Page 18

From the diary of Monica Tsai, backed up on three servers spanning two continents

October 28, 2018 (2018-10-28T23:33:40.

720614)

loc: Cambridge, Massachusetts.

United States of America (42.

3721865,71.

1117091)

This whole semester has passed so slowly until today.

When Louise arrived at the train station like a burst of color and jumbled

my thoughts more than ever.

Maybe I’ll save this entry as a particular challenge for EMbrS, to see if it, with its state-of-the-art

natural language processing, can even sort me out.

Because I am so confused.

She was easy to spot among the crowd, a head above most people, her smile already wide.

She had cut her hair even shorter

than the last time we met.

I counted the number of steps it took her to reach me.

We should probably hug, I was thinking,

even as she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight.

“Wow, what service!” she exclaimed.

“Picking me up from the station.”

“My grandparents would have kicked me out if I didn’t.” We sat down at one of the rickety tables where I had french fries

laid out.

She dropped her duffel bag on the ground.

I handed her a bus pass.

She took it and flipped it between her fingers.

“Is this your grandfather?”

I told her how grandfather had insisted she use his discounted pass.

She studied the picture.

“He looks like a nobleman. Full pure white hair. Neat tie. Very dashing. It’s my honor to impersonate him.” She devoured the

fries.

As we took the bus home, I pointed out the various sights: my high school, the tennis court where grandmother taught me how

to bike, the corner where I last saw the busker dressed as a bear playing the keyboard.

Louise’s game is tomorrow, and she’s

staying with us for two nights.

When I tried to tell my grandparents that she said she had friends whose couches she could

sleep on, they became furious and insisted she use our empty bedroom.

It was the room we saved for my father, those in-between

years when he’d return for a few weeks.

“This is it,” I said after walking the block from the bus stop to the home where I had grown up.

It was smaller than the houses

in Cherry Hill, and, like many in the Boston area, much older.

I found myself nervous, wondering what she would think of it.

I could hardly believe she was here.

“Amazing.” She looked up at the house.

“This is always what I imagined New England to be like.” She bounded up the porch steps,

and I unlocked the door for her.

“Oh!” grandmother exclaimed when we came into the kitchen.

The overhead fan was whirring and the pork sizzling.

“So tall!”

“Hi, Tsai nainai,” Louise said happily.

She towered over grandmother.

Her Chinese was better than mine, smooth and accentless,

at least to my ears.

“Thank you so much for having me.”

“Of course. Have you eaten?”

“Monica bought me some fries.”

“Sit down, sit down. Monica, come help me. Torou! Torou!”

Grandfather had not heard the doorbell, but he did hear grandmother’s call.

The television switched off, and he hobbled into

the kitchen.

“Oh!” He straightened.

“So tall!”

“Hi, Tsai yeye.” Louise grinned, with a small bow.

“Thank you so much for letting me stay here.”

“It’s the least we can do.”

“And for letting me use your senior card.”

“Of course! Monica always complains that it’s not the right thing to do. It is good you see the value in these sorts of decisions.”

“I do.”

While taking over stir-frying from grandmother, I protested that public transportation was underfunded.

“We already pay more for those cards than we get out of them,” grandfather huffed.

“In Taiwan, the government would be paying

me to take the train. And when I turn one hundred, they’d hand me money. Here though—”

“No need to rant about Taiwan right now, Torou,” grandmother interrupted.

“Please, sit down, Louise.”

“Can I help?” she asked.

“I could set the table? Wash some dishes?”

“No!” grandmother cried as if Louise had insulted her.

“Torou, take her suitcase to her room.”

“I’ll take it—”

“Give it to me, I need the exercise.”

“So do I! I’ve got a big game tomorrow...”

They continued to argue their way up to my father’s room.

Grandmother returned to my side, turning off the heat and ladling

out the rice cakes.

“I can see why you and Meng took to her,” she said.

“She is very charming. What a wide smile. And so tall!”

I smiled, wondering if they would ever stop commenting on her height.

I hoped they wouldn’t, if only so we could continue

talking about her.

Once we were stuffed full of rice cakes stir-fried with pork, cabbage, and shiitake mushrooms, Louise took out a brown bag from under the table.

She must have stowed it there before grandfather helped bring her luggage up to her room.

Grandmother gasped when she saw the familiar brown bag.

“Arby’s?” she exclaimed.

Even I was shocked.

Louise winked at me.

“There’s one really close to my house, so I got some before heading over. Much easier than Monica biking for hours. Don’t

worry, I kept them in a cooler.” She unfurled the bag and pulled out sandwich after sandwich, stacking them into a pyramid

in front of grandmother.

“I can’t believe you’d do that,” I mumbled.

I’d forgotten we even talked about Arby’s.

