Repeat After Me (19 page)

Movies became a montage of the two of them, him hoisting her up in the nurses’ station at St. Luke’s, railing her while I languished. So I watched nothing. Music was a soundtrack for their skipping through sunny fields somewhere without me, weightless until they tackled each other in the tall weeds, ablaze with lust. So I watched nothing, just read books that didn’t involve us, and told myself I had moved on anyway, was engaged.

I told Dr. Meyers that Julia and Adam had had sex. She did not say, “How does that make you feel?” Instead she said, “Shit.”

I laughed. “That’s how I felt, too,” I said.

Then Adam called me. His “hello” came down the wire and wound my stupid heart up like a jack-in-the-box. I put a hand on my chest, kept the lid on.

“What?” I asked, pleased that it came out sounding angry rather than panicked.

“Oh, Aysha.” There was pity dripping out of his voice. I remembered sponges he used to forget to squeeze out in the sink, filthy, rotting, and reeking. I threw out dozens of moldy sponges while we were together. And he never once wiped a counter or sink. I used to think maybe guys just weren’t taught how to make a wiping motion. Maybe since they pee standing up.

“Yes?” I longed to wring the words out of him. Open the cabinet under the sink, let the smell of the plastic garbage bag rush out, see Adam’s words stuck to its sides.

“Julia said you and she had an extremely awkward conversation.” He swallowed. I couldn’t help laughing. “You mean about how the two of you were fucking above my ceiling right after you fucked me? That wasn’t awkward.”

“Uh. It sounds worse than it is,” he began, “but I just—”

I couldn’t hear him out. “Nothing sounds like anything other than what it is,” I said, “except when you open your mouth.”

He sighed. “I don’t know why I try,” he said. “But here, I’ll try: you and I haven’t been a couple for ages, Aysh. Julia and I were worried about you. We’re only close because of you. The fact is, we drank a lot, and we made a mistake. It was weird and desperate, and I’m so sorry. If you never want to be my friend again, I can accept that, but please forgive Julia.”

“You repulse me,” I told him. “How dare you call me on her behalf? Do you think she and I don’t know each other better than you and she do? Or better than you and I know each other? She’ll laugh when I tell her.” This was only partially true, of course. I couldn’t imagine ever speaking to Julia again, let alone laughing with her about Adam.

I could hear my voice bubbling but I didn’t stop. “Let me understand this, Adam. You’re calling me after you came over here and slept with everyone at this address—to tell me that you’re worried about me? You’re the one who walks the halls of our building, shedding your pants, asking for takers. Julia and I are worried about
you
.”

I hung up and the silence around me buzzed. I allowed myself one minute to think about Julia and Adam. It was 7:06. 60, 59, 58 . . . How many times? Just that once? Unlikely. Did it start while I was sick? Did they congratulate each other on how generous and loving they were being, bringing candy to the crazy ward? 19, 18, 17 . . . Had they come in separately to fool me? I couldn’t think of an instance. Had my mother suspected? I was out of time. Did Adam put his hands over Julia’s mouth while she laughed? The phone rang again.

It would be Julia, I thought, confirmation of their partnership. He had called her as soon as I hung up, reinforcing their superior intimacy. I let the machine get it. Waiting for
a voice, I thought how Julia’s was as familiar as water, food, or paper.

“Hi Aysha,” said the machine. “It’s Xiao Wang.”

I grabbed the phone.

“I hope it’s okay for me to call,” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “I’m so glad you did.”

“Maybe you would like to watch movie with me.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“What movie?” she asked.

I laughed. “What movie do you want to watch?”

“Maybe you can decide for this.”

And so began our Wednesday movie nights. I said we could watch at my place, and suggested
Casablanca
,
The Godfather
, or
Lawrence of Arabia
, classic films.

“No, no,” she said. “These we already have in Chinese, or with Chinese subtitle. I want to see the movies you watch when you are young American. Not this kind of classic movie, but the movie you think are cool when you are growing up,” she said.

