Girl Overboard (21 page)

For a moment, I miss the old Grace who ignored me. But that thought is as fleeting as last night’s sleep, especially when I remember what this morning is: Victory in Vancouver. Yawning, I haul myself into a sitting position. It’s tiring to watch Grace flit around my room, checking the multitiered antique Chinese wedding basket next to my desk, the upholstered reading chair in the corner. She stops in front of the silver-plated frame of herself and Wayne on some vacation they must have taken together.

I pretend I’m not paying attention as I stretch in bed, wondering how pathetic I must look to her, harboring a picture of them when I’m sure no such photo of me sullies their bedrooms.

“This doesn’t feel like you” is Grace’s final judgment. Her hand sweeps my entire bedroom and its priceless contents, including the bonsai Mama has displayed on my desk.

Once, I would have thought,
As if you know me.
But Grace is right. My bedroom feels nothing like me. I crawl out of bed and lean against one of the posts to get my bearings. “I told the interior decorator that I couldn’t sleep in a bed that’s four hundred years old because every time I closed my eyes, I saw a village of people staring at me. Do you know what she said?”

Grace shakes her head.

“She said, ‘Nonsense! It would be aristocrats staring at you since this is an imperial piece.’ ”

“She did not.”

“Yeah, she did.” Shyly, we smile at each other, and I decide that it is definitely worth having my REM interrupted at five thirty in the morning for this very moment.

Half an hour into
the workout, Grace isn’t Little Miss Rise and Shine anymore. I swear, her face is so red, feet pedaling and hands gripping the arms of the elliptical machine, I’m afraid she’s going to go into cardiac arrest, and my CPR training from my avalanche rescue class two years ago is just a tad rusty.

“Why don’t we cool down now?” I say.

“God,” she puffs. “How long do you usually go for?”

“About this long,” I tell her, sensing that she’s got enough Cheng competitive spirit to match me, minute for minute.

“Don’t lie to me.” Huff, huff. “Just tell me the truth.”

So I do. “Fifteen minutes longer.”

She groans.

“But you know,” I lean over to point at the warning label on her elliptical, “it says right there that you should consult a doctor before you begin an exercise program.”

“Yes, I am aware of that.” Huff, huff. “My new client is, after all, in the physical fitness business.” Grace looks at me accusingly while she pants. “You’re not even breathing hard.”

“I’m saving energy for weights.”

“Okay, done.” Grace presses the emergency stop button on the elliptical. As soon as she’s off, she bends over so that I can see every one of her vertebrae and her ribs through her thin top.

Skinny, I realize, isn’t the same thing as strong.

Me, I could stay on the treadmill for at least another thirty minutes, crank up the speed, I’m feeling that powerful this morning. That must be a sign to begin my negotiations. So I step off the treadmill and stretch beside Grace, crossing my right leg over my left, and reach for my toes.

“What are you doing next week?” I ask her nonchalantly, because according to The Ethan Cheng Way, you shouldn’t let the person on the other side of the negotiations know how much you want anything. With that small bit of knowledge, power shifts.

“You still want to go to Whistler, don’t you?” counters Grace unexpectedly. But then again, I should have known that the Master of the Rude Q and A would be good at guessing.

“Actually, I don’t,” I say, and cross my left leg over my right.

Grace arches an eyebrow at me, the kind of expression that says,
I highly doubt you.

Surprisingly enough, it’s true. Somewhere between receiving that rejection e-mail from RhamiWare and visiting Children’s Hospital, I lost my burning need to go to Wicked in Whistler. I’d rather find out about Po-Po.

According to the Syrah Cheng Road Trip to Vancouver Rude Q and A, I should be prepared to answer why she should give up her precious working hours over the weekend to spend time on me.

Grace beats me to the punch. “I’m working next week so I really can’t drive you five and a half hours each way to Whistler.”

“Can you drive me three hours to Vancouver instead? It’ll just be a weekend trip,” I say, and lie on my back. Bending my left leg, I place the ankle on my scarred knee and stretch my hamstrings. Grace doesn’t stretch, but sits next to me, knees drawn to her chin.

“What’s in Vancouver?” she asks.

