For now, it’s enough to know there’s meaning there.
I walk beside Dad in his wheelchair, and put my hand on his shoulder, new for the both of us.
He places his hand over mine and smiles up. “Ready to go home?”
“I’m ready.”
I bring Pearl a third bo staff so we can practice with Dad, and I surprise Mom with a small purple dragon fruit I smuggled inside two pairs of socks in my suitcase. After years of being harassed by customs agents at the border, I figured she was due one.
Her normally stern face softens. “Ever, it’s my—”
“Favorite. I know.” I smile. It’s not a pearl necklace, but I can at least show I was thinking of her.
A few weeks after my return home, after my jet-lag loopiness wears off, a jubilant reunion with Megan and Dan, and a call from Mei-Hwa—she’s back in school thanks to us—I brew a pot of red oolong tea, and set three cups on the kitchen counter.
“Mom? Dad? Can we talk?”
At the dining table, Mom looks up from her stack of bills. Dad closes his newspaper and removes his spectacles, polishes them with the hem of his shirt, then returns them to his face.
In a summer of firsts, this is the first I’ve approached them with news of my own. I’d let them down in small ways all summer, though they will never know the half of it. I’d let myself down at times, too.
But I’m still standing.
And now, I’m ready to let them down in the biggest way of all.
I slip into a seat across from them. “I did a lot of thinking in Taiwan,” I say. “This won’t be easy for you to hear, but I’m not going to Northwestern in September.”
Dad’s glasses come off again. Mom sets down her teacup.
“Everett—”
“Please hear me out. I don’t want to be a doctor. I’ve always known that deep down but was too afraid to acknowledge it.” I smile. “I get vertigo at the sight of blood. Not the most auspicious beginning for a medical career.”
“That shouldn’t stop you—” Dad protests, but I put my hand over his.
“I could overcome that—you raised me that way. The real reason is—” I take a steadying breath. “I want to dance. I want to create dances. And I’m good at it. I’m going to take a gap year and work at Zeigler’s as a dance instructor, and apply to dance schools and scholarship programs for next fall. I have a film of the dance I choreographed in Taiwan that I’ll use as part of my application.”
“Dancing isn’t practical for a career.” Mom’s as brisk as morning air. “Starting over isn’t practical. What if you can’t get a job after dance school? No medical school will want you then. No, you’ve worked so hard. You finish medical school, and dance on the side.”
“Mom, you didn’t hear me,” I say. “I’m not going to medical school.”
I pull out an envelope that came in the mail today, and push the letter from Northwestern toward them. A check is enclosed. “I learned to negotiate this summer from my roommate. I asked them to return our deposit.”
Mom pushes aside her stack of bills and draws the letter closer. She raises her eyes to mine. With a pang, I notice new wrinkles in their corners, the lines on her forehead. They deepen.
“This is foolish.”
Her worn hands land on the table and she rises.
“Dancing doesn’t put food on the table! How can you do this to us? To your father? Are you still so ungrateful, after all we’ve done?”
“Paula—” Dad begins, but she shouts him down.
“This isn’t what we raised her for. We gave up everything for her. Everything!”
I stay in my seat, my hands wrapped around my hot mug. At the start of summer, her words would have torn my soul to pieces. In the middle, I might have roared, “Then I’ll just starve!”
Now, her glare still makes my stomach dip like I’ve hit the bottom of a roller coaster.
But then I ride forward over the next hill.
I would die for my family if it came to it. I would emigrate to a foreign country and give up dancing to unwrap blood-soaked bandages every hour of every day if it meant food and shelter for my family. But because of them, I don’t have to. I don’t have to be Dad pushing a cart, reeking of antiseptic and longing to be somewhere else, the place where my soul lives.
“Mom, Dad, both of you were brave enough to come to America without your families. Dad gave up medicine so we could grow up here. That took courage, and I learned that from you. You gave up security and took risks so you could have bigger things. I’m doing that, too. I want to use my dancing to bring attention to people no one’s paying attention to.”
Mom storms from the room.
Dad still wears a stunned expression. But not of anger. Our precious bit of hard-won trust is still between us.
“She’ll come around.” He squeezes my hand, then follows her.
The long, painful conversation stretches over many days, interrupted by meals, work, Pearl’s recital for her Mozart Sonata in C, which she nails, then her first day of middle school, and a tearful farewell with Megan. But it’s a conversation I’m glad to have. For too long, I’ve hidden my love for dancing, those larger dreams, from my parents.
No longer.
Mom stops speaking to me. But I know that even if she’s wrong about what I need, she wants the best for me in her own way. Dad says little, as usual, but instead of judgment, I sense support underlying his silence. Maybe it’s always been there. Dad understands what it means to give up your dreams. And I understand now that rejecting their wishes is not the same as rejecting them.
