You Are Here, page 8
“What do you think Saul’s deal is, anyway?” Erik continued.
“What do you mean?” Derek said, still staring at his phone.
“Like, dude always shows up for every single practice. Never even a minute late. He’s, like, the only one of us not running on Filipino Time. Coach included. But then he skipped all those practices, straight up missed our game last weekend, and then didn’t tell anyone he was going to be MIA for this tournament. It doesn’t make any sense.”
AJ shifted.
Derek shrugged. “Maybe he thinks he’s Iverson now or something.”
“Nah, bro, he’s good but not that good.”
“Yo, I remember—my dad said he heard Saul’s family is mad poor. Like, they live in a shack in the slums or something, back in the Philippines. You know, like those pictures you see online. They make a living by, like, scavenging garbage. He probably couldn’t afford to come with us.”
AJ’s heart started pounding, and his palms got sweaty. Now he really wanted to say something, and he didn’t want to vent to Saul, since he didn’t want Saul to know they were trash-talking him. While it was true that Saul’s family didn’t have much money, they weren’t living in the slums. And even if they were, what did that matter?
“For real?” Erik asked.
“For real.”
“Hold up, bro,” Erik said, brow furrowing. “If dude’s family is mad broke, then how’d they even get to the States? They stow away on a ship or something?”
“Nah, they’re still there. They just managed to scrape together enough to send him over here to live with his tita.”
“So, dude’s like an orphan?”
“Guess so.”
AJ knew that’s not what an orphan is, but he held his tongue again.
“Well, that explains a lot.”
“Yeah, like his stench.”
They both laughed.
“And how he wears the same shorts every practice.”
Laughter.
“And his jacked-up teeth.”
More laughter.
“And his messed-up sneakers.”
They kept laughing.
“And how his cell phone’s older than me.”
They went on, cracking up as they tried one-upping each other roasting Saul. AJ wanted to defend his friend. To tell these fools the real reason Saul wasn’t there—or at least say that Saul’s family being poor wasn’t something to laugh at. Tell them that all those things they were making fun of were the least important things about Saul.
Tell them instead to notice the way Saul slipped as easily between two languages and two cultures as he did through the lane. Or the way he was always willing to help someone out, just like he was always willing to make the extra pass. Or the way he made AJ feel not so alone anymore.
But the same thought that stopped him from speaking up when they were saying racist things about Chinese people stopped him from saying anything now: What was the point if it wouldn’t change anything?
Instead, he stepped out of the line and walked away.
AJ’s brain didn’t limit its lowlight reels to basketball. It would play any kind of mistake on repeat—bombing a test, dropping his phone and cracking the screen, forgetting to take out the garbage—until he felt like he was going to throw up.
So, as he strolled back toward their gate amid the river of travelers, hands buried in his pockets and backpack feeling twice as heavy as before, he kept thinking about how he’d stood there and said nothing, did nothing.
He’d simply opted out, walked away.
He tried to convince himself he’d staged some silent protest by leaving. He’d chosen to separate himself from his teammates to signal that he was not like them. Stepping out of line also meant he was sacrificing pizza—no small thing, especially given the time he’d already spent waiting.
So, from that perspective, hadn’t walking away been kind of . . . noble?
Not full-on noble. Not like Gabriela Silang leading the Ilocano resistance against the Spanish. Or like José Rizal, whose writing and execution inspired Filipinos to continue fighting for independence. Or like Larry Itliong helping Filipino American farmworkers demand better conditions. Or like any of the other ancestors AJ’s mom always taught him about—and whose stories make him glow with Pinoy pride—since she knew he wouldn’t learn about them in school. Basically, not the full-on noble that resonated through history.
But a kind-of noble. Like giving-up-your-seat-on-the-bus-to-an-old-person noble. Or feeding-a-stray-cat noble. Or returning-someone-else’s-shopping-cart-to-the-corral-because-they’ve-got-their-hands-full-with-kids noble. A quieter, kind-of noble.
