The Bride Test

by Helen Hoang

  “The guy who invited Andy over because he didn’t want to be alone doesn’t get lonely?” Quan asked. “How’s that flu going for you? Did you ever get a fever?”

  Khai stared at his brother mutinously. He didn’t want to talk about the fever he’d never had.

  Quan arched an eyebrow. “So are you gonna tell her now?”

  “Tell her what?”

  “That you’re embarrassingly in love with her, that’s what,” Quan said in an exasperated tone.

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not in love with her?”

  Quan rubbed at his head for a moment before he took a bracing breath and considered Khai with renewed patience. “How do you know?”

  Khai blinked. “How do I know I’m not in love?”

  “Yeah, how do you know you’re not in love?”

  “I know because I can’t love.” He’d gone over this already, and he didn’t like repeating himself.

  “So, like, you don’t think about her ever?” Quan asked.

  “No, I do.”

  “And you don’t care about her? Like if she’s sad, you don’t give a shit?”

  “No, I care,” Khai said.

  “And you wouldn’t take a bullet for her?” Quan asked.

  “No, I would. But you would, too. That’s the right thing to do.”

  “You don’t like being with her more than other people? You could trade her for someone else with no regrets?”

  Khai scowled at his brother, not liking how he was manipulating the questions. “No, I like being with her a lot, and I wouldn’t trade her for anyone else.”

  Quan gave him a deadpan look. “I bet the sex is super shitty.”

  “It’s none of your business what it’s like.” Memories from less than an hour ago played in his mind, Esme coming against his mouth, moaning his name, rubbing his cock over her wet sex. “But it’s not shitty.”

  “Lucky bastard,” Quan muttered. “I hope you realize when you say all those things about someone, it means you’ve got it bad for them.”

  Khai stepped away from the motorcycle, abandoning the keys to Quan. “I really don’t.” Love and addiction were different things.

  “Oh, come on, Khai,” Quan exploded.

  “I’m going to take a shower. After you’ve decided what you’re doing with the motorcycle, please shut the garage.”

  He escaped into his house through the garage entrance. Once inside, he took his shoes off, carried them to the front door, and sat down on the couch, propping his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his palms. Through the hard slamming of his heart, he heard the garage door shut and Quan’s Ducati roar to life. The loud engine sound receded and disappeared altogether.

  Alone again.

  He wasn’t lonely, though. He liked this.

  Like wasn’t the right word. He was accustomed to this. Well, he used to be. Until Esme came along.

  * * *

  • • •

  On Monday, Esme got an email from Miss Q saying the community college had received her test scores, and her application was under expedited review per her recommendation.

  It was really happening. She had a chance of getting a college education and changing her life for good. All on her own merits. Hope grew to gigantic proportions, and that dream of being someone possessed her. She wanted it for herself and for her baby. How wonderful would it be to show Jade what she was capable of by example.

  The days after that passed in an anxious haze, where she switched back and forth between extreme confidence and deep despair. She found the contact information for an immigration attorney who could—hopefully—help her bring Jade and her family here during the duration of her studies, but she didn’t call him. She’d only call if she got the scholarship.

  On Wednesday, her apron buzzed while she was taking an order, and she knew that was the email. She was too busy to check, but the email hung heavy in the back of her mind as she worked through the lunch rush. As she ran orders back to the kitchen, her blood hummed with excitement. It was a full scholarship, and she was on her way to being Esme in Accounting for real and taking care of her family all by herself. As she carried food trays out to the tables, her heart dropped. It was a rejection, and she was going to go home with little to show for her time here.

  Back and forth. Back and forth.

  By the time the last customer left, tucking a fantastic twenty-dollar tip under his empty water glass before winking at her, she was all nerves. Instead of pulling her phone out right away, she cleared the tables and wiped them down.

  With each swipe of wet dish towel on tabletop, she prepared herself for the upcoming news. If it was good, she was going to call her mom right away, thank Miss Q, and schedule an appointment with the immigration attorney. If it was bad, it was okay. There were good sides to her life back home, and she would keep her eyes open for other opportunities.

  But didn’t “Esmeralda Tran, college student” have a nice ring to it? She would be such a good college student. She’d study like she had this summer. She’d earn every scholarship dollar, and later, she’d make something of herself.

  When the last table was clean, she pulled her phone out of her apron, sat in her regular booth, and typed her passcode into the phone with trembling fingers. Her inbox contained one new email from the community college with the subject title “Regarding Your Scholarship Application.” The preview of the text read, “Dear Ms. Tran, Your application has been thoroughly reviewed by . . .”

  Was that good or not? It could go either way from there.

  Her heart raced, blood rushed to her head, and her mouth went dry. She was afraid to open it and read more. Maybe she should . . . delete the email. She’d be in control of her failure then, instead of these people who didn’t know her. They were judging her based on some test scores and a handful of essays she’d written in an afternoon. That wasn’t enough to measure the value of a person.

