Repeat After Me (37 page)

“Maybe we should turn that off and study for Wednesday?” I asked him.

He shrugged again.

“Did you bring the test book?”

“No.”

The phone rang, and I picked it up distractedly.

“Aysha!” shouted Ben Rosenbaum’s voice, “I’m so glad to have reached you at home. Let’s have dinner. I know it’s a school night, but I know a great place.”

Why had I picked up? “I’m so sorry,” I said, “I can’t go out right now.”

“Oh, well, in that case, maybe I could stop by,” he said. “I was just at a Columbia function, so I’m in your hood.”

Hood
? How did he know where I lived? “Maybe some other time,” I said.

Da Ge was listening attentively, even though he continued to stare at the TV.

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Ben said.

“I’m afraid I’m busy, Ben,” I said, wanting to soften the insult with his name but instantly regretting that I had used it, in case Da Ge made the connection. “I have company,” I added.

He wouldn’t let up. “I’m great in a group,” he said.

“Shoot!” I called into the phone, “I’m burning something on the stove. Let me call you some other time. Thanks for the thought, though!” I hung up.

“You and Ben date?” Da Ge asked.

“Are you joking? I don’t even know him, I—”

“Why does he call you the way he do?”

“What do you mean
the way he does
?” He caught this correction, even though I felt like it was a freebie since it wasn’t my point. His jaw tightened.

“That’s the first time he’s ever called me, and it’s not like I—” Why was I justifying myself?

“Ben has good English,” Da Ge said.

“Spare me, Da Ge,” I told him. “Xiao Wang has good Chinese.”

“What does that mean?” He was sitting up now, straight.

“Forget it,” I said.

“Let’s study.”

“No,” he said.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say the truth,” he said.

“Fuck you,” I told him. “I’m supposed to ‘say the truth’ when I know nothing about you? Some loser colleague of mine calls me on the phone and you demand an explanation? There is no truth. Ben wants to go out to dinner with me and I don’t want to go. Are you happy?”

“Tell him we get married,” Da Ge proposed. The chill reclimbed my spine.

“No.”

“Why not?” His voice was thin now.

Mine was pathetic, low, far away. “Because I don’t know whether it’s true.”

At this, he backed off a bit.

“Are we?” I pressed, hearing the speed gather underneath my voice. “Married? Do you want to be my boyfriend? My husband? Should I tell Ben you love me? Do you? Do you want to have a baby with me?”

“Why do you ask me this things?” he shouted.

Because I wanted to know the answers. But before I could say that, he was off the couch, down the hall, and out the door. It was the kind of fight kids have the night before summer camp ends. You have to cut off your friends in anger, or you’ll miss them too much to bear. It’s better to be enemies when you have to leave each other the next day. I just wasn’t in on the secret that Da Ge and I were parting ways.

At the end of my lesson with Teacher Hao today, he showed me his daughter’s college application and essay. “Embarrassed to ask,” he said. I waved my hand at him.

“No, no,” I said, “Ask anything.”

“Maybe you can look these over and also—” He paused.

“I’ll be happy to look. What else? Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“Maybe take Sha Mei to the embassy?”

“Of course.”

Sha Mei’s essay was so penetratingly sweet and confused that I almost regretted having to comment on it. She said that her life had been shaped by books and newspapers because it was difficult for her to travel. But she had been on trains to Kaifeng, where her parents were from, and many times to Tianjin, a port city full of boats and swimmers. She believed that she could widen her perspective in America, and bring back whatever knowledge she gained to China—to help bring glory to her country. I gently fixed the most egregious grammatical glitches and then went to find my mom.

She was in Julia Too’s room, decorating Julia Too, Phoebe, and Lili with makeup for a play they had written, a musical they apparently planned to perform after dinner. Phoebe is as in love with Naomi as Julia Too is, of course. Even Lili finds her irresistible.

When Xiao Wang and Yang Tao arrived, my mother was on her best behavior, delighted that I had agreed to introduce her and Yang Tao. She sized him up politely with questions about his pedigree and his parents. Xiao Wang watched their interaction as if it were a good sitcom, no doubt waiting to tell me later how blunt and nosy Americans are, forgetting that when I met her mother in Jinhong the first time I came to China, her mom asked me immediately why I had no husband, how much money I made in America, and whether she could please set me up with a “more suitable” man than the one I had mistakenly chosen myself.

Dinner took a long, luxurious time. My mom had prepared salmon and a mesclun salad with avocado and grapefruit and sesame seeds. She placed half a teaspoon of salmon on her fork, then set upon it several grains of rice. She was
so focused it was if she were building a bridge that might collapse and kill people. Then she picked up her fork-with-gingered-salmon installation and slipped it into her mouth like an actress.

Yang Tao, after watching my mother’s performance art, turned to Julia Too.

“How are rehearsals?” he asked.

Julia Too glanced at Phoebe, who was watching Lili. None of the girls answered.

“Are you still preparing to be professional actresses?” Xiao Wang asked. I was grateful to her for this question, which I took to be a kind of siding with Yang Tao.

“Maybe we’ll go on
American Idol
when we move back to America,” Phoebe said. They looked at each other, nodded.

“Why not stay here and do a CCTV show?” I asked, joking.

“What is CCTV?” my mother asked.

