Loveboat, Taipei

by Abigail Hing Wen

  His brow rises farther, then the rest of him follows to six feet one, forcing me to raise my eyes.

  “Happy to decimate you,” he drawls. “But I’m twice your weight.”

  “Give yourself a handicap.” I circle him, herding him toward the cart of staffs. “No using your weight advantage.”

  Then, just to show off, I pinwheel my stick in a perfect 360.

  Rick gathers his jaw off the ground. “Someone’s got moves.”

  The old man slyly thumps Rick on the back as Rick selects a stout bamboo rod, worn in its center by many hands. He holds it low, looking extremely competent.

  “I’m not going easy on you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “And if I win, you’ll dance in the talent show.”

  “What?” I lower my staff a fraction. “Not fair. I’m not doing the talent show.”

  “Don’t see why not. Five hundred students and twenty-five counselors is as big an audience as you’ll get for Swan Lake in Taipei. Bigger. And it would be your own.”

  “Fine, but you won’t win.”

  “Famous last words.” He gives a mock bow.

  I begin to pinwheel my staff. My troop often practiced without flags, so handling a staff is as familiar as crossing my legs. Rick’s eyes never leave mine.

  “You’re trying to distract me.”

  My hands flicker in deft motions, keeping my stick whirling in a hypnotic blur.

  “Ya!” I charge.

  Rick blocks lazily, smirking. The crack of wood on wood punctuates the air, reverberating in my hands. I swing again. Again. Force him back until his foot hits brick wall.

  I grin tauntingly.

  And then he’s shoving me back, stick flying, all his years of athletic training bearing down on my head.

  In a few minutes, I’m panting.

  “Do you yield?” Rick taunts.

  “Famous last words.” I swing a blow at his head. He ducks, but the wind of it parts his hair down the middle. “Ha!” I read the expression in his narrowed eyes: Way too close—no way is Rick letting little Ever Wong take him out in a bo fight.

  He lunges, but I dance aside.

  “Show off.”

  My grin widens. Every move he makes, I imitate and make my own. He’s strong and fast, but I’m way more agile. We duck, swing, press one way on the grass, then the other, in a dance that satisfies a hunger in my body. The energy of our joined steps crackles between us.

  Just off the path, I slap my bo against his and throw my weight behind it, trying to force him back.

  “Tactical error,” he gasps. A trickle of sweat rolls down his neck. “No man moves a mountain. Or woman.” I ignore him, shove harder. Our faces inch closer over our crossed sticks. His amber eyes, flecked with sunlight and a hand’s width away, hold mine.

  The corner of his lip tightens in a smile.

  We’re close enough to kiss.

  The realization strikes me in the nose like the butt of a staff.

  Panicked, I step back, releasing him. His eyes widen as he stumbles forward. I instinctively whip my stick down—and slam his knuckles.

  “Ow!” His staff clatters to the ground as he shakes out his hand. “I surrender!”

  “I’m so sorry!” I seize his wrist, horrified. “I was going for your stick.”

  “I’d rather you hit my knuckles than my stick.”

  His tone is sly, un-Rick-like. I drop his wrist like a hot coal, blushing furiously. “Oh, you get lots more hits for that!”

  I pretend to beat him about the head, and Rick swoops down on his staff, rolls to his feet, and blocks, dodges, chuckles. My body sings with our movement—every fiber of muscle alive, in sync.

  Then he seizes my staff.

  Suddenly, I’m pressed against him, staves crossed. Sweat glistens at his hairline and my own neck is damp. His warm, grassy scent fills my lungs and my heart kicks into a higher gear.

  Rick’s staff clatters to the ground.

  Then my chin is in his strong fingers. The pad of his thumb traces my lips, shooting an achingly delicious shiver into me. Our bodies pull tight over my staff, still caught in his hand, and my fingers close on his arm for dear life as he tilts his head down, as our noses brush, as his soft inhalation takes air from my mouth—

  And he pulls back.

  The almost-kiss crackles between us.

  Jenna.

  A cold space opens between us, my staff gripped solo in my hands.

  Rick wanted to kiss me.

