Chapter 10

chapter 10

The coffee tastes burntbut sweet and my heart skips when I see her. Thank God. Hot-pink sweatpants with exactly matching coat and shoes. She’s holding her slice of pizza, and the pockets of her fuchsia fur jacket are stuffed with napkins. I check the time—we’re both running a little behind.

I’m heading east from Eighth Avenue. It’s almost residential over there since the broad side of an apartment complex pretty much takes up the whole block. And as I hustle back under the shadow of where the art and design center bridges over Twenty-Seventh Street, there she is.

I don’t know her name. In my head I call her Cruella. She has Vantablack hair. It’s the kind of black where no light escapes. Its blackness is as eye-catching as neon. It’s usually teased like cotton candy on top of her head, and today it’s in a beehive.

We’re walking toward each other on the same side of the street. She must live nearby because I see her all the time. Usually with a plastic bag around her wrist. Sometimes with a small white Chihuahua. She’s alone today, but she’s wearing my favorite outfit. She only ever wears three different sets of monochromatic clothes with renditions in miniature for her dog.

The first time I noticed her was because she walks like a newborn foal. It registered somewhere in my peripheral vision as someone falling, but that’s just the way she moves. It’s that clattering mayhem of a fifteen-year-old Eastern European couture model on a catwalk, where the hips and knees slice through the air several feet ahead of her chest and arms, which dangle way back. From the side she looks like she’s limboing.

She’s so thin it makes my teeth hurt.

Her skin is powdery white. With a slash of crimson lipstick. I try not to stare as she folds her slice in half, tacoing it in her paper plate. She lets the oil from the cheese drip onto the street for a moment, off the rumpled wax paper onto concrete.

Just as I pass, she chews off the tip of her pizza and works her jaw in a rhythmic rabbitty fashion. I lock eyes with her for a second as we pass, and it feels exquisite. I turn around as if to check the street sign. She pulls out a napkin. I know she’s spitting into it.

I wish I could break the wall and talk to her. I wonder if she notices how often she sees me. God, what I wouldn’t give for a four-hour documentary on her. I have so many questions. She searches for fucks to give, this woman. The first time I saw her do this with her food, I couldn’t believe it. That it was happening in public. It was a Papaya dog, and it was as revealing as a man masturbating on a subway car. Another time I saw her unfold the paper towels and deposit the spit-sodden masses into a bush, calling to a squirrel. It was performance art. In New York there’s at least one of each of us.

Seeing her always makes my day.

My phone comes alive in my hand as I take another sip of coffee. It’s June. Calling.

This time I do something crazy and pick up. My sister asks me to come over later. I find myself wanting to go.

Class is itchy. It’s disrespectful how slowly time goes by. Sometimes I think about the other me. The me I’d be if I’d gone into design instead of merchandising. I’d be insufferable and self-satisfied. “Je m’excuse?” I’d drone. “How is the Serger broken again?” I’d be wrapped up in all the high drama of calling forth a physical product. “Garments,” never “clothes.” “Pieces,” if you’re serious. “Wearable art,” if you’re a dilettante with an Etsy page.

I had no idea a plural for dilettante is dilettanti.

After several hours of monastic focus, I check Instagram. I like saving it, waiting until the messages pile up, especially after setting thirst traps in stories. I tap the paper airplane. My insides go liquid.

Patrick.

Hey,it reads. I never check DMs. And then Holy shit Jayne from Texas. And a phone number.

I check to see if he’s viewed my stories. He hasn’t. I’ll wait at least a few days to text him back.

On my way to June’s from school, I learn that endometrial cancer and uterine cancer are the same. Uterine cancer sounds meatier. As if it’s farther inside of you. I picture blooming cells with rows of teeth. I also hadn’t known that certain cancers are overfunded, like breast cancer and leukemia, whereas esophageal and uterine cancers are underfunded. Even the scariest diseases aren’t immune to branding. I catch myself stopping at a deli to consider buying flowers and immediately feel like an asshole. June would ridicule me if I stopped for a bouquet of daisies.

I still have the wine opener in my bag. I vow to give it to her only if it naturally arises in conversation.

