by Aimee Phan
“This one is murky,” she pronounced. “I can’t get a clear reading on him. He is too impressionable, easily influenced by his peers. He must be watched very carefully … his eyes are good now, but he may require reading spectacles when he is forty-two.”
Both Grandmother Vo and Ba Nhanh leaned forward, as if to examine Lum with a new perspective.
“I suspected this one may be more troublesome,” Ba Nhanh said.
“He doesn’t do as well in school as his sister,” Grandmother Vo said to the twins. “His parents say he has poor reading skills, but perhaps it’s more than that.”
Lum withdrew his hand. “I’m doing fine in school.”
The old ladies stared at him with oval mouths.
“Impudent child!” Grandmother Vo said. “Ba Liem is honoring you with a reading and you disrespect her like this?”
“We shouldn’t be surprised,” Ba Liem said, nodding in satisfaction. “I will speak with his mother later. We will stop it, Ba Kim, before he gets too unruly.”
The children bowed and left the elder women, determined not to return to the living room for a good while.
“Don’t listen to her,” Lum said, recognizing the worry on Cherry’s face. “She’s just saying what Grandmother wants to hear. That way she’ll get paid.”
Cherry hoped so. She didn’t like the idea of her future laid out, with no choices of her own. And to think she’d be a nurse. She hated the sight of blood. Even the possibility of seeing it was enough to make her wince. Cherry stared at the creases in her palm, at the lines that stretched out to her fingers. They said no two palms looked alike, so no two fortunes could be the same. Then why did hers sound so common?
In the dining room, Cherry and Lum circled the buffet table carefully, determining what to fill their plates with. They could hear the clinking of chips and shouts of both luck and defeat from Uncle Viet’s bedroom, where the uncles played poker. After weighing down their plates with egg rolls, beef salad, chicken curry, and scoops of fried rice, Lum left for Uncle Viet’s room, while Cherry wandered down the hallway.
In Uncle Bao and Aunt Tri’s room, Cherry’s cousins were watching a Paris by Night video, her aunties’ favorite Vietnamese variety show. Duyen and Linh lay side by side on their stomachs, wrinkling their good dress-up clothes, elbows planted in the mattress, fists tucked under their chins. Another girl lay in Cherry’s usual spot. She looked older and had two long French braids in her hair. The girl grinned a mouthful of braces and hot pink rubber bands.
“This is Quynh,” Linh said. “We’re in homeroom together.”
The bed already crowded, Cherry sank to the floor and sat cross-legged, her plate balancing between her knees. On the television, Rocky Lam, Linh’s favorite Vietnamese singer, crooned, winking at the camera during his close-up. Behind him on the glittering neon-color-splashed stage, a bevy of backup dancers preened and sashayed in low-cut leotards and feathered boas.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” Linh sighed, and collapsed to the mattress. Her pigtails bounced as she shook her head. “Mom says he’s married.”
“Well, he has to be at least thirty,” Duyen said, rolling her eyes. Unlike Linh and their mothers, Duyen and Cherry didn’t find Rocky Lam so attractive. His face and hair were too oily. He made facial expressions when singing that looked more painful than seductive.
“Thirty’s not old,” Quynh said. “I’ve got cousins who are in their thirties.”
“It just means he’s mature,” Linh said, sitting up to smile at her reflection in the heart-shaped mirror hanging on the wall. “When I’m old enough, I’m going to be a pop singer and maybe he and I will sing a duet together on Paris by Night.”
“Oh, yeah?” Duyen snickered. “How?”
“I’m going to take singing lessons.” Linh puckered at the mirror before turning to look at Duyen.
“With what money? Your mom wouldn’t even let you sign up for ballet classes with me.”
“I’m going to join the choir when I get into junior high, dummy,” Linh said, scowling. “Right, Quynh?”
“Yeah, choir is free,” Quynh said. “My older cousins are doing it.”
“You don’t know everything,” Linh said. “A ballet recital for a beginner’s class is not a real performance. The choir sings several times a year and travels all over the county.”
“You have to have a good voice,” Duyen reminded her.
