Trade Me (33 page)

“Mom, I—”

“No,” she interrupts. “Don’t tell me anything that happened, not even in another language. I’m not a lawyer. They’re going to record this. Don’t you know anything about the law? Don’t talk, not where they can hear you.”

“I know,” I say. “Put it on my next birthday cake.”

“Where are you?” she demands.

I tell her. She doesn’t ask how I came to be in a police station near Modesto. She doesn’t ask what I’m doing. She doesn’t demand any explanations at all.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she says. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You have to be at work in an hour.” My protest is half-hearted.

“This is what I do,” she says in English. “If I can’t do this for my own daughter, what good am I?”

Maybe that’s what I wanted—no, needed—to hear. That I matter. That it will be okay with her if I fuck up, that my mother will still love me.

“Don’t talk to the police, heh? They tell you lies.”

This is my mother in fight mode—the way she is for all the people she works with. This is what Mom does. She’s there for people who need her. All those interrupted nights—she’s been someone’s first phone call.

If there is one person I could have on my side against impossible odds, it’s her.

22.

BLAKE

“Hey, Dad.” I sit by my father’s bed. “Are you coherent yet?” The room is finally empty of doctors, nurses, and other helpful personnel. Dad has his own room in the ICU decorated in industrial gray. There’s a clip on his finger, attached to another machine nearby.

“Huh.” He turns his head and rubs at his eyes. “I’m pretty fucking muzzy. What do they have me on?”

“Some kind of painkiller. I can find out exactly what it is.”

He struggles to sit up. “I don’t want it.” His hand finds the IV coming out of his arm. “Is it coming through here? Fuck. Make it stop. That shit’s addictive.”

I stare at him. “Are you shitting me? You’re worried about that,
now?”

“Come on,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t be a stupid asshole. Cocaine isn’t addictive. It’s just habit forming. Medically speaking.” He frowns.

“That’s reassuring,” I say dryly.

But he stops short of ripping the IV out of his arm. “I guess I should ask. How fucked am I?”

“They shot your arteries full of dye and made a little video of it circulating through your heart. You should make Dr. Wong show it to you. It’s pretty cool. No blockages anywhere. They didn’t even have to put in a stent.”

Dad’s hand creeps over his heart. “Huh.”

“The only reason they’re keeping you in the hospital is because you have a giant hole in your thigh where they put the dye in, and they don’t trust you not to open it up. Congratulations, motherfucker. You’re not going to die unless you keep trying to kill yourself.”

His gaze falls inward. “Better than I deserve.”

“Better than we both deserve,” I say. “It turns out that the back half of the product launch practically rewrites itself. We’ve got about five hours until we’re on. Think you’ll be up for a two-minute video check-in from the hospital?”

“Yeah.” He shuts his eyes. “You know, Blake. I can’t…I don’t want you to take over. Not if it’s going to…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t need to.

“I already talked to the Board. They’ve agreed that David will take over temporarily. And I told them we’re going to have to restructure the corporation—you obviously need to cut back. Even after rehab.”

He nods. “You?”

“Give me a year with a therapist and we’ll talk about me and Cyclone again.”

It really is that easy. I can say no. I can tell him I have a problem, and it becomes just a…thing. An obstacle. Something I can attack. It was only silence that made it insurmountable.

“And Tina?”

I shut my eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Tina.”

“That bad, huh?”

I’m saved from answering by a knock on the door. My dad’s administrative assistant comes in.

“Hey, George.” My dad does his best to look comfortable in a green hospital gown. “Is something going on?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” George says, “but I’m not sure if this is important. Blake, the police contacted us.”

We do not want the police involved in this. Not now. Not ever. “What about?”

“They have your car.” He clears his throat.

I begin to feel lightheaded.

“And they want to know if they should charge the driver with theft on top of everything else. Normally, I’d have told them to fuck off—but the driver’s Tina Chen. I’ve seen that name on Adam’s schedule.”

“Shit.” I shut my eyes. “It’s not theft. Wait. What do you mean, on top of everything else?”

George starts to talk.

It turns out, my father and I are going to have to talk about Tina anyway.

TINA

My mother arrives six hours later. I know because I’m conducted from the prison cell where I’m staying to an interrogation room.

“They say I can talk to you,” she says. “Just the two of us.” She’s still speaking Mandarin. I’m still in handcuffs.

“Why would they let you do that?” I wrinkle my noise.

“Because I acted like I was stupid,” she says with a smile. “‘Oh, let me talk to her, I’ll make her apologize. My daughter is a good girl, I promise, I’ll make her tell you what happened.’ They got greedy. They’re recording everything. They think all they need to do is get an interpreter and boom, easy conviction.” Her smile is sharklike. “DA says he’ll think about bail. Your father will figure that out, and then we’ll walk away, leaving them with nothing.”

I have to smile at that.

“So, tell me,” she says. “Talk about anything but this. What is going on with you?”

“I broke up with Blake.”

