16 Chapter XV
Police Officer: Was there money involved?
Me: Money is always an issue, isn't it?
***
A bright marigold light came like a golden tunnel through Sunny's window. The welcome of sunrise was an iris of fire that gave the blues and greens of nature a new and vibrant glow— an invitation to a new day.
Sunny curled her toes between the frizzy carpet. She outstretched her arms, yawned like a cat, and turned to the mirror hanging by her door. A scream. She looked like a ridiculous, remarkably unattractive schoolboy, the type with wavy warrior hair and worn-out sneakers. Her face was an unhealthy shade of celeste.
Sunny brushed her brown bangs out of her hard open eyes and stared. She expected to see coldness or contempt, or even a bit of curiosity or assessment in her reflection, but she saw only a state of blankness. Sunny blinked twice and suddenly felt compelled by some angel of her own to destroy the girl in the mirror. She roared with shame. Disgusting. Deserved to be shot with a dart gun. Maybe something stronger than that even.
***
Sunny slammed Hiram's old baseball hat on the rounds of her trimmed hair as hard as she knew how to and opened the door. With heavy steps, Sunny trudged down the stairs and stepped into Lyssa's office. She greeted, said hello. Smiled as if needing some loving attention.
"Can I talk to you, Mom? It's kinda important." Lyssa, getting increasingly insensitive to words, responded with silence. She hid behind their big walnut desk, continuing at her business.
Sunny stood for barely two minutes before she croaked her throat, swallowed, and asked for a conversation... again. A shape moved.
"Can we please do this later?" Lyssa looked at her over the tops of her frames but didn't notice the hair. "Can't you see that we're busy?" Lyssa gave her shallow sympathies, and turned around, and went back to typing. Hiram didn't even look in her direction once. Sure, Mom. She left, shut the door behind her as they requested. "Talk later, sweetie pie," said Hiram.
They didn't.
***
Josh was a few years older than Sunny, a grassy-haired college boy working a part-time job at Sport Check. He lived in the dorms with his buddies but knew a few high school boys because of his younger brother. Josh asked to hang out. Sunny looked pleasantly stimulated. He texted something like, "Wanna go into the woods and see what Mother Nature is wearing? A Pic-nic. Let's go on a picnic tomorrow. Say yes, Sunny." Then he sent a video in which he gave Sunny a dying look as if his insides were about to drop out of him over the iPhone screen. Sunny couldn't ignore it.
***
Josh sat on a bench surrounded by tall tall pines with his earbuds in, breathing noisily, listening to what seemed to be a guided meditation.
"Woah, nice hair," he said, removing one bud. He had the questionable gift of turning Sunny's worst qualities into jokes.
"Shut up."
"Hey, hey that was a compliment." Sunny was sore all over and wanted to just tell him about the pain she was feeling inside.
"Don't worry, no one will notice," he said, slightly confused, but still trying to be supportive.
"Yeah, if they don't know me," said Sunny. "They won't know what I normally look like."
"Well, I say we better take some photos. Document this fresh-cut," he said.
"No!"
"Yes," he said, taking her hand. Together, they adventured into the woods, explored all times of the day, lighting, angles— together, they created art. Josh never repudiated to hang out; whatever he was doing, he would put it down and come see Sunny voluntarily. Sometimes he brought flowers.
"You're my entire galaxy," he said, as Sunny liquified. Josh loved to compliment but didn't bother to dig his nose in too deep into Sunny's personal life.
***
54 questions. Sunny finished 54 algebra questions. She never thought mathematics could be her pride and joy, but after those long and hard hours of trying to make Selena's work slightly different from hers yet still similar enough to be mathematically correct, Sunny felt quite accomplished. Come time to hand it in though, and she was more jittery than ever. She obsessed over the moment the teacher would find out in her head. Sunny walked with her head hung low, and stared at the grey floor tiles when she passed the lined paper to Mrs. Lennie.
"You alright?" Mrs. Lennie said, hunching forward and resting her hand on Sunny's shoulder like a caring mother.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Sunny's smiles came in succession like waves being on the surface of a little lake. She peeked at the other kids who were taking selfies across the classroom. She looked at Devon. They all looked as if it were just a normal sunny day out. Cold sweat started to form.
"That's good. Just then, you looked a little blue." Sunny smiled a big smile and told Mrs. Lennie not to worry. Sunny was the first out the door when the bell rang. Selena came running up to her.
"Dude, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." Sunny walked fast, and Selena had a hard time catching up.
"What if she finds out?" She said, slowing for a moment. "My mom is going to disown me... I can't keep doing this."
"Doing what?"
"You know... how we chea—"
"Shut your mouth. You don't know the hell you talking about," she said. They both stopped walking. The hallways got louder. Selena stared into Sunny's eyes deeply. All the way into her brain. "Stop freaking out like a baby. It's simply one friend helping another out. Forget about it already."
"Selena—"
"Forget about it," she said. "Let's go shopping."
"What?"
"Take your mind off it. Let's go shopping. That's what I do when I'm stuck. Works like a drug." Just then, Sunny realized how her reaction was so uptight and that she had just made a fool of herself. "We're not going to get caught, are we?"
"What? Of course not," she said. "Not unless someone tells. But we're on top of the school, I don't think anyone would care." A part of Sunny shifted and she began to believe it. Guilt was never felt ever since.
***
The weekend came, and Sunny was picked up by a big fat truck to go to Peter Pond Mall. When they went in, Selena said hello to a few familiar people, but never once introduced Sunny. Anything The Kitties wore had to be approved— short, sexy, seasonally coordinated. Selena, with an aggressive hand, dragged Sunny into the closest of La Senza even after she refused. It was Sunny's first time going bra fitting, and she was with the Kitties. In her mind, she always pictured her Lyssa being here.
