The Wangs vs. the World

by Jade Chang

  Was the stage moving?

  No matter. The show must go on. It must go on!

  “I considered doing a whole act about how good I have it, but then I figured that would never work. So instead, I went with the obvious . . .”

  Pause, he told himself. Give it a moment. Make the audience invest in your act. He spread his arms out.

  “Yep, I’m Asian.”

  Andrew opened his eyes.

  He was still drunk. Seriously, that must have been absinthe. How did he get back to the hotel? This bed was so nice. This was probably the best hotel they’d stayed at so far. It must be the next morning. He’d never been drunk for so long. Where was everybody else? Did Gracie know he was drunk? He smiled and felt the corners of his face tugging up. Then he frowned, just to even it out. He rolled over onto his side.

  “Hello.” Dorrie. His heart jumped. What was Dorrie doing here? She was wearing a men’s pajama top, silky and maroon. Her eyes were olive now. How did it feel to be made of so many colors? Copper and olive and blue and pink and cream, like a box of crayons. Like a tropical bird.

  “Cool pj’s.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So . . .”

  She laughed. “Do you remember anything?”

  “I remember you. But how did we end up back in my room?”

  She laughed again. “You think this is your hotel room? No, darling, this is my room. My house, actually.” She switched on the bedside light.

  Andrew looked around him. Solid. That’s how the room felt. Like every piece of furniture had been in here for a thousand years and was just settling down for a thousand more. “Oh yeah, of course.”

  “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

  Andrew shook his head and gave her what he hoped was a charming grin. “I think I’m still wasted.”

  She reached over and scrunched her fingers into his hair. “Oh Andrew, what am I going to do with you?” It was coy, flirtatious, softer than she had ever sounded. Ever since last night, at least. They hadn’t kissed yet, he realized. They were in bed together, and they hadn’t even made out yet. His breath didn’t taste too bad. He must not have been passed out long enough to get totally dehydrated. Andrew shifted up and pulled her in.

  In a second, she was on top of him, pinning him into the down pillows. Her hair curtained his face and her tongue darted out, tiny, pink, sharp, to lick the tip of his nose. Andrew laughed. She had seemed so mysterious the night before, sophisticated and ungettable, but here she was, a girl like every other girl. How old was she anyway? He would try not to ask. Instead, he rolled over, taking her with him, and pulled her hair away from her face. And then they were kissing, every point on their bodies lined up with one another, hands pressed together, even, which was kind of weird, but Andrew kind of liked it, just like everything else with Dorrie. They broke apart.

  “You’re all flushed,” said Andrew. Her face was rosy, and even her chest looked red in the V of her pajama top. Her chest. Feeling brave, he slid a hand up the inside of her shirt, up her warm, bare skin, and found her nipple, hard already. She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Do you remember falling off the stage?” Oh. Now he did remember, almost. Could he have done that? Andrew dropped his hand and leaned back.

  “Oh god. Okay. Tell me what happened.”

  She smiled. “It was quick. Not painless, but quick. You did about a minute, and then you spread out your arms and said something about being Asian and then you just toppled right off the stage.” She traced a finger down his arm. “You were out. I thought that you were going to end up in the ER.”

  Andrew felt around his head. There. There was a tender spot, but the pain still lay somewhere under the haze of the alcohol. The embarrassment, on the other hand, was acutely present.

  “I’m so sorry. God. What is wrong with me?” The new stuff. Those were the notes he had on him. Oh god. “So I talked about how awesome I am, and then I ate it onstage? I’m glad I don’t remember. I can pretend it never happened.”

  “Oh, it happened.” She grinned. He hadn’t seen her grin like that yet, every little tooth exposed. He grinned back at her. Embarrassed, but happy that something he’d done had made her smile like that even though he’d looked idiotic. They held each other’s gaze and something pinged between them. She saw him. She really did. And then she climbed on top of him again. “It definitely happened.” She leaned down and they kissed and it was like she was everywhere, touching him, kissing him, teasing him. She stopped. “You need another drink. To wash the shame away.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He shrugged. Not really.

