The Reeducation of Cherry Truong

by Aimee Phan

  “Shut up!” Aunt Trinh barked. “Leave her alone! Why can’t you leave her alone?”

  Her words echoed throughout the parlor, clear and sharp. Monsieur Bourdain staggered backward, looking at their entire family as if they were diseased.

  While Uncle Yen tried to calm Monsieur Bourdain and Xuan tended to his mother, Grandpère shook his head, his eyes shiny with tears. “What has happened to Cam?” he asked Grandmère in Vietnamese. “She is only a child. How can he be so angry with a child?”

  Cam didn’t know if she should walk ahead of her family or behind, which was more discreet, and which would humiliate them less. Her father made the decision for her, putting her coat over her shoulders, and walking alongside her. She eagerly leaned into his support, wanting to fold herself into this comfort, this acceptance, forever. As they walked past Petit Michel, she felt the grief bloom in her chest, and turned her head away from him.

  “I am very sorry,” Madame Bourdain said as the Truongs walked out the front door. “I don’t know what to say.”

  They passed the enormous crèche, still brightly lit, the fake animals and people crouching over the manger. The twinkle lights cast an orange glow over the statues, the animals and shepherds, the wise men, Joseph and Mary.

  In the car, Cam allowed her mother to hold her until she asked, “What have you done? What have you done to us?”

  * * *

  It took Michel eight days to try to contact her. The morning after the New Year holiday, he called and a few hours later, came by the apartment. It was the first time a Bourdain had ever visited a Truong. Cam pretended she was asleep. Each time he returned, Xuan or her father would send him away with an excuse: she was tired, sick, shopping, napping. He left letters in carefully sealed wheat-colored envelopes. Cam’s father stacked them in a neat pile on the dining room table next to the napkin basket, where they stayed until Cam finally asked her mother to throw them away.

  In late January, Michel finally found her between classes. She was turning a corner after leaving a test kitchen, adjusting a flour measurement in her head, when she felt a hand enclose her elbow.

  His clean, freshly shaven face startled her. His eyes did not appear swollen from tears or lack of sleep. His complexion looked as tan as if he’d returned from a holiday. He explained his parents had gone to their apartment in Marseille after the réveillon, a family tradition. His mother had begged him to go with them.

  “I’m sure that must have been hard for you,” Cam said, busying her hands with the button loops of her coat.

  Michel ignored this. “I still want to marry you. I still want our baby.” He spoke very proudly, like he’d been practicing and wanted his words to bear significance. “My father has calmed down. He regrets how we all behaved, but he’s willing to listen to our plans.”

  “What plans?”

  “I just said them. Getting married. Raising the baby together.”

  Cam shook her head.

  “You don’t want to get married?”

  She shook her head again. Her toes felt cold. They were standing outside, but Cam didn’t want to suggest they go sit somewhere together.

  “You don’t want the baby?”

  She watched the shock spread across his face. A brief moment of calm surrounded her, like a flower petal settling onto the ground.

  “It’s an innocent child, you know,” he said, raising his chin. “What you’ll be doing is a mortal sin. Can you live with that?”

  He was deliberately trying to provoke her, just like her mother had. But she wouldn’t react to his manipulations. She simply shrugged her shoulders, surprised how easy this felt for her, now that she knew she didn’t love him.

  “This is serious, Cam. If you do this, then we can’t be together. My parents can’t forgive you for killing their grandchild.”

  “It’s not theirs,” she said.

  “Are you doing this out of revenge?” Michel asked. His lips briefly puffed out, and Cam recognized that face from when they were children, an expression she and Xuan secretly called the Petit Prince pout. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

  “I can be very dumb sometimes.”

  When she’d learned she was pregnant, she wasn’t happy about it until she told Michel. He was the one who said they should keep it, he was the one who thought they should get married. He planned to move her into his apartment, where they would have room for a baby, where she could still be close to school, and their parents could help take care of the child. It all sounded so possible and lovely. It wasn’t until the réveillon that she realized what a fantasy it was. They simply had been wasting each other’s time.

