by Kelly Yang
“You know, if you’d been around when I was seventeen, oh man . . .” He reaches over and places his hand on my leg. I freeze, staring down at his hand. Shit!
As calmly as I can, I start to get up.
“Where are you going? I thought we were going to go get seafood!” he calls after me.
The thought of seafood now makes me want to hurl. I storm out of the bar and into the hotel lobby.
“Dani,” Mr. Connelly shouts at me, but I keep walking. When I get outside, he catches up to me, grabs my arm, and pulls me around.
“Stop, Dani, you’re overreacting,” Mr. Connelly says. “It’s not like that!”
I turn to him with wet, angry eyes. It’s not like what?
“Please, let’s not make this a bigger deal than it has to be,” he begs.
“I’m going back to the hotel,” I say. “Don’t follow me.”
I walk the two and a half miles back to the hotel in my cheap Payless leather pumps, tears docking onto the pavement.
Thirty-One
Claire
Jess and I are the only ones still in the school parking lot after Dani leaves with her debate team. Nancy and Florence left shortly after Dani, looking rattled. They should be rattled. I’m rattled. What was Jess thinking? It took the janitor three trips to the dumpster to get rid of all that rice. In the end, we had to help him. Emma glared at me as she got into her mom’s car. “You’re going to pay for this.”
Jess gazes at the blazing afternoon sun and pulls out a thin pollution mask from her purse. She offers one to me, and I smack it onto the ground.
“You could have gotten us both in so much trouble!” I say to her.
Jess rolls her eyes. “Don’t be such a wuss. That bitch deserved it. Now she’ll know never to mess with you again.” She runs a hand through her hair and examines her tinted roots in the sun. “A thank-you would be nice.”
A thank-you? “You don’t get it, do you? We’re juniors. Our grades, the decisions we make—they count toward college!” Quietly, I blow out the words from the rawest part of me. “You may not care about that, but I do.”
Jess turns and walks to her car. “Whatever,” she says, unlocking her Porsche. She gets in, doesn’t offer me a ride, and speeds off.
I fume all the way home. There are no Ubers available nearby, so I’m forced to walk. With each step, I think about how much I miss my friends back home. None of them would do such a thing.
Worries and anxiety swirl through my head that weekend. What if my dad doesn’t show? What if he does show and Mrs. Mandalay called him about what happened? I think about calling Emma to apologize, only to put back the phone. I’m so shaken that when the doorbell rings on Sunday night and Dani announces my dad’s here, I look down in a panic. I’m not ready!
My dad frowns at me standing in the middle of my room in my The Future Is Female sweatshirt.
“You’re wearing that?” he asks.
“Hi, Dad!” I exclaim. I hold up a finger. “Give me one minute to change!”
One minute, of course, turns into twenty as I slip into an evening dress, heels, throw on some foundation and lipstick. The whole time, my dad’s tapping his feet outside my door, talking in Mandarin. “I told you I was going to be here at six thirty to pick you up. Our reservation’s at seven, and now there’s going to be traffic. You have school tomorrow. I have to get you home by nine. I sent you two reminders. I don’t know how you’re going to function in college if you’re like this!”
I open the door. My dad’s face softens. I’m in a baby-pink Dior dress with the matching pink Prada bag that he got me, the one my mother encouraged me to keep. His eyes smile in recognition.
“You look beautiful,” he says in English.
We walk arm in arm to the living room, where Dani is planted on the couch, lying feet up, with her laptop on her stomach.
“Hey, Dani,” I say. “I’m just going out to dinner with my dad.”
She makes a noise, a distracted “uh-huh,” as her fingers continue typing on her keyboard. I consider for a second inviting her to join us but figure she’s too busy. She just got back from Seattle.
“Have a good night!” my dad says to her.
