Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
At dusk, the crowd of customers was bustling. The white collars dragged their tired bodies there, sat down, and had a cup of coffee while enjoying the charming twilight time.
Wang Yang and Jessica sat by the window sipping their coffees.
After watching “Titanic”, they came to the cafe nearby without talking. The joy of the surprising reunion gradually faded away, and now they didn’t know what to say. Although they were once the closest friends, sharing everything with each other, that was when they were kids. Nearly ten years had passed, and the feeling of strangeness was inevitable.
“Yang, there is something for which I must apologize to you.” Jessica broke the silence eventually. She looked at Wang Yang and said apologetically, “When I transferred to another school, I didn’t say goodbye to you. I’m sorry.” She sighed and continued, “At that time, my father was leaving the military and planned to go to Los Angles for business. My whole family had to go there with him. But, you know, I was too vulnerable. I didn’t know how to say goodbye to you, so… at last, I chose to leave a letter to you.”
Wang Yang, who was totally confounded, said, “A letter? What letter?”
“What?” Jessica frowned in confusion, too. “Just the farewell letter I left for you. I put it in your drawer. So you… you never got it?”
“No, what letter? I have no idea about it.” Wang Yang shrugged. The only thing he knew was that Jessica left school as if she had never treated him as a good friend. For a while, he had complained about this, and then he completely forgot about her after some time.
Jessica was stunned. Right after her father told her that they would move to LA, she started to write this long letter, as long as several pages. She wrote it and tore it, and then wrote it again. It took her more than one week to finish. Until the very last day in school, she made up her mind about the content and carefully put the letter in Wang Yang’s drawer. But how come he didn’t even receive it?
“That’s impossible. What happened?” Jessica couldn’t understand. She was so anxious as if she had lost some treasures. “I did put that letter in your drawer, under your books… Oh, my God. I get it now. That’s why! You never got my letter. You haven’t read my letter, so you wouldn’t know my new address. God! What went wrong?”
“Hold on, hold on, let’s me think about it… There must be something I’ve missed…” Wang Yang rubbed his temples, trying to recall the memories from that time, but all of them were rather blurry. That day was like any other ordinary day; he went to school, entered the classroom, and found out the desk next to him was empty. Jessica took all of her textbooks away with her, nothing left. Then the teacher said she got transferred to another school. He was very upset, blaming her for leaving him without saying goodbye. During recess, he had stared at the empty desk next to him, feeling sentimental.
“Thank God that black chick finally left. She really bugs me. Ugly b*tch…””Yeah, she always acts like an ostrich, not even daring to talk. It was so boring to pick on her.””So now, who will ever talk to that chink boy? Their laughter just disgusted me so much.” Some of the bad white boys stuck together gossiping about them. And the head of those bad boys, Peter, suddenly pulled out several pages of paper and said gloatingly, “Hey guys, look what I’ve found.” And then all of the white kids crowded around, bursting out it laughter mockingly. After that, he just thought those kids were too stupid, so he just walked out of the classroom.
Before long, his dream of being a director was spread among all of his classmates; many of them made fun of him behind his back. He still remembered that one time, Peter had said to him, “Why don’t you ask your ugly monster friend to be your leading actress, big director? Haha!”
Remembering all the details of the past, Wang Yang basically figured out what had happened. He asked Jessica, “Had you mentioned anything about how my dream was to become a director in your letter?”
“Um…” Jessica pretended to think for a while. She actually still remembered every detail in that letter. She could even recite every sentence in it. A few moments later, she nodded and said, “Probably, yes. I remember I’d written some encouragement in it. Maybe I mentioned it.”
She was trying so hard to control herself and tell herself to “stop blushing”. As a matter of fact, in that farewell letter, she had spilled her heart, which would make herself feel so embarrassed now. That was the very first time she spilled her feelings. She mentioned that she would convince her parents to let her go to the performance school after they got settled in LA. She also said she would try her best to become an actress and ask Wang Yang to work hard on his dream of becoming a director so that they could meet each other again in Hollywood… Those words were so emotional and embarrassing. Therefore, there was no way she could forget it. In fact, she could even remember it backward.
When all of the memories were rushing back, especially when Wang Yang was sitting right in front of her, she just felt so nervous and unsettled. Was Yang playing a game with her?
