by Gloria Chao
He sighed. “I wish you never had to learn that. I wish you were still young and naive and had goggles on to shield you from everything.”
“Me too,” I whispered.
“Mei,” my mother said over the clean clothes she was putting into my drawers. (Sigh, she does so much for me.) “I just heard from Mrs. Ahn who heard from Mrs. Lin that Qin Shi Huang’s terracotta warriors are here! I forget which museum they’re at, but your bǎbá knows. Do you want to go?”
I swear I almost peed my pants. Maybe I did, a little.
I lived in constant fear of messing up one of my lies, and now, ta-da! Here was a mammoth, slap-me-in-the-face opportunity to take a scissor to my finely woven web, which was barely holding up as it was. And if that sounded dramatic, then good. Because this was the worst.
So I definitely couldn’t go because I definitely would let something incriminating slip, but that meant I would need more lies to stack on top of the other lies to explain why I couldn’t go.
Shit. I was a lousy Jenga player.
“That sounds so fun, Mǎmá, but I have exams coming up and I think I should really be studying.” I couldn’t say any more because my heart was threatening to rip in two. Was I giving up a chance to see the version of my mother I craved so badly?
“Of course. Good girl. Are you going to study more with Billy, A-mah, Penny, Kim, Khloe, Kour-ney, and Kendall?” Man, that had really gotten away from me. “Tell me again where Kendall is from?”
“California.”
“Right, right. And Billy?”
Crap. I had no idea what I had said last time. It was easier remembering the Kardashian facts than the random answers I had made up. Why hadn’t I written all this down somewhere? It was like my fifth class, 5.317: How to Lie to Your Parents. (See what I did there? What 5.317 spells upside down? TIM the Beaver would be proud.)
I deflected. “Did I tell you that Billy had to go home for a while because his grandmother got sick with pancreatic cancer? I hope everything’s okay.” And as soon as I said it, I kicked myself because I didn’t know anything about pancreatic cancer, and now I was going to have to do some in-depth research.
“They shouldn’t have told him. Especially with exams coming up.” As she shut the drawer, I heard something fall off the dresser. “Mei, what’s this?”
Since my back was to her, I didn’t know what she was talking about, and there were a hundred things she could be holding that would be a firehose to my web. Maybe I peed a little again.
I turned slowly in an attempt to be nonchalant and ended up moving at way-below-normal speed. So I quickened slightly to make up for it and ended up all jerky and awkward turtle. She was holding my mascara and eyeliner, which I had taken out to make sure I still knew how to do stage makeup.
I didn’t know how MIT’s Association of Taiwanese Students (ATS) had found out about my Chinese dance background, but when they had asked me to be the entertainment for their night market event next week, I had agreed immediately. I felt such a pull to ATS, to Chinese dance, almost as if I was desperate to hang on to the bits of culture I still loved.
But even though no one appreciated a good night market more than my mother, she couldn’t know about this, especially since she was still reeling from my 72. (I had caught her snooping in that drawer again.)
Then I realized why her eyes were so wide. She was jumping to conclusions, that I had a secret boyfriend. Which . . . well . . . crap. I had to steer her away from that, too. I wasn’t doing anything wrong—well, not really—but if she started asking me questions about whether or not I had talked to the Japanese boy, it would get ugly, fast.
“It’s Nicolette’s,” I said as calmly as I could. “You can throw it to her side. She uses up all the space in here.” I hoped it wouldn’t land in a chlamydia hot spot.
As my mother muttered about bribing the dean to swap my roommate, I had to calm my nausea by telling myself everything was fine; the lies weren’t crumbling around me.
Which was, you know, just another lie to add to the bunch.
Voicemail from my mother
Mei! I spoke with Mrs. Huang yesterday. She said Eugene is excited to meet you. He actually thinks you’re pretty! You need to snatch him up before it’s too late. Before your eggs get cold. You’ll be thirty before you know it!
Call your poor mǔqīn back. Why you never pick up? I know you’re not in class! Are you hiding something??
