Loveboat, Taipei

by Abigail Hing Wen

  My heart jolts as Xavier maneuvers in beside me. His gold chain glints beneath the collar of his tailored shirt. He takes my elbow, protecting me from the crowd as we make our way out. His nose is still bruised: a patch of dark yellow over its bridge.

  His touch, his scent, stirs my body with the memory of his kisses, our bodies interlocked.

  “Hi,” I say dumbly.

  “Did it mean anything to you?” His low voice runs under the crowd’s rumblings.

  “The stone meat?” I swallow hard. “Funny how much our ancestors worshiped food.”

  His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “They had a lot of appetites we don’t give them credit for.”

  I blush, fixating on a five-colored vase ahead, decorated with immortals, a hundred deer, fruits, fauna, auspicious blue clouds.

  “You’re avoiding me,” Xavier says.

  “I didn’t know what to say,” I admit.

  His posture is easygoing, but his hands tense on the rail separating us from the vase. “It wasn’t a random hookup for me.”

  I moisten my dry lips. “I don’t want to regret—”

  “Then don’t.” His hand brushes the back of my hair. “You’re holding out for someone who’s made his choice.”

  A new stab of anxiousness. Xavier’s seen all the phone calls. All the postcards. But the bo staff . . . I wish I could call Rick but I’ve never needed his phone number and don’t have it.

  “Why were you fighting with him?”

  Xavier’s eyes shift. “He was pissed about the kiss at his aunt’s. It wasn’t his business.”

  I hate Rick for knowing.

  But he made it his business.

  “Maybe he hasn’t made his choice,” I blurt.

  Xavier turns toward me, spreading an exasperated hand. “Then why’s he with Jenna in Hong Kong?”

  “How did you even know that?”

  “I overheard his call at the clinic, okay? She was moving her flight from Taipei. He was arranging to pick her up at the airport.”

  “Taipei?” I stammer. “She was coming to Taipei? I didn’t know.” Why didn’t he tell me? For all I know, Rick’s finally manned up and planned to force his family to accept her.

  I’m such a fool.

  The years of unrequited pining crash down on me with aching loneliness. After Dan, I haven’t learned anything. Obsessing over a guy in love with another girl. A guy who’s made clear over and over that he thinks of me as his sister.

  My chest constricts. I move into the next room, where the taps of a chisel on stone echo from a guest-artist carving chops at a corner table. A panorama on a silk scroll dominates the rest of the room, a range called Mount Lu, with craggy peaks and evergreens, with blues so deep and rich I can taste them.

  As Xavier comes up beside me, I start to move away, but his hand covers mine on the railing.

  “Is this . . . would I have a better chance with you if I could read?” he asks quietly.

  My head snaps up. “That has nothing to do with anything! How could you even think that?”

  He looks away. His wavy hair has grown longer since the first day, and he’s tucked it behind his ears, making him look younger. I look back on my behavior—running off the morning after, avoiding him because I’ve been too mortified to own my choice—I haven’t been kind . . . at all.

  “Does your dad not want you to paint?” I ask.

  He gives me a quick glance. A short laugh. “My dad will buy art if it’s a good investment. But no stupid son of his is wasting time mucking around in it.”

  “Well, he’s not here. So, go do it. Paint your heart out the rest of this trip.”

  He runs his hand along the railing, still not looking at me. Then he pulls his notebook from the back of his shorts and thrusts it into my hand. It’s warm from his body. Unwillingly, I flip through. There’s a tentativeness to these drawings I didn’t see in mine, as if he sketched them with one eye peering over his shoulder, waiting for a lash to fall.

  A temple’s stone pillars, carved with scaly dragons and gold-embossed characters. An artist in a paint-flecked smock raises his brush to an easel. A marbled tea egg lies on its own shadow. No girls, when I’d half-expected them. Just more of me. Fishing the last thread of shark fin from my soup at Aunty Claire’s. Me at the breakfast bar this morning, scooping a salted egg onto my plate. My profile at the front of the classroom, facing Debra for a paired exercise.

  The back of my head on his pillow, the curve of my bare shoulder, folded sheets pulled to my elbow.