I follow him out to a waiting Uber. We drive over to a French restaurant called the Cellar. My dad orders a bottle of wine and takes his time smelling the aroma before taking a sip. It’s always strange watching someone smell wine. Closing his eyes. Inhaling the earthy scent. Lips parted in anticipation. Feels oddly intimate, and I look away. I think of what topics we can talk about. I spent so much time worrying if he’s going to cancel that I never prepared for him coming.
“So your mother tells me that you’re settling in nicely,” he says, taking a generous drink and handing me the glass so I can have a sip.
I drink the wine and nod. He signals the waiter and orders for the both of us, as he always does whenever we go out.
“Yeah, it’s nice here,” I say.
“See? What’d I tell you?” He beams. He’s in a pale yellow button-down shirt and a navy tie, which he loosens, just a bit. “This is the kind of thing I wish I had done when I was a kid.” He takes a long, deep breath and his belly swells. “Would have really given me a chance to see what’s out there! To explore!”
I resist the urge to ask, You don’t think you’ve done enough exploring? I reach for a breadstick.
“How was your business meeting?” I ask.
“Good!” he says. “We went to this company, Timaratech, have you heard of them?”
As my dad talks, I drink from his glass. Once he gets going, he can monologue all night. I nod along as he describes the office he went to, the people he met, grateful when the food arrives.
“These ABCs, they all want to impress you with their Chinese,” he says, chuckling.
I put down my fork and look up at him, wondering if I should tell him. “Actually, I had a situation in class with this girl who’s an ABC . . . ,” I say.
“Really?” my dad asks.
I nod, trying to figure out how to tell him. I don’t want him to get too angry. On the other hand, he did come all this way to see me, and this was something that was bothering me. And better he hears it from me than Mrs. Mandalay. I open my mouth, and as I’m about to tell him what happened with Emma, he launches right back to describing his business meeting again.
“Anyway, so there I was, and you should have seen these kids, how eager they were to show off their Chinese, and it was one mouthful of bad Chinese after another, I mean truly pitiful.”
I stab my filet mignon with my knife.
“At least they got to talk to you,” I say bitterly.
He swirls the wine with his hand. “What are you talking about? We’re talking right now.”
“No, you’re talking,” I say. It’s been like this for as long as I can remember. It’s always about him. I shake my head. I can’t believe I thought this time would be different, that tonight he might actually want to know how my life is. “You haven’t asked me one thing about my life or my school.”
“I asked when we first sat down!” he protests.
“That was a statement—‘I heard you’re settling in nice here.’”
“To which you replied yes. So I moved on!”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “You always move on.”
My dad glares at me. “Watch it,” he warns. Neither of us say anything for a minute. I stare into the wineglass, drawing strength from the potent red, feeling ever so emboldened and scared at the same time. I’ve never talked to my dad like this before. Is it the wine? Is it America? Whatever it is, my dad does not like it. He takes his napkin and throws it down on top of his plate. “You know what, I don’t have to take this, not from a seventeen-year-old who I pay to school, feed, and clothe.” He points at me. “I’m busting my ass to send you to this American private school—”
“Which I never asked you to send me to,” I retort.
He gets up from the table—OMG, is he just going to leave me here?—and
takes out his wallet. He takes two one-hundred-dollar bills, tosses them on the table, and puts his wallet away. Then remembers he needs to give me spending cash. He takes his wallet back out and counts $2,000, and I’m sitting there mortified—the whole restaurant’s looking at us. As my dad stuffs the $2,000 into my pink Prada bag, I feel like a whore.
“I’ll tell your mother you said hello,” he said.
“Wait!” I reach out and grab his arm. I jam my hand inside my purse and pull out the fish-oil capsules I had gotten for my grandmother and shove them into his hand. I didn’t forget. Because despite what my parents think, I actually am a good Chinese girl.
Thirty-Two
Dani
The juices of envy churn in my stomach as I watch Claire with her dad. His pride. Her happiness. Their linked arms as they walk out to dinner together.
I throw my head back onto the couch, thinking of Mr. Connelly and how we got here. He was the closest thing to a dad to me, and he knew that. Did he take advantage of it, or was I just so desperate to find a father figure in my life that I ignored all obvious warning signals?
