Indifferent Children
an excerpt

Mei

All my life, I’ve lived in Yorkville, Manhattan, close to the 86th metro stop. The soundtrack of my mind loops police sirens and a million voices that reverberate like buzzing fluorescent ceiling lights. But I grew up during summers at my mother’s house in Brighton. ‘London-by-the-Sea’, with its funfair, pubs and clubs, its lardy thick ice-cream and beige paper cones filled with fish and chips that smell like the sea but taste like cardboard.
Every narrow street looked like the next as we sped by on his red Halfords bicycle. I held on tight to the back of Christian’s sweater, pressing my nose up against his spine. I breathed in the stale, sweaty smell of maroon colored yarn, terrified my white skirt would catch in the spokes. Seb Ducruet followed close behind, so close I could hear the mechanical whirring of his wheels. I imagined Christian was my St. George, and we were barely escaping from the dragon.
In the fall, I’d be starting the eighth grade 3500 miles away. For the first time, I was acutely aware of our differences. I appreciated Christian’s tousled hair, darkening with each successive year. I no longer minded that he smelled like rubber tires and sandalwood. I was concerned that he had a black eye: a blue-purple moon lying on its back, “It doesn’t look too bad, really,” I said, sitting with my knees up and pressed against each other. I ran my hands over the top of the grass, feeling the almost-painful tickle on my palms.
“If we were at school, they’d all be asking about it,” said Seb, scratching at a patch of hard dirt with his scraggly nails. He wore glasses and didn’t talk much. He was weird.
“If he were at school,” I countered, “It wouldn’t have happened.” I opened up my denim knapsack and distributed the food between the two boys. My mother had recently brought home the newly developed photographs and my thighs weren’t looking too good in my swimsuit. As they worked on devouring my mom’s famous corned beef sandwiches, I leaned back and said, “If you look into the sun and blink a few times, you can see pictures.”
“You’re really daft sometimes!” answered Christian, with a know-it-all laugh, “You’ll go blind.”
“I wonder if you have a black eye and you die, will you have a black eye forever?” I asked, making a shade over my eyes with my hands.
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“What’d you do to your dad this time to deserve it, anyway?”
Christian was silent for a while, making me believe he wasn’t going to give me an answer, but then: “I gave him a cross look by mistake and he went ballistic at me. My mum says she’s never going to speak to him again.”
“Do you think she won’t?” I asked. My parents resided on different continents, and even they still spoke to each other.
“No, he needs her to do the cooking and the shopping and all the other woman things a woman does for a man.”
“What do you mean, like sex?” I spoke the magic word.
“You’re terribly blunt about it,” Christian said, giving Seb this look like ‘she’s crazy’. Christian chewed with his mouth open and looked at my legs. I quickly sat up, hoping the billowy skirt would conceal them. “… I’ll teach you how to ride a bike,” he said, resolutely.
“Will you?” I asked. “But won’t it be incredibly difficult, me starting so late and everything?” Even at thirteen, I embodied ‘weak little Asian girl’.
“No… I think you can do it. And I can’t carry you around forever,” answered Christian, with a smile. “On Saturday? You up to it?”
I glanced at Seb, then. What would Seb think? Us leaving him out. I shouldn’t have wasted my time worrying. Saturday rolled around and both of them- Christian and Seb- arrived at my front door. I really had been hoping it’d just be the two of us. I heatedly pushed my sister’s bicycle out from the back garden to the front of the townhouse. The bicycle was painted aquamarine and had a long, white banana seat.
I straddled the bicycle, one foot on a rusted pedal, the other planted firmly on the sidewalk. “Go- pedal, pedal, pedal!” shouted Christian, with one hand on the back of the seat, the other against mine on the rubbery corrugated handlebar. “Lift your feet, Mei! Lift them!” Seb sat on the front stoop. Once in a while, he looked up from his nerdy amateur magic book. I saw the condescension in his face. He believed I wouldn’t be able to learn. I would show him.
“I can’t do it!” I exclaimed.
“You just have to go faster. Come on! Faster!”
I crashed to the ground so many times, it exhausted Christian. He was breathing pretty hard, his freckled face turning pink. Finally, he collapsed onto the grass, asking, “What is wrong with you? You really can’t do it, can you, Mei.”
