Lovely, Dark, and Deep

  My eyes tear up. What the heck is going on with my body?

  “I need to go,” I whisper urgently, ducking my head and tugging my sleeves over my hands. There is no denying it: Even my cheeks are prickling. I have to fight from itching them, my neck, my arms.

  Concerned, Josh takes my hand. At the door, I inhale sharply like I’m girding for battle, only I’m not afraid of the sun. It’s my own skin that scares me.

  “Wait,” calls the Yoga Woman, following us outside.

  What now? Honestly, what now?

  Yoga Woman hands Josh her brown bag of poke bowls. “Take ours.”

  That unexpected kindness crushes me in a way that the video hasn’t, Brian’s taunts didn’t, and my pain couldn’t. There is no denying that I am the Sick Girl. I weep.

  “Okay, Ultra, almost home,” says Josh. He, the slowest driver in the universe, actually accelerates.

  Warp speed, please. I just want to be home.

  The blanket mummifies my body, yet I continue frying from the outside in. Every year at the Washington State Fair, I have always wondered about the appeal of deep-fried Twinkies. There is none.

  Josh swerves into my driveway like a stunt driver. Before he can dash around the truck, I’ve shoved the blanket off and pushed the passenger door open. That alone winds me. The walk to the front door might as well be an ultramarathon in the desert. Dad rushes out of the house to me. I can tell he wants to shove Josh away, all hands off my girl.

  I tell him, “Dad, I’m not that sick.”

  Even I hear the betraying “that”—the caveat, the concession, the conclusion.

  It takes every bit of my focus to walk up the stairs to the threshold, shaking my head for all offers of help. Even with the UV filters shading the windows, I can feel the sun scraping along my skin.

  “Bedroom,” I gasp, and that startles an “oh, honey” out of Dad.

  Not soon enough, I’m in the dark, blissful dark. My eyelids shutter the moment I lie on my bed, body aching as if I’ve swum the entire stretch of the galaxy to reach this safe cave. The door closes gently, and I am glad to be left in the dark, even when the cross-examination begins in the hall: “Where did you take her? What do you know about the video?” And then the death knell for any possible future relationship: “Don’t you know that she’s sick?”

  Monday dawns way too bright, way too early, and way, way too loud with Roz banging on my bedroom door, yelling like she’s rowing on Lake Washington, “We’re waiting!”

  No matter how hard I try to get up after an entire weekend of rest, no matter how much I tell myself that I can’t miss class during the all-important senior fall—when grades really matter—I stay in bed. Calamine lotion and antihistamines hadn’t relieved my itchiness, neither had hours soaking in oatmeal baths. Regardless, the angry red hives blotching my face and body faded by Saturday night. I’m exhausted, even though the Seahawks weren’t playing and I had no vats of soup to prepare. It doesn’t help that my brain has been flipping somersaults, day and night. If my skin had erupted after just fifteen minutes under fluorescent lights, what the hell was it going to do next? Not to mention, after Josh’s Friday night check-in—a single “hey, you okay?” and my, yes, still alive—his only response was fade-out: going, going, gone.

  There’s a soft knock on my bedroom door before Mom walks in, leaving the door wide open. My room glows from the bright hallway light.

  “Mom! Lights!” I cry as I dive under my blanket. Welts on my arms are one thing, but I refuse to go to school with hives lumping my face.

  “Oh, honey!” Remorse coats Mom’s voice. She immediately flicks the light off in the hall.

  Dad joins us in my bedroom, assessing the situation swiftly, then says, “That’s it.”

  “What?” I ask, worried enough to leave the safety of my cave of blankets. I prop myself up on my elbows. “What’s it?”

  Dad’s only answer is to take Mom’s hand, shutting my door behind them, as if I’m a client whose latest outburst needs a new strategy. Yet now, my parents seem to forget all their operating procedures, which is never, ever, to conduct a meeting within hearing distance of listening ears. Never.

  Out in the hall, Dad says, “No school this week, not until they can promise that she’ll be safe.”

  “Safe from lights and bullies,” I hear Mom agreeing as they walk toward the kitchen. “I’m going to take another look at the Disabilities Act.”