CHAPTER 18
NIGHT MARKET
AS XING AND I WAITED in the mall arcade for our turn at Dance Dance Revolution, I marveled at how people (me included) were willing to pay to jump around in a predetermined order.
The dim room reeked of pubescent teenagers. As I inhaled the pomegranate scent of my hand sanitizer, I was weighed down by the stack of quarters in my pocket and the baggage on my proverbial shoulders.
The teenage boy on the machine was sailing through level maniac, his legs flailing to the beat. The noise gave me the courage to ask Xing, “How did you know Esther was worth fighting for?”
He sighed—loud, long, and heavy. “I used to think of relationships the way Mom and Dad do—as a business transaction. They see it analytically, whether people match on paper, with the only goal being to raise a healthy family. Mom’s own parents used a matchmaker. More practical than emotional . . .” He trailed off.
“But then you fell in love with Esther,” I stated even though it should’ve been obvious. But I said it anyway, just in case, because in the back of my head, there it was, still niggling—had Xing chosen Esther just to piss my parents off, the way he had told them he was going to try to be the next Wang Leehom even though he couldn’t sing?
Xing nodded sadly, as though falling in love with her was weary, not a blessing.
I asked the question that had never stopped bothering me. “Why did you tell Mom and Dad about her trouble conceiving before they’d even met?”
“For the same reason I used to sneak out in the middle of the night, refuse to worship Yéye, and skip my SAT tutoring classes: I hated the responsibilities as the eldest son. I had no idea it would go this far—really, I was just pissed that I never got to be Dad’s baobèi.”
For the first eight years of my life, I was not Mei, only baobèi to my father, his treasure. And for those same years, he was my bábı, the Chinglish word I made up for “daddy.” When I was little, as soon as he walked in the door, I would latch on to his leg. He called me his xiao zhāngyú, which only made me act more like my bábı’s little octopus. I’d squeeze his leg with all my might and squeal when he took troll-like steps, swinging me through the air. Even though sons were sought after, my father had a side reserved for me and only me.
Xing never saw Bábı, only Bǎbá. A firm hand, all the time. I eventually saw that too, but when I was a child, it was only Chinese checkers, tickle fights, and octopus swings.
We may have grown up in the same house, but Xing was right—our experiences were different because of our gender and the order in which we were born.
“I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard for you,” I said. “I’m also sorry that everything blew up the way it did.”
He gave me a wistful smile. “You can’t pick who you fall for.”
You-know-who popped into my head—infectious laugh, crooked smile, and all.
“I used to think Mom was more open-minded,” Xing continued. “She didn’t seem to want us when we were little, and I thought maybe since she’d struggled with the culture, she’d be able to . . . I don’t know. Understand? Change? I guess either Dad or her upbringing has too strong a hold on her.”
The more he spoke, the further I was pulled down. Even though I had started it, I tried to end the conversation by nodding toward the now-empty machine.
As I stepped onto the familiar DDR platform, Xing waved a dismissive hand at me. “Don’t fret, Mei-ball. You’re too young to be worrying about all that. And who knows? Maybe the person you end up falling for will be someone they approve of, so
no use wasting energy on it now. Use your energy for DDR—you haven’t beaten me yet!”
My feet danced around to match the arrows coming up on the screen—second nature for me at this point—just like how I was robotically floating through life, adapting to each scenario, never truly being myself.
Even though I thought Taiwan was dirty when I was little, even though strangers on the street would come up to me and tell me I was fat, my nose was huge, my clothes were weird—it was my Elysium. The only place my parents didn’t fight, laughed with us, and opened their wallets. We would actually do things together—go to museums, visit the aboriginal villages, learn about Taiwanese history. And every night we would go to the night market. My dad would break off to stuff himself with stinky tofu, and my mother would treat me to all the clothes and trinkets I wanted.
