Chapter 27 - I'll Be a Home for You

Chapter 27

HOW IS EVERYONE FINDING OUT TODAY?

JJ

The next day, I pick up Aang on my way to school. I park and text him to say that I’ve arrived, then giggle at the messages he sent me yesterday before bed. Good night. And a follow-up. Sleep well. And a follow-up. See you tomorrow. And a follow-up. I’m counting down the minutes. And a follow-up. Did I say good night?

My screen fills with an incoming call from my mom. I pick up. “Cześć, mama!” I chirp.

“Cześć …” My mom’s voice is immediately suspicious. “You seem very happy about something. Or someone.”

An alarm blares in my head. Having Eastern European–African–immigrant parents is a very dangerous triple combo and they, of course, have set rules about their only daughter not being able to date without screening and approving of potential suitors.

“Oh, just excited to get to school. I can’t wait for biology!” I speak in Polish as well. “Why are you calling?”

“You know how we were supposed to be making the palm tomorrow?”

“Yes?” Did she change her mind? Do I no longer have to celebrate Palm Sunday?

“I won’t be able to leave work early. Could you come to the hospital with the supplies? We’ll make it in the breakroom between my operations.”

I groan internally, but that’s not a battle I’m winning. “Okay, I’ll be there tomorrow after school.”

“Dziękuję!”25 She sounds like she’s typing on her keyboard. “Also, I’m checking the plane tickets to Poland, and they’re a good price. We should buy them tomorrow.”

I clench my teeth. “I haven’t made any decisions about Poland.”

“But Babcia really wants you to come and—” A pager rings in the background, and I know I’ve been saved from this conversation. “I have to go. We’ll talk later.” She hangs up.

I drop my head against the steering wheel. My eyes prickle, and tendrils snake around my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. Just relax. One, three, five, seven. One, three, five, seven.

The door to Aang’s house opens, and I perk up my head. He’s stepping through the threshold with such a massive grin that he makes breathing effortless again.

“Morning!” He jumps into the car.

“Morni—” I get cut off when he leans over and gives me a peck on the lips. “Oh.”

“Oh no.” His smile fades. “I’ve made this awkward. I’ve been dying to kiss you since yesterday, but shouldn’t have assumed—”

I grab his face and collide my mouth with his. Our teeth clack together on impact. I don’t care. He doesn’t care. He angles his head, and his hand slides to the back of my neck. The cold metal of his watch makes my hair stand up. I clutch his winter coat to bring him closer. He shifts off his seat, bracing one hand against my headrest to keep from crushing me as he sinks into me. I unzip his coat and put my hands on his chest.

A sharp rap on the passenger window sends us springing apart. Aang’s head hits the roof of the car. “Shit!” he hisses.

I look around him.

Oh god. His dad is staring at us.

I fumble for the window control, and the glass whirs down. Aang moves back to his seat, massaging the back of his head. He refuses to make eye contact with his father.

I clear my throat. “Good morning.” My cheeks are reaching temperatures I didn’t know were humanly possible.

“Hello, JJ.” His face is blank. “You were parked here for ages, so I thought I’d come see if everything was okay.” Aang slowly closes his eyes, and his dad’s face cracks into a smile. “Well, have a safe journey to school.” He taps the door. “Wait till your mother hears about this.”

When he walks away, Aang buries his face in his hands. “I’m never going home again.”

I start the car and speed away.

I didn’t want it revealed like that. Remy knows. Now Aang’s dad knows, which means his mom will find out at any moment. I didn’t want everyone to get involved before we figured things out ourselves. Are we friends who kiss each other? Dating? In a relationship? And he’s going to get asked these questions by his parents the second he sets foot in his house.

I should have just left the greeting at the peck.

When we hit the first red light, I keep looking straight ahead. “I’m sorry about that.” I drum my fingers against the gearshift. “Your dad … And you will get interrogated later …”

“Do you need to have your hand on the gearshift now?”

“What?” I turn to him. “How is that relevant? Also, your car knowledge is abysmal.”

“Answer the question.”

“No, I don’t have to have my hand on the gearshift.”

“Good.” He takes my hand and presses it against his cheek. “The interrogation will be worth it.”

A car honks, and I jump in my seat. The light turned green. Aang puts my hand back on the stick. Another honk. I shift into first gear and drive through the intersection. From the corner of my eye, I see his mouth grow into a lazy smile while my heart is pounding wildly in my chest.

