My makeover began in the upstairs bathroom. “Sit still,” Aunt Bette commanded, as I pushed wet bangs out of my eyes. She blared “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” while periodically using her comb and brush to bang on imaginary drums.
I watched Aunt Bette’s laserlike focus and wondered why she got a C in her client service class at beauty school. The layering and cutting consumed about twenty minutes, and Vivien’s seashell pink bathroom was soon covered with tiny wet locks of my black hair.
“We’ll clean later,” Aunt Bette said. She sat me down on a folding chair in the bathroom and began the perm process. She rolled up my hair, painstakingly combing out handfuls of hair and tightening them around tiny pink plastic curlers. She then dropped my head back over the sink and applied chemicals that smelled a bit like lighter fluid.
“You sure this is what you’re supposed to do?” I asked.
“Shhh. I need to concentrate.” Aunt Bette looked at her watch, then at me. “There,” she said, looking satisfied. “Sit just like that.”
The unveiling of my perm, two hours later, was nothing if not dramatic. Aunt Bette, who had not let me see myself in the mirror yet, had blow-dried, back-combed, teased, and hair-sprayed me into what she claimed was a thirteen-year-old, half Japanese version of Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan. She had even tied one of her knit headbands around my head and poofed out my bangs.
In reality, I was less Madonna and more Orphan Annie. My hair was a few shades lighter than my natural color, and it was a giant poodle fro, held in check only by the headband, which seemed like it might burst from the pressure of holding to my head these new and aggressive curls that wanted to sprout up and out, the beauty equivalent of the Big Bang. Once it starts, the universe of my hair can’t be controlled; it wants to grow out farther and farther for eternity. There should be, I decided right then and there, a special warning label on the back of all perm boxes specifically geared to Asian hair. Warning: Addition of harsh chemicals will make hair coarse beyond repair and will make you look like an Asian person who is trying not to be Asian.
I looked like I was wearing one of Tina Turner’s wigs. I could be her character in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. All I needed were shoulder pads made out of chain mail.
“You like it?” Aunt Bette said, hopeful.
“I think I look weird,” I said, pulling out a curl, which popped resiliently back in place. “It’s kind of poofy.”
“But Big Hair is in,” Aunt Bette told me. “And besides, no one will notice your braces if they’re too busy looking at your hair.”
Aunt Bette would not let me go before introducing me to my “essential” hair supply tools, including: a neon pink perm “pick” comb, the diffuser ad-on to my hair dryer, a giant can of Aqua Net, and two enormous bottles of Vidal Sassoon shampoo and conditioner. She then gave me a solemn lecture on how each one should be used and the care of my perm.
While I probably looked like a cross between a poodle and Trudy during her braces phase on The Facts of Life, both Grandma Saddie and Vivien found nice things to say. “Ya-shee! Who’s the movie star?” Grandma Saddie exclaimed when I walked down the stairs.
I think they were probably only trying to be nice, but still, by the end of the night, I started to think I looked good.
High school, I thought smugly, here I come.
—Mr. Miyagi, The Karate Kid III
Daniel-san, best karate still inside. Now time to let out.
Pastor Miller looks at the church congregation, sweeping his eyes over us as if daring any of us to say anything. I have to do something. I look at the audience, and I see Riley, sitting next to Grandpa Taylor, who is wearing a baseball cap that reads “I’m with the Bride!” I look back to Pastor Miller. For a second, there’s complete silence in the church.
Then my mobile phone rings. It’s in the tiny drawstring matching pink purse we’re all holding. Frantic, I tear into my purse to get to the phone.
Every eye in the church is on me. And “Cowboy Take Me Away” is bouncing off the church rafters. I turn tomato red and finally turn off my phone.
“Sorry,” I mouth to everyone. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Vivien put her head in her hands and Grandma Saddie look at the ceiling.
“As I was saying …” continues Pastor Miller.
No sooner does the pastor start his sentence than my phone rings again.
“Turn that off,” hisses Kimberly.
