Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
Author:R. F. Kuang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-03-16T00:00:00+00:00
Thirteen
THAT WEEKEND, I TAKE THE SUBWAY OUT TO ALEXANDRIA FOR A backyard grill with my sister and her husband.
Rory and I arenât terribly close, but we have the easy intimacy of two sisters who canât fathom what the other finds attractive about their lifestyle, and have long given up trying to convert them. Rory thinks Iâm itinerant, badly prepared for the future, wasting an Ivy League degree, and getting a little too old to keep chasing the publishing pipe dream instead of a stable career with benefits and a retirement plan. And I think Rory, who studied accounting at UT Austin and now does precisely that, has such a boring, cookie-cutter, picket-fence life that Iâd rather claw out my eyeballs than live it.
Rory is married to her college sweetheart, Tom, an IT technician who has always struck me as having the appearance and personality of wet dough. Neither of them knows a thing about publishing. They arenât, as Rory puts it, âbookish people.â They like browsing the airport store for the latest John Grisham paperbacks, and Rory takes out the occasional Jodi Picoult title from their local library over the holidays, but otherwise they havenât a clue about the vicissitudes of my world, nor are they dying to learn. I donât think Rory even has a Twitter account.
Tonight, thatâs a blessing.
Rory and Tom live far enough out in the suburbs that they can afford a spacious backyard with a deck, where they host family grills the last Saturday of every month. The weather tonight is perfect: humid and hot, but breezy enough that itâs not a bother. Rory is making corn bread, and it smells so good, I think this might be the first meal I stomach this week that doesnât come roiling back up from anxiety.
Theyâre bickering on the patio when I arrive. The argument, I gather, is whether it was fair of HR to reprimand Roryâs desk mate for telling a colleague that her hair looked gorgeous that day.
âI just donât think you should touch people without their permission,â says Tom. âLike, thatâs an etiquette thing, not a race thing.â
âOh, come on, it wasnât like she was, like, assaulting her,â says Rory. âIt was a compliment. And itâs so crazy to call Chelsea a racistâI mean, sheâs a Democrat. She voted for Obamaâoh, hey, honey.â Rory squeezes me from the side as I walk up. Usually I cringe from Roryâs big-sisterly affectationsâitâs always struck me as a bit fake, overcompensating for her distance when we were youngerâbut tonight I lean into her touch. âHave a beer. Iâm going to go check on the oven.â
âHowâs tricks?â Tom gestures to the picnic table, and I sit down across from him. Heâs been growing his beard out. Itâs nearly two inches long now, and it emphasizes his solid, unbothered lumberjackâs aesthetic. Every time I see Tom, I wonder what it would be like to go through life with the easy contentment of a rock.
âJust the usual,â I say, accepting a Corona Light.
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