  She swung off the bed and left the room. Andrew tried again to remember the night before. Had it really been that bad? That was two bombs in a row—what if only his friends thought he was funny? The worry mixed with his brief glow of connection, scrambling it.

  A moment later she was back, carrying a Lucite tray balanced with two cut-crystal glasses and a decanter of something brown.

  “Was it really terrible?”

  She handed him a drink. “Moderately terrible. But you did make everyone laugh. They thought it was part of the act.”

  Andrew tossed back the bourbon. “Do southerners really love this, or is it just one of those traditional things that no one really enjoys?”

  “When your daddy makes it, you’d better love it.”

  He looked at his freshened glass. “Someone made this?”

  “Someone makes everything, little rich boy.”

  “What? Don’t—no, I know that. I grew up in factories.” Or grew up hearing his dad talk about factories, anyway. Close enough. “Besides, you’re rich, too. Look at this place.”

  She slung back a drink. “Used to be. I couldn’t keep it up. Now I have this room, a studio, and a little maid’s kitchen, and half the time the rest of the grand estate is overrun with school groups and tourists. I have to hide out in my own house.”

  “Man, that feels like the kind of thing that happens to families in Jane Austen novels,” said Andrew.

  “It sort of is. I’ll show you the pamphlet sometime. It’ll make you laugh.” She splashed some more amber liquid into each of their glasses. “But let’s not talk about that. Look what I do have.”

  Another grin. She held out a set of handcuffs.

  “What?!”

  “What’s the point of having a four-poster if you can’t have some fun with it?”

  “You do know where the key is for those, right?” asked Andrew.

  She nodded and then bent down to kiss him, the bourbon making both of their mouths slick and cool. God, he loved kissing.

  “Just a little fun,” she whispered, as she stretched his arms up and locked the handcuffs in place. Andrew pulled, testing them. They must be looped around one of the bedposts.

  “You did that pretty expertly.”

  “A girl has to have some skills in this big, bad world.”

  She wasn’t a girl anymore. That was for sure.

  Andrew assessed her as she pushed his shirt up and stuck her tongue in his belly button. She must be thirty-five at least. An older woman. Sexy.

  Dorrie paused. “Look at you, you’re totally hairless.”

  “Not totally. But, yeah, no happy trail.”

  She leaned in again, kissing him on his neck, grazing his ears and jaw.

  “I want to touch you,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t even be able to see me. Here.” And then she was pulling her shirt over her head, and Andrew caught just a glimpse of her smooth pink skin and pale, pale nipples—he had never seen nipples so small and pale, and they sent a shiver of lust through him—before she wrapped the shirt around his face like a blindfold, crisscrossing the arms around his head and tying them across his forehead. Andrew breathed in. The shirt was warm and smelled faintly of some musk-heavy perfume.

  “Wait a minute,” said Dorrie. He sensed her rise up and leave the room, and he felt a sh
ot of panic.

  “Where are you going?” he called after her.

  It was a long minute before she responded. “I’m back. You’re not too attached to this shirt, are you?”

  It was a limited-edition A Bathing Ape T-shirt he’d stalked on eBay for weeks and finally won for $182. “Nah.”

  “Good.” He felt something cold and hard slide against his stomach, and panicked again. A gun? Was this all some plot to kill him and sell his organs to a drug cartel? And then he heard a snip and the cold line traveled up his chest.

  “You’re cutting my shirt off?”

  “It’s better that way. Then I can do this.” She threw open his ruined shirt and pressed her bare body against his.

  “Mmm, okay, that is better.” He lifted his hips slightly, looking for some part of her to connect with. She met him, and for a long, exquisite moment they moved against each other until she broke free and began unbuttoning his pants. Andrew had been expecting this moment, wanting it, but now that it was here, he wasn’t sure how he felt.