  And as for me—he must have read everything in my face, too. I’ve never felt so naked, not even when I took my glamour shots. He’s Rick Woo. Boy Wonder of World Journal fame and every girl’s dream guy.

  “Ever—”

  “Xiǎo mèimei, Xiǎo dìdì, Chīfàn la.”

  Rick jumps. A maid in her black-and-white uniform, a woven basket hung on her arm, is coming down the pathway, calling us to dinner. Her eyes flit between us, crinkling with amusement—she’s thrilled for the young Master Woo and his new girlfriend.

  Fat raindrops begin to fall as Rick stoops to retrieve his staff, hiding his face. My hand rises to my mouth, my lips he didn’t kiss.

  “Ever—”

  “She’s lucky to have you,” I choke out. “I hope she understands that.”

  Tossing my bo to the white-haired man, I sprint past Rick and from the park as the clouds open. My feet pound an unsteady rhythm through the falling rain. Rick doesn’t come after me, and I don’t expect him to.

  I shouldn’t have come.

  Not this weekend. Not to this park. I shouldn’t have proposed and then stupidly agreed to carry out this charade.

  Because before I left home, I knew what my life was: med school, my parents’ never-measuring-up daughter, pining after Dan from afar. Then today, for one perfect afternoon, I’d had something else—a future in dancing, a family that accepted me, a boyfriend I admired and respected—

  And none of it was real.

  21

  The Taiwanese folk song that played tonight weaves like a ribbon through the folds of my brain. A dance unfurls to join it: a double ring of girls in colorful dresses, hands joined, swirling in opposite directions around a pair of lovers. My body wants to dance.

  There’s no hope of sleep when I’m like this.

  I’m alone in my empress canopy, legs tangled in cotton sheets. Moonlight slants through the openwork carvings, illuminating horses, fierce warriors in battle, my striped duvet. The air is hot and still, and under my head, my down pillow is soaked with sweat.

  It’s my second night in Aunty Claire’s mansion, after a weekend’s precarious balancing act: Sophie ignoring Xavier to flirt with a distant cousin and me avoiding Rick while pretending to be his girlfriend—all while making dumplings in Aunty Claire’s airy kitchen, playing Go with black and white stones, getting magical massages on a padded table, and sitting down to crystal-and-silver meals of chopped lobster, oyster pancakes, and the freshest abalone on the island.

  Tonight, though, my head throbs from the rounds of shots I drank with Rick’s cousins and aunts and uncles. The teasing about grandbabies, until Rick had to intervene, all right, that’s enough.

  I sit up and grab the tablet on the bedside table, a loaner from Aunty Claire. Its white glow stabs my eyes as I search the internet for variations on “dance scholarship,” reading up on the USA Performing Arts Scholarship and Young Arts Foundation.

  But as I told Rick, everything is long past due.

  My movement sets my pointe shoes swaying from their ribbons on the post from which they hang, knocking softly against the wood. I tug them down and lie back on my pillow and tuck them to my chest, like Floppy, my old stuffed bunny. My audition tomorrow—that’s what I need to focus on. The last dance of Ever Wong.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and think piqué turns: toe to knee then down, turning, spotting, turning, spotting, single, single, single, single, double.

  What would it take for you to be a dancer
?

  You could call them—

  I drop my shoes, which make double thuds below.

  I’ve let Rick in too far. Now his voice and hope have intertwined themselves into the most intimate secrets of my heart, along with that almost-kiss that I can’t stop coming back to—but I need to stop. To untangle this ribbon that has somehow tied me to him without my being aware.

  The grandfather clock chimes a solo. One o’clock. Sleep really is hopeless. Sliding from my mattress, I grab my new silk night-robe—the present from Aunty Claire for the girlfriend who isn’t even the girlfriend. Still, I slip it on and press open my oak-paneled door, then pad barefoot over the runners down the hallway.

  Everything in the dark feels muted and lonely. The stone and glass, the Asian vases, all meticulously dusted and arranged. Giant seashells remind me of Pearl, who loves them. But the scents of teakwood and white flower oil reminds me of Mom—and something recoils inside me.

  In the living room, an orange cinder sparks. A fire burns in the grate, though the air is hot and humid. A log snaps, sending up a cloud of embers. The scent of ashes reaches my nose.

