We Were Here (10 page)

“All right, boys!” she shouted over the screeching guitar solo. “Here we go!”

We got out of the parking lot okay, and Mei-li used her blinker and moved us onto the main road all safe and sound, but when we got up to where you could merge onto the freeway she didn’t take the on-ramp going south like she was supposed to, toward Mexico. She got on the one going
north
!

Me and Mong both whipped our heads around, watched the southbound on-ramp fade into the distance.

“Mei!” Mong shouted, turning to her.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, lighting a cigarette, not looking back at Mong, “I’m taking you guys to Mexico. Just not yet. That’s the part where you’re supposed to trust me. First we’re going to Guerneville, up past San Francisco, so Mong can see his
gung gung.”
She rubbed Mong’s shoulder—even though he seemed crazy pissed—and glanced at me and Rondell in the rearview.

I was so shocked it felt like my entire body went numb.

“This is shit, Mei!” Mong shouted, his eyes looking like he could kill somebody. And then he turned and stared straight ahead.

Mei-li pulled her hand off Mong’s shoulder and blew her smoke out the window. She looked at the side of his face and said: “He knows how sick you are, babe. He’s worried. It’s the least we can do if you really plan on running off to a whole other country.”

Mong didn’t say anything else, just kept staring ahead, and after a few seconds a little smile actually came onto his face—the one he does where his mouth forms a regular smile, but his eyes look totally empty, like he’s thinking about something psycho. He picked at the seat belt Mei-li had made him put on and didn’t even turn to look at his cousin.

I was pissed too. I thought we were going straight to Mexico, where my brand-new life was about to start. Like a second chance. A do-over. But at the same time I wasn’t as stressed as Mong. I figured we’d still get there eventually—long as we kept ducking the cops. And how much did cops even care about group-home kids anyway? They probably had bigger things to worry about, like murders and rapes and terrorists sneaking onto airplanes. But more than anything I was just confused about this “gung gung” person and what Mong’s cousin meant about Mong being sick.

“Here’s the deal,” Mei-li said, her eyes back on the road now. “I know you guys aren’t
all
on weekend pass. Three at one time? All of you hiding behind a Dumpster like fugitives? Uh-uh. I’m not
that
naïve. I have a boyfriend who’s cheated on me three times. Sadly, I’ve been made aware that the world’s made up of mostly BS.”

Mei-li shook her head. She ejected the CD we’d been listening to and slipped in a different one. “Anyway, I figure since I’m doing you guys a solid by picking you up, aiding and abetting and all that, it’s not too much to ask for a little something in return. Mong here sees his
gung gung
, spends a few quality hours with him, maybe sits down for a nice dinner, then we turn around and head for Mexico. Simple as that.”

The car went quiet for a few minutes as Mei-li merged over a couple lanes and onto a different freeway. I looked at Mong sitting there, smiling, and tried to think what Mei-li meant about him being sick. He was little, yeah, and he had those nasty scars on his cheeks, but dude seemed strong and scrappy as hell. I should know since I’m the one who fought him my first day.

I turned to Rondell. Guy was out cold again, baby Afro pressed all up against the window, mouth wide open. I
couldn’t blame him this time, though. We were all tired after sitting against a damn Dumpster for an entire night.

Then I looked out the window, at all the cars driving next to us. I thought how weird it was that none of the drivers—not the guy in the suit or the old man with giant sunglasses or the guy with the backwards hat or the fat woman eating a bag of chips—knew us three were on the run. That once we went to Mexico we could never come back to this freeway again for the rest of our lives. We could only drive on Mexican freeways.

I pulled out my journal and pen and started writing about everything I was thinking.

Mei-li saw me scribbling away in her rearview and said: “Wait, Miguel, don’t tell me you’re a writer.”

I looked up at her and shrugged, said: “I guess so.”

“I
love
writing,” she said back. “I took a class last semester with this crazy old hippie, Professor Weltzer. He was funny, made everybody call him Rick. Anyway, what do you write? Poems? Short stories? Screenplays?”

I shrugged again. “Nah, I’m supposed to do this journal thing for some counselor. But I just put whatever comes in my head.”

“That’s so interesting,” she said. And then this excited look came over her face and she said: “Hey, maybe if I tell you stuff, maybe one day you’ll write a story about me!”