The Association of Taiwanese Students had turned the Student Center’s Lobdell Dining Hall into an educational version of a Taiwan night market complete with dumpling vendors, Chinese yo-yo instructors, calligraphy stations, and a stage for entertainment. Me.
My crimson costume dripped with gold embellishments that caught the light, especially when I turned. The silk hugged my body and made me feel like the Dunhuang God I was supposed to be. I picked up my prefolded “flowers” (my props) by the “stem” (the wooden stick I used to control them) and took my starting position.
The guzhēng notes sang from the speakers, and the familiar trills of the Chinese zither transported me to another place. My dance world. Nothing existed but me, the real me. I wasn’t Chinese or American—just a twirling, leaping force.
I started slow, my tiny steps matching the beat and my flowers twirling above my head. Cloud hands, they were called. I felt like an ancient Tang palace lady padding around the courtyard with my tiny bound feet, telling my story with my wrists.
The music sped up. So did I. With the crescendo, I threw myself in the air. As my legs separated into a perfect midair split, I swung my arms forward and the ribbons broke free from the flowers I had folded them into. Twelve feet of silk exploded from each of my hands. The audience gasped. I spun. My arms zigged and zagged, up and down, to form waves with the ribbons. They encircled me as if I were spinning in the middle of rippling water. I had chosen blue silk just for this moment.
The wind swirled around me. The ribbons were extensions of me, moving like an arm or a leg, completely in my control. Hours had been spent snapping them left, right, up, down so that each swing now looked effortless despite the energy involved.
I faced stage right and swung my arms backward, forming two parallel circles on either side of my body. My signature move. The loops were supposed to be perfectly round, but once I learned the backstroke, they developed a bump, an extra flick of the wrist. My old flamingo teacher always yelled at me, but I kept the rebellious curl. She had wanted us to look exactly the same. Programmed robots. But I didn’t want to become invisible by conforming. That added ripple, though tiny, set me apart. Made me Mei.
The dance was over too soon, and I reluctantly returned to reality. I smiled at the audience as I took a bow, the adrenaline coursing through my veins—I could feel it in my fingertips, my toes, my brain.
As I exited the stage, my beloved ribbons bunched in my arms, I was swarmed. By guys. Their deep voices blended together, and my head swiveled left and right, trying to match words to faces.
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Those stick-streamer thingamabobs are so cool!”
“Do you think you could teach me?”
“Smooth moves!”
If it weren’t for what they were saying, I might’ve thought they had mistaken me for someone else, but I was the only one with “stick-streamer thingamabobs” around here. Floundering, I started to respond to one person only to stop short and turn to the next. I sounded like a robot with a dying battery. Charming.
I flailed until I saw him, hanging back behind the group of guys, waiting. God, it had taken so much hemming and hawing for me to text him about tonight, and now, looking at him, I couldn’t remember why it had been so hard.
Even though the other guys were perfectly good-looking and seemed nice, I wasn’t interested. They weren’t Darren. Besides, they were mesmerized by my thingamabobs, not me.
As I worked my way toward Darren, I politely waved the other guys off with my sticks.
When just the two of us remained, he pointed to my ribbons. “Fighting them off with a stick, huh? Literally.”
I laughed, relaxing. “After I change, want to look around the night market together?”
“A chance to accompany the star of the hour? What do you think?” He winked.
I was in trouble. That one wink was enough to pierce me, melt me, and make me forget my parents.
In the public bathroom, I put on comfy jeans and a sweater, then dabbed hastily at my stage makeup. I managed to remove most of the bright colors, then peeled off the false eyelashes.
When I returned to Lobdell, I found Darren in the corner, a heaping bowl of Taiwanese shaved ice in front of him. It had been hard to spot him, but his long arms waving at me slightly awkwardly and completely adorably had helped me home in on the private spot. The pseudo-second level overhead gave the illusion of privacy but allowed just enough light in so that I could see the bàobīng in all its mouthwatering glory. The condensed milk dripped from one layer of fluffy snow to the next, flowing between strawberries, mango chunks, grass jelly, and gummy candy.