“I have a good voice!” Linh said. “My dad says so.” Uncle Bao had been a singer in hotels in Vietnam. Now he worked at an auto garage. He said if it weren’t for the Communists, he’d be famous back in Vietnam.
“Lessons don’t give you everything. You have to have talent first,” Duyen said. “Besides, Ba Liem said you’re going to be a housewife and that I’ll be the performer.”
“Fortune-tellers only guess at the future,” Linh said. “They don’t really know.”
“You had your palms read, too?” Cherry asked.
“Grandmother’s having all of our palms read,” Duyen said. “Why do you think Ba Liem is here?”
“My mom says you can do anything you put your mind to,” Linh said.
“You’re so gullible,” Duyen said. “Did she read that off a cereal box?”
“I can sing,” Linh said firmly. “And if I need lessons, then Mom will ask Grandmother for the money. Singing lessons can’t cost more than beauty school.”
“Who’s going to beauty school?” Cherry asked.
Duyen gave Linh a hard look. “No one,” Duyen said.
“You’re lying,” Cherry said.
“It’s grown-up stuff,” Duyen said, waving her hand, further annoying Cherry. “You won’t understand.”
Linh had turned twelve last month and Duyen was eleven, not much older than Cherry, yet they acted as if those years mattered a lot. They believed they were so mature. Cherry didn’t mind not having a sister. Cousins lorded enough power.
The Vo relatives arrived in Orange County when Cherry was five. Duyen and Linh had known each other since they were babies, lived in the same house in Vietnam, and fought like sisters. Cherry knew she should love both of them, but she didn’t like being treated like a baby. Cherry wanted one of her aunts to have another kid, so that the three of them could keep secrets from someone else.
Lum once tried to explain it to Cherry by pinching her arm.
“Ow,” she said, rubbing the sore spot.
“You’d rather I keep that to myself?” he asked.
“Yes!”
“That’s what grown-ups are trying to do when they keep secrets,” he said. “They don’t want to pinch you. They’d rather pinch themselves.”
Cherry couldn’t understand why all grown-up stuff had to hurt, why there couldn’t be anything good to share. If everything worth knowing hurt so much, she wondered why people bothered talking at all.
Another singer, Melody Ngo, floated across the television screen, wearing a glittery blue evening gown.
“Turn it up,” Quynh said. “This is my favorite song.”
“Mine, too!” Linh said, eagerly turning up the volume to a level that hurt Cherry’s ears.
Duyen rolled her eyes at Cherry again, but she turned to Linh and her new friend. The two older girls lip-synched the cheesy lyrics, forgetting the last few minutes in the room.
* * *
A loud whistle pierced their ears. Linh scooted toward the window and slid open the glass partition. The girls sat up, pressing their noses against the dusty screen.
Lum waved from the grass square next to the parking lot, surrounded by other children from the party. His tie hung on a rosebush, shirtsleeves already rolled up.
“We’re playing Frisbee,” Lum said, cupping his hands into binoculars to see through the sun glare. “Come down, we’re picking teams.”
Four boys and four girls were eligible for teams. The younger kids were sidelined as fans because they were too short to play. Duyen’s brother, Dat, demanded that he should be captain of the team o
pposing Lum.
“We need to keep the teams even,” Dat said, his chest lifting a little.
Lum looked like he was hiding a smile. “Okay by me.”
While Dat and Lum were in the same grade at school, they rarely played together.
“Why can’t you be nice to your cousin?” their mother asked, after Auntie Hien loudly complained that Lum ignored Dat at school. “He’s new to this country and you’re his family. It’s your duty to help him.”
“I ask him to play lots of times,” Lum said. “He always wants to go to the library.”
On Dat’s first day of school in America, Lum invited him to play in a game of softball at recess. But when a fly ball shattered Dat’s left eyeglass lens, a new pair, his parents forbade him from playing again. Dat obeyed his parents, but because of it, he remained dreadful at any kind of sport. Running down the block was enough to get him wheezing. Still, it didn’t keep him from wanting to win at everything.