  Someone’s awake.

  A thread of light glimmers a few feet from the fire.

  Xavier’s back is toward me. His black shirt is rumpled, as if he’d slept in it. In his hand is an ivory-handled tanto—worn by an actual samurai of feudal Japan, according to a cousin, soldiers who didn’t fall on their swords like the Romans did, but disemboweled themselves.

  “Xavier, what are you doing?”

  He spins. The short sword glitters in an arc and firelight illuminates his tanned face.

  “Ever.” He lowers the tanto to his side. “I—I couldn’t sleep.” His eyes rake over me and I send a silent thanks toward Aunty Claire for this robe that hides my thin nightgown. I want to turn and run in the opposite direction, but instead my feet carry me into the room.

  “I couldn’t sleep either.” The thick tatami rush-grass mats, imported from Japan, tickle my feet. The sword gleams again, then firelight illuminates a dark line welling from Xavier’s palm.

  “You’re bleeding.” A wave of queasiness washes over me. I should have fled while I had the chance. The sword is ancient. Not the thing anyone should be using to become blood brothers. “That blade could give you gangrene.”

  Xavier lifts his hand, as if surprised.

  “Were you trying to take your hand off?” Fighting nausea, I grab his fingers, examining the fast-flowing cut. Years of helping Dad treat cuts and scrapes at church picnics means I at least know what to do in principle.

  I cast about the room, but unlike my home, which is littered with boxes of Kleenex for Dad’s hay fever, not a single box is in sight. I unknot the sash of my robe and yank it free, hoping Aunty Claire won’t find out I destroyed her present—and then wonder why her good opinion matters so much to me.

  Xavier’s stillness as I wrap his hand with my sash makes me more nervous than his sketches—even in the darkness, I feel the weight of his eyes.

  “I saw a first aid kit by the pool,” I say. “Wait a sec?”

  When I return, plastic box in hand, he’s stretched up on his toes, returning the sword to its hooks. His eyes meet mine. I blush and draw the open flaps of my robe together.

  “I got it,” I say unnecessarily. Taking a deep breath, I begin to unwrap his hand. Every layer of the silk sash is soaked through with a Saturn-shaped stain. Blood. Blood. Blood. A wave of vertigo crashes over me and I sway on my feet. Yes, I drank the snake-blood sake, but this blood is human.

  Forcing myself steady, I swab his cut with antiseptic, then swiftly bind it with gauze and tape. Only when it’s humanely bound do I breathe again.

  “I can’t stand blood,” I confess.

  His expression flickers. “I couldn’t tell.”

  My knees wobble. I sway again and he takes the kit from me, and I drop onto the mat, put my head on my knees, and close my eyes.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, give me a moment.”

  He hands me a bottle of wine left over from tonight’s festivities. A French wine with a white label. I fit its glass top to my lips and take a long pull. Dark cherry, rich and strong. I take a second pull, a third, letting its smoothness warm my body and drive those bloody Saturns from my mind.

  I only look back up again when he says, low, “Thank you.”

  A familiar shame follows. And fear. Even if I manage to cram all the book knowledge of medical school into my sieve-like memory, this is what I’ll have to face, every day. Torture.

  “Sorry,” I croak.

  He expels a breath. “I’m the stupid one who cut myself. You all right?”

  His reaction surprises me, maybe because it’s so—human. “Yeah, I’m fine.” And I did it, didn’t I? I bound his blood-oozing cut. With a bit more courage, I help him pack up the box. “You’ve had your tetanus shot, right?”

  He nods. The firelight plays over his face, reflecting in his eyes. Under his gaze, I pull my robe closed again. I wonder if he’s sketching me in his mind and the thought, instead of making me angry this time, stirs something hot inside me.

  Maybe Xavier is exactly what I need to forget Rick.

  He holds his hand out for the bottle. “What’s the real deal with you and Boy Wonder?”

  “We’re together, didn’t you hear?” I ask, bitter.

  “And my mom’s the Dragon. I’m his roommate, remember? I hear his phone calls. I see his postcards.” He hands the bottle back. “So . . . what? He has you and her? The jocks of the world always get what they want, don’t they?”

