A Wedding Invitation

by Alice J. Wisler

“At what?”

  Our sandwiches were brought to us, wrapped in paper. Hungry, we began to eat.

  After a few bites, Carson took a sip of his Sprite and then said, “The Vietnamese Communists were mad that the American soldiers slept with their women and then left behind a whole bunch of kids who didn’t fit in. Kids that are mixed blood like Lien are unhappy reminders of the past.”

  Sympathy rose in my chest as I took in Carson’s explanation. “But it wasn’t the children’s fault.”

  “No, it’s never the fault of children. But they usually suffer the worst. I’ve heard from many of the Vietnamese here that kids like Lien are often raped and forced into prostitution.”

  I silently prayed that I would be more kind to Lien and asked God to coat me with a double dose of patience for her. I glanced over at Carson, thinking about how nice he was. He got along with everyone, even Lien.

  A few of Carson’s students came over to our table to talk, and as he broke into their native tongue, I quietly nibbled at my food. I hoped after we ate we’d go back to the dorms, play a few games of Ping-Pong, sit close and watch a video together. Perhaps he would recant the words he’d written in his letter to Mindy and whisper in my ear, “Sam, I was wrong about you.”

  My anticipation was destroyed when he finished his sandwich and said, “I need to get back to my room. I owe Mindy a letter.”

  I watched the way the light from a bare fluorescent bulb lit up Carson’s hair and wished that he did not affect me the way he did. He’s just a man, my head told me. Just a mere man.

  Carson helped me to my feet and paid for our meal.

  We walked past the market, closed for business until the next morning and, using the main road that ran behind the billets instead of the path that went past the living quarters, made our way into the next neighborhood. A young boy, distinctly Amerasian with a mass of white-blond hair, waved to us, calling, “Good evening! Hello! How are you today?” as though he was practicing his English.

  In one of the Cambodian neighborhoods, we watched the women wash their clothes at the community faucets, located behind the row of wooden billets. Seated on their haunches, they scrubbed, their long colorful skirts hiked up to expose their calves. The water gushed out, spewing over their plastic flip-flops. Nearby, small boys and girls wearing only pants played with empty tin cans and string. A few bubbles from the suds floated into the air, and a girl chased one, crying out in Cambodian something that sounded like a musical chant. A thin woman in a rust-colored skirt stood to pin some wet clothes to a clothesline strung out between two bamboo poles. I’d taken pictures of scenes like this, fascinated by the way the refugees were able to function in the midst of these adverse conditions.

  As Carson and I approached our staff dorms, I knew that he would soon enter his room and sit at his desk to compose a letter to Mindy. I remembered something Avery and my other friends at James Madison used to say about guys we found attractive: “The good ones are usually unavailable.”

  Carson’s unfavorable assessment of me still caused me heartache, but I also believed that he had to care about me. His eyes often looked my way from across the room at staff meetings, or over the heads of others when the bus took us to our classrooms to teach. I wanted to believe that I meant something to him, regardless of my lack of intellect.

  eleven

  Beanie says she’ll go with me. She listens as I retell the story of Huy and how hospitable his family was to me in the refugee camp. But perhaps she can hear something in my voice or see a dab of worry in my eyes. Mom tells me that I’ve never been good about hiding my emotions. And of course those who know me best know that when I cough twice, this is a sign that I’m feeling out of my range.

  Beanie announces that the potato sausage casserole is ready to bake, but she’ll wait until we get home to place it in the oven.

  I try to dissuade her. “You’re busy. I don’t want to impose on your evening.”

  “Don’t be a stack of hay. No imposing.” She finds room for the casserole on a shelf in the fridge. “How well you know these people? Could kill you if you go alone.”

  “They were my friends,” I say.

  She just ushers me out the door. “You’ve already been to a wrong wedding this weekend. You don’t need any more trouble.”

  In my hand I have the address. Shortly after getting home, I realized I could not fall asleep for a nap, so I checked the Yellow Pages for the location of Saigon Bistro. I scribbled it on a piece of memo paper from the pad Dovie keeps by the kitchen phone.

