The Leavers

  A woman on her cell phone bumped him as she walked by, and Deming rubbed his shoulder. “Excuse me,” a man said, pushing past. Kay shrank back.

  A white man with a booming voice and a receding hairline bounded out the front door of the building. He and Peter slapped each other on the backs as if they were trying to dislodge food. Deming had never seen Peter with a friend before, and he liked it.

  “This must be Daniel.” The man kissed Kay on the cheek and extended a hand for Deming. “Jim Hennings.”

  “Mr. Hennings and I were at school together,” Peter said. “Freshman roommates.”

  “Your father and I always made sure we studied all the time,” Jim said, and winked.

  The doorman held open the lobby’s glass doors. Deming followed Kay into an elevator as Peter and Jim went to park the car.

  “Twentieth floor,” the doorman said.

  Deming pressed the button. The elevator made its journey up and finally opened into a large, sunlit room that smelled of brewing coffee. Empty wine bottles crowded a table and strung between two walls was a streamer of glittery letters: HAPPY GOTCHA DAY!

  He scanned the room. The elevator was the only door he could see, and it dinged when it opened. He would have to wait until everyone was asleep.

  A girl Deming’s age skipped into the room, hair hanging past her armpits, eyes peeking out from behind a blunt fringe of bangs. “Mom’ll be out in a sec.”

  “Angel, you’ve grown so much.” Kay bent down and hugged her.

  To Deming the girl said, “I’m Angel Hennings.” She was the first Chinese person he had seen in nearly a year.

  “Tell Angel your name,” Kay said.

  “Daniel,” said Deming.

  A woman padded out in a T-shirt and jeans. “Ka-ay.” Her dark wavy hair was laced with wiry white, and her voice was round and velvety. She reminded Deming of a cartoon cow in a milk commercial.

  Kay hugged her. “Elaine, it’s so good to see you. And this is Daniel.”

  Elaine enveloped Deming in a hug. Her hair smelled like apple shampoo. “Daniel, call me Elaine. What grade are you in? Sixth, like Angel, right?”

  “Seventh,” Deming said.

  “Seventh grade?”

  “Going into seventh in the fall,” Kay said. “Ridgeborough Junior High.”

  Elaine released the hug and studied him at arm’s length. “Junior high already?”

  Deming’s mouth was dry. He and Roland were supposed to be in the same class in September, but he wasn’t sure where he’d be going to school now.

  The elevator dinged. Deming heard Jim say, “His English appears more than adequate.”

  “Like a regular little Noo Yawker,” Peter said.

  “Peter!” Angel flung her arms around him.

  “Coffee, anyone? I’m blasted from last night. Mommy needs her caffeine fix now.” Elaine walked into the kitchen, still talking. “Angel was so excited about her Gotcha Day party. So were we, of course, with all that wine. It’s too bad you couldn’t make it.”

  “I know, I know, we really wanted to,” Kay said. “It would’ve been a rough drive last night, with all the weekend traffic. But we can have a Gotcha Day party for Daniel, and you guys can come.”

  “Oh, you must,” Elaine said, “you absolutely must.”

  “Oh, we will,” Kay said, talking like Elaine.

  Deming glanced at Angel, but she was bouncing from foot to foot and looking at the Gotcha Day sign. “Where am I sleeping tonight?” he asked. There was a couch that would make it easy to get to the elevator.

  “Oh, we’ll figure that out later,” Elaine said. “Are you tired? Do you need a nap?” He shook his head.

  “Elaine.” Angel tugged at her mother’s T-shirt. “Can I show Daniel my room?”

  HER ROOM WAS MUCH smaller than his, with light pink walls, a bed with a pink bedspread and a heart-shaped headboard, clothes thrown across the unmade sheets and toys littering the floor, stuffed animals stacked four deep. Deming cleared a path through the center, pushing aside T-shirts and socks.

  Angel held up a small pink iPod and white headphones. “Want to listen?”

  They each took an earbud and sat on the floor. Music swelled into Deming’s right ear, a tinny electronic drumbeat and a woman singing crunchy, processed vocals.

  Angel bobbed her chin. “When’s your birthday?”

