Loveboat, Taipei

by Abigail Hing Wen

  “Sorry,” Rick whispers, sheepishly. “Wanted to look convincing—everything will hit the family emergency phone tree by tonight. Won’t happen again.”

  “Better not,” I snap, then march after Aunty Claire to the largest suite in her museum-mansion.

  Besides a porcelain Jacuzzi, my room is dominated by a gold-trimmed mahogany box: a bed fit for an empress, heaped with a striped duvet, walled in on three sides by wooden rails carved with vines, dragons, lotus flowers, and topped by a lattice canopy. Amethyst brocade drapes flank tall windows that overlook a sparkling pool. By the door, I run my hand along a shuttered slot designed for room service.

  Sophie darts in and shuts the door behind her. As her eyes take in the royal bed, I bite my lip. Was this room supposed to go to Xavier on her behalf? Now the benefit is wasted on me—and Rick and I have upstaged her weekend plans.

  “What’s going on?” she hisses.

  “Rick wouldn’t come at first.” I try to explain how we came to be fake-dating, but Sophie shakes her head.

  “How does he expect this not to get back to Jenna?”

  I frown. “He said no one would tell her.”

  “This family gossips like there’s no tomorrow.”

  My stomach dips. “He seemed sure.” It’s Rick’s problem. But I’m so distracted that I have to knot and reknot the ribbons on my pointe shoes twice before I succeed in hanging them from the canopy to remind myself of Sunday’s audition.

  If his family doesn’t like Jenna, there’d be no reason to talk to her about his new girlfriend, right? I just need to double down supporting Sophie’s plans, which means laying low, not getting outed, and making her-and-Xavier look good.

  “How are things with Xavier?” I ask carefully.

  A tic pulses in her eye and she touches it with her fingertips, stilling it. Then she smiles.

  “Great! They’re totally great,” she says.

  Downstairs, the doorbell chimes the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.”

  The family and Xavier have gathered in a spacious living room with the most intricate ceiling: dark square latticework framing panels painted with Chinese mythology. Jade sculptures populate the room: Dragons and phoenixes. A five-mast ship that Dad would love, sailing through clouds. A jade-and-cypress screen, softened by strips of sunlight pushing through the kind of white wooden blinds Mom’s always wanted.

  Rick grasps my hand, whispering, “Aunty Claire put out a call to the entire clan. I’m so sorry about this.”

  “About what?” I try not to fixate on the grip of his hand as he tugs me toward a collection of velvet settees. Then the doorbell chimes again and our afternoon spins out of control.

  Aunts and uncles pour in as Aunty Claire’s maids bring out porcelain tea sets etched with ancient Chinese landscapes. She has a collection of over a hundred teas, but we don’t get a choice: her maid pours a fragrant Dà Hóng Páo.

  “It costs more per ounce than gold,” Sophie whispers into my ear.

  “Um, wow,” I say as a gray-haired uncle, Oxford polo shirt so crisply ironed he could slice cheese with it, seizes Rick’s hand. “Guang-Ming! And you must be Ever!” He pumps my hand. I should have changed into a nicer blouse. A skirt instead of shorts. “Have you visited the National Palace Museum? Do you believe those wonderful treasures belong to Beijing or Taiwan?”

  “I, uh—”

  “Don’t embroil her in your politics, Jihya,” Aunty Claire calls as she heads to answer another chime of the door.

  “And Bao-Feng!” Jihya embraces Sophie. “On your way to Dartmouth for your MRS, I hear?”

  Sophie laughs and kisses his cheek. “Exactly, Uncle. But let me introduce you to Xavier . . .”

  Dozens more cousins, aunts, uncles, and great-aunts and great-uncles gather around us, each new arrival an interruption of introductions, handshakes, hair-tousling for Rick, who takes it all with good humor. Two elegant grandmothers chat in Japanese and everyone else speaks Mandarin and Hokkien at light speed. I catch a few words: pretty, too skinny, sexy! Rick grins at me—more amused than apologetic. No wonder he didn’t want to deal with his family’s Jenna bashing—every single uber-educated person has an opinion, down to little Fannie, playing with a frog: “Too old,” she declares flatly. In English, for my benefit.

  “I can’t speak Mandarin,” I murmur to Rick. Can they tell I don’t come from money? I feel strangely anxious, wanting their approval. “Will they hold that against me? You?”