  Oh. Wait. Now here he was inside her warm, wet mouth. Andrew’s resolve slid out from under him and was replaced by an out-of-body buzz. Why did people bother meditating? They should just have orgasms instead.

  A long, perfect minute, and then Dorrie stopped. Andrew groaned.

  “I don’t want you getting too excited yet.” He felt her shifting on the bed. She must be taking off her underwear.

  “Wait, I have to tell you something.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  It was too soon. It didn’t make sense. It should have been Emma, maybe. But he could feel Dorrie breathing over him, waiting for him to speak.

  “Nothing, that was amazing. Seriously. I wish it was still happening. But, um, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but . . .” Oh god. This was ridiculous. He was cold now, pantless and with his T-shirt cut open, his shoulder was starting to hurt, and who knew what she was doing on the other side of the blindfold.

  “But what?” She sounded amused.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t really . . .” He’d explained it to at least a dozen girls, but this time the words wouldn’t come out right. In a rush, he said, “I just can’t have sex with someone unless I’m in love with them.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Well, won’t, I guess.”

  Her hand enclosed him, and Andrew’s body rushed to betray itself.

  “Won’t you?” He felt her next to his ear. “I almost do love you,” she whispered, slowly moving her hand up and down. He knew she didn’t mean it entirely, but he still felt faintly aglow. She was entrancing. Even now, even like this, helpless and flat on his back, blind to everything, he still felt the force of her odd allure.

  He froze. Why not? Really, why not?

  It was true what they said about older women. They knew what they were doing. One moment it was Dorrie’s hand gliding down his dick, the next it was her mouth and then back again, a constant, seamless exchange that managed to be both steady and ever changing, always some insane new swirl of the tongue or unexpected, perfect point of pressure. Pleasure. Pressure. None of his girlfriends’ ministrations had ever felt like this; Andrew floated for an uncountable number of minutes in a sexual dreamworld where he was content, almost, to just let his excitement build and plateau and build and plateau, over and over again, until he felt like he had never been so turned on in his life as he was at this moment, with Dorrie like some creature slithering over him, a million appendages and orifices all focused only on him. And then it all felt different, warm, so warm, and soft and sweet and hot and impossible, and Andrew started thrusting upwards wildly, trying to reach something, somewhere, somehow.

  No. Oh no.

  Wait.

  He must be inside her right now.

  Years of determined denial willed him to stop, to still his hips, but she kept on moving on top of him.

  Her slim legs were stronger than he ever would have guessed and she clung on, locking him in place, grinding deeper against him, driving her palms into his armpits, biting the side of his neck until her saliva drooled down onto his shoulder and he felt himself release inside of her, an explosion of white light behind his eyes and a slow, silent ebb.

  Later, when she’d unlocked the handcuffs and untied her shirt and they both lay naked in the gray morning light, Dorrie had turned to him, something like apology in her eyes.

  “Do you want to love me?” she asked.

  And he’d nodded and fallen asleep.

  二十九

  New Orleans, LA

  WHY WAS THE SCREEN on her phone always dirty? Grace pulled up her sleeve and wiped off the smudges, then went straight to her own site, Style + Grace. Everything around her smelled like grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries. She looked down at her screen again. It had already acquired a sheen of grease, but at least the feed was finally loading.

  Response to her Whataburger post was strong, even though it kind of felt like a lazy image to her—just a shadowy shot of her painted toes against the green glow of the motel pool, the Whataburger roof in the distance. Still, fifty-three comments! The last one was from SmileSteez: Name of polish! Must know ASAP LOL! The polish was from her dad’s failed line. Quickly, she responded: Sorry, it’s a limited edish! A gurl’s gotta keep some secrets!

