S1 E1 Pilot (3)
"Andy's dead."
Eileen's eyes narrowed to slits as I pulled off my helmet and said it.
"And I'm the one who killed him."
"Then I'm guessing you've got his wallet on you, too. Buy me pizza. I want cheese."
Without waiting for an answer, Eileen pushed the door open. I tensed for a second there — but apparently it had never truly occurred to her that I might actually be different now.
Inside, the air conditioning cooled my sweat-damp forehead, and the smell of baking pizza and the din of arcade machines washed over us all at once. A kid clutching a cup full of tokens sprinted across our path, then slowed at the blast of his mother's voice from behind.
Eileen swept her gaze over the machines like she knew every one of them by heart.
"Basketball first? How many times have you lost to me now — thirteen? Fourteen?"
"Was I really that bad?"
"Somehow, basketball is the one thing you can't do."
"Basketball has always been a discriminatory sport for Asians. Black players get bonus points, if anything."
"Hard to agree when there's a counterexample named Mac."
I eyed the basketball machine. Apparently the previous owner of this body had been truly, catastrophically bad at basketball. But a new owner had moved in, so today, surely, I could win.
"Let's find out."
Grinning, Eileen headed for the counter. We ordered a pizza and split the tokens — and she plucked one straight out of my cup.
"Hey. Why are you taking mine?"
"I brought the coupons."
"I'm the one buying the pizza, though."
"I'm still mad at you for spoiling the ending of The Sixti Censuses. Take another one if you want me to stay mad at you."
I had a feeling I'd be getting ribbed over this all day long.
Clang—
"..."
The ball smacked the rim and bounced out. I caught it as it came back and threw again.
Ting—
Too short this time. The ball Eileen lobbed from beside me kissed the backboard and dropped clean through the hoop. The less time left on the clock, the tighter the tension wound into my arm — and by the time the last ball spun around the rim and rolled off the outside, Eileen was already reading my scoreboard.
"These balls seem a little off."
I let my hands fall.
"Want to swap spots with me?"
"Ah — I'll pass."
Basketball was a lost cause.
"Damn it. Basketball really is a racist sport."
"You're just bad at it, Andy."
Eileen doubled over giggling. I scooped up the token cup and headed for another machine, the squeak of her sneakers trailing after me.
"Not doing one more round?"
"You shouldn't keep blowing money on this stuff."
"And you didn't know that last time?"
"I was young then."
"Wasn't that last week?"
"I've matured nearly ten whole days since. Do you have any idea how big a difference that is?"
I pointed at the air hockey table.
"Let's do that instead."
Thankfully, air hockey was one thing I was actually decent at. When Eileen knocked my puck aside and I banked it off the wall and slid it into her goal, her mouth clamped shut — the face that had been grinning moments ago gone properly serious. I gave my mallet a slow, showy spin on the table.
"Tell me if the puck starts acting weird."
"It's not over yet."
The next puck sailed straight into my goal. Eileen copied my little wrist flourish exact to the letter, and I went back to holding the mallet straight.
Even with our number called, we didn't leave the table until the match had been fought to the very last point. I won, of course. Seven to six — a little too close for comfort, but a win was a win.
"Now this is a fair sport. Unlike basketball."
"What are you even saying. Here, take this."
Eileen flung a wad of napkins at my chest. I caught it and set it on the table. The pizza was still hot — when I lifted a slice, the cheese stretched into a long strand, and I slipped a plate underneath to catch it. Eileen couldn't wait; she bit off the tip, then sat huffing through her open mouth.
"You're like a cat that can't handle hot food."
She leveled a glare at me.
"Add that glare on top and you're a ginger cat, through and through."
I slid the cola her way. Eileen took a hurried sip and set the cup down, a faint wetness gathered at the corners of her eyes.
"Eat slowly. I'm not going to steal it."
"That's because you keep talking to me."
"Talking with your mouth full is rude, Eileen."
Under the table, the toe of her sneaker gave my shoe a little kick. I grinned and took a bite of pizza. We won games, ate pizza, and needled each other over absolutely nothing. Every so often it crossed my mind that I was bantering this long with someone I'd only just met — but whenever Eileen opened her mouth, my answer came out before the thought did. Whether that was the familiarity left over in this body, or whether we simply clicked, I couldn't say.
"So what's Mac up to today?"
"I called him yesterday, but he said he had something going on with his mom."
"Would've been nice if he'd come."
"Why?"
Eileen set down her pizza. I wiped my hands on a napkin.
"It's more fun with the three of us."
"Except when he shows up, he burns through every last token and then borrows ours. His family's loaded, too — the nerve of that guy."
"Now that you mention it, I'm pretty sure he owes you a few. Did he ever pay you back?"
"He says next time."
I was in the middle of my little audit of Mac's creditworthiness when someone called my name.
"Andy?"
I looked up to find a broad-shouldered boy standing over us — short-cropped brown hair, a T-shirt stamped with the school football team's logo. One look at his face and the name surfaced: Ben Jason, of the school football team. In the original story he'd been one of those faces you caught now and then in game scenes or the back of the locker room, but going by this body's memories, we'd once landed on the same team in PE. He wasn't a mean kid. He just didn't think very far ahead.
