The International Kissing Club

by Ivy Adams

  Never in her life had she seen so many Chinese people in one place. Of course, this was China, her practical voice reminded her. But knowing something and seeing it were two different things. Mei looked up and down the wide airport corridor and all she saw, except for the American businessmen who had been on her flight, were Chinese people. It was odd, but exciting.

  She located a sign overhead with a little cartoon picture of a suitcase and guessed that it pointed the way to the baggage claim. She merged into the throng of luggage-toting people heading in the same direction, and, for the first time in her life, she blended into the crowd. Everything about the outward appearance of these people was familiar. Though their rapid-fire, singsong voices sounded completely foreign to her, and she could barely discern a word here or there, the intricacy of the sound spoke to her on a soul-deep level.

  As she made her way up to the baggage return with her plane’s flight number on it, she couldn’t help feeling a profound sense of relief. Though she hadn’t admitted it to anyone—had barely admitted it to herself—she’d been worried about coming to China.

  Worried about the fact that she didn’t speak the language.

  Worried about the possibility that she wouldn’t fit in here any better than she fit in in Paris, Texas. But already her fears were going away, the strange connection she felt to China assuaging even the darkest ones. She belonged here.

  It took her only about ten minutes to get her luggage, but it took another hour to clear customs and exchange her American currency for Chinese renminbis. By the time she stumbled onto the curb outside the airport, she was nearly catatonic. Sure, being around all these people who looked like her had energized her at first, but that second wind was fading fast. She had left home over twenty-four hours ago, and the lack of sleep had definitely caught up with her.

  She’d been a little concerned about catching a cab, but there was a long line waiting to pick up passengers. Some were green, some were maroon, and as she walked toward them she wondered if there was a difference. She had printed out directions from the airport to the Shenyang Secondary School from Google before she’d left home, then run them through Google translator in simplified Chinese. She only hoped they were good enough to get her where she needed to go.

  Squaring her shoulders, she headed toward the nearest cab. The driver took one look at her and spoke in Mandarin so fast she could barely distinguish the sounds, let alone understand the words he was saying.

  When he finally wound down, she began to recite the phrase she had rehearsed on the airplane numerous times. Despite her practice, the words were slow and halting. “I need to get to Shenyang Secondary School. Can you take me there?”

  The driver grinned when he heard her accent, and then it was his turn to speak in broken syllables. “You speak English?” he asked carefully.

  “Yes,” she answered, relieved. “I need to go to—”

  He shook his head and spoke a bunch more Mandarin and she realized, with a sinking stomach, that those three words had exhausted his supply of English. Reaching into her laptop carrier, she pulled out the address and directions she’d printed the day before. She handed the papers to him and he took them, nodding.

  Then he said in deliberately slow and simple Mandarin, “You go to school?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  He opened his trunk and reached for her suitcase. With a sigh of relief, Mei watched as he secured the bag. Then she slipped into the back and rested her head against the seat.

  The driver started the car and pulled away from the curb with a bang. As he drove, he chattered at her so quickly she had no hope of understanding. She tried her best, but she was so tired that her concentration was almost completely shot. Finally, she gave up and sat back in silence.

  She glanced out the window and watched the city passing by in a blur. Though they were on side streets, the cabbie was driving like a NASCAR racer. Every time a sign came up and she tried to read it, they zoomed past before she could catch more than one or two characters.

  They drove into a more heavily populated area, and she was relieved, figuring the presence of pedestrians everywhere would make the driver slow down. But it was as if he didn’t even see them. He careened around a corner and Mei clung to the seat in front of her, eyes squeezed tightly shut, as she waited for him to crash into something or someone.

  When nothing happened, she risked a look and then almost wished she hadn’t. A truck barreled toward them, looming huge in the window. Just as she was certain her life was going to end, the driver took another left then a quick right.

  And then things got a lot calmer.

  They were on a small, shop-lined side street now, and Mei peered out the window, fascinated by the bright colors and teeming masses. People were everywhere, in the shops, on the streets, spilling onto small balconies dotting the sides of the tall white buildings that stretched far above her. Many of the balconies held four or five people, despite their being no larger than a bathroom stall back home. As she absorbed everything around her, Mei had the fleeting thought that the entire population of Paris could squeeze into this crowded street alone.

  The driver said something else to her in Mandarin, and Mei nodded blankly. It wasn’t until he pulled the car right up onto the sidewalk and stopped that she realized they had arrived at her destination.

  Taking a deep breath, she climbed out of the car and stared at the school that already felt familiar to her. She had spent so much time on its website and Google Earth these past two weeks that she could tell apart the huge, cream-colored buildings with their turquoise roofs. The one right in front of her, with its round turrets and soaring steeples, was the administration building. The larger buildings behind it were where classes were held. The ornate one to the right was the library, and the cluster of squat, square buildings to the left were the dorms.

  Her ability to distinguish one building from the next calmed down the last of the butterflies in her stomach, and Mei was grinning as she reached into her bag to pay the cabbie. After he gave her her change, she grabbed her bags and headed through the iron fence and up the long brick walkway that led to the administration building.

