Honey Girl Page 12

  Yuki screeches, embarrassed and flushed. “Can you go set up, please? Do that magic stuff you claim to do?”

  Blue puts her hands up. She flips her cornrows and beads and disappears to the other side of the studio. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Yuki stares up at the ceiling when she leaves, refusing to make eye contact with Grace. “What do you do when you hate all your friends?”

  “Kill them,” Grace says. She settles into a chair in front of a whole switchboard of lights and commands. “Can I ask you something?” she says carefully, her mind on a different conversation.

  “What?” Yuki starts taking notebooks out of her backpack. “You gotta ask Blue if you want to know how any of this shit works.”

  “Not that,” Grace says hesitantly. She turns around, watching Yuki. “Why didn’t you pursue history? And I know,” she cuts in, when Yuki opens her mouth, “it’s totally hypocritical of me to ask. I studied astronomy for eleven years, and I feel more disconnected from it than ever. So, I get it. But, why didn’t you?”

  Yuki keeps her head down. “Do you think I have a sob story, Grace Porter? I don’t look up at the stars and wonder if Asada Goryu is thinking about me in the afterlife or anything.”

  “Impressive name-drop, but ouch,” Grace says. She leans an elbow on the desk, careful of the switches.

  Yuki’s mouth twitches in amusement. She spins around to match Grace’s rhythm. “I paid for college myself,” she admits. “My parents wanted me to do something practical, you know? Like, business or law. If they were gonna pay for it, it had to be something worthwhile, you know? They’re first-gen immigrants, so they think the American dream is something that actually exists. They weren’t going to let me follow my dreams and study medieval history or, like, fucking astronomy.” She glances at Grace. “No offense.”

  Grace smiles, wry and bitter. “My father wanted me to study medicine. He ended up helping me pay for my undergrad and master’s programs, but I was on my own for my doctorate. Then he walked out of my graduation ceremony, so I think he still made his opinion of my degree quite clear.”

  “A fellow family disappointment,” Yuki says. “I took out a bunch of loans I keep deferring, and now I’m a waitress with a radio show.” She grabs her notebook and turns away, making small notes in the margins. “No sob story, I told you.”

  Grace watches her, her fellow lonely creature. Whereas Grace looked up and thought, This is where I belong, Yuki looked into the past and thought the same thing. Now they’re both sitting in an old radio station, reaching out into the unknown dark.

  “Now, I have a show to start,” Yuki says, firmly closing the subject. “Are you ready?”

  Grace leans forward. Yuki’s handwriting is atrocious. “What are you talking about tonight?”

  “You’ll see,” Yuki says. She pushes the sleeves of her flannel shirt back to reveal the tattoos that run up her wrists. Blooming flowers wind around her forearms like ivy around an old, haunted house. She has one behind her ear, too, a small cluster of petals that reminds Grace of the first signs of life after winter. Little buds peeking through thawing dirt and melting snow. She puts her headphones on, and it gets covered up. “I need to have some secrets.”

  Blue raps on the window and gives Yuki a thumbs-up. She presses a button, and the control panel turns orange and green and yellow.

  It is like magic, and Grace feels goose bumps.

  “Good night to my fellow lonely creatures out there, waiting patiently in the dark. My name is Yuki. Are you there? I hope you’re listening.”

  Grace holds her breath.

  “I’ve talked a lot about loneliness,” Yuki says. “We are lonely creatures in a big, big world.” She tucks her hair behind her ears, and though she speaks of loneliness, she is on display here in her little, dark studio, an open book. “Loneliness stems from a lot of things—uncertainty, self-preservation, fear. But what about loneliness that stems from something different? What about the creatures relegated to the dark because of deviation?” Grace curls up in her chair and watches as Yuki weaves her dark tale.

  “I’ve told you there are a lot of monsters that lurk in Japanese culture,” she says. “When we used to visit home during the summer, my grandmother always told me stories. She told me once about the Yamauba. They were old women pushed to the very edges of society and forced to live in the mountains.