“You sure you’ve never dated anyone before?” I ask. “You seem … competent.”

“You don’t know how many times Remy gave me a lecture on Southern gentleman behavior. I was forced to take notes. Maybe I reviewed them yesterday evening.”

Well, if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s taking notes.

He leans against the passenger door, facing me. “You want that, or something else? I’m open to feedback.”

Heat flushes over my chest as I try to process the words. “Oh.” I take off my scrunchie, letting my curls create a curtain between him and me. “I … um …” I put the tie on my wrist. “Sorry. I-I need to focus on driving.”

“Understandable.” He nods. “I’ll go out on a limb and say you want that. Feel free to correct me whenever.”

I think I’m getting a fever.

When we stop at the next light, he leans over and takes the scrunchie off my wrist and puts it on his. The neon-pink satin stands out against his black watch.

I’m getting tachycardia, my heart is thumping so fast. I concentrate on a piece of snagged thread on the sleeve of his coat. I can’t look at his face, or I’ll do something stupid. Like get rid of my seat belt, climb onto his lap, and kiss him in the middle of an intersection.

Five breaths later, I manage to say, “That’s theft.”

“And I’m having so much fun committing it.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun.” My voice is faint.

“I’ve fantasized about this for two years and six months. I have so much fun in store for you.”

Between second and third period, he stops by my locker to squeeze my hand. During fourth period, he texts me to ask if I want to grab hot chocolate after cheer practice and before he goes to Chinese school. He hates hot chocolate. Too much sugar. At lunch, he hooks his leg around mine under the table. During the first water break of cheerleading practice, Monique comes up to us and says that we need to cut it out.

“Cut what out?” I blink.

She rolls her eyes as Bryn appears next to her. “Something clearly happened here.” Monique points between Aang and me. “You’re lucky Coach is preoccupied with Alexis’s basket and she hasn’t noticed the flirting yet. But Bryn and I can feel the tension from the other side of the mat. I can’t imagine how much your stunt group is suffering.”

“Stop it.” Bryn elbows her. “It’s young love.”

Monique prays to the ceiling. “May God be my witness that it never finds me.”

I groan. Is everyone going to find out today?

Aang contains a giggle. I’ve never seen him giggle before. I like how his lips purse, trying to stop it from coming out.

“JJ, really.” Monique pats me on the cheek. “Nationals are five weeks away. Get it together.”

I refocus on her frowning face and am reminded of how we became friends in the first place. During our sophomore year, we both showed up an hour early for the tryouts to practice tumbling. We stayed an hour after to perfect the dance we were taught during tryouts, even though it was never used again. The next day, we were creating “win Nationals” battle plans.

I step away from Aang. “Monique’s right.”

She sighs loudly, mouthing thank you to the ceiling. I look up at Aang, my eyes pleading with him not to get upset. “No feelings on the mat?”

“Agreed.” He nods. “But after training …” he murmurs in my ear.

I allow myself one last giggle. “After training.”

In my car, Aang’s doing last-minute cramming for his exam while I’m sipping hot chocolate and contemplating the Chinese school, a building made of red bricks with a bell tower. The double doors are painted burgundy. There’s a wreath hanging from the porch roof. On the snowy lawn, the sign claims that the Sunday mass starts at ten a.m.

I drain the cup, tasting the dissolved marshmallows on my tongue, as I watch children with Bibles exit the church. The bell chimes, announcing it’s six o’clock. “What denomination is it?”

“Protestant. But that’s not the school. There’s an additional wing at the back. The Chinese school rents the rooms for the lessons.”

“I see.”

He looks up from his notebook. “I’m not Protestant.”

The stack of brand-new books on Buddhism in his room would agree. “Obviously not. But if you ever consider Christianity, I think you’d do well in the Catholic Church. Your personality would find a home in how high-strung it is.”

“I’m going to assume that’s a compliment.”

“A backhanded one for sure.” I lean over and kiss him. “Your mouth tastes bitter,” I say between kisses. “Because you’re a weirdo who ordered dark hot chocolate and refused whipped cream.”

“One of us is getting tooth decay at thirty, and it won’t be me.” He smiles against my lips.