I wrestle with another kind of guilt. Am I that girl who shies away from science or traditionally male careers? But the answer is no. I love my parents for never seeing my gender as an obstacle to my career success. That gave me choices Sophie never saw for herself.
Because I do have a choice.
And I’m not making it blindly. I’ve looked all the way down the road, and I know I will be a thousand times happier dancing on a community theater stage than advising the Oval Office as surgeon general.
Sophie calls from Dartmouth orientation: her roommate, like Spencer, wants to run for office one day, and Sophie’s already got her eyes on the presidency of the entrepreneur club. Xavier, to whom Sophie speaks once a week, turned down a spot at a fancy private high school in Massachusetts that his dad got him through a big donation, and moved to Los Angeles to work on a set for an indie theater, a gig he got from the buyer of Three Old Men.
“And you’ll never believe this,” Sophie says. “Jenna got into Northwestern’s medical program.”
“No!” I clutch my phone. “She got my spot.”
“Marc called it, didn’t he?” Sophie’s exasperated. “One Asian girl’s as good as another. But she deferred her acceptance.”
“Really?”
“She’s taking a gap year to work with a counselor first. She said she’s not ready yet.”
“I’m glad,” I say. “On so many levels, I’m glad.”
On August 24, Rick visits on his way to Yale, and Dad makes his own announcement over dinner. He’s still using crutches, on light duty at work. “I’ve decided to retire from the Cleveland Clinic and pursue my consulting business full-time. Dr. Lee has been encouraging me to do this for a while, and he’s gotten me another contract in Taitung.”
I rise from my seat to hug him. “Dad, that’s great. Congratulations.”
“It’s risky,” Dad admits. “If things go south, I might make less than I did at the hospital. The timing seems wrong, with you not going to med—ur, switching directions. But I’ve been thinking about doing this for ten years. And you’re so happy. Maybe none of us can hide who we are.”
“We can’t,” I agree.
Rick offers to help Dad set up his remote office, and the two of them spend a busy few days in the study setting up a Wi-Fi range extender, power bank, and telepresence screen.
“Thank you.” I loop my arm around Rick’s waist and he
drapes his around my shoulder as we admire the setup.
“Homecoming in October,” Rick reminds me as Dad plugs in his desk lamp.
With Dad’s back turned, I sneak Rick a silent kiss. “I’ll be there.”
Mom celebrates Dad’s first contract by splurging on the white interior shutters she’s always wanted. “It will help Dad focus when he needs more privacy,” she makes excuses. But as I dance by the living room to the rhythm of a song in my head, on my way to teach a class at Zeigler’s, I catch her sitting on the couch, smiling at her shutters.
How far we’ve all come.
Opening the door, I dance down the steps and spin a pirouette. The sun is bright in a cloudless blue sky. I haven’t just thrown open the shutters on my burglar’s lantern. I’ve torn them off their hinges.
There’s no more containing the supernova.
Author’s Note
Writing an English-language novel with three different Chinese dialects was trickier than I expected. I didn’t have many precedents to draw from, so found myself making my own calls on how to navigate spellings, italics, and tone marks. I don’t know that I’ve gotten it right, but hope I’ve at least come close to making the reading experience as seamless as possible.
The majority of Chinese-language dialogue in this novel is written in Hànyǔ pīnyīn, the official Romanization system for Standard Chinese. For Chinese words commonly used in the English text, such as qipao, pinyin, and dim sum (Cantonese), I chose not to use tone marks to blend them into the main English-language text. I made the same choice for proper names of characters and places, such as Mei-Hwa and Ai-Mei, which often appeared in English sentences, although they also sometimes appear in the same sentence as Hànyǔ pīnyīn.
Chien Tan is the spelling of the actual campus, and uses the Wades-Giles system, the formerly dominant Romanization system in Taiwan.
The Hokkien pinyin is based on Peh-ōe-jī Romanization, one of multiple systems for Taiwanese Hokkien.
Acknowledgments
So many people have helped me through my writing journey of twelve years. There isn’t ink enough to thank them all.
I am grateful to the following people who helped bring Loveboat, Taipei to life.
My HarperCollins team:
My brilliant editor Kristen Pettit, whose vision, energy, and creativity have made a beautiful book. Thank you for all the ways you are bringing change into our world.
Jenna Stempel-Lobell, Corina Lupp, Janice Sung, and Jennet Liaw for the incredible cover art and your other works.
Cindy Hamilton, Ebony LaDelle, Jane Lee, Sari Murray, Clare Vaughn, Michael D’Angelo, the Epic Reads team, Shenwei Chang, Jessica Gold, and all those in marketing and publicity who are bringing Loveboat, Taipei to the world.
My New Leaf family:
Jo Volpe, who, ten years before becoming my agent, encouraged me as a fledging writer when she sent me a hand-marked copy of my first manuscript. With you, the possibilities are endless.
Pouya Shahbazian who is pulling back the curtains into Hollywood for me.