  “Even as a child, I wondered why so many of the bad things, the scary things, were women. I asked my grandmother once, and she told me it was the way of the world. Sometimes monsters became women, because women who deviated were monsters. I didn’t understand that until later.

  “But the Yamauba, these were horrifying monsters in the shape of women. They were old and childless. They lured young pregnant girls up to their little shackled homes, promising safety and warmth, and then they ate their babies. They saw these crying, red, screaming creatures that stormed into the world, these things the Yamauba could never create themselves, and they ate them.”

  Grace leans forward, mesmerized. Yuki is able to find humanity in monsters, or maybe she gives monsters their humanity back. She says here is a terrible, horrifying thing, and holds it up like a mirror to anyone listening.

  “There were more stories. The Yamauba would sneak down from their homes and eat children in the village when their mothers were gone. It is strange that the Yamauba, old and barren and childless, seemed so enamored with children. It is strange that one whose belly has never stretched is still so eager to make it full.

  “But this is not just a story about women and their expectations. This is not just a story about monsters, born from being unable to contort and fit into the small box we have given them and suddenly are afraid of what they have become.

  “This is a story about how deviation from the norm can create scary, monstrous things. What my grandmother didn’t know was that years later, society would still create Yamauba. We would still be seen as dark, terrible things simply for refusing to fit a particular narrative. Perhaps the truly terrifying thing is to step away from what you’re supposed to do and what you have planned. Perhaps you, the monster that you are, find yourself feeding on what you could not bear yourself.

  “Perhaps Yamauba were created because we did not want to name something we brought forth with our own hands,” Yuki says. “Perhaps flesh-eating monsters are simply people who break their molds and their boxes, and find themselves demanding all they have been denied.”

  Yuki motions at Blue and Grace blinks, eyes aching, like she is waking from a terrible and deep sleep.

  “My name is Yuki,” she hears. “Good night, my lonely creatures. Are you listening? Are you there?”

  I am here, says the darkness inside Grace. I am listening. It takes shape. With each rejection, each uncertain move, each deviation from how she is supposed to fit inside the plan that has been made for her, it twists and contorts. It consumes itself.

  It has become very ugly, indeed.

  “Are you there?” Yuki asks as she signs off.

  I am here, the darkness says. Its voice sounds eerily like Grace.

  Twelve

  Some nights, Grace falls asleep to the sound of Agnes and Ximena murmuring in her ear. Those are usually the nights Yuki has to work late, so it is just Grace in the room that smells like burnt embers and luck oil. Yuki’s roommates have odd, disjointed schedules, so she never knows who might be home or out in the city. Sometimes, she prefers the solitude. She hides under Yuki’s covers and listens to her friends talk.

  Some nights it’s Raj and Meera. They tell her about the customers at the tea room, about how it is not the same without her. There is still space being left for her in Portland, and she feels it through the phone, even though they are miles apart.

  “We miss you, Space Girl,” Ximena says, and the sentiment echoes from the other voices with her. Grace sticks her head out of
Yuki’s window and looks at the moon and thinks, It is the same one. We are all under the same one. “Love you,” and the words echo again.

  “So much it hurts,” Grace tells them. When Grace needs it again, the words and the feelings from home, they will be there.

  Most mornings, she wakes up in Yuki’s bed to sunlight and the smell of pressed petals. Yuki lies next to her, and when Grace reaches out, she can touch. The girl in the bed is tangible. Grace traces the blooming flower behind her ear as she sleeps.

  This morning, Yuki is still asleep while Grace reads her email. The “Dear Applicant, your application for the position of DATA SCIENTIST at the GIDEON SCIENCE INSTITUTE has been reviewed. You were a highly qualified candidate, but unfortunately we have—” lights up the screen. She does not read on to see why her high qualifications do nothing to even get her in for an interview.

  She swipes it away angrily, and it disappears from her inbox. Good riddance.

  She knew the Gideon Science Institute by reputation. They were one of the few in the field that prided themselves on diversity in science. They had a mentoring partnership with two of their local public schools. The vice president was the first Latina woman in a leadership position. They had women astronomers of color with long lists of achievements in conjunction with the institute’s work. They were a good company.

