I skipped lunch that day, too nervous to eat. I wasn't the only one – the atmosphere in the whole school was weird, the air tense with self-conscious looks and laden with accusative confrontations. Every second girl was stopped in the hallway and reprimanded because of her outfit. The skirts were too short, their clothes too black, their stomachs too visible. Chris, a senior on the yearbook staff who was supposed to be the editor-in-chief this year, loudly declared the whole operation 'a fascist dictatorship'. She was immediately taken to the principal's office, dragging her feet and rolling her eyes the entire time, scowling at anyone who dared look at her. The majority silently took their punishment, unwilling to risk detention on the very first day.

The whole thing was a bit unsettling. I could sort of understand dress codes – they always assured us it was for our own protection. The world was a dangerous place, and the school was supposed to be a playground, a sequence of trials and tribulations meant to prepare us for the impending adulthood. But as the teachers' eyes stripped each and every one of us, I couldn't help but feel vulnerable. Exposed.

Like my body wasn't really my own.

After my last period – Biology taught by Ms. Morris, who'd spent half the time gushing about her allegedly handsome divorce lawyer – I left the school grounds with lighter feet. Or wheels, to be exact, since I drove off in my 2019 Honda Fit. That car was my baby, and I'm not ashamed to say I treated it as such. Its flashy blue exterior and sleek black interior made for a perfect combination, but what I loved most was that the front seats folded back. If I reclined the back seats and threw a blanket over myself, it basically served as a comfy makeshift bed.

I'd never made use of that neat feature, though. Sometimes I fantasized about all the road trips I could take in this car: just sliding behind the wheel, driving off with radio music on loud, and taking Interstate 10 to LA with just enough gas in the tank to make sure there'd be no need to stop. As luck would have it, despite having had the car for ten months already, I'd never even left Phoenix.

I hit the left turn signal and steered onto my street, thinking about my sixteenth birthday and the day I'd first seen it on our driveway. Dumbfounded and convinced it was nothing but a hallucination, I tried to blink it away. Obviously, when I saw Mom laughing at my bewilderment, I threw my arms around her neck and thanked her about ten million times. "Happy birthday, baby," she said, laughing and wiping off the happy tears. We both had the same image in our heads: me, starting elementary school, wearing second-hand sneakers and an oversized t-shirt, interpreting every passing kid's smile as a mocking sneer.

I shook that memory out of my head as I slowly pulled up and parked in reverse. We were the middle class now; the upper middle class, even. My mom was the CEO of Longevity Enterprise, a company she'd started all by herself when I was eleven. Its main brand consisted of high-quality protein bars, foods that catered to every contemporary diet's particular needs. Gluten-free, Paleo, Keto – you name it, Longevity had it. Unlike most similar products, these were based on all-natural ingredients and, surprisingly, didn't taste like rubber. Before we knew it, our three-person family moved from a one-bedroom apartment to a three-story with five bedrooms and a pool. I guess people really liked knowing what they were eating.

I longingly glanced at the pool now, its calm, bright blue surface glistening in the sunlight like a translucent spiderweb. I wished I had time for a swim, but Julia had already started her shift at Canary, and Amber's Yearbook Committee meeting wasn't going to drag on that long. So instead of launching myself into the cool, clear water, I wistfully sighed and escaped the heat by scurrying through my front door.

A gargantuan yucca welcomed me as always, her sword-shaped leaves pointing toward the collage photo frames of our small family. I carefully sniffed the air. Something smelled wonderful inside, as if our regular air freshener had been replaced by one scented like lemon crinkle cookies. As soon I dumped my shoes for a pair of flip-flops, I heard a noise coming from the other part of the house.

"Mom? Is that you?"

"I'm in the kitchen!"

I joined her, and I was welcomed by an unforeseen sight – my mom, who had made a habit of working eighty hours a week, who had bought a house with two guestrooms that nobody had ever slept in, that mom was now leaning against the spacious kitchen island, wearing a silly "License to bake" apron and stirring a red, fruity-smelling concoction.

My first thought was that my mom had a twin she never told me about. But of course that wasn't possible. My mom was an only child.

Unless...?

As I got closer, suspiciously looking for black buttons in her eye sockets in case I'd ventured into a Henry Selick movie, she stopped and took the electric stirrer out. She poured some of the drink in a tall glass, dropped in a generous amount of ice cubes, decorated it with fresh mint leaves, and then offered it to me.