“Hey,” she says when I come up. When she opens the door, there are clusters of jars and opened spice bags, with a large spill of peppercorns marching across her counter like an army of ants. I remember this about my sister, how you’d find stray ingredients for days after she cooked.

“What are you making?” I take off my jacket and Vans. She’s leaning into a comically tiny mortar and pestle with unnecessary force and nods at the hall closet between us. There’s only a black parka and a camel trench in there. I hang my coat, marveling at the superabundant closet space. A life beyond breaking shitty plastic hangers every time you shove excess clothing aside.

“Mapo tofu.” She resumes her grinding. It’s Dad’s favorite. “Since I’m doing the spices, I thought I’d do a big batch. You should take some with you.”

“Thanks.” There’s a package of tofu on the cutting board. It’s deep-fried, not silken. And the cutting board is shitty and plastic, dinged up and discolored. Fobby. I fantasize about getting her a really nice checkerboard wood kind. The ultra-expensive Williams Sonoma one that lasts forever because it’s made of the butt ends of wood blocks.

“Uh,” says June, bumping her elbow into me. I’m hovering, which she hates.

“Do you cook a lot?” I perch on a barstool on the other side of the kitchen island. I imagine intimate get-togethers, dinner dates, charcuterie. She probably has a book club or something.

“Not really,” she says, keeping her eyes on the pan. “Never had time.”

She scoops up the escaped peppercorns. They look like tiny cannonballs. As she returns them to the bag, she wipes her brow with the back of her hand. “Careful with your eyes, Juju.” My jaw stiffens. She goes about her business, acting as if she hasn’t heard, crinkling the cellophane loudly.

I hadn’t meant to call her that. It’s been years since I’ve called her that.

“How was school?” she asks after a moment.

“Fine.” I sound sharper than I’d intended. I hate when she polices my whereabouts.

She tosses the pre-fried bean curd from the cutting board into the sauce.

“That’s not the right bean curd.” The adult part of me wants to bop the little sister part right in the nose.

“So don’t eat it,” she says without skipping a beat and then sucks the ends of her cooking chopsticks.

This shuts me up. It smells good.

She stops midstir to study me.

“What?”

June looks pensive. Like a baby taking a shit. There’s no telling what she’s thinking.

“Nothing.” She looks away. “I had something to tell you, but I forgot.”

I wonder if she’s mad at me.

“Seriously, what?”

“Nothing,” she snaps.

It’s probably about the tofu. Or calling her “Juju.”

“Uh, um, so…” I hop off the stool and go to my bag, desperate to defuse the tension. “I got you something. It’s dumb. And small. It’s from my store—the store I work at. I just figured…”

I offer her the paper sleeve. One of her hands is manning the pan that’s smoking; the other’s tossing its contents with chopsticks. “Sorry,” I say hurriedly, removing the corkscrew, crumpling the bag and shoving it in my pocket. “Worst timing for a present.” I lay it down on the counter. “It’s not even really a present. It’s more just… functional.”

“No. It’s perfect. Thank you,” she says, a little too brightly, throwing her aromatics into the pan. They crackle, and the apartment air fills with a convincingly Szechuan bouquet. She coughs as the peppers smoke. “Oh shit,” she says, turning back to me. “Is that what you wanted? Do you want wine?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I mean, sure, but I can get it.” I open her fridge. I’m shocked by its contents. It’s crammed with random half-eaten, uncovered food. I shut the door, averting my attention, embarrassed to have spied. “I got you one because you couldn’t find it last time. Remember you offered me red because that’s the one you liked better, but…”

“Oh.” She’s smiling with so much effort. “That’s so thoughtful.”

“Oh.” I wave the air. “It was only twelve bucks.”

We are so cringey. I barely know what to do with my hands. She turns and busies herself with the rest of the cooking.

“So, did you want red?” I ask her.

“I’m okay,” she says. “Did you?”

“I’ll just have water.” I watch as she slices scallions, and the rhythmic motion of it—the scratchy sound—soothes me.

“Remember when you wanted to take over Mom and Dad’s restaurant?”

“Yeah,” she says distractedly. “What a nightmare that would’ve been.”

I open a cabinet. It’s completely empty. “What do you need?” interjects June.

“Water glasses.”