  I nearly drop the notebook. His drawings have changed. They’re deeper. Fervid. Feverish.

  I press his notebook back into his hands with shaking hands of my own. I move to the chop-carving table, where the artist is etching the triple characters of Chinese names into soapstones the size of rectangular lipstick tubes. Seals. To imprint the red stamps on paintings in this museum and at Aunty Claire’s.

  I buy a pale green chop, swirling with darker green veins.

  “Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì?” The stonecutter is asking for the name to carve into it, but I shake my head and hand the stone to Xavier.

  “You should carve your own,” I say. “Chen Laoshi says most artists do. Kind of like a ballerina sewing her own ribbons on her pointe shoes—sorry”—I pull a deep breath and exhale through my mouth—“but you can’t draw me anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why.”

  “No I don’t.” He flips the chop, rubs his thumb along its edge.

  “Don’t make this so hard.”

  “I’m not the one making it hard.”

  “Stop.” I turn to go, but his arm wraps around my waist, holding me in place.

  His next words are half-buried in my hair. “Ever, all I want is a chance.”

  I took advantage of a crush and fanned it into a flame.

  All the phone calls. All the postcards.

  I find myself leaning into him. I rest my forehead on his shoulder as his arms go around me and I’m so afraid I’m going to hurt him.

  But I no longer have the strength to push him away.

  “Maybe we could read together some.” My voice is muffled by his shirt. “I’ll help you with English, you help me with Mandarin?”

  His arms tighten. He rests his chin on my hair. “I’d like that.”

  27

  “Laura, step forward so we can see you. Lena, that’s perfect.”

  All day Saturday and Sunday, I throw myself into preparing for the talent show as if my sanity depends on it. Maybe it does. We work out-of-sight in the back courtyard by the carp fountain, and I’ve adjusted Megan’s and my dance to incorporate fifteen girls—instead of a flag duet, I block them into three groups of five girls with fans, ribbons, and snappy jazz moves, then braid them together as the song builds.

  “Keep your circles the same size for those three measures, then break into the interweaving lines.”

  Sliding into instructions comes so naturally to me—and the girls are good. With five hundred kids to recruit from, we’ve gathered an all-star squad. But by the end of the weekend, the dance hasn’t gelled yet. Honestly, it’s a random mix of ribbons and fans.

  Still, as I work with them, I feel an internal calm, a sense of groundedness deep in my core. My parents sent me to discover my heritage, but in the process, I’m also finding parts of myself, even if that self isn’t who they want me to be.

  Between classes and dancing, I place a lifeline call to Pearl from the lobby phone, asking her for tips I can pass to Xavier.

  “He needs to find a reading teacher for dyslexia when you guys come home,” Pearl says. “But you can still read with him. Dad did that with me when I was little, remember? Hours a night. Also clay letters. That was fun.”

  When did my little sister grow up?

  “I remember.” Dad on the couch with Pearl in his lap, a book spread over her skinny legs. They used to read long past her bedtime, until Mom chased her angrily to bed and scolded Dad. Dad’s
an absentminded teddy bear when he gets into something. But I don’t want to think of him that way. It makes it harder to hang on to my anger.

  In the evening, as storms batter the windows, Xavier and I work in the fifth-floor lounge. I bring our readers. He brings a box of dragon’s beard candy.

  “Chuang qian ming yue guang.” I read the phonetic pinyin of the poem assigned for homework. “I have no idea what I just said. Something something bright moon something.”

  “Chuáng qián míng yuè guāng.” He corrects my tones. “I’m pretty sure you said, ‘Bright moonlight before my bed.’ Most Chinese kids learn that poem in grade school.”

  “Why doesn’t the Dragon give us the translation?” I grumble. “At least you and I make a good team. I don’t understand half of what I’m saying, but you—”

  “—understand what you’re saying but can’t read half of it.” He grins. His front tooth is slightly crooked; I hadn’t noticed before. “This is kind of fun.”

  He’s fun. Self-deprecating in that wry way. I hope this is helping him, showing him those things he’s believed about himself are lies. I want to give him something good this summer, even if I don’t know if I can give him what he wants.

  He’s not pressing me beyond the reading.

  Maybe we’re moving back toward a friendship. I hope so.

