Love from a to Z

ZAYNEB
SATURDAY, MARCH 9
ODDITY:
UNPREDICTABLE CREATURES
E
XHIBIT
A: T
HE THREE
E
MMAS
I met yesterday.
Emma Zhang, Emma Domingo, and Emma Phillips. Black straight hair
with short bangs, dark brown curly hair with no bangs, and reddish-brown
wavy hair with long bangs.
The three Emmas were different from one another but strangely similar,
too. They had clear skin and lengthy limbs. Even the shortest one, Emma
Domingo, had long limbs on her petite frame. How?
They were also similar in mannerisms. Getting excited at the same things
and then, just like that, without a glance at the others, becoming suddenly
subdued in unison.
It was hard to know when the switch would occur, so I’d decided to
observe carefully, without once getting excited. (I, myself, have a tendency
to get easily excited about everything, so with this type of crowd, I stand
out.) I figured if I played it cool the whole time, I could learn what got them
abuzz. (And then I could disappear into them, peacefully.)
I learned it was mostly their favorite movies and games, online and in
real life.
The Emmas weren’t the only ones like this. Most of the “young people”
Auntie Nandy thought I should meet at the party were the same. Like they
had an unwritten code organizing them.
Maybe it was an international-school thing.
I was getting into their rhythm, laughing along, sharing along, and
shutting-up along, until the girl finding and sharing videos on her phone,
Madison, paused a clip and said, “Amazing. I’m so glad I saw this again. I
need to bring the whole outfit back to college with me. Connor and I got

---

Coachella tickets, guys, and I’m rocking this, even though it’s fake-shit
DIY.”
She passed her phone to Emma Phillips, who hooted on sighting
whatever it was and passed it to Emma Domingo, who did a cringe-smile
and passed it to Emma Zhang, who said, “WHAT? Oh God, that’s so
Coachella but also . . . DON’T, Madison,” before passing it to me.
My anticipatory smile fell.
In the frozen video clip, Madison had on a headdress—a handmade one
by the looks of it—with big feathers arranged in layers and a long train of
feathers falling over one shoulder onto a see-through black shirt, under
which she wore a colorful, beaded tank top. Her cheeks were vividly
marked with makeup in an attempt to replicate face paint. I frowned. “Um,
are you indigenous?”
I’d heard a slight Australian accent whenever she spoke, but I couldn’t
assume she didn’t have an indigenous background. A North American one,
I mean.
Emma Domingo shook her head at me and whispered, “She’s not Native
American.”
“I made that myself. With expensive feathers my dad brought me back
from a business trip. And it took me two entire-ass weeks. Remember, guys,
for our fake Coachella party?” Madison took the phone back and smiled.
“Connor, how cool would this look when we’re at the real thing, huh?”
She passed the phone to a guy with clothes that screamed I want to be
noticed in the worst possible way. They actually looked like brother and
sister, this guy and Madison, with similar coloring—skin and hair. Except
his hair was a bushy brown, and hers was a thin, stringy brown.
Something about the way he laughed when he saw the outfit enraged me.
I swallowed my anger, remembering this was my first day with these
people.
But then . . . maybe I’ll never see them again.
“I mean, are you of native background. Like, is that part of your culture,
or . . .” I paused, cautioning myself, Remember—you came here in peace.
But the three Emmas were waiting for me to finish speaking, even though
Madison ignored me, leaning back into another guy, who immediately
draped both his arms across her shoulders. “Were you using someone else’s
culture to have fun? Because you know it’s sacred, right?”

---

If I had been back home, I would have added more to this and been
spicier, been louder, but here, surrounded by people I didn’t know, in an
attempt not to rock boats, I said it like I was talking to a fragile, elderly
person I’d been ordered to show respect to.
Kavi wouldn’t have recognized me. Ayaan would have given me a long,
hard look.
All it did here, my lukewarm tackling of Madison, was get me further
ignored.
Madison took her phone back from Connor, closed the video, and flicked
at her screen. Snuggling into the guy behind her, she held it up and snapped
a picture of them both.
I looked at the Emmas. Emma Zhang widened her eyes at me and then
called me over to her, and Emma Domingo looped her arm through mine.
Then, like nothing had happened, the Emmas and I took pictures together
with our backs to the water.
I’d melted into them.
It was the weirdest thing, and a part of my brain had a thought, as I
smiled and shifted poses serenely for Emma Phillips’s phone: If this is what