Back at my table, strewn with cloth napkins, half-eaten platters of finger sandwiches, and plastic champagne flutes, I’m aware of another revelation. I will never attend a wedding and reception solo again. It’s too lonely. Dexter better have a good excuse for standing me up, I think, and then I wonder what Aunt Dovie is doing. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. Digging into my bag, I retrieve my car keys.
“Do you know when they plan to cut the cake?”
It’s him—Taylor.
Pleased that he came back, I smile. “Soon, I think.”
Shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun, he asks, “Would you like to dance until then?”
I blurt, “What do you do?”
Confusion lines his face.
“I mean, for a living. Work. I never asked.”
He leads me onto the dance floor. “I’m a P.I.”
“A what?” I lean in and wait for his reply. The band seems to have increased their volume as they play Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red.”
“Private Investigator.” He places his arms loosely around my waist. “Licensed.”
“Like Magnum?” My arms gently encircle his shoulders. It’s been years since I’ve danced with anyone.
“Almost. I live in Baltimore, not Hawaii.”
If he investigates for a living, can he tell I’m not supposed to be here?
“Well, you’re still young,” I tell him. “Perhaps you’ll end up in Hawaii one of these days.”
As he draws me closer to his chest, I rest my head against his shoulder, sleepy from the champagne. He’s like an angel, saving me from heading back to Aunt Dovie’s completely frustrated.
The next song is Madonna’s “Borderline,” and as the band belts out the words, “You just keep me hanging on,” my throat grows dry. As I follow Taylor off the dance floor, I reach for another glass of champagne, flash a smile at the private eye, and watch those from our table rise to dance. Their animated bodies blur as my memory, like a descending elevator ride, takes me down to a time when I thought I’d never be able to let go.
six
August 1985
My first class of Vietnamese students was graduating. I’d attended other graduation parties at the camp, so I knew what to expect—laughter, noise, and an unsurpassed frenzied energy. But this night in August, I wasn’t just a guest, I was the one in charge, responsible for keeping order.
The eight and nine year olds were wild with excitement as they rushed into my dusty classroom, their flip-flop-clad feet sliding across the slate floor. Mothers and fathers brought in trays of chagio, the spring rolls filled with minced pork that I’d grown to love, and vermicelli noodles topped with basil and mint leaves. Bottles of soda filled my teacher’s desk. The classroom was electrified with children dressed in their best, racing around the benches. Music played on a large Sanyo tape-radio player, and some students chanted, “Dance! Dance!”
Bao, my teacher’s assistant, was punctual, arriving just on time at seven. He wiped his brow with a large handkerchief and stood in a corner under a chain made of strips of forest green paper. I told him that we would eat first and then hand out the graduation certificates. This was the protocol for the graduation ceremonies that took place after each nine-week course ended.
Bao stood silently, his stare somewhere over my head.
“Could you please tell the children?”
He sighed.
I wanted to sigh, too. I wondered why he’d been assigned this position as a teacher’s assistant when for the past nine weeks he’d done little in the way of helping me teach. His eyes seemed distant, and one day when I entered the room and approached him with a question, he jumped, his whole body shaking.
I concluded he had some physical condition or that he was nervous. That was before I heard his story of his voyage from Vietnam. After I learned how his wooden boat had been seized by pirates on the South China Sea and his father murdered, I let him stand and be removed from reality. During break times, I encouraged the children to not give me so many bottles of Sprite but to take some over to him. They followed my suggestion only to have him refuse their offerings. Then the students would return to my corner of the room to place the declined bottles on the top of my desk, lining them up like a row of tragedies.
When Carson and Brice arrived at the graduation ceremony, I wanted to hug them. They were my sanity—other teachers, ones who spoke my language. My students scooted toward them and chattered in Vietnamese. Carson replied to their questions during the brief pauses. He’d studied Vietnamese from a college buddy at NC State. The friend tutored him in exchange for Carson’s help with calculus.
Brice just smiled as the children watched him, and that was enough; the girls all thought he was “very nice teacha.” It helped that his hair was thick and blond, and his eyes were the color of a summer sky over Virginia Beach.
The ceiling fan squeaked as I called the group to silence. I was wearing a mint green skirt and white blouse, my bare arms and legs tan from treks to the coast in nearby Morong. The flip-flops I had on were a gift from Avery Jones. The night before, I’d gone to one of the billets to get a manicure and pedicure from a young Vietnamese woman, the older sister of a student. She’d soaked my feet in a metal pan of cool water that soon turned brown. My feet were subject to dirt every day, and keeping them clean while wearing flip-flops was a feat I never mastered during my year in the Philippines.
“Welcome,” I said after turning down the volume on the cassette player. “Welcome,” I repeated and waited for the children to find places on the wooden benches. “First we will eat.” Sweat moistened my armpits.
Carson grinned at me from where he sat next to Brice, and my arms relaxed against my sides.
“Dance, Miss Bravencourt!” Two girls in short skirts and smeared lipstick were adamant.