“I did turn it off,” I hiss. My cell phone is having a meltdown. I shake it but it doesn’t stop. “Sorry,” I say.
In a flash, Lucy whips around, grabs the phone, and spikes it on the ground like a football. The back cover cracks and flies off, and the phone stops ringing. When it makes a pathetic whhrr sound, Lucy picks up the hem of her dress and stomps on the phone with one white kitten heel until it goes completely silent.
“May we continue now, Miss Taylor?” Pastor Miller asks me.
“Yes, sorry—yes.”
“As I was saying … speak now or forever hold your peace.”
After a beat of silence, Miss Bass County shouts: “I’m in love with Kevin Peterson.”
This is followed by a chorus chime from another brides-maid: Miss Hot Springs, who says, “But I’m in love with Kevin Peterson!”
Kevin looks a bit sheepish.
“What the blazes is going on?” Bubba cries.
“I’ve been having an affair with Kevin,” admits Miss Bass County.
“But I’ve been having an affair with Kevin,” says Miss Hot Springs.
Lucy, in a rage, whips up her veil. “You bitches!” she cries. Then she turns back to Kevin Peterson. “Is there any bridesmaid you haven’t told you loved?”
Kevin shrugs his shoulders.
“You told me those womanizing days were behind you,” Lucy cries, slapping Kevin’s tuxedoed chest with her bouquet. Petals fly in every direction. “You promised me!”
I guess elementary school habits die hard. Kevin Peterson never was one to keep one girlfriend for very long. And it looks like he can still manage pretty well with women. I wonder how many of the bridesmaids he managed to seduce with his “I’ve always loved you” line.
“Did you sleep with her, too?” Miss Bass County says.
“And her?” Miss Hot Springs says.
“You promised!” Lucy is still shrieking, all the while batting him about the head with her flowers.
Then the doors to the chapel swing open with a thud and Billy Connor comes crashing in. “FREEZE!” he shouts. He’s still wearing his Arkansas State Trooper uniform.
Everyone in the church looks back at him.
“Stop this wedding!” Billy Connor says.
“It’s already stopped,” Kimberly says.
“I object,” Billy Connor declares. “I am in love with Lucy Lin Woo Taylor, and I want everyone to know it.”
“Just what is going on?” Kevin Peterson asks.
“You thought you were the only one with side interests?” Lucy declares.
“Side interests?” Billy Connor echoes.
“Can I get out of this dress now?” Kimberly asks no one in particular.
“Lucy—come with me,” Billy Connor pleads.
Lucy takes one look at Kevin Peterson and then at her two backstabbing bridesmaids. Then she gathers up the full skirt of her wedding dress and runs down the aisle toward Billy Connor. She jumps into his arms and he carries her out of the church and to the Arkansas State Trooper Bronco parked in front of the chapel.
Half the congregation moves to the front of the church to watch. I see Lucy jump into the passenger side of the Bronco, her cathedral-length veil flowing out the window. As Billy Connor picks up speed, the wind catches the veil, blows it high into the air. It does a swirling dance in the wind before landing in a heap on the ground.
Kevin Peterson trots out of the church, and picks it up, as he watches his bride throw one arm out the window in farewell.
I haven’t seen a scene this awkward since Mr. T
dressed up as Santa Claus for a photo op at the White House Christmas Party in 1983 and Nancy Reagan sat on his lap.
No one says anything for a beat or two.
Then Grandpa and Grandma Taylor start clapping. “That is the best damn exit I’ve ever seen,” Grandma Taylor says. “Better than Elvis’s last concert in Hawaii.”
“We going to eat now or what?” Grandpa Taylor asks.
“Well, it’s a shame to waste all that rib eye,” Grandma Taylor says.
* * *
At the brideless reception, Aunt Teri downs four strawberry daiquiris and lines up the little paper umbrellas in front of her, while Vivien tries to console her by reminding her of the fact that most—if not all—of the wedding was paid for by the Peterson family.