  Of course my parents would ferret out the bully episode from Aminta or maybe even Josh, not that it matters. What matters is that my parents cannot escalate this with Liberty. If it’s hard enough to imagine returning to school, just thinking about bumping into Dr. Luthra or my teachers after a lawsuit almost makes me break into hives. While I don’t exactly leap to my feet, I inch off my bed and out my bedroom. After a weekend stuck in a darkened room, I’m not used to the natural light that filters stubbornly inside our home. I squint down the hall.

  “Hello? Crew practice!” Roz growls.

  I’m shocked to hear Mom snap, “Rosalind Phoebe Li. Wait your turn.”

  Dad chimes in, “This is important.”

  “It’s always about Viola,” Roz protests. The door to the garage slams shut.

  I near the kitchen, staying in the shadows. From there, I watch Dad handing Mom her steel travel mug, steaming with fresh coffee. “I’ll work from home today.”

  “I can.” Mom is already unpacking her tote bag. “I want to.”

  “We’ve got the new business pitch at ten, and you’re better at it. You know you are.” Dad tugs Mom in close to his chest at the kitchen counter. “Besides, I called dibs first.”

  “It’s a mom’s prerogative to be home with her sick child,” she protests, leaning her forehead against his chest. Mom resorting to gender stereotypes? Now I know she’s really worried.

  “Honey,” Dad says softly, “going into work isn’t the same as abandoning anyone. You know that, right?”

  “This isn’t about me trying not to be my sister.” She lifts her head and sighs. “Okay, maybe a little, but you never get between a mom and her baby. Never. This is primal.”

  “I know, honey.”

  She sighs. “I still need to do the pitch, don’t I?”

  “Bring home the bacon, baby.” Dad lifts her chin and kisses her. “I’ll stay home today.”

  Today? As if there will be future days of me staying home? I manage a scoff that comes out a half-baked cough nobody but me hears. Sorry, let’s not forget my one and only sanctioned sick day five years ago (The MRSA Episode). A boil the size of a marble sprouted on my jaw. A call to the CDC (Client #38) and one dermatologist visit later confirmed the treatment my parents had already lined up for me: drugs, bleach baths, surgical soap. Even though I protested—“Mom, creepy”—I was secretly glad that she slept on the floor in my bedroom the first three nights.

  Just as I’m about to lodge a formal protest, I stop myself. Staying home means that I don’t have to face every single person at school who’s watched the super slo-mo of my drool. No pitying looks. No rude questions. No ignoramuses who think my disorder is contagious. And most of all, absolutely no kneejerk SOS calls to Josh and missing his texts and yearning for his touch and remembering his attention.

  Famous last words.

  Exactly two hours later, I am so bored in my bedroom, I check my phone, half hoping to find a message from Josh—a “hey, you still doing okay?” or even just “hey!” Then, I can craft a comeback line, ask him about his weird pullbacks, allow myself to dwell in If.

  All continues to be quiet on the Josh front. There is nothing to come back from. For that matter, it doesn’t look like there’s anything to come back to either.

  …

  Another two hours later, my bedroom has transformed into the island of misfit projects, a jumble of starts and stops. In the north sector of my rumpled bed, my Mac is open to my old college essay, but how do I revise when I’m wondering whether I can even report the news if I can’t
embed myself in the news. On the western coastline of my bed, Post-it notes with ideas stick to the first five pages of Persephone. Lost in the Arctic on my nightstand behind me is my makeup bag, unzipped but not unpacked. Why bother even swiping a little lip gloss on?

  There’s a rap on my door, and I’m grateful for the distraction because the eastern front is causing me a lot of trouble. There, my daily planner is open to a page with Josh’s question: Where would you go if you couldn’t go outside anymore? Not one answer.

  Dad pops his head in. “Hey, pumpkin, you need anything?”

  “A skin transplant,” I tell him.

  “Other than that?”

  “Time travel via Tardis to MoPOP and stop the video of me.”

  “How about popcorn?”

  “Okay.”

  Even though Dad returns to the kitchen, I can hear Lee & Li in my head: What’s your Plan B? Dad’s phone rings with Auntie Ruth’s special ringtone: “Brothers and Sisters” by Coldplay. Like clockwork, a few minutes later, I receive a text from her.

