Page 55 of Bad Words

“I just have a big family,” he told Juliette. “They, um—there are always a lot of moving parts.”

“Ah,” said Juliette, “that sounds familiar. Worried about the chaos?”

“A little.” We ate without speaking for a moment, our cutlery chiming softly against the ceramic plates. Then he said, “But I guess it wouldn’t be family without something being kind of broken. Like you wrote about the family in your book. The longest uncompleted project of their lives, right?”

Something warm darted down my back. I kept eating.

Juliette hadn’t written that phrase in House Hearth Home. I had, in my review of it.

There was no reason to feel wrong-footed by this. Nothing was stopping Parker from continuing to read my criticism.

It was discomfiting, though, to hear him recite my words that way, quiet and pensive. Even more so for him to misattribute them to one of his favorite writers.

Juliette was chewing, clearly trying to remember when she’d written that particular line, but Parker, looking out the window, hadn’t realized. “I wonder what they’re doing now,” he said, sounding far away.

I examined the compartments of my waffle, each glossy meniscus in each little cup of syrup. His strained words reached a remote, unfamiliar place in me. I wondered whether my parents had bought a Christmas tree this year, and whether they were planning to have Christmas dinner with the Zhous, an elderly couple who represented the other fifty percent of Chinese people in our neighborhood. I wondered if my parents had thought about me as often as I’d thought of them these past weeks. I wondered why I felt so afraid.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” said Juliette, smiling out at the glittering snowfall, and for a while we sat there, unspeaking, watching the road turn cream under the streetlights, like an empty page.

Parker and I should have taken the same train toward Brooklyn—he was a few miles north of Bed-Stuy, in Greenpoint—but once we’d all said goodbye inside the restaurant door, he said, “I should deal with this,” gesturing with his phone.

As I rode the subway home, I pulled up my father’s email for the hundredth time.

Xiao Yan—We are sorry to hear about the fight …

Parker’s discomfort in speaking about his family had been oddly reassuring. Of course my own family wasn’t normal, the financial rupture, the years of resentment, but I didn’t have many points of reference for “normal.” Jacob and Cassie both hailed from perfect nuclear families who, every Christmas, pooled their resources to rent an enormous house in Vermont and spent a week in unrealistically photogenic happiness.

I pressed Reply.

Hi Dad,

I apologize for my late response. I’ve been collecting my thoughts, but I appreciate your reaching out again. I thought of you and Mom over Thanksgiving.

The ongoing argument with Parker Navarro has obviously represented a great deal of upheaval for my usual routine, but I’ve been handling the aftermath by working with City’s editor and our representative at the parent company. I’m happy to say that this exposure has wound up being a positive for the magazine. My personal feelings, while complicated, don’t matter in comparison. In any case, rest assured that I’m doing well.

Wishing you both a happy Christmas.

Selina

I hit Send. I returned my phone to my pocket. I blinked back the burn in my eyes and rested my head against the vibrating subway window. My feelings were agitated, but as I thought of a soft piano rendition of “Silver Bells” and being shielded from whipping wind by thick glass, the taste of syrup on my tongue, my heartbeat slowed. I saw the sway of Juliette’s earrings, the way she smiled at me as though there were nothing wrong with me, though, of course, she didn’t know me. And Parker, condensation trickling down his glass into his folded fingers, the instant of curiosity on his perpetually unguarded expression. This from someone who knew, at least a little, what I was.

I found myself holding to that. I held on for minutes. Then the conductor announced my station, and I went back home to my life.

Chapter FifteenParker

I knew my siblings had begun to fight when they started texting me separately.

Kevin

Bro do you think you’ll get here at all?

Mom says hi

Specifically its like “hi parker my favorite and best son I love SO much”

“oh how I wish you were here”

“or that any of my other terrible children spoke Tagalog with me”