The Fold (2 page)

“Stop it,” she whispered. Joyce finger combed more of her hair over her zit and forced herself to stand up. She would just buy another yearbook. There was nothing wrong with that. The plan would still work. It wasn’t a big deal. And yet, the negative thoughts lingered. Too many things going wrong. Maybe this wasn’t a good day to ask John to sign her yearbook? Joyce gulped back her reservations. No. This was it. There were no other chances. No such thing as bad omens, Joyce tried to convince herself.

Joyce slowly walked toward her English classroom, her eyes lasered onto a figure in the distance. John Ford Kang stood with his buddies two doors down the hall, their backpacks thrown in the middle of their circle. He towered over his blond surfer friends, his frame tall and muscular, unlike so many other stringbean Korean guys. But then, he was only half Korean and half something else. Dutch or German or something else, exotic, European. His mother had been a model, it was rumored. Joyce’s arms felt uncomfortably empty without the weight of her backpack on one shoulder. She crossed her arms in front of her, but then thought
they looked too weird that way. Would he look at her, she wondered, burying her hands in the front pockets of her jeans. Look at me, she whispered in her head. Look at me. Look at me. Her zit throbbed. No, don’t look at me.

He cut one hand through the air, his head bobbing to emphasize some point he was making. He was so close, Joyce had the urge to walk right over and touch his shoulder. Turn his perfect face toward her so she could gaze up into his eyes, which she had overheard other girls talking about as this amazing light shade of brown rimmed with green. She had never been that close to him, but she could imagine. And had imagined many days and nights as she thought about ways to talk to him. Thought about how to get him to fall in love with her.

“Come on, stalker.” Gina prodded Joyce to move along. “Where’s your backpack?”

Joyce blinked rapidly as though she had been staring at the sun too long and then smiled at her best friend. “Long story, but I can say one word. Helen.”

Gina groaned sympathetically and they linked arms before heading into their English classroom.

at
lunchtime, Gina and Joyce headed over to their usual bench under the eucalyptus tree in the central quad. Not many people ventured near the “death tree” as everyone called it because the eucalyptus shed its branches, twigs and bark on a regular basis, forming a ring of debris. But it also meant that the bench was empty at peak quad times when the “beautiful people” usually took their choice spots at the other benches. Gina and Joyce found that sitting close to the trunk reduced the number of things they had to pick out of their hair after watching their reality show that was Orangedale High at lunch.

Gina brushed off the bench before sitting down and then opened up her container of yogurt. She craned
her neck to see past the tall basketball players chatting up two of the cheerleaders.

“Oh, no,” Gina cried. “I can’t believe Bill Newsom is still talking to Jenny Perry after she hooked up with his best friend at prom. That is so sick. But then again, Jenny does look hot in that dress.”

Joyce smiled down at her friend, who was impeccably groomed as always. While Gina and Joyce were similarly dressed in jeans and T-shirts, Gina knew how to go that extra step, with a nice belt here and a silver necklace there, so that Gina looked put together whereas Joyce felt like she barely hung together.

Joyce glanced over at the group, but for once, she had no interest in what they were doing. She was too worried about what she had to do.

“I don’t care what Jenny’s wearing. I need another yearbook.”

Gina kept her eyes on the group and stirred her yogurt. “Joyce, you can’t just buy another yearbook.”

“Oh, right, I’m gonna go up to him and ask him to sign a piece of paper like some stalkerazzi.” Joyce peeled the wrapper off her candy bar and took a large bite. She savored the chocolate, letting it melt on her tongue. “I have ten bucks, so will you lend me forty? I have the money at home.”

“You are a stalker, don’t even try and deny. But come on, Joyce! Fifty dollars!” Gina pointed her spoon at Joyce. “Do you know what you can buy for fifty dollars?”

“Yeah. A new yearbook.”

Gina shook her head and lifted a tiny spoonful of yogurt to her lips. This had become their lunchtime routine. Gina pretending to eat her yogurt while Joyce ate her chocolate.

“You shouldn’t eat chocolate, you know. Gives you zits,” Gina said.

Joyce took another bite of the candy bar and then lifted back the hair covering her temple.

“Ahh!” Gina gasped. “What did you do to yourself?”