  Grace looked down at her breakfast. A half-eaten western omelet and a pile of french fries, ketchup squirted over everything. They were sitting in a diner in Uptown that Uncle Nash said they had to go to. If the Fountain Coffee Room in the Beverly Hills Hotel—her absolute favorite place to go as a kid—had a vile evil twin, this place would be it. The Camellia Grill sign outside was a cheesy hot-pink neon, which was especially weird because the building looked like a church, and then inside it was pink walls and green stools, the same pink and green of the Fountain’s perfect palm wallpaper. If she was going to run away to a place, like the kids who hid out in the Met, that’s where she would have gone. She loved the takeout that came in pink and white striped boxes, she loved the platters of tiny silver-dollar pancakes, she even loved the old people who ate truly weird combinations of things, like a hamburger patty with a scoop of cottage cheese.

  As soon as Saina got her driver’s license, the three of them went there by themselves all the time, sat three in a row, and watched the hotel workers in their pink shirts and the ladies who went to the spa in their pink robes climb up and down the staircase that spiraled past the glass wall. The line cooks all had stars cut out of the tops of their tall paper chef’s hats. When they stood at the griddle making perfect mounds of hash browns, the overhead lights cast star-shaped patterns that swirled and danced on the sides of their white caps. Saina and Andrew had convinced her as a little kid that it was magic, and she still kind of believed that it was, as much as anything else in the world was magic.

  “You done with that, hon?”

  Grace looked up at the waitress. She seemed so nice. Why did she have to work here, instead of at a magic place in Beverly Hills? Life was so unfair. She nodded, and her half-eaten plate was whisked away, but the adults were all still eating and arguing over something boring, her father waving a piece of bacon in the air, taking bites of it as he talked.

  Time to text Andrew again.

  We’ve been here for an hour already. Where are u?

  He replied immediately.

  On way.

  Andrew. She was still mad at him, but having him here was better than being alone with Dad and Babs. Grace peeled open another creamer and poured it into her coffee. It was almost white now, like a toasted marshmallow. As she waited for an earlier Style + Grace post to load, she listened to Uncle Nash, who liked to talk even more than her father did.

  “But we must admit that Taiwan has done just fine without China’s intervention,” he said. “You know that Taiwan’s per capita income is higher than Portugal’s, Saudi Arabia’s, and Liechtenstein’s and exactly twice as high as China—”

  “Higher than new China,”
her father broke in, “but that because it has many people from old China. Many people who run away from Communist, who know that study is important and money is important, who all too smart to work in fields!”

  “So you think the Taiwanese people had no impact on the Taiwan Miracle? Surely you have to at least admire their lack of violence. Cambodia and Vietnam were in similar circumstances after World War II, and look at what happened there.”

  “Can’t compare. Cambodia and Vietnam, whole different people. Wild. Not cultured. The Taiwanese people all just Chinese anyways.”

  “Charles! You can’t just call them Chinese when it’s convenient for you and then denigrate them when it’s not! Barbra, back me up here.”

  Barbra took a bite of her pancake before replying. “I say if you try to make the case that the good economy only is because of da lu ren, then you have also to say that it is because of ri ben ren.”

  Uncle Nash laughed. “What about that, Charles? Are you willing to admit that it was the Japanese occupation that primed Taiwan for economic success?”

  “Nonsense! What the Japanese do? They build a lot of Japanese-style houses, okay, not so bad—”

  “Hi, guys.”

  Everyone looked up. “Andrew! Finally!” said Grace, relieved. Except that he was wearing some ugly button-down shirt with little harps printed on it or something.

  “Have you eaten yet? Sit down, sit down, order food.” Her father pulled him towards an empty stool as Uncle Nash shoved a menu at him.

  “Why are you wearing that shirt?” Grace asked.

  “Oh, just changing up my style a little bit. I decided to go southern gentleman.”

  “Shut up! No, really.”

  He shot her a look. “Gracie, give it up. I’m just wearing it. It’s just a shirt, don’t worry about it.”

  “I thought I cared about you not looking ridiculous, but I guess I won’t.”

  “No fighting! We all together again, almost whole family. Andrew, did you spend night with that ugly woman?”

  Andrew flinched. “Dad, she’s beautiful.”