The Tiger Mom's Tale

by Lyn Liao Butler

  “How many cakes did you eat?” Lexa could read each of her clients like an open book.

  “Um . . . ,” Andi mumbled. “Only six, but they’re small. So it’s like one big one, right?”

  Lexa sighed. “All right, don’t worry. We’ll do a HIIT workout.”

  Andi grimaced at the mention of high-intensity interval training. Within ten minutes, her cheeks were red and she was gasping for breath as she jumped from a squat into a push-up.

  “I hate burpees,” Andi panted when she’d finished the set.

  “Don’t stop. Do bridge pulses and then get into a plank.” Just then, Lexa’s phone dinged.

  “Why don’t you check that while I rest?”

  “No rest for you.” Lexa smiled to take the sting out of it. She loved being a trainer. Better to be the one in charge than to have things happen that you had no control over.

  Andi pouted but got into bridge pose by planting her feet firmly on the floor, knees bent, and lifting her butt off the ground. “I fucking hate you.”

  “Hey, you’re a celebrity now. You shouldn’t curse in public.” Andi’s popular Food Network show followed her life as the executive chef of Bisque on the Upper East Side.

  Andi shot her the finger and counted out loud, something she did because she claimed Lexa couldn’t count and always made her do extra. Lexa checked her phone, and the smile slipped from her face.

  It was from her half sister in Taiwan.

  CALL ME ASAP. Something’s happened to Baba.

  A feeling of dread ran down Lexa’s spine. She and her father rarely spoke these days, but she’d once cared for him. She’d thought he was so handsome in all his . . . Asianness, with the same black hair and square jaw she had. Lexa was the black sheep of her blond family with her Asian features. But in Taiwan, she looked like her Taiwanese family, and no one asked if she was adopted. Although there were some who thought she wasn’t Asian enough . . .

  “Earth to Lexa? Can I stop?” Andi had gotten into plank when she’d finished her bridges.

  Lexa started, her heart beating fast, and blinked until Andi swam back into focus.

  Andi collapsed out of her plank. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry. I need to call my sister in Taiwan. It sounds like an emergency.”

  “Of course. I’ll just use the elliptical while you’re gone.” Andi wagged her eyebrows, and Lexa rolled her eyes. She knew Andi would sit and check her phone until she got back. Scooping her clipboard off the floor, Lexa headed to the employee lounge.

  Hsu-Ling didn’t pick up, and Lexa sent her a text. She drummed her fingers on the table in the empty lounge, frustrated that her sister hadn’t answered. She reached for the bag of sesame balls and ripped it open, taking one out and biting into it just as her phone rang.

  She swallowed, trying to get the sticky mass down her throat before she picked up.

  “ChiChi?” Hsu-Ling called Lexa by her Taiwanese nickname.

  “What’s the matter? What happened to Baba?” Lexa managed to get out.

  “He was in an accident.” Hsu-Ling paused. “He’s gone. He didn’t make it.”

  Lexa’s heart stopped, and a ringing sounded in her ears, drowning out the gym’s music. The bite she’d swallowed lodged itself in her throat.

  “So much has happened. There’s more—a lot more. Can you come to Taiwan?”

  Lexa shook her head hard. “No, I . . . I can’t.”

  “Then I’m coming to New York. After the funeral.”

  “Really? Why?” Lexa’s forehead crinkled. Hsu-Ling was afraid to fly and had never been on a plane.

  “I need to talk to you about that last summer.”

  “What?” Lexa was suddenly sweating. “I’m at work. Can I call you back in a bit?”

  “I’m so tired. I’ll call you tomorrow morning, nine thirty my time? I have a lot to tell you. Would be better when I can think clearly.”

  “Oh. Okay.” They said good-bye, and Lexa hung up, her thoughts in a jumble as she stared at the sesame balls.

  To the Chinese, they symbolized happiness and good fortune. Yet when she’d eaten one last week, her family had been broken up by her mom’s news. And now her father, whom she hadn’t seen in twenty-two years, was dead, and her sister was flying to New York to talk about the summer she’d spent her whole life trying to forget.