I scooted next to him—so we could share, of course. Perfectly innocent. “How’d you know this was my favorite?”
“I didn’t, but I figured I couldn’t go wrong with deliciousness on top of deliciousness. Besides, it’s Taiwanese, like you, and I felt a little pull toward it.” He coughed into his hand, as if he hadn’t meant to go so far and was regretting it.
“Well, hopefully you’ll still like it even though it won’t talk to you about dog poo or Filial Exemplars.”
He laughed—loud, infectious, and from his belly—and my God, it made me fluttery in a way I didn’t know was possible from just a sound. All I wanted was to find a way to make it happen again.
His eyes were still alight with mirth when he pushed the starting-to-melt bàobīng toward me. “The star of the night market gets to go first.”
I dove in, taking a bite so huge it left crumbs on my upper lip. The snowflake softness didn’t melt on contact like in Taiwan, but the milky sweetness enveloping my tongue tasted the same.
“Holy crap, it’s amazing.” The words rushed out of my still-full mouth, too urgent to wait. I tried to be extra dainty with my napkin dab to make up for it.
Within five minutes, only a few errant ice chips remained—both in the bowl and around our mouths. I hadn’t even cared that we were sharing, our spit mixing. In fact, I kind of liked it.
I picked up the bowl and shook it, the ice chips rattling around. “Kiemasu.”
“You learn fast.” His smile was so broad a tiny dimple appeared on his right cheek.
I wanted to touch it. Kiss it. Memorize it.
I tried to turn away but couldn’t. He was looking at me as if he truly saw me, past the outside and into my inner měi. I wanted to ask him to draw me a map so I could find it myself.
“Darren,” I started but then trailed off, not knowing where I wanted to go. He tilted his head to one side, questioning, waiting patiently. Just like he had been waiting for me all along. “I can’t just be friends with you,” I finally said.
He stared at me for a moment like he wasn’t sure if he had heard me correctly. Or maybe he was trying to decide whether or not to be the bad guy, the one to make me defy my parents. But I was already way past that. He was just one more spoonful of dumpling meat, one more biānpào. He could also be the last straw, a voice said in my head, but I shushed it.
Finally, after the longest thirty seconds ever, he raised a mischievous eyebrow. “That can be arranged.”
“Does it bother you that my paren
ts don’t approve?”
“I only care what you think.”
I grinned (a little goofily) at him, the only one who saw me. Liked me because of the same qualities that normally made me an outcast.
For the first time, I was thankful for those traits. Happy to be me. If only for a moment.
I was freaking out. Full-on about-to-pee-myself freaking out. Each one of my breaths was labor-intensive—a forced, shuddery inhale followed by a choppy exhale. I had to pull it together. My mother was going to know, figure it out.
But in my head I couldn’t stop replaying the walk home with Darren. We hadn’t kissed—which had left me both relieved and disappointed for so many reasons—but we had held hands the entire way. And he had hugged me before we parted. And told me he’d see me soon.
I was sure my face was part dreamy, part guilty. Guilt. Ga-ill-t. I’d thought, felt, and internalized that word so much it no longer held meaning for me.
My parents had surprise stopped by a mere twenty minutes after I returned to my room. I’d barely had enough time to put all my dance gear away.
And now I was standing in the chilly Burton Conner entryway, grabbing the bags of green tea they had brought, since by my mother’s count, I had run out this morning (scarily, 100 percent correct), and she was worried I would need it tomorrow.
“Should I come up?” my mother asked. “Maybe I can pick up more laundry?”
Had I fully hidden my ribbons? What if the tail end was sticking out of my drawer? What if my mother opened the closet door and saw the costume I’d snuck from home? I stamped my feet to hide my shaky leg, hoping I just appeared cold.
“Thank you so, so much, Mǎmá, but I don’t want to give you any more work.”
“I’m going to do your laundry anyway—might as well do it now.” The car door clicked open, the soundtrack to the devolving of my lies.