In Want of a Home by Alannah Tjhatra

Angel was sprawled across the couch, the TV turned to Seinfeld. She had a cigarette in one hand and a magazine in the other.

“Wish you’d at least take that shit outside.” Grace stripped off her soaking coat, peeled a dead worm off the sole of her shoe. She stuck her sneakers on the heater to dry.

Angel rolled her eyes, a puff of smoke escaping her lips. “And hello to you too, baby.”

Grace wearily watched the smoke cloud rise before approaching the couch to kiss her. She grabbed the remote, turning up the volume so Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s voice filled the room, and started rummaging through the fridge for leftovers.

“How was work?” asked Angel, turning the volume down again. Grace tried not to get annoyed.

“Fine. The creep tried to grab my ass again.”

Angel scoffed. “When are you gonna tell him off?”

“When he stops tipping so good.”

“God, Gracie. It’s gotta stop.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Grace jammed the refrigerator door closed, having given up the search for food. Spying the two-day-old pile of dishes in the sink, she decided to tackle those instead. And after, the magazines strewn across the kitchen table.

Angel didn’t mind the mess. These days, Grace did.

“Here. Let me make you dinner.” Angel stubbed out the cigarette and threw its butt in the trash. She dropped a kiss on Grace’s cheek before going to the pantry cupboard and producing a package of instant ramen. Grace groaned inwardly, but shot Angel a smile. Instant ramen for the fifth night in a row. Really, she ought to start stealing from the diner.

While Grace finished the dishes, Angel fluttered around the kitchenette. She plopped a square of noodles and a raw egg into a pot of water. When she turned the stove on, the overhead light flickered. The TV crackled and then fizzled to black.

Grace let herself groan out loud this time.

Angel laughed tightly. “How did we even end up in this dump?” She said it quietly, but in the silence of the blacked-out TV screen, the words glided neat and crisp through the air.

It had seemed like such a romantic notion when they first conceived of it. A thirst for something spontaneous, new, the adventure of a lifetime. The yearn to leave it all behind: suffocating town, gossiping neighbors, scrutinizing parents. Pack their bags and take a midnight train to New York City, which was made so alluring by the movies. Grace could find a job waiting tables. Angel could be a pianist at a jazz lounge. It would be difficult, but they would save up enough for a little place in Manhattan and put each other through university. And one day, years later—when Angel was a famous pianist and Grace had a degree from NYU—they would finally visit home. And their parents would weep, their tears carrying remorse, relief, and pride.

And they did do it—at least partly. One summer night they packed their bags and rode all the way to Penn Station. Slept huddled at the bottom of a stairwell until security kicked them out. They were eighteen and nineteen and deliriously happy, and wandered around New York City for two days straight. Grace kissed Angel in the middle of Times Square and said We’re finally free. They ran out of money in eight days. It was two weeks before Grace landed a job at the pizza diner. Another two weeks before Angel got hired at the corner store.

The light stopped flickering. The TV came back to life, laugh track filling the empty space. The couple exchanged bits about their day, though less than usual. Angel slid a bowl of ramen to Grace, some soup splattering on her blouse. The sight of it made her feel queasy, but still Grace started to pick at the egg. Rain pounded hard against the windowpane. She twirled the noodles around her chopsticks and turned up the TV volume, watching Jerry Seinfeld’s fake, glittering New York City dance before her.

_____

The two girls huddled in bed together for warmth that night, legs tangled under the covers. Angel was wearing a lacy black two-piece. Grace had worshipped her in that two-piece set when, at seventeen, she first saw her in it. Now, she walked her fingers up Angel’s spine, dragged her thumb under the black bra. She watched her girlfriend breathe, shoulders rising and falling so gently.

“I miss home, Gracie.”

It wasn’t the first time Angel had said it. And she’d been saying it more often in the past few months. Angel had been high school royalty when they first met. She was a piano virtuoso and had the prettiest smile Grace had ever seen. Grace still remembered their first kiss, the Christmas break of junior year, at the convenience store where Angel used to work. Behind the rack of romance novels and the shelf of pharmaceuticals. She remembered thinking so clearly and wildly, I am kissing Evangeline Washington. I am kissing the queen of the school.

Now, the younger girl ran her fingers through Angel’s curly hair. “I know,” she whispered. A familiar ache spread through her ribs.

“But at the same time, it was awful there.”

Grace brushed a lock of hair off Angel’s neck. “We’ll go back one day. We’ll show them.”

“Will we?” Angel turned to face her, dark eyes reflecting moonlight. It was thundering outside.

“We will,” Grace said. “When I finish university, and you perform at Carnegie Hall.”

“Carnegie Hall.” Angel kissed Grace softly on the nose before turning to face the wall again. “Carnegie Hall, my ass.”

