“Ma’s sick,” said Julie. “Sometimes I think I’m sick too.”

We were on the roof, watching our cigarette smoke billow over Chinatown. I wanted to say something like Do you want to talk or Are you okay, but Julie would think that was stupid.

“That sucks,” I said instead.

We puffed the smoke from our cigarettes. I had only recently learned how to do this without coughing and was still self-conscious about it, but Julie was nine months older than me and had been smoking for nine months longer. She was getting good at it. She smoked a lot.

“Yeah,” said Julie, “it’s kind of shitty.”

Our smoke floated past the roof of the apartment, joining the general haze that hung over Toronto on humid summer evenings. Below us, cars slowly made their way through narrow streets. The neon signs on the Chinatown strip flickered to life like they were box office titles at an old movie theatre. Auntie Xu, who ran the bulk foods store on the ground floor of our walk-up, was shelling peanuts on the sidewalk. Her grandson Jian came out of the store, bringing her the usual evening herbal tea. He looked up at us briefly before heading back inside.

When we were younger, Julie and I used to pretend we were giants on the roof, and Jian would throw us peanuts to satisfy our raging monstrous hunger. Now we pretended we didn’t know him in AP math. 

“I wanna get out of here, Viv.” Julie rested her elbows on the squat wall that guarded the roof’s edges, her hands dangling over the ledge.

“We can go back downstairs,” I said. “Just thought it’d be nice to watch the sunset up here.”

“I don’t mean the roof, dummy. I mean out of Chinatown. Out of Toronto. I wanna go to California. And, I dunno, become a–a speck of sand on Laguna Beach.” She laughed.

“Toronto’s not so bad,” I said. “I mean, school is fine. The people are okay.”

“School is fine, I guess,” sighed Julie. “I dunno.”

It was half past eight and the sun was going down. The smog lit up with streaks of pink and orange. I always liked watching the sunset, even if the skyline blocked a lot of the view. 

“Come on. Let’s watch a movie or something.” Julie tapped the ash out of her cigarette and threw its butt into the street. 

“What do you wanna watch?” I asked her, straightening up. “We could do Leo DiCaprio.”

“Nah,” said Julie, “I’m kind of feeling Patrick Swayze.”

We ended up watching Dirty Dancing at my place. She said we couldn’t go next door to hers because her dad didn’t want to be disturbed while working. This generally meant he had a woman over who wasn’t his wife.

Mom was asleep on the couch and I didn’t want to bother her since she’d been at work all day, so we dragged the TV into my room. Dad made us popcorn. We closed the door so he wouldn’t see us watching the sex scene. We were both only half awake by the time the credits rolled around. 

Julie and I hung out again a few days later. Mrs. Chen had seen us roaming the streets and insisted that we take some fruit from her stand. 

“Eat some now, and bring some home for your parents,” she had said. “It’s been good business lately.”

Julie’s Mandarin was better than mine, so she said thank you for the both of us, telling Mrs. Chen that her fruit stand was the best fruit stand in all of Chinatown. Mrs. Chen had laughed and said that if we liked her fruit so much, one of us should marry her son. 

Now we were sitting on the curb, sucking on strawberries. Julie was in a good mood.

“I think strawberries are the epitome of God’s creation,” I said, wiping away the red juice that had trickled down my chin.

“Oh, really?” Julie laughed. “How come?”

“Well, for one, they’re lucky red. That never hurts.” I slipped another one between my lips. Julie opened her mouth, and I tossed one into hers. “The good ones are bite-sized. And in the summer, they’re the sweetest fruit I’ve ever tasted. And they have a very nice shape.”

“Nice shape, huh?” Julie shook her head. “I think you’re wrong. I think, if God created one thing with intention, it was tangerines.”

“Well, tangerines are lucky too,” I said.

“I wish Toronto wasn’t so crowded. If we had more greenspace out here, I would grow a tangerine tree.”

“I’m sure we could grow one in a pot inside.”

Julie chuckled. “Nah, it’s not really the same.”

“If you want, when you move to California, you could have a whole farm,” I suggested.

“What would I do with a whole farm of tangerines, dummy?”

I looked at her oddly. “Eat them.”

Julie burst out laughing. She popped a strawberry into her mouth. The breeze smelled like marinated pork and red bean buns. 

“You know what?” said Julie. “You’ve inspired me, Viv. That’s going to be my new dream. I’m going to live in California and have a tangerine farm, and eat all the tangerines I could possibly consume.”

I liked it when Julie was in a good mood.

“You’ll be there too, right?”

“Where, at your stupid tangerine farm?” I said.

Julie shouldered me. “Sure. As much as I’d like to, I can’t eat all those tangerines by myself. And you’re my best friend, so of course I’d want you with me. We can be joint tangerine farm owners.”

