Nothing but the truth: (and a few white lies)

by Justina Chen Headley

  "Well, I, uh... You read this stuff?"

  "It's just sex, Patty."

  Laughter, the kind that makes you cringe because you're the butt of a joke, slaps me in the face. Anne is shaking like she's an airplane caught in turbulence. "God, you should see your face," she says, not bothering to muffle her snorts. She's so loud, the toddler in front of me peers through the gap between the seats. Anne waves at him and says, "It's research, OK?"

  "Research? For what?"

  Anne's hands twitch on her closed book like confiding in me is a risk. "You have to promise that you won't tell my mom or dad." She twists her body until she can study my face full-on. "Promise."

  "All right, all right." Sheesh, reading a romance novel isn't a matter of national security, but I could see how it would put a damper on potluck bragging. The only literary T & A worth dropping into conversation was how at just eight, Anne read Tolstoy and Austen.

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  Anne breathes in like she's at the end of a diving board, and then mutters so fast her words slide into each other in their haste to get out of her mouth: "Mrs. Meyers challenged me to write a romance novel. A literary epic, for teens."

  "What? Why?"

  "College," she says as if I'm denser than Mrs. Shang's hard turnip cake. "I've always wanted to write one, and she thought it'd make me stand out in the applications."

  I have to write a Truth Statement, and Anne gets to write True Fiction. The only Truth I see is that this sucks.

  "Well... aren't you supposed to write what you know?" I ask.

  "Well... how do you know that I don't know?"

  The shock jock of the wild blue yonder grins just as our cowboy-pilot gets back on the speaker and drawls, "All righty folks. I've found us some smoother air. You can unfasten your seat belts and walk about the cabin." Buckles release around me, but mine stays firmly in place, strapping me to the relative safety of my seat as my head orbits into outer space: Could the classroom dominatrix be a bedroom one, too?

  But before I can find out, all six foot three inches of Stu are leaning against the seat in front of us. Stu, Anne's gorgeous dance date with forearms corded with muscles I didn't know boys could have. Stu, her partner in math and mashing? Hot gusts of envy buffet me. I am jealous of Anne Wong, head geek at Lincoln High, closet romance writer and object of Stu's attention.

  "All righty," he says, tipping his imaginary cowboy hat. "That was interesting, folks."

  What's really interesting is how fast Anne hides her romance novel, the core textbook for her advanced MBA program,

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  Master of Boobs and Asses. But as they compare notes on their last math competition, I realize just how wrong I was.

  "Just turbulence" is realizing that Anne is being true to what she loves, even if it's smarmy romance. Me, I'm still searching for love.

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  12 * Amber-Colored Glasses

  Mama would have been tripping all over her size five feet, shoving me forward, if she had seen all the Asian boys clustered around the SUMaC sign at the San Francisco airport like it was a cattle call for every Taiwanese mother's dream game show: Who Wants to Be the Asian Bill Gates? I may not be able to date casually, but according to Mama, it's husband assessment time. So Mama, in her true accountant's efficiency, would have screened all these guys in less than thirty seconds apiece, and then presented me with her choice. "You marry this Good One after you go to college, get good job," she'd order, never mind that her own track record in marriage leaves a lot to be desired. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, not ulcerating his stomach with nightly lectures.

  I am waiting by myself in baggage claim. A few minutes ago, Anne dragged Stu away from the carousel with their compact luggage, drawn by an irresistible math homing instinct to the camp counselor, a man in his twenties with spiky blond porcupine hair. In his tank top and flip-flops, he

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  looks like he should be teaching surfing instead of SUMaC, even though the group gathered around him would be more at home surfing the man-made waves of the Internet.

  If I were Janie, I'd be singing, "Aloha," right about now as I boy-watched on the beach. But I'm Ho-Hum Patty Ho, watching for my behemoth baggage. It's the last suitcase spit out onto the carousel, as if it's reluctant to go to math camp, too, having already suffered the indignity of Mama's strip search. When it does finally show up, I'm tempted to hop on the conveyor belt myself and spin around in an endless loop rather than huff and puff my way to the group of math misfits.

