quietly fingered some more difficult passages from a Bach two-part invention he had memorized, then ran through a chromatic scale rapidly and with precision. He did not glance up to see if the first chair — was it Suzanne or Susan? He couldn’t recall — noticed his proficiency. That would have given away the game.
Behind him, Melina slid into her seat beside the other second trumpets. Ms. Shaffer had told her yesterday she would probably make first trumpet after marching season, but for now, Melina would take first chair among the seconds. The band director, who spoke and moved like a living version of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” had told the girl she needed a strong player on second. In fact, she had worried a bit about the balance between the firsts and seconds, but now that she had Melina, she felt better about it. And would Melina please keep that last comment to herself? No need to undermine the others’ confidence. Oh, did she think she could learn all the music in a week? After flipping through the music, Melina had nodded. A couple of songs had a tricky run or two, but otherwise the music looked basic enough. She had kept that observation to herself, too.
Today, Melina swiftly assembled her instrument, testing the slides and valves to see that they worked properly. She had time to run through a couple of passages that looked potentially troublesome before Ms. Shaffer waved the band silent. The director flipped on the electronic tuner and began the tedious process of tuning nearly seventy instruments.
“Who are you?” the boy to her right asked.
“Melina Taylor. I just moved here last week.”
“I was supposed to be first chair,” he said resentfully.
Melina didn’t know what to say to him. She couldn’t exactly apologize for being better, so she shrugged and said nothing. The guy on her other side must have heard, for he turned to her with a brilliant smile.
“Hi. I’m Pete. You must be new.”
She returned his smile with gratitude.
“Yeah. I’m Melina. My family just moved here from Maryland.”
Desperate to keep the conversation going, she flipped her music to a song that had a strange-sounding run.
“What’s your part in this? Mine sounds weird.”
“It’s a harmony part,” the first boy said derisively. “Can’t you tell that? Geez!”
“She wasn’t talking to you, Ron,” Pete said, leaning forward to see around Melina. “So butt out.”
Pete leaned back, thumbing through the miniature music pages until he found the right one. He scanned the bars and put his fingers under the ones in question. Melina put her music next to his and they compared the two.
“It is harmonic, but in fourths,” Pete said. “That’s why it sounds funny. We’re used to hearing thirds or fifths.”
Melina gave Pete a closer look. He sounded casual and confident.
“Have you taken music theory?”
“God, yes,” he replied, smiling. “My life is music theory. My mother teaches music and performs in a quartet and Dad plays bass in a swing band. I couldn’t avoid music theory if I wanted to. Mom started me on the piano when I was five.”
“Really?”
“Yep. She thinks kids should start playing music when they’re young.”
“So how many instruments do you play then?”
“Besides trumpet and piano, guitar — I play that in jazz ensemble — flute and sax, ’cause they’re very similar, and anything else with valves — French horn, baritone, tuba. But trumpet and guitar are the only ones that sound any good. I just like to dabble with the others.”
He sounded matter-of-fact, as if anyone could learn to play eight instruments. Melina was impressed.
The first chair trumpet sounded a clear, mellow “C.” The entire section quickly tuned one by one. Melina had nice, clear tone, Mark thought.
“A few cents flat, Melissa,” Ms. Shaffer said.
Melina said nothing. Teachers called her Melissa all the time. They had way too much to do today for her to correct the director now. She’d mention it on her way out.
Making the necessary adjustment, Melina tried again. Perfect. Next to her, Ron sounded terribly sharp. Melina smiled to herself as a couple of people turned around to see who was so off-key.
Once tuned, the band played the entire pre-game show without stopping. After that, Ms. Shaffer had them play each song again, this time halting the group frequently to adjust balance, correct mistakes and fix all the other little things that go wrong when sixty-eight amateurs play together for the first time in several weeks. Ms. Shaffer appeared drained by the end of the session, but Melina felt energized. Ms. Shaffer knew her stuff. It would be a good band. The tone signaling the start of the fourth, and final, lunch period sounded, the musicians’ cue to hurry or be last in line.
Melina didn’t hurry to pack up. Seeing her, Ms. Shaffer hurried over.
“Melissa…”
“Melina.”
“Oh. Sorry. It usually takes me a few days to learn all the names. Anyway, do you have a few minutes to get a uniform? I completely forgot about it when you came in last week. There aren’t many left, so you’d better pick one now, while you still have a slim chance of finding one that doesn’t make you look like an overgrown bellhop or a toddler wearing her daddy’s usher uniform.”
