Juliet

Izzy plopped down next to me and, after scrolling through the TikTok timeline on her phone, showed me a vid of her friends dancing.

“Who’re they?”

“The ones that gave me candy for Valentine’s Day,” she answered shyly.

I was wondering why she was showing me so many boys… So they were all candidates to be her boyfriend. My goodness, what was I like at that age? I just went around fighting those that played with my hair.

“There sure are lots of pictures on TikTok. Does nobody use Instagram?”

“No way. That’s for old people, Jules.”

Old people… I was lost for words. Although the age gap between us was only 10 years, it suddenly felt like it was 50.

Due to Izzy clinging close to show me her screen, I was compelled to lean over and look. I noticed a brown-haired boy playing around with devil horns and tail on her TikTok feed. Although there were a lot of vids, they were mostly singing and dancing.

“This is Tony. He’s a pass, wouldn’t you say?” Izzy asked while we looked at him.

“Ah… Hm. I can’t tell by just looking at his face. What’s he like?”

“He teases me a lot… Always calls me skinny and sometimes pulls my hair for no reason.”

“Yet, he gave you candy?”

“Yeah, but I feel like I wouldn’t like that kind of teasing if we start going out.”

She scrolled down the screen and showed me the next candidate.

“This is David. He also went to kindergarten with me.”

“He looks alright.”

“He doesn’t know a lot about girls, though. I don’t like innocent boys.”

“What?”

How much would a nine year old know about girls? Even 19 year olds don’t know much! I stifled a laugh and asked:

“And why’s that?”

“Grace said that dating an innocent boy who doesn’t know girls is hard.”

Grace was a friend Izzy met at a ballet academy, and based on things she’s told Izzy, she seemed to be a strange child.

“That may not be completely wrong, but don’t you think being understanding would be more important than being innocent?”

I really wanted to say not to listen to Grace, but I didn’t want to affect their friendship any, so I tried to be nice. The idea seemed a little hard for her to comprehend as she sat thinking, until she finally just moved on to number three.

“Hmm… Then, what about this one?”

“He’s cute.”

“I don’t like cute.”

Well, what other appealing qualities does a boy of that age have? Izzy puffed her cheeks in anger while I let out a laugh.

“Jules! Please be serious… This is important.”

“Sorry, sorry.” I managed to contain my laughter. “Why do you want one of them for a boyfriend, anyway? You don’t seem to particularly like any of them.”

“But… They gave me candy. I can’t just not repay that.”

Oh boy, she took the candy for a confession… I suddenly felt I should take this a little more seriously.

“How do you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

“While it is nice for someone to like you, that doesn’t mean you owe them anything,” I emphasized my true feelings while we talked things over.

I felt the situation was rather funny… I’m really giving honest dating advice to a nine year old?

Thankfully, things ended there when the kitchen phone rang.

“Sophia must be calling!” Izzy exclaimed as she ran to answer it.

I leaned on the couch with a sigh and raised my hands in surrender while Miss Jane smiled.

“Is Luke not back yet?”

“Not yet. Work must be running over.”

Out of concern that Luke’s life would consist of nothing but school and a computer, Miss Jane gave Luke the choice of working part time at her husband’s drug store or volunteering at the Kansas City Cultural Center once a week. He chose the latter.

He seems to mostly help migrating Koreans settle into the area, and with so few living here, it didn’t sound hard. With him having gone to a private school, he’d also consult parents about elementary and middle schools for their kids.

“This seems to be a trend with volunteering… Eddy was always late, too. They don’t end on time like a normal job would. If you have something to tell Luke, shall I pass it on to him?”

“Oh, thanks Juliet.”

After she grumbled about it being impossible to get through to Luke, she had me tell him there was a burrito and pita bread in the fridge for dinner. Finally, after listing off his chores, she sat on the sofa across from me with a big sigh of relief.

“Now that you mention it, Eddy volunteered at the art hall. How is he nowadays?”

“He’s good. We just talked yesterday, actually.”

My younger brother Eddy lived in a dorm. He attends an elite music school in southern New Hampshire.

Eddy was born prematurely and spent a few weeks in an incubator. He had a bone marrow transplant while he was still young, but even after the disease healed, he was left with a weak constitution that left him susceptible to sickness and in need of many trips to the hospital.

He gained a love for music early and picked up the cello just after he started elementary. Whenever he performed, it was always in a black suit and tie. But his ambition for music wasn’t limited to playing Mozart at a local Homecoming. He wanted to play on a much grander stage.

Eddy declared one day that he was going to apply to a music school, but my parents weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of their sickly son going to a school that took a couple of hours to get to by plane. Dad tried to convince him to wait until college, but he was adamant. And finally, after months of fighting about it, he got his way.

“I was really nervous that you would all end up moving.”

So was I. Fully prepared to leave dad behind, mom went so far as to look for homes near Eddy’s school to move to. If everything wasn’t so expensive, we’d both be in Massachusetts now.

While we chatted about Eddy’s school life, it came time for Izzy and her mom to leave.

“Oh, I forgot to get you something!”

Miss Jane hurriedly got up and went to the kitchen, only to return with what looked like a homemade honey custard cake and vanilla muffins.

“There are pop tarts and apple sherberts in the fridge, so help yourself. Luke should be along shortly.”

She took her jacket and car keys and dragged Izzy out.

“Jules, come by again tomorrow!” Izzy waved as the door shut behind her.

The house suddenly felt empty. It feels weird to be in someone else’s home when they’re not. I wandered around, looked at this and that on the table, then finally sat back down.

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There were some Korean books that Miss Jane must’ve been reading on the cushions. I flipped through one, but all I could read was the library number (ISBN). Losing interest, I set it down and turned on the TV.

A basketball game between Phoenix and Detroit was on, but it was a rerun. I started cycling through the channels: John Oliver was explaining Mari Kondo’s cleaning method (Why’re you throwing out things you can’t find a use for! I try and find a use for everything, so it drove me crazy.), the Weather Channel said we had a 55% chance of a tornado tomorrow, and a girl was about to cry while Blake Shelton praised her on The Voice. Finally, I landed on a drama channel where someone, whose face I knew but name I didn’t, was looking through a one-way mirror and psychoanalyzing a perp.

The right furthermost couch had a good view of the street and, as I sat there mindlessly, I saw Luke come into view. It suddenly became obvious how Izzy always knew I was coming.

Luke had the same black hair and eyes as his mother, but his glasses made him look mean. I knew he wasn’t due to his goofy attitude, but he comes off as distant to those who don’t know him. This time, though… As I sat and looked at his expressionless face, he didn’t feel like the same Luke. If he had that face all the time, I wondered if I’d still think of him the same.

As I waited for him to arrive, I suddenly found myself in a playful mood…