  Auntie Ruth: Keep resting!

  The old Auntie Ruth would have written: Keep resisting! But the Sick Girl gets Keep resting? Conspiring to go to NYU Abu Dhabi feels like an entire lifetime ago when the sun was still benign, and Thor was just a myth. Slowly but firmly, I finally cross the mirage of my dream school off my list in my planner. I recompile a new list of colleges with two criteria: the best journalism programs far from home with the least amount of sun.

  So the Sick Girl is taking her college counselor’s advice. The Sick Girl is going to write about how she wasn’t just her own investigative journalist, but she became an advocate for her condition. Sorry, Josh, but the road to my college success now hinges on my new best friend: Persephone, my mouthpiece for the photosensitive.

  I set the planner in my lap to jot a new topline strategy:

  1) Research the Persephone myth.

  2) Deluge Josh with so many ideas, he’s convinced we need to work together.

  3) Keep the relationship purely professional (i.e., no more kissing).

  “Popcorn delivery!” Dad calls from down the hall. Seeing me propped against my pillows must make him think I’m five again, home sick from kindergarten. His face softens. “Maybe you should rest some more, pumpkin.”

  No more resting. I am not an invalid. Watch me head off to college in exactly ten months and counting. I chirp, “I’m doing great! Thanks!”

  Dad sets down a bowl big enough to feed three hungry crew girls at the foot of the bed, then hovers. “What else do you need? Is that enough light to read?” Answering his own question, Dad raises the blinds about five inches, then thinks better of it and lowers them for just a sliver of light.

  Forget a skin transplant; I’m planning a life transplant.

  “I think I’ll do a little more research,” I tell him, and place my Mac on my lap. “Ms. Kavoussi thought a college essay on solar urticaria would be compelling.”

  Dad grins his approval. “Great idea. Fight fire with fire.”

  You have no idea.

  Meet Persephone, goddess of the spring. There she was, picking flowers with her besties on a bright and sunny afternoon when Hades snatches her down to his lair in the Underworld. His (lame) excuse: He was “in love,” and he “needed a queen,” as if that justified the kidnapping.

  Hell hath no fury like a goddess-mother whose daughter is stolen. Demeter, Persephone’s mom and the goddess of the harvest, refuses to let any crops grow while she searches for her missing kid. (Now, there’s a goddess who knows a thing or two about negotiating from a place of power: You want to eat? You better help.) Hunger on earth ensues. Humanity’s cries rise heavenward. The sun (finally) tells the heartbroken mom exactly what it saw. Zeus (finally) orders Hades to free Persephone. Which Hades (finally) does—after he feeds a starving and unsuspecting Persephone three pomegranate seeds. Because of those tiny seeds, her fate is sowed. The Underworld becomes her winter home for eternity.

  What does the name Persephone mean? To bring or cause death. (Could Persephone be an intergalactic bounty hunter?)

  Why would Persephone bring death? According to one interpretation, Persephone is responsible for the first growth of spring, which means the death of winter. But it’s also possible that with her so-called coronation as queen of the Underworld, Persephone’s job is to carry out men’s curses upon the souls of the dead. (Could she be chasing Ultraviolent Reyes across the galaxy, intent on bringing her to justice?)

  What does Persephone look like? She’s mostly portrayed at the moment of her abduction, limbs flailing. (Since I doubt she’d want to be defined as a victim, I hope we can rethink her uniform. Maybe we can preserve the best elements of her current one, such as the constellation of stars?)

  Where was Persephone abducted? The Necromanteion, in Greece.

  What is the Necromanteion? It’s the entryway into the Underworld, where Hades lived and where the Oracle of the Dead prophesied to the living under special circumstances. (Could the modern-day Oracle of the Dead be a crisis manager? Let’s just say I have a lot of material to draw from.)

  Who else visited the Necromanteion? Odysseus. Although, if you want to be technical, Persephone didn’t visit the Necromanteion, not unless you define kidnapping as an unplanned trip. And prison as your vacation home.