I lie on the couch for hours, hugging my knees to my chest as my mind replays all our previous training sessions. Was the light too powerful all those times I stood up onstage in the auditorium? Could he see through my shirt? Should I not have hugged him or high-fived him after practice?
The bigger question, the one that pricks like a fish bone in my throat, is Now what? What does this mean for Snider . . . and for Yale?
I open up my laptop to check my email. There’s an email from Mr. Connelly. I sit up.
To: Danielle De La Cruz
From: Bill Connelly
Subject: Checking in
Hi Dani,
Just wanted to check in with you. You did SO great this weekend; I’m so proud of you! Don’t let anything else color your takeaway from this weekend, which is that YOU KICKED ASS. I believe in you so much! Call me if you ever want to talk. I’ll see you at practice on Monday!
Best,
Mr. Connelly
I stare at the email, at his encouraging words and jokey language. I read it over five times. Am I missing something here? It was like it was written for a whole different weekend! How could this be the email I receive after what happened?
The phone rings. It’s Ming.
“Hey, you wanna hang out?” Ming asks. “Florence is busy with her friends, and I’m tired of being second—”
“You won’t believe what happened to me!” I cut in.
My voice shakes as I tell Ming about Seattle and read her the email from Mr. Connelly. And even though it’s my best friend, it’s scary saying the words out loud, and I squeeze my eyes shut as I wait for her reaction.
“Okay, first of all, breathe,” Ming says. “I know you wanna hit Reply—”
“Oh, I’m going to hit Reply! And tell the creep to fuck off!”
“But, Dani, think about your future. Is there a softer way?” Ming urges. I shake my head, anger pumping through my veins.
“I already tried the softer way. It didn’t work!” I tell her. And besides, I’m a debater—I have principles!
“I know and this is so fucked up. I’m so sorry,” Ming says. “But you gotta remember, we’re not like other students.”
I swallow.
“When we fall, we free fall . . . ,” Ming reminds me.
I get off the phone with Ming and stare back at my computer. Slowly I tap Reply. I start the email calmly and cordially, like Ming suggested, trying to hold back. But then the debater in me takes over.
To: Bill Connelly
From: Danielle De La Cruz
Subject: Re: Checking in
Hi Mr. Connelly,
I was confused to receive your email. I don’t think you understand the magnitude of what happened this weekend. Maybe you had too much to drink, but I was sober. You tell me that you believe in me, that you see something special in me and you’re willing to train me, but when you do or say things that make me think you may be interested in something else, it hurts my ability to trust you.
Going forward, I hope you’ll have as much respect for me as I do for you.
Your student,
Dani
PS. Please note I will no longer be needing the private debate coaching sessions from you—thank you for those. I found them really helpful. But given what’s happened, I think it’s best to stick to our group training. I’ll still see you at training.
My fingers sit on the keys when I’m done. I stare at the words, wanting to cover them and, at the same time, wanting to make the font big AF. I reread the email, mind running through Ming’s words and all the ramifications if I press Send—Snider, scholarship, Yale, future—all the while, my heart pumps, Do it!
My cursor jolts back and forth from Trash to Send.
Fuck the softer way.
I press Send.
Thirty-Three
Claire
After my dad dumps me at the restaurant, I wait in the chilly night for an Uber, teeth chattering in my short Dior dress. Finally, I manage to get one. I call Jess in the back of the Uber.
“Jess! I need you,” I whimper into the phone. I’m so sorry I got into that stupid fight with her over Emma Lau. I feel a sob building as I tell her what happened. “Can you believe the bastard just left me in the restaurant?”
“Hang on, girl, I’ll meet you at your place,” Jess says.
She’s waiting for me in my room when I get home. I take off my Dior dress and change into pj’s. Jess helps me wipe the mascara stains and makeup off me. We watch Chinese movies on my computer, cussing our trash dads. She sleeps over, the two of us talking late into the night until we finally fall asleep.