  “Don’t worry.” He squeezes my arm reassuringly, sending an unwanted pulse of pleasure through me. His affection feels out of character with the brooding, gruff Boy Wonder. I almost tug free, until I remember the entire family is watching. Like hawks. How did I get myself into this mess when, until a week ago, I would have happily shoved Rick off a cliff?

  On the couch, Sophie snuggles against Xavier, who remains upright, so they look more like a cat leaned against a pillar than a couple. He slips his hand from hers to reach for his teacup—deliberately? She bites her lip, then turns to hug a cousin: Su, who’s visiting from California with her fiancé, Kade, a tennis champ in a black leather jacket.

  “We met on Loveboat, too!” Su pulls me into a hug that squeezes all air from my lungs. “We’re getting married next year!”

  “Sophie mentioned you,” I gasp. “Congratulations!”

  As I find my seat again, Xavier’s eyes meet mine—cool and sardonic. “Looks like we’re both in the hot seat,” he murmurs.

  “Seems so.” I take my own cup of tea and blow on its surface. I want to ask why he came. He knows Taiwan better than I do—he must have suspected the family would react like this. I hope he believes Rick and I are together, even more reason for him to keep his painter-fingers off my likeness.

  But somehow, I doubt it.

  “And what are your plans for your future, young man?” Uncle Ted, a well-dressed man in his fifties, refills Xavier’s teacup. He’s Aunty Claire’s husband, and though he didn’t speak particularly loudly, all conversation suddenly ceases. Everyone leans in to listen.

  Xavier sets his cup on the coffee table. “I don’t know.”

  Uncle Ted frowns. He scratches at his trim, salt-and-pepper beard. I don’t know, clearly, is not an answer on the approved list.

  “Xavier can do anything,” Sophie interjects. “He could be a banker. Or a lawyer. A doctor. It just depends on what he wants.”

  “I’ve met your father.” Uncle Ted lifts his glass of wine. “Real estate. Electronics. Smart cars. The Yehs have their fingers in every key industry in Asia.” He’s not smiling. I can hear Sophie’s lungs screaming for air, waiting for his judgment to fall. Then Uncle Ted tips his glass at Xavier. “They’re brilliant. I imagine you’ll follow right in their footsteps.”

  Sophie smiles. The fabulous Yeh empire trumps all. Uncle Ted’s insider knowledge makes Xavier’s family sound even more glamorous than what Sophie told me.

  But at the mention of his father, Xavier’s head had snapped up. “Wouldn’t count on it,” he says. “Seeing how this Yeh isn’t even going to college.”

  A ripple of surprise cascades through the uber-educated cousins. Sophie, too. I would have laughed, but truth is, for better or worse, Chien Tan is a selective program and every kid is college-bound—I’d assumed Xavier was, too. So why not? Is this related to his dad calling him an idiot, to the fight I happened to witness?

  “Xavier follows his own path,” Sophie puts in. “He has so many options, it’s about picking the right one, not locking in too early.”

  Uncle Ted laughs. “Straight to work first? I approve—the boy inheriting the family business doesn’t need to waste time with fancy degrees. At least not yet.”

  Xavier’s eyes flicker to Sophie’s. She’s surprised him, in a good way. “Something like that.” She’s covering for him, so smoothly I doubt her family noticed. She’d seriously make an amazing ambassador.

  “So, what about you, Ever? Have your parents lived in Taiwan long?” Aunty Claire tur
ns to me. She’s not more than ten years older than us. I can see why Sophie described her as the beautiful aunt she looks up to. And at her question, the entire clan grows toward me like flowers to the sun. Xavier smirks—it’s my turn now.

  “My family’s not from Taiwan.” My face warms under their scrutiny as I explain how my parents migrated from Fujian to Singapore, then to the States.

  “We’re all human beings” Aunty Claire waves all distinctions away. “But your parents must be so brave and smart, like Rick and Sophie’s. Usually only the top students from here can go to the United States. It’s why all you kids turned out so well. It’s in your genes and upbringing.”

  “Benji tells everyone his dad drives a taxi, and he got into Princeton,” Rick says, but Aunty Claire shushes him, waiting on me.