“Well, I checked on the map how far it was from your place, and it’s far . You must have calves of steel. Really, it was very easy for me. Though I did have to get my brother to drive me,” she added

sheepishly.

I could only see grandmother’s forehead over the pyramid of roast beef sandwiches.

She took the top one, patting the foil

in satisfaction.

Then she looked around the table, first at me, then grandfather, then Louise.

“Hannah?”

I opened my mouth to say something, to apologize.

Grandfather spoke first.

“Like Hannah was ever so nice. This is Monica’s friend Louise. Remember?”

“Oh. Of course.” Grandmother smiled, but I could tell she did not remember.

“I’ll clean up,” I said.

“Time for us to watch television, then,” grandfather said cheerily.

Grandmother followed him, steps hesitant, still unsure.

“My mother’s name,” I explained once they left.

Louise helped me gather the sandwiches to bring to the refrigerator.

“I thought that might be it. Do I look like her?”

“I don’t think so.” I handed her a container for the leftovers.

“I haven’t seen her in a very long time though. The last time grandmother saw her was probably at that table, maybe where you were sitting. And she wasn’t much older than you are.”

“Can I ask where she is now?”

“I think in Kansas. We don’t talk. But I guess grandmother still remembers her. I think they had a falling-out.”

“Ah.”

That she did not ask more pleased me.

As I loaded the dishwasher, I wondered if it was because we had dodged so many of each

other’s questions in the past, or if it was our shared heritage, both from families of immigrants, families used to holding

their shames close so to fit in.

After cleaning, I showed her around the guest bedroom.

It was a sterile space, devoid of any character my father might have

given it.

Most of his belongings had been shipped to Shanghai or donated.

I had cleaned it recently, washing the sheets, vacuuming,

even swapping HVAC filters.

She fell onto the bed, spreading her arms.

I asked if she wanted to rest.

She shot back up and insisted we go do something.

I was delighted, as I had a whole list of things planned out.

I had been thinking a lot about her thesis proposal and digital

archiving, thought she’d probably love the Cambridge Public Library, or we could cross the river into Boston and check out

one of the many museums there.

As I pieced together my plan, though, I realized there was only one place that felt right.

I said we would bike there.

“Of course you want to bike,” she said as she followed me outside.

I paid for her bike share rental on my app before she even finished reading the instructions on how the system worked.

That

was the best part—her face when she realized.

“You don’t want to start this war with me,” she warned.

I reminded her of the froyo incident and biked away before she could

escalate.

She followed me through Cambridge.

Luckily, it’s the time of year when the weather here is amazing—no longer humid from summer, the bitter cold still weeks away, like the city was showing off.

The leaves were just beginning to turn, deep yellows and oranges against the freshly painted green of the bike lane.

We even got to see some turkeys halting traffic; it was never better to be a biker.

For the first time since I came home, I could pretend my life was on track.

Like I was a student back for fall break, blazing

along the same well-worn path as everyone else, maybe even a better one because she was there with me.

Her flannel billowed

behind her, a trail of cozy colors that warmed me whenever I looked at her.

She would squeal each time she saw a dog in a

sweater, and her bike would teeter dangerously.

I smiled down at my handlebars, just really, truly grateful.

“Where are we?” she asked skeptically when I stopped at the building where grandfather used to teach.

I could understand her

skepticism—the MIT buildings are not quite as New England grand as Harvard’s or (I imagine) Princeton’s.

They’re quite a bit

weirder-looking.

Grandfather’s has a particularly lopsided structure, a near-collapsing quality to it, in an endearing way.

I locked my bike and told her we were going to class.

That I was going to teach her.

“But I’m on fall break!” she complained.

“Humor me,” I said.

“I haven’t been to school all semester. I miss it.”

“What a nerd,” she laughed.

“Is that a problem?”

I held the door to the building open for her.

She lingered in the doorframe, glancing over her shoulder at me, her hair still

windswept, a mark on her forehead where her helmet had been.

“Quite the opposite,” she said as she resumed walking, and I was relieved she could not see the stumbling puddle I had become

behind her.

I managed to regain my composure in the classroom.

Classrooms are good places for me.

It felt so good to be back in one, to

hear the projector groan alive, the mechanical lowering of the screen, to plug in my laptop and project my desktop background

of my neighbor’s orange cat onto the wall.

Louise squealed when she saw the cat, which I was admittedly relieved about, for I had feared she might only be a dog person.

And then she chuckled.

“What?” I asked self-consciously.

“It’s nothing.” But she was still smiling, attempting to cover it.

I looked down to see if there was something on my shirt.

I begged her to tell me.

“I just think it’s cute that you’re petting the cat’s head with your cursor.”

I stopped and immediately pulled up my terminal window to cover the cat.

Petting her had become muscle memory.