  Her mother tried to convince her otherwise. After returning home from the Bourdains, her mother encouraged Cam to wait until she heard from Petit Michel before deciding anything. Now that he was her potential grandchild’s father, perhaps he deserved a chance to explain himself.

  “I don’t know,” Cam admitted.

  “He will call you tomorrow,” her mother said determinedly. “He will, because he loves you.”

  Her mother’s fantasy, as desperate as it sounded, seemed so possible that night. Its sheer, unexpected optimism helped calm her to sleep. The sun was beginning to rise. They’d all sleep in until the afternoon, and then wake up for a late lunch and to open Christmas presents. And if her mother was correct, Michel would call. Apologize. Fix everything. Fulfill his promise. She’d give him his present. After all, Christmas miracles did not come from God, but from people; decent, sweet people who loved you.

  Cam’s appointment was scheduled for the following Thursday. Xuan had already agreed to accompany her.

  But this was taking too long. “If you want,” she said, “you could tell them I miscarried, that God took the baby away.” She took a breath, surprised at how bitter she sounded. This wasn’t how she intended it at all. “Or you can tell them the truth. I don’t care.”

  “I could stop you, you know,” he said, stepping forward, squaring his shoulders. If anyone had seen them, they’d think they were about to kiss. “I can be cruel, too.”

  “But you won’t,” she said, turning her face up to look at him. The blood was rushing to her head, and her limbs felt like they were floating away. “We’re going to leave each other alone.”

  1982

  Kim-Ly Vo

  Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

  … Mother, do you remember, when we were younger, how the neighbors would criticize us for walking around in our bathing suits or inviting our male friends to the house? How instead of sequestering us in the house all day, like those Catholic zealots, you permitted us girls to enjoy ourselves like the boys did? They do that here in America, and no one objects. At the elementary school near our apartment, boys and girls play sports and games and are treated equally. Children are not given predetermined destinies. Instead, the teachers encourage the parents to allow the children to pursue their own interests and strengths, whatever they may be. At first, I found this freedom refreshing, but now, I can see its drawbacks.

  Lum has adjusted so well. His English is excellent (he even helps me with the occasional translation at the bank or grocery store), and although most Vietnamese boys are short compared to the Americans, he measures the tallest in his class. He must have inherited those genes from our family, perhaps our father. Sanh, as you will see when you are with us, is short, even for a Vietnamese man. Lum is so well liked by everyone. I predict he will make an excellent lawyer or businessman, or even a politician!

  Cherry is smart and clever—sometimes, I’m afraid too much for her own good. Unlike Vietnamese teachers who encourage humility, her nursery school teachers praise her, to the point that the child believes these compliments too readily. I try not to spoil her, Mother, but I cannot stop Sanh from doing so. If I discipline my daughter, she hardly listens, always turning to her father as if he is her only parent. She treats me like a servant.

  Is this how I acted around you as a child? If so, please know I have
learned my lesson. It is true, Cherry is still young. Perhaps this is just temporary. I hope so.…

  Tuyet Truong

  Westminster, California, USA

  Chapter Eight

  KIM-LY

  LITTLE SAIGON, CALIFORNIA, 1996

  Since Ba Liem’s slip in the bathtub a few months ago, her psychic abilities could predict the last two numbers in the California SuperLotto. Kim-Ly had been suspicious, but she couldn’t deny her friend’s uncanny skill, consistent almost three out of every four drawings. For the opportunity to earn millions of dollars, these were not terrible odds.

  “They float inside my head only a few seconds before. Too bad it doesn’t come earlier, huh?” Ba Liem giggled. “Then we could be rich.”

  Kim-Ly believed it could. SuperLotto occurred twice a week. Every Wednesday, Kim-Ly and the twins convened at her family’s beauty salon where they watched the selection of white rubber balls bounce and twirl in a gleaming glass case until they rolled out in a clean, tantalizing row. As Kim-Ly’s eyes caressed the number combination that could yield a lucky someone permanent financial security, she would chide herself for not selecting those numbers. Of course, there would be a 12 in this week’s drawing. There hadn’t been a 12 in three weeks. She’d record the numbers in her small crocodile skin notebook and study them at night, determined to decipher the lottery’s mystery.