  Students milled around the beautifully landscaped grounds, dressed in uniforms and carrying books as they chattered to each other in Mandarin. None of them paid any attention to her, and the lack of questioning stares thrilled her as nothing else could. For the first time in her life, she was not “the little Chinese girl,” a curiosity in a town populated by descendants of Anglo-Saxon pioneers who had lived there for generations. Her ancestors had lived here for millennia. Already, deep in her bones she felt a connection to these people and this place.

  Her ethnicity wouldn’t separate her here; she was part of the same community. Her heritage, her identity, came from this place, and if she was very lucky, maybe she would find a clue to her birth parents in the following weeks.

  Either way, she was home.

  Or she was in hell. She couldn’t quite decide which, but at the moment she was definitely leaning toward the latter. Mei had chosen Shenyang Secondary School after seeing the brochure and reading testimonials on its website. Large, beautiful, and filled with pride in China’s long history, it offered a full language immersion program and a strong cultural emphasis that she hoped would really help with the discovery of her Chinese identity.

  But now, standing before the school’s director—who was in the middle of dictating an endless list of rules and regulations about what she could and could not do during her stay—Mei just hoped she had some identity, any identity, left when she got back home. Although, at this point, she’d settle for having a smidgen of identity left when she finally escaped this office.

  No nail polish. Mei curled her black-tipped fingers into her fists.

  One single pair of earrings at a time. Studs. Mei tossed her hair to hide the multiple piercings along the curves of both ears.

  “You will need to purchase a uniform, which you will wear a
lways during class,” said Director Song, her glossy black hair pulled into a severe knot, her gray suit tailored with military precision. “Though you may, of course, wear your own clothing for after school hours.”

  Well, at least that’s something, Mei thought—she couldn’t even imagine wearing the same navy polo top and matching pants from morning to night, every day of her time here.

  “You will be attending ten class sessions a day, including physical education. We can provide you with a tutor to help with your Mandarin during classes. Also, you will have two hao you assigned to you, ‘buddies’ who speak English and who can help guide you through your immersion experience at our school.”

  The door to Director Song’s office opened and two girls, both in ponytails, came in wearing the plain, yet seemingly comfortable uniform.

  “Mei, this is Dao-Ming and Bao, they will be your hao you while you are here. They will show you to your dormitory and help you find your classes each day.”

  Mei smiled, eager to make new friends. Dao-Ming’s and Bao’s smiles faltered almost immediately when they saw her, making her own smile a little less bright. She didn’t know why, but she had the distinct impression that they were disappointed by her. Maybe it was the nail polish …

  Speaking in very slow, very precise English, the girls assured Director Song that they were happy to help Mei get settled in.

  Then they left the office, leaving Mei to follow, dragging her suitcase behind her. “Thank you for your help,” she offered in English when they didn’t speak to her. The two glanced back in unison, then shot each other a look that did nothing to alleviate her initial feeling that they were less than pleased with their charge.

  The three of them made their way down the school’s long institutional hallways, with doors branching off in both directions. Mei peered into the classrooms, seeing scores of uniformed students seated in uniform rows, each classroom looking almost identical to the one before it. Maybe this was where she got her appreciation for order and organization, she thought—it seemed to be a running theme at this school, anyway.

  Across a beautiful courtyard, Dao-Ming and Bao brought her to the dormitory building.

  “This is your room,” Dao-Ming said when they reached the last door at the end of a long hall on the third floor. The girl unlocked it and then handed the key to Mei. “You will be the only one in this room, as we have no other American students at the school right now.”

  Mei walked in, her shoulders sagging with disappointment. The room—her home for the next ten weeks—made the school’s spartan halls seem positively opulent by comparison. A metal twin bed lined each wall, along with a wooden desk. But that was it. No dresser. No nightstand. No blankets. The place had all the warmth and comfiness of a maximum-security prison cell. Were she Piper, she’d have this place whipped into a charming pied-à-terre by the end of the day, but Mei could see nothing beyond the drab gray walls and concrete floor.

  At least the large square window in the room overlooked the courtyard below.

  Dao-Ming stood at the window. “There is the cafeteria.” She pointed to the east building. “In there is the gymnasium.” She pointed to the west building. Then she headed to the door. “Your schedule will have the room number printed next to each class.”

  “Thank you,” Mei said. “Hey, maybe we can eat together? I would very much like to be friends.” She hoped that if she reached out to them they would reciprocate.

  Dao-Ming gave her a look of unconcealed scorn that bared an uncanny resemblance to one of Germaine’s. “You may dress American and act American and talk American,” she said, attempting an exaggerated flat accent that Mei supposed was her attempt at “American.” “But you’re just another Chinese girl. Nothing special here.”

  “A Chinese girl nobody wanted,” Bao added, her English words stiff, but still able to get her point across with a heavy dose of contempt.

  “We have enough Chinese friends already, we don’t need another one. So I hope your Mandarin is better than Bao’s English,” Dao-Ming finished, and then they were gone.

