by Vicki Essex
He texted Selena to say he was feeling a little under the weather and was going to bed early, so wouldn’t be calling tonight. A minute later, she sent him a picture of her puckered lips and wrote, Get well soon, honey bear! XXX.
His spirits sank. He was a liar and a coward. He’d made excuses to cut their conversations short the past few nights, especially when she’d started talking about her upcoming visit and meeting his parents. Now he was outright avoiding her.
The thing was, he didn’t know how he could, in good conscience, deepen or continue their relationship when he had no idea how their future would look. Selena made a whole lot more money than he did, which, now that he thought about it, bothered him. Call him old-fashioned, but he’d always pictured himself as the breadwinner, and when they had kids, he wanted his wife to stay home to care for them. In all their talk about children, Selena had never once said she’d become a stay-at-home mom.
And why would she? She was a doctor with her own practice. What did he have to offer her? A toehold in his parents’ business, a few tidy investments and a well-padded savings account? Selena probably made ten times what he did, plus she came from a fairly well-off family. She owned a condo in Manhattan, for Christ’s sake.
That only led to more questions. Where would they live? Who would be the one to pick up and move? Logically, it should be him, but he had difficulty imagining himself living apart from his parents, not because he didn’t know how to take care of himself, but because someone had to watch over them. He didn’t want his grandmother to spend the remainder of her years stuck in the middle of his parents’ bickering. And a retirement residence was out of the question. According to his parents, Chinese families simply did not send their elderly to an institution full of strangers. His father frequently threatened to disown him if he ever considered putting him in a home.
No, Daniel couldn’t leave Everville—for his parents’ and his grandmother’s sake. He owed them too much to abandon them. They’d paid for his education, food and housing. Besides, a condo in the city was no place to raise a family. He and Selena could get a big, roomy house in Everville with a yard for a fraction of the price of real estate in New York. In fact, there was a beautiful old cottage he’d had his eye on that had been on the market the past couple of months. Maybe he should look into making an offer on it....
And then what? Do you really think Selena will pick up and leave so she can be a housewife to a glorified short-order cook?
He might not be a McFlipper, but he wasn’t earning a six-figure salary, either. What he earned was more of an honorarium than a salary. He’d never asked for more—it simply wasn’t done. After all, he was living under his parents’ roof, eating their food. Sure, he helped around the house when needed, but he couldn’t demand a raise.
Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He closed his eyes at the bald truth. He was making excuses. His intentions might have been good, but the moment he thought about telling his parents he was off to find a job in the big city, he cringed at their imagined frowns, the disappointment in their expressions and the browbeating he’d receive.
Moh gwai young. Useless.
Depressed, he went to the living room. His mother and grandmother were watching a rerun of CSI with the closed captioning on since Poh-poh’s English wasn’t very good.
“Come sit and watch,” Poh-poh invited in Cantonese. She offered him a plate of orange slices. “Try these. I got them at the market today. Very sweet.”
This was the after-dinner custom in their household—TV and fruit. He knew Selena preferred richer desserts, but cake and pie weren’t typical in Chinese home fare. What would they eat when they lived together? Who would do the cooking? Would Selena want to learn how to make Poh-poh’s healing soups? Would she even believe in their medicinal effects?
“Why aren’t you talking to your girlfriend?” his mother asked.
“She’s working tonight.” Another lie.
“Are we ever going to meet her? I wonder some days if she’s even real. We haven’t even seen a picture of her.” She smiled crookedly. “You didn’t make her up, did you?”
“I don’t own a picture of her.” Not one he’d show anyhow. Most of them were of her in various stages of undress. The ones that weren’t...
He sat back in shock. Oh, God. He had plenty of pictures that would have been fine, but he hadn’t shown his parents. It’d been a conscious decision with an unconscious reason.
Tiffany was right. If race didn’t matter, then why wouldn’t he show them a picture of Selena? Was he simply afraid of what his parents would think? Was that why he was telling himself he wasn’t good enough for her?
