(un)Talent, Chapter 3 of 11
Jan. 5th, 2011 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laleiaChapter 3:
Please see Chapter 1 for the Summary, Author's Notes, additional details, etc.
“I trust your meeting went well,” Maya said ironically as she turned to lead the way out. Inside the Zhang House, she was wearing black slacks and a navy blue top similar to that of the attendants, those hers was a bit more militaristic and was obviously designed for ease of movement.
“I trust you were well-rewarded for your timely report,” Avi snapped.
If she was hoping to sting Maya into silence, she was in for disappointment. “I was, thank you,” Maya said pleasantly. She didn’t even falter in step.
They took a different path than the one to come inside, winding through rather more indoor hallways than Avi remembered. Avi wouldn’t be surprised if going out the same path she’d come in would have led her to some sort of fatal trap.
“The Matriarch certainly seems to like you,” Maya commented as they reached the final courtyard and approached the door.
“You mean she always threatens to summarily execute the people she likes?” Avi asked dryly.
“If she didn’t like you, you’d already be dead,” Maya replied, matching her dry tone. She opened the door and waited for Avi to step out. “She’s given you forty-eight hours, Avi. That means you really impressed her – but if you think she’s not serious about treating you as an enemy and dealing with you accordingly, you’ll regret it. It would be in your best interests to leave.”
“And it’s really none of your business what my best interests are,” Avi retorted as she stepped over the raised entrance outside the House.
“The guardian lions will see to it that you get home,” Maya said stiffly and before Avi could ask her what the hell that meant, she shut the door.
Avi looked rather nervously at the stone lions on either side of the door, when both suddenly came to life and swung their heads to look at her. Before she could even gulp, she saw the world around hers slowly blue and fade, like it was a picture from a sketchbook slowly being erased, and then suddenly she had fallen very painfully on the floor of her bedroom.
She rubbed her sore back, wincing. That hadn’t been the most pleasant of trips – she didn’t even know that the guardian lions could do that! Sighing, she checked the time – she’d already missed her Chinese class, and she’d have to hoof it if she didn’t want to be late for work. She started gathering her things, and heating up something to eat in the meanwhile so she didn’t faint from malnourishment in the middle of class.
She hadn’t been in her apartment for more than fifteen minutes when her phone rang.
Avi sighed, and looked balefully at her cell phone. “Now what?” she demanded crossly. Who could be calling now, probably to somehow make her day get even worse?
But when she flipped open the phone to read the caller id, she was surprised to see that it was Jason. Hadn’t she last left Jason at the club last night …? She’d texted Aly to let her know not to worry and that she’d gone home early, but Jason’d completely slipped her mind, that’s how upset she’d been.
Hurriedly, she moved to answer the phone. “Hello?” she said, trying for nonchalance as she turned off her kettle so she could hear the other side more clearly.
“Hi, Avi, are you okay?” Jason asked. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“Oh, I’m fine, don’t worry,” Avi said easily. “I’m sorry about ditching you last night – I had a killer headache.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jason reassured her. “Though … I thought Aly said you left with some girl.”
“Oh, yes,” Avi said. “Well, I initially did. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. And then since I had the headache, I decided to just go straight home.”
“I’m sure it must have been pretty bad,” Jason said. “I … this is going to sound kind of stalker-y, but I was worried about you so I was waiting for you outside your Chinese class. I’d hoped to check up on you, but I didn’t see you and then your friend Caitlyn told me you’d missed class.”
“Aw,” Avi smiled. “That’s actually really sweet.”
“Anyway, I hope you’re feeling better,” Jason said, his words rushed. He was probably blushing with embarrassment. “Because I, uh … I still owe you that drink.”
Avi felt a frisson of pleasure in her stomach. The first thing to go right all day! “I’m feeling better already,” she said. “When were you thinking we could get that drink?”
“If you’re not too busy … maybe tonight?” His tone was just a little hesitant, just a little nervous, just a little hopeful.
“Jason. I’m not even exaggerating when I say, that is the most wonderful thing I’ve heard all day.”
---
Of course, after the morning she’d had, the rest of the day was positively rosy in comparison. Jason’s invitation marked a turning point, and she seemed destined for good luck from then onwards. The subway was on time, the kids were relatively well-behaved in class, and one of them even shared some candy with her.
After class, Aly stopped by as usual. “Hey, you feeling better?” she asked.
It took Avi a minute to realize what Aly was talking about. “Yeah, the headache’s all gone,” she smiled. “I feel great. But! I have plans tonight, I can’t go out with you.”
“I wasn’t even going to suggest that,” Aly said, mock-hurt. “I was just going to ask if you wanted to grab dinner.”
Avi hesitated … but she wasn’t due for drinks with Jason for another two hours. He taught at a different school and his classes got out later. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to get dinner with Aly first. “Sure. Where were you thinking about?”
“Just grab a bite to eat at the ramen place downstairs,” Aly suggested. “Their food is tasty, filling and fast.”
“Sounds good to me,” Avi agreed. “Just give me a minute to get my things together.” So saying, she dumped everything in her bag, switched off the computer, and stepped back. “Okay, all good.”
