“Then tell me, what happens when you take off those gloves?”
By now Marigold had worn gloves for half her life, and it’d been years since she’d allowed herself to get a spark. She’d almost forgotten the dizzying downward rush.
“I see into the past,” she replied.
“It’s more than that,” Yuk Fong said softly. She leaned forward. “I’ve never told anyone this, but I tell you now, Mei Yoong: My dreams aren’t simply glimpses of the future. They show me how I will lose everything and everyone I love.”
Marigold was taken aback.
“Quite the curse, isn’t it?” A sad laugh. “Now, what do your visions of the past show you?”
“I don’t know,” Marigold confessed, for truly she did not. “I just see other people’s memories.”
“If that is all, then you’ve been lucky.” The church bells rang, and Yuk Fong clasped her granddaughter’s gloved hands with her own. “I will pray that our demons are tired and sated andwon’t hurt you too much. I will pray that I never see you in my dreams.” She patted Marigold’s hand. “And I will pray we won’t need to have this conversation again.”
After the service, Marigold walked her grandmother home, then headed to Larry’s, the new arcade on Durant Avenue. She couldn’t stop thinking about what her grandmother had said.
There’s no such thing as a curse,Marigold told herself.No such thing as demons.
Yuk Fong had lived through two world wars and a civil war. It was to be expected that she should find comfort in such superstitious nonsense. Just because she happened to have the talent of a doomsayer did not make her a real-life Cassandra or the Cyclopes or Paul Atreides, all of whom had indeed been cursed by their foresight.
And yet... if Marigold believed Yuk Fong could see the future, why were demons and curses too far a stretch to accept? Nothing else had ever been able to explain her sparks. Or her mother’s disappearances.
If it’s a curse,Marigold wondered,does that mean it can be broken?
This was her last thought before she saw Kenji standing in front of Larry’s, wiping egg yolk from his sleeve. Her grandma slipped from her mind.
“Shouldn’t have worn a Stanford hat in Cal territory,” Kenji explained. “My fault. How was church with your grandmother?”
“Don’t change the subject. Did you get a look at their faces?”
“Detective Yuen, it’s no big deal.” He rotated his backpack, flicking eggshell off the zipper. “The big game’s next weekend, and some guys are just celebrating early. No need to look at me all worried like that.” He was cheerful. “I can tell they never played Little League. They missed my head each time.”
She had to marvel at him. “How do you stay so happy?”
“Easy to be happy when I’m with my best friend.”
Best friend. Her smile wobbled.
For two years, she’d been meeting Kenji behind her parents’ backs. They would get pizza at La Val’s or browse new titles at Comics and Comix. Sometimes they’d just sit on the Glade and talk. It wasn’t every week, only when Kenji came home to visit his mom. Then one Friday he invited her to visit him at Stanford and discovered that she didn’t know how to drive.
“I’ll teach you,” he offered.
She’d waved off his invitation, but he insisted.“Baseball season’s not until the spring; I’ve got plenty of time.”
So began their Sunday tradition of Kenji coming up from Palo Alto to give her driving lessons in his orange Datsun. The pumpkin, he called it. They started out with laps around the Golden Gate Fields racetrack parking lot, where Marigold practiced changing gears and parallel parking. As she grew more confident behind the wheel, they explored the Bay Area together, watching the sun glitter over the Golden Gate Bridge, looking in vain for turtles at Half Moon Bay, and meeting her uncle in Chinatown.
Now that she had passed her driving test, Marigold wished that for once she hadn’t been such a good student. There’d be no more reason for them to see each other every weekend.
“I expect you got ninety-nine on the exam?” Kenji teased as they continued walking toward the arcade.
“A hundred. You’re a good teacher.”
A sunny smile took over his face, but under the gray sky his eyes looked misty.
Typically they headed straight to the pinball machines, but today Kenji motioned toward the tables and ordered two Cokes. “I want to show you something I found in the garage.”
Marigold recognized the spiral sketchbook right away. “Your diary from junior high!”