“The kids these days,” Poh-poh said with a snort. “They don’t do any of those things anymore. They don’t know the value of these small things. Back when Kung-kung was courting me, I had to save up a lot of money so I could have a nice picture taken to give to him.” Sadness crept into her eyes as she nodded toward the photo on the mantel. “I never got one of him when he was young. He was saving to bring us here, instead.”
“You should ask Selena for a photo,” his mother told him, her admonishing tone sharpening his guilt. “What’s the matter with her? Is she ugly?”
“I don’t have one printed out. They’re all on the computer.” That should keep her quiet. His mother wasn’t fond of technology and didn’t even like sitting in front of a computer monitor if she could help it.
“Well, no matter. When we meet her, I’m sure she’ll be everything you say she is. She doesn’t have to be perfect—just a good Chinese girl. That’s all we want.” She patted his knee and smiled so benignly up at him, the only thing he could do was smile back.
CHAPTER NINE
TIFFANY TOOK A deep breath as she faced the Jamieson house once more, book bag clutched to her chest. She had barely believed it yesterday when Chris had called, and in a terse tone, asked her to come back. She’d readily agreed, apologizing profusely, practically groveling for forgiveness. She wasn’t sure, exactly, that she’d gotten it, but she was here now, which had to mean something.
She watched Chris as he walked out onto the veranda, thumbs hooked in his back pockets, his expression unreadable as he squinted against the blazing sun. She was mad at herself for still being so drawn to him despite everything that had happened. She understood that he only wanted what was best for his son. She wasn’t sure how Simon would react to his father’s hovering, though. On top of that, if Chris was going to watch her tutor his son, she’d need to step up her game. No more terrible translations. She had to get serious with Simon.
“Thanks for coming,” he said as she approached. “Before you go in, can we talk?”
She swallowed dryly. “Of course.”
A wet breeze gusted, sweeping tendrils of hair out of her loosely tied ponytail and into her face. She’d dressed more conservatively today. The three-quarter-length-sleeved white collared shirt and knee-length brown pencil skirt made her look like the bookworm she’d been as a teenager, but she would put on her old Coke-bottle glasses if it would convince Chris she meant business.
He was silent on the short walk to the fence surrounding the paddock. A big chestnut mare plodded toward them. Tiffany stepped back as the horse nosed at her arm.
“Don’t worry. She won’t bite. She’s just seeing if you have any treats.”
She didn’t want to think about the dirt the animal was leaving all over her freshly ironed shirt, but she didn’t want to act like a prissy sissy, either. She held still and studied the musculature and fine red-brown coloring to distract herself from the mare’s snuffling probe. As much as she was fascinated by the creatures, she didn’t like the thought of those big teeth chomping on her. Chris pulled a carrot stump from his pocket, and the horse turned her enormous head and lipped up the proffered treat, slobbering all over his hand.
“Simon and I have a...difficult relationship.” He patted the horse’s neck. She trudged away once she’d ascertained there were no more treats.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure he hates my guts right now. I’ve tried my best to understand who he is, who he’s becoming. But we’re not there yet.”
Tiffany waited for him to say more. She wasn’t sure where he was going with this.
“He insisted I not blame you for what happened,” he said. “He accepted full responsibility for his actions. He doesn’t do that a lot.”
She was surprised and warmed by the thought of Simon defending her. At the same time, she hated that she’d come between father and son. Chris studied her face, searching for the secret to earning his son’s esteem.
“Anyhow,” he went on, “I wanted to get that out. You have a...hold on him that I don’t. But I guess you’ve always been able to wrangle us Jamieson men that way.”
Feeling undeservedly relieved and flattered, she asked, “Is he still working on The Tempest?”
“Far as I know.” He scratched his nose and his brow furrowed. “Actually, I’m not sure.”