She could tell Aly was struggling really hard not to say or ask something as they walked down the stairs, because when Aly was bursting with questions, there was this certain bounce she adopted, as if she were physically unable to keep the questions in, and the bouncing was an effect of them trying to get out. She managed not to talk about anything other than small talk, however, until they’d sat in the restaurant and ordered. As soon as the waiter left, the bouncing stopped and Aly got that gleam in her eyes.
“So, spill,” Aly said firmly.
“What?” Avi asked innocently. She had an idea what this might be about, but she was going to make Aly work for it. This was a song-and-dance they both knew well. Avi never liked sharing—about anything, a by-product of growing up in a secretly powerful magical family that most of the world weren’t allowed to know about—and Aly loved gossip, so it was always a struggle to see who would win any given period of communications.
“Who was the girl from the club?” Aly started off, her eyes watching Avi’s every reaction.
“Just someone I know,” Avi shrugged, and took a sip of her water.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Aly said affectionately. “I saw the look on your face when you saw her—and after whatever private conversation the two of you had, you left the club upset.”
“What do you mean I was upset?” Avi protested. “Like I texted you, I had a headache and was heading home. It’s as simple as that.”
“Exactly,” Aly nodded. At Avi’s confused look, she sighed and explained. “First,” she said, “there’s the fact that you went home.”
“I know it’s fun to spend the night out but I was tired and-”
“Bullshit. You took the taxi home by yourself from Mix – you’re too cheap to do that. Normally, you’d find at least one other person to share the taxi fare with. Second, you went straight home without even asking me to be sure to bring your things to school today.”
Aly had a point. While Avi was nowhere near as cheap as Aly, the cab fare from her place to Mix was pretty steep, and she usually hated to cab it unless she was splitting the fare with at least one other person. It was out-of-character, but not too much so. As for the second … “I trusted you to-”
“Bullshit.” Aly was on a roll now, and she was very firm about it. She was stabbing at the air with her finger, and gesticulating wildly. “I’m flaky and you know it. You never trust me with small things like that, not OCD Avi. Third, there’s your text itself.”
“What about it?” Avi was curious now. She thought her text had been innocuous but she hadn’t exactly been thinking straight when she sent it.
“There are three typos in your one-sentence text.” Aly said this like it was the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
“So?” Avi asked. “I’m not good at texting, it takes me forever. You know that.”
“And one of the reasons it takes you so long is that you never have typos. Your texts are the most grammatically correct texts I’ve ever seen – everything’s always capitalized, you use the right punctuation all the time, and you never have typos. Unless you’re excited or upset.” Aly sat back, as if to say I rest my case.
Avi couldn’t deny the points that Aly had made.
“So something about the conversation with this mysterious woman upset you. Fine. Now spill. Who is she and what’s going on?”
Avi considered putting forth a few more denials, but that would be too much work. She sighed. Aly’d get it out of her sooner or later. Might as well get into it now.
“Her name,” Avi began, “is Maya Fan. We grew up in the same hometown. There weren’t a lot of Chinese Americans where I’m from, so our families knew each other, but it was a very distant thing. We didn’t exactly live close, or hang out in the same social circles.”
Avi stared off in space for a moment, remembering the oppressive feeling of growing up in a small town when all you wanted to do was leave, coupled with the ever-present awareness that you were different, because of the color of your skin, because of the Talent of your family, and then she was different from her own family even, because she didn’t have Talent.
High school had been difficult.
“We lived far enough apart that I attended the one school and she attended the other, so I didn’t really know her very well until halfway through middle school. That’s when our parents sent us both to the same- uh, Chinese School on Sundays.”
Actually, Avi’d had Chinese School on Saturdays and Maya’d never gone. It wasn’t Chinese School they’d attended together, but Talent School – but she couldn’t exactly tell Aly that.
“Even as a teenager, Maya had been more striking than beautiful – but she seemed to draw people to her anyway. She had a reputation for being wildly intelligent, but also hugely arrogant. She’d been top of our class in- uh, in Chinese School and she was always so witty, so T- talented, so … the kind of cool kid everyone wants to be friends with, you know?”
“So what, you were jealous of her? You wanted to be her?” Aly tossed the suggestions out carefully, not wanting to interrupt Avi’s flow even though she really wanted her to get to the point.
“She was a year older,” Avi continued, ignoring Aly, “and I … well, I had a huge crush on her.”
“Go on,” Aly said, sensing there was more to the issue.
Which there was.
“I mean, I don’t think I consciously thought of it as a crush at first – that was back when I was young and stupid and didn’t know much if anything about bisexuality. But she was just so … smart and so talented, and there were even rumors she was good at kung fu.”
In non-mundane words, Maya’d been Talented, born with a lot of natural Talent and hard-working enough to get really good at manipulating it. She’d practiced the forms that everyone else had only half-assed, until her Talent was one of the best in the school, perhaps rivaled only by Avi’s sisters.