  They employed one Black astronomer and had no Black people on their executive board. Grace almost wishes she could swipe the email to hell again.

  Instead, she sets her phone to the side. She has an idea, better than giving more energy to this new rejection, and this idea requires Yuki be awake. Yuki’s body goes squished and soft when she curls up in her sleep. Grace’s eyes roam over the hills and valleys and wonders how long it would take to explore all of its terrain. Longer than the summer? Months beyond? Years?

  “You’re staring at me,” Yuki murmurs, opening one eye. “Like what you see?”

  Yes, Grace thinks. I want to look at you. I want to touch you. I want to kiss you, my good thing. I want to replace the bitter taste of rejection on my tongue with your acceptance.

  “Can I kiss you?” Grace asks, propping up on one elbow. “You’re just—”

  Yuki smirks, closing her eyes again. “I’m just what, Grace Porter? Don’t be shy.”

  Her teasing words are warm. “Shut up,” Grace says. “You know you’re hot.”

  “Oh, I’m hot, huh?” Yuki stretches, all of that skin beneath her T-shirt and sleep shorts on display. “You should probably kiss me, then, before I get scooped up by someone else that wants to marry me after a few drinks.”

  “Probably,” Grace says. She leans over Yuki, feels her body heat and heaving chest. Her face is bare and wrinkled with sleep. Grace’s honey curls tumble between them, reaching out like tendrils.

  Grace kisses her. She is afraid, terrified, but she is also a Porter. So, she kisses Yuki, who tastes like sleep and salt thrumming heat. Grace’s fingers skim over Yuki’s ribs, her dimpled thighs, her soft dough belly. It is their first kiss since that night in the desert, and Grace sinks to the bottom of the ocean with her siren, and the water does not burn her throat.

  When they pull back, Grace reaches for her phone again. “I have an idea,” she says. “Well, Meera had an idea. Have you ever been here?” She shows Yuki the screen.

  “The Rose Center for Earth and Space,” she reads. “I’ve never been there. You want to go?”

  Grace looks down. She picks at the skin on her wrist, little starbursts of pink and red that ground her and distract from her vulnerability. “I want to go with you,” she says. “You have your radio show. I have—” she gestures broadly “—this.”

  “Okay, Sun Girl,” Yuki says, rolling to her feet. “Let’s go, then.”

  On the train, Yuki situates herself behind Grace. “What are you—” she starts to ask, but then there’s Yuki’s warm hands at her waist, Yuki’s nervous, uneven breath in her ear, all while she tries to keep them steady.

  “Is this okay?” Yuki asks, and though no one in this crowded train car is paying them any attention, Grace feels like they have a blinking sign over them. Look Here, it says.

  Grace nods, voice caught. She keeps her eyes on the window, and in the reflection, she can see Yuki’s short black hair, her glittering eyes, her chin resting in the dip of Grace’s shoulder. She watches Grace and holds her when she jerks at a sudden lurch. She catches her, like one could catch a falling star if they stood in just the right spot.

  “Got you,” Yuki says, and she leads Grace to their destination.

  The Rose Center for Earth and Space is a joy. Grace holds Yuki’s hand tight and leads her down their Cosmic Pathway and the Hall of the Universe. They sit in the Hayden Planetarium, and Yuki leans across the chairs to settle in Grace’s lap. Grace finds herself rambling in awe about the Digital Universe Atlas, whispering about the star clusters and nebulae and hungry galaxies.

  She looks down to find Yuki staring at her, eyes wide. Suddenly, Grace wishes she hadn’t pulled the front of her hair up. She feels open and raw, exposed like a live wire. Is this how Yuki must have felt, letting Grace into her innermost sanctum of the radio station? This is Grace’s domain, at home amid the things that venture into the endless abyss, and this is her letting Yuki in. Letting her see.

  “Too much?” she asks. “You can tell me to stop. I forget not everyone cares about this stuff like I do.”

  “No,” Yuki says, wriggling into a more comfortable position. “You’re good at this.”

  “Good at what?”