“If you want, I can give you a daily update on his progress. Let you know where he’s at in the class, what he’s studying.”
“Yeah. That’d be good.”
She hesitated, unsure of how to approach the next question. “Are...we good?” she asked in a small voice.
He met her gaze shrugging slightly. “I guess so.”
Well, that was something. She hoped she’d win back his appreciation with time. She’d never thought about how frail that kind of personal esteem was—and she’d shattered it so easily.
At the house, she found Simon sitting at the dining-room table, a three-ring binder open in front of him. He was doodling on a lined page with his right hand. The white bandage was already fraying and stained with a splotch of mustard.
“That’s cool,” she said as she put her bag down. Upon closer inspection, the geometric shapes really were quite beautiful, a mixture of art deco and Celtic patterns he’d made into knots and borders all over the page. “I take this to mean you can write okay?”
“It stings a little, but yeah, I can use my hand.” He flexed it to demonstrate, lips tight.
“Simon.” She waited till his eyes met hers. “I want to say again how sorry I am about putting you in that situation and getting you hurt. I shouldn’t have done so.”
“It’s okay. But whatever, you know?” He picked up The Tempest. “Can we get started?”
Chris loomed in the doorway behind his son. Her eyes met his over Simon’s head, and he lifted his eyebrows.
“So, where did you last leave off? Do you need me to help you understand any of the text? We can go through it if you like.”
“Actually...can we not do that line-by-line stuff? I do have some questions, though.”
Tiffany almost jumped for joy. Finally.
She caught Chris’s half smile as he went into the kitchen.
* * *
CHRIS DID HIS BEST to stay quiet and unobtrusive, catching the little bits of conversation they were having while he poured himself a coffee and studied some pamphlets about a water reclamation system he wanted to install. Simon asked why he was hanging around the house when there was so much to be done on the farm, but Chris simply said he was waiting for Grandpa to finish with some numbers, which wasn’t untrue—William was working on a new budgeting scheme he’d insisted on trying out. Chris wasn’t about to tell his son he was hanging around to make sure things went smoothly between him and Tiff. Or that he just wanted to be around.
About an hour later, he heard William leave his office. Simon said hello as he pounded up the stairs for a bathroom break. “Well, look who’s come back,” Chris heard his father say. “You taking over my dining room again?”
“Hello, Mr. Jamieson,” Tiffany said. “Yes, I’m still working with Simon on his English course.”
“As if it’ll do him any good. We should all be learning Chinese for when you people take over.”
Chris’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t find a single word to rebuke him as his father headed out the front door. He looked at Tiffany, who’d focused back on the book in front of her.
“I’m so sorry. That was...uncalled for,” Chris said quickly, hating himself the moment the words were out of his mouth. He raked his fingers through his hair. “No. That wasn’t just uncalled for, it was plain rude and...and...” Ignorant. Racist. Rednecked. Xenophobic. All those words and more surfaced in his mind, and while his dad could be a real bastard, he’d never thought he was this special brand of backwater asshole. Anger twisted through him. “I’ll get him to apologize.” He started for the door, utterly humiliated.
“Chris, forget it. Stop.” She’d shot out of her seat, and her hard-edged command made him halt, one hand on the doorknob. She gestured wearily with one hand. “Leave it alone. I’ve heard worse.”
Cold trickled down his spine. “He’s said more, hasn’t he?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She returned to her seat and made a show of flipping through her notes.
Intense heat rippled through him, stretching up and outward from his heaving chest. He wanted to go after his father and beat an apology out of him, but Tiffany’s glare stayed him. She’d let his father’s words bounce off her like glancing blows, and yet remained resolved, jaw set as if ready to take another verbal beating.
Dear God, if he let this go, what would Tiffany think of him?
“Forget about it, Chris.” She gave him such a tired, wintry look, he froze. Old pain burned in her eyes. A horrible sense of déjà vu flowed through him as he realized the frowning teen she’d been stared back, her remote silence and aloofness suddenly magnified by his father’s words.
