by Kelly Yang
Jay makes it clear who he listened to. “We were all cheering Claire,” Jay says proudly. Mrs. Li smiles and closes her eyes. She tells the driver to put on some music so she can relax. As the soothing voice of Diana Krall fills the car, Jay slips his hand into mine.
At dinner, Mrs. Li does not fuss with the menu. She tells the chef, who’s on a first-name basis with her, to make whatever he thinks we would like. The chef nods and disappears into the kitchen. Soon, an endless parade of mouthwatering sushi arrives along with a heavy dose of Mrs. Li’s questioning.
“So where do you live in Shanghai?” she asks.
I tell her the name of our villa complex, adding that it’s where a famous Chinese actress has her house too. Years of watching my mother name-drop has trained me well.
“Oh, yes, I know her husband,” Mrs. Li says of the actress. She turns to Jay. “They have a daughter your age, you know.”
Jay’s more interested in the tuna sashimi, which he picks up expertly with his chopsticks and holds up to my mouth.
“Try this, Claire,” he says.
I take a bite. The tuna melts on my tongue.
As I reach for a piece of sushi, Mrs. Li pulls out her phone and starts showing me pictures of their summer vacation in Tuscany.
“Here’s us on our sailboat,” she says. I know where this is going.
“And where do you guys like to summer?” Mrs. Li asks.
And there it is. I smile at her, three steps ahead. “We like to come here actually. We have a house in San Francisco,” I tell her, the answer already prepared in the car. “My parents like to go to Napa. Last summer, we spent a week in Alaska. It’s beautiful up there.” Some of it is true. We have spent summers here, but we don’t have a house in San Francisco.
“San Francisco, really,” Mrs. Li repeats to Jay, pleased. She beams at him—the first genuine smile of the evening. Underneath the table, Jay squeezes my hand.
I dab my mouth with my napkin, smiling into it. I know I passed the test.
It’s nearly ten by the time we finish eating, and instead of driving all the way back, Mrs. Li checks us into the Peninsula. She gets a suite for her and Jay and a room for me. The next morning, we all go shopping on Rodeo Drive. Mrs. Li and Jay hit Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Bottega Veneta, Dolce & Gabbana, and Tom Ford, while I tag along behind them.
“Aren’t you going to get anything?” Mrs. Li asks. She looks curiously at my empty hands. I just went shopping with Jess the other day . . .
Mrs. Li puts up a finger. “This is too mass luxury. I get it.”
Mrs. Li glances at Jay and says with a wink, “She has taste.” Her eyes light up. “Let’s go somewhere more boutiquey! I know just the place for you.”
We pile back into the Escalade and Mrs. Li tells the driver to take us to Fred Segal. At 13,000 square feet, Fred Segal can only be described as a mecca for serious fashionistas. My eyes boggle at the dresses, skirts, pants, and shirts, rows upon rows of art—not clothes, art. Mrs. Li snaps up tops, scarves, pencil skirts, and gowns for me. She’s got impeccable taste. Almost every single thing she picks up, I adore.
“You have such a nice figure,” she compliments me. “Stop hiding it in those shapeless boxy pants!”
She thrusts a clingy cashmere turtleneck mini dress in my direction and tells me to go try it on. Jay waits for me outside the changing room. When I step outside, his jaw drops.
“You look amazing,” he says, staring at my legs.
The dress goes only to my thighs.
“Are you sure it’s not too short?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m sure,” he insists. “It’s not too short.”
He snaps his fingers and motions for the sales person to ring it up. “She’s wearing this out,” he tells them as he puts his hand on the small of my back.
When the sales clerks wrap up all the other pieces, I gaze down at the dresses and shirts Mrs. Li handpicked for me. Where am I going to put all this stuff? I rack my brain trying to think of an excuse not to get it all, but then they’ll think I’m cheap and question all the stuff I said at dinner. So I pull out my American Express card and set it down on top of the clothes. Maybe I can ship some of it back to China.
“Oh, what are you doing?” Mrs. Li laughs, slapping my arm lightly.
