American Panda

by Gloria Chao

  No matter how painful this was, I couldn’t go back. But just because I knew that didn’t make it any easier.

  In the Chinatown supermarket, I dug through vacuum-sealed packages of pork jerky, jelly candies, and seaweed but couldn’t locate the dried squid. I had spent thirty minutes on the T, gotten lost twice, and now I couldn’t read the obscure characters on the product labels.

  I grasped my head with both hands and held back a scream. First the Star Market hadn’t stocked the snacks I craved, and now this.

  Okay, Universe, I get it. I just want some dried squid, damn it!

  My breath rushed in and out of my nostrils noisily, and I focused on it to ebb the rush of emotions.

  A voice behind me said, “Mei?” It was more of a question than a statement.

  I turned to face a middle-aged Chinese woman I didn’t recognize. “Āyí hao.” My greeting was robotic; my mother had so many acquaintances I couldn’t remember their faces (and my poor vision didn’t help).

  “You look just like your mother!”

  “I do?”

  She touched her hand to my chin. “Yes. Same bone structure and delicacy. Your features are obviously from your father, but your base is so clearly her.”

  My chest tightened at the mention of my parents. I guess my tale hadn’t traveled too far down the grapevine yet.

  She lowered her hand, then her eyes. “I was so sorry to hear about, you know.”

  Guess I spoke too soon. My lips hardened into a line and I acknowledged her condolences with a brusque nod.

  “I’m shopping with my sister. You remember her, I’m sure. She used to drive you and Hanwei to Chinese school.” She put her hand on the woman beside her, whose back was to us.

  Mrs. Pan turned and dropped the vermicelli she was holding. “Mei! Oh! Uh, hello.”

  I bent down to pick up the noodles at the same time she did, and when our fingers grazed, she snapped her hand back as if my disobedience were contagious. Pretending I didn’t notice, I scooped the package up and dropped it in her shopping basket.

  “Āyí hao. How’s Hanwei?”

  Mrs. Pan flinched when her son’s name came out of my mouth. “I’m sorry, Mei, but Hanwei has been spoken for. He has a girlfriend now, a good girl, so you should just forget about him. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

  Her pinched lips and cold eyes told me she was lying, and even though I had never wanted Hanwei for a second, disgrace shot through me. They hurried away and left me, my limbs shaking, in the prepackaged food aisle.

  I left sans squid. Back on the street, despite the cold, my feet wouldn’t listen to me. Go home, I told them, but they remained planted. You have no home, they reminded me.

  I stood on the sidewalk, staring at the Chinatown archway, the gate into this other world. My body was inside, past the entrance, but it felt like the rest of me was outside.

  The people around me morphed into a blur, and I eventually stopped registering their shoulder grazes as they pushed past me. They became a sea of black hair. . . .

  But then I spotted a familiar shape. Two contrasting bodies—one tall and thick, the other short and petite—walking together yet apart.

  I ran toward them, not thinking, not sure what I wanted, but I had to see them. My parents’ eyes met mine—my father’s hard and distant, my mother’s wounded and helpless—and they took a sharp turn into the first store beside them. Silky Fabrics. A store they would never go into otherwise.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I hadn’t realized my heart could break all over again.

  Outside MIT’s financial aid office, I let out a breath and watched the water molecules condense before my eyes. As the puff of fog drifted languidly, I wished I could float away with it and leave everything behind.

  Seeing my parents had been a wake-up call to get my shit together. And not only were my emotions in pieces, but so were my finances. Because I was under eighteen and there was no “my Chinese parents disowned me” check box on the form, I would have to go to court to become emancipated. My parents would probably contest, it would be a long process, and it “just wasn’t a viable option,” according to the gray-haired financial-aid lady with coffee-stained teeth.

  Xing had offered to help me, but I hoped to keep him out of it. He had enough parental-related burdens without adding mine. And for all I knew, he was still paying our parents back for college and med school.

  Instead of secrets, my dumpling was now stuffed with fear and way too much responsibility. And it was already exploding, even without squeezing.

