Excerpt
You will have much
luck and little hardship.
Or the other way
around.
CHAPTER 1
My friends
and I were riding home from school on Muni, clinging to an assortment of
slippery handholds, when Linny almost blew my secret identity. Intentionally.
“Listen to this one,” she said,
reading off her iPhone, a faint but smirky glint in her eyes. “‘Dear Miss
Fortune Cookie. My cousin thinks I’m chasing her boyfriend. Her boyfriend and I
never flirt, but sometimes we text. What can I do to make her believe me? Just
Friends.’”
In fact, I—Erin Kavanagh, alias
Miss Fortune Cookie—had posted this very letter on my anonymous advice blog,
and Linny happened to be the only person in San Francisco to know that, the
only person in the whole world, except for some random administrator at
WordPress. She takes every opportunity to harass me about keeping my blog a
secret. “What advice would you give,
Erin?” she asked, winking this time.
I kept my face as neutral as
possible. Luckily Darren and Mei were only paying attention each other. As
usual.
Personally speaking, I think
nano-deceptions are a good thing. I regularly use them to protect my friends
from unpleasant truths. Should I tell Linny that her favorite knit hat makes
her head look like a furry meatball? Or nudge Mei whenever Darren winces at her
hyena laugh? Should I have cautioned Darren that taking AP physics would wreck
his grade-point average? Absolutely not. Sincere lies keep everyone happy.
I blew the hair out of my eyes.
“The cousin will never stop suspecting the two of them,” I said to Linny, “so Just Friends has to stop the texting.
She could get her own boyfriend. Or move to somewhere far away like Moldavia.”
Muni, a sort of bus powered by
electric wires overhead, jerked to a halt. A seat opened up, and Linny took it.
“Exactly!” She had the happiest smile ever, so big it barely fit on her face.
Metaphorically speaking. “Mei, don’t you think Erin is a natural at giving
advice?”
“Hmm?” Mei said. She was somewhat
entwined with Darren and therefore distracted.
“Nothing.” I jabbed Linny in the
ribs to get her to stop talking. Gently of course. The three of us—Mei, Linny,
and me—made an enviable friendship trio. I was the lesser third, maybe because
Mei and Linny were gorgeously Chinese-American, while I was just Boring-American.
A Person of Irish.
Mei knew nothing about my
connection to Miss Fortune Cookie. We used to be best friends, and by best
friends I mean we spent every afternoon and weekend together until eighth
grade, when things fell apart between us. The truth is, Mei dumped me. Then
Linny brought us together again during freshman year, inviting us both to eat
lunch with her, forming a little group. A few months later, I mustered the
courage to bring up the dumping incident with Mei, except she didn’t want to
talk about it. So we became friends again without dealing with the past. Pretty
much.
Except I didn’t trust her like I
used to.
And she didn’t share as many
intimate details about herself with me.
Linny beckoned me closer to
whisper in my ear. “I have a question for Miss Fortune Cookie. A very personal
one. But you can’t tell Mei.”
“Why not?”
She lowered her voice more. “You
just can’t, ’kay?”
I nodded. Linny usually let both
of us in on every detail about her life, although lately she’d been secretive
about her new boyfriend. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be boring. I turned my
back toward Mei and said in my quietest voice, “Go ahead. I’m listening. What
is it?”
Linny shook her head. “Not now.”
Just then, the Muni driver made
the sharp turn into Chinatown, and three things happened almost simultaneously:
a bicyclist veered into the road, the driver slammed on the brakes, and I fell
into another passenger. We came to a halt fifty feet from the stop, and the
bicyclist escaped unscathed. I could tell by the vigorous way he flipped off
the driver. Then I caught sight of Mrs. Liu, bundled against the fog, among the
passengers waiting to board.
“Your mom!” I whispered to Mei.
“She’s getting on!”
Mei’s eyes widened. “What the
what?”
Which demonstrates a problem with
sincere lies—in this case, Mei’s lie to her mom about not having a boyfriend.
They can be found out. Darren dropped his arm from around Mei’s waist and
grabbed his backpack. “Bye,” he mouthed before zipping to the back and
catapulting out the rear door. He’s considerate like that.
Mrs. Liu’s grocery bags thumped
against the handrail as she marched up the steps. She has sharp, high
cheekbones and is tall like her daughter. She and Mei both have blunt-cut hair
that reaches their shoulders. Our favorite salon in Chinatown sometimes offers
two-for-one specials.
Mei hurried to the front to take
the two largest bags. “Ma, let me.”
Mrs. Liu stretched her swan neck
toward the window. “Who is that with you?”
Mei shook her head nervously. “No
one. Just Erin and Linny. I invited them to help with the turnip cakes.”
“No. I see boy before.” Mrs. Liu
believed with every sinew in her heart that a boyfriend would distract Mei from
her schoolwork, ruining her chances of getting into the number one university
in the country, Harvard. So when Mei fell in love with Darren last spring, she
kept it a secret from her mom. For thirteen whole months. Which showed amazing
ingenuity and skill on her part, but once you start a lie, it’s hard to escape
it.
“Who is boy?”
“Oh, him,” Mei said. “Someone
from AP chem. We were discussing the homework. Chemical reactions.” She blinked
fast. “And stuff like that.”
To be fair, most people have
trouble lying to Mrs. Liu. Her eyes bore right through your skull and read your
thoughts as if you accidentally uploaded them onto Facebook. It’s her
superpower.
Giveaway!
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