Honey Girl Read online

  “Okay, so not to sound like another person trying to fix your problems with a hammer,” Yuki says slowly, “but who said you had to be responsible? I mean, you have a doctorate, and you’re—” She pauses. “Shit, how old are you?”

  Grace lets out a laugh. “I’m turning twenty-nine in August.”

  “Well, almost-twenty-nine-year-old Grace,” she says, “it sounds like you’ve spent a really long time being responsible.”

  Grace exhales. “I knew I married you for a reason,” she says, and Yuki laughs. Here, she doesn’t have to be exhausted. She doesn’t have to be burnt out or in need of a break. She doesn’t have to be grieving. She doesn’t have to be responsible. It feels like relief.

  Yuki is quiet on the line, waiting.

  “Yuki,” she says, heart thumping in her ears. “I want to ask you something that might sound a little crazy.”

  Yuki scoffs. “Grace Porter, we got drunk and married in Las Vegas. We have wedding rings I can’t remember getting, and there’s a picture of me looking at you like you hung the goddamn moon. Like, somehow, I knew you were connected to all those millions and billions of stars up there. There’s nothing crazier than that.”

  “Billion trillion,” Grace says, biting her lip hard enough to hurt. “Assuming there are about ten billion galaxies, right, and that there are one hundred billion stars in each galaxy. It’s a billion trillion.”

  Yuki sighs. “Honey Girl,” she says. “Ask me.”

  Grace feels her throat constrict as she tries to formulate the words. She doesn’t know Yuki, not really, but Yuki sees the things relegated to the shadows. She sees the things that are lonely and feared and misjudged. Grace feels seen in Yuki’s stories, and in the way Yuki seems to understand her in ways Grace doesn’t have to articulate. Yuki said she was singing her a song, and Grace can hear it. She wants to follow it, without one of her perfect plans, and see where it leads. She wants to follow this good thing, this girl, she found in the desert. This girl that does not feel like the oppressive work that Grace wants to escape. This girl that feels like new, mutual work that benefits both of them.

  Yuki tells her to ask. Grace decides, for once, to tell the little voice in her head that demands she keep going until she has nothing left to shut up.

  She asks.

  Ten

  Grace has never been to New York.

  Yuki offered to meet her at the airport. “We can make it a cheesy Hallmark movie,” she said the night before, voice faint through the phone as she painted her nails. “Or, we can make it gay and awkward. Visitor’s choice.”

  Grace told her she could do it. She was already imposing on Yuki’s hospitality. She could figure out this part by herself.

  Grace

  10:35 a.m.

  i landed

  She waits.

  Yuki

  10:39 a.m.

  do you feel like a new woman?

  inhale that nyc air

  Grace

  10:40 a.m.

  remember when i said i could figure out

  how to get to the train station

  i changed my mind

  new york is big and scary and

  i haven’t even left the airport yet

  Yuki

  10:42 a.m.

  oh yeah i totally knew you would fuck that up

  you had no idea what you were talking about

  it was cute i thought i’d let you have your fantasy

  Grace

  10:43 a.m.

  a girl laughed at me because i asked if i was in manhattan

  Yuki

  10:44 a.m.

  of course she did

  why would you be in manhattan

  laguardia is in queens

  Yuki

  10:45 a.m.

  go outside omg

  i’m laughing but i’ll help you

  are you outside

  Grace

  10:48 a.m.

  i am outside

  i can’t tell if this is better or worse

  Yuki

  10:49 a.m.

  it’s laguardia

  outside is better

  Grace makes her way outside, already feeling the heat from early summer.

  Yuki

  10:51 a.m.

  the easiest thing to do is to take a car of your choosing

  idk your ethics on uber or lyft

  or maybe you are a yellow taxicab kind of girl

  Grace

  10:52 a.m.

  it’s so expensive

  She has the money from Mom in her savings account, but she still feels afraid to spend it. The sooner she spends it, the sooner she has to make her way back home.

