When she stumbles back into the apartment that night, Niko takes one look at her and says, “Oh, you fucked up.”

“It’s fine!” August says, shouldering past him toward the fridge.

“You are projecting so many feelings right now, I can’t believe your skin’s still on.”

“I’m repressing it!” She yanks a carton of leftover sesame chicken out and pops the top, shoveling it into her mouth cold. “Let me repress it!”

“I can see how you would think that is what you’re doing,” he says, sounding genuinely sorry for her.

7

 

POLICE DEPARTMENT

CITY OF NEW YORK

Filed April 17, 1992

Incident: At 1715 hours on 17 April 1992, I, Officer Jacob Haley #739, was dispatched to Times Square-42nd Street subway station. Mark Edelstein (DOB 8-7-1954) reported middle-aged white male approx. 5’9 struck him in eye with closed fist in dispute over seat on Brooklyn-bound Q train. He states man shouted anti-semitic slur at him before assault. Suspect absent from scene. Victim states another passenger, mid-twenties Asian female approx. 5’7, forced attacker off train at 49th Street Station. Passenger also absent from scene.

August’s phone chimes at six on a Thursday morning with a text from Jane.

She rolls onto her side, elbow digging into her air mattress, which has halfway deflated during the night—she needs to get a real bed. Three texts from her mom. One missed call and voicemail from Billy’s. A red bubble announcing seventeen unread messages in her school email. One notification from her bank: her account is at $23.02.

Normally, any two of those overlapping would send her into an hour-long anxiety-fueled tear of aggressive productivity until everything was squared away, even if she had to lie and cheat to do it.

Her mom’s texts say: Hey, wanted to check in on that file I sent you. and Are you screening my calls, turd? and Miss you always but especially when I have a new file shipment. You were always so much better at sorting these.

She’ll deal with it. She will. Just … tomorrow.

She opens Jane’s text.

Hey August, got a new one: a restaurant on Mott where I got dumplings. I may have gotten in a fight with a cook there. Can’t place the year. Any ideas? Thanks, Jane Su

Jane has not yet figured out she doesn’t have to include a greeting and a sign-off, and August hasn’t had the heart to correct her.

P.S. I’m still thinking about that joke you made the other day about JFK. Hilarious. You’re a genius.

August has decided, in what she believes is a show of extreme maturity and dedication to helping Jane, to pretend the kiss was completely unimportant. Did it get the information they needed? Yes. Did she lie awake that night thinking about it for three and a half hours? Yes. Did it mean anything? No. So, no, she’s not sitting around, picturing Jane dropping her jacket on August’s bedroom floor and pushing her down onto the bed, breaking the bed, putting the bed back together—God, not the stupid bed-assembly fantasy again.

No, that would be extremely impractical. And August thinks, as she spends seven of her last dollars on a container of to-go dumplings for Jane, that she’s very practical, and everything is under complete control.

“My hero,” Jane swoons when August boards the Q and hands the bag over.

She’s looking particularly bright today, soaking in the sun that pours through the windows. She told August last week how thankful she is to at least be stuck on a train that spends a lot of its route above ground, and it shows. Her skin glows a golden brown that reminds August of humid summer afternoons in the Bywater—which, August realizes, is something they’ve both felt. What are the odds?

“Anything coming back to you?” August asks, climbing into the seat next to her. She perches her sneakers on the edge, tucking her knees up to her chest.

“Gimme a second,” Jane says, chewing thoughtfully. “God, these are good.”

“Can I–?” August stomach growls to finish the sentence.

“Yeah, here,” Jane says, holding a dumpling up on the end of a plastic fork and opening her mouth, indicating August do the same. She does, and Jane shoves the entire overstuffed dumpling in and laughs as August struggles to chew, reaching over to wipe sauce off her chin. “You gotta eat it all in one.”

“You’re so mean to me,” August says when she manages to swallow.

“I’m showing you how to eat dumplings the right way!” Jane says. “I’m being so nice!”

August laughs, and— God. She has to stop picturing what they look like to every other commuter: a couple laughing over takeout, ribbing each other on the ride to Manhattan. There’s a couple down the car, a man and woman, wrapped around each other like they’re trying to fuse by osmosis, and August hates that part of her wants to be them. It’d be so easy to slide her hand into Jane’s.

Instead, she pulls a notebook from her bag and a pencil from her hair, where it’s been holding a frizzy, half-assed updo in place all morning.

“Let me know if anything comes to you,” August says, shaking her hair out. It falls down her shoulders, her back, everywhere. Jane watches her try to contend with it with a bemused expression.

“What?” Jane says vaguely.

“Like, if you remember anything.”

“Oh,” she says, blinking. “Yeah.… It was this tiny place on Mott, my favorite dumplings in the city—I went there once or twice a week, at least. I think I was in Chinatown a lot, even though I lived in Brooklyn. It was easy to just take the Q to Canal.”

“Okay,” August says, taking a note.

“But I fucked up. I slept with a cook’s ex-girlfriend, and she found out and let me have it next time I came in, and I couldn’t go back after that. But, shit, it was worth it.”

The detective side of August contemplates a follow-up question, but the side of her that wants to live to see tomorrow decides against it.

“All right,” August says, not looking up from her notepad. “A restaurant in Chinatown that serves dumplings. There are only, like … five million of those.”

“Sorry,” Jane says, returning to her to-go box. “You can narrow it down to the ones that were open in the ’70s?”

“Sure, assuming they’re still operating, and have employment records going back that far, I could maybe get a name for that employee and maybe track her down and maybe she’ll know something.” August puts her pencil down, looks at Jane finally—who is staring at her with cheeks stuffed full of dumpling and a startled expression—and prays she survives this. “Or, we could get you to remember this girl’s name.”

“How’ll we do that?” Jane says through a mouthful of pork and dough.

August looks at her puffy cheeks and swoopy hair and blows right through every piece of mental caution tape to say, “Kiss me.”

Jane chokes.

“You—” Jane coughs, forcing it down. “You want me to kiss you again?”

“Here’s the thing,” August says. She’s calm. She’s totally calm, just doing casework. It doesn’t mean anything. “It’s April. The Q shuts down in September. We’re running out of time. And the other day—when we kissed—that worked. It brought back something big. So, I think—”