“I probably could,” I said, though I didn’t really get how she meant.

“I would love that,” she said. “Nobody’s ever written a story about me before.” Her face went into a big smile as she checked her side mirror and changed lanes to get around this little Indian dude in an old beat-up truck.

I looked up at Mong, who was still staring straight ahead with his crazy blank look. It was like he was so pissed off he couldn’t even hear what we were saying. I wondered why I
wasn’t as mad as him. Us not going straight to Mexico was happening to me, too. I almost felt like a sellout for not being madder.

Mei-li turned down her music some, said: “I guess the first thing you’re wondering is why I’m still with my boyfriend, right?” She pulled in a drag and blew her smoke out at the roof. “After he cheated on me, I mean.”

I looked at her in the mirror.

“Wait, aren’t you gonna write it?”

“Oh, right,” I said, and I looked down at my journal and wrote how she had a boyfriend that messed around on her. I didn’t know why I was supposed to write everything, but I could tell she liked thinking I was a writer, so I decided to be one.

“Look,” she said, “what I’ve come to realize over the past year is that life’s not as black-and-white as some people would like to believe it is. That’s something you should maybe put about me. For example, lots of girls say if a guy ever cheated on them they’d end the relationship right there on the spot. But it’s different when it actually happens to you. Besides, I
did
break up with Jay the first time. But he kept calling me and leaving these long messages about how sorry he was and how much he missed me. He sent flowers and cards and boxes of candy. After a few weeks I picked up one of his calls, let him convince me it was a good idea to meet for coffee. We went to a Starbucks down the street and we talked and cried and shared a piece of carrot cake and then talked and cried some more. The next night we met at the theater and saw a movie. It was an awful romantic comedy, but we couldn’t stop laughing. Two nights after that we went to dinner for my birthday. Then I realized we’d just sort of gotten back together—without ever saying we were getting back together. Know what I mean?”

I nodded, but she didn’t look back at me. I didn’t
really
know what she meant, but I decided I could figure out that part later. For now I just had to write everything down.

“By the time it happened a second and third time I was totally jaded about relationships in general. Besides, I’m transferring to UCSD at the end of the summer. It’s not like I ever saw Jay and I getting married and having babies and doing the whole white-picket-fence thing. We’re just passing the time together. And sometimes it’s just easier when you have another person, you know? When you’re not alone.”

She pulled in another drag and looked at Rondell in the rearview mirror. Then she looked at me. “God, that sounds so sad, doesn’t it, Miguel?”

“I guess so,” I said, though I was too busy writing to really think about it.

“But maybe that’s what growing up is. I mean, first they take away Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Then they shatter the idealized vision you have of your parents. And finally they come looking for you! ‘Hey, little Asian girl: You know this life you were leading? The one you always thought was so special? Well, actually it’s not that special at all. Actually you’re just a lonely, flawed person like everybody else. You’ll have some good times and you’ll have some bad times, but mostly you’ll just have a lot of boring times. Mostly your days will just be painfully uneventful.’ Hey, maybe if you boil it all down, Miguel,
that’s
what life is. Uneventful.”

She paused for a couple seconds, thinking about what she’d just said, and then she told me: “You could maybe have one of your characters say that if you want. You have my permission.”

“That’s cool,” I told her back, still writing.

After I wrote the word “permission” I shook out my cramping hand.

Mei-li caught my eyes in the rearview and said: “What about you, Miguel? I wanna know, how
do you
see the world?”

I looked back down at my journal, at all Mei-li’s words I’d just written down, and I shifted in my seat. I wanted so bad to come up with something just as deep, something that would impress Mei-li and show her how smart I could be. But nothing was coming into my head.

“I don’t even know,” I finally said, shifting in my seat again. “But maybe when somethin’ really bad happens in your life … maybe then you wish you could make it go back to being boring.” I stared at the back of her headrest and pictured my moms looking at me that last time, and the guards at Juvi, waiting, and my bro Diego holding open the door of the fridge, pulling out the milk. I cleared my throat, said: “Maybe boring isn’t so bad compared to other stuff that could happen.”

Mei-li nodded as she put out her cigarette. “I think that’s true, Miguel,” she said. “I think that makes a whole lot of sense.”

The car went quiet for a while as she sat there thinking. Rondell almost choked on his own breath and opened his eyes for a sec. But all he did was shift his head around and fall right back to sleep. Mong was still staring ahead like a zombie.

