American Panda
Page 10
Um, success? I guess that was the most affection any Lu ever exhibited.
Our table was tucked in a remote corner, accompanied by wobbly chairs and a stained tablecloth. A Chinese woman, a stranger, stared at us from across the restaurant. Was she judging my chunky figure or American clothes? Probably a mix of both.
Most of the waitstaff spoke Cantonese, not Mandarin, so we ordered by pointing to dishes on passing carts. As usual, many servers ignored us, some were rude, and others tried to push the less popular items like chicken feet. The best carts never made it past the central tables, so Xing took a cue from our father and chased down the shrimp dumplings, stuffed eggplant, and turnip cake. Only, he managed to do it without creating a Lu Pàng–size scene.
The smell of the food stirred up memories of lazy Sunday afternoons with my family, stuffing ourselves so full of shrimp we could barely move. Even my mother’s clucking tongue had been silenced by thousand-year-old egg congee.
And now we were divided. Those memories were fading.
Xing and I clicked our chopsticks together—a toast he had created to distract my younger self from our parents fighting about the thermostat, my mother’s cooking, the amount of tofu in the house. Well, more accurately, it was my father yelling as my mother cowered.
My shoulders relaxed, falling away from my ears. Okay, we could do this. Yíbù, yíbù, until we took enough steps to wade through the crap.
But then it was like my brain couldn’t take it anymore—the chopstick toast, the dim sum smell, the fact that Xing felt both like my blood and a stranger. . . .
I hated myself at the moment, for lots of opposing reasons. I hated that I had let this go on for so long, let others decide for me that my only sibling was going to disappear from my life. I hated that I was disobeying my parents right now, choosing the person who had so easily abandoned me and ignored my subsequent phone calls.
And I hated myself for adding yet another secret to my already overloaded plate. It was like trying to contain three spoonfuls of stuffing in a dumpling—it was so overfilled the skin barely met on any side. All the secrets threatened to spill at any moment. If I ever tried to finish the dumpling, it would explode when I squeezed—meat and veggies everywhere.
This had happened to me, literally, when I was little and learning how to make dumplings. It seems like it should’ve been a small issue—maybe even something many parents would have laughed at and given the child a pat on the head for being cute—but to my parents who grew up with nothing and scrimped and saved every grain of rice, wasting food was punishable. That was when I learned life was unfair.
I knew the danger of what I was doing, yet I had done it anyway. There was no one to blame here but me. I had called Xing first.
Shit. Maybe I should run for it now while I still could. We hadn’t actually spoken yet—it was salvageable.
But then he smiled at me, and I remembered. How he knew my—correction, our—parents, and I didn’t have to explain myself. He knew the culture, not just as a whole, but through our little window.
We didn’t speak as we loaded our plates, and it shouldn’t have surprised me—we had four years of ground to cover—but it still made me anxious. What if too much had been lost to time and we could never get it back? What if it would never be the same again and he would forever be a stranger?
“How could you just disappear like that?” I blurted out, my voice shaky. “I tried to call you so many times.”
Xing’s mouth was open, a piece of eggplant a few inches away, but it slipped from his chopsticks and clunked onto his plate, spraying sauce. He was frozen for a second before closing his lips. . . . But he left the sauce where it was, which reminded me that he was still the same person I remembered, never cleaning up after himself.
I could see him turning the words over in his head and it sent a zap of frustration through me. “Stop filtering everything, Xing. Just tell me what you’re thinking, the truth. Not some pretty answer you think will resolve everything.”
He spoke immediately, the words falling out fast and a bit jumbled. “I didn’t want to make you choose. I bowed out so you could keep your relationship with them. You need them more than you need me.”
“How could you decide all that without asking me?”
There was a long pause. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have. But you were so young. I thought I was doing what was best for you.”
“Best for me? You shoveled a bunch of crap on me when you left. I had to fix everyone whenever your name came up, and worse, I had to become the perfect Taiwanese poster child to make up for all the shame you caused. I was never let out. I missed prom. I became this sheltered, awkward turtle destined to be an outcast no matter where I went. You weren’t there to tell me about the world, and because of you, Mom and Dad made sure I never saw it. Now I’m a seventeen-year-old college student who’s never been kissed and who’ll end up with the guy who peed on my foot because you couldn’t try to make it work with our parents.”
Okay, that may have gotten away from me a bit. But when I raised my gaze to meet his, I saw in his eyes that he understood and he was sorry. We shared a sad, knowing smile.
Then a shadow crossed his face (and I couldn’t help but think how much he looked like my father in that moment). There was an edge to his voice as he said, “Mom and Dad and especially Nǎinai are so backward in some of their thinking.” Offer up your fertile sister rang in my head. “There’s no working anything out with people like that. So you’re right. I didn’t try that hard, at least not after that night. . . .”
That night. That night had haunted me for so long. I had watched from the stairs, too young to fully understand but old enough to know something was different about this fight.
Xing had pleaded, begged on his knees, for our parents to give Esther a chance. But when they yelled at him to gun and roll out the door, his face had changed. It was like I could see the ties breaking, see everything drain from him to the point where he no longer cared what they thought.