“She’s sweet,” she says to Jay. With a flutter of her lashes, she lets me know, “I’ve already settled the bill.”
I look at her, so surprised. “You didn’t have to do that!”
I glance over at the total on the receipt the cashier hands Mrs. Li: $5,876. Actually, she kinda did. My dad would have called me up and given me an earful.
Jay drops me off at home later that day with a kiss on the cheek. He has the look on his face of a boy who’s spent the entire day with his mom and finally gets to be alone with his girl. Is that what I am? His girl?
“I’ll see you later?” he asks.
I nod.
“My mom really likes you,” he says.
“I like her too,” I say with a smile. “When’s she headed back?”
“Tomorrow,” he says. His eyes fall slightly. I can tell he and his mom are close. He hands me my Fred Segal shopping bag.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the bag from him. “For everything.”
The clothes. The dinner. The hotel. The earrings. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it up to you,” I say to him as I wave goodbye.
“I have a few ideas,” he answers with a grin.
Forty-Two
Dani
I study the motivational quotes outside Mrs. Mandalay’s office as I wait. It’s my third time in two weeks sitting outside her office, and I’ve nearly memorized them all by heart. I remind myself that both times I’ve been here, she’s given Ming and Claire what they wanted. Still, my fingers grip the corners of the chair. This time is different. This time it’s for me. And I’m not a parachute.
“Please come in,” she says.
I get up and suddenly have second thoughts about coming. I tell myself it’s going to be okay. She’s a woman. She’ll understand more than Mr. Matthews.
I take a seat in Mrs. Mandalay’s office. She looks at me in the kind of distracted way of a busy headmistress who doesn’t really have time to congratulate me on yet another tournament well done. But that’s not what I’m here for. I try to hold my trembling hands steady in my lap as I tell her what really happened in Seattle.
Mrs. Mandalay takes off her reading glasses. She sits there soaking in the information. “So you want to quit debate,” she finally says.
“I— No, I don’t want to quit debate. I love debate,” I tell her. “I want to go to Snider . . . ,” I say, hesitating before adding, “preferably with a new coach.”
“That’s impossible. Even if we can find a new coach, the season’s almost over. And Mr. Connelly is the finest debate coach we’ve ever had, one of the best in the country.”
Did she not hear me? “But, Mrs. Mandalay, his hand was on my leg.”
My voice hitches as I say the words, thinking of how I went to sleep that night in the hotel room, my eyes glued to the silver light beneath my door, petrified Mr. Connelly was going to come to my room.
She jots a few notes down on her notepad. “I’ll have a word with him, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she says. “And I’ll see what I can do about Snider.”
I nod, grateful. As Mrs. Mandalay gets up and walks around her desk to open the door for me, she offers me some advice. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. But there will be a lot of situations in life that make you uncomfortable. And the sooner you learn not to let them derail you, the better.”
I think about her words as I walk out.
After school, I meet up with Ming at Budget Maids and tell her what Mrs. Mandalay said.
“That’s wonderful!” Ming says, dragging the bucket of cleaning supplies out to Eduardo’s car. “I’m so glad she can help!”
“We’ll see,” I say, retying my hair in a bun. Now, every time I let my h
air down, I think about Mr. Connelly and the awful night at the bar. I’ve even resorted to sleeping with my hair up. “I’m trying not to get my hopes up.”
“He’ll listen to her. She’s the boss,” Ming says. She closes the trunk door and makes a face. “Speaking of bosses, my boss at the host agency shot down my host-rating app idea.”
“What? But that’s such a great idea!”
“I know!” she says, as she grabs an extra pair of cleaning gloves from the office and stuffs it in her back pocket. Ming always wears several pairs of gloves when she cleans, to protect her violin hands. She tosses me a pair. “I literally know girls who are afraid to take a shower in their own houses and have to shower at school because they’re worried about their creepy host dads.”
I shake my head.
“But the boss says the app is unnecessary and will only create trouble,” she says. “I’m still going to make it. Florence is going to help me. We want to create a safe space to report issues.” She leans in closer so Eduardo and Rosa don’t overhear. “Especially for queer parachutes.”
