I don’t leave a message as he requests. I call Lien. She answers right away, and when I tell her about the conversation with her mother, she gushes, “Thank you, thank you.”
Gripping the receiver so tightly that my fingers turn numb, I confess, “Uh, I told your mother something else . . .”
“That I am a troublemaker?” She laughs, and as she does, I hate that what I’m about to say is not funny.
“I told her that you are getting married in Falls Church.”
“What?”
“She says she can’t travel long distances.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Miss Bravencourt, I don’t have a church in Falls Church.”
“I do.”
“You do? A church for my wedding?”
“Yes.” And as soon as I say the word, I know I am now committed. How is it that this child I wanted nothing to do with has now become my life?
Lien’s voice is hopeful. “Will you call your church?”
I suppose I will have to.
Mom suggests that I meet Pastor Jed at the church in his office. She is a firm believer in face-to-face talks. At first I don’t want to go. But after a quick bagel with cream cheese at Sanjay’s bakery, I drive to my church. Sanjay has listened to the story and agreed with Mom. “More convincing when you talk with faces in view,” he says as he slips a cheese Danish into a paper sack and hands it to me.
Puzzled, I look at the bag.
He smiles. “You will need it. Energy for your task.”
“Oh,” I say. “I thought it was for me to give my preacher. You know, as a gift.”
“If you think that would work in Lien’s favor, then use it as a gift.” With another smile, he sends me on my way.
I feel apprehension spread through my neck. I’ve never done anything like this before. Carson is better at advocating for others. He should be doing this instead of me.
At that moment, I remember words I learned in Sunday school: God gives us grace and strength for each task.
I water my planters of ivy and think about what to eat for dinner. There’s the new Italian restaurant not far from here, and if their flyer is correct, they offer takeout, even delivery. I’m thinking about a cheesy slice of lasagna when Carson calls. Without a proper hello, he tells me Lien is in tears. Her mother has changed her mind and will not come to the wedding.
“What?” My voice ricochets off my kitchen walls.
“She has M.S.”
“What?”
“Multiple sclerosis.”
As I walk into the living room, I feel my heart pump vigorously, and I find respite on the sofa in case my body decides to give out from the rapid increase in blood pressure. “But why does that mean she can’t come to the wedding? We are having it locally for her benefit.” I think of my long talk with Pastor Jed last week about having the ceremony at our church. I had to explain the whole story. He was interested in details. He suggested that Lien and Jonathan come to him for some premarital counseling. “That’s my standard,” he said. “I like to offer this to all the couples I marry.”
I left his office with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was grateful that the church had nothing scheduled for November 13 so the wedding ceremony could take place in the sanctuary. On the other hand, I wondered how in the world I was going to get Lien and Jonathan to agree to be counseled by my pastor. Later, I called Pastor Jed and asked if he would be willing to talk with them via phone. He said that would work, although he preferred face-to-face. I guess we are all a viewing-faces generation in spite of telephones and computers.
Now Carson tells me that Lien’s mother isn’t even going to show up for the wedding. “She says she can’t come.”
“But why?” I cry.
“All she told Lien is that she’s unable to be there.”
“No, no,” I moan. I let the receiver slip from my weakening grip.
“Sam. Sam?”
I pick up the receiver off the sofa cushion. “I’m here.”
“Don’t give up so quickly. I think Thuy is worried.”
“About what?”
“She’s in a wheelchair. I think she’s not sure she wants to be seen.”
“Can’t she think about how much her being there means to Lien?”
“We are working on that.”
I swallow. I must release this hold on wanting things to go my way at this wedding. Gulping, I lower my voice and say, “Okay. I’ll trust God to make it happen.” Yet my heart is packed with doubt.
I try to read from where I left off in my Busboy mystery, making myself comfortable on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a light quilt over my legs. When the coffee grows cold, I reheat the mug in the microwave and again think about what to eat for dinner. While my stomach craved Italian before Carson called, now I think it wants something Asian. A steamy serving of pho would be tasty tonight, but I don’t feel like getting into my car to drive to the local Vietnamese restaurant, and I certainly am not in the mood to dine alone in public. So I heat a bowl of ramen and add a few fresh carrot slices to the broth and watch the news on TV. I rethink the whole pet concept. If I had someone else living with me, I would never have to eat alone.
When Dovie phones me an hour later, she cries, “They found her.” I think she means Lien’s mother, but my aunt is talking about Little’s daughter, Liza. “Liza wasn’t going to France. She went to England. Little got it mixed up.”
How does one get France and England mixed up? I wonder silently. And then I ask it. “How do you confuse France and England?”
Dovie laughs. “Little doesn’t quite know.”
“Has she lost her hearing?” I know she has a speech impediment, but I always thought her hearing was fine.
“No. I think the truth is, Little has always wanted to go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. She has Paris on her mind. ’Course she’s too afraid to fly there, so I’m not sure how she’ll do it.”
Just because you have a country on your mind doesn’t mean you panic when your daughter isn’t there. I wonder if the women at Dovie’s have found some of Uncle Charlie’s old moonshine in the basement.