  Stunned but too tired to respond, Mei sank onto her bed. Part of her wanted to chase after them, to ask why they wouldn’t even give her a chance. But one look down at the quad and she knew she wouldn’t have a chance of finding the girls. In their uniforms, everyone looked the same. Plus, if she didn’t get some sleep, she would lose all ability to function. Her first day had been bad enough without her descending into a drooling, incoherent mess. Besides, she hoped everything would look better after she got some sleep.

  By the next day, however, Mei had figured out that hope did not always spring eternal. And here in China, it didn’t even spring internal.

  Was this how Piper had felt at the height of the pig debacle? Or had she felt even worse? For the first time, Mei wondered if maybe she hadn’t been sympathetic enough. Because being ostracized sucked. Big-time. Even for a day.

  Not to mention the huge clusterjam that was her academic schedule. Turns out that three semesters of online language courses from Paris Community College and a Rosetta Stone DVD were not enough to get a person through eight hours of school taught fully in Mandarin. Mei spent most of her class time sitting in the back of the room using her phone’s translation app to cobble together enough words for general understanding of what was being taught.

  Math, at least, was a universal language, and if not for the trigonometry and physics classes, these next ten weeks would be a complete waste of her time, scholastically speaking. If she wanted to put a positive spin on things, she could say it was good she didn’t have to consider a social calendar at all, leaving her to devote the entirety of her free time to her studies.

  As for her tutor … it turned out he was Dao-Ming’s boyfriend. And at Shenyang Secondary School, nobody crossed Dao-Ming. Which left Mei not only tutorless but completely friendless as well.

  When her last class of the day ended, she decided that enough was enough. If she had to spend one more second in this imitation of a Chinese prison, she was going to completely blow a gasket. Maybe even two.

  Stopping by her dorm room just long enough to drop off her backpack, change clothes, and grab some money, Mei headed straight toward the huge black gates and ornately cut hedges that marked the entrance into the school. As she walked, she tried to ignore the fact that all around her students had melded into laughing, Mandarin-speaking groups. Looking at them reminded her too much of her life back in Paris and the way she, Piper, Izzy, and Cassidy usually spent their free time.

  The second she stepped onto the street outside the school, Mei was assaulted by colored lights from all directions. It was already dark out, and the reds and blues and yellows flashing from every sign and window blinded her. She blinked, tried to adjust, and somehow managed to stumble straight into the path of an oncoming bicycle.

  Her eyes focused just in time to see the two-wheeled behemoth bearing down on her and she jumped out of the way, but not before the rider shook a fist at her and screamed. She didn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth, but she had a feeling they closely resembled the ones Piper’s mother had said after she’d seen her daughter front and center on the Kiss the Pig Facebook page.

  Terrific. She’d been off school grounds for all of three minutes and she’d already almost died. She was stressed out, intimidated, and just a little bit scared of Shenyang. It was a small city by Chinese standards, but those standards were relative. In this case, they meant several million people. And she’d thought Dallas was crowded …

  Another bicycle passed her, and this time its rider knocked her into one of the parked cars hard enough to bruise her elbow. Jeez. This was ridiculous. She glanced behind her at the school, so austere and imposing, and thought seriously of spending the rest of the night alone in her dorm room.

  But she hadn’t come to China to hide in an eight-by-eight room all the time. Besides, she’d already learned everything about herself that that room could teach her and it hadn’t tak
en long.

  Ignoring the insistent throb in her elbow, Mei pushed herself off the car and back into the fairly imposing foot and bike traffic currently taking up the sidewalks. No. She wasn’t going back to the school. At least not yet. She was in China. It was time she started acting like it.

  Next stop: Chinese music store or bust.

  IKC Fan Page

  The Official Fan Page for the International Kissing Club

  50

  people like this

  IKC Page

  Messages

  Between Izzy and Mei:

  Izzy

  Get your ass over to the IKC page and rescue me!

  I’m all alone over there with Mr. Tinydick.

  Mei

  I’m in the middle of Shenyang hell. Homeland Security has nothing on the Communists.

  Izzy

  Fine. Guess I have to do everything. Btw, isn’t it cool that other people are chiming in? Well, not the creepy guy, but everyone else.

  IKC Page

  Chapter 9

  Piper

  Paris was just so … Paris! And she didn’t mean Texas. As they cruised down the Champs-Elysées, it was all Piper could do to sit still when every instinct she had was screaming at her to fling the car door open and step out onto the beautiful, bustling streets of the most romantic city in the world.

  “Are you hungry?” her host mom, Marie, asked in heavily accented English as she whipped her little car down the wide, crowded street.

  Am I hungry? Piper wondered incredulously. She was starved, not for food but for experiences. She wanted to wander the boulevards with their quaint French cafés and markets bursting with fresh produce, to glut her senses on the sounds and smells and feel of Paris as she roved from museum to museum. To immerse herself in the shops and architecture until she couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been there.

  “I’m okay,” she answered, still full from their breakfast of crepes, coffee, fruit, and cheese. Her mother would’ve put her on a cleanse after so much food, but Marie just urged her to enjoy herself and eat more.