Loveboat, Taipei

by Abigail Hing Wen

  Sophie plugs mini-speakers into her phone. The opening beats vibrate her desk and I resist an urge to stomp in time to them, like I would in my room back home. She unfurls her sheet over her mattress, rattling off the names of musicals she’s seen live on Broadway. I’ve only seen The Lion King, on a class field trip to Manhattan. She’s great, but our lives back home must be so different.

  “So, do you have a serious boyfriend?” Sophie asks.

  No, but my best friend does. God, I miss her. “My parents said no dating until after med school. I need to establish my career first.”

  “Of course they did.” Sophie smirks. “No dating, then all in a day you’re expected to land the heir to the throne and produce grandchildren. I’ve had four boyfriends—not that my parents had a clue.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyways, what are you looking for?”

  “Looking for?” I’m still stuck on the heir and grandchildren parts.

  Sophie hugs her naked pillow. “I have criteria—I call them the Seven Cs: Cute, Cool, Cash, Clever, Creative. Charisma and Charm.”

  “Oh, wow.” It’s a power list, not qualities I’d even presume to want for myself.

  “Every girl has lists.”

  I nod. “My best friend had a long one—blue eyes, six-foot-plus, good muscles, nice butt. She got all of them, too.”

  Sophie laughs. “Lucky her. What about yours?”

  I push my pillow into my pillowcase. A girl the grade below me, Grace Chin, had a short list: Christian and Chinese. Mine was even shorter—not Stanley Yee—the only Chinese American boy in my grade, whom people have been trying to get me to date since kindergarten.

  “Someone I can dance with. Completely unrealistic.” But my heart finishes the thought. Someone to lift me high and weightless into the sky like in the musicals—if partner dancing didn’t violate my parents’ no-inappropriate-physical-contact rule.

  I’m back by the dumpster again. My stomach knots.

  “I bet you’ll find him here.” Sophie smooths her blanket.

  “In eight weeks?” I laugh at her, but she just twitches her brows back.

  “It’s Loveboat. Lots of parents send their kids here hoping they’ll find someone.”

  “Parents do that? On purpose?” And I thought my parents were interfering.

  “Rick’s and my parents are old-fashioned like that.” Sophie shrugs. “But like I said, I’d have come anyways.”

  I should probably feel horrified, but instead, I feel a strange thrill. If Megan were here, she’d have shoved me out the door already with a, “Go for it, Ever!” Not to find him, but to do something besides hanging back, wishing things were different with Dan—and boys in general.

  I unzip my own suitcase. To my surprise, my dance bag sits in the center, a periwinkle egg in a nest of my clothes.

  A lump forms in my throat, and I try to swallow it down. Is this Mom’s way of apologizing, even if it’s too little, too late?

  I lift it out but it’s all wrong. Rectangular, heavy, folded in half, instead of soft with a leotard and tights—this is why my suitcase weighed so much. With growing foreboding, I flip the bag upside down, and dump out a blue-and-red . . . textbook.

  Principles of Molecular Biology.

  I once read about a burglar’s lantern, made for sneaking around in the dark. A metal box built so not a single ray of light can escape without the owner opening one of its narrow shutters. I’m that flame. Every want I have meets with its metal walls, like a supernova locked in a titanium prison.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I whirl on Sophie. “You know what my life is?” I tear out a page, crumpling it in my hand. “Get straight As. No more dancing. Insane curfew, dress like a nun—”

  “No sex until you die?”

  “The most sacred rule of all!” I fling the book down.

  “Well, no more following rules this summer.” Sophie shoves her purple flyer at me. “This Thursday, we’re sneaking out.”

  I drop my eyes to the flyer:

  CLUB KISS

  NO COVER FOR UNDER 21S! FIRST DRINK FREE!

  A guy in black leather, chains, and tattoos jams on his guitar. His blond hair flies like fishnet. He’s with a band called Three Screams, from Manhattan, and he looks like the kind of guy my parents don’t even know exists, and if they did, they’d never approve of me going to listen to him.

  “Clubbing all night,” Sophie says. “Drink what you want, dance, dress to impress, and your parents can go eat dirt.”

  How many invitations from Megan and the girls for dinner and a movie in Cleveland have I turned down because they’d keep me out past curfew, or because boys were going?

  “There’s a guard downstairs,” I point out.

