“I never knew any of that,” I say, staring at the photographs.
“It was a long time ago,” Popo says. Sensing the end of her story, I turn another page. Her eyes light up with joy when she sees a photo of another small child, standing in front of a horse with flowers draped around its neck. “This was me when I was a little girl. I remember this afternoon very well.” She chuckles. “We had just finished watching the King Kamehameha Day parade. On our way home, a fire ant bit the bottom of my foot, and by the next day I had a blister the size of a half-dollar. Ma had to use a needle to break it open. I was so scared.”
I flip another page. And another. Popo tells me so many stories about her childhood, and her teenage years, and the day she met Grandpa Cillian, who passed away in the nineties from lung cancer. She tells me about the day she went into labor with Mom, and how Grandpa Cillian was so determined to come into the room when he heard Popo screaming that he fought off four nurses and a doctor to get through the door.
“The second he looked at me and saw all the blood, his whole body went wobbly and he hit the deck like a sack of rice.” Popo laughs until there are tears in her eyes.
“Do you miss him?” I ask quietly.
She nods. “Every single day.”
I turn a few more pages, soaking in the photographs with faded colors and clothing from the 1970s. Grandpa Cillian’s hair is so unmistakably orange, and I can almost see the freckles Mom is always telling me about. And Popo is beautiful, lithe and graceful as ever.
She taps her finger against the book. “You can finish looking through it later. I don’t want to be greedy with your time when you have so much family in the other room. But I wanted you to have this—I wanted you to know where you came from.”
I look back at my grandma with confusion at first, and then resignation that I’m not as good at hiding my feelings as I sometimes wish I was.
“My history is your history,” Popo says. “Don’t ever forget that.”
“Thanks, Popo,” I say, and I lean over and give her a hug, breathing in her soft perfume and lemongrass soap.
When I pull away, something occurs to me for the first time in my life. “What made your parents name you Jane? I mean, it’s a great name—Jane Austen is my literary hero—but do you ever wish they had given you a name like theirs?” When people see my name on paper, I know they’ve already erased half of me in their heads. A girl named Harley Milano isn’t supposed to look like me.
But Harley Yoshi Milano—I feel like it’s proof that a quarter of me exists. Even if it’s not fair, sometimes names feel like a statement.
Would I have less of a right to my family’s cultures if I had a different middle name?
Would being called Harley Jane Milano somehow make me less Asian than Harley Yoshi Milano?
I want to believe it wouldn’t, but sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I’m at the mercy of racially judgmental purists who are forever finding reasons why I can’t be in any of their clubs.
“I was born in a time when people thought a name could make the difference between standing out or blending in. Back then, people wanted their children to have the best chance in a world that was not always eager to accept them. Names were lost, and so were languages.” There’s life dancing behind Popo’s eyes. “Names can change, Harley Yoshi, but your family—and where you come from—that can never be taken away from you.”
Popo gets up to join everyone in the living room, and before I put the photo album back in the bag, I trace the lines of Popo’s family name once more, and I hope that if I do it enough times, it will feel like my name too.
CHAPTER FIVE
The late-afternoon sun casts an apricot hue across the skyline, and the parking lot is still empty. I’m early for a change.
Billy is standing outside talking on his cell phone when I approach the back door of Teatro della Notte. When he notices me, he leans the phone against his shoulder and tilts his head toward the door.
“Just a heads-up—it’s tense in there today,” he offers.
I pause in front of the entrance. “What happened?”
Billy shakes his head and sighs like there’s too much to explain. He settles for a single word. A name. “Tarbottle.”
My stomach drops like I’ve lost my grip on the silk ropes fifty feet in the air. Billy lifts his phone back to his ear and says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m still here,” and I’m already halfway through the door.
Everyone is either hiding their awkward grins or nervously keeping their eyes to the floor. It’s clear the gossip has already made the rounds backstage, but Tatya isn’t in her dressing room. I wonder if she knows what she’ll be walking into tonight.
Whispers fill the hallway, and I catch a snippet of conversation coming from one of the other rooms.
“I can’t believe she’d leave us.”
“I hear Maison du Mystère pays well.”
“But where’s the loyalty? I don’t care how much they pay. I couldn’t do it.”
“I just can’t believe she didn’t tell us.”
“Do you think Kenji and Delilah know?”
When I pass by the doorway, I don’t have to look inside to know it’s Elise and Katy, the two halves of a contortionist sister act. And I don’t blame them for taking part in the gossip fodder—they don’t know the whole story like I do—but I’m in a hurry to get to my parents, and I’m not interested in giving them more information than they already have.
They notice me, as evidenced by the hushed whispers of embarrassment that follow.
My parents’ office door is slightly ajar, and I catch a glimpse of deep burgundy carpet from the hall, a pair of shadows strewn across the floor.
Mom looks surprised to see me. She’s sitting behind her desk, one arm across her chest and the other folded up toward her shoulder. It’s the way she always sits when she’s thinking hard about something.
Dad shifts his gaze to look at me. He seems flustered, almost like they’ve been arguing, which would be strange. They never argue.
The words fly out of my mouth before my brain has the decency to think. “If you’re fighting about Tatya, the rumors aren’t true. She’s not joining Maison du Mystère.”
Mom leans forward so her elbows rest on the desk. “How do you know about that?”
I throw a thumb over my shoulder. “I mean, anyone walking through that hallway right now would know. But I saw Simon earlier—he basically cornered Tatya outside. She didn’t even keep his business card.”
Mom looks at Dad, who shrugs, like maybe it’s true, and maybe it isn’t.
“You don’t believe me?” My voice carries a sting. They never take me seriously—even when it doesn’t have anything to do with me.
“We believe you,” Mom counters, standing from her chair and making her way toward me. She closes her hands around my arms and squeezes like it’s supposed to be reassuring. “But there’s been a lot of hearsay today, and there’s no point in discussing anything without Tatya in the room to speak for herself.”
“What I told you wasn’t hearsay. I was there,” I argue. And then my stomach coils. “Is Tatya in trouble?”