“I knew it! I got it now! I figured out what went wrong now! D*mn it!” Wang Yang, who couldn’t help swearing, said, “It was Peter! It must be him! That son of a b*tch stole my letter. No wonder he knew about the fact that I wanted to be a director; he also knew you wanted to be an actress! Besides you, I hadn’t told any other classmates about it. D*mn it! Screw him!”
Peter? Peter who? When hearing this name, Jessica slowly recalled a blurry face of a white kid, then she said unbelievably, “Peter? The bad boy who had always pulled his hair up by gel? Yes! I remember that, when I was placing the letter in your drawer, he was the only kid in the classroom. And he sneered at me… Oh, Jesus! So it was him that stole the letter? How dare he do something like that?!”
Jessica seemed to be hurt deeply. At first, she sat there still for a moment, and then she scratched her hair in sadness. She remembered after she settled in LA, she was bullied in the new school all over again, then she never received any letter from Wang Yang, no matter how desperate she was. She even cried so many times when she was alone. Only after her parents sent her to the performance school and then she slowly became prettier, her nightmare was ended.
If Wang Yang had received her letter back then and kept in touch with her, how wonderful would that have been?! She was dead certain that she would be so happy about it, even if she still had to endure all the mockery and bullying from the bad kids.
It was all Peter’s fault! Jessica clenched her fists, and her face flushed red. She muttered, grinding her teeth: “How could he do this? How could he do this to us? Why does he exist in the world? I’m gonna kill that asshole…”
Wang Yang, too, was furious. If he had found out that he stole the letter, he would kick his ass for sure!
After being angry for a while, they sipped their coffee at the same time, and then looked at each other, smiling. In the smile, both of them had felt a little helpless and regretful. However, they let bygones be bygones. The past was irreversible, but it was so fortunate for them to run into each other again, wasn’t it?
Putting down her coffee, Jessica was gradually recovering from the intense emotions. She looked at Wang Yang and gently said, “Yang, I am so grateful for what you’ve done for me. I really am. You were my best friend at school.” She shook her head and continued, “You don’t know, when I was in LA, I had become the target of the bad kids again. Although they were in pretty clothes, their hearts were ugly. They just kept breaking my heart. Seriously, I missed you so much back then.”
She smiled slightly and cleared her throat. And then she tried to impersonate Wang Yang with a deeper voice, saying: “Hey, you guys want to bully her? Have you asked for my permission? I got her covered!”
“Wow, I was so chivalrous. I didn’t even know that.” Wang Yang became a little shy after hearing her compliment. He knew he was just trying to be a “hero rescuing the beauty”. Fighting for Jessica was nothing more than testing the martial art he had learned.
“Yes, you were. That’s who you are.” Jessica sincerely nodded and said mysteriously, “As a matter of fact, I think you were like Superman. Haha!” She grinned. “Unfortunately, Superman wasn’t on duty in LA. Oh, that period of my life was really dark. But thank God, I survived.”
Both of them shared a big belly-laugh. After recollecting all the old memories, they began to talk about the recent situation, but the thing that Jessica cared about the most was the thing Wang Yang wanted to avoid the most. But finally, Jessica asked, “Yang, how does it feel to be studying at USC?”
“Not bad. It was pretty nice, very nice…” Wang Yang murmured hesitantly. It almost gave him a headache watching Jessica holding up her chin and listening to him so attentively. He gulped his coffee, a flow of bitterness attacking him. Fine. He couldn’t lie to her, so he explained bitterly, “Actually, since about one week ago, I’m no longer a student of USC anymore. I got expelled.”
“What are you talking about? You got expelled?” Jessica was in a total shock. She opened her big eyes wide and asked fretfully, “What happened? Oh no, I am so sorry. But what happened, Yang? Why did they expel you?!”
Wang Yang’s expression became even bitterer, he said, “Racism. They think I’m a racist.”
“Racist? You?” Jessica was stunned again. At the very moment when she heard about Wang Yang’s expel, many reasons popped out in her mind. Bad grades? Smoking pot? Committing a crime? But completely out of her expectations, the reason turned out to be racism. She found it so ridiculous and shook her head unbelievably. “Yang, are you frigging kidding me?”
Wang Yang shrugged and said, “I wish I was joking, but it is real. They’ve wrongly accused me. Simply put, there is this jerk in USC just like Peter. His name is Terrance Ben. He never stopped provoking me day in and day out, blocking my way, pushing me, and everything. So I got mad and beat the sh*t out of him. But a teacher was passing by and saw that I hit him.”
