Chapters (77)
- Cover
- Dedication
- 1
- 2
- A Series of Screw-ups: The Chisaki Joan Katsuyama Story, Part I
- 3
- The History of My Beef with Brynn Foer-Preston
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part I
- 8
- 9
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part I
- 10
- 11
- 12
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part II
- 13
- The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part II
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- The Complicated History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Imaginary Relationship with Her Nonexistent Dad
- 20
- 21
- 22
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part III
- 23
- 24
- 25
- A Brief, Backward History of the McAllister Family, as Paraphrased from the San Jose Mercury News
- 26
- 27
- 28
- A Quick and Eerily Relevant History of Asians in America
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part IV
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- A Series of Screw-ups: The Chisaki Joan Katsuyama Story, Part II (Or Maybe It’s a Prequel)
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part III
- 54
- A Note from the Author
- Index of Flowers and their Meanings
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Praise for This Time Will Be Different
- Books by Misa Sugiura
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
“CJ.” Mom puts her hands on my cheeks and gazes into my eyes. “You marched into the office of one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in Silicon Valley and demanded that he pay a million dollars to take his own family’s name off a public building. Trust me. With a nerve like that, you’ll be okay.”
When I get home from school the next day, there’s an unusual arrangement on my desk. It’s a bunch of hawthorn branches: hope. Stems of fennel and a cluster of oak moss: worthiness and healing. It’s all wound around and held together with strands of lace lichen: the bond between mother and child.
I turn it around in my hands. The bright green oak moss contrasts with the pink buds of the hawthorn blossoms. The textures, too, are varied: tickly soft fennel fronds, sharp prickles on the hawthorn branch, tender, tangled lichen. I can tell that Mom made it herself; it’s messy and amateurish and unstable, and there’s no easy way to hold it without getting pricked, or accidentally knocking some of the moss off. But I can feel her whole heart in it, and that’s enough for me.
The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part III
April 2019
McAllister Venture Capital purchases Heart’s Desire from Mimi and Hannah Katsuyama. They name it the Frank Katsuyama Building, after Mimi and Hannah’s father, and make a commitment to use the space exclusively for, and I quote, “companies with members of underrepresented minorities in significant leadership positions, whose products materially improve the lives of others.”
Mimi leaves MVC to start Katsuyama MicroVentures, Hannah locks the doors of Heart’s Desire for the last time, and both of them spend the rest of April at home, driving each other up the wall.
54
BRYNN’S IN THE MERCURY NEWS AGAIN THIS morning, looking stunning in a midnight-blue halter-top gown sparkling with rhinestones. McAllister High School’s first lesbian prom queen didn’t bring a date, but she looks happy anyway, surrounded by a flock of #winners, including a girl with a shy smile and a long chestnut braid woven with wildflowers.
“Looks like you had fun, anyway,” I say to Emily through a bite of chocolate croissant. There weren’t any left in the bakery display case when we got here, but Tim came through with our secret stash from the kitchen.
“I did have fun. You and Owen should have gone.”
“We had our own fun.”