  She pulls a wry face. “Yeah, they’ve beefed up security. But Rick says we can climb the wall.” With her bare foot, she shoves her emptied suitcase under her bed. “This is Loveboat. One big party. All summer. And no one’s going to ruin it.” Sophie fans her yearbook pages at me. “Ever, you are never going to meet this many eligible guys in one place. Admissions is super selective. I’ve been waiting for this trip for, like, forever. I’m so done with all those rock band–poser boys I grew up with. I’m finding my man here.” She points to me like she’s passing a parliamentary baton. “And your game plan, madam?”

  With a sweep of my hand, my two-hundred-dollar textbook clunks to the floor, and I back-kick it deep under my bed. I pick up her Club KISS flyer and jot my list on its back.

  WONG FAMILY RULES

  Straight As

  Dress Like a Nun

  Curfew of Ten

  No Drinking

  No Wasting Money

  No Dancing with a Boy

  No Kissing Boys

  No Boyfriend

  I write the last one with a thrill, like I’m signing up to skydive off a cliff—it’s not going to happen, but oh, what if it did? I dangle the list before Sophie: all the reasons I’m a baby compared to the rest of the world, because I’m med school–bound, because I’m my parents’ daughter, because I’m Ever Wong.

  “This summer, I’m breaking all the Wong Rules.”

  “Well then you left out the most important one.” She grabs my pen and adds to the bottom:

  No Sex

  “Not that.” I snatch my pen back, hating myself for blushing. Even if it’s the most sacred of the Wong Rules. Maybe I’ve read too many Victorian novels, but I’m saving that for love.

  “Fine.” Sophie laughs and stabs at Curfew. “That one’s first. We just need a way out.”

  I peer out the window to study the concrete wall that rings the campus. “We could climb the wall. If we stacked chairs. But it’s a long drop on the other side.” The wall’s a good fifteen feet high. I scan the courtyard until my gaze lands again on the eyesore pipe crossing the green river. It disappears beneath a highway overpass. On our side, it starts from a concrete pillar beside the buildings across the lawn. A red utility ladder leads up to it and presumably down the other end. It must be a hundred feet long, all exposed to the eyes of Chien Tan by day.

  But not by night.

  “That’s our route,” I say, and I realize my decision is made. Megan would kill me if she knew.

  Sophie presses in beside me and peers out. “You’re not serious. If we fell—”

  “There’s a catwalk.” I give my partner in crime a tight smile, ignoring the stab of fear in my gut, the image of tumbling dozens of feet down into dark waters. “Thursday night. We’re on.”

  7

  Our first task, Sophie declares, is to find clubbing outfits.

  But downstairs in the humid lobby, Mei-Hwa and other counselors are herding kids into a dimly lit auditorium for the opening ceremony. I peer inside. The room appears to have been built with a smaller crowd in mind because every seat before the red-curtained stage is taken, with more students jammed in along the back wall and overflowing down the aisles.

  “Come on,” Sophie whispers, and we duck around a group of guys,
steering clear of Mei-Hwa.

  “How many kids are here anyways?”

  “Five hundred.” Sophie pauses at a table, where dozens of eggs bob in a bronze vat of tea-speckled soy sauce.

  “Five hundred?” With a ladle, Sophie scoops a marbled tea egg out, drops it into a paper cup and presses it into my hand. “That’s bigger than my entire high school.”

  Drumrolls echo from the auditorium, seductively deep and rhythmic. I crane my neck to see the stage, where two guys in sleeveless white shirts and black pants are raining whole-arm beats down on barrel drums. A Chinese lion, shaking its oversized gold-trimmed head, leaps out from between them.

  Sophie grabs my arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  I almost suggest we stay—I’ve never seen a lion dance on this level of incredible. From the doorway, a counselor in a fluorescent-yellow hat beckons to us, calling, “Lai, lai.”

  But Sophie yanks me around the corner, scraping my arm on brick, and then we’re pushing out double doors into blinding sunlight. A pair of gardeners kneels in the dirt, planting flowers.

  “Go!” Sophie urges, and I sprint with her up the driveway and around the lily pad pond, past the guard booth to the street.

  “Won’t they come after us—yipes!” I leap out of the path of a cavalcade of fume-spewing mopeds. Their rush of wind tears at my hair and skirt with a sputtering of motors.