  She stood suddenly and threw the bag into the garbage. Damn those stupid sesame balls. They were bad luck. If she hadn’t taken a bite, maybe her father would still be alive. As tears welled in her eyes, she realized she’d always thought there’d be time to reclaim her Taiwanese heritage and get to know her father again one day. Now, it was never going to happen.

  * * *

  • • •

  Just as she predicted, Andi was sitting on a bench texting away when Lexa returned to the gym floor. She tapped her on the shoulder, and Andi looked up, startled.

  “Oh, hey. I just got off the elliptical.” She wiped a hand over her brow. “Whew, I went hard on that thing.”

  “Yeah, right. Come on, let’s go. I’m sorry I was gone so long.”

  “No worries. What did your sister say?”

  Lexa opened her mouth to answer, but instead, to her surprise, a sob escaped.

  Andi pulled her down on the bench next to her. “What happened?”

  “It’s my Taiwanese father. He was in an accident. He didn’t make it.”

  “Oh, no.” Andi put an arm around her. “I’m so sorry.”

  Lexa inhaled and breathed in the familiar smell of disinfectant, sweat, and the rubbery odor of the mats in the gym. She was determined not to cry at work, and it took a few minutes to get her emotions under control. “It’s okay. I didn’t really know him. We should finish your session.”

  “Absolutely not.” Andi squeezed her arm. “And it’s not me being lazy. I don’t care if you weren’t close. You just found out your father died.”

  Lexa blew out a breath. “Okay. But let me at least stretch you. I need to move.”

  They made their way to a massage table. On autopilot, Lexa lifted Andi’s leg to stretch her hamstrings.

  “You don’t talk much about your Taiwanese father and sister.” Andi shot her a questioning look. “Why is that?”

  “I haven’t seen him since I was fourteen. We used to alternate traveling—I’d go there one summer, and he’d come to New York to see me the next time. But then . . .” Lexa fell silent.

  Andi waited, and when Lexa didn’t continue, she asked, “Taiwan is part of China, right?”

  “Well.” Lexa let out a short laugh. “If you ask my father’s family, Taiwan is a separate country. They’ve been in Taiwan for many, many generations. My father always said, ‘We’re Taiwanese, not Chinese.’”

  “I didn’t know that. What about your sister?”

  “We don’t really know each other. I haven’t seen her since she was ten and a half and I was fourteen. We keep in touch mostly through social media and the occasional emails or texts.” Lexa bent Andi’s leg to stretch her hips.

  Andi waited a beat, and when Lexa didn’t add more, she said, “Tell me about your father.”

  “What’s to tell?” Lexa snapped.

  Andi looked taken aback by Lexa’s sharp tone, and Lexa winced. It wasn’t Andi’s fault that Lexa’s father had died, bringing back all those memories.

  “I’m sorry.” Lexa closed her eyes for a moment before opening them to find Andi staring at her with sympathy.

  “It’s okay.” Andi reached up and touched Lexa on the arm. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  Lexa bit her lip, glad for the reprieve, but then a memory came to her. Before she could stop herself, she said, “My mom thought I was half-Japanese for the first two years of my life.”

  “What?”

  “She taught English
in Japan for a year. Right before she came back to New York, she and her Japanese friends took a trip to Thailand, and she met my father there. She thought he was Japanese because he was with a group of Japanese men.” Lexa focused back on the stretch and took Andi’s leg across her body into a spinal twist. “She didn’t know she was pregnant until she came home. Her friends tried to find him, but no one knew who he was.”

  “Really?”

  “She kept me, even though some people told her she should have had an abortion.” Lexa made a face. “I’m glad she didn’t.”

  “Me too. And now she’s moved in with a woman.” Lexa had told Andi about Phoenix. “I love it. She’s such a free spirit.”

  “My father resurfaced two years later, when my mom’s friend Kiko ran into him at a party in Tokyo. She’s the one who told him about me. Turns out he was Taiwanese. He used to live in Japan and had kept in touch with his friends there.”

  Andi laughed. “That must have thrown her for a loop.”

  Lexa nodded. “She was so nervous when Kiko called her and said she ran into the man my mom had a fling with. But Mom really wanted me to know my father, so she asked Kiko to tell him. Kiko showed him a picture of me, and he said I had the Chang jaw.” He’d claimed her as a daughter and started writing to her with the help of a friend who could read English.

  “I don’t get it. Why haven’t you seen him in all this time?”

  Lexa switched the stretch to Andi’s other leg. “It’s . . . a long story.”

  Andi stared up at her, and Lexa suddenly didn’t want to talk about her father anymore. “So what’s with the guy from last night? Is he Chinese?”

  “No.”

  “Was it good?” Lexa wiggled her brows.

  “Ugh.” Andi shuddered. “I don’t know what I was thinking. He only went out with me because he found out I had a show on the Food Network. I thought he liked me. I guess turning forty has somehow dimmed my bullshit detector.”

  “You’re not forty for another few months.”

  “Which is an old hag to my mom.” Andi wrinkled her nose. “She pointed out at lunch the other day that my eggs are getting older by the minute. Not that I need the reminder. I do want kids.”

  “People are getting married later, especially here in the city.” Lexa finished stretching Andi and gave her leg a pat.

  “I know. But she got married when she was twenty-three. I’m a dinosaur as far as she’s concerned.” Andi hopped off the table. “Anyways, I’ve got to go. I need a nap.”

  “I’ll make up the missed time with you another day.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Andi reached over and gave Lexa a hug. “You know I love you, even though I say I hate you every session, right? I couldn’t have lost those thirty pounds without you.”

  Lexa nodded against Andi’s shoulder, taking comfort from her friend’s concern. “I know. Thanks for being here.” She pulled away and studied Andi. “And you know you look great.” Andi was curvy with a big chest and butt, but she was healthy and toned, thanks to the workouts. And she looked great on camera.

  Andi smiled and waved. “See you later.”

  After Andi left, Lexa dropped onto an empty bench and dialed her mom’s cell. She still had ten minutes before she had to teach a group fitness class.

  When Phoenix picked up, Lexa’s spine straightened. They were answering each other’s phones already?

  “Hi, Lexa,” Phoenix said. “Susan is at her yoga training. She forgot her phone.”

  “Oh.” Lexa’s eyebrows lifted. So her mom really had quit her job of thirty-six years in the office of her daughters’ old Catholic school in Queens.

  “Is everything okay?” Phoenix had a low, soothing voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting you.”

  Lexa had agreed to meet Phoenix that Saturday at the monthly dim sum brunch that Lexa and Maddie had started with their mom a few years earlier. Maddie was still refusing to go.

  “Right.” Lexa couldn’t bring herself to say she was looking forward to meeting Phoenix too. Not after speaking to her dad and hearing the sadness in his voice. “Can you have her call me back?”

  Phoenix said she would, and they hung up. Before Lexa could get off the bench, a group of women approached her. The brunette with her hair in a high ponytail called out, “Lexa, hi!”

  “Can’t wait to take your cardio sculpt class,” said the woman wearing a bright orange top. “I ate a huge plate of pasta last night.” After a pause, she added, “With cream sauce and a lot of bread.” She fidgeted, as if her clothes were itching her. “And I had two glasses of wine.” She dropped her gaze to the floor. “Okay, it was more than two glasses, but I didn’t finish the bottle.”

  The brunette hit her on the arm. “Why do you always confess to Lexa exactly what you ate? Now she’s going to make us suffer.”

  The confessor hung her head. “I can’t help it. Every time she looks at me, the truth falls out.”

  Lexa gave an evil grin. “Don’t worry, we’ll burn it off. Let’s go.”

  They groaned but followed her into the studio like docile lambs. For the next hour, Lexa led her class through a series of high-intensity exercises. She channeled her shock over her father’s death into the workout, pushing her students relentlessly with no breaks and yelling more than she usually did. By the end of class, she was as sweaty as everyone else, but her mood had lifted. There was nothing like a good workout to take her mind off her problems. Her students shot her dirty looks and muttered about sadistic instructors as they left the studio.

  After a quick shower and change, she headed toward Sixty-Fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, about a ten-minute walk from the gym. She had an eleven-o’clock appointment with her private client Priscilla Lockwood. Lexa’s phone rang as she crossed Lexington Avenue.

  “Hi, Mom. You’re done already?”

  “No, I realized I forgot my phone and came back.” Her mom had moved into Phoenix’s apartment on the Upper West Side this past weekend. Their house in Whitestone really was being put on the market—just another reason for Maddie to hate Phoenix. “What’s up?”

  Lexa told her about Hsu-Ling’s phone call.

  “Oh, no. How did it happen?” Her mom’s voice was raspy.

  “I don’t know. I was in the middle of a session. She’s supposed to call me back later, around nine thirty tonight. And she’s coming to New York.”

  “I thought she was afraid to fly? And that it’s inconvenient because of her leg. Why’s she coming?”

  Lexa’s half sister had been born missing part of a leg, the result of something called amniotic band syndrome. The stringlike amniotic bands in Hsu-Ling’s mother’s womb had wrapped tightly around the baby’s right limb, causing an amputation below the knee.

  “She said she wanted to talk about that last summer . . .” Lexa’s voice trailed off.

  “What? Are you going to Taiwan for the funeral?”

  “No.” Lexa could feel the high from her class wearing off and frowned. “Do you think I should?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don’t know.” Deep in thought about actually returning to Taiwan after all this time, Lexa ran across Park Avenue without looking. A yellow cab screeched to a stop in front of her, narrowly missing her. The driver laid on his horn, yelling and making an obscene gesture. Her heart beating wildly, Lexa waved in apology and ran onto the divider in the middle of the street.

  “Are you okay?” Her mom’s concerned voice came through the phone.

  “Yes.” She forced herself to take a deep breath and waited until the light changed before crossing the rest of the street.

  “I’m sorry about your father. You should take the rest of the day off.”

  “I can’t. My clients are counting on me.”

  “But your father just died. They’d understa
nd.”

  “I didn’t know him. I haven’t seen him in almost twenty-two years. All I got from him was the occasional email or card.”

  “He’s still your father.”

  Lexa was silent as she dodged around a dog walker leading a pack of well-groomed purebreds down the sidewalk, and then ran across Madison Avenue after carefully looking both ways.

  Her mom spoke before Lexa could answer. “You might think you’re okay, but your father’s death is going to bring back all those memories.”

  “I’ve been fine all these years without him. I didn’t need him. I made my own life here.” So then why was her heart aching?

  “Call me after you speak to Hsu-Ling, no matter what time it is, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Honey? I know I’ve been distracted with Phoenix, but I’m always here for you.”

  “I’m fine.” Lexa probed at her feelings like a sore tooth. Was she upset at her father’s death? Or was she upset because she wasn’t more upset about it?

  “Maybe you should take a Kung Fu class. That always made you feel better.”

  “I should.” Lexa had found Kung Fu when she was fourteen, studying with Shifu, who was a Shaolin Temple monk. But it’d been a while since she’d gone to class. The more clients she’d taken on, the less time she had for her own interests.

  “Maddie’s not going to like it that Hsu-Ling is coming.”

  “I know. I’ve got to go. I’m at Mrs. Lockwood’s.”

  They said good-bye, and Lexa sighed as she rounded the corner at Sixty-Fifth and Fifth. Her past and her present were about to collide, and she had a feeling it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  3

  June, Twenty-Eight Years Ago

  Whitestone, Queens

  Maddie stood in the doorway, hugging her beloved bunny, NoNo, to her chest. She surveyed the wreckage of their room. Clothes were flung everywhere: on the two beds over their Laura Ashley comforters, on the floor in front of the closet, and heaped into an open suitcase sitting on the floor. New Kids on the Block’s song “Step by Step” was playing on the portable radio, and Lexa sang along as she pulled clothes out of her dresser and held them up to her body.