Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

up when she has to stop and un-smudge some of the ink on her left palm and hears a familiar voice.
    â€œOh gosh, why did you pick this place? It’s so fobby! My mom eats here!”
    Elizabeth Phang and what looks like the rest of the AHHS volleyball team come into the shop, and no, no, please no—
    A flash of reddish-gold hair.
    Yup, it’s the entire volleyball team, which means Abby Jones, captain of said team, is also with this group, and they’re all going to see Jess sitting in the corner eating her sandwich with crumbs all over her face like an absolute nerd. Jess shrinks into herself and pulls her hood over her head.
    Why are they here? Didn’t Elizabeth declare this place incredibly uncool ever since Jess tried to bring up the idea of selling the Vietnamese sandwiches as the AHHS Honor Society fundraiser at the fall harvest festival? (Elizabeth’s idea to sell cheesecake from the Pie Factory downtown was voted into the plan.)
    Denise Ho, who Jess doesn’t quite mind so much, walks in after Elizabeth and laughs at her comment. “Well, yeah, but that’s the point! Team dinner means we try something new! And you know you wanna give them something authentic and awesome.”
    Elizabeth grumbles, and Jess tries to finish her bite. Jess would leave, but it’s raining a lot harder now, and even though the bus stop is right outside, the next one won’t be here for another forty minutes.
    Jess just hopes that her sweatshirt is inconspicuous enough. She doesn’t care if Elizabeth or Denise see her; she’s used to teasing from them.
    The three of them actually used to be pretty good friends. The Asian community in Andover is close-knit, and their parents had sent them all to the same Chinese school. Although Jess could speak Cantonese well enough, she’d struggled with Mandarin and Vietnamese, especially the written forms. As there wasn’t a Vietnamese language school in Andover, her parents had settled on sending her off to Sacred Heart Chinese Language Academy every Saturday.
    The school, with students of all ages, from grade school kids still learning their buh-pu-muh-fuh s to older students taking more advanced classes, was not without its cliques.
    Jess, Elizabeth, and Denise were the only three girls in her grade level. The other students, mostly children of more-recent immigrants, had formed close friendships already at their Chinese language pre-school. Jess felt an immediate bond with Elizabeth and Denise. The trio goofed off during classes. After all, they weren’t being graded; they went every Saturday to stay out of their parents’ hair and learn a bit about the language and the culture.
    Jess only went to the language school until seventh grade. She struggled at remembering the hundreds of different characters. It wasn’t as if her parents knew the written forms either, and as long as she could talk to them, she felt okay. She’d only kept going as long as she did because she liked hanging out with Elizabeth and Denise. Elizabeth liked making fun of the other students’ accents in English, at their fashion choices, at how they were clearly “fresh off the boat.” And that criticism didn’t stop with the other students, or fobs, as Elizabeth was quick to call them, but Elizabeth was critical of Jess’ everything, from her hair to the clothes she was wearing.
    Jess was uncomfortable with that, and then one time her mom had been picking her up from the Chinese school with a younger Brendan in the back seat. Brendan was quite precocious but he didn’t care much for fashion; he was wearing three different hats from the colleges that were courting him. Elizabeth was waiting with Jess in the parking lot, and as soon as she spotted Brendan, she started laughing her ass off.
    â€œLook at that kid. Gosh, he looks like such a nerd. What’s up with all those hats?”
    â€œHe is a nerd,” Jess said hotly,