There Will Come a Time (2 page)

We wait, but nothing happens. There's no Mom or Steve checking to see who's breaking in. We tiptoe over to a large
wooden swing hanging from a huge oak toward the back of her yard.

I sit on the swing first, holding it still so Hanna can sit next to me. She's in her pj's: a pink shirt and sweatpants. She rolls the waist down to rest just below her hips. I'm supposed to act like I don't notice, but I do, every time. Just because we've grown up together doesn't mean I don't have a pulse. The white cord to her insulin pump, which she dubbed Pepe a couple of years ago, peeks out from underneath her shirt. She's always complaining about having to wear Pepe, how it ruins her style, but it's not like she has a choice. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was six, and she has to keep a close eye on her sugar level.

Years ago, her mom walked Grace and me through what to do if Pepe started beeping and we needed to help her. I basically have to make her drink something high in sugar, like orange juice—that stuff is loaded. It can be funny when Hanna's low because she acts kind of loopy and stubborn, but it can get scary real fast. She had a seizure two years ago and an ambulance had to take her to the hospital. I teased her about faking being sick so she could get attention when she came home, but I was worried about her.

I glide the swing slowly back and forth with my feet. Hers don't even touch the ground, so she pulls her legs up to her chest and hugs them with her arms.

“What are you looking forward to the most?” she asks.

I smile. She knows
How are you
s are banned from conversation, but she's always finding a way to ask without saying the words. I should mind, but I don't. I kind of like that she checks in on me. “Tonight?”

“No, senior year, stupid.”

“Graduating.” Not that I have any huge plans. I'm supposed to apply to music schools this fall. But I don't know if that's what I want anymore. I don't know anything anymore.

Hanna punches me softly in the arm. “I'm being serious.”

“So am I.”

“I'm looking forward to all the lasts.”

“The lasts?” I ask.

“Remember freshman year? When you started high school, there were all these firsts. This year, because it's all ending, there'll be all the lasts.”

I'm quiet, so she continues like she has to explain it to me.

“You know, the last time you attend an opening year assembly, the last time you have to take math, the last time you go to a football game, the last time you ditch class to go shopping with your best friend . . .” Her voice wobbles and trails off. She doesn't say Grace's name, but I know that's who she means. I stiffen next to her.

To say Hanna and I are different is an understatement. Half
the time I don't even try to pretend to understand her. She cries so easily, like at movies or when she hears about someone getting bad news or when she's frustrated. Never sit in rush-hour traffic with her when she's late.

She cried when she found out about Grace. She had come to the hospital and collapsed into her mom when Jenny told them. I watched her and felt nothing. I kind of envied her for making it look so easy. Hanna cried a few times and then it was over. It was as if all the painful stuff on the inside came out and she was fine. I didn't know how she could do that, how she could just let it go. I didn't cry when Grace died, still haven't. I kind of went numb. At the funeral, I stood there amid all the tears, but I couldn't do it. Everyone took my dry eyes as quiet stoicism.

If I feel anything, most of the time it's anger. Chris tried to get me to cry in his office, but all I could think about was how his widow's peak came to such a sharp point in the middle of his forehead. It looked like a perfect arrow to direct my fist.

I hope Hanna doesn't start crying now. I don't think I can take it.

Changing the subject, I ask, “Remember the first time we stayed up all night on this bench?” Though as soon as I say it, I kind of wish I could take it back.

“Yeah.”

“Eighth grade.” The year I got into the school for the arts. The year Hanna and I almost kissed.

“Dad moved out.”

I nod, waiting for it to hit.

“You tried to kiss me.” She says softly. She's looking at her toes. Her nails are some dark color.

“I
gave
you a consolation hug. You were the one who turned your face as I bent down. In fact, I could say
you
tried to kiss
me
.”

She laughs. “Oh man, that was embarrassing.”

“Yes, I was embarrassed for you,” I tease.

“Shut up,” she says.

I push us faster on the swing, suddenly a little embarrassed for bringing it up.

I wasn't embarrassed that night. I was confused. It was late and Hanna sent me a text about her dad and asked if I could come over. Normally she would have texted Grace, but Grace was in Long Beach visiting our mom. I wasn't interested in spending two weeks with Mom and her new husband. Grace said I was being stubborn, for not wanting to go, but I didn't care. In my opinion, Mom made her choice years ago when she left. I didn't see the need to facilitate the façade, but Grace, well, she was the more forgiving one of us.

So I ran over to Hanna's and she was waiting for me in the backyard on the bench. She looked so small and scared sitting
there. She was crying. I sat next to her and listened to her talk about her parents, about how she couldn't imagine life without her dad in the house.

My parents split up when Grace and I were seven. Mom left on a Friday after her nurse's shift at the hospital. I remember because we had plans to go camping that weekend, and Dad made Grace and me stay at Tita Christie's instead. We didn't understand what had happened. I still don't. All I know is that she left us.

Mom gave Dad full custody and eventually met this guy Will and moved about an hour away. Dad married Jenny a couple years after the divorce. The funny thing is that they both fell for someone white, not that I have anything against white people. They probably figured they'd tried marrying a Filipino first, and since that had been a mess, why not?

I could relate to Hanna's drama of screwed-up families. Most of the time our piecemeal family was cool. We did get Jenny out of the deal. When she first met us, Jenny brought me a CD of my favorite bass music and Grace some fancy colored pens. We liked her right away. At least I did. She knew about Edgar Meyer, an amazing bassist, and that gave her instant points. Later I found out that Dad had given Jenny the tip. Grace took a little longer to win over because I think she was still holding out for Mom to come home.

Sometimes it sucked. Mom and I still weren't on the best
of terms. But I always had Grace. I never had to go through it alone, not like Hanna. She was the only kid. She had all the pressure of dealing with the hurt and her parents on her own.

