Crossing (14 page)

I was afraid, too, but I shoved the fear aside. Back then, I didn’t know what I was afraid of, but now I do. I was afraid of the great well of loneliness that awaited me.

I felt her slipping away, even as she spoke. And after a while, she did slip away, with him, the white boyfriend. I could tell that they wanted to hold hands; perhaps once outside, alone in the car, they did. It was all I could take.

I biked to the mall, thinking of nothing. It was cold. I bought a movie ticket, walked into the closest theater, and to this day cannot recall a single image. When I came out I was hungry, and it was dark, and I had no money for food.

It was a long ride back, and I was freezing by the time I got home.

I sat on my bed with the lights off. I was numb; numb from the cold, numb from shock, numb from betrayal. It did not matter to me that I was shivering on the bed. It did not matter to me that the house was draped in complete darkness, bereft of a single sound within.

Moonlight angled into my room in refracted beams. Everything in the room was burnished into the mercuric colors of black and white. Everything, that is, except for the painting bursting in vibrant colors. I stared at it, again drawn to it. I felt myself yearning for that something which the painting only hinted at, that elusive place of belonging. It made me yearn, made me believe that there was more to life than the yellowed crust I nibbled at.

Naomi’s bedroom light was on when I reached her home. Her parents’ bedroom was dark; they had already gone to sleep. I laid my bike down at the base of the tree and climbed until I was level with Naomi’s room.

Her drapes were drawn, so I couldn’t see what she was doing inside. I rapped softly on the window, mindful that her parents were light sleepers. After a half minute, the drapes parted and her face appeared in the window. She was surprised to see me; I signaled her to put a jacket on and pointed upwards toward the apex of the tree.

When we were really young, we used to climb to the very top where the view was incredible. Perched up there, we’d be relatively out of earshot of her parents and could talk freely, taking in the vista of the Ashland night.

She closed the drapes; when they were opened again, she was fully decked out in winter clothing. In her hand was a thermos likely containing some leftover hot-and-sour soup from the Panda House.

We climbed up without saying a word. I let her climb ahead of me, and she moved nimbly, catlike. Even in the dark, I easily followed her, taking hold of grips and convenient footholds I knew were there. The night sky was sprinkled with stars, glittering with abandon. Our breaths coagulated in frosty plumes.

We gazed out at the silver spread of land before us. “I’ve never been up here when it’s so cold,” I said. “Can’t even feel my cheeks.” I felt less stable up here in the winter; the branches, so warm and coarse in the summertime, were now slicked over with snow and ice. I fastened my right arm hard around a branch.

“There,” Naomi said. She was pointing towards a cluster of lights sparkling upon the darkened plains like a tray of diamonds. “The dot of light all by itself over there. That’s the school.”

“That one?”

“No, that one. Follow my pointed finger.”

I angled my head along the trajectory of her arm. “Oh.”

We both gazed at the lighted dot for a time. It looked so far away, so impossibly small.

“The police are still there,” she said quietly.

“Maybe it’s just light from the auditorium. The stage crew’s supposed to be working through the night to be ready for tomorrow.”

She wiped her nose against the back of her glove, something she did only when she was alone with me. “So, do you think you’re ready for it?”

“The performance? I think so. I’ve done everything I possibly can. Matthewman’s been incredible, coaching me. I’m just worried that I haven’t even sung with the chorus yet.”

“It’s so weird to think you have the lead. Still trying to get my mind wrapped around that one.”

“You and the rest of the world,” I said.

“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that I’ve never heard you sing before.”

“I saved you a ticket,” I said, turning to her. “It’s third row.”

“Xing,” she said tentatively, “do you have an extra ticket? I’d like to bring Jason, if I can.”

I did not say anything.

Minutes passed. Naomi took out a chocolate bar and offered half to me. I took it. As she chewed, she took out the thermos she’d been keeping under her jacket. “It’s Ah-ma and Ah-ba’s soup,” she told me, and we both drank it eagerly. The heat hummed down into our stomachs. One by one, the lights of the town flickered off until only a few isolated dots of light remained, like the fading embers of a dying campfire.

“I know it bothers you, Xing.”

“What does?”

“Don’t be like this.”

“Like what?”