  “No one knows who we are yet.” Sophie’s laugh bubbles as she tugs me firmly onto the sidewalk, then sets off at a brisk clip. “Don’t get yourself run over, okay? Traffic here is a human rights violation.”

  The sun beats down on my head as I shell my egg and try to keep up with Sophie. I haven’t eaten a tea egg in years, not after I opened my lunch box to shrieks of horrified, “What are those?” and I begged Mom not to pack me any more weird Chinese food. Sophie devours her own egg, making moaning noises straight out of a scene I wouldn’t be allowed to watch on TV. I bite into warm flavors of star anise, cinnamon.

  “Oh, yum,” I say.

  Chien Tan’s driveway opens into a major street, facing a tree-covered mountain topped with that enormous pagoda building. Directly across from us, a brick mural of Chinese farmers is built into the hillside. Up the street, we pass a small, red temple with the fanciest tiers of rooftops—like a paperback book opened and laid facedown, sides gently sloping, corners upturned like the prow of a ship. It’s painted in a riot of colors—red flowers, intricate designs, Chinese scholars in blue robes. A long, green dragon, its back flaming with yellow spikes, undulates over the top.

  “Wild,” I say. “I kind of like it.”

  “There’s stuff like that all over Taiwan.” Sophie drops her empty cup into a trash can. “You’ll see.”

  We veer off through a tree-lined park, then through narrow streets lined with three-story buildings, fronted by garage-sized stores. We pass hairstyling shops, a tea room, a whiskey store, all labeled with Chinese characters.

  At last, we step into an outdoor market crammed with vendor carts, small shops, and tiny restaurants with only a few benches for customers. A man mists a mountain of Chinese cabbages. A stout woman, hair bound in a purple scarf, yanks dough into foot-long sticks and drops them into her copper vat of oil; another shakes out a bolt of red silk. Jewelry shimmers like colored fireflies.

  On Sophie’s heels, I wander deeper through tarp-lined stalls. Vendors call, “Xiaojie, lai lai!” and motion to their fruit stands or dress racks. Their energy draws me in. I’m stepping into a tradition that must date back hundreds, even thousands of years. Sophie pulls out her wallet at every other stall—she buys a Hello Kitty shirt, a cloth pencil case printed with tiny cartoon bears, bottled water for us.

  “Don’t you want anything?” she asks.

  My stomach knots a bit. My family counts every penny, and I’ve never felt free to just buy whatever strikes my fancy, unlike Sophie, clearly. Our goal is outfits, and I need to save all my firepower for that.

  “Um, yea, sure,” I answer. “Still looking.”

  Sophie flips through a stack of DKNY jeans, tries on a yellow North Face jacket, hefts Coach purses in her hands. “Everyone knows these are knockoffs, but they’re such a steal,” she gloats. She dangles a striped Elle-labeled dress before my body. “What about this one? Cut’s perfect for your body type. You’re slim, but sturdy.”

  “Thanks, but not this one.” I push it aside. “I want an outfit my mom would kill me in.”

  She laughs. “I like how you think.”

  “Hey, Sophie.” To my dismay, Boy Wonder is coming toward us, head cocked to make room for the hundred-pound burlap sack balanced like a baby whale on his shoulder. So he’s skipped the opening ceremony, too. The 100 percent humidity clings to my skin, but somehow, Boy Wonder with his forest-green shirt stretched across his broad shoulders looks as cool as the shady underside of an oak tree. I grimace.

  “Rice?” Sophie beats a fist on his sack, scandalized. “Are you transferring into my cooking elective?”

  “I tried to sign up, but it was full.” Boy Wonder hefts his sack higher. “This is for weights. Turns out real weights cost fifty bucks a kilo here, so I bought this instead. Ten cents a kilo.” He grins, obviously pleased with himself.

  My brow rises. Creative. And surprisingly unpretentious.

  But Sophie sighs. “We’ve been here less than three hours and you’re already working out.”

  “I sat on the plane for fifteen hours with my knees to my ears. Enough downtime to last me the rest of summer.”

  I agree—instead of jet-lagged, I feel charged enough to dance a loop around the entire city. Boy Wonder levers the sack to his other shoulder. His T-shirt rucks up, offering a glimpse of tanned, flat muscles, from which I swiftly remove my eyes—but not before he catches me. Damn bad timing.