Meredith Barnes for brilliantly bridging my many lives when I wasn’t sure they could all fit together.
Mia Roman, Veronica Grijlva, Abigail Donoghue, Jordan Hill, Kelsey Lewis, Mariah Chappell, Hilary Pecheone, Cassandra Baim, and the whole New Leaf team. Suzie Townsend for your warm welcome!
My VCFA community:
Shelley Tanaka, A.M. Jenkins, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Rachel Yeaman, Monica Roe, Gena Smith, Suma Subramaniam, Heather Hughes, Lianna McSwain, Laura Atkins. Susan Korchek for our conversations on dyslexia.
My critique partners: Sabaa Tahir, Stephanie Garber, Stacey Lee (a fellow two-Loveboater family), Kelly Loy Gilbert, I. W. Gregorio, Sonya Mukherjee. Your generosity and faith in me made this book happen.
My San Francisco writing community: SCBWI NorCal writers, Melanie Raanes, Angela Mann and all the booksellers at our beloved Keplers Books— I am so grateful for your friendship over these years.
My wise college friends and community: my roommate Judy Hung Liang, Chienlan Hsu, Emily Sadigh, Jennifer H. Wu, Paula Fernandez, Kavitha Ramchandran. When we met years ago, we wanted to change the world—and we’re doing it.
Yang-Sze Choo and James Cham for years of patience and advice.
Olivia Chen for boundless creative marketing ideas for the bubble tea tour.
Jill and Nathan Schmidt for forging my gorgeous chops. I have been so proud to use them.
For invaluable professional feedback: Noa Wheeler, Anne Ursu, Lewis Buzbee, Jordan Brown and Cathy Yardley. Meghan Hopkins for your mental health sensitivity read.
Brian Yang, Bing Chen, Chris Kim, Eugene Wei and Pier Nirandara for support as I navigate Hollywood. Stephanie Yang, thank you.
For taking the time to dish about Loveboat: Carey Lai (your bo stick fighting tip changed the story!), Emily Yao, Eugene Wei, Jerry Chiang, David Lee, Dave Lu, Andy Wen. Ferdinand Hui for introductions. Tony Lin, my tour guide around the island of Taiwan.
My siblings, Byron and Liza Hing, for wise counsel and support, Colleen Hing Linde for faithfully reading every one of my novels, and Brooks Linde, for much needed prayers.
My parents, Ray and Barbara Lim Hing. It still means so much to me to make you proud.
My boys, Aidan and Alistair—you are my greatest joys.
My husband and best friend, Andy. I can’t imagine who I’d be without you.
And the One who does everything in His own time.
About the Author
Photo by Olga Pichkova of IOPhotoStudio
ABIGAIL HING WEN holds a BA from Harvard, a JD from Columbia Law School, and an MFA from the Vermont School of Fine Arts. Like Ever, she is obsessed with musicals. When she’s not writing stories or listening to her favorite scores, she is busy working as an attorney in venture capital and arti ficial intelligence in Silicon Valley, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Loveboat, Taipei is her first novel, and you can find her online at www.abigailhingwen.com.
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Advance Praise for Loveboat, Taipei
“Abigail Hing Wen’s Loveboat, Taipei is a poignant and honest examination of first love, family obligations, and that strange place between high school and college, where we don’t quite know who we are, and as such, anything could happen. A unique story from an exciting and authentic new voice.”
—SABAA TAHIR, #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes
“Equal parts surprising, original, and intelligent, Loveboat, Taipei is an intense rush of rebellion, romance, and complex family dynamics. If you’ve ever wanted to feel as if you’re breaking all the rules without actually breaking any rules, then this is the book you need to read.”
—STEPHANIE GARBER, #1 New York Times and international bestselling author of the Caraval series
“Loveboat is Crazy Rich Asians meets a Jane Austen comedy of manners—fresh, fun, heartfelt, and totally addictive. It’s a story about finding your place—and your people—where you least expected.”
—KELLY LOY GILBERT, author of Morris Award finalist Conviction
“Not a ship, but a cultural phenomenon; get ready to board the Loveboat, where millions of Chinese Americans get their first taste of love and freedom. Abigail Hing Wen’s debut is as fresh as a first kiss.”
—STACEY LEE, award-winning author of Outrun the Moon
Books by Abigail Hing Wen
Loveboat, Taipei
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
LOVEBOAT, TAIPEI. Copyright © 2020 by Abigail Hing Wen. All
rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2020 by Janice Sung
Cover lettering © 2020 by Jennet Liaw
Cover design by Corina Lupp
ISBN 978-0-06-295727-6 — ISBN 978-0-06-299634-3 (int.) — ISBN 978-0-06-300797-0 (special edition)
Interior art by Shutterstock/Orgus88
Digital Edition JANUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-295729-0
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-295727-6
1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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