“How could they throw away their son over a girl they hadn’t even met yet?” Xing’s voice was rising. “One strike and . . .” He slashed his finger across his throat.
Esther’s reproductive challenges had been the sole reason for Xing’s disownment. Her congenital endometriosis was caught late, and doctors informed her she may have trouble conceiving. Otherwise she was perfect, even by my parents’ standards: intelligent, Taiwanese, beautiful . . . or so Xing had said. My parents had refused to meet her. Not bearing grandchildren, especially if you were the firstborn son, was the worst kind of disobedience possible. And not only was Xing the firstborn son of a firstborn son, but he and my father were the only sons in their family. Double, triple, quadruple whammy. I never understood what was so bad about having fewer Lus in the world, but to my parents it was a crime.
“I’m sorry they were so hard on you,” I said, placing a palm on Xing’s.
He patted our pile of hands with his free one. “Thanks, Mei-ball—it means a lot.”
That nickname hadn’t touched my ears in so, so long, and hearing it now, my heart was bouncing in my rib cage. I felt us taking one step forward, together.
I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me and how much I had missed him, but I didn’t know how to say it. So I said the next nicest thing I could think of. “You and Esther looked happy.”
“Thank you. You’re so kind.” He smiled, intentionally revealing the chives stuck in his teeth.
I laughed, my insides warming at the game we used to play. With my tongue, I pushed shrimp bits onto my incisors. “You’re so welcome, good sir.”
“Tell me, what’s new with you?” he asked, his voice serious but his mouth full of turnip. It helped decrease the awkwardness of how he was asking me to sum up the past four years.
“I’m at MIT. I like it.”
“Premed?” he asked, but it sounded more like a statement, like he knew I didn’t have a choice. Which, well, he did know.
He nodded. “It pays the bills. I’m in my first year of an internal medicine residency, still at Tufts. I’m thinking about doing gastroenterology, you know, endoscopies and colonoscopies.”
I couldn’t help cringing. “Was it hard to get used to doing those?”
Xing sipped his tea, oblivious to my nausea. “Yeah, it took some time. I used to laugh whenever I thought about the colonoscopy recovery room, where the patients can’t help farting up a storm. The attending threw me out my first day. Now look at me! I just told you about the room without even cracking a smile.”
I laughed, deep and throaty. Xing joined in, and the hearty sound filled me with memories. Xing reading me comics—Chinese or English, depending on our mood. Xing joking, asking me whether I thought Wang Leehom’s parents were prouder of their Taiwanese pop star son or the son who went to MIT. (We both agreed: the MIT son.)
“That is not what I meant,” I said between laughs. “I was asking if you were ever grossed out.”
“Sure, but I have a higher tolerance than most. You have to find what you’re okay with, you know? The nice part about medicine is that there are a lot of options. And most important, I feel secure in my future. I know Mom and Dad have their faults, but this was something they were right about—picking the right major and career is so important. I have friends who are barely scraping by with no end in sight. At least I know that in a few years I’ll be pulling a decent salary. Which is more important now than ever . . .” He trailed off, and his words hung in the air for a moment.
I felt like I was missing something but wasn’t comfortable enough to ask. “So you never wish you did something else?”
“That’s an entirely different question. I’m just saying that, practically, it’s important to find a career that can put a roof over your head and offer enough stability that you can sleep at night.”
I wasn’t sure if I was talking to my brother or my parents. How could this person be the same one who had done the ultimate rebellion and walked down the disownment path, eyes open? “Medicine’s not the only stable career,” I countered.
“True, but there will always be a need for doctors, and there aren’t many of us making a measly pay. There’s just less variance than other fields. And it’s respectable, right? You’re helping people, making a difference.”
My stomach flip-flopped, and for once, the smell of shrimp balls was making it buck even more. He was supposed to relate to me, make me feel better, but now I felt like the only person left on my own strange Mei-planet. Instead of telling him about my fears, my struggles, my secrets, I shoved them deeper, making the goddamn dumpling even fatter and more unmanageable.
“Don’t worry, Mei-ball. You’ll love it when you get there. I promise.”
I stuffed my face with shumai and mumbled, “Chubby bunny.”
Xing laughed, but I couldn’t smile, and it wasn’t because my mouth was full.
Voicemail from my mother
Mei! I read today that using a tea bag more than twice will give you cancer. You’re not doing that, are you? But you shouldn’t use it just once either—waste of money. Use it exactly twice, okay? Call me back immediately! This is urgent! Oh, and it’s your mǔqīn.
CHAPTER 14
(Since I’m Chinese-American, we also do not have a chapter thirteen. Equal superstitions.)
MITHENGE
HEARING XING TALK ABOUT MEDICINE in the same tone as my parents had made me wonder . . . was I also brainwashed? Immediately after Darren’s accusation two days ago, I had resented him for what he had said, but now I was scared it was true.
So I hunted Darren down, orchestrating our bumping into each other because, I don’t know . . . I wanted to see if he would take it back?
Except it didn’t go quite as smoothly as I had pictured in my head.