  On my way to the SUMaC circle, a petite Asian girl slips effortlessly past me with her backpack and ergonomically correct roll-on luggage. She would have been a top contender for the China Dolls Club, except her ears are pierced in at least five places and she's got a black-and-white tattoo of the yin-yang symbol on her shoulder. Even though we're indoors, she's wearing cat's-eye sunglasses.

  "Heading over there, too?" she asks, slowing down and pointing to the SUMaC sign with an arm more defined than any woman's I've ever seen, including Janie's exercise-obsessed mom. She is The Asian-ator.

  "Unfortunately, yes," I mutter, switching the suitcase from one gangrene-threatened hand to the other.

  Her lips, shellacked a heart attack red, spread into a grin, and the girl flips back hair so long it hangs past her hips. Then it occurs to me. She's one of those Asian chicks who dyes her hair almost exactly my shade of brown, but white-balls me from her inner circle of friends. Just like the skinny girls I see on our quarterly trips to Chinatown, the ones who snicker when they see me towering over my mom and Abe.

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  While I'm trying and convicting her of bi-racial prejudice, she says, "Thank God, someone normal."

  It's the last thing I expect her to say. I smile back at the girl; I can't help it. Making friends has never been one of my fortes, unlike Janie who collects people the way her mother collects vintage fabrics. Back in third grade when we moved in, Janie trotted over with all the kids on the block behind her like she was the Pied Piper's puny sister. "We're the same age," Janie proclaimed. "You'll be my new best friend."

  "I'm Jasmine Lin. Don't laugh," the Chinese girl says, mock-frowning at her name. "Sad, but true." You couldn't get more Chinesey than Jasmine, and I can guess how she's been teased: Hey, tea bag.

  "Sadder, but truer, I'm Patty Ho," I say, my own name striking me as funny, instead of fodder for someone else's joke. "Tea bag, meet Ho bag."

  Jasmine laughs, loud and unself-conscious, nothing like Laura's ladylike titter behind her hand or Janie's soft giggle. I laugh with her.

  "That's good," she says. Then, noticing the SUMaCers watching us, Jasmine blows out a low whistle, but I can't tell whether she's looking at Stu or the blond counselor, the only ones whistle-worthy. "Oh, my God, is that our TA?" I must look clueless because she clarifies, "You know, our Teaching Assistant. If that's what math does to a grad student, sign me up."

  We are signed up. For four weeks. But I don't have time to remind her because Jasmine darts off for the group like she's got a math homing instinct, too. I follow more slowly, hampered not just by what I'm carrying, but by what I'm seeing. It's as if Mama's amber-colored glasses have landed

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  on my face: "Look! There's one! And over there! And there!" Compared to the San Francisco airport, the entire Northwest is Whitesville, USA. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Filipino, Koreans -- they are everywhere. Standing by the luggage carts. Chatting by the sliding glass doors. Waiting in the rental car lines. Speaking in Southern drawls, Brooklyn accents, Texas twangs. A teenage girl who looks mixed, like me, has her arms around a Latino guy. I can't stop gawking at her, mentally calling out her features in a biracial cheer: her eyes have a double eyelid crease (like mine!), her nose has structure (like mine!), her skin is pale (like mine!).

  Jasmine slows down for yellow-struck me. "You look like you've set foot on Mars."

  "I've just never seen so many Asians in one place."

  "Where are you fro
m?"

  "I thought from Earth," I say, "but I'm wrong."

  A moment later, Stu ambles over. For a guy as tall as he is, he moves with ninja grace. Stu to the rescue: he asks if I need some help with my luggage. I flush, but whether from exertion or embarrassment, I don't know. I'm so tongue-tied, all I can do is mumble, "No, thanks." He nods, but when his lean legs head back to Anne and her math ménage à trois, more than my hands are sore.

  Jasmine shakes her head. "You are definitely not from planet Earth."