  Yuki

  10:54 a.m.

  i got good tips last night

  split the fare with me

  Grace

  10:55 a.m.

  absolutely not

  Yuki

  10:57 a.m.

  marriage is about compromise

  welcome to new york grace porter

  “I can’t believe you let me do this,” she whispers into her phone while the driver turns the music up. “This is a mistake,” she says. “What was I thinking?”

  “What?” Ximena asks. She sounds way too chipper for it to be so early. “Why do you sound like that? Were you stuck next to a baby the entire flight?”

  “My seatmate was actually very nice. We exchanged a few pleasantries while boarding and didn’t speak or make eye contact for the rest of the flight.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Why so glum?”

  “I’m in New York City,” Grace says. “I’m in New York City to meet a girl I married in Las Vegas.”

  Ximena makes a thoughtful noise. “Yes, I thought we already knew this.”

  “Colonel will kill me if he finds out,” Grace hisses. “I told my parents I’d found a summer research opportunity. I’m not just derailing the plan I’ve had for over a decade, but I’m making shit up about it now. In the contest for World’s Worst Daughter, I’m top two, and I’m not number two.” Her breath hitches, and she covers her eyes with a free hand. She’ll die if she cries in this Toyota Prius.

  “Calm down,” Ximena says softly. “Don’t cry, you know it stresses me out.” She lets out a deep exhale, and Grace can almost hear her mind whirring. “Okay, do you need me to tell you again why this isn’t a terrible idea?”

  Grace sniffles and hides a smile in her sleeve. It’s too hot for her tie-dye hoodie, but she’s wearing another one she’s taken from Raj, and she pretends she can still smell his cologne in the fabric. It’s comforting to have this reminder of her family. “Yes, please. Love you.”

  “So much it hurts,” Ximena says. “Now, we decided—you decided—it was okay to need a break, right?”

  Grace shrugs. “I guess,” she mumbles. “I probably should have taken a break in Florida.”

  She hears an exaggerated “oh my God” in the background. “Is that Grace Porter?” Agnes asks. “I thought we already convinced her it was okay to enjoy being married to a cute girl? Summer in NYC. It’s like a movie!”

  Grace’s eye twitches.

  “Go away, Ag,” Ximena tells her. “Go eat before you leave to terrorize the working world. There’s mangú and huevos fritos and aguacate.”

  “I want mangú,” Grace sulks. She’s starving after a five-and-a-half-hour flight, and it mixes with the apprehension and anxiety churning in her belly. The tops of her wrists are sore. Where the skin is thicker and sturdier, and she pinched and released and pinched and released while she waited at baggage claim.

  “You,” Ximena says. “You need to just relax. I promise it’s okay.” She lowers her voice, so it is just her and Grace the words fall between. “I know we think we have to be on all
the time. But, Porter?” she asks, voice quiet. “It’s okay for us to just be, too. Enjoy this, okay? Enjoy getting to know Yuki, and don’t overthink this like your ridiculous Virgo brain tells you to do.”

  “But—”

  “Go meet your wife. Fall in loooove.” She yawns, a little squeaky thing that makes Grace homesick. “I worked a late shift last night. I’m heading back to bed.”

  “But, Ximena—”

  “Text me later! Love you!”

  The call ends, and Grace lets out a muted scream through clenched teeth. She hides under her hood and stares out the car window.

  “Okay, Grace Porter,” she mutters. She squares her shoulders. “You married this girl. Now, go get her.”

  * * *

  The car pulls up in front of a redbrick building. Her heart skips because this is it. She’s a Porter, and Porters are strong and fearless. But she is also Grace, and Grace is nervous and scared. Her hands tremble as she gets out of the car and grabs her bags.

  Up ahead, a girl sits on a stoop with a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers next to her.

  “Yuki?” Grace calls, and the girl jolts, standing up jerkily. “Yuki Yamamoto?”

  She decides to be brave about this. She dumps her duffel bag on a dirty New York City sidewalk and throws herself into Yuki’s arms. Yuki catches her. There is a solid body against hers, and the world goes quiet. She squeezes her arms around this girl’s soft waist, her girl’s soft waist.

