Page 11

Friday dinner is chaos as usual, since that’s really the only time we all get to eat together.

Auntie Van is still in the kitchen, frying the last of the bánh xèo, the scents of garlic and turmeric permeating the house.

Má’s got the wobbly card table pulled out next to the dining table to make enough room for everyone to sit down.

The cheerful mismatched plastic tablecloths are barely visible under our plates and all the dishes: roast pork, bánh hoi, shrimp, and plates stacked high with crisp lettuce leaves, fresh mint, basil, and bean sprouts.

I take a seat, checking my phone. No new notifications, and the hi i’m excited to see you tomorrow is sitting in my recent texts with no response.

Maybe it was a fake number.

Maybe she just didn’t see it yet.

Should I text her again? Is it too soon?

I’m so terrible at flirting that I still can’t believe that it happened. Kat is cool and pretty and seemed interested in me for some reason. I knew it was too good to be true.

Maybe I imagined the whole thing.

“How are classes? Studying hard?” Má asks Stacey, dipping a sheet of rice paper in a bowl filled with hot water.

Steam rises from her fingertips as she deftly layers lettuce, mint, basil, bean sprouts, and shrimp and wraps it all neatly in a spring roll.

Má smiles at me, setting it on my plate next to my own lumpy attempt at a roll, where the lettuce has started to escape from my clumsily wrapped rice paper.

“Oh, they’re good, thank you, Auntie Liên,” Stacey says, nodding her head.

“No mung beans!” Auntie Van announces, walking out of the kitchen with the frying pan with a bánh xèo crisp and golden, steam rising out of it.

“Thank you,” Jimmy says, beaming. He’s so spoiled; I never got special treatment with food when I was his age. I had to eat everything the way Má or Auntie Van or Auntie Phi-Phi made it. It was either that or don’t eat at all.

The tables don’t quite line up, and I’m sitting at the split-level again, balancing my plate carefully as I wrap my bánh xèo in lettuce and dunk it in fish sauce. It’s messy, and I almost lose a shrimp, but I stuff my face, elbowing Stacey as she eats hers primly with a fork and knife.

“You’ve got a bean sprout on your face.”

“You’ve got fish sauce on your phone,” I retort, ignoring the stray bean sprout stuck to my cheek as I go for another bite. Stacey’s cutting up lettuce now and eating the whole thing like a salad because she can’t bear to get her hands dirty, and it’s hilarious.

“I do not.”

Jimmy pulls a piece of lettuce from the bottom of the stack, and a pile of wet leaves topple onto Stacey’s phone.

“Jimmy!” Stacey shrieks, grabbing it, her elbow knocking into my face.

I cough and splutter, hacking up food onto my cousin’s shirt. “Hey!”

“Gross!”

Jimmy sticks his tongue out at her. “Don’t leave your phone on the table then!”

“Here, don’t grab from the bottom,” I tell Jimmy, picking a few lettuce leaves and setting them on his plate.

I love it, despite it being all elbows and the music being too loud.

My uncles both work constantly at their twenty-four-hour convenience store, but today Uncle Thu comes home early and Uncle Kiêm hasn’t started his night shift yet.

We eat in shifts during the week, usually some combination of rice and meat and veggies that Má or one of the aunts cooks and leaves out.

I’m always trudging in late after band practice or study sessions, eating leftovers as ? ng Ngo ? i and Bà Ngo ? i have their evening tea and watch their soaps.

It’s special, our Friday dinners when we get to see everyone.

The bánh xèo is perfect, crisp on the outside and filled with sweet, succulent pork and shrimp, and I want another one, but I’m too slow when Auntie Van brings out another one—Stacey claims it, still deep in conversation with her mom.

“Van, sit down and eat!” Má calls into the kitchen, setting another roll on my plate. I sneak it back onto hers when she’s not looking; she always does this, busying herself making sure all the kids are fed before she eats.

“I’ll be right there!” Van calls back in Vietnamese.

I put my still-no-notifications phone back in my pocket to ask Jimmy about his Pokémon trading at school, but I can barely talk to him over the din of aunties chatting over the Paris by Night playing on the television.

Má places the roll I gave her back on my plate. “How are your scholarship applications coming along?” She glances at Auntie Phi-Phi, an uncertain look crossing between them. I know they’ve been worrying about how expensive college is going to be—I’m really going to have to step it up.

“Good. Just submitted another application this week.”