If AJ’s decision to walk away in silent protest were any type of noble, though, then why was it looping in his mind like a last-second air ball? Why did he feel his cheeks burning and the familiar shame of screwing up royally?
He shifted his heavy backpack, trying to find a more comfortable position. Maybe he should have explained the truth about why Saul wasn’t coming—that he couldn’t leave the country like everyone else, not even for a basketball tournament in Canada. After he didn’t show up at the game last week, he had told AJ that he had overstayed his visa, so if he left the US now, they’d never let him back in. But Saul had also told AJ not to tell anyone that he was undocumented, so wasn’t not saying anything the right thing to do?
AJ reached the crowded gate back in Concourse E where his coach and some of the other players waited, gathered in a circle on the floor. Swinging his backpack to the ground, he hung out at the edge of the group for a moment. But he didn’t feel like being around them, so he picked the bag up again and wandered off, ending up on a moving walkway that carried him away from his teammates.
His phone buzzed with a text from Saul. So did you say something?
AJ put his phone back into his pocket without replying. He let his eyes scan the people flowing past. Among the crowd of stressed-out travelers, there was a guy with a baby strapped to his chest and two twin toddlers frantically orbiting him as he hauled a backpack, pulled a roller bag, and pushed an empty double stroller. Dude looked like he could use an extra pair of hands or two.
Then there was an airport worker struggling to pull the bag out from one of the trash cans. It was caught on something, but she couldn’t see that and kept tugging to the point where it was about to tear. And people kept reaching around her to toss in more garbage.
As the moving walkway carried him past the father and the airport worker, AJ felt bad for them. He felt bad for everyone who needed help that wasn’t coming. Sometimes the world was unfair to people for no reason at all.
He reached the end of the moving walkway and was about to step onto the next one when he heard a girl’s voice shout, “Hey!”
He stopped and turned around to look, along with a bunch of other people. It was a girl around his age. “Sorry,” she said, now that people were paying attention, “but does anyone speak Tagalog?”
AJ’s Tagalog wasn’t great, so he hung back, waiting for someone else to step up. But the people who had gathered around looked confused. Most shook their heads and turned away. A few muttered, “What’s Tagalog?” Some lingered just to watch.
There was a dude in a suit nearby who definitely looked Filipino, but he glanced at his watch, then dipped. Either he didn’t speak the language or he couldn’t be bothered to spare a few minutes.
It hit AJ that he was the only one who might be able to help.
He walked over to the girl, raising his hand like he was in school. “I speak Tagalog.”
Relief washed over the girl’s face. “Thanks,” she said. She gestured to an old Filipina woman, who came forward, looking desperate and confused.
“I’m pretty sure she speaks Tagalog,” the girl explained to AJ. “Her husband has a walker and is waiting down at their old gate—E37. Can you tell her this is her new gate?”
“Oh. Um, yeah. Yeah, I will.”
AJ turned to the woman and translated as best as he could into Tagalog. It must have been good enough, because her face broke out in a smile as she thanked him.
The girl was also smiling, and AJ felt good about himself for the first time in a long time.
“I’ll go ask someone to send a cart down to get her husband,” he said, and then did.
The whole thing had only taken a couple of minutes, but now that woman and her husband would catch their flight because that girl had used her voice to speak up, and AJ had used his to help the woman.
AJ turned back the way he’d come and found the airport worker he’d seen struggling with the trash bag. It had apparently ripped open, spilling the garbage across the floor, and she was now gathering it all piece by piece. Instead of beating himself up for not helping her earlier, he went over and helped her pick everything up. She thanked him, and he noticed that her name tag read MYUNG.
Then AJ caught up with the father who had the baby and the toddlers and helped him move the roller bag and stroller to their gate.
The actions were small and didn’t take much time. But they mattered. AJ could have passed these people without offering any help—he almost had because he’d been so caught up in thinking about all his failures. But that didn’t stop him this time, and he resolved to not let it in the future.