She patted the branch in front of her. “It just kinda happened so fast, and it was all so…incredible. I would have told you, honestly I would have, but that was around the time when you got really busy with your voice lessons. We didn’t see each other a whole lot anymore, we lost touch with each other, and suddenly…I started to spend a lot of time with Jason, and I kind of neglected our friendship.” She looked remorseful. “It was my fault. I should have let you know earlier. But I had to deal with my parents, too, who were dead-set against the relationship. There were a lot of disagreements, angry words thrown…” She wiped her eyes. “But I should have told you. I’m sorry, Xing, really I am.”

She turned her head away. A sliver of moonlight lined her soft jawbone and full lips.

“Just tell me one thing,” I said. “Did you and I…did I ever have a chance of being more to you than just a friend?”

She turned back to me now, and I saw the look of a Naomi she never showed to anyone. It was that of a lost girl, an unsure person, that dependent Naomi who had once clung to my sleeve in school because I was the only person who looked like her, who didn’t tease her, who explained things slowly to her. The Naomi to whom I had taught English, those countless hours at the food court. Those innumerable walks to and from school. Rides together on the bus. The letters we wrote to each other, the little comments she’d write on my notebook during class. Movies we had sneaked into, staying there the whole day, jumping from screen to screen. Playing catch on deserted park fields; on the phone till late at night; swimming at deserted ponds in the summer all day; midnight meetings on this very tree, scribbling notes to one another.

When I was young, I had a secret dream. That Naomi would one day live with me permanently in this tree. We would build a huge tree house filled with all the amenities we could possibly want. An entertainment system, game consoles, a pet dog, a food machine capable of generating any dish we commanded it to make. Peking duck. Shark fin soup. Buddha’s delight. Congee with a thousand-year-old preserved egg. Our house would be perched so high up, no one would ever dare climb the tree to reach us. And we would never, ever have to leave that tree, not even to go to school. It would be just Naomi and me, just the two of us in the whole world.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

I wrapped my arms tighter around the branch. I was suddenly certain of one thing. I had to say it or spend my whole life regretting it.

“Naomi.” I could hardly hear my own voice. “I love you.” Her eyes teared up, glistening in the moonlight. But even with her tears, I saw that my words were useless, that they were wasted, that I should never have said them. For I almost knew what she was going to say before she said it.

“Xing,” she said softly, “you and I have this really special relationship. You are as necessary and as fundamental to my life as anything else I have. I can’t imagine living the past eight years without you, how I would have survived. And when I think of the future, I can’t picture it without you.” She sniffed, swallowed hard. “But if you were to ask me about the possibility of you and me being together in a different way…I’d be lying if I told you I never thought about it. But no. It’s not going to happen.”

My own eyes welled up; she became a diffused, hazy figure before me. “Nobody will ever love you the way I do,” I said. I blinked; tears rolled down my face, and I flicked my head to the side, wiping the tears away. But I had seen it already.

That look on her face. Someone else had already beaten me to it; Jason had already said those words to her. I suddenly knew that over the course of her life, she would have many men express that to her. And I knew, too, that I would now never be remembered as the first to say such words to her. Only the most sincere; and this, my sole, wretched secret.

I stared out into the night.

The air was clear as if every molecule of darkness had been scrubbed clean. I could have thrown a paper plane into the night, and it would have sailed right across the plains to the hills silhouetted against the silvered sky. Naomi’s eyes shimmered in the opaque darkness; her cheekbones were luminescent, marred by a faint tiny scar under her left eye. Only a person who knew it was there would notice it.

“Do you remember the first day we met?” I asked.

Her eyes, searching mine, did not comprehend.

“Years ago in elementary school, the day when you were taken to the nurse’s room because you were bleeding from a rock thrown at you?” I turned away from her now and spoke in a level tone. “I was asked to come in and translate. That was how we met, Naomi; I don’t know if you remember that.”

“I remember,” she said. Her voice was nothing more than a whisper.

“Some stupid kids had been throwing snowballs at you in the playground, pelting you with them. I remember that,” I said, my voice edgier now, louder. “Everyone was laughing at you, mocking you.”

“Stop, Xing, please,” she pleaded.

“I remember how everyone stopped playing and came to watch. To taunt. The Chinese girl who couldn’t speak English. Wearing a Playboy jacket.” I breathed in deep.

