Page 7

Chapter Seven

LAN

My body meets something soft, a mixture of jasmine blossoms and citrus overwhelming my nose. Pain flares up in my ankles and I hiss. Blinking, my eyes adjust to the girl in front of me. High cheekbones, inky-black hair reflecting the glow of streetlights, and dimples. Dimples that move with every expression. Like right now, when her eyebrows crease and her eyes brighten as she looks at me.

“Tr ? i ? i! I’m so sorry!” she exclaims in Vietnamese, her American accent coming through.

Again—what’s with foreigners speaking to me in Vietnamese, then immediately following up with English? Just pick a damn language to butcher.

“I’m so sorry,” she says again. A Vietnamese girl. Wait, the Vietnamese American girl from earlier. No wonder her Vietnamese sounded better than that white couple’s.

“Are you okay?” She offers a hand.

Rubbing my bruised backside, I drag myself up and open my mouth to say something, when my eyes zero in on the notebook at her side.

Scrambling, I snatch it back, gripping the leather binder against my chest and feeling its familiar weight as my heart pounds. “Where did you get this?” I ask in English.

She blinks. “It was on the ground…” She reaches for the notebook again, but I shove it behind my back. “Is it yours? If not, I’m returning it to its owner.”

I sigh exaggeratedly. Great. “Of course it’s mine! It’s my handwriting and my notebook.”

She chews on her bottom lip, crossing her arms. “Recite something you wrote, then.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. Prove to me that it’s yours.”

Huffing, I tap my feet. “I could run right now. I have the notebook.” I should definitely run.

“I used to run in high school,” she points out. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. What does an American brat have on me? “And I could scream that you stole it.”

I gape at her, throwing my arms up defensively. It’s my notebook. She’s the one that stole it. “Fine. I wrote about coming to this park earlier and eating cá viên chiên. Is that enough?”

“Shit.” Her eyes bulge, flickering up and down my body as the realization appears on her face and a huge smile blooms. “ You are the blogger of A Bánh Mì for Two . I’ve been a big follower of the blog and I just can’t believe I’m actually seeing you in person. I’ve read every single post and even have my notifications turned on for when you post and how come you haven’t written in months—”

“No,” I cut her off. “I’m not.”

There’s no harm in a stranger finding out, but at the same time, I’m not ready. Maybe I shouldn’t have panicked and lied, but knowing that one of my readers is right here and in front of me is overwhelming. I’m scared. What if she’s disappointed in me? What if I can’t give her an answer on the whys and oh-but-when-will-you-start-writing-agains of my hiatus? Especially if the girl in front of me is Evermore13 , who is supposedly in Vi ? t Nam right now. I don’t want to disappoint her—to have her know that I’m just a regular girl who was prettier in her head and not a have-it-all-together blogger with an idealized life.

I’ve already lied. There’s no turning back now.

She chews on her bottom lip. “But… the Instagram caption. What you just said. This specific park. Everything matches. It’s you. It’s fate,” she whispers.

Fate? I sigh in disbelief. “It’s not me, okay?” I exhale deeply, raising my pitch. “Leave me alone.”

“Wait—”

I turn on my heel, ready to run back to the tiny house with the mango trees.

The girl tugs at my arm instead, and I flinch at the skin-to-skin contact, goose bumps lining my arm while her gaze meets mine, unwavering. “I came to Sài Gòn because of you—your blog. You helped me understand how Vi ? t Nam actually is, and your words convinced me to see my homeland for the first time. I don’t know why you haven’t written in so long, but I hope you know that your words have impacted so many people. And I’m one of them.”

“It’s not me,” I tell her, and yank my arm away. The notebook tucked in my arms suddenly feels heavy, and my legs burn as I will my body to leave the park. I keep running, running, and running until the park is completely out of sight and my body’s swallowed by the wave of motorbikes. All the while, her words echo in my ears and anxiety rises in my throat.

When the mango tree finally emerges, I squint into the shadows to see Tri ? t kicking his legs absentmindedly on our swing. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I touch my left cheek, shuddering at how cold it is. “I found it.” I wave the notebook at him. “I’m going to bed.”

“It’s barely night.”

I check my phone. 21:00. “So what?” I snap, immediately regretting it.

Tri ? t whistles. “Geez, sorry.”

“I crashed into someone at the park.” I rub my neck, feeling guilty for snapping at him. My entire body feels awfully sweaty, and to make everything worse, dirt is streaked all over my legs.

He softens his eyes. “Go wash up. There’s blood on your elbow.”

I check and wince, annoyance boiling back up at the state of my body. This scratch is definitely going to hurt tomorrow.