My internal voice, the one I’ve squelched since it didn’t lead me away from Jared but to him, now gives an impatient tsk, unmistakably impatient as Bao-mu. This Rude Q and A may work for Grace, and The Ethan Cheng Way may work for Baba, but none of that is working for me.

Facing Grace, I tell her what I want. “I just found out that my grandmother passed away a couple of days ago in Vancouver. I have to go to her funeral Saturday.”

“Wait a second. Didn’t your grandmother die about ten years ago?”

“That was Mama’s
adopted
mother.”

Grace’s eyes widen, but other than that, her face doesn’t change. Finally, she asks, “Why isn’t your mom taking you?”

“That’s what I need to find out.”

Grace isn’t looking at me anymore, but out the window where the sunrise is slowly displacing darkness. Telling her what I want hasn’t been particularly effective. So I ask for what I need. “Can you drive me? It’s important.”

Grace stands up quickly, like she’s brushing crawling ants off her lap, and asks instead, “Are we going to do some weights?”

Disappointed, I nod, telling myself that I hadn’t really expected Grace to come through for me. Less than a day of civility does not a doting big sister make.

“So we should start on our big muscles first,” I say softly. “The ones that support us. How do lunges sound?”

“If it makes my butt tight like yours, okay,” says Grace.

How sad is it that the mention of my butt in the same sentence as the word “tight” works like a commercial break, interrupting my internal churning about having no way to get to Vancouver? This demonstrates two things: a little flattery can win me over, and Grace is a master of controlling conversation.

To regroup, I demonstrate the proper posture of a lunge for her, sweeping one foot in front of me, bending the back leg until it almost touches the floor.

“Keep your front leg at a ninety-degree angle,” I correct her, as she lunges. “Chest up.”

Out of the blue, Grace says, “You’ll get a bigger turnout if you stage Ride for Our Lives in Seattle, not at Snoqualmie. Do you know of anyplace that’s already set up for a snowboarding event in town?” Breathing harder now, Grace asks, “Anyplace we don’t have to pay for the venue?”

“No,” I start to say, but remember how over one summer, Age dropped me off at Baba’s office and drooled over all the steps leading to the front door.

“Those rails are wicked good,” he’d said, eyes glittering at this snowboarders’ nirvana. I could see back then that he was already plotting to ride them come the perfect winter’s night.

“Are you kidding?” I told him, unable to even fathom the trouble I’d be in if the headlines ever screamed, CHENG DAUGHTER, 14, ARRESTED FOR RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT AND TRESPASSING.

So now I suggest to Grace like I’m half-kidding, “Well, DiaComm would be free.”

Instead of scoffing at me, Grace looks thoughtful for a long moment, and then she says, “Actually, the parking lot is big enough to set up a stadium and a ramp or whatever it is you snowboarders use.”

“Rails. But DiaComm? Come on, that would be a no.”

“Why not?” Grace swivels around so effortlessly, she’d be a natural at snowboarding. Facing me, she demands, “What symbolizes mobility more than snowboarders? Matching up snowboarders with DiaComm would be a PR coup.” The way her eyes gleam at this new challenge, this new opportunity, I can tell she’s fallen in love with the idea. “If you’re going to do something, do it big and do it right. Remember that.”

“Okay, but first, I need Baba to buy into my plan.”

As if she’s assessing whether I’ve got the guts to follow through with that—guess what, I do—Grace continues to study me, and then she nods. It’s as if we share one of those sister bonds I read about in my favorite manga series,
The Shaolin Sisters,
about three girls who share the same father, but different mothers because, I swear, Grace says, “You’re onto something big.” Before I can react, she uses her shoulder to wipe a trickle of sweat off her cheek and asks, “So when’s the funeral?”

“Saturday at two.”

“We’ll have to leave Sunday morning.”

“Really?” I can’t keep the squeak out of my voice.

“I wouldn’t offer unless I meant it,” she says sharply, back to the Grace I know.

“Thanks,” I tell her, feeling weightless in a way I haven’t since the avalanche poured down the mountain behind me. I know what has been lifted. Not my insecurity or my neuroses or my fear. But my loneliness. At a dinner a couple of months ago, a researcher whose work Baba personally funds told us that the mortality rate for single men is higher than it is for married ones. That weight of loneliness, of feeling like you don’t matter to anyone in the world, can literally kill you. I can’t help it. I gush, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Grace says, holding my gaze in the mirror, an unwavering look that tells me I matter and that she won’t change her mind.