  She cleared that nonsense out of her head and scolded herself for being a coward. She had to look. This could be everything to her, her family, and her girl. After taking a deep breath and sending a prayer to the sky, Buddha, and Jesus, too, she opened the email.

  Dear Ms. Tran,

  Your application has been thoroughly reviewed by staff at Santa Clara Community College.

  Our international student scholarship sees extremely high competition every year and as such can only be awarded to the most exemplary students with proven academic potential.

  While we commend you on your performance on the GED exam, after careful review of your application, we regret to tell you we cannot offer you this scholarship. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.

  Respectfully,

  Santa Clara Community College

  She breathed inward. And kept breathing inward. Her eyes blurred over, and her face burned hot, and her lungs threatened to burst. When she exhaled, she lost more than air. She exhaled her dreams and her hopes, and her body crumpled upon itself.

  Droplets splashed against the freshly wiped tabletop, and she let them fall. She’d been evaluated, deemed to have little to no worth, and discarded. This kept happening to her. Again and again and again. And she was so tired now. So tired.

  How did you change your life when you were trapped like this? Her history didn’t define her. Her origins didn’t define her. At least, they shouldn’t. She could be more, if she had a chance.

  But people didn’t see who she was inside. They didn’t know. And she had no way to show them without an opportunity.

  The bells on the door jingled, and she looked up in time to see Quân stride to her table. He wore a motorcycle jacket over a designer T-shirt and jeans and dominated the restaurant with his large body and larger presence.

  He took one look at her, and his face creased with concern. “Oh hell, what’s wrong?”
He glanced toward the kitchen. “Was it my mom? Did she yell at you? I’ll talk to her.” He headed that way, and she hurried to swipe an arm over her face.

  “No, no, it was not Cô.” She took a ragged breath and got to her feet. Pushing a smile onto her lips, she asked, “Want anything? Water? Coffee? Coca-Cola?”

  “No, I’m good. You should sit. You look . . .” He shook his head without finishing, ushered her back into the booth, and took the seat across from her. “What happened?” When she didn’t respond right away, he asked, “Something with Khai? I kind of thought you two would get back together this week. I had a talk with him.”

  She pushed a practiced smile onto her lips and shook her head. “No, we are not together.” She fingered the edges of her phone—more accurately Khải’s phone, since she was going to give it back to him before she left.

  “He hasn’t called you or anything?” Quân asked.

  She thinned her lips. “No.” Would she have picked up if he had? She knew he wasn’t going to tell her what she wanted to hear, but then, she couldn’t help worrying about him either. The ceremony on Sunday had shaken him up in a way she’d never seen before. “How is he?”

  Quân stretched his head from side to side and rubbed the back of his tattooed neck. “That’s the big question, isn’t it? No one knows. I don’t think he knows.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that, so she looked down at her phone.

  “Why the tears?” he asked, sounding so nice she almost started crying again.

  “Some news. I knew it was bad, but I had the hope anyway, and then . . .” She shrugged.

  “News about what?”

  “Scholarship, to go to college here. I did not get it.” She tried as hard as she could to keep her tone light and even, but her voice wobbled at the end anyway.

  “That was your plan? To get a scholarship and student visa?” he asked.

  She nodded and pasted a determined smile on her face, bracing herself in case he laughed at her like the people at the community college probably had.

  “Khai loves you, you know,” he said instead.

  She stiffened like lightning had struck her, and her heart skipped one beat, two beats. “He told you that?”

  “No,” he said with a twist of his lips. “He didn’t tell me that. Well, not with words. But I can tell. You know he’s autistic, right?”

  That word. She remembered hearing it before. “Yes, he told me.”

  He searched her face. “Do you know what it means?”

  She fidgeted with her phone uncomfortably. To be honest, she hadn’t thought about it much. “I thought maybe the touching. There is a way to do it.”

  “That’s part of it, but there’s more. His mind is different—no, it’s not a sickness. The way he thinks and also the way he processes emotions are not like most people.”

  That gave her pause. Yes, he was different, but his differences weren’t unpassable obstacles. At least, she hadn’t found them to be. To her, Khải was just Khải, and she accepted him the way he was.

  The thing she still hadn’t been able to accept was the fact that he didn’t love her, that he didn’t accept her.

  As if he could read her mind, Quân said, “Khai loves you. He just hasn’t figured it out yet.”

  She had difficulty believing that. Love wasn’t complicated. You either felt it or you didn’t. There was nothing to “figure out.”

  Quân’s gaze turned penetrating, and he asked, “Do you want to find out once and for all if he does? I know how.”

  Her pride told her to say no, she’d given him enough chances. But her heart had to know. Feeling vulnerable, she said, “Yes, how?”

  He looked her directly in the eyes and said, “If it doesn’t work, you’ll end up married to me. Willing to gamble?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Khai stared at the Evite on his phone in a dazed stupor. He had to be dreaming—no, not dreaming, nightmaring. This couldn’t be real.

  YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED TO

  Esmeralda and Quan’s Wedding

  Saturday, August 8th

  11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

  San Francisco, CA

  PLEASE RSVP BY AUGUST 7TH

  Who the hell sent their invitations out the same week as their wedding? No one, that was who. He was probably still in bed, hugging Esme’s pillow close because it smelled like her. The scent had been fading, and he didn’t know what he’d do when it was gone altogether. Start cuddling up with the dirty laundry she’d left behind maybe.

  His phone buzzed with an incoming call as he stared at the Evite.

  Quan mobile.

  He hit the talk button immediately. “I just got your Evite.”

  Quan laughed, the fucker.

  “It’s not funny,” Khai said, but his relief was almost dizzying. It was just a practical joke.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” Quan said. “We’re really getting married Saturday.”

  His brother’s words hit Khai like a punch in the gut, and he sank down onto his couch. Esme’s glass on the coffee table caught his eye. There was only a tiny amount of water left inside. It would probably dry out around the same time she married his traitor of a brother.

  “You’re really getting married?” he asked.

  “That’s the plan, yeah.”

  “To Esme.” His Esme.

  “It’s either that or watch her leave on Sunday,” Quan said. “This is mostly to get her a green card, but I do like her. I’m looking at it as a trial period. Who knows, maybe it’ll work out, and we’ll make a go of it.”

  That gut-punched feeling worsened, and Khai gripped the edge of the couch with his free hand and squeezed until his knuckles turned white.

  “Unless you’re going to do it,” Quan added.

  “I already asked her.”

  “You know what you have to do if you want her to say yes.”

  “I. Don’t. Love. Her,” he gritted out. Why did people keep pushing him on this? It wasn’t like he enjoyed saying he didn’t love her. He wanted to love her. He just . . . didn’t.

  “Did you get rid of that bike yet?” Quan asked in a casual tone.

  Khai’s muscles tightened until the blood vessels on his arm bulged. “No.”

  “Maybe you should go do that.” Khai opened his mouth to argue, but before he could get a word out, Quan said, “I gotta go, but you’re coming Saturday, right?”

  “Yeah,” Khai said.

  “Great. See you then.”

  The line disconnected, and the gravity in the room pulled him down further.

  This wasn’t just a dance or a night. This was marriage. Esme was marrying Quan. She’d be sharing his apartment with him, maybe even his bed because of the nightmares, smiling at him every day, filling his silence, reading his accounting books.

  She would fall in love with Quan. If she could fall for Khai, she’d definitely fall for Quan. And Quan would love her back. Quan would be excellent to her.

  Fuck, he didn’t want his brother to be excellent to Esme.

  He pressed his palms to his eye sockets until his eyes hurt, but then he let his hands drop away, and he was staring at her glass again. There was only a millimeter or two of water left, and when it was dry, the likelihood of her filling it was basically zero.

  What should he do? He couldn’t let her go, and he couldn’t marry her. But he couldn’t let her marry Quan, either. None of the available options were acceptable.

  He clenched his jaw and shot to his feet. That meant he had to find another option. And he knew just the one.

  * * *

  • • •

  Tomorrow was the big day, and Khải hadn’t called or tried to see Esme even once.

  If he was willing to let her marry his brother, he couldn’t be jealous.

  Quâ
n was wrong.

  Just as she thought of him, Quân strode into the restaurant. Her chest constricted when she saw the large garment bag thrown over his shoulder.

  She could guess what that was, and it made her palms sweat.

  He set it down on the table and aimed a lopsided smile at her. “Vy borrowed this for you.”

  Esme wiped her hands on her apron. After looking at him to confirm it was okay, she reached for the zipper and pulled it down.

  Gauzy folds of cloth spilled out of the bag, and she gasped and covered her mouth. It was Sara’s ten-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown.

  Quân chuckled at her reaction. “It turns out booking wedding venues last minute is pretty nuts. You kinda have to take what you can get, and what I got was San Francisco City Hall—the couple who reserved it had some massive breakup and canceled yesterday. You’re going to want to dress up.”

  “It is nice?”

  “Yeah, pretty nice,” Quân said with another laugh.

  She pulled her hands away from the dress and wiped her palms over her apron again. She knew he’d mentioned marrying her if Khải didn’t figure out his feelings, but he couldn’t mean it. Why would he want to marry her? He didn’t know anything about her.

  With a wrinkle of her lips, she zipped the garment bag back up. “You should cancel the wedding and return this to Sara. Anh Khải did not call me. Don’t waste your money.”

  “Can’t. I already paid for city hall, and your family are on their way, remember?” His eyes gleamed as he aimed a clever smile at her, distracting her from the spark of desperate joy that came when she thought of seeing her girl after so long. “Besides, if you look happy because I’m spoiling you, he’ll get even more jealous.”

  “More?” A bad taste filled her mouth. It was clear that he wasn’t jealous at all.

  Quân stepped close and tilted his head as he looked at her. “He’s totally jealous over you. You know that, right?”

  She stared at him without answering.