We packed up our strawberries, saving half for our parents like Mrs. Chen had told us to. We stopped at the old arcade on the edge of Spadina Avenue and spent two hours trying to beat each other at Street Fighter II.

That night, I asked my mom if we had any tangerines left. 

“Silly girl, tangerines aren’t in season right now. But I’ve got watermelon in the fridge if you’re hungry for fruit.”

There were shouts on the other side of the wall that night; slams that shook my bed. I wished more than ever that tangerines were in season.

I knocked on Julie’s door the next day and was met by her father, half-awake and hungover. I asked where Julie was. He grunted that he didn’t know—she’d probably gone out, and how was he supposed to keep track of that little shit when she was running wild anyway? I balled up my fists and wished my father hadn’t gone to work yet, so he could put Julie’s dad in his place.

I had to go to Mr. You’s house for piano lessons that day. I had begged my parents to let me take a break from piano during the summer, but they wouldn’t have it. I was not a good pianist. But something good did come out of that lesson—and it wasn’t my sorry rendition of Chopin’s “Nocturne No. 2.”

Mr. You’s living room was right beside his kitchen, and there was a bowl of fruit on the counter. And sitting in that bowl of fruit-like spheres of manna were eight tangerines. They weren’t very ripe, but they were perfectly round. I asked Mr. You if I could have one after the lesson. He was too frustrated with my lack of virtuosity to care. I meekly thanked him and grabbed one of the tangerines. As I walked back home, I peeled the fruit, then dug into its flesh. The pulp was tough and not very juicy, but I found what I was looking for: the seeds. There were two of them inside. Perfect.

I went back to our apartment and, because I didn’t want to see Julie’s dad again, asked Auntie Xu if she had seen Julie today. She said that Julie had returned about an hour ago and was probably in the usual spot, so I went up to the roof. The heat waves made the skyline liquid. Julie had a book in hand and was lying on her stomach, looking like a Chinese Kate Moss.

I peered over her shoulder to see what she was reading. The first line said Common wisdom asserts that the vampire infects victims through its bite.

“Vampires, huh?”

Julie flipped on her back. “Yep.” She was wearing grape-tinted sunglasses, but I could still tell she had been crying. 

“Just how long have you been staring at the first page of that book?”

“Just started it,” she said.

I gave her a look.

“Why the hell are you up here, Vivian?”

“I just wanted to see you,” I said. And, because she knew I didn’t like it when people used my full name, I added, “And it’s not like you own this roof, anyways.”

“I don’t,” said Julie. “But I own my feelings. And I don’t really feel like seeing you.”

I sat down, trying to be unphased by her comment. “I once read a story about this werewolf. A werewolf who fell in love with a witch.”

“I’m not in the mood to talk, Viv. I’m trying to read this book.”

I laughed. “You don’t even like reading.”

Julie threw her hands up, the book falling face down on the concrete beside her. “Well, apparently I like reading about vampires. So.” She went to the corner of the roof and groped around for a bit, looking for the cigarettes and lighter we had stashed in one of the cracks. She found the packet and lit one up.

I watched her blow smoke into the sky. “You know they say those kill you?”

Julie took off her sunglasses just to roll her eyes at me. I was right. She had been crying. “You smoke all the time, Viv,” she said.

“I smoke because you smoke,” I replied.

“No, Viv. You smoke because you want to look cool. I smoke because it calms me down.”

“Come on, quit trying to be so brooding. I know you smoke because you want to look cool, too.”

“You don’t know why I smoke.”

“Fine, I don’t know why. Whatever. Let’s just drop it, okay?”

Julie took a drag of her cigarette. “Whatever you want.”

“Besides, I brought you something.” I scooted towards her. 

Julie looked at me skeptically. “Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘Why’? Because I was thinking of you. Come on, hold out your hand.”

“You gonna kiss it or something?”

“Hold out your hand, stupid.”

Julie reluctantly held out her free hand. I took the now-dry seeds from my pocket and placed them in her palm. I counted four car honks in the silence.

“What the hell is this?” she finally asked. 

“Tangerine seeds,” I said. “You know, so you can start a tangerine farm. Don’t worry, they weren’t in my mouth or anything.”

Julie stared at me.

“I know it won’t be the same, but there’s that old garden Auntie Lin has on her balcony, and I’m sure she’d let us use it. She’s always saying she’s too old to tend to it herself, anyways.”

Julie kept on glaring at me, tears slowly welling into her eyes. She rolled the seeds between her fingers. And then she straightened up and, continuing to look at me, threw them over the roof. We watched as they fell into the street below. 

I lost my patience. “What was that!”

“I don’t want your fucking tangerine seeds.”

“Julie–”

“I don’t need you to try and make me feel better all the time, Vivian.”

“That’s not what I was doing.”

