accommodations the school can make, he’ll realize that it can only help.
As I read my e-mail after typing it up, I hear a voice in my head that is some imaginary combination of my mother and Mr. Wu: Don’t coddle the boy. If you keep propping him up he’ll never be able to make it on his own.
I press send anyway.
JOCELYN
Aside from that time in fourth grade when Alan needed four stitches on his temple because I shoved him into our coffee table accidentally on purpose after he broke the cultured pearl necklace Amah had given me for my birthday, I’ve always thought that I was a pretty good big sister.
After seeing Will with my little brother, though, I’m not so sure. I have to wonder if I could ever have the patience that he has in walking him through his homework. Just watching them struggle their way through problem sets, I can feel myself getting annoyed at Alan’s space cadet act, but Will always stays calm, and his voice doesn’t get condescending the way I know mine sometimes does when Alan’s not listening to me.
Today, they’re working on basic probability, and it’s like Will’s learned to speak in Alan’s native language.
“So you know how in a game of Magic, if you don’t like your library, sometimes you can decide to mulligan?”
Alan nods, about 500 percent more engaged than he’s ever been when I’ve tried to slog through math with him.
“Right.” Will continues, “When you do that, you’re changing the probability that you’ll get an artifact.…”
It stings just a little bit, the connection they have. Isn’t he my brother? Isn’t he my not-boyfriend? Part of me also feels guilty that I didn’t figure out how to teach these concepts so they stick to Alan’s Teflon brain. I guess I just didn’t try hard enough. It leaves a sour feeling in my stomach.
But that’s the thing about Will. Watching him work with Alan, I start to realize that it’s not that I necessarily suck as a big sister—it’s that Will is a kickass big brother. He’s smart enough to be able to break down a complicated subject so it makes sense, but humble enough to tell Alan that he had trouble learning it, too. He notices when Alan’s energy is getting low and makes sure to bring out a snack or crack a joke, his wide genuine smile so infectious that it makes me grin across the room, where I’m staring at him like a creeper.
So sue me, I can’t take my eyes off him, especially now that he’s preoccupied with my brother. When he’s talking with me, no matter how good our conversation’s going, there’s always this barely visible layer of reserve over everything, like he’s so afraid of saying or doing something to turn me off that he’s holding back a bit. With Alan, he doesn’t hold anything back, so he can be as goofy or earnest or dorky as he wants.
He’s cute when he’s nerdy. When he comes across a problem he can’t solve right away he has this nervous tic where he makes a tiny, rapid head shake, like a dog throwing off water after a dunk in a pond. Then when he figures it out he does a little shimmy with his left shoulder. He likes to drum with the eraser end of his pencil to make a point, and he can do that pen-spinning trick that I can’t seem to get down no matter how many YouTube tutorials I watch.
The point is, Will is sure as heck more interesting than my Junior Business Program essay, which is why so far I only have the following haphazardly typed up:
1. Grew up with family business
2. Not afraid of hard work
3. Learned to be organized to balance school and the restaurant
I decided early on in the process that “have sacrificed any semblance of a life” would not make a good bullet point. I’m also not convinced that I should do what Priya suggested and talk about my recent “innovations” to help the restaurant. Making social media accounts and ramping up outreach to the college sound pretty basic. What if bringing those things up just makes it more obvious that A-Plus is the loser business that it realistically is?
After five minutes where I mostly stare at a blinking cursor, Alan starts pacing nervously around the kitchen table like a Doberman puppy waiting for its owner to take it out for a walk. Will’s hunched over a question sheet, grading