  Do I downplay with Chinese modesty, or is that disrespectful to my parents, and a sign of bad upbringing? I split the baby with a hm—cough. Either way, she’s moving too close to the sacrifice I’ve heard about my whole life. If my parents had stayed in Asia, they’d be surrounded by family like this, instead of us living as an isolated four in Ohio. Respected, blended in, no risk of the occasional go back to China! in the parking lot, like an arrow out of nowhere. If they’d stayed, Dad would still be a doctor. I know. God, I know—but being here makes it real.

  To my relief, a housemaid interrupts with a platter of yellow mango halves, scored into cubes and inverted into easy-to-eat turtle shells. Jihya brings up a fistfight between rival legislators in Taiwan’s parliament—apparently a regular thing—and the clan breaks into a finger-shaking debate in Mandarin, Hokkien, and English, verging on mango-throwing.

  I laugh, but Rick grimaces. “Sorry they’re so obnoxious,” he whispers.

  “They’re not.” I’m half in love with his family already—even Fannie—so energetic, physical, and rambunctious in a way my family isn’t.

  “Enough of this, we’re boring Ever.” Aunty Claire daintily crosses her legs under her qipao. “So tell us, Ever. I knew I’d marry Uncle Ted the moment I laid eyes on him, but you young people these days don’t seem to be in a hurry. Out of all those eligible boys on Chien Tan, how did you decide on our Guang-Ming?”

  Rick drops his mango half. “Oh, we just—”

  “Tiām-tiām, Guang-Ming.” She puts a hand on his knee. “I want to hear from Ever.”

  “Well . . .” Sticking to as much truth as possible is probably the safest course. “Rick was the first guy I met.”

  “Oh?”

  Her smile droops a bit, so I take another stab. “Well, honestly, I’ve known Rick my entire life. And I hated him at first.”

  “Really? How’s that?”

  “My dad reads the World Journal religiously. Every year or so, an article came out about this . . . amazing boy.” Rick groans as Aunty Claire and the cousins murmur with approval. “I used to find articles about Woo Guang-Ming on my pillow. My parents had a fatter file on Rick than on me.”

  “No kidding?” Rick murmurs.

  I meet his gaze and grin. “I called him Boy Wonder.”

  “I knew it.” A cousin punches Rick in the arm. “We call him Football Man.”

  “Shut up,” Rick says and everyone laughs. At the least, I can entertain his family about the legend of Woo Guang-Ming in the good old USA. “National spelling bee champ. Piano. Yale. Rick Woo was the yardstick no kid could measure up to—me included.” Rick makes strangling noises. But he’s benefiting the most from this charade, so let him squirm. “Of course, every Chinese parent in the States wants their daughter to marry Rick,” I add for good measure. He told me so himself.

  “You wouldn’t believe the phone calls I get, asking me to set up this and that daughter with my nephew.” Aunty Claire beams. And he’s chosen you. The whole setup, the overwhelming family attention, is designed to woo me on Rick Woo’s behalf. And it’s working a little too much.

  I hastily press on. “But when I got off the plane and recognized him, all that resentment fell away. Why beat him when you can join him?”

  As Rick squirms, I smirk. Serves him right for taking me up on this ridiculous plan.

  Then a wicked glint comes into his eyes. He takes my hand and folds his fingers through mine, sending a shiver through my body.

  “I had no idea you felt that way,” he murmurs huskily. I try to tug free, but his grip is iron. Warmth rushes to my face. I silently curse him. His mouth quirks with a smirk I’ve never seen on his face before. I send him death-threats with my eyes.

  Aunty Claire sighs, toying with her wedding band. “Rick, I’m so thrilled.”

  “Finally,” says a cousin.

  Rick stiffens. His fingers loosen around mine, though he doesn’t let go. Jenna’s name hangs in the air. And good riddance. Aunty Claire and cousins have no choice but to love me because ANY GIRL IS BETTER THAN JENNA.

  Why are they so allergic to her?

  “And what are your plans for next year?” Aunty Claire intervenes.

  I open my mouth to tell her about Northwestern.

  But what comes out is, “I’m going to dance school.”

  Why not? None of this is real anyways.

  I brace for disappointment. Instead, Aunty Claire clasps Uncle Ted’s hand. “Oh, how lovely! Ted sits on the board of the National Theater here in Taipei.”

  “Really? Where Romeo and Juliet played?” I’d seen some flyers.