Ben studied me for a moment, then shifted his gaze across the table.
"Oh — Calloway's here too?"
"Hey."
Eileen's reply was shorter and drier than anything she'd given me all afternoon.
A little ways off, a young boy at another table was waving a token cup in Ben's direction. Beside him, a girl sat with her knees drawn up on the chair, pulling the cheese off her pizza in long strings. A man and a woman — the parents, presumably — sat with them, and the mother peeled the cheese out of the girl's fingers and told her to sit up straight. Ben flashed his siblings a wait-a-minute hand and braced one palm on the end of our table, a grin already hooked at the corner of his mouth.
"So are you two actually dating? You're stuck together every single time I see you. How do you even."
Eileen set down her cola.
"We just came to play games."
"Yeah? You two looked real cozy splitting a pizza."
"What, were we supposed to order steak? This is a pizza place."
"No, no — it's not about what you're eating. It's that you're sitting all squished together while you do it. That's the funny part. If it's a date, go somewhere else. Why here of all places?"
"It's not a date."
A thin edge of irritation crept into Eileen's voice. Ben grinned and glanced around — and right on cue, some little kid behind us burst into tears. Immaculate timing, really. Just the thing to put weight behind his point.
"Jackie Chan, there was seriously nowhere else you could take a girl?"
I knew exactly what breed of joke that was. A racist crack about Asians, the kind that was still everywhere as late as the early 2000s — the sort where you drop the name of a famous Hong Kong movie star, all the while implying that every Asian face looks the same. I set the slice I'd been holding back onto my plate.
"Big fan? If you came here with your parents, go grab some paper. I'll sign it for you."
Ben's laughter died a beat too late. Eileen picked up her cola and put it right back down.
"What?"
"Want me to do your brother and sister too? Go on, get some paper."
Ben opened his mouth, then laughed. Apparently that hadn't been the answer he was expecting. He glanced between me and Eileen, then leaned his head a little closer to my side of the table.
"You are Andy, right?"
"What is with everyone today?"
"No, it's just — you used to—"
Ben cut himself off and scratched the back of his head. From the table behind him, his little brother hollered again.
"Ben! Mom says she's taking me with her!"
"Hang on!"
"Now!"
I shot a glance at Ben's T-shirt.
"Your brother doesn't look like he needs an autograph, though."
Eileen ducked her head, fighting down a laugh. Ben looked back at his brother, then at me.
"I don't think you're the kid I know."
"Yeah, yeah. Either way — see you at school tomorrow."
"Yeah. Sure."
He backed away, shaking his head — looking less offended than thoroughly baffled. Even in retreat he threw one more glance our way, and then his little brother came sprinting up and seized his arm, the little sister climbing down from her chair to claim the other hand. I picked my pizza back up.
"Busy guy."
Eileen finally let the laugh she'd been holding burst free.
"I didn't know you had it in you, talking to him like that."
Eileen only opened her mouth once Ben had vanished somewhere between his siblings and the arcade machines.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"You used to just laugh that kind of joke off. Or else get all serious and go, 'Actually, I'm Korean.'"
"Am I supposed to just sit there and take it while some guy treats me like I'm Chinese?"
"Isn't Jackie Chan from Hong Kong?"
"Hong Kong was handed back to China, what, two years ago? So if you insist on splitting hairs, he's Chinese."
Eileen laughed and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.
"You've completely changed, you know that?"
"I explained earlier, didn't I? I'm done living as the Asian that American society expects."
"I heard you. I just didn't think you'd actually go through with it."
I took a drink of my cola. Eileen picked apart the edge of her crust where the cheese had welded itself down, and when her fingers came away greasy she went hunting for a napkin — then dragged the one sitting in front of me across the table.
"Mac's got to see this."
"I'm sure he'll see it by tomorrow, whatever."
Eileen laughed again. When she laughed, her eyes went thinner than usual, and the expression her thick frames usually kept half-hidden finally showed itself in full. Seen this close, the freckles beside her nose were far fainter than they'd looked in the photo. I was setting my cup down when my hand stopped halfway.
She's pretty.
I'd thought the same the first time I saw her outside, but this time there was no need to imagine what different glasses or different clothes might do for her. She just looked pretty, smiling like that.
Eileen brushed her hair behind her ear and looked at me.
"What?"
"What, what?"
"Why are you staring at me?"
Feeling somehow caught red-handed, I dropped my eyes to my plate.
"Just, you know. Checking whether the pizza was still hot."
It came out of my own mouth, and it was a terrible answer. Judging by her face, Eileen thought so too.
"I'm not a frog. And I'm not so fragile that pizza cooled down to body temperature would burn me."
I laughed and raised my cup. With Ben, the words had come out without my even thinking — and here I was, hiding behind my cola. Eileen pushed the last slice of pizza my way and rattled the token cup.
"If you're done, get up. One more round of basketball."
"Why basketball, of all things?"
"Because I win."
She rose from her seat and tugged me up by the wrist. I set my cup down and followed. Eileen's eyes were already on the machines, so she never noticed me glancing down at my hand. I picked up the token cup with my free hand.