“Welcome, everyone!” Jess says. “Thanks so much for coming out tonight. Pearl Gallery is committed to supporting and uplifting exciting new local artists, and I’m so thrilled to introduce you to the talented person behind the incredible pieces you see tonight: Aria Tang West.”

  Applause. I see Dad holding up his phone. Mom is watching over FaceTime from Geneva; it’s the middle of the night there. Jess holds the microphone out to me, and after a deep breath, I take it.

  * * *

  —

  I’ve probably had too much champagne. I feel the bubbles in me, and I wonder if defending my dissertation will feel this good. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Tasha all night and now she finds me, pulling me over to A Scatter of Light, and we stand still together, in front of it.

  “What’s the title mean?” she asks me.

  “It’s not literal,” I say.

  She gives me a patient look. “Humor me.”

  “Okay, so think about the sunset. Sometimes it’s red, right? But the sun is actually white—it’s all colors at once. If you were looking at the sun in space, it would be white. We see the sunset as red because particles in the air like dust or smog scatter away the blues and violets, so we only see red.”

  “Okay,” she says, and I can tell she wants more.

  “What I’m saying is—” I hesitate. I don’t like to explain this stuff to people. I just want them to see a painting and experience how it makes them feel, but Tasha is my best friend. So I say, “The sunset is beautiful to us but in many ways we’re seeing an illusion. The sun isn’t red. It isn’t even setting.”

  “But it’s still beautiful,” she says.

  “It is. But what are we not seeing?”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Blue?”

  I laugh. “Don’t think about it too hard.”

  She points up at the painting. “What are those pieces of paper?”

  “They’re from a postcard.”

  “What postcard?”

  “A postcard of this band I used to know.”

  “What band?”

  I don’t tell her. Instead I say, “Remember when you visited me in California the summer after high school?”

  She looks suspicious. “Yeah.”

  “That’s when I started working on this piece.”

  She stares at me, and then I see her get it. She puts her hand on my arm. “Is this the painting you showed me in your grandma’s studio?”

  “It’s under there.”

  I’ve buried it beneath layers of paint, but I can still see it in faint outline because I know where to look. The edges of the roofing paper. That bleeding egg, still marked by the impasto. For years, I had no idea what to do with the painting. It stayed rolled up in one closet after another. I thought about throwing it away so many times, but I could never let it go. It was still speaking to me. I just had to learn how to hear it.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I began thinking about this novel in 2012, and I started writing it in 2013, which means it’s been alive in my imagination for ten years. It had a difficult journey from my mind to the printed page, but every step along the way I’ve had the support of my best friends, who read a very early (terrible) draft and always remembered that this book existed, even when I thought it would never get published. Aimee, Betty, Cameron, Hye-John, Lesly, Nicole, Sarah, Sarah, and Vincent: This book is for you.

  For those who are familiar with Marin County, California, I’d like to acknowledge that the In-N-Out in this book doesn’t exist in reality. I moved the In-N-Out from Strawberry Village in Mill Valley three miles north to the Trader Joe’s shopping center in Greenbrae. I claim poetic license.

  George Dutton generously donated to the Kidlit Against Anti-AAPI Racism Auction in 2021 and won the opportunity to have a character named after a loved one in my next book; that character is Talia Dutton, named after his daughter. The character of Sarah Franco was inspired by my friend Sarah Pecora, who also named her.

  Thanks to Laura Langlie, who started this book on its publication path. Thanks to M-E Girard, Karla Yancy, Anushka Fernandopulle, Kate Cochrane, and Laura Chandra for their guidance on medical issues, Buddhism, and Martha’s Vineyard. Any errors are mine. Thanks to Cindy Pon, who waited very patiently to read this! Thanks to artist Feifei Ruan for translating my vision of Aria’s journey into a beautiful cover image. Thanks to my agent, Michael Bourret, who always helps me see things in perspective. Thanks to my editor, Andrew Karre, who somehow understood what I was trying to do with this book even before I did.

  As always, thanks to my wife, Amy, who has endured my angst about this book for a decade and truly deserves a prize.

  CREDITS

  DUTTON BOOKS AND PENGUIN YOUNG READERS GROUP

  ART AND DESIGN

  Anna Booth

  CONTRACTS

  Anton Abrahamsen

  COPYEDITORS AND PROOFREADERS

  Rob Farren

  Anne Heausler

  Jacqueline Hornberger

  EDITOR

  Andrew Karre

  MANAGING EDITOR

  Natalie Vielkind

  MARKETING

  James Akinaka

  Christina Colangelo

  Brianna Lockhart

  Felicity Vallence

  Shannon Spann

  PRODUCTION MANAGER

  Vanessa Robles

  PUBLICITY

  Elyse Marshall

  PUBLISHER

  Julie Strauss-Gabel

  PUBLISHING MANAGER

  Melissa Faulner

  SUBSIDIARY RIGHTS

  Micah Hecht

  Kim Ryan

  SALES

  Jill Bailey

  Andrea Baird

  Maggie Brennan

  Trevor Bundy

  Nicole Davies

  Tina Deniker

  John Dennany

  Cletus Durkin

  Eliana Ferreri

  Becky Green

  Sheila Hennessey

  Todd Jones

  Doni Kay

  Steve Kent

  Mary McGrath

  Debra Polansky

  Colleen Conway Ramos

  Mary Raymond

  Jennifer Ridgway

  Judy Samuels

  Nicole White

  Allan Winebarger

  Dawn Zahorik

  SCHOOL AND LIBRARY MARKETING AND PROMOTION

  Venessa Carson

  Judith Huerta

  Carmela Iaria

  Trevor Ingerson

  Summer Ogata

  Megan Parker

  Rachel Wease

  LISTENING LIBRARY

  Rebecca Waugh

  DYSTEL, GODERICH & BOURRET

  Lauren E. Abramo

  Michael Bourret

  Andrew Dugan

  Nataly Gruender

  Gracie Freeman Lifschutz

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Malinda Lo is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of several young adult novels, including most recently Last Night at the Telegraph Club. Her novel Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and was a Kirkus Best Book for Children and Teens. She has been a three-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Malinda's nonfiction has been published by the New York Times Book Review, NPR, the Huffington Post, The Toast, the Horn Book, and in many anthologies. She lives in Massachusetts with her wife.

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  Malinda Lo, A Scatter of Light

 

 

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