Since I knew he was taking 7.012 (like me), I decided to go to my first biology lecture in weeks. As the professor droned on and on about G proteins, my head lolled back and forth in half sleep—fishing, my mother called it. What a far cry from multivariable calc, which kept me awake and attentive, grand jeté–ing across the floor in my head while taking copious notes. Math was a language I spoke, one that was the same in every culture.
But clearly I did not speak biology. By the end of class, my head was on my little foldout desk, and I didn’t wake until the after-lecture rustles started. And by then I had lost the spiky-haired outline previously sitting four rows in front of me.
The paper from my notebook stuck to my cheek, ripping when I sat up. Because, of course. I scooped my things up, then charged into the herd of students in the hallway. Thank God for his height. I chased after him, squeezing through chattering groups and almost tripping over a few legs. When I finally got close to him, I suddenly didn’t know what to do. In my head I pictured tapping him on the shoulder with a coy, Fancy seeing you here. In reality, I shoved his shoulder with a little too much force, then opened my mouth like a fish, nothing coming out.
When he saw me, the corner of his right eye crinkled the way it did before he teased me. “How’d you catch up to me so fast?” Oh God. Of course he had seen. “Not a fan of G proteins, I take it?”
“Didn’t get enough sleep last night,” I lied, not wanting to fight about the titillatingness of G proteins. There was definitely a joke in there somewhere, which would’ve come to me if I weren’t so overwhelmed at the moment.
At the east end of the Infinite Corridor, Darren sidestepped to lean against the wall, out of the stream of traffic.
I joined him, keeping a space between us—I wasn’t sure what the social norms were post-fighting-about-Filial-Exemplars. I opened my mouth again, an apology loaded on my tongue, but nothing came out. Maybe because I still stood by my reasoning for saying what I did. Maybe because Mǎmá Lu was holding the words back.
Darren cleared his throat. “I’m glad you caught up,” he said, and I relaxed a little. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk to me.” I held my breath, willing him to say it. “I’m sorry about what I said—I didn’t mean it. I was just overwhelmed with the mosquitoes and the feces and . . . You can understand that, right?” And finally I exhaled.
But even though I was breathing again, I still felt tense. And that was when I realized, it didn’t matter what he thought. It was exactly as he had said—it was what I thought that mattered. And right now I had no idea where I ended and my parents began.
Darren stuck his neck out slightly, peering at me curiously until I realized I hadn’t responded to his apology.
“Oh! Uh, don’t worry about it. I’m used to it . . . people not understanding. My parents sent me to school without knowing English and with pork floss sandwiches for lunch. My classmates thought they looked like pubes!” I forced a sad little ha-ha.
“That’s terrible. That must’ve been so hard for you.” I was so used to being the pìgu of the joke that I just stared at him, unsure what to do with his sympathy. After a beat he said, “I know it doesn’t make it better, but when I said all that stuff last time, I was trying to help. Because I care.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Weird way of showing you care.”
“Sorry, I just spoke my mind without thinking. You wouldn’t know what that’s like.” The teasing crinkle reappeared.
“And I’m sorry I butted into someone else’s business. You wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
Our concordant man-laughs filled the space around us, and for a moment I couldn’t help wondering what could have been.
“Thanks for apologizing,” I said sincerely, even though it didn’t have the cure-all effect I had been foolishly hoping for. “I’m sorry, too, for the record, for what I said.” I punched him lightly on the arm. “I’ll see you around, Takahashi.” I used his last name in the hopes that it would create some distance and emphasize the friend border.
“Wait.” He held a hand out briefly before run
ning it through his already-disheveled hair. A nervous tic, perhaps? “I want to make sure you understand why that whole thing with your parents was so important to me. MIT was the best decision I ever made, and I didn’t want to see you go down the wrong path for the wrong reason. I know it’s not easy to go against your parents—and clearly I don’t fully get what it’s like for you—but I also know it can be worth the fight sometimes. And I’m not talking about me or us or, you know, anything specific. . . .” His cheeks colored slightly. “I mean in general. Because I’m guessing there’s a lot there to unpack.”
It was such an understatement I almost laughed, but the weight of what he had said kept it at bay.
I understood where he was coming from, but that didn’t make the situation any easier. I had to force my next words out. “Thanks for trying so hard, but I have to go.”
I turned to leave but froze when I saw the students gathered in two single-file lines on either side of the hallway. It looked like the end of Grease’s “We Go Together,” except Rizzo and Kenickie weren’t dancing down the middle. Instead, the center was purposefully empty. Eerie.
Before I could ask what was going on, it happened. The hubbub silenced, and all eyes, including mine, homed in on the window at the other end of the corridor. The setting sun glided into view and rays lit up the west end of the Infinite. Within minutes, the disc filled the window, emblazing the entire 251 meters in a honey-golden glow.
The other students trickled out, having seen and taken a selfie, but I continued staring. That is, until Darren’s tall frame blocked the view, casting his shadow over me.
His voice was warm honey, just like the sunset. “MIThenge is like the Lost Ark; you can’t stare at it too long. Except in this case, you’d just damage your corneas.”