So I rented
Pretty in Pink
, which Xiao Wang found almost as stunning as my apartment. She went through everything as though the place were a museum, commenting that my teddy bear and old doll were “cute and pretty,” and that my quilt, which I explained Naomi had made out of my baby clothes, was “artist’s love.” She came upon the picture of me and Benj in pajamas.

“You are so pretty baby here,” she said. “
Pang pang bai bai de
!”

I couldn’t resist. “Fat and white?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “How do you know this?” she asked.

“Aren’t you impressed? Da Ge told me.”

She took this in for a second before managing a complete recovery. “Maybe we can both help to teach you some Chinese.”

“I would love that,” I said. “I’d like to go to China someday.”

“Maybe you can visit my family in Jinhong. Meet my parent and Jin. We smiled at each other, both thinking it would never happen, both wrong.

“Let’s watch the movie,” I said. “It will give you a sense of teenage life here.”

Xiao Wang asked why Molly Ringwald was a star, why “Ducky” was in love with her when he was so clearly “same sex love,” and why the rich guy was desirable. I said it was a materialistic moment for America and that for hundreds of years gay people had to pretend to be straight in Hollywood movies. And not only the actors, even gay characters had to pretend. Chinese people, when they appeared in the movies we watched that year (almost never), were buck-toothed emasculated minstrels, innocent exotic lilies, or dragon ladies. For this I had no explanation.

It was in describing those nights to Dr. Meyers that I realized I had never noticed anything about my own culture until Xiao Wang sat me down on my couch and showed me the movies I was showing her. She and Da Ge were the first people who ever forced me to pay attention, to look out and see in.

Julia Too threw a combination Valentine’s and birthday party for her twelfth birthday last Saturday. With her signature little-kid bangs pulled off her forehead in a silver barrette, she looked like she had high cheekbones. She wore a denim skirt and the pointy red shoes Naomi had gotten her. Her eyes were lit with excitement, and sometimes when she turned toward me, I felt like I could project forward and see her adult self. At other moments, when she was busy, serious, or thoughtful, it was as if Da Ge had spun into the room in
a gust. Then she’d catch me staring at her and grin—and he’d be gone.

Because this was the first boy-girl party Julia Too had ever hosted, I had called Naomi ninety times in the two weeks preceding the party, to beg her to come or, short of that, at least tell me how to bake cupcakes, make nonalcoholic punch, string up balloons, and not embarrass Julia Too.

“Why would you embarrass her?”

“I don’t know. Standing too close, looking too parental, looking un-parental, serving the wrong things?”

“Here’s what you serve: enough food for an army. Chips, salsa, cheese, crackers, vegetables and dip, cookies, nut mixes, candy, birthday cake. And have one main food station so that kids will have an excuse to congregate. And don’t stand too close to it.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Did I ever embarrass you?”

“Of course.” We hung up.

Two minutes later, she called back. “Is Old Chen coming?”

“I don’t know. I invited him, but I sort of doubt he’ll make it. I don’t think it’s really his kind of scene.”

“I want to come!”

“Last I heard, there are direct flights on United and Air China.”

“Wah!” she said, “I wish I had retired so I could go to your birthday parties.”

“You can’t give notice tonight?”

She laughed. We hung up.

Ten minutes later I called her back.

“Are balloons stupid? I mean she’s almost a teenager.”

“Ask Julia.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“She said she wants them.”

“Okay then.”

“I think she might be humoring me. Might think I want her to stay a baby.”

“Put the balloons up, Aysha, and calm down.”

“When you say put them up, what does that mean exactly?”

“What kind of ceiling does the venue have?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if you can’t tack them into the ceiling, then tape them in bunches to the walls. Or get some helium balloons and tie them to chairs. Streamers, too. Those prevent the balloons from looking shriveled or lonely.”

“Shriveled? Jesus, Mom.”

“I didn’t want to say
limp
.”

“Well, now you’ve managed both.”

She gave me a cupcake recipe, bossed me about the details of buttermilk and muffin tin papers, and then said she had a lunch date and told me she’d be out of reach for an hour. I didn’t know if I could handle it.

