Very in Pieces by Megan Frazer Blakemore Read Free Book Online

ever want to have. “Good luck and have a great year. Thank you.”
    From the assembly, we all go to our homerooms. When we reach a bend in the hall, I need to break off with Grace to go to our homeroom on the second floor. Christian pulls me to him for another hug. “See you at lunch,” he says. And then he whispers into my hair, “I love you.”
    â€œYep,” I say. “See you at lunch!”
    iii.
    Grace takes her schedule and places it on my desk on top of my own.
    â€œNotice anything?” she demands.
    We’ve been in homeroom advisory together all through high school, since for some reason my last name is alphabetized under the W instead of the S , and her last name is Yang. Our adviser is Mr. Tompkins, who was also my math teacher last year and convinced me to take his AP Chemistry class this year by promising it would be absolute candy to college admissions officers. That’s when I was still thinking about Stanford—before Nonnie got sick.
    Mr. Tompkins is busy handing out schedules and checking in with kids, and doesn’t seem to care that Grace is perched on her desk, her feet on her chair.
    â€œChinese,” she says. “My mother is making me take Chinese. She heard they were offering it and even though I’m a senior, now I need to learn a whole new language. With a bunch of freshmen, I bet.”
    â€œShe’s making you?” Grace’s mom subscribes to a theory of parenting we like to call “The Power of Suggestion.” She never tells Grace and her brother to do anything. She makes suggestions based on her own experience, but ultimately “supports” her children in their choices. Like, “Grace, getting a perm is going to make you look like a French poodle, but if you really must do it, let’s go to the salon.”
    â€œShe’s going through another renaissance. And this one is all about getting in touch with her Chinese side.”
    â€œBut your mother isn’t Chinese.” Grace’s parents’ families have both been in America for generations. Her mom can trace her family back to Spain, and her dad to China. Grace likes to say that unless people still have splinters from the Mayflower in their asses, her family was probably here first, so stop asking her where she’s from. Her father is a professor in the sociology department, and her mother, well, dabbles, I guess.
    â€œYou know how you can marry someone Jewish and then convert? I think she’s trying to convert to being Chinese. And she’s not just going regular Chinese like my dad. She’s going ultraorthodox Chinese. It’s her latest thing. She’s learning how to do Chinese calligraphy. And she’s started ordering all these clothes from Chinese companies. I mean, like clothes that they wear in China, not like clothes we wear that are made there. Like she’s walking around in these tunics and flat canvas Mary Janes. Anyway, I thought it would all blow over by the time school started, but here we are and I’m signed up for Chinese. And I’ll bet you that the teacher is going to see my face and he’s going to break out into this big grin and probably even start talking to me in Chinese right away, and I’ll have to be like, ‘No hablo Chinese, dude.’”
    â€œIt could be fun.”
    She sticks her finger in her mouth.
    â€œA lot of people try to reclaim their culture. My dad talks about it all the time. Like, people come to America, and it’s allmelting pot, and then a generation or two goes by and they want to get back their culture. Music is often the first place they start.”
    â€œWell, maybe your dad could convince my mom to let me take some sort of Chinese music class, but Chinese the language? I don’t even know which Chinese language it is.”
    â€œProbably Mandarin,” I tell her.
    â€œI’m supposed to be in French four,” she says. “You know what