Eduardo walks out of the office. “You girls ready?” he asks. Ming and I jump into the SUV, and Eduardo drives us over to nearby Diamond Bar, where we’re told we have to clean a five-bedroom house. In the car, Ming tells me about her weekend with Florence. When we get there, we realize it’s not a five-bedroom house. It’s actually a maternity hotel.
“What’s a maternity hotel?” I ask, looking around at the empty cribs and suitcases in the bedrooms.
A maternity hotel, Ming explains, is a house where mainland Chinese mothers hole up in America until they’re ready to give birth. This is the first time I’ve heard of such a phenomenon. I ask Ming why an expectant mother would want to leave her family and friends to come here and have her baby in a house full of strangers.
“So the baby can have US citizenship,” she says matter-of-factly. Ming explains that in mainland China, only kids with foreign passports get to go to the international schools.
“Fascinating,” I say. I think of my own mother and how she traveled from the Philippines to Hong Kong and then to the United States and how proud she is that I have US citizenship, saying the government could never take it away because I was born on this soil.
The madam of the house, Mrs. Woo, scolds Ming in Mandarin to quit yakking and get to work. “You guys have three hours! The mothers have all gone out shopping. They’ll be back soon, and they want their rooms clean. Hurry up!” she says.
Ming and I get to work changing the sweaty sheets off the sunken beds. As I’m wiping down the gummy bathroom counters, I ask Ming about her parents coming to the spring concert.
“It’s going to be their first time in America!” She smiles as she grabs a plastic baby bath bucket and scrubs.
“Are you going to introduce them to Florence?” I ask.
Her face falls. “No,” she says. I put down my rag and look at Ming through the cloudy mirror. Ming sighs. “I’ll just tell them she’s my friend. It’s easier this way.”
Easier for whom?
I stand there, waiting. Finally, Ming stops scrubbing and tosses her sponge into the baby bucket.
“Okay, you want to know? When I was seven, my uncle came out to the entire family. And you know what happened? My whole family disowned him. He was told never to come back to any family functions. I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to him, even though he’s the whole reason I started playing the violin. They didn’t want me to xue huai, to be corrupted by him.”
My heart breaks listening to her tell her story. “I’m so sorry,” I say.
“Now you know why I’m never telling my parents,” she says. “Or going back. I’m not going to live the rest of my life in a sham marriage, just so my parents can save face. I’d rather stay all by myself in the US.”
I reach out and put a plastic-gloved hand over hers. She picks up the sponge and starts scrubbing again.
“It’s a small price for freedom,” she mutters as she scrubs, looking around at the grimy bathroom and stuffy bedroom, which reeks of diapers and throw up. “And we all have one.”
Forty-Three
Claire
“When were you going to tell me you’re dating Vincent Li’s son?” my mom shrieks over the phone.
I put down my psychology assignment. “How’d you know?” I ask.
My mom sends me a link. “There are pictures of you guys shopping in Beverly Hills on Weibo! Do you know who his family is?”
I shrug. “I have a vague idea.”
“A vague idea!” My mother laughs. “Here’s a clear one. His father owns Li Incorporated, a massive real estate and telecommunications conglomerate. Half the high-rises in Beijing and Shenzhen are owned by his family.” She sounds practically hyper. I picture her sitting on the terrace, sipping Dom, smiling at the artificial lake next to our villa. “Oh, this is the best possible news! I’m so proud of you, honey! I knew you could do it!”
She gushes as if I’d gotten into Harvard, which of course, in her mind, is what this is.
“You haven’t even asked me yet if I like him . . . ,” I remind her.
My mother laughs. “Guys are like school admissions. Get in first. Then worry if you like them back,” she says. I chuckle. “Your grandmother is going to be so excited.”
“Wait, let’s just not tell everyone just yet,” I say to her. I’m not sure I want to broadcast this before I even know what it is.
“Oh, but we have to tell her!” my mom insists. “Imagine the envy on your aunts’ faces!” She giggles. “Oh by the way, I forgot to tell you. I’m coming in two weeks! I’m meeting Auntie Pearl in New York for shopping, but I have a six-hour layover in LA! We can have dinner! I can finally meet Jay!”