I pull away as a car parks next to us. Three people get out of it, each holding a pencil case. I recognize them from Chinatown. Aang stiffens, but when I turn to him, his shoulders relax, and he smiles at me. “It’s exam time.” He kisses my cheek before exiting the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He shuts the door.

I wave him away with my empty cup. Actually … there should be a bin somewhere around here where I can throw it away. I get out of the car.

Michael struts through the parking lot, greeting the three people I saw earlier. He spots Aang and shouts something at him that makes the others laugh. Aang’s hand tightens on his backpack strap, but he keeps walking. I don’t know what Michael said, but I’m convinced it wasn’t Hello, friend! Let us learn this great language together!

I chase after Aang before he enters the church. “What did he say?”

“Jeez!” He jumps. “JJ, what are you doing?”

“Trying to find a bin.” I show him the cup. “What did Michael say to you?”

Aang bites his lower lip. “Nothing.” He tries to walk away, but I cut off his path.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll go and ask him.”

Aang hunches, finally giving up. “He called me gwái lóu.”26

I raise my eyebrows. “Which means?”

“It’s Cantonese for ‘White man,’ a foreigner.” He grits his teeth. “I’ve been coming here for two years. And I still can’t get it. For me, the language never flows, it never sounds natural, it’s always forced and fake.” He points his chin toward the group disappearing behind the church door. “They like to say it’s because there’s not much Asian left in me.”

My Nigerian family’s reunion flies into my brain. I stomp down on it.

“That is just …” I pull on my hair. “We have to tell someone. They can’t tell you things like that.”

“Them stopping won’t change the truth.”

My heart aches at how dull his eyes look. I reach out for his hand. “But it’s not okay.”

“It’s fine, JJ, really. I’ve studied hard for this. I’ll pass the exam, maybe get a better score than some of them. Then they won’t be able to say it anymore.”

“That’s not how it works, Aang.”

He lets go of my hand and starts walking. “Do not get involved, okay?” He looks at me over his shoulder. “It’s not worth it.”

But I think about it when I drive the thirty minutes home. I think about the shame on Aang’s face that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

And when I get home, I think about the Johnson family reunion in London when I was ten. Where I met my grandmother, who still lives in Bakana in Nigeria, where my dad grew up. I couldn’t talk to her, because I knew neither Kalabari nor English then. But I sat near her and listened as she taught Kalabari to other kids. The ones who didn’t grow up in Nigeria but knew English. Mu I Diri Go. The one phrase I remember, because I whispered it after her, time and time again. But my Polish mouth, trained on the percussion of choppier krz, szcz, prz, couldn’t deal with the flowy melody of Kalabari, where the pitch was as important as the sound. And with every attempt, my throat constricted more, making it harder to repeat after her.

I open my laptop and google Cantonese language center, searching for Aang’s teacher’s email address.

I think about my uncle who tried to teach me Nigerian dance moves. But at that point, I was already paralyzed with fear that if I did something—anything—not exactly the way it was supposed to be done, they would see that my only claim to Nigeria and our family was nothing other than my skin color. So, I pretended I twisted my ankle and sat out the rest of the party.

I find the address and start drafting an email about what I witnessed today.

And when I sat next to my mom, the only White person in the room, I wondered if I was just too White to claim this culture.

The shock. The shock of, for the first time in my life, thinking of myself as White instead of Black.

I hesitate, my cursor hovering over the send button. Aang told me not to get involved. I push the laptop away and stand up. I pace my room.

When I came back to Poland after the reunion, I must have had a preadolescent stroke. Because when the teacher asked the class what we did over winter break, I actually told them. I taught them how to say Go read a book. I explained how we used pounded yam to scoop up the egusi soup. I explained how egusi was basically the Nigerian version of bigos. For a second, it felt like the warmest blanket, claiming both Poland and Nigeria in one breath.

I sit back at my desk and stare at the laptop.

And then they used it against me. They used it to show me I was never Polish to begin with. So, you are a Nigerian. Because a White Polish person could know this stuff and be called cultured, but they used it to take away my culture. Because it is an equation, and you can only be equal to one thing at a time.

And being born and raised Polish was not worth as much as the cardinal sin of being dark-skinned and knowing a couple of facts about an African country.

I clench my fists.

They don’t get to take away what is mine. They don’t get to take away what is his.

So fuck them all.

I click send.

25 Thank you!

26 鬼佬 (literally: ghoul man, ghost man, devil man)