  As we drive in my Honda, I breathe in, aware of the tobacco smell that permeates the air as we drive near the R.J. Reynolds factory. Although the odors were different in the camp, something about this night sends me into visions of rickety billets sprawled over the neighborhoods, women in sarongs, men in trousers coming out of the community bathhouse, children playing with bottle caps and string, and an occasional stray dog or chicken roaming through the marketplace. Fondly, I recall how much I enjoyed Vietnamese food—crispy spring rolls and bowls of thin, white noodles.

  Beanie settles in the passenger seat once she finds the station on the radio she likes. As we thread through town, someone requests a song and wants it dedicated to his girlfriend. Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” fills my car. “Ahh,” says Beanie. “This is the one song every woman wants sung to her.”

  “Really?”

  “By the right man, of course.”

  I say, “Of course,” and then wonder why. I’ve never cared much for Billy Joel, although I suppose I wouldn’t mind if someone could love me just the way I am.

  Beanie is in a thoughtful mood. “Sometimes we get so involved in our lives—you know, the tedious day to day. We lose our sight and push away what we want.”

  “You mean like our hopes and dreams?”

  “Sort of.” She scratches her neck and then chews on a fingernail. “It gets pushed underneath all our living.”

  I start to ask Beanie what she would like in her life when I notice we’re almost there. I brake to make a sharp right turn into a parking lot. With my tires screeching I just miss an RV on its way out.

  “Careful, Sammie Girl.”

  Pulling into a space by a tow truck and an apple red Mustang, I feel my stomach sink toward my knees.

  Beanie says, “This where we need to be?”

  I take the key from the ignition and squeeze it till my fingers are numb. “Yeah. This is it.”

  Exiting my car, we walk toward the restaurant poised between two others that have Vietnamese lettering on their clear glass doors. The silver and gold shingle—a bulky piece of metal that dangles in front of the row of stores, the left side raised higher—reads Saigon Bistro. As we walk by the sign, I have the urge to push up the right side to make it level. Mom always says I like the dress racks to look even.

  “Saigon Bistro,” Beanie reads, enunciating each syllable. “Sure hope they have something to wet my whistle.”

  I’m conscious of my labored breathing.

  Beanie looks at me through narrowed eyes. “You can still run. I’ll never tell.”

  I see the stern faces of Huy and Lien’s parents from seven years ago when Lien was accused of stealing in the camp. The rift created from that incident will not leave my mind. Yet that was seven years ago. Perhaps that’s been enough time for forgiveness and a clean slate. After all, we are in America.

  “I’ll be okay,” I say.

  Seeing her reflection in the bistro’s glass door, Beanie fluffs her dark hair with a quick gesture. “I look a mess.”

  Swallowing nervousness, I say, “You look fine.” Then I push on the door. It won’t budge. I give it another attempt, pushing harder.

  “Maybe you pull it.”

  I pull but still have no luck getting inside.

  Just then a man in a white dress shirt approaches and unlocks the door from inside the restaurant. He smiles, exposing a set of uneven teeth. “Welcome. Come in, please.”

  Inside
the sparsely lit interior, the faint aroma of fried pork greets us.

  Immediately, I’m drawn to an object—a Vietnamese dress—a slim blue ao dai encased in a glass compartment, displayed on one of the stark walls. A cream-colored scroll with Chinese characters fills another wall, and below it is a metal shelf with five tiny faint-blue teacups. A watercolor of a lone purple iris hangs by a straw hat on the wall farthest from where we stand.

  The man who met us at the door has disappeared. Beanie and I stand and look at each other.

  Beanie breaks the silence with, “This reminds me of a movie where this family got trapped in a restaurant.”

  There’s a rustling sound and a door opens under the metal sign that announces Employees Only. A young woman in jeans and a pink shirt saunters toward me. “Miss Bravencourt!” Her voice rings like Dovie’s wind chime.

  She is tall and pretty. Her nose, the one they call the American mi, is still freckled.

  Grasping both of my hands in her slender ones, she giggles. “You the same!”

  She’s wearing silver earrings, two gold bracelets, and a chain with a cross around her neck. There is a dusting of gray eye shadow on her lids and a hint of sweet perfume in the air around her. Her hair is brown, wavy, and cut just above her shoulders. Gone is the dull orange color of her refugee camp days.