Every morning henceforth, I went out with that stupid bicycle. The problem was balance. I could go a few feet without tipping over, but then… I was really no match against gravity. I hated gravity. I never had so many abrasions- scabs crusted over my kneecaps; there were long, red scratches across my palms. I learned to bear the pain of hydrogen peroxide, although the sight of cotton balls makes me cringe to this day.
“If you came here to make fun of me, then you are wasting your time! I’m going in,” I called out when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Seb coming my way one afternoon.
“Chris gave you the tools to start learning… but he didn’t follow through with the teaching. That’s why you’re out here, every single day, without any improvement,” replied Seb.
“I don’t want your help!” I exclaimed, starting to wheel the bike back to the garage.
“The seat’s way too high,” said Seb, taking control of the handlebars. “Here. Let me adjust it.” He knelt down and pulled out the large, metal rivet.
“I said I don’t need your help!” I repeated, standing back, helpless.
“Here. Let me show how I learned,” he pushed my bicycle to the top of the slightly sloping driveway. “Take a seat.”
“No!”
“You want to learn how to ride a bike or not?” he asked.
“Well…”
“All right, then. Hop on. Okay. Just slide down the driveway. Don’t even pedal. And if you panic, just put your feet down. It’s that simple.” I panicked a lot. So we repeated it over and over again, and he stayed with me. Pretty soon, I was pedaling in addition to letting downhill gravity do the work.
“See? There’s no need to rush at all.”
The next day, we took it to the next level. I started at the top of Raven Street and pedaled down the sidewalk, wobbling around like a newborn foal. For four days, Seb hung onto the back of my bicycle, running alongside me like a persistent parent. It was a miracle when I went ten yards without putting my feet down. Soon, I covered twice that distance.

“Wow, look at you, Mei!” Christian called to me early Friday morning, from across the street. He checked to see if the mail had come yet and then crossed the empty road to observe my new skills. “You’re pretty champion now, aren’t you? I’m proud of you. Clearly I’m a better teacher than I thought.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You are.” I bestrode the bicycle and pedaled halfway down the street. I pedaled with conviction. It couldn’t have gone better; I turned around and came back without so much as a quiver.
“Wow. I’m really impressed. We’ll have to ride down to the pier. Are you ready for that, my little prodigy?” I really liked how he called me ‘his’. His prodigy. I wanted to be his everything. I wanted to do all the woman things for him. “It’s cold, you might want to go get a jumper,” he said, and I was pleased that he cared for my wellbeing.
I dropped the bicycle and ran into the house. “Mom!” I shouted. “Where’s my coat?”
“I hung it in the closet! It’s on the blue hanger, third from the right,” she replied, coming out into the living room. She wiped her hands dry on her apron and glanced out the screen door, “Where are you going?”
“I’m just going down to the pier with Chris Garrin.”
“Just Christian?” she asked. “Where’s Sebastien? Is he feeling under the weather?”
“Yeah,” I lied, hastily. “Could I have some money?”
She sighed, but responded, “Is five quid enough?”
The days of summer were winding down. I didn’t want to go back to life in New York. As we rode our bikes down to the pier, a light spray of rain came down from the overcast sky. Around us, umbrellas bloomed up and down the streets like mechanical flowers. I steadily watched as each raindrop painted a dark polka-dot on the back of Christian’s polo shirt.
We sat on the pebble beach and he took a cigarette out of his breast pocket.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“Nicked it off my dad. Got it from on top the dresser,” he rolled it around between two fingers.
“You’ll get in trouble.”
“I don’t care,” said Christian. “Who cares?”
“I do.”
He retrieved a small book of matches from his back pocket. I liked the smell emitted from the match after he shook the flame out. “Want to try?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” I responded, shaking my head. But I liked watching him smoke. He exhaled pictures. Little wisps that resembled tortoises and hares racing into the wind.
“You’re going back soon, aren’t you?” he asked. “Do you miss your dad when you come out here for the summer?”
“Of course, but it’s only three months out of the year.”
“I wish I could escape for three months. Get out of here.”
“Why do you put with it?” I asked.