When the kids arrived at Julia Too’s party, they looked like little approximations of grown-ups, so nervous that they glittered under the thousand eyes of our borrowed disco ball. Julia Too hung close to Phoebe, who trailed Sophie, and Lili dragged behind them. I hoped they were all being kind to each other, and that Julia Too would not betray Lili by excluding her in favor of the ever-cooler Sophie and Phoebe. Xiao Wang and Phoebe’s mother, Anne, were there. Jin was in Yunnan, tending to various businesses I can never keep straight. He and Xiao Wang have apartments in Jinhong, Beijing, and Guangzhou, but Xiao Wang and Lili stay mostly in Beijing. She does not want Lili to lead the life of a big shot’s daughter, doesn’t want her spoiled or shallow. Whenever I suggest she live it up a bit more, Xiao Wang piously invokes her Nai Nai, reminding me of the sacrifice her Nai Nai made, moving to America.

“But didn’t she make that sacrifice precisely so that you and Lili could enjoy a more comfortable life than the one she had?”

“We already do,” she says. “I don’t want Lili to be—how to say—fancy.”

Lili wore a simple white dress to Julia Too’s birthday. Xiao Wang looked so stuffy in her pantsuit that I teased her mercilessly about dancing with other men, even though there weren’t any there. Anne stood by, listening. Shannon showed up with a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake and Mylar balloons, dying to hear about Yang Tao.

“It’s working out, right?” she shouted. “I knew it! That’ll be fifty dollars!”

Xiao Wang had to work not to shush her. She thought talking about men in proximity to the girls inspired bad behavior in them. But I smiled at Shannon.

“You did well this time,” I told her. “He never talks, so I should be curious enough to draw it out at least another day or two.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s fantastic,” she said. “You should give him the benefit of the doubt. He and Zhang Sun were classmates—they’ve known each other for like twenty years, and Zhang Sun can vouch.”

“What’s he doing unmarried?”

“Well, he apparently was engaged, but the woman broke it off.”

“No kidding. When was that?”

She shrugged and gave me a vague look. “Quite a while ago,” she said.

“Quite a while like fifteen years? Or like two years?”

“Closer to fifteen, I think. You should ask him.”

“He’ll never tell me.”

“He is very Chinese,” Xiao Wang piped up, and I couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t think he is likely to tell you
about this earlier business,” she continued.

“You’ve been happily married to a Chinese guy since you were a teenager,” I reminded her. “I don’t know why you keep trying to keep everyone else out of the club.”

“I’m happily married to a Chinese guy, too,” Shannon reminded us.

Xiao Wang raised her eyebrows, as if she knew more about Shannon and Zhang Sun’s marriage than Shannon did. Shannon, who liked Xiao Wang, pretended not to notice.

The party was not going well. Boys were glued against the far wall, girls in a giggling amorphous mass a mile away. Nobody came near the dance floor. One of Julia Too’s friends was deejaying, and he came on the mic and insisted that people come out and dance. He put on “Macarena,” and a few especially brave twelve-year-olds scuttled out and waved their arms up and down for a few minutes before retreating to various corners of the room. Only the dauntless Sophie remained on the dance floor, sticking out her legs and swinging in a way that suggested a windmill. She wore a Band-Aid sized miniskirt and a blouse she had hiked up and tied at the waist. She had a hoop earring through her bellybutton, and a tattoo on the small of her back.

“Shannon—is that a real tattoo?”

“Of course not. Did you see that thing? It’s a motorcycle surrounded by roses. Eventually it will fall off, thank God. But it’s only a matter of time before the fight for a real one kicks in.”

“Well, she’s a fabulous dancer.”

Shannon laughed. Sophie is adorable, and during our conversation, either in spite or because of her dancing, an invisible flip switched and the party became a rollicking success. Since there was no alcohol, it’s hard to say what happened, but all of sudden a Canadian boy named Kevin asked
Phoebe to dance and then pecked her on the lips at the end of the song. I happened to see it, and then to see her and Sophie grab Julia Too and Lili (to my delight and relief) and pull them into the bathroom to begin what I guessed would be a year-long series of debriefings on the kiss.