I left the dorm and went across the green to where Evan lived. It was so cold outside my ears hurt and then burned once I got inside. I could hear him from the stairwell, practicing on his viola. He played second chair in the school orchestra and then at night plugged it into an amp to play in a band called Electric Orch. I’d never seen anyone play the electric viola before.
Most people either loved or hated Evan. I could see why. He was always performing and calling attention to himself, but that’s what I liked about him. As long as I was with him, I was invisible. It was like sitting in the front row of a play. Most times I didn’t even have to talk. Although that’s what our fight the night before had been about. We’d been in Chinatown eating a late-night dinner at one of the stalls when he accused me of being a cold fish.
“What do you mean, a cold fish?”
“I mean, you hardly ever talk and then when you do I’m still not sure how you feel about something. Did she like it a little? A lot? Does she like me a little? A lot?” Evan’s voice grew louder.
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“For God’s sakes, don’t apologize. Fight back!”
“I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to fight with anyone.”
“That’s just what I mean,” he said, looking disgusted. “A cold fish.”
Later, I wished I’d made a big, dramatic exit and left him with noodles hanging out of his mouth, but then later was now.
He kept playing. A Brahms concerto. When I got to hisfloor, I saw his door was open. He followed me with his eyes until I sat down next to him. The bed was shaking a little from the force of his bowing. I wanted to tell Evan about my brother, but then it made me tired. He would only be full of advice, and how could he help me? His parents never raised their voice beyond a louder Please!
He finished with a head-banging flourish that threatened to cut through every horsehair and compelled a voice from down the hall to call, “Can that shit, you freak!”
“I’m sorry, friend!” Evan boomed back. Then he tucked his long hair behind his ears and sat looking at the ground. Turning to face me, he began to rub my elbows.
“I really am sorry,” he said.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, though it wasn’t what I thought at all.
“Don’t let me tell you who you are!” he said. “Or anyone! You tell me who you are.”
The next morning, my phone rang at seven thirty. It was my mother.
“Why you never call me back?” she asked. Neither of my parents ever bothered with greetings if they didn’t have to.
“I have schoolwork—”
“You don’t care about your brother? Don’t care about family?” Then her voice dropped and she sounded depressed. “What we supposed to do about your brother? Why you think he have so many problems? Tell me.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“So you just tell me what you think. You young, about the same age. He the only brother you have. Only two of you in this world. If something happen to him, you all alone.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to him. Maybe if you trust him more, he’d grow up. I don’t know,” I said. What I wanted to say was that I was twenty and didn’t know any more about why a person did things than she did. But my mother seemedto believe that my brother’s trouble came from the environment, from growing up in America, and since she hadn’t had that experience, there was something fundamental she didn’t understand about us children.
“Trust! Too late for trust! He already fail,” she said. I could tell she was irritated with me. “Listen, this what Daddy and I want you to do. Call up dean, what-his-name, Dean Neisman and ask him if any way Jin can stay in school. Summer school, night class, whatever.”
“I can’t do that!” I said. “It doesn’t work that way. A decision’s already been made. He’s not going to tell me anything different from what he—”
“Be quiet!” she said. “Just do! I do it myself but my English no good. You think if my English like yours, I ask you? No, I don’t tell you nothing.” She huffed. Then her voice grew sweet. “Just do this one time, okay? Good girl. You always good girl.” Then she hung up.
I tried to go back to sleep but I was angry and awake. The room was so bright that behind my closed lids, everything looked red and useless. The night before, I’d taken down Carly’s purple blanket and stuffed it under my bed, and now the sun streamed in with nothing to diffuse it. But the ancient radiator beneath my window knocked rhythmically like a single-minded kid with a drum and finally I fell back asleep. I dreamed, but later I could only remember one detail from it—a deep orange sky above the straight line of earth. And my arms. My arms were a mile long.
I awoke an hour later when Mina knocked on my door. She waited while I dressed and brushed my teeth and then we went down to breakfast. She’s Korean too and has an older brother, so I thought about telling her about Jin. But I couldn’t. Before moving to Atlanta, my parents had belonged to the same church as Mina’s parents. I knew they’d be terrified of gossip.
After breakfast, I called Dean Neisman, a kind voice withno good news. He said Jin
