“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Talia says quickly. “She’ll be there next month. Please email me with the details.” She ends the call, and we release our pent-up screams.
Mom brings over a bowl of mixed Asian rice crackers and cringes at the noises we’re making.
“Wait, what am I doing? I should think about this, right?” I say, my heart pounding. I drop into a wide, cushioned chair opposite the couch.
“Don’t you do that,” Mom says.
“It’s across the country,” I say, scooping out a handful of rice crackers. “How could I leave the city?”
“It’s a year,” Mom says.
“I don’t even drive,” I add.
Mom grunts. “You can learn when you’re there. They say it’s like learning how to ride a bike.” She thinks for a moment. “A three-thousand-pound bike, but still.”
“This skin doesn’t do well in the sun,” I say, rubbing my forearm. I pick out the flower-shaped rice crackers to eat first.
“Knit yourself a long-sleeve sweater or buy some sunscreen,” Mom responds.
I gesture around the living room. “All of my supplies are here.”
“They have art stores in California,” Talia jumps in. She crunches down on a handful of Wasabi green pea crackers.
“You’re both here,” I reason.
“I’ll make stops in LA to visit during my time off,” Mom promises.
I hold back my last question.
“Out with it,” Mom says, tossing a sesame stick at me.
“What if I run into Jack?” I whisper.
It was a night that changed everything and nothing. It felt possible that, even among shreds of string and trash and ugliness, something beautiful could still come out of that day. But ever since then, the signs have practically disappeared. There have been barely there moments, but they didn’t lead to the person on the other end of my red string.
I sink lower into my seat. “Somehow my signals got crossed,” Isay. “I misread the meaning of the night. I misread the meaning of him.”
Even though he gave me a wrong number, or I mistyped it, I tried texting as many variations of the one he gave me that I could think of until one of those numbers threatened to report me for spam. Then I turned to Google, but by now the J-A-C-K letters on my keyboard are all worn out from the different search combinations. Dave no longer works at Sprinters, which felt like a really big sign. I even called every hotel in the Financial District to ask if Jack stayed with them, but they weren’t allowed to reveal their guest list. All I know is that he was in the city for work. That’s it. That can mean anything! It’s become very clear that I wasn’t meant to get in touch with this man. Maybe it was meant to be one magical night sealed with a kiss. Ugh. That kiss!
“Los Angeles is a big place, Roo,” Mom says, interrupting my thought spiral. “Trying to locate him would be like trying to find other life in the universe.” She looks surprised. “That was pretty good. If you don’t want this gig, recommend me for it.”
“It’s true. He’s a hard man to find,” Talia says. “Even after I finally got the name of the party host, you explained what Jack looked like a thousand different ways and they still had no idea who you were talking about. Apparently, that was their biggest party to date.”
I gasp. “That’s where I went wrong. Maybe I could hire a sketch artist and—”
“And what?” Mom asks. “Post a thousand sketch photos of Jack up on news outlets? You’ll make the man look like a criminal! It would become a different kind of manhunt.”
I exhale slowly. “It’s clear I wasn’t meant to find him. Mangetsu Jazz, the souvenir shop, and the Chinese restaurant we went to were also dead ends. Apparently businesses value people’s privacy, and he paid for the dumplings with cash.”
Mom scoffs. “Privacy? Who do they think they are? Apple?”
“I’m just trying to let this sink in. This is a big undertaking. Probably bigger than I could even imagine. The first artist in their new program? I’m nowhere near experienced enough. I still make pet string portraits,” I say, holding up a tangled wad of red string. “What if I fail? What if I don’t make what they want? I’ll be done before I’ve even started.”
“What if a bird flies through that window and pecks your eyeballs out?” Mom lifts another handful of crackers from the bowl. “You’ve already had a public installation in an iconic park. You have commissions coming in. Give yourself a little credit.”
“How did this even happen? Wèishéme shì wo,” I ask. “Huh. That actually is useful.”
Mom throws her free hand up. “Why you? Whynotyou?”
