Page 48 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

I make my way over to the firepit. Kai sits on a crate. A girl is next to him, wrapped in a blanket despite the heat. It must be Emiko, who I’ve only seen one other time, when we first arrived. They’ve found her a chair. Ren sits on her other side, but from the angle of my approach his back is to me, and I can’t see him properly. It’s like he’s always obscured, the world for once helping him be exactly as he wishes. Unobservable.

A few other guys and girls sit and stand by the fire, and a flask is being passed around. Its reflective surface flickers red in the firelight as hands reach for it and heads tilt back to drink. Kai takes a long swig and holds it out to Ren. He shakes his head no.

“Hey, Violet!” Kai spies me. He nudges Ren. “Scoot over. Let her sit with you.”

Ren looks up over his shoulder at me. Our eyes meet. I’ve seen him in many lights—moonlight, daylight, even drenched in the searchlight’s beam. Each one transforms him. It’s like seeing the same subject painted with different colors. Firelight is no exception. Red and orange mixes with thick black, warping his features into a dynamic, flickering mask. He’s startled I’m here. Surprise makes the shadows jump and twist across his face. Instead of scooting over so I can sit with him on his crate, he stands, steps to the side, and stares down into the fire. Most would probably think he was being chivalrous, but I know better. I sit down, unable to tear my eyes from Ren.

“You warm enough, mi amiga?” Kai asks, unaware that I don’t want space. Or at least not space from Ren.

“I am,” I say, and then glance at him with curiosity. “Your mother is Hispanic, right?”

“Sí!” Kai flashes a broad, confident smile. “I bet I’m the first conquistador samurai you’ve ever met.”

“Do you speak Spanish?” I ask, intrigued.

“Sí!” Kai repeats with the same gusto.

“All he speaks are a few curses,” Emi tells me with a laugh. Her face is drawn, but her eyes sparkle, as alive as the spinning stars overhead. “Otherwise he just adds ito or ita onto words.”

“That’s not true, señorita liar…ita,” Kai protests. “I also know how to ask where the bathroom is.”

“Dónde está el baño?” Ren interjects, speaking for the first time. Even though he’s joking, my heart tightens at the sound of his voice. “Yeah, everyone knows that.”

Kai pointedly ignores Ren and turns to me.

“Manzanar Manhattan, mi amor?” Kai holds the flask out to me. Sweet, pungent fumes lace Kai’s breath and rise from the flask. I wince.

“That smells like it could kill a horse. No thank you.”

“More for me, then!” He takes another long drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Remember you’re going to have to walk home,” Emi says, glancing at me, and shakes her head in exasperation.

“And remember your dad is going to be there when you arrive,” Ren adds. He still hasn’t looked at me. I try to gauge how he’s doing simply from his face, but it’s impossible. Kai, sufficiently frightened by Ren’s reminder, screws the cap on the flask.

“Kai’s father is a doctor,” Emi tells me in a conversational voice. “Which means, if things ever go back to normal, Kai is going to be a doctor, which is”—she gestures to Kai, who sways in place—“concerning for the future of public health.”

Emi reminds me of my old friends. Sophomore year, Bertha, Annette, and I decided to wear blue every Tuesday to school. Soon, even the teachers said they knew it was Tuesday by the trio of girls in blue. We called ourselves the Bluebirds. The memory catches on me, like a stitch in my side. I wonder if Bertha and Annette miss me. I didn’t say goodbye. I couldn’t handle it. It was too mortifying.

I always knew I was different from them. The boys in my school would date me, but I knew they’d never marry me, just as I knew I was expected to wed a boy from our community. It was easy to pretend my white classmates and I were the same, though. Until it wasn’t.

It was another possession I lost, one I didn’t know I had until it was gone. The illusion that I was a girl, nothing more, nothing less.

“But I’m not!” Kai lifts the flask in a salute to no one, staggering slightly. “I’m not going to be a doctor. Even if things go back to normal and they let us into college again. Everything is changed and I am, too!”

“Does your father know?” Emi asks, rolling her eyes.

“I’ll tell him! I’ll go home right now and tell him!”

“Whoa, Tiger.” Ren puts his arm around Kai’s shoulder and steadies him. A hint of a smile twists over his lips. “Here, take a seat.” He guides Kai to a crate and plops him down. “How about you make your career decisions tomorrow?”

“That’s the thing.” Kai cradles the flask with both hands and stares contemplatively into the fire, as though he’s a philosopher pondering humanity’s greatest existential questions. “It’s never been my choice.”

“Wow, getting deep, are we?” Humor brims in Ren’s voice, but he pats Kai sympathetically on the shoulder. I think he understands his friend well.

“I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to be…” It’s clear Kai hasn’t decided an alternative career, because the sentence trails off. Then he smiles gleefully. “A mechanic.”

“I support you, buddy, I really do, but you realize you could never get Delilah working?” Ren says.