“But you were! That’s what you always do. You come up to the roof when you know things are shitty and you do all these nice things, trying to get me to feel better. But sometimes people don’t want to feel better, you know? Sometimes you just need to let people steep in their shit for however long they need to steep and leave them alone.”

She was up now and pacing the roof, and I got up too. I couldn’t deal with her anymore. “Okay. Okay, I’m sorry for trying to be a good friend, Julie. I’m so sorry for knowing your dad is a cheater and your mom is depressed, for hearing frying pans get thrown against your wall every night, and wanting to make you feel better. My bad, Julie!”

Julie swiped at her eyes. She shoved me, hard. “You’re not allowed to talk about my family like that. It’s my family, not yours.”

“I just want to help.” My voice had become high-pitched and whiny. “You’re not being treated right. I just–I want to help you.”

Julie was shaking. She retreated to the corner again and chucked her cigarette over the ledge. Her rough voice floated out above the two- and three-story buildings. She wasn’t really speaking to me when she said it. She was speaking to Chinatown. “Fuck this, you know? I just–I wish I was in California, or New York, living the life I wanted to live, going to parties and shit, and not stuck here with streets that never stop smelling like pork and satellite dishes that are always broken, and not knowing if your mom will catapult herself off the roof tomorrow, and going to school with all these stupid people, and having the smoke cover any good view you’ll ever have, and–and…” She spun around to face me, tears streaming down her face.

Her next words were a whisper that immediately disappeared into the smog. “Why do you love people who hurt you so bad?”

Julie took a shaky breath and picked up her vampire book. She stalked to the door, and I was left shivering in the sun’s murky warmth. I wasn’t feeling very hungry for dinner, even though my dad had cooked the tofu I really liked, and went to bed while the sun was still up. It was dark by the time I woke up again, hearing noises through my open window–the usual car noises, the distant sound of late-night karaoke from buildings across the street. And sniffling. The analog clock read two-fifteen.

I climbed out of bed and shuffled to the window. There was a figure crouched on the sidewalk, a flashlight in hand. 

I squinted. “Julie?”

My friend looked up at me. 

“Julie, what are you doing?”

“I can’t find them,” Julie responded.

I rubbed my eyes. “Can’t find what?”

She was shaking. “The tangerine seeds.”

“They’re probably already gone,” I said. “Like a bird came and ate them or something.”

“Birds don’t eat tangerine seeds.”

“How would you know?” I said. “Wait there. I’m coming down.”

I grabbed the flashlight from the kitchen, then slipped out the door and down the stairs. The night had turned the city cool. You couldn’t really see the stars; the streetlights were too bright.

“I checked all the sidewalk cracks already,” said Julie. “You check by the street.”

We spent a half hour scrutinizing the ground.

“We can’t start a tangerine farm without the seeds,” said Julie.

“I thought you wanted to start one in California,” I said.

“Screw California.”

We searched for another twenty minutes before deciding to call it quits.

“Hey!” A voice above us called. We looked up to see Jian, his round head peeking out a few windows away. “Whatever you’re doing, can you do it with your mouths shut? You’re waking up the whole building.”

We were just about to go back inside when Julie swung her flashlight around and pointed to a speck on the corner of the front doorstep. “Wait, look!” 

We both ran over to inspect the culprit speck. I couldn’t see it very well in the shadows, but it seemed to be the silhouette of a tangerine seed.

“Let’s plant it, right now.”

So I ran back to my apartment and found an old cooking pot, and ran back downstairs to meet Julie, who was cradling the seed in her palm. We scraped together some dirt that had gathered at the corners of the building and planted the seed right there.

“I’m sorry it’s in a pot and not in an open field,” I said.

Julie shook her head. “We can transplant it later. It’ll be the first tree on the farm.”

We set the pot on my windowsill and watered it faithfully, waiting for the seed to grow. June turned into July, and the seed sprouted two small leaves. July turned into August, and August turned into our sophomore year of high school. On some loud nights, Julie would appear at my door with a toothbrush and a pillow. We would sprawl across my bed and watch shows about high school love triangles and surfers on Malibu Beach.

It was only when our sprout began to flower, its green bud turning a deep shade of yellow, that we discovered that we had in fact planted a raw sunflower seed from Auntie Xu’s bulk food store. 

We sat on my bed, dumbfounded, and watched our seed grow over the months—watched as the plant’s roots broke through the dirt, as it sprouted tendrils that spilled over the pot and slipped between our fingers, spread into my kitchen, into Julie’s apartment, as it used its petals to hold Julie’s mother on dark nights. Watched as, one year later, its bright yellow head grew a mouth and got up the courage to insist that Julie’s father pack his bags. 

The seeds from our sunflower blew through my window and, carried by smoke and car fumes, landed in the city—wedged themselves into sidewalk cracks and below heating grates and came to rest on restaurant rooftops. And soon enough, there were a million sunflowers blooming all over Chinatown.