It wasn’t only what his dad had said that had put that look there.
He suddenly remembered something Daphne had said when he’d told her Tiffany would be tutoring him. He’d wanted to be certain Daph didn’t get any crazy ideas, and strangely enough, she hadn’t.
“I’m glad she’s your tutor. Those people are smart. I never see them do anything but study. But I guess that’s how they’re like.”
They. Not she, but they, as though Tiffany were part of a horde rather than an individual.
He hadn’t thought anything about the comment then—he’d just been glad Daphne hadn’t flown into a jealous rage.
Bile rose in his throat. What else had he heard and suppressed from all those years ago? What jokes had he laughed along with, let slip by? It was no secret that the Cheungs were the only Asian family in the area, and he was certain they’d been the subject of plenty of crude comments. He remembered how Daniel had fought his way out of being a regular punching bag and only made friends after bagging that double to win the baseball team’s championship. But what about Tiffany? She’d never escaped the quiet, studious loner stereotype. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her eating lunch with anyone. He couldn’t even name a single person she was good friends with.
Chris cringed inwardly as the past washed over him. He couldn’t help staring at her as she sat at the dining table, her face a mask of concentration, shutting out everything around her. A minute later, Simon rejoined them, blissfully unaware of the tension in the room. Tiffany gave him an encouraging smile and went straight back to her lesson with renewed energy.
Everything she’d been through, everything he had dumped on her...and she was still here, helping his son.
His stomach lurched. He couldn’t stand being there a moment longer. “I’ll see you—” Later would be too late, so he said, “Soon.”
“Sure.” She didn’t even look up.
He headed for the greenhouse, his head full of fog. He was trying to recall every word he’d ever said to Tiffany, worrying he’d offended her without knowing it, wondering how stupid and ignorant he might have sounded. He couldn’t honestly say he’d ever sat down with her and consciously noted their differences—it hadn’t crossed his mind. She’d simply been the smart girl who had tutored him.
The smart girl. That smart girl. That smart Chinese girl.
He’d singled h
er out back in high school when he’d needed help. What if she’d taken it the wrong way? Yes, she was smart, but did she think he thought she was smart because she was Chinese? Did she think he’d only asked her to tutor Simon for the same reason? He could have asked anyone.
He paced. He was overthinking this. Yes, he could have asked anyone to tutor Simon, but he’d asked Tiffany. She was highly qualified, had a proven record of success, and she’d needed the money. She was the right person for the job, period.
But he acknowledged he’d never really thought about the girl—or the woman—Tiffany was. He’d never made the effort to get to know her—not seriously. She’d simply been a means to an end, an appointment to keep on Thursdays after football practice. He’d told her he appreciated her for all she’d done for him. But he’d never truly appreciated her for who she was.
Tiffany wasn’t just a tutor. She wasn’t just “that Chinese girl” who lived in Everville.
What was her favorite color? What was her favorite book? Movie? Band? Considering all the time they’d spent together, he should have known these trivial facts.
Now he’d been given a second chance to find out...and make things right.
* * *
DANIEL CLOSED HIS BEDROOM DOOR and booted up the computer, his blood lurching through his heart like molten lead. A jumble of words kept stringing themselves together in his mind, but they were like beads on an untied string that kept sliding off the other end and scattering across the floor. Nothing he could say sounded intelligent, much less intelligible. This was going to be a disaster.
He loaded up Skype and checked himself in the mirror briefly. His hands were shaking, and his eyes looked a little wild. An alert chimed and he clicked the icon to load the chat.
Selena appeared in the window. She glowed beneath soft lamplight from a nearby fixture. She usually wore her long, dark curls pinned up while working, but they hung around her thin shoulders now. She had her glasses on, though he knew she wore contacts during the day. She looked relaxed in a light T-shirt, a cup of instant noodles visible in the webcam’s view off to one side.