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  13 * The Gates of Math Hell

  Our bleached blond camp counselor cum tour guide, Brian Simmons, steers our van down Palm Drive and breaks out into what he thinks is a spooky boooo-ha-ha-haaaaa laugh. He sounds like a vampire who's become a beach bum: "Dudes, welcome to The Gates of Hell."

  This is the math prodigy that the Second Summers in front of me are talking about? The one who supposedly is going to become a full professor by the time he's twenty-six, according to Anne, who has just whispered that bit of news to Stu? (Not that I'm eavesdropping or anything.) Now, talk about scary.

  A word of advice to all future SUMaC camp counselors, tour guides and visitors of Stanford University: do not start with The Gates of Hell. Any feng shui master worth his hourly rate will tell you that this is not an auspicious way to begin life at Stanford.

  Unfortunately, Brian doesn't subscribe to fortune-telling, only storytelling. He thumbs to our right, Museum Drive, and tells us that the largest collection of Rodin's sculpture

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  outside Paris can be found right here on the Stanford campus. One of the signature pieces, we learn, is The Thinker, a guy sitting in his birthday suit with his chin in his hand. Sounds like The Thinker made an inadvertent trip through the other key sculpture in the collection, The Gates of Hell of the booo-ha-ha-haaaa sound effects. Too bad he didn't drag Mark with him.

  Gosh, and here I thought hell was entering a van and listening to Anne yap about the eight problems we had to solve on the SUMaC application form. Hell is hearing everyone talk about our future problem sets like they're upcoming blockbuster movies. Spare me the exponential and logarithmic trailers, please.

  So now I'm wondering, is a month at Stanford, surrounded by strange math geeks and stranger math gurus, going to be Heaven or Hell? I'm guessing the university's architects must have been just as confused about the quality of campus life because the very next stop, I kid you not, is Memorial Church, better known as MemChu.

  After seeing the church plastered on nearly every piece of literature I was sent about Stanford, you would have thought I'd say, "Move on, Tour Boy." But the church glows an otherworldly sandy gold in the sun like it's lit up from within, and seeing it makes this -- being here at Stanford after talking about it for weeks -- cross over from surreal into real. Even Jasmine, I think, perks up for the first time since we started our tour, although it's hard to tell for sure since she's still wearing her sunglasses and hasn't spoken a single word. Unlike Anne, whose nonstop monologue about polynomial equations has put her seatmate into a permanent Stu-por. I catch Stu glancing back at me. But I shift my eyes like I'm

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  looking out the window instead of looking him over. Anyway, he's probably checking to see if The Gates of Hell were left open and he's been sucked in by accident, too.

  "Welcome to the Farm," says Brian, explaining that Stanford is so nicknamed because it used to be a huge farm for the founders' many horses. With all the braying in the van as we bend around Campus Drive, it's safe to say that animals still feel right at home on these grounds.

  We drive past cement block dormitories, ugly despite heroic attempts to beautify them with wide-leaved plants. What was meant as temporary housing during World War II is permanent housing in the twenty-first century. As I said, the university's architects were a little hazy about the line blurring Heaven and Hell.

  Brian points out the row houses down Mayfield, all the fraternities (where residents party) and co-ops (where residents cook and clean). Guess where I'd rather live? As our van climbs up a steep hill, the engine sputtering, we learn all about our future residence, Synergy. It's the vegetarian mecca of the campus. The students used to raise chickens at the original Synergy house, which was damaged beyond repair in the Loma Pietra earthquake. So we don't have chicken coop cleaning duties, thank God.

  "And here is your home away from home," says Brian proudly, sweeping his arm over not to the dingy house I'm imagining, but a gorgeous mansion, built at the turn of the twentieth century. Even Jasmine lowers her sunglasses to check the place out. The front lawn alone is about twenty times the size of mine back home, and the lush grounds complete with peach and plum trees make even Janie's groomed-and-pruned garden look like an untended dirt patch.

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  "Hello, House of Syn," I murmur softly. Not softly enough because Anne turns around to shoot me a disapproving glance. But Stu grins at me, one eyebrow quirked up... in amusement or invitation? I don't know, and turn to look out the window as a flush heats my face.