  I shouldn’t drink this much, not after what happened the first night of clubbing, but I take another long pull. I ignore the jab at Rick, who doesn’t seem to me like he’s getting what he wants at all. Ignoring the stab of pain in my chest as I imagine what daily phone calls and postcards Xavier’s witnessed.

  “I’m just helping him out.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “Nothing.” But heartache. Why doesn’t he have the balls to stand up to his family for Jenna? “What do you care?”

  “Maybe I feel sorry when I see unrequited love.”

  “Ha. None here.” But I flush. I don’t like him peering into my soul like this. “What’s up with you and Sophie?” He’s still here, after all, though her behavior makes it clear she’s done with him.

  “My dad would like her.”

  “But you don’t? I honestly don’t understand.” Sophie’s gorgeous and fun. Super generous. “Any guy would be lucky to be with her.”

  Xavier’s eyes are on mine. Watching me.

  “I left that rug outside your dorm room,” he says. “I pinned a sheet with an E on it. For you.”

  What? The scene when Sophie walked in with the rug under her arm rearranges itself in my mind.

  I’d assumed. She’d let me.

  “I didn’t know,” I stammer, but his eyes tell me he already knows. I set the bottle by my foot. The wine has made the warm, still air suffocating. “You weren’t lying before.”

  He gives a short nod. He hasn’t contradicted anything Sophie’s said about him either—just let his reputation as a Player-capital-P keep building.

  “Why did you even come this weekend?” I ask.

  His eyes flicker to the fire. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I’m pretending to be a guy’s girlfriend so his family will accept his real one. Try me.”

  “Maybe being with a girl who’s into you is better than being alone with your worthless self.”

  Worthless? Handsome, sought-after Xavier Yeh of Longzhou fame and fortune?

  “Why would you say that?”

  His eyes flicker away this time. His hand drifts to a workbook I hadn’t noticed, then he catches my gaze and moves his hand away. Xavier Yeh, class rebel and collector of demerits—is studying his Chinese reader on a Saturday night.

  And it’s as if his reader is whispering with a secret.

  “Can
I see?”

  He reaches for the bottle. As I hand it back, our fingers brush—his are hot. Feverish.

  He trades me his notebook. “Read it and weep.”

  He finishes off our bottle, climbs to his feet, and rummages behind a liquor bar by the window.

  Alone on the floor, I open his workbook, mystified.

  The pages feel fragile, as if they might rip if I turn them too hastily. An unfamiliar handwriting crams the margins. Copying Chinese characters. Copying their English translations.

  “Bibent” instead of “didn’t”

  “Pensel” instead of pencil”

  “dall” instead of “ball”

  A cork pops at the bar.

  When he returns, new bottle in hand, I ask, “Is this your handwriting?”

  He sits beside me again, closer this time. His leg, bristly with hair, brushes my bare calf. His feet are long and lean. The heat of his arm presses against mine, but my body is slow to react, and I don’t move away, and then I don’t want to. I put the new bottle to my lips and drink a richer, darker wine that rushes warmth into my fingers and toes.

  “Words don’t like me,” he says. “They bounce around the page. I can run my eyes over them a hundred times and still not understand what I’ve looked at.”

  Like Pearl. I remember how Xavier refused to write in calligraphy, except for that single, symmetrical character. How he always made me, then Sophie, go first in partner exercises, so he could hear me read aloud, then repeat back what we’d read. He’s hidden it so carefully, and now he’s showing it to me, the girl who shredded his painting into snowfall.

  “Are you dyslexic?”

  “Something like that.” His voice is rough. “Another word for stupid.”

  I’m stunned. I’ve read about kids feeling that way about dyslexia, but those stories always felt like time capsules—outdated ideas frozen in amber, like the secret shame of the woman who gave birth out of wedlock in The Scarlet Letter or the witch hunt in The Crucible.

  “It’s not stupid,” I say. “My sister’s dyslexic.”

  “Really?”

  “My dad tutors her. She had a special ed teacher through elementary school. Gets accommodations and uses voice dictation software. She loves music but note reading is hard for her, so she uses her ear to help—I mean, it’s not easy, but she’s top in her class.”