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Chapter Twenty-Five

LAN

Warm arms embrace me as a soft body crashes into my back. “Hi, Vivi.”

“Hi.” She nuzzles her face in my neck. With one hand, she tucks loose strands from my hair and dabs my sweat with her sleeve. “There. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Wipe my sweat for me?”

She blushes. “Yeah.”

When you like someone, I’ve realized, everything they do matters to you. Everything they do suddenly becomes intimate, and I find myself wishing to remember every word she says to me. Everything she does for me. All my thoughts point to Vivi.

She laces her fingers through mine, nudging us toward the street and away from the stall. “Come onnn, we have to submit the application by midnight.”

“You sure the story is good enough?”

I used to look forward to finishing that Sài Gòn blog post with her. I imagined that I could hit submit and maybe—just maybe—I’d win, and everything would turn out better for M á and me. But today, the day we’re submitting the application together, I want to drag my feet for as long as possible. Where will Vivi and I go from here? Will we still talk after the contest?

Her gaze softens, and she reaches to tuck a strand behind my ear. “We’ve done everything we can.”

I nod, feeling heat creeping up my spine. I wipe away the bánh mì crumbs on my pants and match her pace, admiring how she bounces on her feet, taking each step without a care in the world.

We stop short in front of the tall building made of gray slabs and weather-stained walls. The door is left open as I predicted, and from below, I can see the plumeria tree at the very top.

Vivi scrunches her brows at the winding staircase. “You’re kidding. We’re climbing this?”

“Come on! It’s not that bad.”

The stairs still smell of mildew, and the cracked concrete greets me. Only, they aren’t greeting just me this time. Our steps echo in sync with our breath, sandals squeaking as we race up the stairs. I can see beads of sweat on her neck as she runs ahead, and at once, I understand her earlier urge to dab my sweat away. People in Sài Gòn look microscopic from this high up, like I zoomed out of my own bubble and am watching everyone else’s. People huddling together outside their homes, children and their parents slurping up hu ties, and shops closing for the day. The skyscraper’s light replaces the sun as the boats on the river glow brightly. It’s strange to think that seconds ago, I was down there, also existing within that world of this city.

Still, there’s something special about watching this world from above, and I can hear it in Vivi’s gasp. “You’re right. This is the place to submit the application. I think just being up here will give us even more luck.”

I nod. “Doesn’t Sài Gòn look so different from up here?”

“It’s symbolic, too. Looking down at the city you’re writing about as we submit the story.”

I lead her closer to the edge of the rooftop, taking off my shoes. She does the same, giggling at the rough sensation from the wet concrete. The sun sets in the distance, already dipping below the skyline. I notice how tan Vivi got over the past few months; freckles now sprinkle across her arms like stars.

I take out the laptop from my backpack, opening the page to the submission portal. “You already know… how much all this means to me—this contest, the fact that it could literally change my life. When I reread the story we wrote, I knew there was something missing. Don’t get me wrong, everything seemed perfect. Except, I had to add in one more thing, one more person, or else I’d regret it. You .”

She furrows her brows. “Me?”

I nod. “You remind me to write about the people that I love. The people that inspire me. I wrote about how Sài Gòn seems brighter, more beautiful because of someone I had met recently. Someone that allows me to stop looking outside of Sài Gòn and yearning for what I don’t have. Someone that reminds me to hold what’s in front of me, to treasure the beauty of this city.”

“I really did all that?” She faces me.

I laugh and press my cheek against hers. “That story was the best thing I’ve ever written. Because you helped me write it.”

“But it was all you. You’re the one that wrote the actual words.”

I shake my head. “And you’re the one that writes every word with me in spirit.”

A smile blooms across her face. “I knew it was fate for us to meet.”

Normally, I would have rolled my eyes, but now I’m starting to believe in fate a little bit, too. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

Somehow, we found each other—an ocean apart for most of our lives. It feels like she has always known me, and I have always known her.

It’s her turn to unzip her backpack. “In honor of this very special day, I have a surprise for you.”

I lift my eyebrows. A surprise?

She reaches in and pulls out the starry blanket she bought that day at Ch ? B ? n Thành. She presses the bundle into my hand, and I unwrap it, revealing a miniature telescope and a tripod.

“I know you love looking at the stars.” She presses the telescope into my hands, its weight heavy just like my heart. “So this is for you.”

I blink away the mistiness in my eyes and cradle the telescope in my hand. “Thank you.” A single tear rolls down my cheek.