“I have to,” he replied, taking another draw from his quickly decomposing cigarette. “Sometimes you get into situations you feel like you can’t escape from. That’s how it goes.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going to miss you,” he said, suddenly. Awkwardly. And before I could really prepare myself, he leaned in and gave me a kiss on the lips. My stomach tightened so hard it hurt. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. At least it wasn’t all slobbery like I’d seen in some films. It did taste like the smell of something burning, though. When we pulled away from each other, I opened my eyes and didn’t dare look at him. I looked at the pebbles instead. There were just so many of them. Imagine if someone made you count each one of them and you had to start over if you messed up. How many footsteps separated New York and Brighton? And what if someone else’s footsteps were bigger than yours? I wondered if they could build a suspension bridge between the two cities and I could ride Rachael’s aquamarine bicycle across to see Christian whenever I wanted.
It began to rain harder as we journeyed back to our neighborhood-by-the-sea. I smiled with my lips closed. If I didn’t keep them closed, I might have felt the urge to scream out my grown-up status. I learned how to ride a bike and got my first kiss- all in one week. I felt like screaming so loud, all of England would hear- the entire world, even the universe maybe.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard flight #201 to London’s Heathrow Airport. We will be starting the safety demonstration shortly—.”
“Gum?” Seb offers.
“No. No, thanks.”
“You’re fine,” his left hand rubs clockwise circles on my right knee. “It’s safer to travel by airplane than car. Remember what Dr. Reuben said. Take it slow, keep breathing, one minute at a time.” And the plane starts to make the wide turn, dawdling toward the runway. Oh my God, I’m going to die today. I can feel it- a silver anxiety that starts in the crevices of my brain and drips down in threads through my leg bones. “Hand me your passport, Mei? I’ll put it with mine.” My hand is shaking uncontrollably as I pass it over to him.
“Do you have any gum?” I ask. On the screen, two smiling flight attendants- one white and one African American- direct unperturbed passengers toward the emergency exits.
“Yeah, here,” Seb reaches awkwardly into the pocket of his jeans and hands me a 25¢ pack of Juicy Fruit. “Keep it, I’ve got more in my backpack. Feeling any better?”
“No. Not really.”
The lady with the biggest smile of all appears on the screen, “Sit back. Enjoy your flight, and thank you for choosing Virgin Atlantic.” I look down the aisle at each screen going blank like giant shutting eyes. I feel Seb’s fingers intertwine with mine as the engines rev up to a roar. I visualize our little silver bird hurtling down the runway at a million miles an hour, our eyeballs bouncing around in their sockets, our cheeks stretching backwards, plastering themselves to our ears. I don’t feel so well.
With his free hand, Seb reaches forward and retrieves the grayish motion-sickness bag from the fishnet pocket. “Um. Just in case.”

“How was the flight?” asks Christian. He looks so different from last summer. A lot thinner, paler- purple rings around his eyes. “You two must really be exhausted.”
“Not bad. Just under eight hours,” answers Seb, checking the expensive watch he received for graduation. They then shake hands. That’s what guys do.
“You survived, Mei…” says Christian, almost mockingly. “You look marvelous,” he puts an arm around my shoulders, “I’m glad to see you in good health.”
When people call you ‘healthy’, that’s seriously not a compliment. “Hi, Chris,” I reply with a saccharine smile, “Thanks for picking us up- driving all the way out from Brighton.” We could have taken a train, but it’s not only planes I have an issue with. I can’t do public transportation.
“No problem, I do it, what- once a year?” Christian heaves each piece of my polka-dotted luggage set into the trunk of his old Fiat. Seb has a single duffle bag and a backpack. Filled with the most random crap, too: colored scarves and decks of cards, a collapsible black top hat. He doesn’t know what he wants to do now that he has his college degree in art history, so while I will be toiling away at medical school, he’ll be pursuing his childhood dreams. How my father will rejoice. “Will your siblings be joining you this summer?” asks Christian, politely.
“No. Rachael has an internship in the city. And Thom’s staying in Berkeley. Some kind of fellowship.”
“The Zhang clan. Ambitious as always,” pipes in Seb. “That’s why they hate me.”
“They do not!” I climb into the backseat of Christian’s car.