"Strawberry lemonade?"

"Thanks," I replied and cautiously took a sip. It was good, tangy, though a bit too sweet for my taste.

"What do you think?" my mom asked and put her elbows on the island, giving me her full attention. After so many years of coming home to an empty house, it was certainly a strange feeling. I swallowed the lump in my throat before replying.

"Cut back on the sugar, maybe?"

"There's no sugar in it. Well, no added sugar, anyway."

She saw my questioning look and smiled.

"These strawberries are a new, genetically modified strain. The research facility where they grew them is finally ready to release it to the market, and they offered us an exclusive contract."

"Sounds cool. But can you call GMO strawberries a natural ingredient?"

"All foods you eat today have been tampered with at some point, Liz," she said, sounding a bit annoyed. My mom never had much patience for anyone, and her own daughter certainly wasn't an exception.

My slip was quickly forgotten. She typed something into her phone, and when I leaned in, I noticed it was her planner app. I only saw the "add more lemons" note before she put it away, again paying me attention.

"So, do you think—"

Her question was interrupted by a loud, beeping sound of the oven timer. She quickly put on a pair of kitchen mittens and took out a tray of piping hot cookies. I was right about the smell – there were about two dozen perfectly round crinkle cookies on that tray, the pink and yellow embracing each other like the yin-yang symbol. My mom inspected them, visibly satisfied.

"You're home early," I said, finally addressing the elephant in the room. I took another sip of the weird lemonade. The taste didn't bother me so much anymore.

"Not for long. I have to get back to the office in twenty minutes." she gave me a pleading look, and I already knew what was coming. "Can you take care of Maddie tonight?"

I liked taking care of my sister. Truth be told, thanks to Mom's workaholic tendencies and her constantly crazy schedule, I spent more time with Maddie than anyone else. I still tucked her in bed almost every night, often reading her a bedtime story until she fell asleep. She had recently developed a huge interest in Grimms' Fairy Tales, which were, as their own surname suggested, a bit too grim for seven-year-olds. Yet Maddie kept begging me to read them to her, her blue puppy eyes as wide and round as two coffee saucers, so I often relented. I convinced myself I was simply introducing her to parts of our heritage, seeing our late Grandma had been German, but Mom probably wouldn't have been so thrilled if she knew.

Still, liking my sister and wanting to socialize with people my own age were two entirely separate matters.

"I'm sorry, Mom, but I've already promised Julia we would meet at Canary," I gave her an apologetic smile. She quickly got rid of her crestfallen expression and started putting the cookies onto one of our fancy ceramic plates.

"Well, okay. I guess I could ask Mrs. Sánchez."

Mrs. Sánchez was our old neighbor who, even though she loved Maddie, hadn't been her biggest fan ever since Maddie tried to take her cat's temperature. Rectally.

In Maddie's defense, it was during her 'I want to be a vet when I grow up' phase.

"That'd be great," I smiled, downing the rest of the lemonade. I grabbed a still-warm cookie and jumped off the high stool, already heading to the door.

"Come back by nine! Mrs. Sánchez likes to go to sleep by nine-thirty!"

I raised my hand and waved at her without looking back.

⁂

When I arrived at the coffee shop, Julia and Amber were already there, seemingly deep in conversation.

Ever since Julia started working at Canary, it had become our haven of sorts. Her boss was somewhat eccentric but indulgent Ms. Baggs, who wanted every drink to be accompanied by a fortune cookie, but who didn't really mind if her favorite employee spent hours talking to her friends. As long as she did her job and forced us to pay our tab, of course. As I dumped my keys and phone on the round glass tabletop, Julia gave me a short "Hi, Liz, be back in a sec" before leaving to take an order from the patrons two rows down.

"Done with the yearbook so soon?" I asked Amber as I made myself comfortable in the velvety plush seat.

She shook her head in annoyance.

"Honestly, if it weren't for Naomi, it'd be fun," she scoffed, adding extra sugar to her tea despite the crystalized granules which had accumulated at the bottom of her cup. "But it seems that she's replacing Chris as the editor-in-chief, so my life is officially a nightmare now."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I were."

Amber sighed, finally satisfied with the sweetness after the third sugar packet, and stirred her hot drink.

