“Something to promote,” she clarifies with a laugh. “So? What are you thinking?”
And it’s silly, and beside the point, and completely unrealistic given the circumstances, but Idofind myself thinking about it, some of my initial giddiness from this morning bubbling back up inside me. I’ve always dreamed of having people read my writing—read it, and actually like it—and now, for the first time ever, I have a potential readership. I have afollowing.Maybe if I published more essays while people are still paying attention, I could … I don’t know. Jump-start a legitimate writing career. Make a name for myself. I could be a Writer, not just someone who writes.
But just as quickly as hope sprouts in my chest, I crush it back down.
People only want to hear more from me because they think my essay was real. They think I’m dating a good-looking boy who takes me out on spontaneous motorcycle rides around the city and once slow-danced with me in the middle of a grocery store aisle and texts me good night every evening before I fall asleep. They’re in love with my love story.
If I want to keep writing andcapitalize on my fame, as Stephanie says, I’ll have to keep lying.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “Maybe—”
The door swings open before I can give a vague response, and everyone snaps to attention at once.
Our math teacher, Ms. Sui, strides to the front of the classroom, an intimidating sheaf of worksheets balanced on one hand, a briefcase swinging from the other. She reminds me of the teachers at my old Chinese Saturday schools. Everything about her is sharp: her gaze, her voice, the cut of her pure white blazer. Her teaching style reminds me of them too.
She doesn’t greet us. She simply lets the worksheets drop to the desk with a menacing thud and calls on Stephanie to help pass them out.
We each get fifty double-sided pages of math questions printed in the tiniest of fonts, all due by tomorrow morning. This feels illegal. Someone makes a strangled noise that they quickly disguise as a cough.
Still, I’m almost grateful for the insane workload, for the focused silence that continues throughout the rest of class. I might be a good bullshitter, but I honestly don’t know how many more questions I could field without letting something slip.
•••
By the time lunch rolls around, I’ve spoken to more people in the past few hours than I have since I started school here. People keep coming up to me, calling for me in the busy corridors between classes, at the start of double English, even on my way to the bathroom—and now here, in the middle of the cafeteria line.
Someone taps my shoulder. “Hey, you’re the girl with the essay, right?”
This is my reputation now, I guess: not “The New Girl from America” but “The Girl with the Viral Essay.” I would consider it an upgrade if it weren’t for my overwhelming fear of becoming known as “The Girl Who Lied” in a few days or weeks. Depending on how long I can keep pretending.
I spin around and find a whole squad of girls and three guys gaping at me.
They look a few years younger than I am, maybe year nines or tens. Some of them haven’t even shed their baby fat yet, but the girls are all wearing heavy makeup and the guys have on copious amounts of hair gel in an attempt to look more Grown Up.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling a little despite myself. “Yes. That’s me.”
“See, Itold you,” one of the girls says to the guy behind her. The guy scowls. “She looks the exact same as her photo.”
I blink. “Uh, my photo? What photo?”
The same girl’s eyes widen while her friends titter. “Haven’t you seen it? It’s been going around everywhere—pretty flattering too,” she adds hastily, in a way that makes me suspect she’s lying. As we shuffle farther up the line, she fishes her phone out from her pocket and brandishes it in front of my face.
And I don’t know whether to cry or laugh.
In an article for some online teen magazine (titled “Why We’re All Swooning Over This Senior Student’s Love Story”),someone’s attached one of my old school photos from when I was still living in the States. It’s actually impressive, how they managed to find the worst possible photo of me. My hair’s been tied into a super-tight high ponytail that’s hidden behind my head, so I pretty much look bald, and my eyes are only half-open and watery from having just sneezed.
I’d begged the school photographer—almost bribed him—to let me retake it at the time, but he’d waved me away with a cheery “Don’t worry! Only your parents will see this anyway!”
Funny how that turned out.
“Wow,” I say. “This is just … great.”
“I know, right?” The girl beams, either missing my sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. “You’re, like, famous now.”
Famous.The word tastes funny, but not entirely in a bad way. There’s something inherentlycoolabout it, something flashy and shiny and desirable, all the things I never thought I could be. I just wish it were only my writing that was famous, and not me.
I make a noncommittal sound with the back of my throat and grab an empty tray. Try to focus on selecting my lunch. If there’s one thing Westbridge International does well, it’s the food. The school chefs serve actual three-course meals, and they change it up every day; we had pineapple fried rice and braised chicken and silk tofu earlier this week, then dim sum (complete with shrimp dumplings and fresh mango pudding and all) the day after.
Today, they’re serving up roujiamo—shredded pork belly and diced scallion sandwiched in crisp, golden pieces of bing.