Dani wakes us up the next morning. She raises a sharp eyebrow at Jess. “Is she slumming it here too from now on?” she asks.
I scrunch my eyebrows. What’s Dani talking about? Jess takes a slipper and throws it at Dani, who quickly closes the door before it hits her. Jess gets up, yawning. As the two of us change for school, she examines some of my new clothes, bought online. Not everything I’ve purchased has been amazing, but I haven’t quite figured out how to return things yet.
“That’s it, we’re going shopping after school,” Jess announces. She picks up my Amex card on the top of my bureau and smiles mischievously. “And guess whose money we’re going to spend?”
Oh, it’s on!
In English class, I try to block out the death stares from Emma and focus on what Mrs. Wallace is saying about Gatsby. Today we’re discussing Myrtle and how she’s always aspiring to be a part of the upper crest but she’ll never be fully accepted by Tom, who only uses her and takes pleasure in her powerlessness.
One of the white kids raises his hand and draws a parallel to colonialism. “Kind of like Britain and India. Or . . .” He tries to think up another pair. “The European powers and China in the 1800s.”
“China was Europe’s mistress?” the other kids ask.
The whole class looks at me, and I slide down in my seat.
“They were called concessions,” I say. “The French and the British forced China to open up after the Opium War.”
“Open up how?”
“I’ll force you to open up!” a boy cackles from the back.
Jess meets me after class. As we’re talking in Mandarin, Mrs. Wallace walks out of the classroom. She frowns at us.
“You should be speaking in English, Claire,” she scolds me.
I instantly stop talking, lips hot with humiliation. Jess gasps as Mrs. Wallace walks away. “Who the hell made her the language police?” Before I can stop her, she turns and yells at Mrs. Wallace in Mandarin, “Hey, woman, it’s a free country! Why you think we came here?”
Later, Jess drives us over to Plaza East Covina. I get a text from my mom.
Heard you gave your dad a hard time at dinner.
I text back, He walked out on ME at dinner.
She types back, He went all the way over
there to see you, after he’d been on a flight for thirteen hours!
I put away my phone. Why is she always defending him? Jess pulls into the mall. We hit Nordstrom. Jess shops like my mother, picking me up jeans, tops, and shorts, with no regard for price. As we’re shopping, I see someone looking over at us from across the floor. It’s Jay. I poke Jess, who spins around.
“Hey!” she greets him in Mandarin.
“Hey,” he says back, but he’s not looking at her. He’s looking at me. “You never texted me back the other night.”
“I was tired.”
“I was worried about you . . . ,” Jay says. Jess jabs me lightly on the ribs and makes an aww face.
“So what are you doing here? Shopping in the girls’ section?” Jess teases him.
“I’m getting something for my mom,” he says. “It’s her birthday. Actually, maybe you guys can help me.”
Jess nods. “Sure!”
We follow him over to the fine-jewelry section, where he points to a pair of drop-diamond earrings. The sales girl opens up the case and retrieves them.
Jay turns to me and asks, “Will you put them on?”
“Me?” I ask.
I look over at Jess, who is fiddling with some of the other earrings. She’s too distracted by the jewelry to follow what’s going on. I look to the sales girl and nod. As she cleans the earrings and hands them to me, Jay leans in closer to me.
Carefully, I put them on. Jay examines them, studying my face. His face is so close to mine, I can feel his breath. I stare at the diamonds glistening in the reflection in the mirror. Gently he touches my ears.
“They look beautiful on you,” he says.
Jess clears her throat. “But are they too young for your mom?” she asks, craning her neck to see from the other side of the display counter.
Jay considers this. They are on the fun side of earrings. My mom would like them. Jay picks up another pair instead—classic solitaire diamonds. He tells the sales girl to wrap them up. Jess smiles, pleased he listened to her.
As we walk out, Jay thanks us for our help. We watch as he gets inside his blue Lamborghini and drives off.