“Oh, yeah. There’s also the matter I’m white…” he trails off. “But, anyway, what have you been up to, Chris? I’m sorry we couldn’t come in time to see you graduate, our semesters ended so late- and then her ceremony was a week after mine. You’re out in the work force now, right?”
“Yeah, working with the elderly lot. That’s what I’m doing with my LSE diploma. I help OAPs with their financial situations. Placing homecare assistants and encouraging abused grandmums to telephone the police.”
“Wow, how noble,” I reply.
“It’s a crushing bore,” Christian answers. “But I get my own little cube by a window, where I can look out and dream of my escape. And I get paid.”
“Which is always a plus,” says Seb. “How’s Genesee, by the way?” I despise that he is the one to bring her up first. I despise Genesee although I can’t think of any reason except everyone cares so much about her. Seb cares so much about her. They all went to high school together, and I really think she and Seb had a little something going on before he left for university in the U.S.
“Oh, yeah. She’s all right,” answers Christian.
“She’ll be going to the pub with us tonight, right?” asks Seb. “A little celebration for my, uh, homecoming?”
“Um, no, I don’t think so. She’s—.”
“Seb, we really should turn in early tonight, don’t you think?” I interrupt.
“If that’s what you want, sure,” he says to me. “But Chris- tell Genesee we’re really excited to see her.”
At night, in my mother’s townhouse, we brush our teeth at the same sink. He sleeps on the left side of my old canopy bed. I sleep on the right. “Good night, Mei,” Seb says and rolls over. I reach up under my tee-shirt and rest my hands on my bare stomach. When I’m lying down, it’s deceitfully smooth. But even when I sit up a little, it forms itself into doughy Pilsbury rolls. We haven’t had sex in so long.
When I’m in that half-sleeping mode, I see origami birds falling out of skyscrapers. Only they’re jumping, and they’re not birds at all. They’re people.

“Did you forget your sleeping pills at home?” Seb asks, as he drives our rental car to the restaurant where we’re meeting Christian and Genesee for lunch. “You look pretty Goddamn awful.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“I could get your dad to send them over?”
“It’s fine. I’ll just buy some Nyquil or something.”
We pull into the parking lot of the restaurant, “Be nice to Genesee,” he says.
“I’m nice to everyone,” I insist. “But she’ll probably be wearing her usual glitzy little boob-tube and ridiculously low pants.”
“Be nice!” says Seb.
It turns out Genesee isn’t wearing a tube top at all because she is eight months pregnant. But she looks like she’s about to burst today. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she asks me, at the table. She reaches across and takes my hands like we’re best friends. “It’s a girl, and we’re naming her Asha, it means hope. We were thinking about asking you and Seb to be her godparents.”
“We’re not—,” I start.
“We’d be honored!” Seb cuts in. “…why didn’t you say anything, Chris? I mean, you guys have known this so long already. You should have said something!”
“I told you to tell them,” Genesee looks at Christian, disapprovingly. “I mean, my God, it’s not really something you can keep secret, is it? One day, you don’t have a kid, the next day you have one. Honestly, Christian, what were you thinking?”
“So…” starts Seb. “When are you two making it official? That ring is really something.”
“We probably won’t make too much a kerfuffle about it,” Genesee looks over at Christian with huge, doe-like eyes. Ker…fuffle? “Small little ceremony. Us and a magistrate… maybe my mum will witness.”
“Sounds quaint,” I chase peas around my plate.
“How about you two? When are you tying the knot?”
“Um…” Seb says. I look across the table at him, waiting for an answer. Everyone’s waiting. “Well, we don’t really know. We’re trying to take it slow.”
There’s more silence, and then Genesee says, “Isn’t that lovely, Chris?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, I’m still shocked that you didn’t tell your best friend about our baby,” Genesee sits back in her chair. “Looks like you don’t really give a toss about me, after all.”
“Gen, you know what I think about you.”
“We’ll see. When Baby comes along, we’ll see who’ll be changing the nappies, fetching the bottles.”
“Oh- the game’s starting,” Seb exclaims. Thank God. “I guarantee you, Christian, France will prevail. We may have had a pitiful showing last time round, but this year, my countrymen are going all the way.”