  The following Monday afternoon, the fifth week of Chien Tan and a full week since Rick left, my eroding demerit list permits me to renew outings—as long as I clear it with the office. When I meet the girls in the courtyard, I say, “Want to hold practice outside the National Theater today? Could be inspiring.”

  They’re game. Arm in arm, singing “Orchid Grass,” we move in a herd past the pond and up the driveway. As we round the bend, I catch sight of Sophie coming toward us in a yellow sundress, dwarfed by Matteo’s rugby frame.

  “I do not talk too much.” Matteo’s moon-shaped face and Italian accent are both stiff with anger. With a meaty hand, he yanks savagely at the collar of his striped polo shirt. His other hand is clenched.

  “I’m sorry, babe. You don’t—I’m just in a bad mood, okay? I promise I’ll make it up to you.” Sophie tucks her hand under his elbow, but his knuckles remains white on his fist. They cuddle on the bus trips to Chiang Kai-shek’s former residence and the zoo, and I heard they’ve secretly moved into the spare room. But Matteo’s explosive temper ended with Grace Pu leaving the program—surely, Rick wouldn’t approve. And he’d asked me to watch out for her.

  Sophie catches sight of us. Her gaze flits from me to our group. Her flawless makeup—down to her green eyeliner—and her crisp sundress contrast starkly with my shorts, tank top, and bare face. Noticing no longer comes with its old twinge of insecurity, but I still brace myself as I say, “Mei-Hwa dropped off your dry cleaning. I put it in your closet.”

  “I’ll pick it up.” Something like regret in her eyes gives me my own pang. I’ve seen her leave boxes of pineapple cakes in the lounge for others to enjoy, then slink off without taking credit. Typical Sophie generosity, but now her shoulders droop, her eyes are shadowed. We hit it off from day one. She’s helped me break free of my straitjacket. I wish I could talk to Rick about her.

  She starts to pass, then turns back. “Ever?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s construction at the Metro. You might want to cross the river and grab cabs instead.”

  It’s a good tip. It saves us fifteen minutes of retracing our steps, and cabs split four ways are cheap.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Sophie nods, then tucks her hand under Matteo’s arm and moves on.

  In my head, I add a bullet to the Ever Wong Plan—

  Sort things out with Sophie. Somehow.

  Our cabs drop us off at Liberty Square, a vast public plaza fronted by another gate of five white arches accented by blue pagoda roofs. It leads onto a wide avenue flanked by sculpted trees that runs toward the white temple and blue pagoda roof of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial.

  On either side of the avenue, two traditional Chinese buildings face each other: the National Theater and National Concert Hall. They’re works of art themselves: wide stone steps leading to a platform surrounding each building, and red columns holding up two-tiered, orange roofs with dragons, phoenixes, and other mythological Chinese creatures marching down each swallowtail corner.

  A breeze gusts through the humid air. I guide the girls up steps to the deck of the National Theater. A wall of glass doors reflects us like the mirrors of a ballet studio. Posters advertise upcoming performances by a Beijing opera and Julliard string quartet.

  “We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect place to practice,” I gloat. “This is like Carnegie Hall. Or the National Theatre in DC.”

  “I learned to ride my bike here.” Lena fingers her cross pendant, her gaze following a little boy pedaling his own bike under his parents’ watchful gaze.

  “Really?” I’d learned to ride in the park near my home, Dad hanging on to the back trying to keep up. “Were you visiting?”

  “I was born here.” In her southern drawl, I now hear the lilt of a Taiwanese accent. “I moved with my family to the US when I was eleven.”

  “I can’t imagine coming here like it’s your own backyard.” Did Mom learn to ride her bike in a plaza like this one? Was Dad one of those boys playing cards in the corner? Did they listen to pop music and flirt, or were they always serious and focused?

  “Ever,” Debra calls. “You ready?”

  I’d been staring out over the plaza watching ghosts.

  “Yes,” I say. “Let’s do this.”