He gritted his teeth trying to suppress his rage. “Then, Terrance seized the chance and accused me of hurting him because of racism. He told them that I provoked and beat him. Sadly, the university chose to believe him, and then I got expelled.”
Jessica’s face was now covered with fury. She said, “How could this happen? They can’t treat people so unjustly! Yang, I will never believe that you are a racist, not in a million years. How could they be so stupid?!”
“There wasn’t anyone around when the fight was taking place, so I have no witness at all. And that teacher saw with his own eyes that it was me beating up Terrance, and he was willing to testify.” Thinking of how helpless he was at that time, Wang Yang cursed. “God d*mn it! I have asked every single person in my school, one by one, hoping to find someone who can speak the truth, but there is no one. I found no one! As a result, I was sentenced as guilty of being a racist.”
“I’m so sorry… I’m so so sorry about that…” Jessica couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Looking at Wang Yang being so upset, she was also very sad. She wanted to help him, just like he had helped her. She tried to calm herself down by searching for solutions. All of a sudden, one idea came to her, and she said joyfully, “Yang, maybe I can be your witness! I can tell them all the stories of how you had defended me when we were kids. I can show USC that it is impossible that you are a racist!”
Wang Yang shook his head and said, “It won’t work. Actually, I’ve already tried something like this. I reached out to some of my black classmates. I asked them to help me to explain the whole situation, but the school authorities are all a bunch of stubborn antiques!” He got more and more furious and slapped on the table fiercely. “They even suspected the motive of my classmates thinking that I bribed them!”
“So there is just no other solution at all?” said Jessica, refusing to give up. Why was it happening? She had already become an actress, and Wang Yang could have become a director. If that was the case, then their childhood dreams would all come true. But now… God! Why did you let this happen to us?
Wang Yang did not answer, and Jessica was about to say something but stopped the urge anyway. She could think of no solution to his plight. Then both of them fell into a long silence and kept drinking coffee constantly.
After quite a long time, Jessica finally said gloomily, “So what are you going to do next?” She knew that Wang Yang’s future would be rather bumpy. Being guilty as a racist would make everything difficult for him, even it was just to find an ordinary job.
“What am I going to do? What’s my move for the next step?” That was the question Wang Yang kept asking himself. He gulped down the coffee at once and the bitterness made him want to throw up.
His options were very limited, or rather, he felt he had no options at all. Going back to school or finding a job was not available to him anymore. He was running out of money. His parents had given him the living expenses for one semester, and he also made some money from a part-time job. All he had was about ten thousand dollars. But now, he got kicked out of the school, so he would have to pay for the rent, utilities and all. Without the scholarship, he wouldn’t last long. In addition, there were less than two months left of this semester. By then, he wouldn’t be able to keep the news from his parents any longer. A war was about to break out. If he could think of anything, the only option for him was to go back to San Francisco…
Ten thousand dollars, two months, what could he do with it?
Looking at Jessica Alba’s gorgeous face, his heart flipped but then sank in despair. She would be famous, she would enjoy her stage and make the whole world crazy about her. But how about him? Go back to the shabby little restaurant in the Chinatown of San Francisco, cooking meals and washing dishes every day? And then drift apart from the movies, from being a director, from this girl? God d*mn it!
Jessica noticed the misery flashing on Wang Yang’s face, and her heart sank in pain, too. What could she do to help him out? She pondered a while and said, “Yang, after my dad retired from the military, he had tried many businesses, and now he is running a real estate company. The business was not bad and he is hiring new staff…”
“No, no, no! Jessica, thank you so much for the offer, but I’m not going to be a salesman.” Before Jessica even finished speaking, Wang Yang interrupted her because he had already got an idea! He said happily, “I know it already. I’ve wanted to become a director and wanted to shoot a movie ever since I was a little boy. And now, I’ve decided I’m gonna put it into practice–not just keep dreaming about it, but actually shoot a movie! An independent film!”
That’s right. He was going to shoot a movie. That was his life plan! Even though there would be so many obstacles standing in his way, he would never give it up. Because he didn’t allow himself to lose those precious things of his!
“Jessica, you might be the ugly duckling for now, but you will turn out to be a beautiful swan one day! Trust me, you must be an actress! Then when I become a director, I will ask you to be my actress.”
The first half of this sentence had already come true. Sooner or later, the second half would also be realized! He firmly believed it.