Mei-li’s face looked sort of sad in the rearview, like she was remembering something from her past too. I wondered why she’d just told me so much about herself. I didn’t mind or anything, I’d just never had somebody do that before. Especially a girl.

Then she sighed and said: “Sometimes I wonder if growing up isn’t the saddest thing that can happen to a person.”

July 17—more

Mei-li drove us on the 280 for what seemed like hours. Past San Jose State and Kelley Park. She rolled down her window as we cruised through Felt Lake, then Crystal Springs Reservoir near where my moms grew up. Traffic slowed as we got into lower San Francisco near the airport. And in the actual city it became so thick I could’ve hopped out and walked faster.

After a long stretch without any talking, Mei-li turned down her stereo again and looked at me in the rearview. “Hey, Miguel,” she said. “I hope I don’t come off as bitter in your story. I’m really not. I still believe in ‘true love’ and ‘meant to be’ as much as anybody else. Maybe more.”

We caught eyes in the mirror and she said: “Make sure I don’t seem so bitter, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. It’d been so long since we talked I was surprised she was still thinking about that.

For some reason right then I wondered what it’d be like if
I
was her boyfriend. And not that punk who cheated on her. I tried to think of me up there in the front seat with her, where Mong was. Or maybe even driving. Her hand on the inside of my knee as I shifted gears. Or kissing on my ear. I’m not gonna lie, I felt shit getting all hyped in my jeans, so I shifted around some. Made sure nobody could peep my situation.

Sometimes I seriously don’t get how a guy who has a fine girlfriend like Mei-li, or some of the girls Diego gets with, could even
look
at other girls, much less mess around. Staring at the back of Mei-li’s head, her short green and black hair, I tried to think for the first time about the girl’s side of things when it came to Diego. But it made me feel pretty bad about shit, and I don’t like feeling bad when it comes to anything Diego-related, so I put the whole thing out of my head.

Mei-li looked at Mong—who was still staring straight ahead in his trance—and then at me in the rearview. “Hey, Miguel, since we’re in all this traffic—I mean, we’re not getting anywhere anytime soon, I don’t know—how ’bout if I tell you my all-time favorite story about true love. From all the way back in China. Maybe you could even write
this
story someday.” She turned around and looked at me.

“That’s cool,” I said, and I got my pen ready, all happy she was gonna tell me more.

“Cool,” she said, excited. “I’ll talk slow so you can write it all down. By the way, I don’t know how this drive became ‘sponsored by love’ or whatever. I know guys don’t really like talking about this stuff as much, right?”

I shrugged. “I don’t care that much.”

She smiled, said: “Writers are different, I think. You guys are so much more sensitive.”

I shrugged again and looked down at my journal. But inside it felt kind of nice what she said about me.

Mei-li turned back around and rolled up her window, then she turned off the music completely.

Mei-li’s Story About True Love:

“Once upon a time,” she started, “years after things started changing in China, there was a beautiful and talented young singer in Shanghai. She was half Chinese, half Vietnamese. As a child this girl won lots of little competitions all around the city. Almost every one she entered. And as she got into her teens, she only got better. Everyone who knew her, especially her own family, believed she was destined to lead a special life.”

Mong turned to his cousin and glared at her.

Mei-li shrugged and said: “Come on, Mong, it’s such a beautiful story.”

Mong shook his head and stared straight ahead again.

She slipped another cigarette from her pack, lit it with the car lighter, pulled a drag and let her smoke out slow. “Anyway,” she continued, glancing at Mong and then turning back to the freeway. “Only a few miles away a handsome young man had just returned home to China from America, where he’d attended law school. His ambition was to find a beautiful and intelligent wife and start a family of his own. The man was the only son of one of the most respected families in all of China. But he was shy. Much too shy to meet women on his own. He could only do it through a matchmaker. So his mother called upon the most popular one in the city. The problem was the young man was even more picky than he was shy. He rejected the first twenty-three women the matchmaker brought for him to meet—meaning he rejected their families, too. Remember, this is China we’re talking about. He declared he would rather be alone forever than marry someone he didn’t love body and soul. Just as he was about to give up hope, the matchmaker and his mother talked him into meeting one last girl. A beautiful young singer.