  “November 8.”

  “I don’t have a real birthday because I’m adopted, but we decided that my birthday could be March 15. When’s your Gotcha Day?”

  “What’s Gotcha Day?”

  “You don’t know? All adopted kids have one. It’s like a birthday but not a birthday. It’s the day that you went home to your forever family.”

  Gotcha sounded less fun than a birthday, more like he was being hunted. “I’m not adopted yet. I’m a foster kid.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s like being adopted but it’s more temporary.” Deming looked at Angel. Her skin was light brown, her nose wide and squashy. She had a missing tooth, one of the pointy ones. He took his Discman out from his backpack. “You like Hendrix?”

  “Who?”

  “Jimi Hendrix. He has a song with the same name as yours.” Deming unplugged the earbuds and replaced her iPod with his Discman. He forwarded to “Angel” and pressed play. The guitar and cymbals shimmered in their ears, and he sang along. Tomorrow I’m going to be by your side. Then he got afraid that Angel might think he was singing to her, that he liked her. He hit stop. “You like it?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “He’s only, like, the greatest guitar player ever in the history of the universe.”

  She flipped open a container, exposing a yellowing plastic U. “Do you want to see my retainer? I have to wear it when I sleep. It’s supposed to keep my teeth in place. It kind of hurts. I have too many teeth, I had to get one removed.” He was afraid she’d put the plastic U in her mouth, or even more terrifying, make him try it on, but she shut the container and tossed it onto the floor, where it landed on a stuffed parrot.

  Deming wanted to tell Roland he had hung out with a girl, make it sound cooler than it was. He had Roland’s phone number on a piece of paper; he would call later and explain. He would have to do the same for Peter and Kay.

  “You should ask your parents about your Gotcha Day when you’re adopted,” Angel said. “That way you’ll get gifts. I got a CD from my friend Lily and a T-shirt from my other friend Lily. I have three friends named Lily and a friend named Jade. We’re all adopted from China.”

  Deming got up. From the window he could see the rooftops of smaller buildings, a woman watering plants, a couple sunbathing.

  “That’s north,” Angel said. “Where the Empire State Building is. See that tall one over there?”

  “I know what the Empire State Building is. And the Bronx, that’s north, too.” He couldn’t see the Bronx from where they were, but Angel’s confirmation of what direction they were facing helped orient him. He had a plan.

  “The Bronx is far.”

  “I used to live there.”

  “With Peter and Kay?”

  “Before I met them.”

  “I thought you were born in China, like me.”

  “I was born in Manhattan. I’m from here.”

  Angel’s eyebrows were too close together, sparse and dark and wiggly. Deming grasped for the lost Mandarin words and lunged. “Did you think it was forever when you came here?”

  She bunched up her face. “I don’t know Chinese.”

  “Oh,” he said, crushed.

  KAY INSISTED HE HOLD her hand. It was his job to lead her through the city, to make sure she was okay. An old woman with a cane was overtaking them, and Deming tried to get Kay to walk faster. Peter lingered behind them. “Come on, Dad,” he said.

  Deming trudged on, a sour stench emanating from the garbage bags on the curb, and when he wasn’t looking he stepped into a smear of dog poop. He scraped his sneaker against the
pavement. On the corner, a guy with a blonde ponytail was letting his dog pee all over the sidewalk.

  They were going to Chinatown for lunch, passing Chinese people who were following the paths from his face to Kay’s hand to Kay and Peter’s faces, from Angel’s to Jim and Elaine’s. Angel couldn’t understand Chinese. “Kay, this is where they have the best cakes.” She pointed to a storefront that Deming didn’t recognize. They couldn’t be far from Rutgers Street.

  “There used to be a bubble tea place here,” he said.

  “This is where I have lion dance,” said Angel. “My sifu’s name is Steve and our troupe is called the Lotus Blossoms.”

  “They’re something,” Elaine said. “The lion dance and the fan dance, all the different dances, I can’t keep track. It’s so good for the kids to connect to their culture. That way they’ll still know how to be Chinese.”

  “Yes, it’s so important,” said Kay.