“This chocolate bar can’t give me zits. I already have one.”

“Sicko, that’s like smoking when you have lung cancer,” Gina said.

Joyce shrugged and popped the last bit of the chocolate bar into her mouth. Gina watched with envy. It had been almost three months since Gina had sworn off junk food, and to Joyce’s surprise, Gina had held firm, already losing five pounds, but none of it from her face, which was where she had hoped it would disappear.
After being called Moon Pie by one of her mom’s friends, Gina couldn’t stop obsessing about her large cheeks. Joyce thought Gina’s soft, round face made her look cute. Gina thought it made her look like a Japanese cartoon character. Sometimes, if Joyce was in a bad mood, Gina would pull a baseball cap over her hair and point into the distance saying with a bad Japanese accent, “Look! It’s Godzilla!”

Joyce and Gina had been best friends ever since Gina’s mom came to work at the Korean restaurant that Joyce’s family owned. Gina was short for Eugenia, a name Gina hated as much as Joyce hated her name, but at least Gina got a cool nickname out of the deal, whereas there was nothing Joyce could do to shorten her name to something respectable. Joy was about it, but it made Joyce worry that someone would break out singing a Christmas carol. For one week in the fourth grade, she had tried to get everyone to call her Joey, but then Jimmy Lee started saying it with a deep mafia accent, drawing out the
e
, and Joyce gave up being Joeeeeeey.

“A new swimsuit,” Gina said.

“What?” Joyce stood up to throw away her candy bar wrapper.

“Fifty bucks would buy you a new swimsuit for the summer.”
Gina grimaced and finally forced down a bite of yogurt.

“I don’t need a new swimsuit. I need a yearbook.” Joyce remained standing. “Are you coming or not?”

Gina looked down at her yogurt. With a sigh, she stood up and dumped the container in the trash. “Come on, stalker, let’s go to the bookstore. I need a granola bar anyway.”

They walked to a large building at the far end of the quad that housed the student government offices and the bookstore/snack shop that the organization ran for fund-raising. Gina and Joyce pushed their way past a sea of natural and artificial blond hair. The store was always packed, even though most of the people weren’t there to buy anything. At least not anything legal. It was just a place to go. A place to meet. A place to be seen.

Gina went to the side of the store where they sold snacks, and Joyce pushed her way past the bodies to the back register and stood in line. All along the walls there were framed pictures of past student government officers. Joyce tried not to glance up at the picture of Helen, the first and only Asian American female president of Orangedale. Even though Helen had graduated over a year ago, Joyce was reminded of Helen’s
legacy at every display case that housed medals and plaques.

Joyce turned her back on the picture of Helen as she waited for her turn in line and scanned the heads, looking for anyone dark haired. Anyone tall and dark haired with reportedly beautiful brown-green eyes.

“Hey, move up, it’s your turn,” a heavily muscled guy in a white T-shirt said.

Joyce turned back in line and stepped forward.

“I need a yearbook,” she said.

The student behind the counter turned around and reached into a full box and pulled out a silver and blue yearbook.

“Fifty,” he said drumming his fingers on the counter.

Joyce reached into her pocket and pulled out a ten. She looked over her shoulder for Gina, who was still standing in front of the snack display.

“Gina,” Joyce called, “I need the money.”

The muscle guy started to complain loudly. “Jesus Christ, would you get moving?”

Joyce started feeling anxious and yelled louder. “GINA!”

Gina waved her finger for one more second.

“Jesus, you Oriental bitches move as slow as you drive,” muscle guy muttered.

Joyce pretended not to hear and fidgeted with her hair, tucking it back behind her ears.

Gina finally tapped her shoulder and handed her one five and two twenty-dollar bills and a granola bar packet.

“Took you long enough,” muscle guy said.

Gina shot him an annoyed look.

Joyce quickly threw down the money and grabbed the yearbook. As the student behind the counter started to hand Joyce the change, she caught him staring at the side of her head. Joyce could feel the egg pulsing with attention. She quickly grabbed the change and ran out of the bookstore.

“Joyce, wait up,” Gina called.

Joyce cleared the crowd and finally stopped in the hallway. Gina caught up to her.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I hate this place,” Joyce said, staring down the empty hall, clutching the yearbook to her chest.