“We will dance after.” I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention, a gesture I felt was the epitome of a schoolteacher, and the results were worth it.
The thirty-one students were silent until I said, “Let’s eat!”
Then there was boisterous laughter and wiggling.
We served the fried spring rolls and noodles in baby-blue plastic bowls and passed around bottles of Coke and Sprite. Seated on the wobbly benches, we enjoyed the meal. Later, there were pieces of candy and gum that seemed to come from nowhere, although I had a suspicion that fingers brought them into the room through the slatted wooden windows. Faces peered in to watch us from the narrow openings. Lien, one of the Amerasian girls, was among them. She entered the room once, but her brother Huy shooed her out. So she returned to observe us from the outside.
When dishes were cleared, it was time for the graduation certificates, followed by plenty of pictures taken by a man in the camp who had a camera. After developing these, he would charge a peso for each one.
I had filled in the name of each child from the roster I’d been given before the term started. I decided to let Bao pronounce the names instead of butchering them with my incorrect pronunciation. Handing him the certificates, I asked, “Could you please read the names?”
He withdrew his handkerchief, used it to take the moisture from his face, and said, “Yes.”
I told him to read the names as I had written them—the American way—the first name, followed by the middle name, and then the last name, not the other way around as was the Vietnamese custom. We were, after all, trying to prepare our students for how things were done in the United States.
Bao’s hand shook, rattling the certificates, and after reading the child’s name from the first one, he gave me the document. The first student, Ma Le Tung, came up to accept it. She squeezed my hand and then we posed for a photo. The teacher’s assistant coughed and read the next student’s name—Huy Hong. With his black hair slicked back from sweat, the young boy stepped forward, his smile showing his pride in his accomplishment.
After the certificates were handed out, I asked the class to pose for a photo. “But before we do t
his,” I said, pausing so that Bao could translate, “I want you all to know that I have enjoyed teaching you. Some of you will be leaving soon to go to America. Your family’s name will appear on The List and that will mean you are set to go, done with camp life, and on to a new adventure. I wish you the best.”
The students clapped then, a few of them shouting, “Thank you, teacha! We see you in American!”
Although their flubbing of the English language made the teacher in me cringe, I let them bellow out phrases for a while and then asked them to come to the front of the room by the chalkboard for the group photo. Instructing them to cram together until I could see them all through my Nikon’s viewer, I said, “One, two, three!” and let my camera capture their smiles.
When the music turned loud, the children dispersed around the room, crying, “Dance now!”
As the teacher’s assistant went out to smoke, some of the girls pulled Carson and Brice onto the floor, and then the kids yanked on my hands until I was on my feet. Madonna’s “Borderline” shimmered off the wooden walls, the students enjoying the beat but having little idea what the words “You just keep pushing my love over the borderline” actually meant.
Under a squeaky fan we laughed and danced with the students. Carson and Brice caught my eye, clearly enjoying themselves. The rats in the rafters had grown quiet and remained that way. I saw only one scamper over the ceiling beams before hiding from my sight.
Lien again tried to enter the party, but Huy told her to go home. That much Vietnamese I understood. She exited the classroom, only to perch herself by one of the window slats and cackle like the hens in Dovie’s backyard.
When Bao entered the classroom again after smoking a few cigarettes, three girls—my favorite students in this particular class—surrounded him. After a few minutes, he nodded and said to me, “They have gift for you.”
From a secluded spot under a bench where discarded pairs of flip-flops were scattered, one of the girls retrieved a narrow cardboard box about the size of a wallet. Carefully, she came over to where I was seated being photographed by one of the camp photographers with six boys, who all scrambled to be in the picture with me.
Circling me, the children watched as I opened the gift. Lifting the lid, I pulled out a white piece of material embroidered with delicate yellow flowers that looked sort of like tulips. The material unfolded and I saw that it was a handkerchief. Looking into their sweaty faces, I said, “Thank you!”
The girls giggled, and then a boy asked a question.
The girls giggled again.
I stood waiting as the girls and Bao talked. Sure enough, a translation followed. “Her mother sew this for you.” Bao indicated the smallest of the threesome.
“Oh, thank you.” I fingered the cloth and attempted a bit of Vietnamese. “Cam on ban.” I hoped I’d pronounced the phrase correctly. “It’s very nice.” I smiled at the small girl. “Tell your mother thank-you for me.”
But my words were overcome by the increased volume of the tape player. Michael Jackson was singing “Thriller.” Again.
“Turn it down.” I raised my voice to be heard. After no reaction from my students, I tried again. “Turn the music down. Please.”
Huy rushed over to the bench where the tape player sat, and soon I could hear myself think again.
Before the curfew of nine, there was time for one more dance, and after Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” ended, I shut off the music. I sent the students home to their billets with their graduation certificates, wishing them a good night. A few were not eager to leave; they wanted to dance some more.
“We come back tomorrow and see you, teacha,” a number of them said.
I just smiled, knowing that I had two days off since my classes had ended for the term. My new classes wouldn’t start until Monday.