“Little wonders how she got confused, too. I guess old age makes you silly.”
“Is Liza okay?”
“Yes, she’s really in love. With a Frenchman. She’s happier than happy.”
I try to get this straight. “So Liza is in England but in love with someone from France?”
Dovie chuckles. “Child,” she says, “there is more to the story.”
Yes, I think, the stories of our lives are never simple. There are complicated feelings and situations, and humans with complicated feelings in complicated situations. Like Thuy and Lien. There has to be more to their history than I will ever grasp—those hidden components, things that have gotten “pushed underneath all the living.” Those components are what chronicle our lives, providing the vibrancy, sorrow, and frustration that can sound illogical to an outsider but make sense to the people involved. “Okay. Tell me more,” I say.
“Liza is in England and her boyfriend is coming over to see her from Paris.”
I run what she just said through my mind. Not sure I have all the facts, I prod my aunt to continue. “And?”
“Do you understand it now?”
“No, I don’t. Why is Liza in England?”
“They are meeting there because that’s where her job is.”
“I thought she was interested in the convent. You can’t have a boyfriend if you are going to become a nun.”
“It was me who wanted to become a nun.”
My mind swirls faster than waves during a hurricane. “Well,” I tell Dovie, “I’m glad everything has worked itself out.” Now, Lord, please let the same happen for Lien and her mother.
“Me too. Little will just have to get used to the idea of flying.”
“Where is she going?”
“To meet the boyfriend and her daughter in Europe. And so,�
�� my aunt says without any more explanation, “when will we see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
“How is the search going for Lien’s mother? I know Lien must be excited to be getting married.”
“She is.”
“We got an invitation today. Not the typical kind, but a homemade one. Had a little flower stamped on it. Beanie says that it’s very Asian-looking.”
“That’s good,” I say because I don’t know what else to say.
“I guess we’ll see you for the wedding.”
“Yes.” The word sounds weak.
“Will Cecelia be there?”
My mother will be there. In fact, Lien pretty much asked if I could add my family and friends to her guest list, wanting to “make sure lots of people come to see me be married.”
But before I can reply, Dovie says she must go feed the chickens. Apparently, Breakfast and Dinner have been ganging up on Lunch, keeping her from getting her share of feed. Ready to discipline, my aunt hangs up.
forty-three
When I told Mom that Pastor Jed said he’d perform the ceremony for Lien and Jonathan, I watched her face brighten, her eyes shiny behind her glasses. I bet she was thinking, Well, I guess my daughter is capable of working this all out. In spite of the fact that I told her to be cautious and not get so involved.
Today, I see the gears inside her head churning as she prices a rack of silk blouses. After a few minutes, she asks, “Does Lien need a dress?”
“You mean as in wedding?”
“Yes, a bridal gown.” The words flow off her lips like satin.
“I don’t know.”
“Ask,” my mother prods.
So I call Lien at Saigon Bistro and find out she does not have a dress yet. She says she looked for “an American dress” with her friends at a store, but all the ones she thought were pretty were so expensive. “Expensive!” she cries again.
Figuring that Mom has something up her sleeve, I tell Lien not to worry.
After I put down the phone, a flock of women enter the shop and I begin to assist one who wants a wool skirt with a blend of polyester in a size two. I take her to the rack of skirts in her size, and after looking at them she decides that perhaps she’s really a size three, or six.
“Do you think I’m a six?”
I can tell she’s holding in her tummy; I’ve seen this sucking in of air and standing erect many times. “You could be,” I say as I escort her to one of the dressing rooms.
Minutes later, she groans through the rose-colored door. “I guess I am a six after all. I used to be a two. It’s having all those babies.”
After she buys a size six skirt, I hope that everyone else will leave because I’m eager to hear Mom’s plan for Lien. I want to talk freely with her without interruptions from customers.
Yet the customers are in no hurry, unaware of my urgency. A round woman with five pairs of slacks flung over her pudgy arm asks where the dressing rooms are. Mom unlocks the door to one for her and pleasantly informs her to call out if she needs a different size. Then Mom pulls me to her side and says, “I am going to do what we did growing up in North Carolina.”
“What was that?”
“Making sure every bride had what she needed.”
Never have I heard Mom say that line. Growing up, I listened to plenty of Uncle Charlie tales from Mom, Dovie, and even from my uncle himself, but no one ever mentioned that the state of North Carolina took care of her brides.
Mom and I debate how to dress the two mannequins that occupy our store’s front window. I complain that I think we need new mannequins; these have always looked like they came over on the Mayflower. The white paint has chipped off the brunette’s left hand, making her look like she has a skin disease. Mom pulls a beige tweed coat from one of the racks and drapes it over the blond doll. “I think it’s a nice coat and will draw customers in.”
From my years of working with her, I know that drawing customers inside is important, and therefore the way the wooden lifeless forms are dressed needs to be taken into careful consideration. I like her to think that I am capable of understanding the value of an eye-catching show window.
When Mom says, “This coat has a few wrinkles,” I know she wants me to get the clothes steamer from the closet and get the wrinkles out. As I plug in the machine, my mother considers what else the plastic lady needs to entice passersby. “A scarf?”