  Only Kim-Ly and Ba Liem’s twin sister Ba Nhanh knew of the fortune-teller’s recent intuition and they planned to keep it that way. While they agreed to share any substantial winnings, they didn’t want to tip off any selfish, greedy relatives or friends who could suddenly decide they loved them again. So until they devised the strategy to capitalize on Ba Liem’s talent, they discreetly studied the lottery drawing every week, each buying one ticket, just in case.

  SuperLotto only cost a dollar for each game, but still some of Kim-Ly’s children, even grandchildren, felt compelled to criticize.

  “Do you know the odds of winning the lottery?” her granddaughter Cherry once asked. “Of even winning your dollar back?”

  “Are they any better than surviving a war?” Kim-Ly retorted, holding her lottery ticket close to her chest, over her heart.

  Most of the time, the twins and Kim-Ly sat in peace in the waiting lounge. Midweek, the mall was never crowded, with most people still at work or at home with their children. But this afternoon their concentration was interrupted by hooligans.

  Her underachiever grandson Lum and his friends had the gall to take up all of the chairs in the waiting lounge. Unless they were getting their hair cut (which some needed), she didn’t understand why they took up such valuable seating space, smudging their greasy fingerprints on the gossip magazines and newspapers with their careless perusing. Couldn’t they hang out in the food court with the rest of the smokers? Lum once again flaunted his irresponsibility, allowing his friends to harass his dying grandmother.

  “Boys, let your elders sit down,” Lum’s mother, Tuyet, said, as she sorted through a drawer of nail files and cotton balls. She turned to Kim-Ly. “And you’re not dying. You have high blood pressure.”

  “Severely high blood pressure,” Kim-Ly muttered, pulling her shawl around her shoulders.

  Two peroxide blondies entered the salon and pointed to the pedicure stations. Tuyet nodded and turned to her mother. “Be nice,” she said, wagging the emery board in Kim-Ly’s face.

  Waiting until her daughter walked out of earshot, Kim-Ly whispered to the twins, “Since when do we pay respect to children?”

  “Ridiculous,” Ba Liem agreed. “This is your beauty salon. They have to be nice to us.”

  The women grinned at each other as they took their usual seats, not even acknowledging the boys’ meek bows of respect. While three of the deadbeats hid behind gossip magazines, Lum unabashedly returned eye contact and smiled.

  “So what are you doing this afternoon?” Kim-Ly asked her grandson. “It must be something special to take time off from school.”

  “It’s spring break, Grandmother,” Lum said, his shoulders slouched over like a common laborer.

  “You can still study,” Kim-Ly said. “Extra time to review materials.”

  “Thank you, Grandmother,” Lum muttered, suddenly very interested in the television. Ba Nhanh was clutching the remote control, trying to find the channel for the lottery. “I studied everything last night so I’m taking a break today. But I appreciate your advice.”

  She knew he was lying. Even economics majors at anyone-can-enroll community colleges had other coursework to study. A person could never finish studying. And he believed he could be a businessman? Kim-Ly wanted to press the issue, but her granddaughter Linh and her friend Quynh wandered in. They wore skimpy tank tops and low-waisted jeans. While Quynh obediently greeted Kim-Ly and the twins, her own granddaughter brazenly passed by her to kiss her boyfriend Huy on the cheek.

  “How are you feeling, Ba Vo?” Quynh asked, straightening Kim-Ly’s scarf.

  “My throat is so dry.” Kim-Ly wheezed softly to demonstrate. “Could you get me some water?”

  Quynh squeezed Kim-Ly’s hand and left for the water cooler at the back of the salon. Kim-Ly’s eyes wandered to her daughter still serving the blondies. While Tuyet scrambled to scrub both of the customers’ callused heels, one of the blondies in the massage chairs met eyes with Kim-Ly, then quickly looked away.

  “Hi, Grandmother,” Linh finally remembered, still not moving from Huy’s lap.

  Kim-Ly shifted her scrutiny to her granddaughter. Linh’s mother was busy twisting curlers into a customer’s hair, or else Kim-Ly hoped she’d scold her daughter for her whorish behavior. After registering Kim-Ly’s lengthy look of disapproval, Linh slid off her boyfriend’s lap and into the chair next to his. Quynh returned with a paper cup of cold water.

