El Cajon Boulevard. Six lanes of black asphalt stretching far into the horizon, shimmering with waves of heat. Strip malls lined up on either side with their garish painted signs. A song about summer came on. Something about soaking up the sun. What a joke. But I started to sing along. Loud as I could until Suna broke into laughter. It always amazed me how music could take me to another place. It didn’t matter if I was at church singing in the chorus about God or jamming to the radio or listening to my CDs. Even the most insipid song had something. A beat, a melody, that lone bass holding everything together. But when a song was right, when everything fell together, each note, each rise and dip of the voice filled me with a sense of yearning. A vastness. The sensation of flight seeping into my skin until I was skimming through the air, the music holding me aloft.
Red light. Even this early on a summer day, the migrant workers stood on the corners, waiting for work. For a pickup truck to slow down and stop, a pale arm reaching out the window, motioning for two or three to hop in back. I didn’t understand how they could stand to be dressed in those plaid button-down long-sleeve shirts and jeans. Weren’t they dying in all those clothes? The light turned green and I sped past.
I flipped on the right turn signal, eased the car into the parking lot of one of the strip malls. I could see Uhmma through the glass walls of the dry cleaners. She was at the front, looking through the cash register.
“Damn.” I stepped on the brake. “What is she doing?”
I turned the wheel too quickly, making Sally squeal in protest, and parked in the alley behind Uhmma and Apa’s van.
Suna turned in her seat to look at me.
I sat still for a moment and stared at the open back door of the dry cleaners. What were the chances? What was the worst Uhmma could do? There was plenty, but would she even know from looking at the receipts? I had been the only one to handle them since the beginning of summer. I cursed under my breath. I should have doctored them yesterday. It was too late now.
“Come on,” I said, and Suna and I stepped out of the car and walked toward the dry cleaners. Even in this heat, walking into the store was like stepping from the clouds straight into hell.
suna
SUNA STICKS HER ARM out the window, pushing her hand through the hot air as the car speeds down the street. Her hand dives down, then up, down, up, a roller-coaster ride, a kite on the beach. The wind whips back her shoulder-length hair, making her smile at the way it flies around her head as though disconnected from her body. Suna hears her sister singing and though Mina is but an arm’s reach away, Mina’s voice must travel oceans before Suna can register the voice she knows like it is her own. It has always been like this. Since she was a baby. And even with the hearing aid, the sounds of the world filter into her mind tinny and light as a wind chime swinging in a breeze.
Suna closes her eyes, tries to guess which store they are going to pass next. Tan to Tan, she whispers to herself and opens her eyes. Two stores too early. They are only at Oriental Nails II. She closes her eyes to try again. Red light. Open.
He sits at the bus bench. Not on the seat, but on top of the backrest, his feet splayed out on the bench, elbows on his knees, shoulders hunched forward, hands clasped in front. She can’t quite see his eyes, his cap is pulled down too low. But she notices a scar the size of half an orange etched just to the right of his chin. Like a crescent moon, Suna thinks.
Moon says something out of the corner of his lips. The man next to him shakes his head no, then says something to make Moon smile, his scar flattening, stretching until it almost seems like a dimple. Maybe it is the sound of their radio or the way Suna’s arm is draped out the window, but Moon lifts his eyes. To the street. To the car. For her. Suna freezes, unable to look away. Caught in his gaze. In the lightning-flash smile breaking across his face. He nods hello. Green light.
Suna closes her eyes and tries to recapture the moment. She holds his face like a point of light suspended against the darkness.
From across the oceans, Suna hears her older sister’s voice, senses Mina sitting up straighter. And then he is gone. Lost to the day. Suna returns for Mina.
mina
I BRACED MYSELF FOR Uhmma’s anger, walking quickly through the back of the store, dodging all the plastic-wrapped clothes suspended from the conveyor belt, and headed straight for the problem.
“Hi, Uhmma,” I said as casually as possible.
My mother looked up from the receipts and frowned at my shorts and tank top. A lecture about the kind of clothes I was supposed to wear when I was working up front parted Uhmma’s lips, but then she changed her mind and instead waved some receipts.
Mina, have you checked these numbers? Uhmma asked in Korean while looking over the slips.
I placed my backpack on top of the counter and answered back in Korean, hoping to keep on Uhmma’s good side.
Here, Uhmma, I said and took the receipts from her. I have not had a chance to go over them. They are still unorganized. I will put them in order after I study for my SATs.
The subject of my SATs immediately turned Uhmma’s attention away from the receipts. Have you been practicing?