  “Lán Huā Cǎo” begins to play from Debra’s speakers. “Orchid Grass,” the old song Mei-Hwa shared with me. I love the simplicity of its melody to open the dance. My girls spread out on the platform, their reflections dancing in the row of glass doors. As the music blends into the next song, I adjust the blocking to balance the long swirls of ribbon with the rosewood fans and propless jazz dancers. The music spills over to a yet-unchoreographed song, spontaneous free dancing breaks out, and we spend as much time laughing as practicing.

  At last, soaked with sweat, we flop down on the steps and drink from our bottles.

  “Lena, you dance like you’re made of water,” I say, and the girls chime agreement. She has a body like Megan’s, supple and slender. I’d never seen her dance before our group came together; she’s never come clubbing, and is really involved with the weekly Bible study she started on the fifth floor. I was surprised she agreed to join us. And grateful.

  “My mom’s a dancer.” She smooths her black hair back with her stretchy red headband. “She gave up her career to raise me. I considered dancing professionally, too, but I talked about it with my mom and the ballet world is too cutthroat. Worse than pro sports, where at least you win or lose the game. Ballet—it’s so subjective.”

  “So what are you doing instead?”

  “I’m applying to physical therapy school. I want to work with dancers. That way I’ll get to stay in the dancing world and choose the hours I work, so I’ll still have time to dance.”

  “You’re so lucky you can talk to your mom about this.” Why can she, but not I? Is it because we grew up in different cultures? If Mom and Dad were raised in America, or I in Asia, like Lena . . .

  All the important questions in life, I ask my best friend or the librarian. I never talk to my parents about the books I read or the music I love or the dances in my head. I can’t trust them not to take what bit of soul I offer them and hurl it into a dumpster.

  “My mother told me to try to find another way to come at the dance, something to make myself more than a pretty body. But I’m not like you.” She lays a hand on her heart, dimpling with an impish smile. “I’m just a dancer. Not like you—a choreographer—that’s not something everyone can do.”

  I’m too stunned to give my usual, knee-jerk denial. Megan often called me a choreographer. Am I one? If I am, what does that mean?

&n
bsp; But the sun is beginning to set behind Taipei. We need to wrap up.

  “Ready for our last runs?” I ask.

  The girls groan, but climb good-naturedly to their feet and spread out.

  Their movements are coming together, arms, legs, angles flowing closer to synchronization with each run-through. But something is still off—that randomness I can’t nail down. As I observe the final go, I understand what’s missing.

  “It needs a tent pole to bring it together,” I say as Debra and Laura collide. With Megan’s and my interactive duet spread out among the girls, the dance is a canvas without shape, waving in the wind.

  “It’s awesome the way it is,” Debra says. “We just need to learn it.”

  “Seriously, it’s great, Ever,” Laura says.

  “It’s great because you are.” I smile, appreciating their support.

  But the choreographer in me—I try on the identity, which squeaks—wants more.

  28

  Tuesday night, I spend a quarter hour at my desk on Skype with Mom, trying to help her navigate a medical bill our insurance is refusing to cover. We’re both tense, frustrated by the necessity of this call neither of us want to endure. Dad hasn’t spoken to me since the nude-photo call. That he’s still angry hurts more than I care to admit, but I try not to dwell on it. At least Mom hasn’t brought the photos up again.

  As we wrap up, she says, “Ever? I found a ticket from Taipei that’s almost the right price. I’m watching for it to come down.”

  “Mom.” Just like that, my blood pressure shoots through the ceiling. “I’m behaving. I’m getting all As. I’m even getting tutored. I don’t need to come home early, and besides, there’s less than three weeks left.”

  “Your father and I, we made a mistake, sending you away your last summer.”

  United they stand, as always.

  As I sign off, I push to my feet and find my legs trembling. I text Pearl:

  Are they really still trying to bring me home?

  Pearl: Yes. They talk about your photo every night.

  I groan and grab my bo staff, twirl it in a hypnotic whirl until it hums, then spin a full circle myself while keeping it revolving in place, a trick I do for my flag dances. I’d impressed Rick with part of this move. He’s been gone over a week, missing the dragon boat race he’d organized himself, from which I was banned. I want to tell him about this dance I’m doing for the talent show. I want to beat him in another duel. I take out my calligraphy inkwell and my thinnest brush, and paint my Chinese name onto the staff’s tip: