by Jean Kwok
We took a walk around the campus, and I gasped. I was completely dumbfounded. I had never imagined there could be such a place in New York. The woman pointed out the tennis courts and the football field, as if it were completely natural to have access to such things. Leaves were sprouting everywhere. I’d never seen so many trees, but what struck me the most was how open it was. Not the vacant lots where Ma and I lived, or the fenced-in patch of asphalt we had at school, or even Annette’s pretty little backyard had been like this. I didn’t know much, but I knew this place was special.
SIX
When we arrived back at Dr. Weston’s office, she was on the phone. She excused herself, hung up and gestured for me to sit down again.
“What do you think of the school?” she asked.
I had to think a second. “It is quiet.”
“Of course it’s quiet.” She looked a bit irritated and I knew I had said something wrong. “That’s how our students can achiff such spectacles academic results. Did you hear about the prizes we’ve won?”
I said yes even though I didn’t remember, because I didn’t want the younger woman to get into trouble.
“Harrison is one of the best college prepator schools in the country, comparable in terms of the facilies we offer to schools like Exit and Sand Paul, only with the advantage that you don’t need to bord here. We are actually a boring school without the boring.”
She’d used more words I didn’t understand in one breath than she had in the entire time I’d been there. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, only that she was repeating a memorized speech like a person in a play and I should acknowledge that by smiling and nodding, which I did.
Then there was a silence while Dr. Weston flipped through her legal pad, scanning her notes from our interview. Her eyes lingered a moment on my homemade pants: red corduroy, well-washed and visibly pilling around the elastic waistband.
“All right, then. For the final scholarship decision, I am going to need to consle with the financial aid committee but I can tell you now that no school in their right mind would denee you admissee.”
I was trying to understand if this was a good or a bad thing when she switched tactics.
She smiled at me and this time, her smile was truly kind. “We like you, Kimberly. We want you to join our school. Is that something you want too?”
I could breathe more freely now. I even smiled back. “I like school.”
“But . . .” She waited for me to finish her sentence.
I hesitated a moment. “The kids look different from my school.”
“You mean our dress code? Everyone has to wear a dark blue blazer but you can choose your own. It’s not really a uniform.”
I started to nod again just to be agreeable but then felt compelled to add, “Maybe I am too different.”
“Ah.” Her small eyes were sad. “We truly try to recruit children from different backgrounds, but it isn’t easy. Harrison is quite expensive, and due to financial limiteetees, we cannot . . .”
She kept talking, but I had stopped listening after I heard what she said about the school. Now that I’d actually seen it, I knew it had to cost a lot of money. I’d expected a simple concrete building like the one I went to now. How naive I’d been, to think that such a school would let me in for free.
“Kimberly?”
I looked up and she was waving her right hand, trying to get my attention.
She spoke again. “Don’t worry. We do have a financial aid program. You are applying after the normal process has closed, but I’m sure we can make an excession for you. Sometimes we even offer up to fifty percent of the twosheen costs.”
I swallowed something in my throat. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know what the fifty percent that we would have to pay would mean, but I knew we could never afford it. Now that it was impossible, I wished I could stay. This was a chance to get both Ma and me out of the factory, out of that apartment, and I realized I wanted it desperately.
“What are you thinking? Please tell me, Kimberly. I need to know so I can help you.”
I felt myself grow hot. “I’m sorry,” was all I said.
“We may even be able to go up to seventy-five percent, although I can’t make any promises.”
“Yes, thank you. I am sorry, you are busy.” I stood up so hastily I almost knocked my chair over. I’d wasted her time and gotten us all into an embarrassing situation.
She raised a hand to stop me. “No, wait a moment. Please don’t make any decisions in your head until I’ve had a chance to talk to your mother, okay? I’m sure we can work something—”
“We not have phone.” By now, I could feel the tips of my ears burning.
Dr. Weston dropped her hand. “All right, maybe we could schedule an appointment.”
“My mother work. And she don’t speak English.”
There was a moment of silence, very awkward for me, then she said, “I see.”
She set her papers aside and escorted me to the door. “Thank you for taking the time to come and see our school.”
While we were working on a science experiment in class, I mentioned the test I’d taken at Harrison to Annette, who had already gotten her acceptance letter weeks before. Her father had gone there too.
“Did you do okay?” she asked, worried for me. “That is a really hard test. And they look at all kinds of other things too. Lots of kids get rejected from Harrison.”
Her voice had risen and I saw Mr. Bogart, who was standing at the next table, glance over at us. I tried to shrug and looked away.
“So?” she said. “Do you think you passed?”
I wanted to tell her the truth, that I’d been accepted but we couldn’t afford to go, but I was too ashamed to say it out loud. I made myself shake my head.
Annette’s face fell. “Oh no,” she said. “They have to let you in! I want you to come with me!”
“It is okay,” I said, although my disappointment grew hotter behind my eyelids until I was afraid it would spill over into tears. It was much too late to apply to another private school. “I will go to public school, like I should before.”
“I don’t care how you did on that test, you are so smart. You have to talk to someone and get a second chance.”
“No, I do not want this.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Okay, then I’ll stay in public school too.”
I blinked. Generous, loyal Annette. Of course, her parents wouldn’t allow her to do that, but would I have, could I have, offered to do the same for her? I laid a hand on her shoulder. “You are good friend.”
The end of the school year approached.
A craze of autograph books swept through the sixth grade. A few kids had them and started asking their friends to sign and within a few weeks, many children were circulating their autograph books around the room. I begged Ma to buy me one and she did, for 59 skirts from the Dime Shop. It had a red fake-leather cover. I learned from watching everyone else that after someone signed a page, I was supposed to fold the edges down or up to make alternating patterns of folded triangles in my book.
Annette wrote in my book: “2 Friends 4-ever!” The other kids wrote things like “Wish I had known you better” and “Too bad we didn’t know each other.” I wrote “Good luck for the future” in everyone’s book except for Annette’s and Tyrone’s. In Annette’s I wrote: “You are my best friend.” When Tyrone shyly handed his to me, I saw that on the page before mine someone had written: “You are the King of the Brains.” I thought a moment and wrote in Chinese: You are a very special person and may the gods protect you. Then I signed my name in English.
“Wow,” he said. “What does it say?”
“Good luck,” I said.
He stared at the page. “That’s a lot of words for ‘good luck.’ ”
“It take long time to say something in Chinese.”
In my book, he wrote, “Wish I had known you better.”
The sixth-
graders had a graduation ceremony, and our class spent weeks practicing parading on and off the auditorium stage.
Ma had been deeply disappointed we couldn’t afford Harrison. At first, she’d said we would somehow find a way to pay, and wanted to take on an extra job, although she was already working as hard as she could. I explained what the campus looked like, however, and how much the tuition actually was, and finally, she’d reluctantly given up. Then she hugged me and said, “I am still so proud of you. You have been here less than a year and you already found this opportunity. You just need a little more time.”
I was now worried about how she would react to my report card. I would be forced to show it to her this time because she hadn’t seen anything yet this whole year, and even though I was now passing everything, I knew it would be far from the perfect grades she’d seen from me back home. I slept badly in the weeks leading up to the graduation ceremony.
Ma bought a pretty brown flowered dress on sale for me. There was lace trim at the neck and sleeves and the hem flared when I turned. It cost a fortune for us, 1,500 skirts, but Ma bought it a size larger so I could wear it for longer. It was loose but it still looked all right, and I had a pair of new brown Chinese slippers to go with it.
On the day of my graduation, I got dressed.
“Ma,” I said, “do I look pretty?” I knew it was not what a decent girl did, asking for compliments, but I wanted so much to look nice.
Ma tilted her head to the side. I think that because Ma had been known as something of a beauty herself in Hong Kong, she never commented on how I looked. She’d always taught me that other qualities were more important. “You look fine.”
“But am I pretty?”
Ma hugged me. “You are my wonderful, beautiful girl.”
All of the kids looked different in their formal clothes. The girls were wearing dresses and some of the boys had ties. Even Luke was wearing a new white shirt, although he had the same gray pants on. Now that I’d seen Harrison and how different things could be, I realized how much more at home I felt here, where many of the other students were poor too. When we went into the auditorium, I searched the faces for Ma’s and I found her sitting near the back in the center. Aunt Paula had made a “very unusual, one-time exception” to allow Ma to be here this morning and we’d have to catch up on all the work tonight. I wished with sudden intensity that I could make Ma proud of me as I once had. Back home, I’d always gone up to the stage to receive awards and I’d won Best Student every year. Ma had been so delighted at those ceremonies.
When the sixth grade sang onstage, I looked for Ma and tried to sing extra loudly. Then, after all of the singing and speeches, the awards were given out and my name was not called once, not even for Science or Math. Tyrone went up many times and Annette won a few too. I was so ashamed, I wished Aunt Paula had not let Ma come after all. I wondered what she was thinking. Had it been only a year before that I’d been such a different person?
Mrs. LaGuardia was now saying something about laying foundations, good citizenship and bright futures. She seemed to be finishing up. “Sometimes, here at P.S. 44, we have students who go on to achieve spectacuur results despite what may seem to be overwoman odds. In particular, I would like to congratulate Tyrone Marshall on getting into Hunter College High School, a public school for gifted children.”
Tyrone stood up to a round of applause. Although he sat down again quickly, he looked happy, and a black woman in the audience was cheering so enthusiastically that she knocked her feathered hat askew.
“And Kimberly Chang for being granted a full scholarship to Harrison Prep, an un-president-ed honor for a student from our school.”
Everyone clapped again but I thought that I couldn’t have heard her correctly. I didn’t move.
Mrs. LaGuardia was looking at me and continued to talk. “Kimberly came to our school barely speaking English and we are very proud of what she has ah-cheed here.”
The girl sitting next to me hissed. “Get up, you gotta get up.”