  “It’s not too late to register Daniel for camp,” Elaine said. “It’s the last week of August. It would be great for him. They have all kinds of cultural activities for the kids.”

  “E-mail me the info. I’ve been meaning to ask you about it.”

  They passed a wet market with plastic buckets of crabs. Two ducks hung in a window, roasted brown and sticky with sauce. Peter took his camera out and fumbled with the settings. He aimed his lens, then frowned at the screen.

  “Hey, how about a family shot?” Jim said, taking the camera from Peter. Angel ran in front of the window, hip stuck out into a pose.

  “Work it, Angel, work it!” Elaine said. “Come on, Wilkinsons!”

  They assembled on the sidewalk beneath the roast ducks and sweaty window, a man in a white apron hacking meat inside as Elaine wrapped her arms around Angel, Peter and Kay’s arms around Deming.

  “How do you use this thing?” Jim shouted, and Peter broke away to assist. They passed the camera back and forth. “Okay. Smile, everyone. One, two, three . . . ”

  Deming stood against Peter. People were staring. Jim pressed another button. “One more. Daniel, smile in this one. Come on, you’re on vacation. Vacation is supposed to be fun.”

  “Smi-ile,” Elaine said.

  Deming forced a smile.

  “Cheese!” sang Angel.

  Kay pulled him closer. “It’s okay,” she whispered, “you don’t have to smile.” But he did, glad that she was on his side.

  AT A RESTAURANT ON Mott Street, the waiter gave them English menus, looking at Deming and Angel. He started to dole out chopsticks, then paused and pulled out silverware instead. On the table in front of Deming he placed a glinting metal fork with a water stain on the handle.

  “Chopsticks for me, please,” Elaine said.

  “Me, too,” said Kay.

  “Chopsticks for all,” Jim said.

  The waiter put down chopsticks and took their orders, and as he walked away Deming heard him talking to another waiter in Fuzhounese about moving tables together for a larger group of customers. The words elicited zaps in a dormant corner of his brain. Soon, he would be speaking Fuzhounese all the time.

  The dishes came out fast and were limp, reheated. Turnip cake, broccoli, shrimp dumplings. Angel stabbed holes into the side of a dumpling, and even the solitary curl of steam was lackluster.

  “Delicious,” Kay murmured, scooping up food for Deming’s plate. The meat tasted old. His mother would have never eaten food this bad.

  “This is one of those off-the-beaten-path places,” Elaine said. “We’ve been coming here for years.”

  Jim turned to Deming. “You must miss this, Daniel, having authentic Chinese food.”

  “We went to Great Wall that one time,” Peter said.

  Deming recalled the tempura and pad thai he’d picked at during a visit to the buffet table at the strip mall restaurant. The owners hadn’t even looked Chinese.

  “Come on, Great Wall doesn’t count,” Kay said. “Daniel knows that.”

  “Okay, okay, Ridgeborough isn’t exactly Manhattan when it comes to ethnic food,” Peter said. “It’s more like a cultural desert.”

  “You have to reframe it,” Elaine said. “Think of it as a cultural retreat.”

  “A cultural siesta,” Jim said.

  “But we’ve had terrific Chinese food traveling in Vancouver and London,” Kay said. “Spoiled us for life.”

  Peter nibbled a turnip cake. “This is what we come to New York for.”

  “And to see us!” Angel said.

  “I was about to say that. That’s the most important thing of all. Almost more important than dumplings.”

  “Almost?” Angel said.

  Elaine waved her hands. “Guys, should we get dessert? Bean soup?”

  The waiter stopped at their table. “What would you like?” he asked in English.

  Before Elaine could respond, Deming spoke in a rush of Fuzhounese. “She says she wants to order the red bean dessert, you got that?” He’d forgotten the pleasures of flinging vowels, the exhilarant expulsions. He knew his tones were pure 3 Alley.

  “Yeah, yeah, of course,” the waiter said.

  “Great, bring it on. These American cows want a couple of bowls.”

  “You got it.”

  Elaine put down her chopsticks. “He’s fluent in Mandarin!”