As he walked back to his gate, his mind started replaying the ways he had helped in the last few minutes—a highlight reel, for once. He took out his phone and typed up a long text to Saul about all of it—but then he hesitated, thumb hovering over the Send button.
It wasn’t about what someone else thought or did or saw. He did those things because they were the right thing to do, and he felt better for it. For once, he was proud of himself. That was enough. That was what mattered.
Even so, he tapped Send, because telling Saul about everything was as close as he was going to get to having his friend with him on this trip.
Right on! Saul replied, immediately followed by a string of brown raised-fist emojis.
#PinoyPower, AJ messaged.
Then Saul followed up with a GIF of Ari Agbayani, the Filipina Captain America.
AJ smiled. His good deeds were nowhere near superhero-level, but maybe someday he could do more. Maybe all those noble Filipino heroes from history his mom taught him about didn’t begin by leading revolutions. Maybe they started out by helping people in whatever small ways they could, in whatever small ways were needed. Maybe they built up to doing more, because maybe helping people was a skill that improved over time with practice, just like dribbling or passing or shooting a basketball.
AJ stopped in his tracks, travelers streaming past him as he thought. Walking past the girl or the airport worker or the father with the toddlers would have been like cutting practice—same as not saying anything to Erik and Derek. That wasn’t a kind-of-noble silent protest. AJ had simply made things easier for himself by staying silent, by walking away. He didn’t have to feel the discomfort of listening to his teammates trash-talking and being racist. He didn’t have to face the awkwardness of confronting them. He didn’t have to deal with any consequences.
Nothing had changed except that he felt temporary relief.
What they had said wasn’t right, and neither was AJ’s silence. Just like that moment when AJ realized there was nobody else around who could—or would—translate Tagalog, he realized that nobody else was going to say anything to Erik and Derek if he didn’t. AJ started forward again.
He didn’t have to say anything about Saul being undocumented—that wasn’t AJ’s to share. Instead, he had to say something to get them to realize how mean and ignorant and hurtful they were being. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything right away, but maybe it would get them to think twice about making fun of someone for not having enough money or for whatever reason. And he didn’t have to deliver a speech or throw a punch. Maybe it was enough to call them out or ask the kind of question that would make them think.
Even if nothing actually came of it, AJ needed to do what he felt was right.
When he reached the pizza place in the food court, Erik and Derek were stuffing pizza into their faces at a table meant for six, their bags and selves sprawled across the space.
AJ readjusted his backpack and cleared his throat. Determined to stand firm despite his heart thumping in his chest, he stepped up.
7
Natalie
Natalie Nakahara was a girl with a lot of feelings, which she collected the way some people collect teacups, or rocks, or Pokémon cards. There was, for example, that angry, splashy feeling she got whenever her little brother evicted one of her villagers in Animal Crossing; the fizzy, light-headed feeling she got whenever she and her best friend, Beth Martin, stayed up till 3 a.m. watching Hunter x Hunter; and the awed, quiet feeling she got whenever she glimpsed the vast gray of the Pacific Ocean at the end of her street. Sometimes, she even liked to try on a feeling to see how it fit, like once at her old school she’d tried being in love with Kenny Del Rosario from around the corner, but she didn’t think the voluminous, swoopy feeling suited her—at least not yet—so after a week she got bored and stopped.
Ever since taking off from San Francisco with Beth and her family, however, Natalie had been having a Weird Feeling, sort of flustery and twisted up, and this one wasn’t mostly imaginary, like being in love with Kenny Del Rosario.
It all started when Mr. Martin, jittery on caffeine and excitement (a feeling Natalie recognized from every time she drank boba), turned around before takeoff and declared in a voice that practically rattled the overhead compartments, “And thus begins the Annual Martin Independence Day Cross-Country Extravaganza!” This was what the Martins called their yearly vacation in Vermont. “Are you ready, kids? Hot dogs, American flags, and fireworks! Everything you need for a good summer celebration!”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Ugh, Dad. Not everyone does fireworks, remember?”