  Huy appears from the same door. He’s changed his clothes and is now wearing a button-down white shirt, with the sleeves folded halfway between his wrists and elbows—the same look he wore at the camp, along with hundreds of other Vietnamese. Behind him follow an older man and woman, their hair streaked with gray. I swallow to hold back the anger that tries to rise, the emotion I felt the last time I saw this couple. I greet them as warmly as I can—Lien and Huy’s parents.

  They smile, gold teeth glittering under the blush of the yellow lantern, a globe suspended midair above a large bare table.

  “Nice to see you again,” Lien’s mother says, her words halted like Little’s. “Sit, eat.” She coaxes us toward the table.

  A flashback zings though my mind to when she said the same thing when we were guests in her billet, scrunched around a coarsely built table as rain gushed down the alleyways and moths huddled for comfort around a single light bulb.

  The man pulls out a chair and motions for me to sit. I oblige. Another chair is pulled out for Beanie.

  I introduce her. “This is Beanie, my friend.” I then slowly give Huy’s name, pronouncing it as I learned so that it sounds like Who-ee. Motioning toward Lien, I say with emphasis, “And this is Lean.”

  “Nice to meet you,” says Lien, her English sounding better than it ever did in my class.

  They bring us each a bowl of hot noodles in a beef broth—pho. On a plate placed between us are four dainty fried spring rolls adorned with a few sprigs of mint and basil leaves. Little dishes of a pickled green substance arrive next.

  “Thank you,” I say. The little Vietnamese I once knew evades me under these circumstances.

  Chopsticks appear, and glasses are filled with ice and Pepsi.

  I cringe when Lien and her mother start to argue. Huy brings their raised tones to a halt and then sheepishly offers, “They want to know if you would like iced coffee.”

  Lien looks at me and says, “You don’t like, right?”

  She glares at her mother until I tactfully say, “Well, I did like it when I drank it at your billet.” Then she frowns at me. I don’t want them to fight here like they often did in the Philippines. So, thinking quickly, I add, “But I prefer this soda.” I wrap my fingers around the frosty glass of Pepsi.

  Huy translates, and when both women smile, I am grateful that he’s done his job to smooth over any potential argument.

  Beanie guzzles her Pepsi, tries to stifle a burp, and then mutters, “Excuse me.”

  I gesture to her to try a spring roll and then pick one up with my set of chopsticks.

  Huy disappears into the kitchen and seconds later brings a shallow bowl. The smell tells me that it’s nuoc mam cham, the fish sauce my students liked and were always eager to have me try when I was invited to their billets for a meal.

  The spring roll is delicious, and to please Huy, I dip the end of mine into the sauce. The aroma of the vermicelli noodles entices my senses and I draw the bowl closer to the edge of the table to take a slurp.

  “You like?” Lien is at my elbow.

  “Yes.” I pick out a slice of roasted pork with my chopsticks, chew, smile some more.

  Huy tells me to add some fish sauce to my broth, so I take the spoon from the bowl and with it add a teaspoon to my broth.

  Beanie tries one of the spring rolls, stabbing it with a lone chopstick.

  I scan the restaurant. No one is here but us. “Where are your customers?”

  Lien says, “We close on Sunday.”

  “We’re at church every Sunday,” explains Huy. His English has improved, too.

  “I learn about Jesus at church,” says Lien. “Forgiveness, and how do you say, grace?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Grace.”

  “And Grace is name of one of my friends from school, too,” she tells me with a giggle. “She helped me change my hair.”

  Not understanding at first, I question, “You mean she helped you dye your hair.”

  Confusion lines Lien’s face.

  “Color,” I say. “Change the color of your hair.”

  Lien laughs, lightly massaging the tips of her hair. “Yes, I use Clairol.”

  “So, how is school?” I ask after a moment.

  Huy explains that he’s in seventh grade, a bit behind where others his age are due to his “bad English.”

  “Lien, and you?”

  “I try but I take long time.”

  She has to be twenty or older now. “Have you graduated high school?” The second the question slips from my lips, I want to take it back.