Jay greets me with a smile when I walk to his car after school. He was the first person I texted after my English teacher, Ms. Jones, handed me back my story, the one I’d stayed up all night working on. She’d given me an A and called my writing “raw” and “heartbreaking.” Jay texted back, Show off . Followed by, Proud of you. He puts his hand on my leg as he drives.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” I tease him.
“My eyes are on the road,” he says. His right hand, however, is sliding up my thigh. I let it rest there and stare down at his hand. He has long piano fingers. I ask him if he plays.
He shrugs. “Doesn’t every Asian kid?” he replies, then starts playing a chord on my thighs.
It kind of tickles, and I wiggle away. I ask if his mom got to the airport okay. He leans over and whispers in my ear, “Yes. And now we have the whole house to ourselves.”
The anticipation flutters inside me as he drives. I tell him my mom’s coming in two weeks and she wants to meet him. Jay takes my hand, kisses it, and says okay. Five minutes later, we arrive at his house.
Walking into the empty house, Jay drops his keys on top of the marble table, then turns and kisses me.
He’s a very good kisser. Whereas Teddy was always rooting around in my mouth with his tongue like it was some sort of scavenger hunt, Jay caresses me with his experienced lips. I put my hands around the back of his neck as he pulls me hungrily toward the couch. Slowly, he moves his lips down my neck. My breathing changes. I close my eyes, feeling the heat spread as his fingers move under my shirt.
“Wait, stop,” I pant.
This is moving way too fast. I put my hand on his chest to try to put some space in between us. He tries to kiss me again, but I turn away slightly.
“I think we should slow down,” I tell him.
He looks at me confused. “Why?” he asks.
He stares down at the huge bulge in his pants, as if to say, CASE IN POINT. WHY?
“I’m not ready,” I say, my pupils flashing. I get up and go into the kitchen and pour us both some water. When I return, he’s standing in front of the window, looking out at the pool.
“I’m not really into the innocent thing,” he says.
I set down the glasses, carefully c
onsidering the statement. “Well, I’m not really into the call-girl thing,” I reply tartly.
He laughs. “Don’t kid yourself. You’re not a call girl, not even close,” he says.
I look down at my glass. “Have you had them?” I ask.
“Call girls?”
I don’t know, it’s possible! We’ve only just started hanging out. Maybe that’s what all the mirrors on the walls are for?
Jay looks almost offended. “No,” he says firmly.
And I feel bad for asking.
His eyes soften. He reaches out and takes my hand. “Are you a virgin?” he asks.
I nod. I wait for him to say something, and when he doesn’t, I feel really exposed. I hug my chest. “I mean, I’ve done stuff before, but just not . . .”
He arches an eyebrow. “What kind of stuff?” he asks.
My face turns hot. It crosses my mind to tell him about sexting with Teddy, but that’s almost more embarrassing.
He smiles at me. “A real virgin, interesting . . . ,” he muses to himself.
“I take it you’re not,” I ask him hesitantly.
He shakes his head. “I am definitely not,” he says. I fall quiet, bugged by his reply. Why’d he have to add “definitely”?
I cross my arms, suddenly mad at myself for coming. An hour ago, I was feeling so good, proud of my first A at my American school and now my English high is gone and in its place is a horny, sulky angst I can’t explain.
Jay walks over and puts his hands on my cheeks. “Hey. It’s okay.”
Slowly, I look up at him. The sex-crazed look has vanished. In its place are kind, gentle eyes.
“We can take it slow,” he says as he pulls me in for a hug.
I lie floating in the school pool the next morning, thinking of Jay, his lips, the way they pressed hungrily into mine. The need, the urgency in his body when I pushed him away. And he stopped. He didn’t say forget it, like Teddy. He was intrigued.
I close my eyes, feeling the water underneath me, the mist on my eyelids. The water is so warm, I could lie here all day. I reach with my fingertips to feel the smooth glass surface. In an hour the swim team will be here, but for now, I have the pool all to myself. I run my hand down my wet body.