Tri ? t looks like he wants to say something. The classic Tri ? t look of chewing on his nails whenever he’s anxious.

“What’s wrong?” I could wait until he tells me on his own time. But I also don’t have time.

“Oh, nothing. Just anxious about my exam tomorrow.”

He’s a worse liar than me. There’s a reason why he was waiting. This swing is our spot, where we’d sit and wait for each other whenever something was wrong; I did the same two years ago, when Tri ? t found me crying after I had found out about my mom’s health. Oftentimes, we don’t say much—we just listen to each other.

I scoot next to him, lifting my legs onto the swing and holding them to my chest. “Stop stalling before I delete your gaming account.”

He whistles. “These threats from you are getting more serious every day. But I was just thinking about how I’ll be graduating soon.”

“I know. Congrats.” I mean these words. Tri ? t worked so hard the past four years, always studying or doing homework while also helping us at the stall. He showed up at our door four years ago with only a backpack of clothes and an armful of books, telling us he’s enrolling in aerospace engineering.

With a well-off family, he could go anywhere he wanted but chose to stay with us.

M á , of course, took him in without question. Like Ba, she looks out for anyone and everyone.

I’ll take care of your mom , Tri ? t had promised me.

I sigh, hugging my legs closer. “It’s an exciting thing—why are you scared?”

“I feel stuck. All my classmates are doing internships with Boeing and international airlines… but I couldn’t nab anything. No one would take a kid who needs to work another job for most of the week.”

Oh. The bánh mì stall. Of course it’s the bánh mì stall. When Ba passed, everything shifted to me. I couldn’t cry, couldn’t grieve—at least not in front of M á . I’m her only child, her only daughter, the only other family she has. Without Ba, it’s been me and her against the world. Who else could shoulder these responsibilities if not me?

“I can handle it. You don’t have to help out so much. Go get an internship. You didn’t sign up for this.”

Tri ? t was one more mouth to feed, and yet M á still took him in. I wonder if it’s because he’s a boy—because I can’t ever replace Ba for her.

“Shut up. You didn’t sign up for this, either.” He flicks my forehead and brings his legs to his chest, too. We sit side by side on the swing, feeling its motion rocking us back and forth under the mango tree. “I don’t regret helping you and Aunt. Or feel bad about it, either. You’re the only family I have in Sài Gòn, and I sure don’t want to go back to B ? n Tre.”

“Don’t you miss your family?” My question lingers between us. Tri ? t seldom talks to his family, and when he does, it’s often a phone call from one of his sisters. I never pry; we all have things we’d rather not say. “I’m sure they think of you. How you’re doing in Sài Gòn. If you’re all right.”

“They know I’m alive. I think that’s enough.”

I inhale sharply. “But… don’t you want to go home sometime? The Mekong River… the floating market… it sounds so, I don’t know, peaceful? Away from all this noise.”

If I tell him that sometimes I dream of leaving Sài Gòn, what would he say?

He shrugs. “But this noise is what makes Sài Gòn, Sài Gòn.”

“You sound like a tourist blog.”

“Good. Hope I’m inspiring you.”

I haul myself up from the swing, a slight grin on my face. “Good night. Lock the doors when you go to sleep.”

“Lan?” he calls back.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for listening to me… and just so you know: There’s nothing wrong with wanting to leave your home—or growing tired of it.”

“I never said anything about leaving Sài Gòn.”

“I know. I’m just letting you know, that you can.”

Sprawling out on my mattress in my room, I think about what Tri ? t just said. I know his family from B ? n Trè are farmers, and he grew up surrounded by orchards and rabbits and cows. He talked about it sometimes, how he’d hop boat to boat on the floating market on the Mekong in the morning before going for a swim in the afternoon. How sunlight feels warmer south of Sài Gòn and how plentiful the gardens are. Yet, he still left. There are so many reasons people leave the place they’ve grown up in. What makes a person leave? My thoughts wander to the Vietnamese American girl whose face I keep seeing in my mind. Even now, as I lie in the dark, I can still hear her voice calling back to me from the park.

She’s probably here because her family immigrated to the States. Or maybe she’s one of those tourists that wants to “find themselves” in Sài Gòn. I roll my eyes at this thought.

The annoyance comes back. Why the hell do I keep thinking of her, anyway? She took Ba’s notebook. To think I almost lost one of the only things left from him… to someone who never knew him at all. How strange it is that something you hold so dear can mean nothing to another person.

“You’re being ridiculous, Lan,” I whisper to the dark.

Phan Ng ? c Lan doesn’t exist in the world of A Bánh Mì for Two . No one knows who Lan is except for the customers at Bánh Mì 98. Will I ever be more than that?