“Stop.”

“But there was also a rock thrown, wasn’t there? Did you ever see who threw the rock at you? Did you ever see who reared his arm back and whipped it at you?”

She turned to face me, her eyes widening, disbelieving.

“It was me, Naomi. I was the one who picked up the rock. I was the one who threw it. I threw it as hard as I could at the little Chinese girl who couldn’t speak English. I remember how it hit you flush in the face. Right under your left eye. It cut you open. I remember how much I hated you.”

Her face contorted in sorrow before me. And just before she turned away, I saw it crumble.

I made my way down the tree, picked up my bike, and rode away. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I turned around and looked for the tree. But it was too dark and there were too many other trees, and after a while I jumped back on the bike and pedaled away.

I
t was a quarter to eight when I finally woke up. Sunshine poured in through the thin curtains. I’d missed my morning practice—Mr. Matthewman would be gravely worried and was perhaps even now pacing back and forth in the music room, straining to hear my approaching footsteps. I packed my bag quickly, stuffing in the music sheets. Down the stairs. Grabbed my jacket, bolted outside. My legs were stiff as wooden stilts as I ran for the bus. Panting and wheezing from the run, I boarded the bus. Something was different today, though. The bus was packed. Not an open seat in sight. The sky was dark and ominous as the bus chugged its way to school, the radio broadcasting more news about the discovery at the pond. Everyone listened. And eyed me, still standing, trying to find a seat.

Physics, first period. The classroom television turned on. CNN reporting about the bodies. Commercial break. Then short, complimentary life stories of each deceased student.

Naomi sat next to me. Not once did she look my way.

Jan Blair’s seat was empty.

About fifteen minutes into class came the sound of approaching footsteps. It was Mr. Marsworth. I gripped the sides of my desk, my knuckles turning white, like snowballs in a ziplock bag. I feared the worst: he was going to cancel the musical. He briefly whispered a few words to the teacher, then addressed the class.

“Good morning, folks.” He was all gussied up; his hair was slicked back, shining with gel. “With all that’s been going on around town over the last few weeks, and with all that happened last night, I understand that there are a lot of concerns and fears. And there are also some rumors flying around,” he continued. “Let me emphasize to you that they are just that—rumors. And I want to put to bed some of these rumors. First, school is not, and will not be, canceled today. And second, the musical will go on.” He jutted his chin. “I’ve spoken to some teachers, some parents. We all agree that the best thing is to go on with it. So please, please bear with us, as we are all doing our very best to stay atop the current situation.”

The bell rang.

Just as I was leaving, I saw Mr. Marsworth speaking with the teacher in hushed tones. I made my way quietly towards them.

“…Blair’s usually here. Can’t remember a time when she wasn’t.”

“I’ll check with Miss Winters,” Mr. Marsworth muttered, picking some lint off his new suit. “See if she was in home-room this morning.” His cell phone rang and he walked away, flipping his phone open. His eyes darted back and forth behind his new glasses; he wet his lips, then trotted away, barking into the phone.

If it had been anyone else, I’m sure of it, everything would have come to a stop. Classes would have been cancelled. The evening’s performance cancelled, or at least postponed. More police on the scene. But I’m convinced that because it was only Jan Blair—the scraggly castaway—who was unaccounted for, nobody really cared too much. Or enough, which in the end is all that matters.

Mr. Matthewman was in an acrid, bitter mood when I went to see him after first period.

“I know it was under extenuating circumstances. I know it’s not every day that dead bodies are pulled out of the pond. I’m trying to be understanding about this! But couldn’t she have had you sing earlier in the night?” He slammed his hand down on the piano, and a hum reverberated inside it.

I faltered on my heels, taken aback. “I…it wasn’t my place to tell her what to do,” I said defensively.

“Kris, do you understand what all this means?” he asked me, clearly exasperated. He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Do you know what kind of a pickle this puts you in?” he continued, taking me to task.

“Yes. I suppose I do. It just means I’ll have to go in cold with the chorus tonight.”

