Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet by Sherri L. Smith Page A

good, it's wonderful, but it's yours! I don't want you to die! I don't want to live in Irvine! I want . . . well, I don't know what I want, but I'm fourteen! I don't have to know just yet, do I? I don't know where I'm going to college, or where I want to live when I graduate, but that's eight years from now. Stop pushing me. Both of you!”
    Her grandmothers sit back, hurt looks on their faces. Ana's parents' mouths open, but nothing comes out. Even Ye Ye is speechless. Ana cringes. It's like time has frozen, and it's about to hit the ground and shatter and she can't stop it. Her head spins as she reaches for the right thing to say, anything to get that look off her grandmothers' faces. Anything to keep from being the ungrateful little girl Ye Ye warned her about. The right words to keep everyone else happy, even if she's not.
    Then the doorbell rings.
    Everyone freezes. The silence in the kitchen stretches painfully.
    The doorbell rings again.
    Ana lets go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.
    “I'll get it,” she says quietly.
    She unties her apron and stalks out of the kitchen to the front door. She throws the door open.
    “Chelsea, you won't believe it—”
    “Hi.”
    It's not Chelsea. Ana blinks in the sunlight.
    “Jamie?”
    He smiles at her nervously. “Uh . . . yeah. Hi. Are we early?”

14
    “H iiiiii,” she says, the greeting falling out of her mouth like a dead leaf.
    Jamie smiles. His dad and mom are standing behind him like that
American Gothic
painting of the farmer and his daughter with the pitchfork, only the pitchfork is Mr. Tabata's long finger digging into his son's shoulder.
    “Miss Shen,” Mr. Tabata says.
    Ana feels short and dark in front of him. Then she realizes he's blocking the light. She steps out of his shadow and instantly regrets it. She knows how she must look, like a kid playing with Play-Doh. Her shirt is smeared with streaks of dough and dusted with flour. Even her shorts have seen better days.
    “Um . . . Come on in.” Briefly, she hopes Jamie's dad isn't a vampire or something. But there's enough garlic in dinner to kill a whole castle full of vampires.
    Ana leads the way down the hall, her palms suddenly sweaty and the back of her neck itchy. Jamie Tabata is actually here, inside her house. It's weird. She feels like she's floating two inches outside her own body. Her T-shirt feels hot and her legs prickle with a sudden sheen of sweat. The angry knot in her stomach feels like a lead weight.
    “Everyone's still in the kitchen dishing up the food. We're going to eat in the backyard.”
    Jamie's mother smiles. “How lovely,” she says. It's the first thing Ana's heard her say all day.
    “It's a nice evening,” Jamie's father agrees, but it sounds more like small talk than pleasure.
    The short walk past the closed kitchen door to the backyard feels like forever, like a march down death row in an old prison movie. Ana is more than happy to throw open the door to the yard. She resists the urge to run through it and jump the wall to freedom. Nothing is going the way she wanted it to, not a single thing.
    A burst of cool air greets them, and a sight Ana was afraid she'd never see.
    Grandma White has transformed the backyard into a paradise. Where there was once only patchy grass beneath the shedding eucalyptus trees, now there are fairy lights, tiny chains of brightness twinkling in the branches. And the sky is just edging toward purple, that moment that could be sunset or dawn and is full of softly colored promise. The two folding tables are set together to make one long one and covered with festive oilcloths, turquoise backgrounds dotted with a parade of red and orange fruits. A few tabletop paper lanterns light the table, set at intervals along the center, just wide enough apart to make room for the food.
    “Wow,” Jamie says.
    “Hurray!” Sammy scampers out the back door and cheers when he sees Jamie's family. He points to the sign draped across the side of the