“And then … at my graduation, someone spiked the punch.” More specifically, her younger brother had slipped a Truth Spell in her cereal because he’d thought it was funny, the little shit. “I ended up confessing every crush I’d ever had ever in front of all my classmates and then some. At the time, it felt wildly cathartic, like I was shedding a very large burden I’d been carrying until now, like the secrets would set me free or something.” That was the beauty of the Truth Spell, it made the victim feel like spilling their secrets was their own idea, like doing so would make them feel better.
“Next morning, I found out she’d been at that graduation party. Her cousin was in my grade. I mean, she was just one out of so many people I was wildly embarrassed about, but …”
If she closed her eyes, she could still remember the moment Megan’d phoned. Megan had opened with, “Bad news, Avi. The story of your little confession last night has already made its rounds and everyone knows. That’s not even the worst part, though.” And so just when she’d thought it couldn’t get any worse …
“Most of my crushes had been too well-mannered and polite to publicly comment on it or say anything to anyone that got back to me. Maya, however …” At that point, Maya had been somewhat of a local celebrity, at least among the Talented, because she’d been offered an apprenticeship with the ArchWizard in Chicago. And so of course her cronies wanted to know what she thought about the crush of the unTalented daughter of the esteemed Lau Family.
“I’m sure when she said it, she thought she was saying it in private to her friends. She should have known better, of course – Lana’s never kept a secret in her life. Either way, whether she meant for it to make me the laughingstock of the town or not, the words still hurt. She … she said, ‘Even if I were lesbian, I’d never go for her.’ And that’s all she wrote. People threw her words in my face for days after. I hated her for it.”
Maya’s full quote had been, “That pampered Family princess? Ugh. Even if I were lesbian, I’d never go for a Dud.” And that had been before her Dud status was official, back when they thought she might just be too weak to register.
“You poor thing,” Aly consoled.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Avi waved away. “I mean, I left for college that summer, and I never saw Maya again. Hell, even when I go home for breaks, I hardly see anyone from high school, so it’s not like I have to face anyone who knows my embarrassing secrets. At least, not until last night.”
And that was as much of the story as Aly would get, leaving out all the Talent-related drama, and possibly a little bit of the alcohol-induced kissing drama.
“It hurt a lot then. God, when you’re a teenager, everything seems like the end of the world, you know? Now, looking back … I can finally laugh about it.”
“So what did Maya want?”
“Umm …” Avi’d been so caught up thinking about the past, she’d forgotten that Aly would inevitably ask this question, and hadn’t formulated a complete cover story yet! “She just wanted to talk.”
“After what she said?” Aly asked incredulously.
“She was as surprised to see me as I was to see her,” Avi improvised. “She wanted to ask after my parents and stuff. And asked if I wanted to meet up for coffee or something. Just polite small talk.”
“It didn’t look like small talk was all she wanted when she hauled you out of the club,” Aly said slowly.
“There was also some family stuff, about our families back home,” Avi said. “It’s complicated and it’s not really my story to tell, and it’s not really that important.”
This explanation Aly accepted.
“All this talking has made me hungry,” Avi said firmly. “When’s our food getting here? I’m starving!”
---
“Have you eaten yet?” Jason asked as they slid into their booths. “I’m starving!”
“I had a little to eat,” Avi said, “but I’m always up for more.” She tossed the menu at him. “Surprise me.”
“Maybe some fries with our drinks, then,” Jason smiled as he waved for the waiter. “So how was your day?”
Avi didn’t even hesitate. “Oh, same old, same old. I woke up with a killer headache but thankfully it was gone by the time I had to go to work. I can’t imagine teaching those hellions with a headache – I can barely manage them when I’m in good shape.” She was used to lying, especially when it came to covering up Talent-related business. “And how was your day?”
“Whole orders of magnitude better now that you’re here,” Jason said very seriously, looking into her eyes.
They held the very tender, very romantic gaze for all of fifteen seconds before Jason started cracking up first, and Avi followed.
“I win,” Avi crowed triumphantly when she could breathe again. She had to cover her face because every time she locked eyes with Jason she collapsed in another fit of giggles.
“You were making faces at me,” Jason protested as the waiter stopped by with a jug of some sort of unnatural-colored beverage, two shot glasses, and a plate of cheese-fries.
“But you laughed first. Do a shot!” Avi took a shotglass and the jug, peering at it suspiciously. Shrugging, she poured him a shot of the lime-green stuff.
Jason rolled his eyes. “We’re not even drinking alcohol.”
“We’re not?”
“You really want to drink alcohol on that headache?” Jason said. “I thought you might want something non-alcoholic for tonight, to make up for that non-alcoholic drink you missed last night.”
“I guess you’re right. So I have an excuse for not drinking alcohol – what’s yours?”
“Because there is no way I’m getting drunk while you stay sober,” Jason laughed. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
“So what is this, then? And why is it lime-green?” Avi sniffed the jug, trying to see if she could figure out what it was, then shrugged and poured herself a glass as well.
“Tea,” Jason said. He tossed back his shot in one gulp, pretending like it was alcohol, and making her laugh again.
“Not any kind of tea I’ve ever had,” Avi said. “It looks radioactive.” She took a cautious sip. “It tastes okay, I guess.”