  “At least you’re in a better mood,” Sophie says. “Good call?”

  “Yeah, I got my SIM card working. I have a landline in my room, too.”

  “No fair, really? We don’t.”

  “My roommate’s some VIP kid. Xavier. Haven’t met him yet.”

  “Of course they’d give the VIP kid to you.” Sophie catches my eye and quirks her brow. Xavier.

  “Whatever. Jenna says hi. I found her this.” He touches the head of a carved bird tied with a red ribbon, jutting from his pocket—so Boy Wonder’s the Wonder Boyfriend, too. Of course. I still can’t believe Sophie suggested he date me—no way would I bring down a house of parental blessings on myself like that. Why can’t Mr. Perfect SATs at least have the modesty to look the part: scrawny with thick glasses and acne, for starters. And Sophie’s right—his mood’s done a complete 180.

  “We’re hitting Club KISS Thursday,” Sophie says. “Ever’s idea.”

  His thick brow rises. “Not wasting time, are we?”

  “Carpe diem.” I shrug, keeping it cool. Latin, not Chinese, on the streets of Taipei. So there.

  “Carpe noctem,” he answers. Seize the night.

  Deodamnatus! Boy Wonder’s trumped me again—how many languages does he know anyways? I indulge a fantasy of me using that big, hard body as a punching bag.

  “Meet outside our room at eleven,” Sophie presses on. “And please don’t wear yellow. It makes you—”

  “Look jaundiced, so you’ve said.” Boy Wonder rolls his eyes at me. To my dismay, my heart skips a beat. “Aunty Claire will be thrilled to hear you begged me to chaperone. Even bribed me with such excellent fashion advice. I’ll be there. Don’t want any broken hearts.”

  “It’s the real Rick Woo again. Welcome back. Tell me this isn’t a result of you and Jenna having phone sex.”

  “Mind out of the gutter please.”

  “Well, no worries about us.” Sophie links arms with me while I try to block out unwanted images. “No guy’s breaking our hearts.”

  “Oh, it’s not you girls I’m worried about.” With a smirk, Boy Wonder heads off, sack still balanced on his shoulder.

  “We don’t need
a chaperone!” I call, but he’s gone.

  An hour later, I gaze uncertainly into the full-length mirror of a curtained dressing room. My black chiffon skirt skims a whole two inches above my knees. I twist to examine the corset-like back of the black halter top: satin lacing, wide eyelets that show off diamonds of skin. It calls for a dance—leg lifts, pirouettes, strong hands encircling my waist. I don’t care that corsets are old-fashioned, I love it.

  But between the waistband of my skirt and my top, a wide, pale ribbon of skin gleams.

  So shameful! Mom’s voice rings. You want boys to think you’re a bad girl?

  My reflection winces. The Dress Like a Nun rule is going down this summer, but maybe not with this outfit. Besides, what will Rick-the-Chaperone think, I wonder, before I remember I don’t care.

  Reluctantly, I peel off the skirt and top and return it to the protesting vendor. It’s really more than I can afford anyways. But it gives me an idea. Maybe I can find a dance studio to join in Taipei. The thought gives me fresh hope.

  I navigate out the shop’s racks of dresses and cross the alley to another shop, where Sophie is modeling before a mirror. She tugs down the hem of a gold lamé dress laced with delicate flowers. The silk clings to her full body and she lifts a bundle of gold chains over her head. They pour down the plunging V-neck into her cleavage. She’s the definition of sexy—and not afraid to flaunt it.

  “Duōshǎo qián?” Sophie asks the vendor. How much is it? “What?” she explodes, when he quotes her the price. “Tài guì!” Too expensive!

  I watch, open-mouthed, as Sophie puts on a performance worthy of an Academy Award: she haggles, gesticulates, verges on changing her tearful mind, until she gets her dress to a third of the ask and the merchant smacks his hands with satisfaction.

  “Wow,” I whisper as he wraps the dress in newspaper.

  Sophie shushes me. “He got a great deal,” she whispers, then sprints off to a shop hung with Burberry coats.

  I pull a black cocktail dress from its rack and lift it to my body. My reflection frowns. I look like a girl headed to a funeral. Even from 7,000 miles away, Mom’s turned me back into a little girl, while Sophie will look exactly like an eighteen-year-old breaking out for a night of dancing.