  “Grace Porter,” Yuki murmurs. “In the flesh, at last.”

  Grace leans back. “Were you afraid I was a figment of your imagination or something?” She reaches out, hands hovering over Yuki’s hair. It’s shorter, she’s positive, hanging just over the tops of her ears. Feathered, too-long bangs fall into her eyes. Her undercut is neatly buzzed. “Did you cut your hair just for me?”

  Yuki steps away, head down so all that shows is her septum piercing and the curve of her mouth. “Yes to both things,” she says. When she talks, it’s different from her radio voice and less distorted than how she sounds on the phone. She sounds like a real person with a real body and real fingers that grip a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers tight enough that they start to droop.

  “Here,” she says, holding them out.

  Grace takes the flowers gently and buries her face in them, inhaling. “You got me flowers,” she says, her voice held tight with wonder.

  Yuki scratches behind her ear. She tilts her head up, just enough that one eye peeks out from underneath her fringe. “If you hate them, then it wasn’t my idea,” she says quickly. “If you like them, then they reminded me of you. The yellow and the orange. As close to gold as I could find.”

  “Yeah,” Grace breathes out. “I like them. They’re beautiful.”

  Yuki squints at her. “Good,” she says. “Then it was my idea.”

  Grace rolls her eyes, feeling light and silly. “Thank you.”

  Yuki looks up fully. Grace can take in all of her: her scrunched nose and her sharp eyes and her dimpled cheeks and the quarter moon light that glints off her ears from all her piercings. “You’re welcome,” she says back, like a challenge. She steps back and holds out her arms. “Welcome to Harlem.”

  Grace turns and just from here she can see copper-brick row homes and small apartment buildings and cramped little food spots. There’s soul food and West African carryouts at two opposite corners and a buffet farther up that smells like Maw Maw’s at Thanksgiving, the table filled with mac and cheese, and greens, and yams with the syrup dripping from them like grease.

  “You hungry?” Yuki asks. “We can have leftovers for lunch if my roommates haven’t eaten them all.”

  Grace cranes her head to take it all in. “You haven’t told me about your roommates,” she says distractedly. Somewhere in the distance, she can pick out the familiar smell of hair grease and burning curling irons. Maw Maw always did her hair when she was younger, always told her to hold your ear and that’s just the steam, girl, calm down. Portland is many things, but it tucks away all the things that remind Grace of herself in secret corners and shadows.

  “Are you listening to me?” Yuki asks, and Grace turns.

  “No,” she says honestly, and Yuki sticks her tongue out. “I was having some culture feelings, sorry. Wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Ah,” Yuki says, following her line of sight. “Is this your hashtag Asian rep moment, Grace Porter?”

  “Maybe,” she confesses. She turns to Yuki, who’s staring back at her. “Okay, quick. Tell me about your roommates before I meet them.”

  Yuki leans against the stoop railing. “They’re a little weird,” she says. “My weird, queer family I made myself. I thought it would be too much, living with three guys, but we make it work.”

  Grace blinks. “You live with three guys?” she asks.

  Yuki shrugs, a small, shy smile on her face. “We make it work,” she says. “And they’re not assholes, I swear.” She scrunches her nose up as she thinks that over. “Not unbearable assholes. I would have smothered them in their sleep otherwise.”

  She turns toward the front door, and Grace takes in the apartment building in full. It’s crumbling in places, but there are flower boxes hanging from every window, little pink and purple blossoms that bloom in hello. From the flagpole hangs a rainbow flag with the black and brown stripes. There’s a sign taped to the first-floor window that says “God welcomes all, regardless of color or creed.” There’s a welcome mat on the front porch that says “All love welcome here.”

  Yuki pinks up. She looks embarrassed. “Our landlady is a little much,” she says quietly. “But we got really lucky with her.”

  “She seems pretty fucking cool,” Grace says. “How long have you lived here?”