  An unfamiliar voice called out my name. I peered up at a handsome male stranger who looked a few years older than me. My eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry, do I know you?”

  “I’m Eugene.”

  Oh, Eugene. My preapproved Taiwanese knight. I shouldn’t have been surprised—Harvard and MIT students frequented each other’s campuses—but it just never occurred to me that I would one day put a face to the dreaded name.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, but despite my best efforts, my tone implied the opposite. “How’d you recognize me?”

  “My mom showed me a picture. Of course.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

  “Oh, you heard?” Maybe I was Ying-Na 2.0 already.

  “Yeah. My mom’s a bit panicked that your mom will still try to set us up despite everything. Because of your . . . situation . . . she’s finally gotten off my back about our meeting. Good for us, right?”

  I tried not to be offended since I never had any interest in him either. But it was hard not to be a little stung by his rejection, especially now that we’d met. “Guess I’m not good enough for you anymore,” I joked. “I won’t be the obedient Chinese wife she wants for you.”

  He laughed, a little mocking and a lot haughty. “Yeah, I’m not going down that road. She’ll learn eventually.”

  “How can you say that so confidently? Won’t she freak out and guilt you or cut you off until you do what they want?”

  Eugene squinted at me like I was an alien. “I’m their only son. I’ll get my way eventually. I just have to wait them out.”

  “Lucky,” I mumbled.

  “It was nice to meet you, Mei. Maybe in another life we could’ve been friends, but I have different taste in women than my mother.”

  I watched as he disappeared from view (and my life), thankful I wasn’t going to be Mrs. Huang in the future. Or Dr. Huang to his Dr. Huang.

  Voicemail from Yilong

  Mei! You better not go to Xing’s wedding. Nǎinai has spent the last four years crying over him, and if you go, you’ll break what’s left of her heart. Then it will be that much harder to fix this mess you’ve created. Stop diving into the fire pit headfirst!

  CHAPTER 21

  THE END

  WEDDING DAY.

  I showered first since that seemed like the normal thing to do before a date, especially for a sweat-prone individual. I snuck some of Nicolette’s fancy soap, which smelled like flirtation, laughing to myself that she could borrow my fifty-cent soap bar anytime. I’d make it up to her later somehow.

  Then I combed through my closet. Too frayed. Too tight. Too loose. Too bedazzled. The mountain of clothes on my bed grew with each rejection, but I eventually found a rose-colored dress I didn’t hate. And despite the storm of emotions brewing in my chest, today was a celebration; red was the appropriate color.

  I stared at the mirror, trying to see past the fingerprints Nicolette had left behind. Instead of the frustration (and fear of chlamydia) I used to feel, the smudges now made me smile (and it wasn’t just because I was pretty sure she was cured). I could picture her leaning one palm against the mirror for leverage as she plucked her eyebrows, put on eyeliner, checked out her own pìgu. She didn’t give two shits (or even one) what I saw her doing, usually turning to me and asking, “See anything you like?”

  I sat down to tackle the last item on my list: my face. I was an expert at stage makeup but knew I coul
dn’t show up decked out in false eyelashes, bright red lipstick, and fuchsia blush. I did my best with the carnival colors I had, trying to mix bronzer into my blush to darken it, but ended up staring at a clown. Blue eyeshadow was hard to pull off. I tried to cover it with more eyeliner. Now I looked like a panda. Fan-freaking-tastic. I folded my arms on the desk and buried my mess of a face.

  “Aurgghhh!” My body muffled my yell, decreasing the satisfaction.

  In my head, I could hear my mother laughing at me. She had refused to buy me normal makeup, not until I was ready to meet Eugene. Can’t have you attract the wrong boy, now, can we? The horror. Well, congratulations, Mǎmá. You won.

  Nicolette hip-checked her way into our room, and my head snapped up when the door banged against the wall. When she saw my pitiful face, she screamed and dropped the books in her hands.

  Now my cheeks were fuchsia, both naturally and cosmetically. “Jesus, a little dramatic, are we?” I scrubbed my face with makeup remover.