_____

Every year on her birthday, Grace made one specific call. Today, she stood with the receiver to her lips and dialed a number she had long since memorized. Self-consciously pulled her shirt over her belly button piercing, despite knowing that the person on the other end wouldn’t see it. She let the phone ring three times before slamming it back on its box. Last year, she had let it go until somebody picked up. It had been her little brother. She listened to his repeated, muffled Hellos, and wept when the dial tone sounded.

Just as she put the handset down, the door swung open. Angel tumbled inside, dumping three bags of groceries and a brown sack next to the morning’s dirty dishes. The apples rolled off the counter and a carton of milk squashed a loaf of bread. Angel walked past the kitchenette and planted an affectionate wet kiss on Grace’s cheek. Telephone still ringing in her head, Grace moved to embrace her too late.

“I got you a surprise,” said Angel, eyes sparkling. She reached into the paper sack and pulled out a large birthday cake, trimmed with fluffy white frosting and graced by a giant blue HAPPY 21! in the middle. “Ice cream. Just for you. And I hope you don’t mind, but I invited Jack and Crystal and Madison. Thought we could have a birthday dinner.”

Grace stared at the cake. “It’s huge.”

“Shareable,” said Angel.

“Must’ve cost a shit ton of money, that thing.”

“I’ll make the money back.”

“Angel, you make like four dollars an hour.”

“Four seventy-five.” Angel’s eyes narrowed, her tone defensive. “And so what?”

“And so we can’t afford a fucking cake like that.”

Angel tensed, her hand hovering over the lid of the ice cream cake. “Don’t you swear at me like that, Grace.”

“I’m not swearing at you. I’m just saying the fu—the cake—”

“I make my own money too.”

“I know that.”

“Then don’t tell me what to do just because you make a couple more cents than me!”

Grace glared at the landline, and understanding flashed through Angel’s face.

“Come on. Not this again.”

Grace kept her gaze fixed on the phone. One of the apples sat sad and bruised at the foot of the couch. Angel picked it up.

“If you’re so worked up,” she said quietly, “why don’t you just go ahead and call. And let it ring.”

Grace shook her head, bitter tears springing into her eyes. Over three years she’d been gone from home, and never once had she received a phone call from the person she wanted to hear from the most. Her mother had her number. She’d written it down on a postcard and addressed it to her little brother. Never once did she ring Grace up and say, Grace, I made your favorite beef dish and thought about you, or, Grace, how are you doing, or—the one she fantasized about the most—Grace, I can’t take it anymore, and I’m coming to bring you back home.

“I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

Grace swiped at her eyes. “Have you been hearing that phone ring for me, Angel? Because I sure as hell haven’t.”

Angel tore the lid off the ice cream cake and grabbed a knife from the drawer. “I dare you to call her. I dare you to call her right now.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Okay! Then do it!”

“Then I will!” Grace snatched the knife from Angel and stabbed at the cake. Ate the piece right off the tray, shoveling frosting into her mouth. Then she dialed the number again. The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. On the fifth ring, someone picked up.

“Hello?”

Grace stopped breathing. She hadn’t heard that voice in three years.

“Wei? Who’s this?”

The doorbell rang. It must be Jack or Crystal or Madison. Her mother repeated the question in Mandarin.

“Hello?” her mother said again. “Is this some kind of joke?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Grace listened hungrily to her mother’s soft breathing. And then she heard it—barely discernible, almost just another breath.

“Grace?”

A question. Like her mother wasn’t sure a “Grace” even existed; like her daughter might’ve been a hallucination or a hazy dream. Grace’s entire body flushed cold and hot, her hand glued to the handset.

The doorbell rang again, but neither she nor Angel moved to open it. There was a click. And then the dial tone went off.

Apprehensively, Angel approached Grace. “I didn’t think you’d really do it.” Her fingers grazed Grace’s arm, and Grace flinched. Angel pulled back and glanced at the ground.

The doorbell rang once more, and this time, Angel went to get it. She smoked the whole night.

_____

Grace didn’t bring any baggage to Penn Station. She didn’t want it to seem like she expected to stay at her mother’s house. Angel had sent her off with a hug and a carnation purchased from a street vendor. Grace promised she would be back soon.

The train ride was eight hours. Grace counted cows in the fields, counted church steeples as they chugged through smaller towns. The seats were a lot more uncomfortable than she remembered, and she arrived at the station with a neck ache. The walk to the apartment was shorter than she recalled, too. There was a dip in the sidewalk in front of the building where puddles always gathered, and now, Grace leaped over one to get to the entrance. The entrance code hadn’t changed. She slipped inside, wiping her shoes on the welcome mat. Made a left, walked up three flights of stairs. The door stood at the very end of the hallway. When she finally mustered up the guts to knock, a stranger opened it.

“Grace?” said the stranger, after a moment’s hesitation. He had wavy hair and a slightly crooked nose. Grace reeled back, confused.

“Oliver,” called a voice from inside, “who is it?”

