1
Xiumiao takes one look at me standing in her doorway in my graduation dress that I hate, jaw clenched to hold back tears, and says, “What if we just don’t go?”
Connie’s car has already disappeared around the corner, so it’s safe to wipe my watering eyes. “Won’t your parents be disappointed?”
“Oh, they definitely weren’t coming.” Xiumiao rolls her eyes. “I told them it was next week, after we leave town. I didn’t want all the fuss.”
And without another word she spins me 180 degrees and tows me toward the strip mall at the end of her block. I guess we’re officially skipping graduation.
Xiumiao strips off her hoodie and offers it to me to cover up the dress before we enter Tea Corner, which marks maybe the fourth time I’ve seen her without it all semester (the other three being choir performances). The hoodie is a mark of her true dedication to the street urchin aesthetic even in ninety-degree heat.
Our wardrobe swap leaves her in a tight tank top and me in a short swishy skirt under my hoodie, and the unusually feminine looks don’t escape Counter Guy. We don’t know his name, but we’ve watched him grow from the confused first-ever white employee at the boba shop to a competent Counter Guy.
“Hey, y’all look nice today,” Counter Guy says. Not in a creepy way, but my face turns red—this is why I normally dress like I just rolled out of bed and also might be a troll.
“Thanks, but we’re miserable,” Xiumiao says. “One taro and one jasmine green tea, no milk. Both with tapioca, please.”
She pays, and we sit on cute but uncomfortable armchairs in the back. Nubby canvas scratches the backs of my knees as I try to settle without flashing the world. Xiumiao hands me my cup, not even teasing me for my nondairy preference like she usually does. I slurp until the lump in my throat gets a little smaller.
“So . . .” Xiumiao’s not exactly asking anything. She didn’t ask questions when I texted twenty minutes before graduation looking for a ride, either. She just told me to come over.
“They completely bailed,” I tell her. “Dad got tied up at work last minute, as usual, and Connie thought it would be boring.” I knew my stepmom didn’t want to go to my graduation, but I guess I didn’t think she’d really blow it off.
“It is going to be boring,” Xiumiao says. “It’s the school’s last-ditch attempt to bore us to death before we escape their clutches.”
“I know,” I sigh. “But I wanted to go.”
“We still can,” Xiumiao offers.
I shake my head. It’s not like I care so much about sitting on folding chairs in the gym for two hours. “I don’t know, maybe I just wanted to go because Connie didn’t.”
“You need to learn to fly under the radar.” Xiumiao shakes her head. “Just do whatever your parents want, and then let the resentment eat you up until you’re dead inside. It’s a perfect system.”
I snort. “Yep, you’ve got it all figured out.”
Xiumiao’s parents are nice, and they love her and all. It’s just that they have strong opinions about her singing in the church choir and getting good grades, and they would probably prefer if she grew up to be straight and got married to a dude and had straight babies, which is probably not the way things are going to play out.
Not that Xiumiao’s talked about it with them, so they’re really just Schrödinger’s homophobes. But she doesn’t want to open that box, which is valid.
“We can tell Melissa to record it so you don’t miss the boredom,” Xiumiao says.
I sip my tea. “Nah, that’s okay. Besides, she abandoned us. Best friend status revoked.”
“That’s not at all what happened, Ellen. You just have abandonment issues.”
“Wow, sounds like you’re abandoning me to side with Melissa. Best friend status revoked.”
Xiumiao snorts. “Well, if you don’t want to watch the valedictorian speech on a two-inch screen, do you want to go back to my house and watch Rent? You can borrow shorts.”
There is something to be said for a friend who’s known you so long that they understand what you need even when you don’t. I follow Xiumiao into the morning heat. Maybe this was the perfect way to end high school after all.
* * *
• • •
Of course, Mrs. Li wants an explanation, and she kind of wants to feed me.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she exclaims, “and don’t tell me you’re drinking all that sugar for breakfast! And you look so pretty! What’s the occasion?”
I think the law of the suburbs says that your friends’ parents have to love you, but Xiumiao’s parents have always gone above and beyond ever since Mrs. Li met Dad crying outside the pre-K classroom door and decided to take the struggling single parent under her wing. I used to carpool with them to and from kiddie sports and choir events and occasionally to their Chinese Baptist church in one of their not-so-subtle gambits to save me from my heathen Catholicism.
Xiumiao is quick to cut the conversation off. “No, Ma, she ate before.” Untrue. “She just came from a funeral.” Super untrue, and also out of nowhere even if my dress is black. Then Xiumiao invents an (untrue) scholarship essay contest we have to work on, and we retreat to the library, which is the kind of room you have when you’re an only child in a five-bedroom house.
“We’re using your Netflix,” Xiumiao warns, handing me her dad’s tablet with the login screen open.
“Really? You watch every other musical movie on their account. At this point it’s probably more suspicious that you haven’t watched the gay one.”
Xiumiao glares.
“Sorry. You can always use my Netflix to watch gay things.”
She raises a very worrisome eyebrow.
We settle onto the couch, sipping tea and scrolling our phones and humming along to the movie we have mostly memorized, until Xiumiao says, “You know it’s just a ceremony. Your diploma comes in the mail either way.”
“No, I know. It was more about Connie and Dad showing up for me.” Xiumiao nods. “And, like, closure.”
“Wow, no, super can’t relate. Case closed. Burn it all down.”
My phone dings in my hand, notifying me that Xiumiao is also on Tumblr and liking my posts while we talk, which is either tragic or extreme best friend goals.
“You don’t want to celebrate before Melissa and I leave town?” I ask. “Soon you’ll be stuck here missing our faces.”