“It’s some special fruit tea that’s the bar’s special. I don’t know. I just figured you wouldn’t be up for drinking and ordered the first thing non-alcoholic thing I saw. My Chinese isn’t good enough for me to be too picky.” Jason did that sheepish, modest shrug that made her stomach flip.
Avi rolled her eyes. “Stop being so humble. Your Chinese is so much better than mine; I’m jealous!”
Jason laughed. “My pronunciation is just more standard, that’s all.”
“You can and have passed for a native Beijinger,” Avi pointed out, tapping his chest with her finger.
“For all of five minutes,” Jason demurred. “I’ve got the accent down but I don’t have anywhere near the vocabulary you do. And you speak Canto just as fluently, right?”
“But my accent in both is deplorable,” Avi said, even though it wasn’t deplorable, just not good enough to pass for native like Jason’s.
“I can’t speak for the Cantonese, seeing as I don’t know any,” Jason said, “but your accent is Mandarin at least is a Cantonese accent as opposed to, say, an American one.”
“There is that, at least,” Avi agreed. She smiled at him through her lashes. Apparently alcohol wasn’t the only thing that loosened her up – spending an entire day getting threatened by nefarious persons and travel-by-dragon worked just as well. Whereas she’d usually be slightly uncomfortable and awkward around him, overthinking whether her jokes were coming off right or whether his smile was a genuinely happy smile or a nervous one, today was different. Today, her laughs weren’t restricted by a nagging worry that she sounded like a horse, and she wasn’t too shy to do all the small touches (whacking his arm with mock-outrage, leaning against him when out of breath with laugher, poking his arm to make a point) that Aly had assured her were part and parcel of flirting.
And of course, a perfect moment like this couldn’t last.
Someone behind her cleared her throat and said, “Avi of the Lau Family?” in Cantonese just as Jason’s phone rang.
Avi jumped, and turned to see a beautiful woman with tell-tale earrings that marked her to those in the know as a hulijing (狐狸精). Of course. Nobody normal would be addressing her so formally unless they wanted to see her on Family business.
Just as she was trying to figure out how to get rid of the woman, Jason tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed apologetically. “I need to take this call.”
“Go ahead!” Avi gestured. “I’ll just wait here. I need to speak to, uh, her anyways.”
Jason gave the woman a curious look, no doubt full of questions about who she was and what she’d said, but evidently his phone call was more important. He kept on making noises of agreement as he hurried out the door.
As soon as he was out the door, Avi turned to face the hulijing. “What do you want?” she hissed in Cantonese. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“I came to pay my respects to the Lau Family,” the woman replied in the same language, obviously rather offended by her tone.
“I’m glad you like us, but couldn’t this wait until later?” Avi kept on glancing at the door, in case Jason suddenly came back.
“After everything the Lau Family has done for me, it would be criminal of me to postpone this.” The “Don’t you know how things are done?” was implied.
Avi felt a little guilty. She’d been brought up right, and she knew how rude it was to not even offer the woman a seat, much less fail to reciprocate her formal respects, but there were also rules about not mixing Talented business with mundane business which the hulijing was apparently ignoring, so Avi wasn’t completely in the wrong. “What could we possibly have done? Nobody from my family has set foot in this country in decades.”
“When a life-debt is owed, time is immaterial,” the woman said coldly.
Avi paused. “Life-debt?”
“I understand that you are busy, and I’m sure you have so many better things to be doing with your time, but I don’t have that luxury. As the one who owes a life-debt, respects aren’t something I choose to pay or otherwise.” This of course was basic stuff that Avi’d known her whole life, and which she’d have realized if she weren’t so flustered. As the party who was owed, she could afford to be gracious or graceless, but the one who owed the debt could never choose the terms or convenience of repayment.
“I’m sorry,” Avi said. “Your respects have been noted and will be recorded,” she said, only stumbling once with the formulaic response. She’d learned it by rote as a child, but had never needed it before, certainly never in Cantonese. She’d never been the Lau Family Representative of choice, not when there were such Talented older sisters to do the duty, or a prodigy younger brother.
“You would do well to treat tradition with more respect, child,” the hulijing sniffed.
“I’m not even Talented,” Avi snapped, stung.
“Whether or not you have Talent doesn’t mean the responsibility isn’t in your blood. Learn it.”
“Well perhaps I’d be more composed if you weren’t confusing Talent business with mundane,” Avi said hotly. “I was having dinner with an entirely mundane companion – now I’ll have to explain you.”
“You mean your gentleman friend?” the hulijing said. “But he’s Talented – didn’t you know? Of course I wouldn’t have approached if he were mundane, but we have very good noses – he doesn’t smell mundane in the least.”
Avi stared at the woman in shock, and then her eyes went to the door that Jason had just walked out of. She barely managed to politely bid the woman goodbye, but she was already on her feet as she followed Jason out the back door, her stomach clenched, though whether in fear or anticipation she could not tell.
She walked down the narrow hallway, until she heard his voice, and then she followed that until she reached the door.
“-my best, but you have to give me time. And anyways, I-”
And that was all she heard because by then Avi’d reached the open door, and she couldn’t hear anything else for she was too shocked by the sight before her.
