Across the Mekong River (22 page)

LAURA

I arrived home at six thirty one evening in late February and found Dang sitting on the stairs. He showed up every Tuesday, but I had been so busy at school that day I’d forgotten.

“I thought you
were never coming.” He stood and smiled. “I’m happy to see you.”

I shivered in the cold wind.

“Can I come up?”

“I have so much homework.”
A ring of irritation crept into my voice. I didn’t have time to entertain him.

“We can study together.”

I wanted to say no, but kept silent. Over time, Dang had revealed himself to be full of contradictions. Beneath the pleasant smiles and agreeable words, the patient, placid face, he harbored an unbending will. He might ask my opinion about something or what I wanted to do on the weekend, but invariably I found myself manipulated into acquiescing to his wishes. Perhaps he could not help the imperious edge in his tone that reminded me he was the man and therefore inherently right. My upbringing had taught me to be a nice Hmong girl, polite and accommodating to men. But anger welled inside me at allowing myself to yield so easily.

He took my backpack and followed me up the
stairs and into the apartment. When he saw Mother in the kitchen, he greeted her with his usual faultless manners. She immediately invited him to stay for dinner and brought out chips and cokes, special treats she never bought except for Dang’s visits. I hated the way she doted on him and threw knowing glances my way, as if we shared in a conspiracy. However, I had reaped the benefits of her pleasure with his presence. Suddenly, I was the dutiful daughter again, graced with her favors. She took over some of my chores, leaving me more free time, presumably for Dang. All I had to do was play the game.

Father arrived home from work and nodded
as Dang stood up to say hello. During dinner, he asked him about school and his plans for college the following year. Father remained polite with Dang, but I could not read his thoughts. Did he like him? Did he favor me pursuing courtship and marriage?

After dinner, I shooed my sisters and brothers off the sofa so we could spread out with our homework.

“Everybody is going to the St. Ignacias game Saturday. Can you come?” Dang asked.

“Probably.”

I had spent the last three Saturday nights out with Dang, my cousins, and their friends. While our parents would not allow us to go on dates alone with a boy, we could go out in a group, at least with a Hmong group. We had been to two basketball games and a dance put on by the Hmong Community Center, where a deejay played American rock interspersed with the latest hit tunes from Thailand. On the slow songs Dang had held me, his arms loose and awkward around my waist. I felt his heart pound and listened to his breath catch in his throat as he nuzzled his head against mine. But I did not feel the same.

Dang and I studied for two hours while the TV played an endless str
eam of game shows and sitcoms. We talked intermittently about a math problem or something that had happened at school, speaking half in English and half in Hmong, laughing at our mixed up sentences.

When I finally got to bed that night, my mind wandered through the labyrinth of competing emotion
s that too often kept me awake. I desperately wanted to confide in Mary and seek her advice, but how could I explain about Dang and what his attentions might mean. Where would I start when she still knew nothing of the truth about my life? These days we had little time to talk anyway. I was busy with school work, activities, and demands at home, while her world revolved around Kevin. Only my cousin Mee shared an interest in Dang. She would corner me with giggles and questions.
What did Dang say yesterday? Did you have fun with him at the dance? Did I tell you Tou says he really likes you and talks about you all the time? What if he wants to marry you, what will you do?
Her words infused me with dread.

Yet I could not help but like Dang, e
ven if at times he annoyed me. He was Hmong, part of all things familiar and comfortable, the essence of my splintered past and present. We shared a common heritage and journey, the experiences of war and exile from our homeland and the hardships that followed. He made me laugh and feel special. I didn’t have to pretend to be anyone but Nou. Like me, he balanced family obligations and loyalties with the demands of school. He didn’t scoff at my dreams for college, but then he was always agreeable about anything I said. He planned a career in engineering, a job that would bring a good income to support a family, he said. When hope and longing flashed across his face, the desire for more than I could give, guilt settled in my stomach like rancid oil. I asked myself how I could be so cold. My heart was not made of ice. It was simply full of another.

My feelings for Pete grew stronger each day, no matter how hopeless the situation. Perhaps it was fate or the trick of impish spirits wanting to cause trouble, but he was the one who made my insides quiver and my heart race with an attraction that could not be reasoned away. We came from opposite poles of the earth, north and south, foreign worlds never meant to meet. With my dark Asian features and his fair Nordic coloring, our incongruous histories and families, we could not have been more unalike. Yet some bond I could not deny connected us. In his presence all thoughts of Dang faded away like a vague, unsettling dream.

As the weeks passed, Pete started showing up unexpectedly at my locker, slipping unobtrusively onto the cafeteria bench beside me at lunch, appea
ring oddly nervous and unsure. I waited impatiently for our Wednesday afternoons, wishing they would never end. After the Christmas holiday our sessions at the library ran longer as math review gave way to whispered conversations about friends or upcoming basketball games. We both knew he didn’t need my help any longer. When he repeatedly asked me to go with him for ice cream, I had to explain that my parents wouldn’t allow me to go places alone with boys. He reacted with surprise and disappointment, but he did not press me. My thoughts raced between the insanity of taking another step outside the boundaries of my parents’ rules and how to get away with it. When I offered a solution, it was Pete who hesitated, worried that I might get into trouble.