“CCTV sucks!” Phoebe said. “It’s like the cheesy Chinese version of real TV.” The thought crossed my mind that Yang Tao was the only Chinese guy I’d ever met who knew the word “cheesy.” I wondered if Xiao Wang knew what it meant.

“It’s China Central Television,” Yang Tao told my mother, “and Phoebe’s right. The programming is not so good.”

Julia Too wasn’t chiming in or ganging up, but didn’t rise to his defense, either.

“China’s been around a lot longer than the U.S., guys,” I said, sounding like a TV program myself. “Maybe American things are just cheesy versions of Chinese ones. Like noodles and pizza!” I meant to lighten the tone and spark a fun debate, but Phoebe felt outclassed and attacked, and Julia Too was angry.

“Whatever, Mom,” she said. “If China’s been around so long, how come they don’t even have their own coffee shops or
movies or music?” She glanced at Yang Tao. “Maybe ancient culture was so great that China wants to stay back in it.”

I was surprised. Phoebe laughed, but Lili’s eyes widened. She looked nervously over at Xiao Wang, who was carefully watching the interaction but not involving herself. Lili was both enamored of Julia Too—the way Julia Too was of Phoebe—and a bit afraid of the scandalous things Julia Too was willing to say. Lili was a patriot like Xiao Wang, felt loyal, could lip-sync the pop song “I Love Beijing Tiananmen.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Lili said to Julia Too, in Chinese.

Xiao Wang threw me a look of such pride that I had to smile and nod. Frankly I was relieved. Having Lili scold Julia Too was like being in a class in which one of the students gives another the comment you were hoping not to have to make. I guessed Julia Too hadn’t meant the content of her attack anyway—she loves Chinese movies and music. She just wanted to fight. Coffee shops? Since when does Julia Too drink coffee?

“Who wants more salmon or salad?” my mother asked. Xiao Wang said no, thank you, but Yang Tao, winning my mother’s love forever, took the platter and spooned another enormous portion onto his plate.

“Save room for dessert,” she flirted. “I made a molten chocolate cake.”

Maybe this was the straw that broke something, because Julia Too jumped up and left. Phoebe and Lili glanced around, awkward in their indecision about whether to follow her.

“Don’t worry,” I told them, “We’ll be right back.” I went after Julia Too.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, in her room.

“Nothing,” she said. “There’s just too many people around all the time.”

“I think Yang Tao would love to see your play,” I said. “In fact I know he would. He really likes you. And I like him. Can we work on making this okay?”

“He’s not my dad,” she said, surprising me not with the sentiment but with the presentation. As soon as she’d said it, she added, “That sounds pretty stupid, right?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know what you mean.”

I was interested that she could hear how much we sounded like a TV show or play. She was trying on roles, and even her attacks, although often articulate and well positioned to offend, had a childish affect. Julia Too had met other men, but she’d never protested so directly. I wondered if she perceived that there was something different about the way I liked Yang Tao. I wondered if there
was
something different about it.

“Anyway, of course he’s not your dad. He’s just a friend of mine. We can negotiate ways to make that friendship tolerable for you. This is your house. But just for tonight—can you please give him a chance?”

“I’m not sure I like him,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “If that stays true, we’ll revisit it. I won’t have people over who make you unhappy.”

She softened. “Can you go back to the table first, please?” she asked. I ruffled her hair and got up. She wanted to save face, to return to the table on her own time.

When she did, she was wearing red devil horns from some Halloween or another, and humming a Christina Aguilera song. Naomi immediately served her the piece of molten cake with the most insides, gazed at her lovingly. I thought of how Julia Too had reunited my mother and Benj, reignited Old Chen’s heart, and saved me from myself. My mom wrapped her arms around Julia Too and kept them there; maybe she was feeling grateful, too.

After dessert we all sat on the couch, and the girls disappeared and then skipped out of the bedroom, stood side by side and began a synchronized dance that looked half like fly girl moves and half like Muppet seizures. Then Lili and
Phoebe froze in poses, and Julia Too popped to the front and sang an original Chinglish song that went like this:

Yang Tao and my mother were stunned silent, and Xiao Wang occupied herself with creating an accurate translation for Naomi, showing off her fabulous English, although I had to supply the phrase “girl power.” As soon as she’d heard the translation, my mother leapt off the couch in a standing ovation.

“Who wrote that?” she asked.

Lili and Phoebe rolled their eyes.

“Do you really have to ask?” said Xiao Wang. I was delighted that she felt comfortable enough to tease my mother. “It was your granddaughter, of course!”

“She’s a real feminist,” Yang Tao said.

“I’m not sure,” I said, laughing, “I mean, she ‘loves him anyway.’”

“You guys are losers!” said Julia Too joyfully. “It’s a song, not an English paper!”

“Sing it one more time,” my mom said.

“Yes. Encore, encore!” said Yang Tao. He leaned forward with real anticipation.

Julia Too threw me a grin.

Late in the summer of 1990, after Da Ge’s and my fight, Xiao Wang finally called to invite me out with her and Jin. She was nervous and excited about introducing us. I asked if I could bring Da Ge, hoping we’d be made up by the time dinner took place. Xiao Wang did not like the idea, but agreed to it anyway. I called Da Ge and left messages about where we’d be and when. I didn’t hear from him.