  Deming hated Jim and Elaine’s outsized smiles and exaggerated speech, how they spoke to him and Angel like they were little kids, how Peter and Kay didn’t seem to notice. He had the sensation that he was being mocked, that they all saw him and Angel as objects of amusement.

  “It’s not Mandarin,” he said. “It’s Fuzhounese.”

  “You know, the local slang,” Peter said.

  “Daniel,” said Kay. “Don’t talk like that to Mrs. Hennings.”

  “But she’s wrong,” Deming said. “She’s stupid.”

  “Daniel!” Peter said.

  “But it’s not local slang. It’s a language called Fuzhounese.”

  Jim laughed. “It’s all Chinese to us dumb-dumbs.”

  “You don’t know,” Deming said. “You don’t even care!”

  “I’m so sorry, Daniel,” Elaine said. “It’s my fault for getting it mixed up. I mistook it for Mandarin because I studied it in college.”

  “Daniel, say sorry to Mrs. Hennings,” Kay said.

  “Sorry.”

  “He can be so sensitive,” Kay said to Elaine.

  “It’s okay. Obviously, that was in prehistoric times, when I was young and in college,” Elaine said. “But I was an East Asian Studies major, so I should know better.”

  “Oh,” Kay said, “remind me, I need to ask you to help me with my terrible Mandarin. Daniel laughs and laughs when I talk to him with my Chinese.”

  “I do not!”

  “Of course.” Elaine smiled at Kay. “We’ll talk later.”

  “I studied international finance in college,” Jim said. “We’ve both always had such a strong fascination with Asia. So it made sense that we decided to get our little girl from there.”

  “We didn’t get her,” Elaine said. “We were already bound by red thread.” She over enunciated the words. “You must know the story of the red thread, Daniel. It’s an ancient Asian story.”

  “Never heard it.”

  “The red thread story! It says that the people who are destined to be with one another are bound with invisible red thread. And that’s how Angel and Jim and I were all connected with red thread, and how we found each other in our forever family.”

  “You don’t know the story?” Angel said.

  “I said I’ve never heard it.” He couldn’t believe Peter and Kay were nodding along with Elaine and Jim. “Can I be excused for a minute?”

  In the bathroom, he washed his hands with a grimy soap bar and looked in the cloudy mirror. He saw skin like Angel’s, eyes and nose like Angel’s, hair like Angel’s.

  He could sneak out now. There was a subway station not too far away they had passed on the walk over, and in his
pocket was a five-dollar bill, more than enough for train fare. He could sprint from Fordham and University, sneak into the lobby and rush upstairs, knock like crazy until the door opened. Whoever was there would screech when they saw him, they would all scream and scream. Vivian and Michael could still be there. Leon and his mother could have come home.

  He slipped in with a family making its way to the exit, three generations of parents and children and a Yi Gong, matching their pace out the door and onto the sidewalk.

  He heard Kay saying, “He’s upset, feeling left out.”

  And Peter’s forced whisper, which Deming recognized from listening through the bedroom wall: “He’s used to getting all of our attention.”

  They must have left the restaurant while he was in the bathroom. Peter spotted him first. “Daniel, there you are. Were you looking for us?”

  Defeated, game over, he walked toward the Wilkinsons, let Kay steer him closer until he was sandwiched between her and Peter. “Elaine and Jim are still inside getting change,” she said.

  Angel came outside, pointing at him. “You disappeared.”

  There would be no Bronx, no having to call to explain. “I went to the bathroom.”

  ANGEL AND DEMING SAT in Angel’s room as the adults drank wine in the living room.

  “What happened to your bio mom?” she asked.

  “She was going to go to Florida and I was going to move there with her. She might’ve gone to China.”

  “Elaine and Jim said I was found in an orphanage in China. They paid money and got me and I got my Going Home Barbie and my forever family.”

  Deming had noticed Going Home Barbie, a unsmiling beige doll with long blonde hair and empty blue eyes, encased in plastic on a shelf next to Angel’s bed. It held a doll baby out in front of her like it had a disease. The baby had a fringe of black hair and rectangular black eyes that he recognized as supposedly being Chinese, and the box had a drawing of a white house with a picket fence and a sign: WELCOME HOME!