  “Teaching.” Yuki gestures around them. “Making me interested in the faraway things.”

  Grace narrows her eyes in thought. “You think so?” she asks. Professor MacMillan wasn’t initially a teacher. She didn’t have a passion for it. She was a researcher at heart. She wanted to open things up and understand the writhing pulse of the cosmos. She did not want to be constrained to teaching its basics in a lecture hall. “My mentor always said astronomy was romantic, and I think I agree. I can’t help but want other people to see that what may seem out of reach and untouchable is actually—” She cuts herself off. “Am I rambling?”

  “It’s actually what?” Yuki prods. One of the little barrettes in her hair has gone crooked, and Grace reaches down to straighten it. They are blissful and giddy and entangled. Yuki’s denim overalls scratch rough against Grace’s bare thighs. Her little upturned nose is blush pink.

  Grace married a very cute girl.

  She blinks down at Yuki. “It’s everywhere,” Grace says. “It’s in our skin and our hair, and it turns our midnight blue blood to rust red.” She presses fingers to the dotted freckles across her cheeks. “We are birthed from its dust and ashes the same as those hulking masses in the sky.” Her words rush together, embattled on her tongue. Yuki listening so earnestly makes her loose and flushed and impassioned. It makes her want to tell Yuki all the ridiculous notions of the universe she keeps tucked under her breastbone, out of sight but thumping just as steadily as her beating heart. “How can anyone think we are not evidence of the thumbprint of the galaxy?”

  “Holy shit,” Yuki says. She laughs, bright and loud. Loud enough that some of the people turn to look, and Grace glares at them. “Grace Porter, you are magnificent,” she says. “You are the best astronomer there has ever been.”

  Grace rolls her eyes. “Too bad I can’t use you as a professional reference.” She thinks of the email she swiped angrily into her trash file this morning.

  “Why can’t wives be references?” Yuki asks. “I would tell them that you, Dr. Grace Porter, are the best Black, lesbian astronomer they will ever have the pleasure of meeting. It is their honor to be in the same field as you.” She wrinkles that pink upturned nose. “And fuck them, also.”

  Grace laughs, shoulders relaxing. She laughs, and the screen in front of them flickers. The short film is abo
ut to start, but she can’t look away from the glinting, sharp girl in her lap. “I think that would be an excellent reference, actually.” She looks away for a moment. “I would say the same about you, you know,” she says, quieting her voice. Yuki meets her eyes. “I don’t know that I’ve ever called anyone magnificent, but if I did, it would be my Japanese wife, who is one of the smartest people I know. History is lucky to have you as its orator.”

  “It’s my turn now,” Yuki says. “You showed me your big, bad cosmos. Next, I want to take you on a monster hunt. We can make it a group trip.”

  “I’ll hunt monsters with you,” Grace says. “I bet Porters are great at monster hunting.”

  The big screen in front of them turns on, and the opening credits for the documentary start to roll. Grace doesn’t see them, though, because she decides that this day will not be about studying the cosmos. This day will be about how the sun feels against her skin. About how Yuki is soft and malleable to the touch. About how she tastes like berries and melon and the red wine they sneaked in, and her lips are stained with it, too.

  Grace tastes the universe bursting on Yuki’s tongue, and it is—magnificent.

  * * *

  It takes nearly five hours to drive to Lake Champlain. Five and a half, if you count the coffee pit stops and the pee breaks and the way they have to pull over and combine all the change from their wallets to get through the toll, because no one carries cash.

  Grace spends most of it smushed in the backseat, legs entangled with Sani. Dhorian spreads across both their laps, and Sani pretends like he’s not stroking his neck and his back and his shoulders while he sleeps.

  “Cis men take up so much space,” he says huffily, tracing Dhorian’s little gold hoop earrings. There’s a matching gold ring in his nose, and it makes him look a little otherworldly. “Does he think he can sleep like this for five fucking hours?” He scoots a little, probably trying to get feeling back in his legs, and his mouth comes right next to Grace’s ear. “Porter,” he says quietly, “at the next stop we’re tricking Fletch into letting me drive.”