There stood Jason, sweet normal Jason who she had such a crush on … conversing with a floating head in the air.
Please see Chapter 1 for the Summary, Author's Notes, additional details, etc.
“I trust your meeting went well,” Maya said ironically as she turned to lead the way out. Inside the Zhang House, she was wearing black slacks and a navy blue top similar to that of the attendants, those hers was a bit more militaristic and was obviously designed for ease of movement.
“I trust you were well-rewarded for your timely report,” Avi snapped.
If she was hoping to sting Maya into silence, she was in for disappointment. “I was, thank you,” Maya said pleasantly. She didn’t even falter in step.
They took a different path than the one to come inside, winding through rather more indoor hallways than Avi remembered. Avi wouldn’t be surprised if going out the same path she’d come in would have led her to some sort of fatal trap.
“The Matriarch certainly seems to like you,” Maya commented as they reached the final courtyard and approached the door.
“You mean she always threatens to summarily execute the people she likes?” Avi asked dryly.
“If she didn’t like you, you’d already be dead,” Maya replied, matching her dry tone. She opened the door and waited for Avi to step out. “She’s given you forty-eight hours, Avi. That means you really impressed her – but if you think she’s not serious about treating you as an enemy and dealing with you accordingly, you’ll regret it. It would be in your best interests to leave.”
“And it’s really none of your business what my best interests are,” Avi retorted as she stepped over the raised entrance outside the House.
“The guardian lions will see to it that you get home,” Maya said stiffly and before Avi could ask her what the hell that meant, she shut the door.
Avi looked rather nervously at the stone lions on either side of the door, when both suddenly came to life and swung their heads to look at her. Before she could even gulp, she saw the world around hers slowly blue and fade, like it was a picture from a sketchbook slowly being erased, and then suddenly she had fallen very painfully on the floor of her bedroom.
She rubbed her sore back, wincing. That hadn’t been the most pleasant of trips – she didn’t even know that the guardian lions could do that! Sighing, she checked the time – she’d already missed her Chinese class, and she’d have to hoof it if she didn’t want to be late for work. She started gathering her things, and heating up something to eat in the meanwhile so she didn’t faint from malnourishment in the middle of class.
She hadn’t been in her apartment for more than fifteen minutes when her phone rang.
Avi sighed, and looked balefully at her cell phone. “Now what?” she demanded crossly. Who could be calling now, probably to somehow make her day get even worse?
But when she flipped open the phone to read the caller id, she was surprised to see that it was Jason. Hadn’t she last left Jason at the club last night …? She’d texted Aly to let her know not to worry and that she’d gone home early, but Jason’d completely slipped her mind, that’s how upset she’d been.
Hurriedly, she moved to answer the phone. “Hello?” she said, trying for nonchalance as she turned off her kettle so she could hear the other side more clearly.
“Hi, Avi, are you okay?” Jason asked. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“Oh, I’m fine, don’t worry,” Avi said easily. “I’m sorry about ditching you last night – I had a killer headache.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jason reassured her. “Though … I thought Aly said you left with some girl.”
“Oh, yes,” Avi said. “Well, I initially did. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. And then since I had the headache, I decided to just go straight home.”
“I’m sure it must have been pretty bad,” Jason said. “I … this is going to sound kind of stalker-y, but I was worried about you so I was waiting for you outside your Chinese class. I’d hoped to check up on you, but I didn’t see you and then your friend Caitlyn told me you’d missed class.”
“Aw,” Avi smiled. “That’s actually really sweet.”
“Anyway, I hope you’re feeling better,” Jason said, his words rushed. He was probably blushing with embarrassment. “Because I, uh … I still owe you that drink.”
Avi felt a frisson of pleasure in her stomach. The first thing to go right all day! “I’m feeling better already,” she said. “When were you thinking we could get that drink?”
“If you’re not too busy … maybe tonight?” His tone was just a little hesitant, just a little nervous, just a little hopeful.
“Jason. I’m not even exaggerating when I say, that is the most wonderful thing I’ve heard all day.”
---
Of course, after the morning she’d had, the rest of the day was positively rosy in comparison. Jason’s invitation marked a turning point, and she seemed destined for good luck from then onwards. The subway was on time, the kids were relatively well-behaved in class, and one of them even shared some candy with her.
After class, Aly stopped by as usual. “Hey, you feeling better?” she asked.
It took Avi a minute to realize what Aly was talking about. “Yeah, the headache’s all gone,” she smiled. “I feel great. But! I have plans tonight, I can’t go out with you.”
“I wasn’t even going to suggest that,” Aly said, mock-hurt. “I was just going to ask if you wanted to grab dinner.”
Avi hesitated … but she wasn’t due for drinks with Jason for another two hours. He taught at a different school and his classes got out later. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to get dinner with Aly first. “Sure. Where were you thinking about?”
“Just grab a bite to eat at the ramen place downstairs,” Aly suggested. “Their food is tasty, filling and fast.”
“Sounds good to me,” Avi agreed. “Just give me a minute to get my things together.” So saying, she dumped everything in her bag, switched off the computer, and stepped back. “Okay, all good.”