Auntie Van sets one last bánh xèo in front of ? ng Ngo ? i, who’s tapping his fingers and watching the show, mesmerized.

She finally sits down next to my mom and Auntie Phi-Phi, as they start chatting in Vietnamese— I only catch every third word or so, but I figure they’re talking about the nail salon and who’s going to open tomorrow.

The three sisters share the same wide forehead and high cheekbones, and there’s an easy camaraderie about them, something about growing up together, decades of life and love and experience tying them together.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Stacey and I were closer in age, or even in interests.

I can’t imagine it. Stacey thinks the Plan is ridiculous and my habit of making lists is “over the top.” Whatever. I close my eyes. I’m so close. I just need to make it through this year and I’ll be set.

I take a deep breath and remind myself of where I am in the Plan; I don’t even need to take out my bullet journal to go over it step-by-step, and it’s comforting to review it.

“Are you reciting your plan again?” Stacey says, rolling her eyes. “Did you forget step one, stop being a complete nerd?”

“Shut up.” I roll my eyes back at her.

We’re supposed to do the washing up, but Stacey only helps for ten minutes before she sneaks off, claiming homework when I’m pretty sure she’s just going to be scrolling socials for an hour before she gets started.

Today, though, it doesn’t bother me. The phone number Kat gave me is burning in my pocket. My mind is spinning with possibilities, most of which are she changed her mind about hanging out with you .

I try to focus on washing the dishes, drawing it out because wet hands mean I can’t check my phone, but before I know it the last dish is done, drying in the dishwasher that we use as a drying rack.

I head to my room and flop on my bed, looking at the napkin again.

“Either that’s the saddest napkin in the history of the universe or you’re taking your weirdness to whole new levels,” Stacey says. She’s lounging on her bed on her side of the room and looks up from her phone, smirking at me. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” I crumple the napkin and shove it back in my pocket, but Stacey’s already stalking over with a determined glint in her eye, reaching for it and resorting to dirty tricks—tickling. “Hey!”

Stacey is small and annoying, but I’m bigger and easily gain the upper hand, throwing her off me.

“Hah!” Stacey holds the napkin aloft, waving it triumphantly. How did she even—that sneaky little—

“No, wait—”

“What is this, a phone number?” Stacey trills in delight.

Great. She’s going to be teasing me forever.

“Who gave you their phone number, huh?”

“A girl I met at a coffeeshop; now give it back!”

Stacey grins at me and hands it back. I uncrumple it, highly aware that she’s still watching me.

“What?”

“Nothing. You usually don’t focus on anything like this except your homework,” Stacey says. “You must really like her.”

“Yeah, but it must be one-sided, because this is totally not a phone number.” I let myself fall back onto my bed, burying my face in the pillow. “At least, not the right one,” I mumble. “She didn’t text me back.”

Stacey taps my closed hand and I open it, letting her take the napkin.

“Well, these are definitely numbers. She just has terrible handwriting and doodled some cute stuff for you. That’s a heart.

That’s either a six or a zero, that’s a one or a seven.

Did you try all the combinations?” Stacey beams at me as she hands the napkin back, like she’s excited to solve the mystery.

I sit up. “No.” I didn’t think of that.

“Good luck,” Stacey says, which is remarkably nice of my cousin. “You’ll need it,” she adds.

Right, there it is.

I make a face at her, but Stacey’s already on her phone again.

Erica and Jenn don’t respond to our group text.

I figure Erica’s busy planning for tonight’s session and Jenn’s still at her tennis game, so I’m on my own to figure out my follow-up.

After saving three other different versions of the number to my phone, I waffle over spelling and capitalization and finally decide on looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!

I text it to all the number variations and hide my phone so I don’t give the anxiety monster in my head any food as I finish homework and wait for Jenn to pick me up for D&D. Self-sabotage can only go so far.

That was the plan, anyway, but I end up looking at my phone regardless, waiting for texts. I only get Erica’s you got this and Jenn’s string of heart emojis and thumbs-ups.

I try not to think about it as I continue working on my homework, but my self-doubt grows like a sentient cloud as I replay our conversation over and over again.

“Why even are cute girls,” I groan. I don’t bother making it a question because I don’t know the answer. Why are they? Why do they exist and make life so difficult?

“You said it,” Stacey agrees.

“I cast Detect Magic!” I announce, but my heart isn’t really in it today.