I avoided Louise’s

eyes, tried to salvage my dignity.

“What are you going to teach me, Professor?” She looked all too eager at her seat, hands clasped together, smiling wider than

ever.

The classroom was clearly a comfortable place for her too.

I took a breath, inhaling all the power the space would give me.

My hands easily took their place on the keyboard.

I told

her I would be teaching git rebasing.

Her eyes fogged over.

“You’ll like it,” I promised.

“Do you remember what git is?”

“From your video for the freshmen?” She leaned back in her chair.

“It’s for version control, right? Like every time you make

a change to your code, you mark it with a git commit, and then you can always rewind and go back to that commit if you need

to.”

I was impressed.

I had planned to go over everything in my video again, but she had retained it and was even able to explain

it back to me.

She noticed my pause and winked.

“I’m a good student. You’ll have to try harder than that if you want to trip me up, Professor.”

I had to look away from her again.

It thrilled me to see this academic side of her that matched mine in a way that was so

easy.

I pulled up my lecture notes to remind myself how I wanted to start.

“Let’s use an example,” I said, opening a text editor.

“Normally git is used for code, but really it can be used for any type of file. So today, let’s use a regular text file and write a story. I’ll start.”

I typed out:

Once upon a time, there were two girls who went on an adventure.

I saved the file, then switched back to my terminal window to make the git commit.

“Commit messages are important because they tell you what the code you are introducing does, and, if it’s a good message,

why you are introducing the code. So we’ll give this one a message of ‘Add opening of a story.’?”

I committed the message, then pulled up the git log.

“Add opening of a story” was the only entry there, along with a timestamp

and my name.

“Let’s keep writing the story,” I said.

My hands were flying now, settled in and comfortable.

“It’s your turn.”

She didn’t have her computer, so I typed for her.

“Hm, alright,” she said.

“The first girl was kind and pretty. She had never been on an adventure before, but she was eager

to go, especially with her friend by her side. She was a careful person and had all the bus routes and passes ready. And of

course, she had her trusty steed, Bike.”

“Is it a steed or a bike?”

“No, it’s a steed named Bike. Her trusty steed, Bike.”

“She has a steed, but there are also buses?”

“Yes.”

I glanced from my laptop up at her.

She was looking at me defiantly.

“Alright,” I allowed.

“Let’s commit it. What should the message be?”

“?‘Introduce character based off of Monica,’?” she said proudly.

I sighed and typed it in, trying not to fixate on the words kind and pretty .

“My turn now.”

I typed while she watched the words unfurl on the projector above.

The second girl was tall and brave.

There were rumors she had some giants’ blood in her, and perhaps some lion, too, for her

bravery was the talk of all the bus stops.

Her only flaw was that she was rather scared of her steed, Car, and so they set

off on their adventure both on Bike.

“Describe her more,” Louise requested with dancing eyes.

“What’s the relationship between the first and second girl?”

The blinking cursor challenged me.

The first girl really looked up to the second girl and deemed her a perfect adventure buddy, I wrote, then paused.

My fingers began to stick to the keyboard.

Typing was always easier than talking, so I continued.

She thought if they went on an adventure together, she’d work up the courage to tell her how much she liked her new haircut.

I couldn’t look at her, but heard her laugh, a beautiful sound that made my hands tingle.

I gave it a commit message of “Introduce second character and establish relationship.”

She did not need prompting to continue the story.

“They were on a quest to find the cutest dog in the land of Cambridge. It would have floppy ears and be very derpy and would

be wearing a fall-themed bandana.” She paused.

“?‘Introduce character goals.’?”

I continued.

Bike creaked under their weight.

After all, the second girl was part giant, and Bike was only used to carrying one rider.

They had seen many dogs, but none with quite the right bandana or the proper amount of ear floppage.

They were running low on rations, and the first girl feared their adventure might not end in success.

I added a commit message of “Things get dire.”

“Where are we going with this?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“What’s this rebasing thing you mentioned? Or are you just trying

to show off your typing speed?”

It wasn’t my intention, though I was pleased she noticed.

I’ve always thought my typing speed quite formidable.

“Finish the story,” I said.

“Fine. Just when all hope appeared lost—”

“Chad showed up,” I interrupted.

“Who the fuck is Chad?”

I continued typing.

Chad came to the bus stop with his dog bouncing eagerly behind him.

This dog had the floppiest ears either girl had ever seen.

I nodded for her to take over.

She took a moment to think.

“The dog’s tongue lolled out, and each of its paws had a little white sock. Best of all, Chad’s dog wore a black bandana decorated

with pumpkins. The two girls looked at each other and smiled. They had completed their quest of finding the cutest dog in

Cambridge.”

“That’s a good ending.” I smiled.

“Commit message?”

“?‘Complete the quest against all odds.’?”