"I just realized that Sunny has like zero tits," Selena said pointing her long fingers at Sunny. "Literally zero." Being on probation meant that she could be made fun of, teased, disdained, but couldn't say a word.
"Don't all Asians have no boobs though?" Replied Tate, holding up a laced bra up to Sunny's chest.
"Right, cuz their parents only allow A's." They roared. "Jeez just look at her. Goosebumps bigger than her boobs." Sunny smiled. She was a good actor; she had a whole range of smiles. The Kitties' conquest of the school resembled a robbery from those who had a slightly different complex of flatter noses than themselves. It was not a pretty thing when looked at too closely.
"That'll be eight ninety-seven," said a woman with clumpy mascara behind the cashier. "Would you like to become a member? You can join for free, and you get 5% off your next purchase," she said, her round face moving rapidly. A line rehearsed a thousand times.
"I'm okay," said Sunny.
"Ok. Well, do you want to donate 3 dollars to the Children's foundation? And make it 900?"
"I already donate," Sunny lied. "Sorry, how much did you say it was?" Sunny spoke in a worried tone enough to indicate poverty.
"897 in total." The girl stopped for a moment to rub her forehead, annoyed.
"There must be something wrong," Sunny said. "I don't think I'll get this then--" Sunny was immediately interrupted by a voice behind her.
"Thanks. We'll pay with cash," Selena said, reaching into Sunny's wallet and handing a stack of one-hundreds to the girl. The girls laughed along with their wrists looped with dozens of shopping bags. The smile on their faces shining, their lips a garish red as they advanced into the wondrous world of fashion and beauty. With their voluptuous curls, thongs up their bums, and eyelashes flapping like wings, the young shoppers looked promising, grander, unreachable.
Yet all the goodness and fame came with one stab in the gut in the person who deserved it the least. When the long receipt was printed out, Sunny brought it close to her face to inspect any calculation errors. None. The robbery, I could tell, stirred up a wide range of thoughts and feelings. As they walked out of the door, Sunny appeared as if she had damp paint coated heavily on her pores. The coverage, I could tell, was heavy, like a weight she had to carry, constantly. The weight of every footstep she took as someone else, and the weight of being helpless.
**
Lyssa arrived, and without taking off her coat, she directly went to her office. Christmas was in a month. That meant that New Year was also a month away. Which meant spring was coming. If Lyssa didn't set up a billion slides, fix fifty-five-thousand ice cream machines, and train a million employees, the world would come to an end.
These days, she had been living on black coffee and excessive cussing, spending her mornings and nights calculating spreadsheets in her head. Lyssa burned herself when she ironed and ran a red light every time she went to the grocery store. The goal she set up for herself was totally unrealistic, and the worse part was, she knew it.
Hiram didn't come home in time for dinner, so Lyssa decided to just call pizza. With the phone never once leaving her left ear, she handed Sunny a note: 784-890. Pizza. Tonight. The delivery guy came an hour later. Sunny snap a photo, left the cardboard boxes in the kitchen, and went up to her room instead.
It was almost seven, and Sunny was on call instead of finishing her English essay. And Selena's. Sunny was getting the hang of it. The girls, they'd see something funny. Call. See someone hot. Call. Even when they didn't have any good reason, they'd call. They would blurb about all sorts of things about where to shop and what to buy. Most would be annoyed at this excessive communication, but to Sunny, it was confirmation that she was safe.
But the whose-boyfriend-did-what-gossip was starting to get boring and Sunny found her mind thinking of other things. It is also just easier not to say anything. No risk of saying the wrong things at the wrongs times, no risk of exposing herself.
"Sunny-y-y, hello?" Sunny recognized that it was Tyra speaking. "Get your head out of the clouds, I'm talking to ya."
"Oh, sorry. Yeah?"
"So is that a yes?"
"What am I saying yes to?"
"The sleepover at Selena's tomorrow. It's a Friday, so all the girls are going to go and chill."
"Oh, okay. I'll ask." A long pause.
"Did you just say ask? Like what, your Mommy?"
"Yeah." Laughter came pouring from six different mics at a time. That's when Sunny learned that the phrase 'ask permission' was so extraordinary to a white child. The call ended, and Sunny twirled down the stairs.
***
"Can I please go to the sleepover?"
"I don't have time for this, Sunny," said Lyssa on the phone.
"I can ask Dad to drive."
She paused and instructed someone to put the couches by the window. "Camryn, I know. Listen to me. They need to be perfect... yeah. Ok, thank you...Sorry what did you say, honey?"
"Um, could I just take the bus if you guys are both busy then?" Lyssa squinted her eyes.
"I need her mother's phone number first," she replied. "Just in case."
"What? That's weird, it's stalker-ish... Mom."
"Anything can happen," she said, with a sullen voice.
"Fine," said Sunny. She paused then asked, "Mom, who's Camryn ?" Sunny was hopeful— perhaps Lyssa had gotten a new friend. She had never seen her with a friend before. It was always work work work.
"My secretary. New on the job."
"Oh." Sunny sighed.
"Be vigilant. See you tomorrow." Sunny was old enough to play without her parents but too young to go for sleepovers. It felt like a jail. She rolled her eyes, an act that showed her declaim against rules. Something about the idea of being alone, without parents or curfew, the naughtiness of it, and the unexpectedness of the unknown, made her feel euphoric.
The sleepover was, to Sunny, a public declaration of protest, but also a gently recalcitrant act against the confines of Lyssa's control. I couldn't help but feel a worrisome rebellious streak in Sunny's behavior. The danger was knocking on the door, and Sunny was welcoming him in.