I finally stood up for a second and the applause became louder. The blood pounded in my eyes so that I couldn’t see anything. As I sat down and my head cleared, I looked around for Annette. She was craning her neck to find me too, and when our eyes met, she clasped her hands together in excitement. Over her shoulder, I saw Mr. Bogart, blinking rapidly with his mouth open. I tried to see Ma’s face too but she was too far in the back, with too many heads in between. I hoped that she had seen me too, that she knew the applause had been about me. I couldn’t wait to tell her the good news.
Ma was beaming when I found her in the crowd of students and parents after the ceremony.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“Ma, the principal said I won a full scholarship to that private school!”
We hugged each other tight.
Ma’s eyes glowed. “What an opportunity! This is the beginning of a new direction for us, ah-Kim, and it’s all due to you.”
I looked up to see Mrs. LaGuardia standing in front of us. She said, “You must be Mrs. Chang. It’s a real pleasure to meet you at last.”
Ma shook her extended hand. “Hello,” she said in English. “You very good teacher.”
I said in rapid Chinese, “Ma, she’s not a teacher, she’s the principal!” Then, in English, “Prin-ci-pal.”
Ma flushed, then said in English, “Sorry, so sorry. Mis-sus Prin-ci-pal.”
Mrs. LaGuardia smiled. “No matter at all. You have a very special child and she has really done her best here.”
Even though I knew Ma hadn’t understood a word of what she said, Ma realized it was a compliment and said in a nervous rush, “Thank you. You so good. You good teacher.”
I couldn’t believe Ma had said it again, but Mrs. LaGuardia didn’t seem to notice and she said to me, “I’m sorry about announcing the scholarship in front of everyone. I could tell you were surprised. I just got the news yesterday and I thought you must already have heard. Didn’t you get a letter?”
As she spoke, I understood what must have happened. There must have been a letter informing me of the scholarship, but it would have gone to the fake address we always used, the one my school had on file. This meant it was likely that Aunt Paula would be the one to receive it, and bring it to us at the factory later. “I think letter will come. Thank you, Mrs. LaGuardia. You help me so much.”
She bent down and, as a cloud of perfume enveloped me, gave me a kiss on my cheek. “You’re very welcome.”
I saw Tyrone leaving arm in arm with the woman in the feathered hat, who must have been his mother. He waved to me as they went outside.
Annette hugged me from behind. “I can’t believe you’re going to Harrison too! We’ll have so much fun!”
As I disentangled myself, she cocked her head and asked, “How come you told me you didn’t pass the test?”
“I was not sure,” I said. Annette seemed satisfied and turned to her parents, who were standing behind us.
“Hi, Kimberly,” Mrs. Avery said. “A very big congratulations to you.” She extended her hand to Ma. “It’s so nice to meet you at last, Mrs. Chang.”
“Hello,” Ma said. Ma shook her hand and then Mr. Avery’s. He was quite a bit shorter than Mrs. Avery, and seemed to have to crane his neck to allow his head to emerge from the top of the tidy suit he was wearing.
“We’re all going out for a celebratory lunch,” Mr. Avery said. “Would you both care to join us?”
Ma looked at me in confusion. I translated for her, hoping that just this once, she would say yes.
“No, dank you,” Ma said. “We go . . .” Her voice trailed off as she couldn’t think of the words for a polite excuse in English.
“Home,” I said. “We must do something.”
“Oh,” Mr. Avery said, “that’s a pity. Maybe next time.”
“Dank you,” Ma said. “You very good.”
After the Averys left for their lunch, Ma and I also withdrew from the celebrat
ing crowds at the school and went into the subway station to go to the factory. I was still basking in the excitement of the ceremony. Ma was so happy about Harrison Prep that she barely glanced at my report card on the train.
Once we were at the factory, Ma and I were working as fast as we could to catch up when I saw Aunt Paula standing in front of us. She didn’t usually come to our area unless it was time for her to check the pieces before a shipment went out.
“How was the graduation?” she asked.
“Very fine,” Ma said. “Thank you for letting me take the morning off.”
“Would the two of you come with me?” Her tone was polite but Ma and I exchanged a worried look. I wondered if something had gone wrong because Ma had been absent from the factory that morning.
We trailed behind Aunt Paula and went past Matt, who was just leaving the men’s room. Behind Aunt Paula’s back, he caught my eye and pretended to scratch himself, in an imitation of her. I stifled a laugh.
When we entered the office, Aunt Paula invited us to sit down. Uncle Bob must have been out.
“I have some mail for Kimberly.” She held out a thick manila envelope with the crest of Harrison Prep stamped on it.
I took it. Despite Aunt Paula’s casual manner, I felt nervous. Why hadn’t she just given it to us at our workstation? Bringing us here meant she wanted to talk or to find out something.
“Are you applying to that school?” she asked.
I nodded. Ma took a breath, probably to tell Aunt Paula the news but Aunt Paula spoke first. “Why didn’t you ask me for advice?”
Ma must have changed her mind about what she was going to say. “We meant no disrespect.”