“Oh, it most certainly does mean that,” he said, barely letting me finish my sentence. “But that’s not the problem. You can most certainly adapt to them; you’re not the problem. It’s them. The chorus. They’re the problem. They’ve never practiced with you. One little change, and you’ll throw them for a loop. And their amateurish house of cards will coming tumbling down, just like that. We’ll become the laughingstock of this pathetic little town!” He banged his hands on the piano. He finally breathed in deeply and let out a long, withdrawn sigh. He sat down, defeated. “You have no idea, Kris. It’s become a media circus. Photographers will be there taking pictures of the ‘little children in the little town that could.’
New York Times, USA Today
, to name a few. America’s youth standing up in the face of evil. The national audience will eat this up, and the media knows this. They’ll be here in full force.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

He shook his head. “Suddenly all the big shots in town want to be here, dignitaries. Judges. Businessmen. Even the mayor, for crying out loud. It’s become very political. A mecca for face time.” He cleared his voice, his left hand rubbing his Adam’s apple. “Maybe it’s my fault. By now I should have made sure that you’ve practiced at least three, four times with the chorus.”

“Things happened, though. Things beyond your control. My mother getting hospitalized.”

He nodded, a taut grimace tight-roped across his lips. “Still. There’s more that I could’ve done.” He lifted up the piano lid and played a few notes. His fingers halted just above the keys, shaking a little. “Nobody’s heard you sing but me. Nobody knows how good you are. And tonight, it will be your one and only chance to show the world. That’s a lot of pressure to contend with. I should never have put you into such a tight corner. Even the worst singing instructor in the world knows that if you have a real talent, you show him off before the actual performance, if only to instill confidence before it really matters. Great word of mouth is a terrific performance enhancer.”

“You said I could sing. That’s enough for me.”

“Me? One person?”

“Yes. Your opinion matters more than this whole town’s combined.”

He smiled with sadness. “Does it really? Do you know what I am? A burnt-out has-been who threw away a burgeoning career.”

“You’re a Julliard professor. That’s enough for me.”

He didn’t say anything in response. But tentatively, he turned to the piano, staring down at the keys. He began to play, a yielding piece. Gray hair dappled his uneven sideburns in dotted flecks. He looked older to me than when we’d first started, more strained. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes looked more canyoned than before.

His fingers, long and bony, took on a life of their own as they stretched across the keyboard and prodded music out of the keys. Calloused skin with bitten fingernails tapped down on the smooth black and white of the keyboard. The back of his hand, a kaleidoscope of jutting bones and green-colored veins intersecting one another. His whole body, moving to the music in muted fashion, radiations of melancholy.

It was a piece I’d never heard before. Not for the first time, I wondered about his past. After so long with him, all I knew of him was his passion for music. There were brief moments—no more than two or three over the many weeks I’d been tutored by him—when I saw his eyes suddenly take on a different quality. But he’d quickly barricade himself behind closed eyelids, and when he opened them, he’d flushed away the strange opacity.

He shrugged. “Well.” He looked like he wanted to say more. “Well.”

“I’ll be ready tonight, Mr. Matthewman. I promise you that.”

He nodded slowly at first, then with more energy. “You’ll be great, Kris, I know that. If the chorus begins to falter, remember, you’ll have to adapt to their fluctuations. They’re more of them, and they’re all less skilled than you. You’ll have to maneuver to match them.”

“How do I do that?”

“You’ll just know. It’s something that can’t be taught.”

“I need more than that.”

“Really, there’s nothing more I can say. Just think of it as balance.” He gave me an affirming look. “You’ll be fine, Kris. I was just overreacting earlier. Just remember everything I’ve taught you, and you’ll be great out there.”

I moved over to my bag and took out all my music sheets. “I can’t believe it’s really happening. In just a few hours. The stage lights coming on. The audience piling in. The cameras snapping. And me, standing in the middle of it all. Not a single dress rehearsal to get me warmed up, used to the idea. And suddenly, right there, in the spotlight. All eyes focused on me. Unbelievable.”

He drummed his fingers lightly against the piano stool. “If you get too many butterflies, just close your eyes. Shut out everything else.”

“And it’s going to happen for sure? The performance?”

“The show will go on.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Mr. Marsworth needs this to happen in the worst way. He’s made too many promises, got the media way too involved. Besides,” he continued, “I heard something. The police are really close.”

“They’ve been saying that for weeks now.”