Gina pulled the edge of the yearbook down and grabbed the granola bar and her change from Joyce.

“What’s new?” Gina said, peeling open the wrapper of her granola bar. They started walking down the hall. “Come on. It’s the last day of school. You’re supposed to be happy.”

Joyce laughed bitterly. “Yeah, right. I just paid fifty dollars for a second yearbook and got called an Oriental bitch by that meathead in the bookstore. And then the guy behind the counter was staring at my zit. Did you see him?”

Gina stopped. “What did that jerk call you?”

“Us. He called us Oriental bitches who move as slow as we drive.”

Gina closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip. Then she opened her eyes and let loose. “That jock-grabbing, ass-scratching, meatheaded LOSER!” Gina turned around to go back to the store.

Joyce reached out and grabbed the back of Gina’s shirt. “Come on, Gina. What are you going to do? Beat him up?”

“No,” she said. “But I can call him some choice names and educate him. It’s ‘
Asian
bitch,’ dumb ass.”

“Yeah, and then what?”

“And then he’ll be enlightened and I’ll feel better.”

Joyce shook her head. “Forget it. You can’t educate a Neanderthal. And it’s the last day of school, remember?”

“I hate this school,” Gina said.

Joyce snorted and smiled. Gina smiled back.

“Come on, you slow-ass Asian bitch. I’ll walk you to your locker,” Gina said.

“Thanks, bitch,” Joyce said, and they began their slow-motion walk to their lockers.

Joyce stared at herself in the mirror hanging inside her locker. She kept brushing forward more hair to make sure the egg was covered. She didn’t want a repeat performance from it. Joyce turned to Gina.

“Do I look okay?”

Gina sat on the cement floor signing Joyce’s yearbook. “You look great,” she said without looking up.

Joyce checked herself one last time. This was it. Fifth period. Her last chance to really see the color of John Ford Kang’s eyes.

“Wish me luck,” Joyce said, taking a breath.

“Luck,” Gina said, still not looking up from the book.

Joyce scowled. “What are you doing? Stop writing in that. You better not be saying anything incriminating.”

Gina finished with a flourish of her signature. “Come on. You can’t give the guy an empty yearbook. He’ll think you saved the entire thing for him.”

Joyce felt anxiety creeping up on her again. “Oh, no, he’s going to think I don’t have any friends.” She grabbed the yearbook and opened it up to blank page after blank page. “Where did you sign?” Joyce asked in a panic.

Gina stood up laughing. “Joyce, it’s okay. Look, here’s my entry. And I made it really big.” Gina flipped to the back and showed her the page with the photograph of the orange tree that symbolized the school. “Just have him sign on that page.”

Joyce scanned the entry that started with the block letters
HEY, ASIAN BITCH
. Joyce looked up. “Gina!”

Gina was already down the hall, waving. The bell for fifth period sounded through the open-air hallways. Gina cupped her hands near her mouth and yelled, “You can do it!”

Joyce shut the yearbook. This was it.

they
had chemistry together. For this one whole school year, Joyce had been able to study John Ford Kang like the true specimen that he was. She knew every muscle twitch, every cadence of his laugh, every shirt that he owned. The only thing she hadn’t been able to do was muster up the nerve to stare him in the eyes. Just the idea of it made her want to bolt from the room screaming. Joyce could hardly focus on the instructions that Mr. Blevins was giving them about how to properly store the beakers and pipettes. Luckily, Lynn, her lab partner, was good about stuff like that. She glanced at Lynn, who was squinting in concentration.

There were a few dozen Asian students at the school, a half dozen in her year, and she had shared a class with
almost all of them, but she had never been partnered with one of them before. Lynn Song was the embodiment of the stereotypical Asian student. She wore thick glasses that made her already slim eyes look even narrower. Her stringy straight hair was cut into a harsh line straight across her back and hung in her face most of the time. Her radar for fashion was completely turned off, not to mention that she sported old-fashioned metal braces instead of the clear ceramic ones that weren’t nearly as offensive. Lynn was nice, but even Joyce found herself trying not to laugh sometimes when Lynn was being especially earnest about a question.

Lynn and Joyce cleaned up their set of beakers, working like the good team that they were. Joyce dried while Lynn scrubbed.