She could tell Aly was struggling really hard not to say or ask something as they walked down the stairs, because when Aly was bursting with questions, there was this certain bounce she adopted, as if she were physically unable to keep the questions in, and the bouncing was an effect of them trying to get out. She managed not to talk about anything other than small talk, however, until they’d sat in the restaurant and ordered. As soon as the waiter left, the bouncing stopped and Aly got that gleam in her eyes.
“So, spill,” Aly said firmly.
“What?” Avi asked innocently. She had an idea what this might be about, but she was going to make Aly work for it. This was a song-and-dance they both knew well. Avi never liked sharing—about anything, a by-product of growing up in a secretly powerful magical family that most of the world weren’t allowed to know about—and Aly loved gossip, so it was always a struggle to see who would win any given period of communications.
“Who was the girl from the club?” Aly started off, her eyes watching Avi’s every reaction.
“Just someone I know,” Avi shrugged, and took a sip of her water.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Aly said affectionately. “I saw the look on your face when you saw her—and after whatever private conversation the two of you had, you left the club upset.”
“What do you mean I was upset?” Avi protested. “Like I texted you, I had a headache and was heading home. It’s as simple as that.”
“Exactly,” Aly nodded. At Avi’s confused look, she sighed and explained. “First,” she said, “there’s the fact that you went home.”
“I know it’s fun to spend the night out but I was tired and-”
“Bullshit. You took the taxi home by yourself from Mix – you’re too cheap to do that. Normally, you’d find at least one other person to share the taxi fare with. Second, you went straight home without even asking me to be sure to bring your things to school today.”
Aly had a point. While Avi was nowhere near as cheap as Aly, the cab fare from her place to Mix was pretty steep, and she usually hated to cab it unless she was splitting the fare with at least one other person. It was out-of-character, but not too much so. As for the second … “I trusted you to-”
“Bullshit.” Aly was on a roll now, and she was very firm about it. She was stabbing at the air with her finger, and gesticulating wildly. “I’m flaky and you know it. You never trust me with small things like that, not OCD Avi. Third, there’s your text itself.”
“What about it?” Avi was curious now. She thought her text had been innocuous but she hadn’t exactly been thinking straight when she sent it.
“There are three typos in your one-sentence text.” Aly said this like it was the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
“So?” Avi asked. “I’m not good at texting, it takes me forever. You know that.”
“And one of the reasons it takes you so long is that you never have typos. Your texts are the most grammatically correct texts I’ve ever seen – everything’s always capitalized, you use the right punctuation all the time, and you never have typos. Unless you’re excited or upset.” Aly sat back, as if to say I rest my case.
Avi couldn’t deny the points that Aly had made.
“So something about the conversation with this mysterious woman upset you. Fine. Now spill. Who is she and what’s going on?”
Avi considered putting forth a few more denials, but that would be too much work. She sighed. Aly’d get it out of her sooner or later. Might as well get into it now.
“Her name,” Avi began, “is Maya Fan. We grew up in the same hometown. There weren’t a lot of Chinese Americans where I’m from, so our families knew each other, but it was a very distant thing. We didn’t exactly live close, or hang out in the same social circles.”
Avi stared off in space for a moment, remembering the oppressive feeling of growing up in a small town when all you wanted to do was leave, coupled with the ever-present awareness that you were different, because of the color of your skin, because of the Talent of your family, and then she was different from her own family even, because she didn’t have Talent.
High school had been difficult.
“We lived far enough apart that I attended the one school and she attended the other, so I didn’t really know her very well until halfway through middle school. That’s when our parents sent us both to the same- uh, Chinese School on Sundays.”
Actually, Avi’d had Chinese School on Saturdays and Maya’d never gone. It wasn’t Chinese School they’d attended together, but Talent School – but she couldn’t exactly tell Aly that.
“Even as a teenager, Maya had been more striking than beautiful – but she seemed to draw people to her anyway. She had a reputation for being wildly intelligent, but also hugely arrogant. She’d been top of our class in- uh, in Chinese School and she was always so witty, so T- talented, so … the kind of cool kid everyone wants to be friends with, you know?”
“So what, you were jealous of her? You wanted to be her?” Aly tossed the suggestions out carefully, not wanting to interrupt Avi’s flow even though she really wanted her to get to the point.
“She was a year older,” Avi continued, ignoring Aly, “and I … well, I had a huge crush on her.”
“Go on,” Aly said, sensing there was more to the issue.
Which there was.
“I mean, I don’t think I consciously thought of it as a crush at first – that was back when I was young and stupid and didn’t know much if anything about bisexuality. But she was just so … smart and so talented, and there were even rumors she was good at kung fu.”
In non-mundane words, Maya’d been Talented, born with a lot of natural Talent and hard-working enough to get really good at manipulating it. She’d practiced the forms that everyone else had only half-assed, until her Talent was one of the best in the school, perhaps rivaled only by Avi’s sisters.
“And then … at my graduation, someone spiked the punch.” More specifically, her younger brother had slipped a Truth Spell in her cereal because he’d thought it was funny, the little shit. “I ended up confessing every crush I’d ever had ever in front of all my classmates and then some. At the time, it felt wildly cathartic, like I was shedding a very large burden I’d been carrying until now, like the secrets would set me free or something.” That was the beauty of the Truth Spell, it made the victim feel like spilling their secrets was their own idea, like doing so would make them feel better.