  But there is no need for me to worry. Proudly, Lien replies, “Last year.”

  “That’s great!” Years ago I never dreamed that this wayward child would ever complete anything but a fistfight.

  Lien excuses herself while her parents grin and refill our soda glasses. Lien’s father, Minh, wants to make sure we are not too hot or too cold.

  Speaking for both Beanie and me, I say that we’re comfortable. To Huy I say, “I thought you were scheduled to relocate to Chicago.” Lien often told me that she and her family were headed from the camp to Chicago, where a relative was waiting for them.

  Huy says, “Chicago was too cold. We have an uncle here, so after one year, we live in North Carolina.”

  Chi, whom I recall being rather quiet, boldly uses her English and says, “Chicago too much snow.”

  “Yes,” I agree. “Chicago can get bitter in the winter.” Then I wonder why I chose the word bitter. Perhaps I am still trying to teach English as a Second Language.

  I continue to eat, knowing all eyes are on me. I glance at Beanie to see that she’s fussing with her chopsticks.

  Lien returns to us. “He’s not in town,” she says as she flops onto the chair beside me.

  “Who?”

  “Carson.”

  “What?” My stomach flutters like the wings of Aunt Dovie’s butterflies.

  “I leave him message.” Her face transports me back to seven years ago when she told me that she’d skipped class to hang out with a twenty-year-old Vietnamese boy her father forbade her to see. “He not home so I talk on his answering machine.”

  “You called Carson?” Every pore feels warm.

  “Yes.”

  I stop eating, my pair of chopsticks suspended over my bowl. “But . . . why?”

  “He wants to see you. He your friend, right?”

  Was. I feel the word in my mouth, tasting metallic. We used to be good friends, but things change. You certainly know about change, Lien, so let’s just leave it at that.

  But Lien continues, her hazel eyes bright. “Miss Bravencourt, I never thought I see you in America! We ge
t Carson here and we can have party.”

  I fake a smile. It stretches across my face like putty, but it’s still not genuine.

  “Mr. Carson want to see you, I’m sure.”

  “Isn’t he married?” Certainly by now he has made his vows to Mindy from Raleigh.

  “No, not married!” She giggles. “He single. Like you.”

  Single. The word stings. When the refugees used it back in the camp, it was suited for me. Now, at age thirty-one, the word feels wrong for me. I should be married by now, my days busy with mopping the floors, making crock-pot dinners, changing junior’s diapers and reading to him from the pages of The Pokey Little Puppy and Goodnight Moon.

  I ask Huy to get a fork for Beanie. She has struggled with her set of chopsticks long enough. But once the fork is in her hand, I decide she’s not too fond of her Vietnamese meal by the way she only rearranges the pieces of pork and vegetables in her bowl. I suppose she’s saving room for her sausage potato pie.

  “Miss Bravencourt,” Lien says after she and her parents have exchanged a few strident words in their native tongue. “You live here now?”

  “No. My friend and aunt live here. I live near D.C.”

  “Washington, D.C.?”

  “Yes.”

  Beanie twists a lock of her black hair so tightly that I see her finger turn blue. She sips from her glass and then plays with her straw paper. Seeing that she’s not going to eat any more and that my bowl is empty, I say that we must leave now.

  Beanie nods and a softness returns to her face. Quickly, she stands.

  Lien says, “Thank you for coming.” Then she asks Huy to take a picture of the two of us together. She wraps her arm around my waist and laughs as Huy uses the Kodak camera. “One more,” she tells him, and this time she presses her cheek against mine. The flash goes off again, causing dots to float across my vision.

  Their parents thank us for coming in the best English they can muster. Even the man who opened the door for us enters the restaurant to thank us.

  As I drive back to Dovie’s, my mind is crammed with memories. I want to talk about my days in the camp, the meals similar to tonight’s that I enjoyed in the billets, the tales of anguish I heard from many of the refugees, the excruciating heat, the respite at the beach in Morong, the walks in the neighborhoods, and the thrill of hearing a student pronounce a word correctly in English. My memories take me to the administration building, where we teachers often sat at tables under a fan that never provided enough cool air.