Melina laughed.
“I’ll be right there.”
She slid her trumpet case into its slot and followed Ms. Shaffer to the uniform room. The director compared the three available suits to Melina and shook her head.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “It’s worse than I thought.”
She picked up the first uniform and read from its label.
“This one’s for someone six-foot-four and one hundred ninety pounds.”
She peered at the next one.
“This one’s for someone five-foot-eleven and two hundred thirty pounds. Probably a sousaphone player. And this last one was made for someone five-foot-four and one hundred seventy pounds.”
The director plucked the last one from the rack and handed it to the girl.
“You’re not supposed to alter the uniforms, dear, but if you were to stitch a couple of tucks into that waistband, ones that could easily be ripped out later, I’d never know unless you told me. So here you are. At least it won’t constrict your movements in any way. Just let me write down its number in the book here. You can leave it here and pick it up after school.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later then.”
But Ms. Shaffer had already trotted back to her office. The day never was long enough, was it? And she was starved.
Melina left, pondering her new red uniform. It practically glowed in the dark. Well, at least people would be able to see them. Assuming the color didn’t blind them, of course.
**
Luke’s day had not improved much. At his parents’ insistence, he had signed up for pre-calculus. He had understood almost nothing the teacher had said after introducing herself. Chemistry looked equally bad. English and German classes seemed tolerable, even if he was the only senior in German II. History definitely looked interesting.
“Luke Tang?” the teacher had said, pronouncing his last name correctly. Luke had nodded. “Do you have a brother named Mark?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Ah. He has me for homeroom.”
Luke couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just bobbed his head again. Mrs. Cowden had smiled at him before continuing assigning seats. Flipping through the textbook later, Luke noticed an entire chapter on Chinese and Japanese immigration. That surprised him. In his experience, history book writers acted as though Europeans and Africans were the only people who had come to America from anywhere else.
Phys ed, as always, was a taste of hell. He felt awkward and stupid in the echoing gym. He hated the appraising glances the coach and the other kids had given him when he trudged out of the locker room. He knew the routine: they would look him over from head to toe, taking in his skinny arms and knobby knees. Depending on the appraiser’s level of niceness, he would then get a shake of the head or a sneer. Today, he felt like a side of beef condemned by a team of meat inspectors.
After the final bell, Luke left the building with an overwhelming sense of relief. The school year had only one hundred seventy-nine more days. He couldn’t wait for them to be over.
He had just crossed the street into the park when he saw the blond boy he had bumped into that morning. Luke quickened his pace, hoping the other kid had not seen him. The blond sped up, intercepting Luke and blocking his path.
“Where ya going?” he asked casually.
“Home.”
Luke’s heart thudded against his ribs. He yearned to run away from this grinning goon, but knew he couldn’t hope to outdistance him. The boy folded his arms across his broad chest. His smile deepened.
“Where’s home?”
“That way.” Luke pointed to his left, away from where he actually lived.
“No it isn’t, you lying sack of shit,” the blond said. Luke held his breath. How could this kid know he was lying? His muscles stiffened until he could not have escaped if he wanted to. The boy took a step toward Luke.
“Why don’t you go back where you came from?”
Luke said nothing. He flicked a glance at the boy’s solid arms and clenched fists. He felt dizzy. He opened his mouth to breathe.
The blond boy took another step, then another. Luke’s eyes locked onto the boy’s face. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
“I said, why don’t you go back where you came from, you little slant-eyed chink?”
Luke’s breathing became ragged and shallow, as if he had just raced up a couple of flights of stairs. This kid outweighed him by at sixty or seventy pounds. He looked exactly like a Nazi stormtrooper.
Both jumped when a car horn sounded nearby.
“Hey, Jeff!” a girl shouted. Both boys swiveled their heads to see a girl with long dark hair leaning from a car’s rear window. She waved. “Come here!”
Jeff’s eyes returned to his trembling victim. He felt satisfied at what he had achieved. The kid looked petrified. He had been right to trust his instinct. He intended to enjoy this to the fullest. It would be a very good year.
“You’ll see me again, you little chink. I promise.”
He spun around and swaggered to the car. Unable to use his legs, Luke watched Jeff laugh with the girl, then open the car door and join her in the back seat. Only after the car sped away did Luke begin to relax.
He sank to the ground, dropping his books and covering his face with his hands.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Luke would be lucky to survive the year.