After picking off the two remaining boys Huy and Johnny, Dat chose his sister, Duyen, while Lum picked Cherry. And even though Dat didn’t know Quynh, he waved her over, leaving Linh to join Lum’s team.
“I would have chosen you over her anyway,” Lum said, welcoming their sulking cousin to his team.
They pulled off their shoes and threw them underneath the stairwell. In preparation, Cherry gingerly stepped on the sun-fried grass, allowing her feet to adjust to the prickles.
If they were going to throw any sort of object in a game, Cherry wanted the Frisbee. It was made of light, harmless plastic and didn’t smash your face or other body parts when you missed a catch. She shuddered to think of Dat’s broken eyeglass. The worst injury she ever had was a sprained finger from a tetherball game and she could still recall the throbbing and aching. So many injuries could happen from games. Their parents only allowed Lum to play sports for fun, but never to join any school teams. They wanted him to concentrate on his studies. They didn’t understand why Americans paid so much attention to games when athletic scholarships to college were so difficult and risky to acquire.
The tallest kid in the game, Lum easily led their side to the first victory. He stretched his long body to catch the highest throws, smoothly turning to swing them back to his slower, unprepared opponents.
“First game doesn’t count,” Dat said, panting from chasing the last throw. “That was practice.”
Lum exchanged a smile with his friend Huy. “Fine.”
They won the second game with Cherry scoring the winning throw. It happened so fast, she instantly wanted to replay the moment.
“Go, Cherry!” Linh cried, giving her a high five, and Cherry felt a thrill far greater than any test score or report card could offer.
“Out of bounds,” Dat said, after retrieving the Frisbee. “That throw doesn’t count.”
“No way,” Lum said.
“Past the rosebushes is out of bounds.”
“You never said that. And you didn’t care when you threw it over the bushes.”
“Then let’s do over. Rosebushes and the pickup truck are the boundaries.”
“Forget it,” Lum said. “We won that game. It counts.”
“Cheater,” Dat said.
“Will you quit it?” Huy said. “You’re just a sore loser.”
“I’m not playing with cheaters,” Dat said. “I did not lose to some baby.”
“Hey!” Cherry said.
“She’s not a baby,” Lum said.
Dat readjusted his glasses, squinting in the sunlight. Sweat trickled from his sideburns. No one on his team came to his defense, not even Duyen. He had to know he was wrong. But Dat didn’t care. Though shorter than most boys his age, he could be as mean as any bully.
“Does your baby sister know what they call you at school?”
“Shut up,” Lum said.
“Dumb Lum,” Dat sang, smiling maliciously. “Dumb Lum, Dumb Lum is wrong again.”
“Shut up!” Lum stalked toward their cousin, seized him by his shirt collar, and threw him to the ground. Stunned, Dat stared at him, then looked around at the other gaping children. His face wrinkled.
“Daddy!” he screamed, bursting into tears. He pulled himself up and scrambled in the direction of the apartment. “Daddy!”
No one said anything. Cherry couldn’t look at Lum, who she knew felt embarrassed. He always told his sister to ignore Dat, not to let him bother her because that was what he wanted. It was the first time Cherry ever saw her older brother push anyone down.
It didn’t take long for Dat to return, skulking behind his father and Cherry and Lum’s dad. The children backed away from Lum once they saw the expressions on the adults’ faces.
“What happened here?” a red-faced Uncle Chinh asked. “What did you do to my son?”
“He pushed me!” Dat screamed. “Everyone saw it, he pushed me!”
“Cherry?” their father asked.
She turned to her brother.
“Don’t look at Lum, look at me.”
He could have waited until they returned home. Tall, gangly Lum bending over their father’s knee, his hands supporting himself on the concrete, punished with humiliation, which hurt more than the spanking itself. Cherry would have been mortified if it had happened to her. She could only guess how much worse it was for Lum because he was a boy and older.
Playtime was over. Since they were not responsible enough to play outside without adult supervision, they had to go back upstairs where their parents could watch them.
While the adults, Dat, and the little kids returned to the apartment, Huy and Johnny walked with Lum to find the Frisbee, which Dat had flung in the air during his tantrum. The girls fetched their shoes from under the stairwell.