  Yuki ushers them inside and up the stairs. “Long enough that Auntie Anna Mae—that’s our landlady—knows way too much of my business.” They stop in front of apartment 206. “This is me,” she says, looking nervous. “I’m not responsible for anything my roommates say or do. You’re not allowed to divorce me if you hate them.”

  Grace frowns, feeling her edges to see if the gel is still holding her baby hairs down. “What if they hate me?” she asks, her mind racing with worst-case scenarios. Maybe they’ll take one look at her and know Yuki made a terrible mistake.

  Yuki waits for silent permission before she runs soft, gentle fingers through the ends of Grace’s gold-honey strands. “All this hair,” she says softly. “It’s all I could remember for so long. All this gold hair. The sun did want you to stand out.”

  Grace groans, pushing her hands away. “I should have never told you that. It’s such mom bullshit.”

  Someone raps on the door from the inside. “You told us to make sure we were all home, and now you’re gonna make us wait while you stare into each other’s eyes like a Harlequin novel?” There’s muffled curses and a muted thump. “I’ve been silenced,” the voice calls out. “Oppression wins again.”

  Yuki shuts her eyes tight. “They’re all awful,” she confesses. “I lied. They’re all total assholes.” She opens the door.

  Three people are spread out. There’s a white guy sitting cross-legged on the floor, glitter in his long shaggy hair as he folds paper hearts.

  There’s a dark-skinned Black guy sitting on their kitchen counter. It’s not so much a kitchen as much as the insides of a kitchen pushed against the wall. But there he sits, alternating between eating out of a huge mixing bowl between his legs and throwing glitter at the guy with the hearts. Little mini paper hearts are tucked in the strands of his dreads like flowers.

  In the very front of it all, hands on hips, is a guy with his chin tipped up in defiance. His right eye is bruised and black, and his long shiny black hair hangs in a thick braid on his shoulder. Somehow, he is completely free of glitter and hearts. His only decorations are the pinkish-red indents in his deep
brown skin from his chest binder.

  “I cut my MMA training short for this,” he huffs, eyes flicking over Grace. “And,” he says, thumb pointing back at the glitter and hearts behind him, “I’ve had to supervise arts and crafts time. So many hearts! It’s not even Valentine’s Day! It’s June!”

  “You sound bitter,” Heart Guy says. “Plus, I like hearts. Hearts are love and all that shit I have to teach to my first-graders.” He looks up and gives Grace a salute with his scissors. “Are you the wifey?”

  Grace shoots Yuki a look. “I think so? Most people just call me Grace. Or Porter. I answer to both, I guess.”

  “But which one do you like?” he asks. “Which one feels like you?”

  “Jesus,” the guy on the counter says. Another clump of glitter goes flying through the air. “She just got here. At least let her sit down before you make her question her entire existence.”

  Yuki dumps Grace’s duffel bag on the floor. “Before this devolves any more,” she says, “let me introduce you. That’s Dhorian.” She points to the guy on the counter. “You probably won’t see him much today because he’ll be cleaning up all this goddamn glitter. That,” she says, pointing to the guy meticulously cutting out hearts, “is our token white boy, Fletcher. We love him but will kill him first when the revolution starts.”

  Fletcher shrugs, holding a pink heart up to his face. “I’ve accepted my place in this household.”

  Yuki moves to wrap her arms around the guy with the swollen black eye. She pinches his cheek. “And this absolute looker is Sani. Don’t let the black eye scare you. He almost always has one. Happens when you’re a big ol’ softie in the boxing ring.”

  She ducks, cackling as Sani whips around to grab at her. “Behave,” she screeches, slung over his shoulder. “We have company. Grace, this is my commune. Commune, say hi.”

  “Hi, Grace,” they intone out of sync. “Or Porter,” Fletcher adds, not even flinching as more glitter gets thrown at him.

  Sani puts Yuki down. “So,” he says. “You’re the girl that got Yuki drunk and married in Vegas.”