“Next morning, I found out she’d been at that graduation party. Her cousin was in my grade. I mean, she was just one out of so many people I was wildly embarrassed about, but …”
If she closed her eyes, she could still remember the moment Megan’d phoned. Megan had opened with, “Bad news, Avi. The story of your little confession last night has already made its rounds and everyone knows. That’s not even the worst part, though.” And so just when she’d thought it couldn’t get any worse …
“Most of my crushes had been too well-mannered and polite to publicly comment on it or say anything to anyone that got back to me. Maya, however …” At that point, Maya had been somewhat of a local celebrity, at least among the Talented, because she’d been offered an apprenticeship with the ArchWizard in Chicago. And so of course her cronies wanted to know what she thought about the crush of the unTalented daughter of the esteemed Lau Family.
“I’m sure when she said it, she thought she was saying it in private to her friends. She should have known better, of course – Lana’s never kept a secret in her life. Either way, whether she meant for it to make me the laughingstock of the town or not, the words still hurt. She … she said, ‘Even if I were lesbian, I’d never go for her.’ And that’s all she wrote. People threw her words in my face for days after. I hated her for it.”
Maya’s full quote had been, “That pampered Family princess? Ugh. Even if I were lesbian, I’d never go for a Dud.” And that had been before her Dud status was official, back when they thought she might just be too weak to register.
“You poor thing,” Aly consoled.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Avi waved away. “I mean, I left for college that summer, and I never saw Maya again. Hell, even when I go home for breaks, I hardly see anyone from high school, so it’s not like I have to face anyone who knows my embarrassing secrets. At least, not until last night.”
And that was as much of the story as Aly would get, leaving out all the Talent-related drama, and possibly a little bit of the alcohol-induced kissing drama.
“It hurt a lot then. God, when you’re a teenager, everything seems like the end of the world, you know? Now, looking back … I can finally laugh about it.”
“So what did Maya want?”
“Umm …” Avi’d been so caught up thinking about the past, she’d forgotten that Aly would inevitably ask this question, and hadn’t formulated a complete cover story yet! “She just wanted to talk.”
“After what she said?” Aly asked incredulously.
“She was as surprised to see me as I was to see her,” Avi improvised. “She wanted to ask after my parents and stuff. And asked if I wanted to meet up for coffee or something. Just polite small talk.”
“It didn’t look like small talk was all she wanted when she hauled you out of the club,” Aly said slowly.
“There was also some family stuff, about our families back home,” Avi said. “It’s complicated and it’s not really my story to tell, and it’s not really that important.”
This explanation Aly accepted.
“All this talking has made me hungry,” Avi said firmly. “When’s our food getting here? I’m starving!”
---
“Have you eaten yet?” Jason asked as they slid into their booths. “I’m starving!”
“I had a little to eat,” Avi said, “but I’m always up for more.” She tossed the menu at him. “Surprise me.”
“Maybe some fries with our drinks, then,” Jason smiled as he waved for the waiter. “So how was your day?”
Avi didn’t even hesitate. “Oh, same old, same old. I woke up with a killer headache but thankfully it was gone by the time I had to go to work. I can’t imagine teaching those hellions with a headache – I can barely manage them when I’m in good shape.” She was used to lying, especially when it came to covering up Talent-related business. “And how was your day?”
“Whole orders of magnitude better now that you’re here,” Jason said very seriously, looking into her eyes.
They held the very tender, very romantic gaze for all of fifteen seconds before Jason started cracking up first, and Avi followed.
“I win,” Avi crowed triumphantly when she could breathe again. She had to cover her face because every time she locked eyes with Jason she collapsed in another fit of giggles.
“You were making faces at me,” Jason protested as the waiter stopped by with a jug of some sort of unnatural-colored beverage, two shot glasses, and a plate of cheese-fries.
“But you laughed first. Do a shot!” Avi took a shotglass and the jug, peering at it suspiciously. Shrugging, she poured him a shot of the lime-green stuff.
Jason rolled his eyes. “We’re not even drinking alcohol.”
“We’re not?”
“You really want to drink alcohol on that headache?” Jason said. “I thought you might want something non-alcoholic for tonight, to make up for that non-alcoholic drink you missed last night.”
“I guess you’re right. So I have an excuse for not drinking alcohol – what’s yours?”
“Because there is no way I’m getting drunk while you stay sober,” Jason laughed. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
“So what is this, then? And why is it lime-green?” Avi sniffed the jug, trying to see if she could figure out what it was, then shrugged and poured herself a glass as well.
“Tea,” Jason said. He tossed back his shot in one gulp, pretending like it was alcohol, and making her laugh again.
“Not any kind of tea I’ve ever had,” Avi said. “It looks radioactive.” She took a cautious sip. “It tastes okay, I guess.”
“It’s some special fruit tea that’s the bar’s special. I don’t know. I just figured you wouldn’t be up for drinking and ordered the first thing non-alcoholic thing I saw. My Chinese isn’t good enough for me to be too picky.” Jason did that sheepish, modest shrug that made her stomach flip.