  Synergy looks like it's been taken straight out of Gone with the Wind, before the Civil War when Scarlett had enough to eat. Speaking of which, meat-eaters rejoice: we'll be taking our meals across the street at Florence Moore Hall where there's a trained chef on staff.

  I make a note for my Truth Statement later: Stanford may look like a country club, but it's a school of Haves and Have Nots like any other. Still, I would be grateful to be slumming anywhere on this campus, because it means Have Not a Nagging Mother for One Month. I could be on a desert island for all I cared. That is, until I trudge behind everyone, lugging my ball-and-chain of a suitcase, into air that feels as hot and dry as the Sahara Desert. Then I realize I Have Not a Clue About Packing Properly For Math Camp.

  No more than five steps into the great outdoors, and I swear, all the talk about Northern California's sublime, moderate temperature is just a bunch of Department of Tourism hooey. I am literally in Hell, sweltering in a "rare" heat wave, as Brian, yells in explanation over his shoulder, leading the expedition across pavement and lawn.

  Another note to self: I better start packing more lightly. If I don't, my arms will stretch even longer than they are now. I will be a mutant, the world's only gorilla-woman, whose knuckles drag on the ground. Except not as hairy. A standing ovation for my half-Asian genes. I barely have to shave my legs.

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  My other saving grace in being caught in this outdoor oven is that I don't need to wear deodorant. Thank you, thank you. It's so rare for Asians to have B.O. that in Japan, men can get a special dispensation from serving in the military if they smell. That's the truth.

  When I step inside Synergy, I almost fall to my knees in gratitude for the cool air in the foyer. I almost fall to my knees anyway since I trip over my new pet, Baggage-saurus.

  In the time it takes me to heave and haul my way into the mansion, Brian has started the tour. A bunch of kids look like they've already checked in, milling around with their parents. In front of the grand stairway, Brian tells us, "So this house was given to Stanford in hopes that it would become a mental hospital." Then his face morphs into a goofy, crazed expression, which all the kids around me copy, and I know that I've landed in a certified nuthouse.

  Brian leads us to his room on the first floor.

  "You need anything, anytime, day or night, bang on this door," says Brian, demonstrating for us. Jasmine looks ready to bang him, day or night, eyeing his door like it's one of the pearly gates.

  Apparently, my hell is another person's heaven.

  Brian points to the stairs. "Girls on the second floor. Boys on the third." Some of the boys moan in disappointment. Me, I'm breathing in relief. I've lived with Abe, and B.O. or no B.O., it's not an odor-free environment. The boys can have free run of the third floor all they want. Except for maybe Stu, who can come visit the second floor. Just as I think that, Stu's eyes collide into mine, and we both look away.

  "You'll have to wai
t until college before you go co-ed," Brian tells everyone with a grin before taking a few steps up

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  the stairs. "You'll find your name on the door, keys on your desks. Make yourselves at home. And the professors and I will see you after dinner, back here in the common room."

  There's a rush of bodies up the stairs as math jocks break world records to find their rooms and crack open their books. At least, that's what I think Anne has gone to do. For a girl who couldn't leap across a single hurdle in PE, she sure is fleet-footed as she hurtles up the stairs without a backward glance at me.

  I know I should be following, a good lemming who will throw myself over to polynomial equations and encryptions and whatever else we're going to study. Only I've always been a little scared of falling -- falling off cliffs, falling down on skis, falling in love.

  So instead, I watch the Happy Family reality show taking place in front of my face. One dad, dressed and pressed in a purple pin-striped shirt with cuff links, is heaving a trunk upstairs, a sherpa I've never had. He looks so he-man proud of himself: Aren't I the world's most doting and devoted father? His big-haired daughter trails behind him, a feminine echo of daughterly concern: "Oh, watch out for your back, Daddy." Even the redhead with the worst case of acne since Dylan. Nguyen struts up the stairs to the boys' hall, showing his parents around, not looking the least bit embarrassed. Why would he be? His parents look normal in their color-coordinated clothes and speak so quietly I can barely hear them.