Later, after sweeping the classroom of candy wrappers and forgotten straws, Carson, Brice, and I walked home together, back to our dorms. Rain started to fall, and then it came down like a waterfall. We found shelter on a small roofed stage in a grassy area. The stage had been built for the performances that happened periodically in the camp.
Carson wiped water droplets from his face; a few glistened on his eyelashes. On the stage he began to dance and sing, “You just keep pushing my love over the borderline!”
Brice and I laughed.
“If your parents could see you now,” I said. “They probably think you came here to be a dignified teacher, not a performer.”
Carson sang a few more lines from the song and then looked my way. “I know what my mother would say.”
“What would that be?”
“Oh, she’d tell some story about how I was born singing. No one else in the hospital thought my wailing was a song, but I was different from the other newborns. I actually sang.”
I smiled as he talked, trying to imagine what he looked like as an infant.
“And your father?” asked Brice. “What would he say if he could hear and see you now?”
Looking at the floor of the stage, Carson replied, “Not sure. But I think he’d smile at me from Heaven.”
I felt my stomach tingle.
Carson’s eyes were soft, vulnerable.
“He died?” I asked.
Carson blinked a few times and lowered his head.
“How long ago?” I edged closer to him.
“Three years.”
“That’s just like yesterday!” The words flew out a bit louder than I’d intended for them to sound. “I mean,” I quickly added, “it’s so recent.”
His tears did not shock me, but Brice had to look away. I reached into my skirt pocket and handed him my new handkerchief. I thought he might push it aside, but he took it and wiped a tear that was suspended on his cheek.
“I lost my dad, too,” I said as the rain slowed its pace against the roof. “He was only forty.”
Carson put an arm around me and drew me to his chest.
We stood like that for a few moments, and then when the rain relented, we all three stepped out from the enclosed stage and continued our walk home. The air was saturated with dampness. No one spoke. Even Brice was without his usual jokes.
As we approached our agency’s main building where the admin staff worked, I asked Carson if he had a picture of his parents. He told me he had one in his room but first had to go into the admin building to get the lesson plan book he’d left there earlier.
I watched him go inside, noting the way his broad shoulders filled his shirt, and then, realizing I needed to use the bathroom, went inside after him. The women’s restroom held two stalls, and I remembered to use the one that locked.
When I came out, I couldn’t find Carson anywhere. Figuring he was waiting for me outside, I looked around for him. When I didn’t see him, I went toward his dorm across the soggy grass.
The building was quiet. I heard a radio softly playing a song in Tagalo from someone’s room. I walked down the narrow hallway, and when I got to Carson’s room I paused. His door was ajar; I knocked, listened, and then pushed it open. I could wait for him in here. I sat on his bed, looked up at the photo of Mindy, and frowned. She had a perky smile, a wide set of teeth, and straight brown hair, giving her a model-like quality. I sat there recalling all the things he’d told me about her—her fondness for onion rings and Caesar salad, how she had a golden retriever named Ranch and a blue parrot from Peru.
My eyes roamed to the left of his single bed, to his desk that held a cassette player, a lopsided stack of paperbacks, and two red pens. We liked to kid him about his love of red pens, the ones he used to grade his students’ papers. I stood to straighten the books, and as I did, I saw a lined sheet of paper crammed with writing. Something told me that I knew better, but I swatted that thought away like I swatted at flies and mosquitoes when they buzzed around my dorm room. I picked up the paper and read: She’s naive and, although pretty, she isn’t intelligent.
Curious, and yet at the same time hearing
a warning signal rap against my mind, I continued. Above this line was my name—my name in Carson’s handwriting. He always wrote in all caps, even when he wrote on the blackboard in his classroom. His Es were like backward 3s. This letter’s penmanship was a little sloppier than usual, and each letter jarred against my heart.
But I couldn’t stop; my feet were like lead, and although I knew I shouldn’t, I read more.
Samantha’s a big flirt, and you know how I feel about flirts. She’s someone to hang out with when there’s not much else to do.
My whole body grew hot. Shaking, I lifted one foot from the floor, hoping it would move. When my legs cooperated, I left his room. With a quick turn down the hallway I found the front door, bumping my forehead on the doorjamb.
It was the first night in a long time that I couldn’t breathe due to tears. I could have used my new handkerchief, but Carson had forgotten to give it back to me.
The next day at breakfast, Carson asked about the bruise on my forehead. He also wanted to apologize. “After going to the administration building, I looked around for you, and when I didn’t see you, Brice and I decided to play Ping-Pong.”
“Oh? Who won?” I feigned interest.
“I lost.”
So did I, I thought. The impact of the words from his letter to Mindy still punctured my heart. I wanted to discuss how his words had hurt me, but how could I admit I’d read his letter? So I searched for something else we could talk about—the New People’s Army, the Vietnam War, the horrendous actions of the Vietcong, or, on a lighter note, how my aunt Dovie raised monarch butterflies. But, as I sipped my coffee, I figured it would all be wasted on a man who didn’t find me intelligent anyway.
A Wedding Invitation Page 3