"But... why?" I asked, still looking at her diabetes-inducing atrocity. Chris had been the managing editor for two years, and it was hard to imagine anyone else doing a better job.

"Well, it's just rumors, but apparently Chris cussed out Principal Jeffrey and landed herself in detention until Halloween. Of course, who could be a better replacement for the position than his own precious daughter?"

"You're kidding." My mouth dropped open as I repeated myself. "She wasn't even on the staff last year. Can he even do that?"

"Turns out he can," she gave me a sour smile as her hands cupped the mug. "So yeah, Naomi decided to promote Charlotte to a managing editor, and now there's no chance I'll ever do anything else but copy and proofreading."

"Talk about nepotism."

Amber took a sip of her drink in response, then quickly put it down.

"Ouch. Hot."

"That's the way we make tea around here," Julia retorted, handing me my favorite cold brew coffee spritzer. Ice cubes in the shape of tiny fish floated on the top, still unmelted, and I watched them as they slowly lost their form. Amber was fascinated by their dance too, but for a different reason.

"That's outrageous. Why does she get a cold drink?"

Julia grinned, showing all of her pearly whites.

"I like her more."

Before Amber could react to that, Julia took a glass of ice tea from her tray and put it in front of her.

"We can switch if you want to."

"It's fine. The AC's blasting here, anyway."

Satisfied, Julia sat down in one of the chairs, mounting it like it was a horse.

"So, what's up with that new dress code? Did someone put a stick up Jeffrey's ass or what?"

Amber mockingly put a finger on her chin, pretending she was thinking about it.

"Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's always been there."

"But these rules seriously take the cake," I shook my head. "They're pulling students aside between classes on purpose. It feels like we're smuggling in drugs or something."

"They're treating us worse than that," Amber scowled. "I sit behind Brandon in Calc, and I swear the whole classroom smelled of pot afterward. But did anyone say a word?"

"I'm guessing not," Julia pondered. Before Amber could confirm, the bells on the entrance door rang, and Grace came in. She took the last unoccupied chair and let her bag softly land on the floor.

"What's the topic?"

"Jeffrey and his new pompous rules," Amber replied, moving her stuff away so Grace's chair could fit.

"I'm sure he's just strutting his feathers as usual," I said. "He can't keep going with it for longer than a week."

Everyone nodded in agreement except Grace.

"They dress-coded me today," she confessed in an unusually high-pitch voice.

"What?"

"Yup. I got a written warning and everything."

All three of us stopped what we were doing and looked at her. The expression on her face was somber. Hurt.

"He even made me wear that stupid, oversized jersey. It looked like I dressed up for Halloween."

"But for what, exactly?" Julia scanned Grace from head to toe, raising her eyebrow. "You're wearing pink capris and a simple blue t-shirt. How could that offend anyone?"

"Maybe certain fashionistas," Amber joked, her hand reaching for another bag of sugar. It stopped midway when we gave her the "really?" look.

"Apparently, my top is too formfitting." Grace shrugged. "I mean, I get it. I wear 28F bras."

She stretched her t-shirt to prove the point and laughed, but Julia didn't find it funny.

"So what, you should start wearing tents instead?" she fumed. "What's wrong with them?"

Grace looked down and fiddled with her bracelets.

"Rob says that they might be right. That the other guys might fetishize me as a cute little Asian with big boobs, and that it'd be better if I wore some bigger clothes."

"Grace. Look at me." Julia took her hands into her own and waited until Grace did what asked. "Rob is a nincompoop."

She laughed at that, her shoulders immediately looking less tense.

"What's a nincompoop?" Amber asked.

"The sixteenth-century version of a bonehead."

"Well, Rob's definitely the twenty-first-century version of one. Why are you still dating him again?"

Grace took the menu, suddenly very interested in its contents.

"What's a 'Golden Milk Latte'?"

"You wouldn't like it," Julia replied and gently took the menu from her hands. "I'll bring you a mocha."

"Thanks."

We sat in silence for a bit as Julia left the table to make our drink, neither Amber nor I knowing what to say. Grace typed a quick message and sent it in the meantime, most likely replying to Rob. It was a bit weird, having a close friend with a steady boyfriend. It felt like he was always there, looming over and judging, even if he was almost never physically present. A semi-new member of our group who never participated in our conversations, but whose own time with Grace now frequently overlapped with our time with Grace.