Or eats hot dogs, Natalie thought as she fiddled with her seat belt. Actually, she’d never had hot dogs on Fourth of July. For her, the food that really made it feel like a holiday was Bachan’s somen salad, which her family had been making for Independence Day since her great-great-grandparents had come to the United States over a century ago.
But she didn’t want to seem impolite, especially since the Martins had paid for her plane ticket, so she didn’t say anything.
Instead, she let the Weird Feeling fizzle away while she and Beth dove into a deep discussion about the cosplay outfits they wanted to wear for their very first comic-con in August.
“Okay, so no one from Ouran High School Host Club, but what about Demon Slayer?” Beth asked, trading the bagel chips from her snack mix for Natalie’s pretzels. (An unspoken I-know-this-is-your-favorite exchange.) “I still think you could go as Nezuko.”
“I don’t know . . . ,” Natalie said, swirling the last of the ice in her cup. “What about the kimono?”
“What about it?”
“I’ve never worn one before.” Actually, no one in her family ever dressed up like that, and the thought of asking Mom and Bachan to help her with the pink robe and checkered obi made her feel stiff and clompy. (A sneaking-into-your-mom’s-closet-to-try-on-her-high-heels feeling.)
“What are you talking about? I think they’d be totally into it! You’d be perfect as Nezuko.”
At her friend’s unabashed encouragement, Natalie grinned, but she also couldn’t help feeling a kernel of the Weird Feeling again. With thin brown hair and smooth, skim-milk skin, Beth was some mix of English and/or Irish and/or German and/or Dutch. She’d said she’d never really asked—and, Natalie had thought with a peppery dash of resentment, she’d never really had to think about it—so she didn’t have any old traditions to feel weird about.
But it was such a small thing, really, and it wasn’t like Natalie could explain all that anyway.
So she didn’t.
Now she’d been standing in the food court at the Chicago airport for nearly fifteen minutes, waiting for Beth to pick up a pack of California rolls and watching nervously as Mr. and Mrs. Martin made nasty comments about some poor Asian kid who’d gotten his finger stuck in a chair while his sister was just trying to enjoy a Smashburger.
Enter: the Weird Feeling. Only this time it wasn’t small, and it wasn’t fizzling away.
(That buzzing in her head. That churning in her guts.)
With the rain streaming down the windows and the other passengers talking loudly on their cell phones, Natalie watched the girl speak up: “You’re welcome!” Followed by the Martins’ uncomfortable shifting. And the girl’s triumphant walk. (A trumpet blast of a feeling.)
Then she locked eyes with Natalie and gave her a brilliant smile, and even though Natalie had stayed the night at the Martins’ house and didn’t even know the girl’s name, it was like the two of them were a part of something. Something Mr. and Mrs. Martin, even though they were grown-ups, could never really understand.
And that was weird, wasn’t it? To be so connected to someone you’d never met and probably never would?
While she tried to puzzle it all out, she felt someone at a nearby table staring at her—a white man with straw-colored hair and windburned cheeks—his pale eyes boring into her like drill bits.
Natalie swallowed, wishing she hadn’t worn her big red Kiki’s Delivery Service hair bow, which made her stand out even in a large crowd like this one. (A fell-down-the-bleachers-during-a-school-assembly feeling.) Then again, to some people, maybe any Asian in a face mask was conspicuous—to them, maybe it didn’t matter that Natalie was fifth-generation American and her family had been in this country since before World War I.
The man still hadn’t stopped glaring at her, but before he could accuse her of carrying COVID or being one of the so-called Chinese smugglers from the TSA line, Beth squeezed into place beside her, shielding her from the man’s view. “Are you ready?” she asked, more brightly than necessary.