“Yes, but this time I think it’s true. They’re close. By tonight, someone was saying. Perhaps even before the performance, they’ll nail the perp. If that’s the case, the performance can be like a celebration of sorts, the end of this madness.”

“But it could be anyone out there! What makes—?”

He cut me off by nodding vigorously. “That’s what the police thought. But they’re now working under the theory that the abductor is working in-house, so to speak. They ran fingerprint checks against registered parolees, that kind of thing. Zilch. So now they’re thinking that it’s someone from inside the school. All the circumstantial evidence points that way. A janitor. A teacher. Any one of the administrative staff. It’s so obvious when you think about it. An outsider would have been noticed quickly; it has to be someone who can walk around the hallways unnoticed. One of us. Disturbing thought, isn’t it? Everyone on payroll at this school—teachers, janitors, secretaries—we all had to go down to the station house yesterday to give our fingerprints. You should have seen us, eyeing each other. Any one of us could be it. Scary thought.”

“It could be a student,” I told him.

He looked at me with a slanted frown. “You don’t really think so, do you?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “You never know.”

We talked for a few minutes more, mostly about the evening’s performance. He reminded me to be backstage in the dressing room at five sharp, two hours before the show began.

On my way out, I closed the door of that music room for the very last time, recalling the many lessons, the hours spent in there. They were the happiest of times, the one place where Slackenkill High actually did something good for me. Most of all, I would remember the timbered voice of Mr. Matthewman instructing me, the crisp clarity of the piano notes strident against the wintry gray outside, the lamp atop the piano shining a tent of light, the crackle of music sheets being turned. My voice learning to soar, finding itself, coming back to me off the walls strident and assured: this room, my oasis of possibility. Those last mornings.

For that day alone, I was granted an unprecedented level of freedom at school. Mr. Matthewman had convinced the school that I shouldn’t be required to attend the usual classes but should rather be allowed to spend the hours before the show as I saw fit. I was encouraged to spend time in the auditorium, to familiarize myself with the surroundings. Something which, I thought bitterly to myself, should have been done weeks ago.

I made my way to the auditorium. The hallways were scrubbed in anticipation of the media’s arrival; in the school foyer, trophies, long atrophying in dust and memory, found new life. Inside the auditorium, there was a hubbub of activity. Mike tests, sound adjustments, last-minute tweaking of the set. I stood unobserved at the back, hidden over in darkness. No one came to speak with me. Even just hours away, it all seemed so unreal, disconnected to me.

For a long time I stared at the stage set, at the very spot where Jan Blair had kissed me. I wanted to get her out of my mind, but her absence at school was bothering me. I found myself becoming preoccupied with her and, like a nagging splinter, suddenly unable to rid myself of her.

Everywhere I looked, her face loomed, ghostly and ephemeral. I saw her on the stage, in the aisle, a few rows down. Her face contorted in pain and tears. Mouth twisted in fear. I shook my head. Yet still her face, twisted and aghast, hovered all around.

Before I knew it, I was opening my locker and removing my jacket. I was going out. I was going to Jan Blair’s home.

Perhaps it was the snow, but her home that afternoon looked a lot more welcoming. The dilapidated yard, the shanty roof, the cast-off trash—all of it now lay under a plush blanket of snow that made her place look almost inviting. Not a footprint in the smooth and undisturbed layer of snow outside. Thin trails of smoke strung upwards from a makeshift chimney, the only indication of life inside.

Tucked away in a hidden corner of the woods, the silence here was dense as if all the quiet of the town had slid into this enclave and stratified.

The porch creaked under the weight of my boots. For a moment I paused, considering. And before I had time to reach a decision, the door opened, surprising me. A man—he looked to be in his early thirties—smiled at me. He was pleasant looking, cherubic even, possibly handsome if not for his height. He was shorter than me, reaching no higher than my shoulder. His clothing was the most surprising. Contrary to what Jan Blair wore to school, he was dressed with immaculate cleanliness, in what seemed to be spanking new North Face gear.

“Hello there!” he beamed, taking a quick look behind me. “Here alone?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry to bother you. I was looking for Jan.”

“Ah, yes. She just stepped out. For more firewood. Amazing how fast it all burns up.”

He gave a winsome smile. “You must be a friend of hers.”

“Yes. She wasn’t in school today, and since I was just passing by, I thought I’d check in on her.”