Vivi scoots closer and I hand her the telescope to attach to the tripod. She sets it down, motioning for me to look. I peer through the lens as excitement pounds in my ears. I can feel Ba with me, his hand ruffling my hair, encouraging me to tell him about the stars. But instead of twinkling lights, I only see gray clouds.

“We can’t see through the Sài Gòn smog!” I burst out laughing.

“What!” Vivi gapes and yanks the telescope from my hand to check herself. “I can’t believe this.”

Still laughing, I loop my arms around her from behind and tuck my face in her hair.

“Thank you. This means a lot to me,” I murmur. “This… reminds me of my dad. Watching stars. We used to do it a lot before he passed.”

Vivi turns toward me and I burrow my head in her neck. She kisses my temple.

“I’ve always loved writing because of him,” I whisper. “I write because it made me feel closer to him somehow. Like when we’d cook up blog posts at our kitchen table together.”

Vivi glides her hand up and down my back. “You’re so much like him,” she breathes.

“Why do you say that?”

“You take after him—your passions, your hard work,” she says immediately. “Like him, you put the people you love first… sometimes even before yourself.”

“That’s what being a good daughter is.” I recite the mantra I’ve clung to for so long. The mantra I often tell myself to squash away any doubts, any bubbling selfishness. “I have to put family first.”

She plucks a plumeria from the branch, bringing it to her nose. “But, Lan, flowers are meant to grow.”

A scratchiness in my throat makes it difficult to swallow, and as I hold Vivi’s gaze, I can feel all her sincerity.

“Did you know that seventy percent of orchids are epiphytes?”

“Epi—what?”

She laughs. “When I googled your name, I learned that orchids are epiphytes. They grow attached to other plants, but not like a parasite. And before you tease me for being nerdy about this, I promise my long metaphor has a point. They’re not anchored to the ground or to one specific nutrient source. They can get everything they need from the rain, air, and debris. They live in every habitat in the world except glaciers. You don’t have to be rooted to one thing, Lan. You can adapt. You can bloom.”

“What if I hurt the people I love? What if I never bloom?”

She wipes my tears with her sleeve, kissing the tearstains. We fall onto the picnic blanket, our legs intertwining, and my head in the crook of her neck. “You won’t know unless you try. Do you… think you’ll post more blogs again soon?”

I think of how within mere months, Vivi was able to get me to write again. Something I couldn’t do myself. She’s my lucky charm. What happens once she leaves? Will I stop writing again?

“I don’t know.” I tell her the truth. Maybe this story we’ve written together is the last thing I’ll ever write. Maybe I can never write anything close to it.

“Take your time, Lan.”

“What if it takes me decades before I can finally post something on my blog again?”

She snorts, and I join in her laughter, our voices echoing through the street. “I’ll wait no matter how long you take. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll take anything.”

Tilting my head toward the sky, I breathe in the Sài Gòn air. Ba’s favorite constellation, the Big Dipper, twinkles. Next to it is the Little Dipper—my favorite constellation. I used to tell him that as long as the Big and Little Dippers are together, me and him will be inseparable. Maybe Vivi is my North Star. Is this how Ba felt when I came into the world? When he told everyone that he found the brightest star? To me, she’s brighter than all the stars in the universe.

I reread the story for the hundredth time, index finger hovering over the backspace button. Vivi swats my hand away. “Stop finding mistakes. This story is beautiful,” she says.

I groan, throwing my arms up defensively. “I’m scared! What if there’s a misplaced comma? What if they hate a sentence and throw away my application altogether? What about the subsections? Do they even make any sense?”

“Lan.” She laces her hand through mine, an action so familiar to us now, but it still makes my heart skip with glee. “I know you’re worried that the things we’ve written about city life and the people may sound boring, but the story sounds genuine. We talk about how hot and humid this city is, and how people’s laughter makes the atmosphere seem cooler somehow. We describe the souls that live here, all the people that make Sài Gòn, Sài Gòn. Plus, with your background as a street food seller, we got to focus on the other side of tourism. The side we don’t see often enough. We even included the flan lady, Bà Ngan, and Bác Tu ? n—I like that our story portrays how everyone in this country is so strong. Always surviving and fighting no matter how hard it gets. This story, at its heart, is about the beauty of Sài Gòn and the people living in it.”

Together with Vivi next to me, I open the tab of the journalism contest and with all the bravery I could ever muster, I click the big, blue button.

Your application has been received.