“I think she needs a gray one with turquoise spots.” I fit the coat onto the stiff model, pulling the fabric over her cold arms.
As Mom straightens the skirt, I move the arm of the steamer over the clothes, watching the vapor of steam soak into the fabric.
With a finger on her nose, Mom says a blue scarf with gray ovals looks better.
“Really?” I ask over the hiss of the steamer.
She waits for me to finish my task and then holds the blue scarf up to the doll’s neck. “This scarf looks good with anything. That’s what they say in the catalog I ordered it from.”
When the door to the shop jingles and is thrust open, neither of us expects to see who walks inside. It’s Lien; Lien is right here in the shop.
I move from the window to greet her.
Lien is an array of smiles. “Miss Bravencourt, I have made you do too much. I told Minh and Chi I had to take days off of work and come help you. It is my wedding, and I make you already do too much work.”
Impulsive as always, I think as she throws her arms around me. Her bracelets rub against my neck. What will she do next?
“I ask Carson for directions,” she says, looking me in the eyes. “And I drive and drive. It’s a long way. Almost as far as Vietnam.” She giggles and hugs me once more.
I introduce her to Mom, who says, “Your dress arrived.”
I’d sent Lien one of our suppliers’ catalogs, telling her to pick what she liked. She phoned to say she liked them all and for us to choose. After much deliberation, Mom and I decided on a satin ivory gown with Queen Anne’s lace and a V-neck. The dress was sent with a half-off price tag, which my mother quickly removed and then carefully hung the gown on a rack.
From the back of the boutique, Mom brings the garment, which is sealed in a clear plastic coating for protection.
We watch as Lien’s eyes resemble saucers. “For me?”
Mother nods and carefully removes the plastic, exposing the soft fabric for Lien to view.
“Oh!” cries the young woman. “I never imagine it would be so pretty.”
Mom produces one of her I love it when customers are elated smiles and guides Lien to the dressing rooms.
Entering one of the stalls Mom opens for her, Lien shuts the door. “What if I am too fat?” she jokes.
I dismiss her worries. “The dress is your size.”
When she opens the door and steps out, timidly at first, Mom and I are both caught off guard. Quickly, I find a spot on the carpet and look at it until I’ve blinked away tears.
Mom makes Lien turn around a few times and then says, “Now, that is stunning.”
Lien asks what that word means, and together Mom and I say, “Beautiful.”
Smiling at her reflection in the dressing room mirror, Lien runs fingers over the beaded neckline. I note how the gown clings to her narrow abdomen and around her hips, its train cascading over her legs and onto the floor like a frothy stream.
Mom takes a hair clip with a glistening pearl on it from the display of accessories and, brushing back Lien’s hair from her forehead, inserts the clip along the side of her head. Mom actually laughs as the young woman exclaims with enthusiasm, “Oh, now I look like real American bride.”
Lien hugs my mother, and as she does so, I see a combination of pride and affection in Mom’s reaction. Mom’s always saying that Dovie’s heart is large, and when I decided to go to the Philippines, she claimed I was the “charitable type” like my aunt. Yet, in this moment, I see that my mother has her own style of being charitable.
When Lien ha
s slipped her jeans and T-shirt back on, she joins us at the counter. “You go with me,” she then says, looking me in the eye.
“Where?”
“I go see my mother.”
“Where does your mother live?” asks Mom.
Lien digs into her worn Gucci bag and produces a slip of blue paper. She hands it to Mom, who, after reading the address, nods and says, “That’s not far from here.” Then Mom tells me, “You take her.”
“Oh, no . . . I don’t think . . .”
Lien’s smile evaporates as Mom’s eyes work like darts into mine.
With Mom’s insistence and Lien’s forlorn look, how can I deny what I’m asked to do?
“It’s just past the little Greek restaurant on the corner by the store that sells those army clothes.” Mom hands me my purse from behind the counter.
Taking my purse, I nod. “All right, I’ll go.”
Lien and I hop into my Honda.
“I never drive with you before, Miss Bravencourt,” Lien says as she pulls on her seat belt. “You good driver?”
“Of course.” But today, my nerves are tight and I wonder how I got involved in this scenario. Thoughts dash against my mind. What if Lien’s mother doesn’t want to see her? What if she’s not home? What if they fight? What will I do? What should I say?
Lien chats as we drive, commenting on the area, the fall colors, and about the things she misses in Vietnam. I remember how I once asked my students if they could go anywhere—anywhere in the world at all—where would they like to go? I started the dialogue by saying I wanted to go to Egypt and see a pyramid. The class was quiet; even the rats remained silent.
Eventually, one small student raised his hand.
“Yes? Tell us, Bui.”
Timidly, he said, “I want to go to Vietnam.”
All at once, the children came alive. “Yes, I want to go to Vietnam,” they chorused.
I couldn’t understand why they would want to return to the war-torn country, a land they had just left. Some families had left under the Orderly Departure Program, but others had escaped by boat, paying large sums of money to operators and risking their lives.
A Wedding Invitation Page 22