“We’ve got Becks and Rooney. Who does France have? I will leave it at that,” responds Christian, crossing his arms.
“I love you, Seb, but he’s got you there,” I say. I’m watching the television screen, but I see Genesee messing around in her Louis Vuitton purse. She pulls something out and I realize it’s a lighter.
“You shouldn’t be smoking,” Christian whispers harshly to Genesee. “Didn’t you tell me you quit?”
I watch in disbelief as Genesee raises the lit cigarette up to her lips, “There’s so much smoke in this restaurant, in this country, it doesn’t matter if I smoke just one, does it?” Christian reaches out and tries to physically take the cigarette away from her. She slaps his hand away, burning him in the process. “You know what?” she stands up. “I thought you’d be more supportive. I mean, look what you did to me. I’m fat!” She’s literally in tears. She reels back and throws the cigarette carton as hard as she can muster. The package hits the edge of the table, bouncing once and coming to a clumsy stop at our feet. “Keys, please, Christian.”
Christian reaches down and picks up the cigarette pack. He slams it down on the table, flattening it in the process. He looks up at his fiancee, “You’re not really in the condition to be driving.”
“Really? Watch me.”
Seb forces a smile and says to me, “Don’t anger a pregnant girl?”
Final score: France, 3, Spain, 1.

“Watch this.” As we’re walking back to the car, Seb reaches into his pocket and withdraws an American quarter. He shows it to me before closing his hand into a fist. “Heads or tails?”
“Why?” I ask. “And why are you carrying stateside money with you? Waste of space and energy.”
“Just say heads or tails.”
“Tails.”
He tosses it into the air, “Heads,” he shows me the coin. “Again. Heads or tails.”
“Tails.”
He flips it and catches it again, “Heads.”
“Don’t ask me to guess again.”
“Heads,” he says. “I’ve got magic hands.”
“Sure you do,” I answer. “Why do you think Chris didn’t tell us about Genesee being pregnant?”
“He didn’t want us freaking out about it,” replies Seb, blowing onto the quarter and wiping it across the bottom of his shirt. “He knows how you are.”
“How I am?” I exclaim.
“You can be a little edgy sometimes, right? You can admit to that.”
“The world is messed up. Not me,” I respond.
“Okay, heads or tails. If you get it wrong this time, we’ll take the train this weekend from your place to that university in Falmer- we’ll go to the pub, grab dinner and watch France dominate in the world cup final. It’s such a short ride.”
“I don’t want to play this game, and how do you know France will even make it to the final?”
“Did you not see how wonderfully my glorious French brothers performed under pressure in the game against Brazil? You know what? It’s really because I’m here. I’m France’s good luck charm!”
“Well, we’ll see if they beat Portugal tonight. England lost against Portugal, and like Chris said, we’ve got Becks and Rooney.”
“Personally, I think those two are completely overrated. And France will beat Portugal, France will go all the way- allez, allez, allez! All right, don’t delay the inevitable: heads or tails.”
“Heads,” I answer.
“Ha. Tails.”

“We’ll take it slow,” says Seb. “If you don’t feel like getting on this train, then we’ll just wait for the next one to come.”
The train arrives and I insist on letting it pass, “We’re going to get blown to bits today- just like those people on the London Underground trains last July.”
“It’s fine, Mei,” he laughs. “Lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice.”
“No, not twice. More like thousands of times. My dad told me so- in an email.”
“Oh, your dad and his crazy emails,” replies Seb, rubbing my back. “Want me to hold onto your ticket?”
The next train arrives a few minutes later, blowing stale wind into our faces. The noise is unbearable. It sounds like a buzzing fluorescent ceiling light- magnified a thousand times.
He directs me onto the crowded train and I instantly regret it. When I die, my family members will say, ‘If only Mei were braver and had gotten on the train that didn’t blow up.’
I look around. Anyone with a bag is hiding a bomb. Why is that girl wearing such a loose sweatshirt? Either she’s coming back from her boyfriend’s place or she’s hiding a bomb. That man has a black briefcase with one of those gold turn-dial locks on top. Why does anyone have to lock their briefcase? Is it filled with pornography? Perhaps. Unless it’s a bomb. Seb reaches up and grabs onto the stirrup-like contraption dangling from the ceiling. I hang on around his waist.