Hanna had a huge tear running down her face. I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay. No, I wanted to
make
everything okay for her. I reached out and wiped her cheek. I had never touched her that way.

“You'll be okay,” I said, looking into her eyes, which were swollen around the lids, but still glossy and beautiful. She looked into mine and I wanted to kiss her. She wanted me to, because she moved a little closer and her eyes started to close. I knew what I was supposed to do. But this was different from playing truth or dare with Jessica. I'd only wanted one thing from Jessica last year. This was Hanna. The same Hanna I had been friends with since the fifth grade. The Hanna whom I knew as well as I did my sister. Hanna, who made me feel nervous and safe at the same time.

I panicked. I hesitated too long and broke the mood, so I pretended like I was just going to give her a hug.

We sat there all night, not talking, me with my arm around her, even after it started cramping. That's when I got confused. I started to think I loved, or at least really liked, Hanna, because there was no one else I would sit up with all night long, not even Grace.

•  •  •  •

“I hope it's a good year,” Hanna says. “I really need a good year.”

“You'll have a great year,” I say.

“Of course.” She pauses and adds, “There's nothing to
fear
.”

I rest the back of my head on the bench. “Depends on what's near.”

“Or if it's all clear.”

Hanna and I play the game that she, Grace, and I started years ago. Grace was usually the best. She had an ear for rhyme. She'd write these amazing poems, so it really wasn't fair to play with her. It was never stacked in our favor.

Tonight I win because it's only Hanna and me now, and I'm the last one awake. I don't mind that her head has fallen on my shoulder. She smells like Hanna, a little bit of sweat and ivory soap. I put my arm around her and rock us slowly back and forth on the swing. It's almost morning, but I don't want to wake her. I want to stay here as long as possible. I listen to her steady breathing and watch the orange glow of dawn creep over us and cover the sky like a blanket.

T
he resonance of the electric bass hums against my body. It's taken an hour to get here, but now that I've worked out the notes on the page, I'm inside the music. This is where I feel the most clarity. I don't know many holy things, but I know this: Music is holy.

I've always had a thing for music. Dad calls it a gift. He started me on lessons when I was six and let me choose the instrument. I picked the bass because of its low and powerful sound. The bass sets the tempo and the feel. If a jazz band is a person, the bassist is the muscle. The drums are the skeleton. Guitars or keys are the limbs. Vocals add the facial gestures. At school, I alternate between upright and electric depending on the group I'm in.

I can't sing, though. Well, I can sing in a crowd, like “Happy Birthday” or to add a little backup, but I'm more comfortable behind an instrument. I have to take music theory at school, which does require some singing. Thankfully I'm not graded on the actual vocal quality, just that I know how to read the music.

I think I'm one of the few in class who actually enjoys the theory. It's like studying another language. Maybe I'm good at it because I know English and Tagalog. I'm not super-fluent in Tagalog, but I know more than just how to ask where the bathroom is. Any time I'm around the aunties, Dad's sisters, they make me practice with them. Tagalog is technically my first language, though I stopped speaking it outside the house in the first grade. It was hard enough when the other kids, mainly white because of the practically all-white suburb we used to live in, would see what Mom had packed Grace and me for lunch.

“
Longanisa
,” I would say, as if they'd never seen sausage before. It's awesome, even though it makes your breath stink. And you burp it up all day. So I started asking Mom for peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with the crust cut off, grapes, and a pack of chips.

After Dad married Jenny and we moved to Eagle Rock, which has a pretty good-size Filipino population, I still didn't speak Tagalog much. The aunties said I'd regret it when I got
older, but I figured I'd regret lots of things by then, so add it to the list.

But music is the perfect language because everyone can speak it. It's not hindered by words. There's no room for misinterpretation. There's only the essence, the emotion of what we communicate to each other. Take sadness or anger or even joy. We try to explain how we feel, but there aren't always the right words, or the words we have fail. But with music, you can hear a piece and say,
Yeah, that's it. That's exactly how I feel
. Especially jazz. I love how it can make you feel really laid-back or even sad, but not feel despair.

Today the music I'm playing is all minor chords.

I sense someone in front of me and open my eyes. Jenny smiles at me.

“What?” I say loudly before remembering to take off my headphones. “Sorry, Jenny.” I put the bass down next to its amp beside my bed.

“No problem. You hungry?”

“Yeah.”

She hands me a fork and a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon.

“It's cold,” I say, but eat it anyway.

“It's almost noon.” Translation:
Get your butt downstairs earlier for breakfast
. “You up late?” she asks, watching me eat,
leaning against my desk with her arms crossed in front of her. She's still got on her workout clothes—black leggings and a gray T-shirt—so it's probably been a slow morning. Jenny's in great shape, and works hard for it five mornings a week at the gym.

“Yeah,” I say with my mouth full of bread.

“Mmm-hmm.” She reaches out and touches my shirt. “Sleep in your clothes again? Didn't I buy you new pj's a week ago?”

She waits for me to answer, but I put some more food in my mouth. Jenny's not stupid. She cuts through the bull, but she's got a gentle touch. There's not much you can pull over her. I like that about her. You know exactly where you stand. This morning she's hovering between
I'm going to speak to your father
and
You can talk to me. I'm here for you
.

“Your dad left early. Someone called from the store.”

Dad works as a district manager for a chain of department stores. He's always being called into work. It's cool because I get free clothes all the time. But it keeps him pretty busy, especially the past few months.

“He'd like us to have dinner together. You have plans?”

“I was going to hang with Sebastian later. Maybe get some practice in.”

“I'm making chicken piccata.”

“Okay, yeah, that sounds good.” Jenny's best dishes are always
Italian, probably because that's her background. She's got tons of secret family recipes that she and her sisters fight over.