  “You don’t need all that crap. Haven’t you heard? Less is more, especially for nice guys who like you for who you are on the inside,” she said with a wink. “And you smell nice for a change. But you owe me a coffee, one for each time you use my soap. That shit’s expensive!”

  I nodded, making a mental note to get her a coffee and a hot chocolate. Maybe I could convert her. “Thanks, Nicolette.”

  “My friends call me Nic,” she said with a soft smile.

  After I fixed my face (just mascara and bronzer this time), I received a butt pat from Nicolette, along with a Go get him, tiger; you look hot as fuck. As I clicked down the stairs in uncharacteristic heels, I laughed to myself wondering whether Nic knew I was a tiger on the Chinese zodiac. No better time to start living up to your inner animal, I told myself as my steps gained confidence.

  I paused at the door to the lobby. Through the narrow window, I stole a glance at my handsome date, whose back was to me. How did he get his hair to look just messy enough to be sexy?

  When I opened the door, Darren turned, revealing his orange tie, white dress shirt, and navy suit—all beneath a black dress coat. And . . . drumroll . . . two cups of hot chocolate. Good thing I hadn’t surprise jumped into his arms like I’d wanted.

  He froze when he saw me. “You look beautiful. Kawaii.” I tilted my head at him, questioning. “It’s Japanese for cute. I, uh, learned it for you.”

  Could he be any more kawaii? My goodness.

  I did a relevé, rising on my tiptoes to peck his cheek. But unused to my heels, I overshot to his temple, which I kissed anyway before my lips found their way to his cheekbone. His grin grew wider with each peck, and as I stared at his slightly crooked lower canine, I thought, Maybe I should’ve just grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him all over his gorgeous, kawaii face like I’d wanted to.

  “You look quite kawaii yourself, shuài gē,” I said as I took one of the cups. Mmm. Extra whipped cream, just the way I liked it. Definitely worth it despite the whipped-cream mustache it always left behind. Just as my tongue swept over the errant foam, Darren ran his thumb over my lip.

  “Oh God, sorry!” His thumb tasted like soap. Not the most appetizing, but there was nothing hotter than a man who washed his hands regularly.

  “Let’s try that again,” he said softly. He gently lifted my chin with his finger, then closed the distance between us and kissed me where the whipped cream had been. If I were more ladylike, my weakened knees would have wobbled.

  Darren stuck an elbow out, and after looping my hand in comfortably, I followed outside to the waiting taxi. He waved the exhaust away, opened the door, and gestured grandly as if the dirty, beat-up cab were a horse-drawn carriage.

  “Excited?” he asked as he slid in next to me.

  “Sure,” I said, which was a step above what I was really thinking—how my attendance today was a giant leap forward on the rebellion road. I couldn’t stop replaying Yilong’s voicemail in my head, squeaky voice and all.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder and he held my hand, stroking my thumb the entire ride.

  The church we pulled up to had red lanterns, balloons, and double happiness symbols lining the entrance. Yup, we were in the right place, all right. There was even a red carpet—shaggy and stained, but a red carpet nonetheless.

  The sanctuary was already half full. The guests mingled, introducing themselves and asking one another how they knew the bride or groom. Did they know what today meant? That in a few hours, Xing would cross the Lu-family bridge and burn it?

  The laughter and chatter bubbled up around me, increasing in volume as time ticked on.

  No one knew.

  It’s a celebration, I scolded myself. I hated that I needed the reminder. I tried to focus on the red streamers lining the pews, the rè’nào buzz of the room, and the handsome man beside me.

  Xing entered, and his face lit up when he saw me. We hugged, less awkward than the last few times, and I introduced Darren. Xing gave him a brotherly glower but skipped the protective speech (thank God).

  On our way to the front, Xing leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Thanks for everything, Mei-ball—your support, your wisdom. You helped me through an impossible time, and in some ways, you helped me get to this day. I can’t tell you what having you here means to me.”

  It was the most he’d ever expressed, and I widened my eyes, hoping to dry the tears before they fell. I wasn’t sure if they were there because I was happy for him or sad at what this day meant. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about the role I’d played.