  Has the name Persephone been used elsewhere? In the days when Pluto was a planet, scientists once thought there might be a tenth planet in our solar system. They preemptively named it Persephone. (Josh must have known that already.) (See also: chagrin.)

  As tempted as I am to text Josh about this research the next day when I’m still homebound from school, I call on every last one of my Genghis Khan genes to protect my future and nudge the unnecessary temptation of my phone to the far recesses of my bed. Flirting with a boy (who regularly drops off the face of the planet) shouldn’t break my top one hundred priorities, let alone be my top communication priority. The key is to work-zone him. Keep it purely professional, none of this heart-palpitating, sweaty-palm, fantasy-kissing nonsense.

  “Viola!” Dad calls from the front door, “your friend is here!”

  Friend? What friend? Josh?

  In one crazy, irrational moment, all thoughts of work-zoning him vanish: Heart palpitates! Palms sweat! Kissing memories ensue! I swing myself off my bed. As soon as I open my bedroom door, I squint. The darkness takes the shape, not of Thor but of my best friend, floating in a froth of silver tulle and anchored to earth in floral Dr. Martens. Aminta envelops me in a soft hug like she’s afraid a single touch will shatter me.

  “I am an emissary from Liberty, bearing good tidings,” Aminta says as she lowers her tote bag to the floor and drops onto my bed. She tips up her black top hat, corset tied all the way up to the crown. “I’ve missed you! Texting isn’t the same!”

  “I know it. Hey, so what happened to boho? And steampunk?” I ask, gesturing to her outfit.

  “It’s all about pixie punk today.” Aminta shrugs.

  I haven’t just holed up inside my cave for the past couple of days but have slipped into a Rip Van Winkle black hole. Everyone has moved on without me. I don’t even recognize my best friend.

  “You know what I finally figured out after interning at that start-up?” she asks me.

  “You love to code.”

  “Nope, already knew that. But did you know that no one knows or cares about who we are or what we were at Liberty? Who cares if you were the nerd? Who cares if you were slut-shamed? So the corollary is: Throw everybody at school off, especially all the Brians of the world. Be unpredictable. Shake up their expectations. Like, that way, you don’t allow anyone to label you.”

  “Like, the Sick Girl.”

  “Like, the Geek Girl. My mom is all, ‘You need to code and only code. That’s job security.’ And Dad’s all, ‘Do what you love! Fashion design!’ Okay, fine, who says I can’t be a geek with seriously good taste?”

  “You sound like Auntie Ruth, who’s al
l, ‘Asian women ride Harleys.’ ”

  “Thanks.” Aminta beams because who wouldn’t want to sound like my auntie? “I am so going to own Silicon Valley in style.” She bumps her shoulder against mine, then remembers my skin. “Oh, my gosh! I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?”

  “I’m totally fine. I’ve hermited all weekend.”

  Aminta plucks at my shirt, which I’ve buttoned all the way to the top. “I can tell.”

  “UPF clothes aren’t exactly fashion-forward.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to give up.” She removes her hat and plunks it on top of my head, leans back, then nods approvingly. “Better. Okay, so thanks to you, the predance bake sale sold out. So guess who’s making a huge donation to the girls’ education fund?”

  “What bake sale?”

  “Someone dropped off all your cookies.”

  “They did? Who?”

  Aminta stops fluffing her hat-flattened hair. “Wait, you don’t know?”

  I shake my head. “My parents, probably.” But after my body’s freak-out at the poke shop when Josh brought me home, Dad was there. Had Mom brought the cookies over? Or could it possibly have been Josh? (Heart palpitates! Palms sweat!)

  “Well, whoever did is awesome.” The bake sale is forgotten when Aminta seizes Persephone by my Mac. “I still think this is so weird.”

  “Yeah, totally weird. Just look at her boobs.”

  “Well, it’s not like Josh could have changed them. His brother was the illustrator, right?”

  “Caleb was the illustrator? But Josh draws. I’ve seen his doodles.”

  “Yeah, but Caleb thought he was better.”

  I drop my head into my hands and groan. Could I have been more insensitive? Of course Josh wouldn’t have wanted to alter a single stroke of his brother’s work.