And just like that, there she stood in the doorway. Black hair in a ponytail, though a little grayed at the roots now. Eyes that were at once rather exhausted and chillingly keen. And arms that, after only a second’s hesitation, encircled her daughter. She smelled like citrus soap.

They sat down for lunch, the four of them: Grace, her mother, her brother, and the man named Oliver Jeong, who turned out to be the guy her mother was seeing. Gabriel had grown exponentially—she had left a pudgy ten-year-old who thought he was Indiana Jones and come back to a quiet teenager who looked like a bean pole. They talked about bad weather up north, federal elections, and recent neighborhood gossip. They talked like Grace was an adult who worked in the city and had come home to visit her family; not like she was a girl who had run away after her mother called her shameful. Grace described all the nice, popular parts of New York, leaving out job details and living conditions.

After lunch, her mother made her go to the balcony with her brother, like she was a guest who wasn’t allowed to help with the dishes. Grace was afraid she might break down right there in front of a stranger and her mother, whom she hadn’t seen in three years, but no tears came. She and her brother leaned against the balcony railing, watching rain water collect in the drains.

“Damn,” he said, prodding a puddle with his shoe, “I kinda missed you.”

Grace laughed in surprise. “Since when did you say ‘damn’ like that?”

He shrugged and smiled. Gabriel had deep set eyes, serious ones, and she missed the way he used to admire her; how he used to ask so earnestly, How come you’re not scared of anything? She would dangle off balcony ledges and ride bikes over flights of stairs, just to hear him ask it.

Grace nudged his shoe with her toe. “Well, I kinda missed you too.”

The siblings returned inside to find their mother sitting at the table, hands encircling a cup of tea. “You look thin,” said her mother, after the siblings had returned inside. “Have you been eating enough?”

Grace stood awkwardly beside the table, not sure if she should sit down. It seemed too casual to sit down like that, just her and her mother. Instead, she remained where she was and nodded.

“No matter. I’ll cook some chili beef tonight.” Her mother squinted and asked, hesitantly, “Do you still like chili beef?”

Grace nodded again. Fiddled with her fingers. “But I wasn’t planning to stay. I mean, for dinner. I just wanted to say hello. I just…and then I’ll go back.”

The room was silent for a moment, and Grace thought of that one night in New York when the electricity had been down. She and Angel had sat together in the dark, telling each other increasingly absurd stories about why the power must’ve gone out. A soft longing crept up inside her. And her mother peered at her, asking with her eyes the question she had never brought herself to say out loud.

Grace’s chest welled. She dragged the words from the deepest place in her gut—the place where she had shoved her fear all those years ago, in order to leap over flights of stairs so her brother would call her fearless. She dragged the words from there and said, quietly, “I’m still with Angel, Ma.”

Her mother looked away. Looked into her teacup. Looked at the clock on the wall. Looked anywhere but at Grace. She brought the dishes to the sink. She started opening and closing cupboards, and barely spoke to Grace for the rest of the afternoon, other than to make passive small talk. Mr. Howard’s dog is still rooting through the trash. The flowers are blooming late this year. Grace watched her nervously. The restaurant is doing well this month. By six o’ clock, after her mother had started cooking dinner, Grace decided it was time to leave. She had long past overstayed her welcome. She shrugged her coat on and slipped on her shoes, her brother watching her with his serious eyes.

Tell me to stay, willed Grace. Tell me to stay for dinner, Ma.

Only when she turned the doorknob did her mother speak again. “Wait.”

Something fluttered in Grace’s stomach, and she turned around. Her mother was still bustling around the kitchen. When she finally approached Grace, she was holding a plastic grocery bag. She thrust it into Grace’s hands. Grace peeked into the bag. Sitting there was a large container of chili beef, and two pairs of chopsticks.

“I made extra,” said her mother, when she saw Grace eyeing the contents of the bag.

Her mother glanced at a stain on the carpet. Grace had made it when she was seven; spilt grape juice while playing spies with her friends. Now, the two women stood facing each other at the door. Grace was a head taller than her mother but felt like she was twelve and pleading. Pleading to stay up late for a movie, to stay home from school, to play outside for five more minutes. Pleading for her mother to make mooncakes in the middle of August.

Her mother opened her mouth, then closed it again. When she finally spoke, her two words were directed at Grace’s collarbone. “Be good.”

All Grace could do was nod. Gabriel approached her for a sheepish hug, his eyes trained on the space above her head. Grace left the building and reached the end of the sidewalk. Just before turning the corner, she took a last look back: an old apartment, a cracked sidewalk. A little basketball court, overgrown with weeds. And her mother, standing by a rain puddle, waving. Grace raised her own hand up in acknowledgement.

When she reached the train station, she dialed a number she knew well. The phone rang once. Grace smiled as Angel’s voice filled the receiver. The evening light glistened against the payphone’s metallic buttons. When she boarded the train, the chili beef was still warm in her hands.

Alannah Tjhatra

Image: Two pair of white chopsticks with chinese characters on the handles. from dd