“I hope that never happens to me,” Duyen said. “Everyone in school is going to be laughing at Lum on Monday.”
“Why?” Cherry asked, hopping on one foot to pull on her other Mary Jane. “Who’s going to tell?”
“Dat will,” Duyen said. “He’ll tell everyone in their class.”
“Lum should have known better,” Linh said.
“I would have pushed Dat, too,” Quynh said.
They all looked at her, the outsider to the family, as she laced up her sneakers.
“It’s easy to say that now,” Duyen said.
“I’ll say it to your brother’s face,” Quynh said. “I’m not afraid of him.”
When Lum and the boys finally came back inside, Cherry tried to put her hand on his arm, but he pushed past. She followed him as he walked through the living room and into the kitchen where their mother and aunties were preparing the cake. Auntie Tri immediately cooed with sympathy as Lum approached them, his face ruddy and moist. Mom led Lum to the balcony and they sat on the plastic stools next to Auntie Tri’s chili pepper plants. She stroked his curved back as he talked into his folded arms.
Cherry stood between the glass door and the refrigerator, wanting to hear what they said, but not wanting Lum to accuse her of spying.
“He called me that name! I thought you said he would never do that again. You promised!”
“He won’t,” their mother said. “I’ll talk to Auntie Hien. Why do you let it bother you so much?”
“It bothers me,” Lum said. “It does.”
Cherry pressed her forehead against the sliding glass door, waiting for them to see her. A hand tapped her shoulder and she tipped her head back. Auntie Tri knocked on the glass door. Her mother and brother looked over with their matching hooded eyes, those eyes, their father would say, that threatened to weep at any moment.
“It’s time for cake,” Auntie Tri said.
While Auntie Tri and Lum left for the living room, their mother held Cherry back, her nails digging into her arm.
“How could you let this happen?” she furiously whispered. “Why weren’t you watching your brother?”
“I was,” Cherry argued.
“You’re supposed to protect each other,” she said. “He would neve
r let this happen to you.”
Her mother left Cherry in the kitchen, where she rubbed her arm. Once she heard them beginning to sing “Happy Birthday,” Cherry patted her eyes with a dishrag hanging from the oven, and swung open the door.
* * *
After Grandmother Vo blew out the candles and the cake and punch were served, most of the guests departed, leaving behind only family and the old twins to help Grandmother open presents. Uncle Viet, Grandmother’s youngest child, but the only boy, went first. He swaggered up to Grandmother Vo, a shiny silver box in his palm, and kissed her twice on each cheek, declaring her the best mother in the world.
Sitting on the armrest of the sofa behind Auntie Hien and Auntie Tri, Cherry could hear everything they said.
“Who gave him the money?” Auntie Hien whispered.
“Probably his bookie,” Auntie Tri said with a snicker.
“He couldn’t have won anything.”
“It was a loan. Another loan Mother will end up paying for.”
While Cherry’s father and uncles all had mustaches, only Uncle Viet grew his past his lip line. Cherry’s dad once said if Uncle Viet ever took the time to look for a job the way he did to shop, he could afford all the clothes Grandmother bought for him. Today, Uncle Viet wore a peppermint gum–colored suit and sunflower yellow dress shirt. Lum said Uncle Viet dressed like a homo. But Cherry knew Uncle Viet had Khanh as well as other girlfriends, who Grandmother Vo disapproved of. She thought Uncle Viet was too young to be married.
Because Grandmother Vo liked to save wrapping paper, opening presents took longer than it should. Her fingers slipped under the Scotch tape, seeking a clean drag and peel, never ripping, not even wrinkling, the paper. With Uncle Viet’s gift, though only the size of a deck of cards, she seemed to spend even more time caressing the wrapper, savoring the moment.
An emerald pendant necklace. Emerald was their grandmother’s favorite stone. But if Cherry remembered correctly, Grandmother already had five necklaces just like this one.
“It’s beautiful,” Grandmother Vo exclaimed, weeping. She put her tear-moistened hands upon Uncle Viet’s face and kissed him again.