  “How are your parents?” Kim-Ly asked, accepting the refreshing drink. “Are they doing well?”

  “They’re very busy,” Quynh said, taking a seat next to Lum, who immediately put his arm around her. “They always are this time of year.”

  “Then I’m sure you must be helping them around the house a lot,” Kim-Ly said, leaning forward in her chair. “Looking after your brothers?”

  “Yes,” Quynh said. “Of course.”

  “It’s starting,” Ba Nhanh said, poking the remote control into Kim-Ly’s side.

  Kim-Ly pulled her freshly purchased lottery ticket from her purse, holding the top with one thumb and the bottom with another. The twins did the same. As they waited for the orange-tanned host to announce the numbers, Kim-Ly noticed Lum and his friends plucking their own lottery tickets from their pockets.

  “What is this?” she demanded. “Are you making fun of us?”

  “The jackpot is up to 120 million,” one deadbeat said. “It’s on the news.”

  The older women exchanged grave glances. Wouldn’t that be terribly ironic? For one of these naïve newbies to win over a dedicated player? Lum held his lottery ticket next to his grandmother’s.

  “Look at that,” Lum said. “We have two numbers in common. Think it’s in our blood?”

  Kim-Ly ignored him, her eyes returning to the television. While the mandolin music trilled and her daughters chatted with customers, Kim-Ly and the rest of the ticket holders remained silent as the numbers filled the screen.

  Her hopes were promptly dashed. She was out by the third number. Most of the boys had tossed their tickets as well. But Ba Liem held on to hers, biting her lip in concentration. Only the elder women noticed, the young ones chattering among themselves. Kim-Ly’s body tensed. What if Ba Liem won? How could they contain their triumph?

  When the final number appeared, Ba Liem placed her ticket back in her purse. “Too bad,” she said, looking at her sister and Kim-Ly. “Maybe next time. I’m hungry. Where should we go?”

  “There’s that new cha ca restaurant downstairs,” Ba Nhanh said.

  Kim-Ly shook her head, sniffing in distaste. “Don’t go there. The owner
is a rat.”

  “How so?”

  “Don’t you remember? I lent him money for his first restaurant that went bankrupt. Then the fool asked me for another loan, as if I’d forget. When I refused, he called me terrible names.”

  “Awful,” Ba Liem said. “What about some banh cuon across the street? They said they’d give us a discount if I read the owner’s palm.”

  “Let’s go,” Ba Nhanh said. “I haven’t eaten anything since lunch.”

  “I can’t go anyway,” Kim-Ly said. “I’m waiting for Dat. We’re going to see the doctor again. I’ve been feeling faint, you know.”

  The twins cooed in sympathy. “Our poor friend,” Ba Liem said.

  “Does this mean you won’t be able to come to Las Vegas with us next weekend?” Ba Nhanh asked.

  The twins had returned only last month from one of their weekends in Las Vegas, taking one of those free buses the casinos sent over to Little Saigon every Friday morning. It was supposed to be a good deal: free transportation, deeply discounted rooms only minutes from the Strip, and a book of coupon vouchers for buffet meals. Kim-Ly was suspicious. Nothing, especially in America, was free.

  But the twins came back with such enviable stories about the different foods they’d tasted and the free shows they’d watched on the “glamorous strip.” Casino strip, not strip mall. And during their last visit, Ba Liem realized her intuition applied to the daily bingo games held at the smaller casinos on the Strip. Suddenly, Las Vegas did not seem so terrible. Except for a few insufferable drives to San Diego and San Francisco, Kim-Ly had never been outside of Little Saigon since arriving to America.

  “I’m still considering it,” Kim-Ly said. “What was the name of the bus company again?”

  “Tommy Luck or Bonny Luck, or something,” Ba Liem said. “Who cares? It’s free!”

  Kim-Ly was still determining how to tell her children about this trip. They were so concerned about her health and complicated medication regimen. Of course, as an adult she could do whatever she wanted, but she didn’t wish to needlessly worry her children.