B
y the time Grace
drops me off at school, the bell has already rung, but before I head to homeroom, I stop in at the library, where I know I’ll find Lillian. Just as I thought, she’s parked at the computer, devouring another jargon-laden medical article as though she’s cramming for a final that’s going to help Amanda.

“Lillian,” I say, resting my hand lightly on her shoulder.

Despite the dark circles scooping out her eyes, Lillian shines a megawatt-smile at me. “What’s up?”

“You don’t have to with me,” I tell her quietly. “You don’t have to be perfect, not with me.”

Instead of being offended, Lillian nods, her smile sloughing off her face, leaving her as vulnerable and panicked as a girl who has slipped overboard. But I’m on lifeguard duty, and I’m not letting her go down, not without a fight. So when she asks, “God, what’re we going to do if the transplant doesn’t work?” I tell her, “I think I have an idea.”

“Syrah, not even your dad can do anything. Even Dr.
Martin said that this was our best option—thanks for having him call.”

“My pleasure, but—”

“Look, I know you want to be helpful, but Amanda’s got the best pediatric oncologist around, thanks to Chelsea’s mom.”

Mrs. Dillinger connected them to Children’s Hospital? No wonder Lillian’s been on her best behavior with Chelsea. I sit in the chair next to hers. “I know Amanda’s getting the best care in the world, but I’ve got an idea for finding her a bone marrow match.”

As if she’s traipsed down this well-worn path from hope to heartbreak one too many times, Lillian only shrugs. “How?”

“What if we stage a fundraiser—”

“Money’s not the issue.”

“—fundraiser,” I continue, pretending her doubts haven’t interrupted me, “that will also publicize the need for more people to get tested for the National Bone Marrow Registry?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said that the issue is that Amanda doesn’t have a perfect match. And that there’s probably somebody out in the world who’s mixed race and matches her, right?”

Finally, Lillian turns in her chair to face me head-on, willing to listen now.

“So what I’m saying is that we draw attention to Amanda. We stage a snowboarding exhibition in her honor. ‘Ride for Our Lives.’ ” I pull a copy of my business plan out of my backpack. “We’ll invite some of the best snowboarders around, especially the ones of color. There are a bunch of Japanese riders who are absolutely kicking it in competition. I bet they’d care about this because it could be them, or someone in their family, or a friend who needs a bone marrow match. We’ll offer a prize purse, and get a matching donation for the registry.”

“It’s a long shot, Syrah.”

“I know, but so is your parents having a just-in-case baby.” On the cover, I tap the manga drawing of Amanda on her snowboard etched with
Ride for Our Lives.
“All I’m saying is why not have a just-in-case plan?”

Lillian lifts her eyes from the deck of PowerPoint slides she’s holding as if they’re winning lottery tickets and asks, “Why would you do this?”

“Do you really need to ask? I’ve got zero community service hours. And a semester’s worth of manga to write for the newspaper.”

“Yeah, right,” says Lillian, smiling, and I can tell my one tiny drop of hope is thawing her heart. “Okay, so question of the day.”

Shoot them at me,
I think.
I’m ready to answer any objection.

“How are we going to pull this off?” she asks.

We, as in we are a team.

I hug Lillian and say, “You forget who I am.”

There’s a moment in snowboarding when a rider shifts from being technically proficient to being stylish. Her riding becomes fluid, easy, shows flair and personality. That’s how I feel right this moment, like I’ve crossed over from being the daughter of Ethan Cheng to becoming me, Syrah Cheng, girl with guts.

While everyone else with
a driver’s license at Viewridge screams out of the parking lot, giddy with winter break freedom, Lillian and I are putt-putting along the side streets to Boarder Xing, the leading snowboard shop in town, since Lillian is afraid to drive on the highways.

“So we’re looking for them to review the plan?” asks Lillian, not taking her eyes off the road.

“And plant the idea that they might want to underwrite the event.” I sound braver than I feel. My amped-up nerves have nothing to do with potentially seeing Age where he works after school and everything to do with me on the verge of making my first big Ask. At least, that’s the story I tell myself. “Boarder Xing sponsors a bunch of the local snowboarding events up at Stevens and Snoqualmie.”