Kevin Peterson does a successful turn on the dance floor to “I Will Survive,” accompanied by four of the eighteen bridesmaids. He doesn’t look like a groom who was left at the altar, but he sure doesn’t mind milking the story for all the attention it will get from any female.
Kimberly, who immediately changed out of her dress, is wearing cutoff jeans and a “No War for Oil” T-shirt, while Matt Chang desperately tries to get her to the dance floor.
Aunt Bette is busy giving her Mary Kay cards out to the guests she doesn’t know, and Bubba is showing off his three-foot bass to anyone willing to go into the Death Room.
This would be a perfect time for me to check my cell phone, but as it’s destroyed, I have no choice but to sit and take in the scene.
“You looked like you could use one of these,” Riley says.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the glass.
“So? What are you waiting for?” Riley asks me. “The love of your life is a free man now.”
“Kevin Peterson? No thanks,” I say, making a face.
Riley laughs.
“I had to check.”
“So given the little performance today, do you believe me now? Kevin kissed me. I didn’t kiss him back.”
“I figured,” Riley says. “You should have just been honest with me.”
“I was honest with you,” I cry.
“Oh, right,” Riley says. “Next time be honest but be honest a little louder.”
I laugh.
“Speaking of being honest …” I say. “There’s something I have to tell you. Something about Tiffany.”
Riley’s brown eyes are fixed on me. Waiting. I swallow. This is harder than I thought.
“You remember that night-that night when I met Paul? Well, Paul didn’t come on to me in the bedroom,” I say.
“He didn’t?”
“No. In fact, I think he came on to … Tiffany.”
Riley sighs and looks down in his beer. “Yeah, I know.”
“You know?”
“Well, I didn’t know know, but I figured. There is no way you’d let Paul corner you in the bedroom. And Tiffany told me she and Paul have been fooling around.”
“Riley … I’m so sorry.” I take his hand in mine.
He looks up at me and smiles.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I haven’t exactly been faithful ei-ther.”
“You haven’t?”
“Well, even before we broke up, well, I thought about you all the time. Tiffany used to tease me that I talked about you more than I talked about her.”
I don’t know what to say to this.
“But I’m a little confused, I’ll admit it,” Riley says. “I don’t quite know what I should be feeling.”
“Riley … I …”
A mobile phone chimes.
“Dammit, I thought my phone was dead,” I say, pulling back from Riley. It’s then I realize that my phone’s screen is still cracked and decidedly black. It’s not my phone that’s ringing.
“It’s me,” Riley says, fishing his phone out of his interior jacket pocket. He looks at the screen. “It’s Tiffany.” He pauses.
“Are you going to answer it?”
“I’ll call her back.”
This makes my heart jump a little. But then I see the look on his face, and I know something serious is going on.
“You packed and ready to go?” asks Bubba coming up from behind Riley and clapping him on the back.
“Go?” I echo. “Go where?”
“Give me ten minutes,” Riley tells Bubba. He sends me a sort of grimace. There’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.
“Tiffany called a couple of hours ago,” Riley says. “Her mother had a heart attack.”
“Oh my God,” I say.
“The Lord’s name!” Grandma Saddie cries, as she walks past us.
“It looks like she’ll be fine, but I think Tiffany is a bit shook up, and well, she’s in town to look after her sister, and …”
I look at Riley and realize he’s trying to tell me that he’s got to go back to Chicago.
“You’re flying back? Tonight?”
“I’ve known Tiffany and her family a long time. I think I should go,” Riley says. “I wanted to wait until after the wedding, and there didn’t seem a good time to tell you.”
“You can go.”
“We bastard nephews of royalty don’t have to ask permis-sion,” Riley chides, but he’s smiling.
“You do have nice strong shoulders,” I say, giving him a reluctant smile. “They’re perfect for leaning on.”
“I hope you think more than my shoulders are nice,” he says, which makes me smile.
“You know I do.”
“Well I know that, but I wanted to hear you say it,” Riley says. “We members of the royal class actually have fragile egos.”
“Nigel Riley … are you trying to impress me with your sensitive side?”