But Grace wasn't that weak-willed to make a boy the center of her world, and she did still spend a lot of her afternoons with us, so I had to give her some credit there.

When Julia came back and handed Grace her drink, the first thing she noticed was the fortune cookie that rested on the saucer. Her face beamed.

"Your boss is still handing out these?"

Julia shrugged.

"She claims that it makes customers happy. Judging by your face, I'd say she's right."

"They're so adorable. Like little bird wings," Grace said as she took one in her hands. "Did you know that they originated in Japan?"

"Really?" I asked. "I thought they were Chinese."

She shook her head.

"They call them fortune tea cakes there, and they're served with hot tea." Grace nodded at Amber's steaming mug. "You know how Japan has a lot of shrines and everything? Well, since not everybody could get to them, they came up with the concept of short inspirational messages. They wrote them on small pieces of paper, stuck them in a cookie, and voilà."

"But why do they serve them in Chinese restaurants then?"

"Someone liked the idea," Grace shrugged. "And it was something new to America, so it got accepted as tradition pretty fast. Funny how that goes, right?"

As we all digested the newly acquired information, Grace tore open the cookie and read its message. "'The person you desire most feels the same about you.' How cute."

"Good thing you're dating him then, huh?" Amber teased, and the pink color of Grace's cheeks deepened even more.

"Let's see what they all say." Julia reached for her own cookie, tore open the plastic wrapper, and snapped it in half. Her eyes darted from left to right as she read it and laughed.

"What does yours say?" I asked.

"Apparently, me and my 'wife will be very happy together.' That's cool. I hope it's that girl that gave me her number today."

"Which girl?"

"A new patron. We're going on a date on Saturday."

Grace almost choked on her mocha while Amber's eyes widened. She spoke first while Grace was trying to catch her breath.

"That's awesome! And it makes so much sense now!"

"You like girls?" Grace stammered, her voice slightly hoarse. "But you never told us!"

"Didn't I? Well, you know now."

I took a sip of my espresso spritzer, the tiniest part of me happy Julia had told me first. The few-hour advantage I had over them allowed me to shift my focus to her date instead of her sexuality, so I quickly chided in.

"So, a date? Is she cute?"

"Very." she grinned, her eyes sparkling. "Her name is Willow, and she's a senior just down the road."

"Is it wise to go on a date with someone you barely know?" Grace furrowed her brows. "I mean, what do you even know about her?"

"I know that she takes her coffee black."

"Great. According to an article I read last week, that increases her chances of being a psycho," Grace mumbled, frowning even further. Her unusually sassy remark only made Julia's smile go wider.

"Awesome. At least she'll be fun to date."

Amber and I exchanged an awkward look. Neither one of us knew what was going on, but we knew better than to ask.

"Finally!" Amber exclaimed, proudly waving around a small piece of crumpled paper. "I've been trying to get it out for ages. Look, I didn't break the shell!"

Julia slowly blinked. With her mouth open round, she looked like a very confused fish.

"Why would you even want that?"

"Just for the challenge."

Amber unfolded the paper and started reading it. Her excitement quickly petered out as she turned it toward us so that we could read it ourselves.

The fortune said: 'About time I got out of that cookie.'

We all cracked up at once. The laughter felt genuine, unforced – our bodies shook in unison as our minds were blissfully unaware of other patrons' glances, the raw emotion engulfing us like an untamed tide. It was one of those moments that I would remember years later, usually when drinking tea or baking cookies or eating Chinese food, and the memory would be followed by a reminiscing smile. And if anyone else glimpsed the nostalgia in the crow's feet around my eyes and asked me what was funny, I wouldn't be able to put it in words. "It's nothing," I'd say, shaking my head and ordering my senses to stay in the present. And then, hours later, when I would finally stay alone with my thoughts, I would send a message to the only people who had shared that blissful feeling with me.

"Do you remember?"

"How could I not?"

Now in the café, while I was still young and recovering from the hiccupping outburst of guffaw, Grace nudged the last fortune cookie toward me and grinned.

"Come on. Read yours."

I split the plastic packaging open and took out the small cookie. It was already cracked, so the message easily slid out when I pinched it between my thumb and my index finger.

I hummed the Star Wars intro tune to raise the anticipation, then I unfolded the fortune and read it out loud. The words made me smile.

"'Welcome the change coming into your life.'"