The Sea Treasure became our secret haven, an out of the way pl
ace where no one would see us. Soon we skipped the library and went directly to the tiny fast food outlet that smelled of deep-fried fish and potatoes. Hours raced by as we sat undisturbed and anonymous, staring at each other across the sticky plastic table.

At school Pete
maintained his easy banter. Only Kevin, Mary, and I knew about his mother’s illness. He said he didn’t want to face the pity of others or uncomfortable pauses in the conversation. But with me he dropped his defenses, revealing small glimpses of the growing chaos at home as his mother’s life slipped away. He spoke of nurses coming and going and well-meaning relatives trying to help but creating more stress in a situation already at the breaking point. I listened and tried to reassure him it would get better. We both knew it wouldn’t.

On a Wednesday in late March, Pete seemed particularly low as we lingered longer than
usual over a basket of fries. I should have started for home, but I couldn’t bear to leave him. The sky had disintegrated into clouds of slate and charcoal gray. We sat in silence listening to rain pound the pavement outside like fingers drumming impatiently on a table. Car lights flashed through the windows and disappeared, creating a slow-motion strobe that intermittently cast Pete’s face from light into shadows.

I hesi
tated a moment, afraid to ask. “How is your mom?”

“She
’s really sick from the chemo. But she’ll be better when it’s over.” He looked out the window again and ran his fingers through his hair. It was not the words he uttered that pulled at my heart, but the plaintive tone of his voice that begged me to promise him his mother would be whole again.

“It’s just…I’m really scared.”

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and focused on my clasped hands. “I understand.” Quietly, in halting phrases, I revealed a sliver of my own tattered life, describing the depression that had plagued my mother over the years, the way it turned my world upside down, and the fear gripping me that one day she might slip away forever. “It’s not the same, but I know how it hurts.”

Pe
te put a hand gently over mine. “You should have told me before.”

“I’ve nev
er told anyone, not even Mary.” I looked into his sad eyes. The relief of finally sharing this secret washed over me. And I wanted to be free of pretending, to tell him the entire truth about my life. But the moment was not right.

His hand remained on mine, and the knot in my middle relaxed until I felt safe and protected, as if this was where I belonged.

“I’m glad you trusted me.” He squeezed my hand tighter. We sat several minutes without needing to speak.

“It’s weird the way we got together, like we
’re meant to help each other.” He gave a short, harsh laugh. “Except it’s all been you helping me.”

“Not true.”

He glanced up, almost whispering, “You’re the only person who keeps me sane. I think about you all the time.” He straightened and let out a long sigh. “Is there any way we could spend more time together? I mean, besides here.”

His words filled me with joy and longing. I struggled with how to answer.
Why not? Why should my parents keep me from this boy I cared for so deeply? How could this possibly be wrong?

“I don’t want to get you in trouble, but if only we could
go to a movie or out to dinner. I need to be around you.”

“They let me go out with a group of kids, just not alone with boys.”

He leaned forward again, his face brightening. “Really? Our team has a home game Saturday. Maybe you could come with Mary, and we could go out after with her and Kevin.” He smiled his first genuine smile of the day. “That’s a group!”

“I’ll talk to Mary.” I would find a way.
Adrenalin, laced with fear, rushed through my body in a surge of reckless happiness.

In the midst of
my euphoria, I remembered Dang. I would have to tell him something had come up, that I couldn’t go to the movies with the group on Saturday after all. There was no question in my mind where I wanted to be.

Mary and I sat at opposite ends of her bed, each a bit tentative at first. We had spent less and less time together since she had started dating Kevin and my life had been complicated by the presence of Dang and Pete. As my secrets multiplied, I had pulled away from her. We rarely talked on the phone and only had time for quick exchanges at our lockers or at lunch with the group. A disconcerting distance had grown between us that left me sad and lonely. I missed her.

When we had
arrived at her house, Nancy met us at the front door and gave me a welcoming hug. It felt good to be back in what had become my second home.

We settled in Mary’s room with a bag of
chips and glasses of lemonade. Mary prattled on about Kevin and what they had done the previous weekend. Slowly, the awkwardness between us began to melt away, and we found the easy pace of our friendship.

I took a deep breath and
pulled my shoulders up tight. “I have so much to tell. I don’t know where to begin.”

Mary leaned forward, her eyebrows lifted. “What?”

“It’s Pete. We’re going out with you and Kevin on Saturday.”

Mary clapped her hands.
“I knew it! Didn’t I tell you he’d ask you out?” She paused a moment. “And your dad is letting you go?”

“Sort of.
All he knows is I’m going with you to the basketball game.”

Father had agreed to my re
quest with only a moment of hesitation, trusting that I was telling the truth. And I had pushed away the guilt as I had pushed it away time after time. I wanted so much to be honest, to talk freely with him and have him understand my life. I missed the special relationship we had once shared, a closeness that had disappeared with all my lies.

“I’m so excited,” Mary said, pulling me back and closing off my
doubts. “Tell me everything. Every detail.”

I explained about my afternoons with Pete, the
way our feelings had deepened. For once I could be like any other girl, completely besotted by my first crush, reveling in the possibilities of romance. I told her how my pulse raced when he leaned close, and how beautiful I found his eyes. Mary interrupted with countless questions. We discussed what we would each wear on Saturday, and she made me promise to get ready at her house. The guilt over my parents and Dang faded into the background in the giddiness of sharing my good fortune with my best friend.