I glance at the ‘in case of emergency’ sign. I read the advertisement above Seb’s head: Short break travel insurance from ₤ 7. I close my eyes as the doors slide shut and I feel the world around me begin to shift in some unknown direction. Those will be the last words I see: “Short break travel insurance from seven pounds…”
I’m pressed up dangerously close to smelly businessmen who secrete the stench of coffee grounds and armpit. Mold growing in bathroom corners, hot paper shot fresh out of a laser printer. Logarithms. Sin, negative one, x equals negative one.
“Are you okay, Mei?” he rests his chin on top of my head. I nod. “Here, watch,” he pulls away from me and takes a red scarf out of the front pocket of his bag. “Empty hands, right?” he shows me.
“Right.”
With his right hand, he pushes the scarf into his left fist. He meticulously presses it in, making sure not a single piece of red is showing on the top or bottom. “Guess what happens next?”
“I don’t know,” I answer.
He opens both hands and holds up his empty palms. The train doors open. “Magic, huh?” he asks as we get off. “We survived.”
It’s a short walk from the train station and right as we’re about to enter the pub, Seb’s cell phone goes off. He checks the screen first to see who it is, “Hey, Chris, what’s up?” he answers.
I think Christian says on the other end, “She’s going to lose the baby.” His voice is muffled and strangely electronic.
“Oh, shit. You’re at the hospital? Which one? We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Should I go home and change?” I ask, as we turn around and half-run-half-walk to the train station where the taxi rank is. I have a feeling my outfit is a little inappropriate. A pair of too-small jeans, a halter top that accentuates my breasts… too sparkly, too salmon-colored. Too Genesee.
“No, no, it’ll have to do,” says Seb. “He needs both of us there with him right now.”
The driver knows the way to Royal Sussex, but I’m anxious anyway. I am so aware of each and every second ticking by. Every movement I make. I count the trees that sail past the window and I ask Seb, “Do you see me as a little kid? Do you like me less because of my problems?” It takes so much courage to ask these questions.
“I’m the one with the Harvard degree, doing stupid magic tricks at kids’ birthday parties,” he counters, quietly. When we arrive at the hospital, there’s still no news. Everyone else in the waiting room looks incredibly nervous, jiggling their legs about, looking at their watches. But for us… it’s strangely placid.
My stomach begins to rumble and we take a trek to the vending machines. “I know your dad is really against my taking time off,” says Seb, slowly. “… I get so scared thinking you’ll find someone better. Your very own Dr. McDreamy?”
“Whatever.”
“I don’t want to disappoint you. You deserve better. I’ve been thinking about us taking a break since you have all these great things going for you. Medical school. But… how do you feel? What do you think?”
I am completely staggered at the thought of breaking up, “I think it’s okay to take it slow,” I dig around in my coin purse. It’s tearing at the seams, there’s a reason they’re called pounds. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Not if it doesn’t contain alcohol.”
“I need you,” I stare in at the selections.
“Try the sultana biscuits. I used to love them as a kid.”
When we return, Christian is sitting there, staring blankly at nothing. I run over and sit down next to him, “What’s wrong?”
“Stillbirth,” he answers. He rests his elbows on his knees, arms splayed awkwardly forward. He sounds like he’s just run a marathon, breathing in, breathing out. “Something to do with the- with the,” he gestures blindly at his neck, “Umbilical cord.” And then he starts crying. I’ve never seen him cry before, and it’s actually not as awkward as I would have thought. I look around for a Kleenex but Seb pulls the magic red scarf out of his pocket and hands it to Christian. “I’m breaking off the engagement,” he says. And I remember, years ago, asking him as a child ‘Why do you put up with it?’. I like to think he really will leave Genesee.
When we leave the hospital, the sun is coming up. The morning light reflects all the glitter that’s rubbed off my top. It’s on my skin- on Seb’s too. I think in the future, there’ll be better ways to try to impress him than with my attire. Seb comes to a halt at the bundle of newspapers that’s been left at the entrance of the hospital.
The headline takes up a good quarter of the front page. Big, black block letters: ITALY BEATS FRANCE ON PENALTY KICKS. “Damn it,” he says.