I pulled up the git log again.

Add opening of a story

Introduce character based off of Monica

Introduce second character and establish relationship

Introduce character goals

Things get dire

Complete the quest against all odds

I asked her what she thought.

“It’s decent, but you can’t just deus-ex-machina Chad in.”

I agreed.

“Let’s give him a proper introduction. So, who is Chad?” I scrolled back in the text editor to after the girls’

introduction.

“The second girl had a neighbor named Chad,” she said.

“He was awkward and didn’t really talk to anyone. He was quite shy,

and reminded the second girl quite a bit of the first girl. The second girl happened to see a flyer for a dog adoption event

hanging out of Chad’s mailbox, and so an idea for a quest formed. Commit message: ‘Inciting incident.’?”

“Excellent,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how I felt about my character being compared to awkward Chad.

“But now our git log

isn’t in order.”

“That’s okay. It preserves how the story was written.”

“But what if my goal is a polished piece of software that anyone can pick up and take over? They wouldn’t care that Chad was

backfilled in. They’d rather have a clean history.”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened.

My heart beat faster.

“So let’s rebase. Rebasing can do a lot of things, but we’ll focus on reordering these commits.” I swapped the order using

some well-practiced keyboard shortcuts.

“Now the inciting incident is where it belongs, right after character introductions.

A nice clean history.”

“But not true to what actually happened.”

“Right.” I closed my laptop and unplugged it from the projector.

“Did you enjoy the lesson?”

She was staring at me with an unreadable expression.

Then she slowly stood up from her seat, slinging her daypack over her

shoulders.

“You really were paying attention to all my digital archival talk,” she said softly.

“I’m a good student.” I grinned.

“You’ll have to try harder than that—”

She tossed her helmet at me, laughing.

I caught it easily.

Then she closed the distance between us so suddenly.

I instinctively

backed up against the wall, pinned by her body, the helmet the only thing separating us.

Her fingers gripped the helmet on

the other side, and for a moment we stood there, my breath becoming short as her face inched closer to mine, lowering to my

level.

I raised my hand, my fingers brushing the ends of her hair, right behind her neck.

“I like your haircut,” I breathed, and she let out something between a laugh and a whimper.

But just as suddenly as she had approached me, she turned away, strapping the helmet back over her head.

My one hand was still

raised to where her hair had been moments earlier.

“Shall we go home?” she asked.

She did not meet my eyes.

“Your grandmother didn’t want us biking in the dark.”

“Sure,” I said slowly, and packed up my computer.

Grandmother made an incredible dinner of lion’s head meatballs, pea pod stems, and stir-fried bean curd.

Grandfather made

the soup—oxtail with daikon, and even cut one of the roast beef sandwiches into fourths so we could share it.

But when I went

to serve Louise a bowl of rice, she politely declined and said she was avoiding rice.

“You don’t eat rice?” grandmother asked incredulously.

It was the first time she had a vaguely negative reaction toward her.

Louise gave a sheepish smile.

Then she pulled a packet of instant oatmeal from her bag.

“I break out pretty easily, so I stick with oatmeal. Can I microwave this?”

We all watched in wonder as she ate her oatmeal like we ate our rice, thick and watery and fiber-rich.

“Mm, so good!” Louise swooned at her first bite of the meatball.

We gave her an extra plate so she would not have her meatball

diluted in oatmeal water.

“So much better fresh. And it was already delicious.”

“The sauce is best on rice.” Grandmother side-eyed.

“Next time,” Louise said before slurping up the rest of her oatmeal.

Since it was late after dinner, grandmother and grandfather went straight to bed.

“What time is your game tomorrow?” I asked as I washed the dishes.

“It’s in the afternoon. The team is getting brunch together, so I’ll have to head out in the morning. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I said, even though I was disappointed.

I’d thought we would have the morning together.

Though maybe she did

not want to spend more time with me.

But she had been the one who approached me.

The one who pinned me to the wall, who moved her lips so close to mine.

The one

who pulled away and barely met my gaze afterward.

Did I not react properly?

Should I not have mentioned her hair?

Or did some

voice in her head remind her that she felt nothing toward me, that she had to turn around and leave at once?

“I’m going to sleep now,” she said, and touched my wrist lightly with her hand.

“I had a really amazing day. Thanks for everything.”

And she went up the stairs, two at a time, to my father’s room.

Later, as I lay in bed scrolling through my phone, I heard the whooshing sound of an email being sent from my grandparents’

room.

It was immediately followed by the buzzing of my own phone—an email from grandmother.

?♀? kuai dian

I looked at my phone in horror for a full second before tossing it away for the night.

I tried to sleep but couldn’t, and

so now I’m staring into my computer screen, tapping at my keyboard, wondering what tomorrow might bring.