“It’s this one.” She points at the cabinet over the sink. I grab two from the four in there, fill them with tap water, and set them on the bar. “Thanks,” she says.

“Want me to do the rice?”

“Sure.” She turns, opens the drawer behind her, and hands me a flat white paddle. There’s a tiny rice cooker on the counter by her fridge. It’s small and cheap and doesn’t match the other gleaming appliances, but I’m surprised she even has one. She hands me two blue bowls.

We both make shit rice, at least according to Mom. We never add enough water and never bother to soak it the way she does. The trick is to add enough water so that it just about meets the first line on your ring finger. Even still, we both eyeball it and get it wrong. I open the steaming lid, digging around the cooker to break it up.

I scoop her two lumps because it’s bad luck to give someone a single scoop and then portion out a tiny clump for myself. I don’t think the luck thing counts if it’s yours.

She inspects my meager bowl. “I had a late lunch.” She frowns briefly and hands me the ladle so I can serve myself. I spoon a little. I can probably get away with two pieces of tofu. The sauce is thickened with cornstarch and glistening with oil. She fixes her plate, grabs kimchi from the fridge, which we add to our bowls with chopsticks. I pause at the white barstools. “Those make my ass numb,” she says. I follow her to the couch.

I warm my hands on the bowl and take a small taste. It’s amazing to eat something hot for once. I haven’t had home-cooked Asian food in forever. I take another bite. “This is really good.”

“Right?” she says. “I had such a craving this morning. You sure you don’t want more tofu?”

“No, I’m good.”

We eat silently.

“Do you have roommates?” she asks after a while.

“Just one.”

“How’s that going? Is she cool?”

I think of Jeremy fucking that woman in my bedroom. I nod a few times. Something must have passed across my face because she stops chewing. She lifts her sock-covered foot off the floor and pokes my haunch, hard.

“It’s a dude, isn’t it?” she asks with her mouth full.

I pull my chopsticks out of my mouth.

“You’re living with a boyfriend, aren’t you?” I have never been able to lie to June. She also has this way of rolling her eyes without rolling her eyes.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

She chortles.

“Who’s on the lease—you or him?”

“It’s fine,” I tell her quietly. “He’s leaving soon.”

“You broke up?”

“No, we didn’t break up. We can’t break up because it’s not like that.”

She makes a rumbly noise in the back of her throat as I stare at my food. “Well,” she says, shaking her head. “At least you’re consistent.”

I set my bowl down on the mirrored coffee table harder than I’d meant to.

“He’s not on the lease.”

Truth is, I’m not either. There is no lease and it’s some guy called David Buxbaum’s name on the apartment because I’m living in a rent-controlled illegal sublet, and I still get his jury summonses.

“Okay,” she says.

Again I sense the math in her brain, the deepening of the wrinkle between her brows, but she lets it go. I’m staring down at my bowl when her blue cotton foot creeps back into my sight line and prods me again. This time on my arm.

I glare at her. She keeps nudging me, smiling as she pushes her bowl toward me. She wants me to get her seconds. “With more kimchi, too, please,” she says sweetly.

“Ugh, fine.” I roll my eyes, getting up. “I need sauce anyway.”

“Am I ever going to meet this asshole?” she calls out from the living room. “I guess it’s pointless to ask if he’s white.” I add more rice to both our bowls in silence, along with kimchi. I dump a fuckton angry scarlet chili shards into June’s bowl. I’m annoyed at my sister, but I’m aware that something’s loosening between us.

“Here you go.” I hand her the bowl before sitting down, smiling just as sweetly.

“What’s his name?” She picks up a whole pepper with her chopsticks and sets it on the chrome top of the coffee table.

I eat my food.

“Let me guess—it’s Tyler. Ooh, no, it’s Tanner. Oh, what’s up with that guy Chase Rice? Isn’t he on a TV show? How perfect is that name for a white dude who only fucks with Asian chicks?”

She sets another chili beside the first one. I get up and hand her a paper towel torn in half. Even in such a nice house, June’s a slob.

“So, what’s up? Like, cancer-wise?”

June raises her brows. “Cancer-wise?”

I just wanted a change of topic.

“Got my pathology report,” she continues, extracting more peppers.

