“Since always,” I say innocently.
“I thought you found my job confusing,” Ma points out, passing over a plate of fluffy round mantous still warm from the steamer.
“Yeah, well, that’s only because your company insists on describing itself as a ‘creative collaborator and leader’ that seeks to ‘influence culture and inspire’ and deliver on ‘key marketing project initiatives’ or whatever.” I shred half a mantou into bite-size pieces, the dough softening between my fingers. “Like, those are literally just words. But I understand whatyoudo. Sort of.”
Ma doesn’t look too convinced by this, but she sighs and explains, “Kevin got this huge investor to sign with us.”
“And that’s a problem because … ?”
“They only signed because he told them we were on great terms with that popular tech start-up SYS.” She grabs a mantou for herself and doesn’t eat it. Just watches it go cold beside the egg. “Except we’ve never evenspokento anyone from SYS before. We have no connections whatsoever.”
“Ah.” I nod slowly, shoving down a small bubble of hysteria at the obvious parallel between Kevin’s crisis and mine. “I do see how that might be challenging.” Then, hoping I don’t look overeager, I take a casual sip of my soybean milk and ask, “So, um, what’s the plan? Are you guys going to come clean, or—”
“God, no. Of course not.” Ma actually laughs, like the very idea is absurd. “No, we’ve been trying to get this investor on board for years. We’ll just have to work in reverse: reach out to SYS and forge a connection and act like we’ve been close all along. Maybe if we approached one oftheirmarketing teams first, or that guy from the Cartier campaign …” She gets this distant, almost-zealous gleam in her eye, the way she tends to whenever she’s puzzling out a work issue. Then she remembers who she’s talking to. “But lying is bad,” she adds hastily, shooting Emily and me a stern look.
“Noted,” I say, and swallow the last of my milk with some difficulty. The soybean pulp scratches my throat like sand.
When everyone’s finished eating, I help Ma clean up the table, and we head down to the driver’s car together, my phone burning a hole in my blazer pocket the whole way. I haven’t checked it properly since this morning, but the notifications keep coming in. By the time we’re dropped off at school, I have 472 unread messages and god knows how many Twitter mentions.
And then things get significantly weirder.
•••
I’m the first person to arrive to my math class, as usual.
Not because I’m particularly punctual by nature, or because I’m in any way enthusiastic about quadratic equations, but because there’s nowhere better to go. In the spare minutes before and between classes, people love gathering around lockers, blocking up halls, chatting and laughing so loud together the walls seem to tremble.
I tried hanging around once too, on my third day here, and it only made me feel ridiculous. Ridiculous and kind of sad, since I had no one to waitfor.I ended up just standing in the middle of the corridor, my bag gripped tight in my hands, praying for the school bell to hurry up and ring.
After that, I decided I might as well wait around in the classroom, books and pens out like I’m actually studying.
I’m pretending to look over my calc notes from the other day when I hear footsteps approach. Pause, right before my desk. Then—
“Hey, Eliza.”
I jerk my head up in surprise.
These two girls I’ve never spoken a word to in my life are smiling at me—positivelybeaming—as though we’re best friends. I don’t even know their names.
“Hi?” I reply. It comes out like a question.
They take this as an invitation to slide into the two empty seats beside me, still smiling so wide I can see all their pearly-white teeth. As one of them nudges the other, and a quick, meaningful look passes between them, I begin to have some idea of why they might be here.
“We read your essay,” the taller, tanner girl on the left blurts out, confirming my suspicions.
“Oh,” I say, unsure how else to respond. “Um, good. I’m glad.”
“I just—god, I loved it so much,” she continues brightly, in the manner of someone building to a big, emotional speech. “I was literally up all night reading it and—”
“It was socute,” the other girl chimes in, hand fluttering to her heart.
Okay. I definitely wasn’t expectingthis.Nor the small, involuntary smile tugging at my lips.
But soon they’re both gesturing wildly and talking at the same time, their voices growing louder and louder with excitement:
“My favorite part was the bit at the grocery store, oh my god—”
“I had no idea you were going out with someone! You’ve been so low-key about it—”