  Xing ushered Darren and me into the front pew, labeled LU FAMILY. The rest of the empty bench screamed Mom and Dad aren’t coming!

  Across the aisle stood a man and a woman, both rigid as a board, who I presumed were Esther’s parents. They made their way over with tight-lipped smiles on their lined faces, and Xing bowed to his future in-laws before making proper introductions.

  I mimicked his bow for no reason. Maybe I felt the need to make up for my parents’ treatment of Esther. I could hear my mother yelling in my head about how Mr. and Mrs. Wong owed her a dowry—a huge one since Esther was so flawed. Practically a man.

  “Mrs. Wong, what a beautiful dress you’re wearing,” Darren said.

  She straightened her dark silver gown. “It was difficult to find Chinese formalwear without black flowers, which of course is forbidden since it brings bad luck.”

  I took a quick survey, locating five black-flowered dresses within ten seconds.

  Mrs. Wong’s gaze followed mine. “Oh, no, it’s okay for others. It’s forbidden only for the bride’s mother.”

  I forced a smile and nodded, then turned to Esther’s father. “Mr. Wong, shouldn’t you go back and get ready to walk Esther down the aisle?”

  He stiffened, then said through pursed lips, “It’s tradition for the most blessed and fortunate woman in the neighborhood to walk the bride down the aisle. Elder Wu will have that honor. She has one son and one daughter, both of whom are successful. A CEO and a doctor. She flew in from Taichung this morning.”

  I thought I had experienced it all, but in the span of three minutes I had learned two new traditions that blew even my mind. The strangest part was that Xing had led me to believe Esther’s parents were more like Helen’s. During one of our visits, he had told me, tight-eyed and stiff-jawed, about how Esther’s “super-chill” parents had let her dye her hair, listen to rap, date. It had only emphasized to him just how strict our parents were, making him resent them more.

  But it wasn’t so black-and-white, was it? Maybe the only lesson here was that I needed to stop comparing everyone.

  When the pastor took his place at the lectern, I bowed to Esther’s parents, thankful for the interruption.

  In our glaringly unfilled pew, I crossed my legs, hoping to calm the gnawing in my stomach. The numbness that prickled down my calf reminded me of my mother manipulating my limbs into this pose.

  I uncrossed, accidentally kicking Darren
with the bit of anger that shot out. In a silent apology, I placed my hands on his thigh, landing much higher than intended.

  Jesus.

  Sensing my inner (and outer) flailing, Darren draped his arm across the back of the bench, his fingers caressing my shoulder. Finally feeling safe, I curled up against him.

  Xing stood at the front, dapper in his black suit and red pocket square. He caught my eye and smiled, the kind shared by two people bonded for life. My nose burned the way it always did pre-sentimental tears. I nodded to communicate my understanding, to signal I was here for him, to tell him in one sharp movement what I could never say aloud.

  The ring bearer carried a stuffed Doraemon down the aisle, the rings tied to its blue, earless head. The doll was almost the same size as him, and by the end he was dragging it behind his pìgu until his mother rushed up to help. The bridesmaids were clones of one another in matching knee-length red dresses and sky-high charcoal heels that made them hobble down the aisle like little girls playing dress-up.

  Xing fixated on his bride as soon as she and Elder Wu were visible. Instead of looking at Esther like every other guest, I was drawn to my brother. His eyes glowed as if he had seen an angel.

  How could anyone oppose this union? Staring at him in that moment, I couldn’t fathom a world in which Xing had chosen our parents over Esther.

  I thought about my mom and dad’s relationship. A lifetime of arguments, a lack of affection, no communication. Stifled by the predetermined husband, wife, and in-law roles, the unyielding expectations. Xing had escaped that—at a price, but a sacrifice worth making.

  Esther’s veil was over her face, but her joy shined through the silk as she locked eyes with her soon-to-be husband. The moment was so private, the exchange so intimate, that it felt wrong for the rest of us to be present, watching.

  The tulle of Esther’s ball gown devoured her, an odd choice for someone so petite—or was that just my mother’s influence seeping into my brain? She’d always had an if-you’ve-got-a-low-BMI-flaunt-it attitude.