“Only if it’s working,” Riley says. He hesitates, then takes my hand. “You know, I’ve really enjoyed meeting your family.”
“Now I know you’re lying.”
“I’m not. It’s the truth. You know, you don’t have anything to be ashamed of about where you’re from. This—” Riley says, indicating the buffet of fried green tomatoes and in general the South, “is only part of who you are. The nice thing about living in America is you get to decide what you want to do with your life.”
I realize that Riley is right. That maybe all this time I’ve been afraid of coming home because of what it might say about me. That by coming home, I’d find I hadn’t met some standard in my head for the person I should be.
It also occurs to me that it seems like Riley is saying goodbye. A serious Nice-Knowing-You goodbye. The sort of goodbye you’d expect from someone planning to pop back into his ex-girlfriend’s life with the intent of staying.
“Are you and Tiffany still … on break?” I blurt suddenly.
Riley looks a little guilty. “As far as I’m concerned we are, but she did say she wanted to talk.”
I feel a pang. A talk? That doesn’t sound like the kind of talk where an ex wants to divvy up a CD collection. It sounds like the sort of talk where you end up having sweaty makeup sex followed by philosophic musings about how silly you were to break up in the first place.
“Oh, I see.”
“I want to be honest with you,” Riley says. “These past few days with you have been great. I’ve had the best time. But I think I have some thinking I need to do.”
He needs to think? And I realize that thinking is one thing I don’t need to do. I want Riley. More than anyone ever. And I understand that I should tell him so, before he gets on that plane and is back in Tiffany’s size-zero arms. I open my mouth to tell him this. But instead a joke pops out.
“Since when do the noble classes think?”
Riley gives me a sly smile.
“Hardly ever,” he says, winking. And then he’s gone.
Mr. Miyagi, The Karate Kid II
No need to fight anymore. Prove point.
1989
Dixieland High School was not what I expected. I thought it would be like a John Hughes movie. I imagined myself being played by Molly Ringwald, and Kevin P
eterson being played by Judd Nelson or John Cusack. I’d have a nerdy sidekick played by Anthony Michael Hall or Jon Crier, and he’d follow me around school in love with me while I pined over Kevin Peterson.
But then something would happen. I’d get Saturday detention with Kevin Peterson and it would change my life forever. I’d learn that jocks have hard lives, too, and that geeks are people with feelings, and that we’re all just teenagers trying to do the best we can. Or Kevin Peterson would ask me to prom only to renege on his invite when his snooty rich friends persuade him not to take me. Of course, he’d make it up to me by apologizing at prom.
Or Kevin Peterson would be the only one to remember my birthday and by the end of it, he’d be kissing me over my very own giant birthday cake.
Yes, this is what I imagined high school would be like.
It would be me, the awkward but lovable heroine who, despite all odds, manages to land the cutest/richest/most popular boy in school.
But high school wasn’t like that.
I realized this on my first day, when it became clear that high school was just another extension of middle school. Kevin Peterson ignored me; my classes were boring; and the same jocks pressured me to do their homework for them. I was still the semiawkward girl who didn’t fit in anywhere—migrating from clique to clique hoping to find a sense of belonging. And hoping to win Kevin Peterson—or if not Kevin Peterson, then find a place where I fit in.
I never did. But I came to a decision. I was going to college, and I was going to leave Dixieland.
For the first time, I thought that maybe it wasn’t that I didn’t fit in Dixieland, but that Dixieland didn’t fit me.
—Mr. Miyagi, The Karate Kid
Go find the balance.
The next morning, I pack up to leave, while Vivien watches me fold my clothes. “Ya-shee, I can’t believe you’re leaving already—you just got here,” she sighs.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“You always say that, but it’ll be five years again,” she says. “I’ll be dead of a heart attack by then. You know the Nakamura women don’t live long in this family.”
“Now who’s being the drama princess?” I ask, quoting her. But I realize that I don’t feel that usual pressing panic at the thought of coming home again. This time, I know I’ll probably be back sooner rather than later.
Dixieland Sushi Page 20