  “Yes, and many others. The Mariinsky Ballet—it was the Imperial Russian Ballet in the eighteenth century. The Suzuki Company of Togo, Yang Li-hua Taiwanese Opera—you probably don’t know these, oh, Yo-Yo Ma.” She snaps her fingers. “The American cellist. We don’t possess an ounce of talent, but we love to watch, right, Ted?”

  Her husband kisses her mouth, a public display of affection I’ve never seen between my parents at home, let alone before strangers. “We’re at the theater every other weekend.”

  “You’re patrons of the arts,” Sophie declares.

  Aunty Claire flutters a modest hand, but I shift to the edge of my seat. “Oh, wow.” I’ve never met a family like this. “That’s amazing.”

  “How did you choose dance? What are your plans?” Under Aunty Claire’s barrage of questions, I tell everyone about Tisch. The chance to learn from choreographers and teachers who’ve performed with dance companies around the world. I feel Rick’s eyes on me, my gesturing hands. “I’ve been arranging routines for my school squad for years. One day, I hope I’ll get to choreograph something amazing—like a musical on Broadway.”

  “Well, I hope we have a chance to see you dance.”

  “You could,” I say, before I can censure myself. “I’m dancing in Swan Lake in August.”

  “We’ll be there.” Aunty Claire’s eyes shine. “Your parents must be so proud.”

  I expel a breath when we finally break to view Aunty Claire’s latest acquisition, a Matisse-inspired painting she bought at an auction in London. Are my parents proud of me? They wouldn’t be if they knew how I’ve been spending my summer.

  Trying to push them aside, I drift from the group to admire Aunty Claire’s paintings of Bengali tigers, Spanish cathedrals, Chinese horsemen, and French children—East and West mixed together. I like them juxtaposed. I bring my nose to the blushing blossom on a jade-and-carnelian tree. It smells like jasmine. A sixth sense makes me glance up. I meet Xavier’s gaze across the room, where he’s standing with Sophie and her cousins, a glass of wine in hand. I frown at him in warning—I’d better not find a sketch of me with my nose in these blossoms.

  “You’ve picked my favorite, I see.” Aunty Claire presses a tissue-wrapped package into my hand. “Just a small gift.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t.” I try to hand it back. It feels like a scarf or other soft cloth.

  “Please. Rick is my A-hia’s son—my eldest brother. With their family in the States, I don’t get to dote on Rick as much as I would like.” She tucks my hand under her arm. “You know, dear, I meant what I said. I felt so lucky w
hen Ted found me. Even in those early days when he was still a stranger, I knew everything was about to change. I’m so glad Rick met you.”

  An irrational part of me wants to wrap her enthusiasm around my shoulders like a cozy blanket. But the dominant, rational part still can’t believe how ready they are to embrace me as the One for Rick. They really are as traditional as the Qing dynasty.

  And here is where I subtly champion Rick’s cause.

  “I really can’t believe it myself,” I say. “I know Rick’s last girlfriend was super smart. Comes from a terrific family. Pretty, too,” I add, though now my mouth tastes like sand.

  “I don’t like to speak poorly of other girls. But you should know. Rick is like the giving tree in that American children’s book. He gives and gives. He drove her everywhere. Talked to her until three in the morning about her worries, stayed up until morning to finish his homework afterward. Love should be between equals. Equal sharing, equal give-and-take.

  “I don’t know if Rick’s told you, but he’s trying to transfer to Williams. He says it’s his idea, but Rick’s parents are certain Jenna is insisting on it.”

  “He’s withdrawing from Yale?” He’s never even hinted at that. Or has he? I remember the edge to his voice when he told Marc what college you went to didn’t matter. Come to think of it, he’s never brought up Yale himself—Sophie did, and then everyone else.

  Is this why his family hates Jenna? Ivy League snobbery? A pox on their shallow houses! He’s willing to buck all family expectations, not to mention the far less important World Journal readership, for love.

  “Are you monopolizing Ever?” Rick’s hand ghosts against the small of my back, then it’s gone, leaving behind a strange flutter of disappointment. But he’s being respectful Rick, doing exactly what I asked him to do. Why would I feel disappointed?

  “Girl talk.” Aunty Claire lays a fond hand on my cheek.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m hoping to give her a tour. I came here so often as a kid, it feels like my second home.”

  “This is your home, darling.” Aunty Claire kisses his cheek. “Go right ahead.”