Avi rolled her eyes. “Stop being so humble. Your Chinese is so much better than mine; I’m jealous!”
Jason laughed. “My pronunciation is just more standard, that’s all.”
“You can and have passed for a native Beijinger,” Avi pointed out, tapping his chest with her finger.
“For all of five minutes,” Jason demurred. “I’ve got the accent down but I don’t have anywhere near the vocabulary you do. And you speak Canto just as fluently, right?”
“But my accent in both is deplorable,” Avi said, even though it wasn’t deplorable, just not good enough to pass for native like Jason’s.
“I can’t speak for the Cantonese, seeing as I don’t know any,” Jason said, “but your accent is Mandarin at least is a Cantonese accent as opposed to, say, an American one.”
“There is that, at least,” Avi agreed. She smiled at him through her lashes. Apparently alcohol wasn’t the only thing that loosened her up – spending an entire day getting threatened by nefarious persons and travel-by-dragon worked just as well. Whereas she’d usually be slightly uncomfortable and awkward around him, overthinking whether her jokes were coming off right or whether his smile was a genuinely happy smile or a nervous one, today was different. Today, her laughs weren’t restricted by a nagging worry that she sounded like a horse, and she wasn’t too shy to do all the small touches (whacking his arm with mock-outrage, leaning against him when out of breath with laugher, poking his arm to make a point) that Aly had assured her were part and parcel of flirting.
And of course, a perfect moment like this couldn’t last.
Someone behind her cleared her throat and said, “Avi of the Lau Family?” in Cantonese just as Jason’s phone rang.
Avi jumped, and turned to see a beautiful woman with tell-tale earrings that marked her to those in the know as a hulijing (狐狸精). Of course. Nobody normal would be addressing her so formally unless they wanted to see her on Family business.
Just as she was trying to figure out how to get rid of the woman, Jason tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed apologetically. “I need to take this call.”
“Go ahead!” Avi gestured. “I’ll just wait here. I need to speak to, uh, her anyways.”
Jason gave the woman a curious look, no doubt full of questions about who she was and what she’d said, but evidently his phone call was more important. He kept on making noises of agreement as he hurried out the door.
As soon as he was out the door, Avi turned to face the hulijing. “What do you want?” she hissed in Cantonese. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“I came to pay my respects to the Lau Family,” the woman replied in the same language, obviously rather offended by her tone.
“I’m glad you like us, but couldn’t this wait until later?” Avi kept on glancing at the door, in case Jason suddenly came back.
“After everything the Lau Family has done for me, it would be criminal of me to postpone this.” The “Don’t you know how things are done?” was implied.
Avi felt a little guilty. She’d been brought up right, and she knew how rude it was to not even offer the woman a seat, much less fail to reciprocate her formal respects, but there were also rules about not mixing Talented business with mundane business which the hulijing was apparently ignoring, so Avi wasn’t completely in the wrong. “What could we possibly have done? Nobody from my family has set foot in this country in decades.”
“When a life-debt is owed, time is immaterial,” the woman said coldly.
Avi paused. “Life-debt?”
“I understand that you are busy, and I’m sure you have so many better things to be doing with your time, but I don’t have that luxury. As the one who owes a life-debt, respects aren’t something I choose to pay or otherwise.” This of course was basic stuff that Avi’d known her whole life, and which she’d have realized if she weren’t so flustered. As the party who was owed, she could afford to be gracious or graceless, but the one who owed the debt could never choose the terms or convenience of repayment.
“I’m sorry,” Avi said. “Your respects have been noted and will be recorded,” she said, only stumbling once with the formulaic response. She’d learned it by rote as a child, but had never needed it before, certainly never in Cantonese. She’d never been the Lau Family Representative of choice, not when there were such Talented older sisters to do the duty, or a prodigy younger brother.
“You would do well to treat tradition with more respect, child,” the hulijing sniffed.
“I’m not even Talented,” Avi snapped, stung.
“Whether or not you have Talent doesn’t mean the responsibility isn’t in your blood. Learn it.”
“Well perhaps I’d be more composed if you weren’t confusing Talent business with mundane,” Avi said hotly. “I was having dinner with an entirely mundane companion – now I’ll have to explain you.”
“You mean your gentleman friend?” the hulijing said. “But he’s Talented – didn’t you know? Of course I wouldn’t have approached if he were mundane, but we have very good noses – he doesn’t smell mundane in the least.”
Avi stared at the woman in shock, and then her eyes went to the door that Jason had just walked out of. She barely managed to politely bid the woman goodbye, but she was already on her feet as she followed Jason out the back door, her stomach clenched, though whether in fear or anticipation she could not tell.
She walked down the narrow hallway, until she heard his voice, and then she followed that until she reached the door.
“-my best, but you have to give me time. And anyways, I-”
And that was all she heard because by then Avi’d reached the open door, and she couldn’t hear anything else for she was too shocked by the sight before her.
There stood Jason, sweet normal Jason who she had such a crush on … conversing with a floating head in the air.