“And?”

“They referred me to a gynecologic oncology surgeon.”

“And?”

“I’m gonna go see them.”

Gynecologic oncology surgeon. I glance down at the gloopy red-brown sauce in my bowl. “When?”

“In the morning.”

She’s not smiling anymore, utterly focused on her napkin. It’s why she called me. It’s why she wanted home-cooked food.

“Wait? You have surgery tomorrow?”

She sets her bowl on the table and doesn’t immediately respond.

“June?” Everyone in my family does this, gets really pissed off or shuts down when you ask them a question they deem too personal.

“June?” I ask my hands quietly. My nail polish has chipped off except on my thumbs. I try another tactic.

“Where’s the appointment?” I ask conversationally, pretending to take another bite of food.

Past her head, on top of her pale wood credenza, on a shelf below the TV, I see the pastel-colored DVD case from the Gilmore Girls box set. The familiar sight makes the tightness in my chest catch at my throat.

“Everything’s on the Upper East Side,” she says finally. “Total fucking schlep. And I hate when they take the FDR.”

“Take the Q.”

“I have cancer. I’m not poor.”

I choke a little.

My phone lights up on the coffee table. Jeremy again. Her eyes flit over to it, so I flip it over.

“We’re just talking tomorrow. Going over the biopsy results.”

I wonder if I’m supposed to go with her, but I feel stupid asking after all this time. She probably has friends she’d rather be with. People she’s close to.

“Thanks,” I tell her. She looks up at me as if I’ve said something stupid.

“Will you do something for me?”

I plonk my bowl down in my lap and nod solemnly.

“Can you just go the fuck to school? Please? I know that boy problems”—I wince at the wording—“are a lot for you, but don’t get distracted.” She sighs and closes her eyes for a beat. It’s painful to see how annoying she finds me. “Focus in class, do well, and over the next few weeks, or even months, try not to give Mom and Dad anything to worry about.”

I glance up at her. “Do you really think it’ll be months?”

She sighs again. I’m insufferable. “I don’t know, Jayne.”

“Okay.” I keep nodding.

“You’re so smart when you make the effort,” she says, and instantly my eyes well up. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear her say. Just not in this context.

“I’ll never be as smart as you,” I tell her.

June picks her bowl back up and laughs. “I didn’t say you were anywhere near as smart as me. Just…” Another loud exhale. “I’m smart in ways that make me stupid in others. I’ve made so many fucking mistakes, Jayjay.”

My throat tightens.

“You’re going to be okay though, right?” I hear the warble in my voice.

“What do you want me to say?”

I want her to tell me the day, the hour, and the exact minute when she’ll die. And I want her to go away so I can start preparing for it now with zero new memories because I have enough that I’ll miss.

She gets up. The conversation is over. When I stand, I’m struck again by the heft of it. My sister has cancer.

I follow her into the kitchen. From behind she’s so small. There’s so little of her to invade.

She stoops to start loading her dishwasher. “Siri, play The Graduate soundtrack,” she calls into the room.

I snicker, I can’t help it. “Have you ever even seen The Graduate?”

She turns to me. “You know I haven’t.”

“It’s a classic.”

“I’m good.” She leans over to pop a Cascade pod into the machine. “Who has time for whole movies? I’ve seen clips. I love the soundtrack. I get the idea.”

It takes every ounce of restraint not to fight her again on this. She switches on the dishwasher.

“I can’t believe you have a dishwasher,” I tell her, genuinely impressed. It’s like having a backyard in New York. “And that you use it.”

“I know,” she says, smiling, leaning up against the counter with her arms crossed. “Every time I run it, I imagine Mom shitting a brick.” Our parents have a dishwasher in Texas, but they only use it as a drying rack. June once modeled an elaborate graphic to prove how much more water was wasted doing dishes by hand, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Mom would have an aneurism if she found out detergent pods were even a thing. She dilutes dish soap.

“Man, when’s the last time I had your mapo tofu?” I rinse my bowl and hand it to her. “Probably high school.”

“It was high school. Couple months before I left for college.” She takes a long, pensive sip of water.

That’s when I remember too. She’d made it for Dad. As a consolation. And how on that lonely night, the three of us barely ate any.