“Ah ha!” Her face lights. “I
knew
you were dating him. Trying to keep things from your mother? Never works.” She frowns. “Wait, why break up with him? He seemed so nice. Did he do something wrong?”

“No.” I shut my eyes. “Mom, do you remember China?”

She stills. “Yes. But you don’t much, right?”

“Only little things.” I look down. “A doll. Grandma.” I swallow. “And I remember that one day, I told someone that Dad was in the park with the others. They took him away and shattered his kneecap and we didn’t see him for two months.” Now that the words are spilling from my mouth, I can’t stop them. “I remember that it was my fault, my fault he got taken away. My fault that—”

“Shh!” My mother leans forward. “Never say that. Never. It was not your fault. Not anyone’s fault, except the Communists.”

“All this time,” I say, choking, “I’ve been trying to make it up to you guys, to make things right. I’ve been scared, so scared, and so convinced that I had to do anything I could to stay safe.”

My mother rubs her eyes. “When I got on the plane leaving China, I promised myself that I would never be afraid again. That I would never be quiet again. I have never done so.”

“No. You haven’t.”

She looks over at me. “Maybe I should have promised that my daughter would never be afraid, too. I should have realized. I should have asked.”

“No, Ma. Never.”

She leans over and sets her hand on my shoulder.

But at that moment, the door opens. I expect the officer to gruffly tell us not to touch. Instead, he saunters in and undoes my handcuffs.

“You’re free to go,” he says.

“What?” My mother stands. “Why? No bail?”

“You,” he says to her with exaggerated slowness, “can go.” He demonstrates with two fingers walking.

“I understand
what,”
my mother snaps. “Just not why. Explain why.”

The guard shrugs. “The DA made other arrangements.”

My head is spinning. I don’t know what that means, what will happen with me.

But I’m not about to question my good fortune. I elbow my mother and frown at her, and then stand up and follow the guard to get my things. Which is good; even though the launch is today, I don’t want to think about leaving my prototypes in the hands of the police.

They’re keeping the car, the officer tells us as he leads us down a long hall. Apparently, that’s evidence.

Fine. I’ll let Blake deal with that.

I see another policeman coming our way. A man is following him. I don’t even register who it is until we’re almost on top of them.

And then I do. His sandy hair is tousled; his eyes are bright blue and he’s wearing glasses. But the man being led down the hall is most definitely Blake Reynolds.

“Blake?” I come to a stop. “What are you doing here?”

He gives me a long, slow smile. “What do you think?”

I can’t think anything at all.

“We’ve got twelve minutes until the launch,” he says. “Everything we agreed on together? It’s still on. Come on, Tina. Trade me.”

My eyes go wide. My heart starts to thump. “What? Blake—your dad, the product launch—no, I can’t let you—”

“Too late,” he says. “I already signed the papers.”

“
Blake.”

“Have fun, Tina.” He winks at me. “And, oh, if you have a chance, do watch the launch. For me, okay?”

23.

TINA

“What is going on?” My mother grabs my arm as we head to the car. “What is Blake doing here? Why is he staying? Is he dealing drugs? What did he mean launch? Is it a rocket launch? Why is the DA listening to him?”

“It’s a long story.”

My mother looks at me sidelong. “We have a long drive.”

I glance at my watch. “Um. Not yet. We have to watch the product launch.”

“Product launch. What is this product launch? And how do we watch it without a TV?”

I’m not going to get around this one. I take a deep breath. “Okay. Here’s the deal. Blake is…”

“I know, your boyfriend. Don’t you know you can’t lie to your mother?”

“He
wasn’t
my boyfriend when we came down,” I mutter. “Really. That came afterward. And we broke up this morning.” I frown. “I think.”

“Huh. Didn’t look like a break-up to me back there.” We arrive at her car. She unlocks my side of the door and I open my bag. I take out a tablet and check the reception. It’s complete crap. “Drive north,” I tell her. The launch has already started.

She starts her car. “Fancy gadget.” She frowns at it on my lap. “
Very
fancy gadget. Are you selling meth or something? I was only joking when I said you should deal drugs.”

“Ma!
No.
Of course I’m not.”

“I had to ask,” she says mildly.

“Look. I didn’t lie to you about Blake being my boyfriend. I did imply, incorrectly that he had…not a lot of money.”

“Oh?” My mother perks up. “He’s rich? Is that a present from him?”

“He’s Blake Reynolds,” I explain.

She frowns. “Who? Some kind of actor?”

“His dad is the CEO of Cyclone. The company that makes these.” I tilt the tablet to her. “This is a preproduction model.”

“Hmm.” She frowns.

I stick to the basics. “Cyclone is launching a new product right now. Blake was supposed to be running the launch. His dad had a heart attack last night.” I inhale. “If Blake is here, getting me out of this, he’s not
there.
So if he wants me to watch the product launch, I will.” I keep my eye on the reception on the way back, and once I have four bars, I motion my mother into a supermarket parking lot.