twelve #2
I woke up to my alarm only a few hours later and the cold gnawing sensation in my stomach at the conversation we had to have. My mind a whirl of steady apprehension, I forgot to lock the other door in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Alan opened it while I was inside brushing my teeth.
“Oh shit,” he said, freezing in spot. His hair was messy, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“Sorry! I forgot to lock it,” I said through a mouthful of toothpaste. I caught a glimpse of his tanned lean torso before
he backed out rapidly and clicked the door shut.
I sat down on the toilet seat and realized that we needed to get our story straight. “Come back,” I hissed through the door.
“What are we going to say?”
But he didn’t respond.
It was too late, I figured. We needed to face the music. Except once again, he was abandoning me. I wondered if he was trying
to concoct a story to get himself off scot-free.
I got dressed slowly and emerged for breakfast after I couldn’t reasonably delay any further. As I went down the hallway,
I heard Alan coming out of his bedroom as well, not far behind me.
Uncle Wang was sitting at the breakfast table, reading his phone. Auntie Chao was turned away from us, stirring something
on the stove. Bamboo steamers sat on the table, smelling of shrimp buns. The only sounds were the sizzling from the pan and
the coffeemaker on the counter churning out a pot of hot coffee.
My stomach rumbled.
“Good morning, Uncle, Auntie,” I ventured timidly.
“Good morning,” Auntie Chao said. “I hope you slept well.”
Uncle Wang glanced up from his phone and grunted. His face was stormy.
Alan and I grabbed plates like two inmates and returned to the table. I sank into my seat. Auntie Chao poured us cups of coffee,
and I whispered a thank-you. Alan was quiet and pale but looked resolute.
Normally, in this situation, he would’ve been able to generate a conversation to minimize the awkwardness, but he said nothing.
Try as I might, I, too, could not muster up a distraction to save us. We all ate in silence. The sounds of chewing felt deafening.
At a certain point, the tension was so unbearable, I was practically praying for someone to bring up last night so we could
all be put out of our misery.
Finally, Uncle Wang sat back in his chair and folded his hands together on the table.
“We should talk about yesterday,” Uncle Wang said formally.
Auntie Chao shot him a look that I couldn’t read.
“What exactly were the two of you doing with our house keys, out in the middle of the night?”
Alan and I exchanged a look. This was it, I thought. He was about to flip on me. His father’s rage would be incandescent if
he had anything to do with this.
I imagined my parents’ reactions if they found out I had snuck out in the middle of the night to go to a frat party and drank alcohol.
That was not the kind of girl they thought they had raised.
They’d lose it. Maybe they’d even hop on the next plane back to America. And then I’d really be in for it.
It was all a matter of who would go first.
I opened my mouth, not even sure what I was going to say, but Alan beat me to the punch. “It was my idea, sir,” he said without
a hint of hesitation.
I gaped at him.
“I wanted to see my friend, and I dragged her along with me. She didn’t want to go, but she didn’t want me to go out alone.”
Except, of course, that I had gone entirely of my own free will. He was taking the fall for both of us, or at least trying
to. It caught me so off guard that I couldn’t protest.
“Well, that is very disappointing,” Uncle Wang said. “You are supposed to be responsible for Stella’s well-being on this trip.
Asking her to sneak out with you in the middle of the night to get drunk is not protecting her well-being.”
Alan winced.
“But, Stella, you too should have known better. You could have told us.”
“Yes,” I said, knowing I never would have tattled even if this story we were going with were actually true.
Uncle Wang cleared his throat. “Since we’re your guardians and the police were called, I’m afraid we had to let your parents
know.”
“Do you?” I asked timidly. “Nothing happened. Nobody got hurt.”
His gaze pierced me. “Yes, we do. I have already called them. I had no choice.”
I swallowed. I hadn’t checked my cell phone but wondered if my WeChat app was getting blown up with messages. I was going
to be ill. Alan looked pale.
Uncle Wang’s mouth twitched. Then he slapped the table so hard, we all jumped. “Just kidding!” he shouted. He started howling
with laughter.
Alan and I exchanged looks, stunned.
“You should see your faces,” Uncle Wang hooted in glee. “I got you so good.”
Auntie Chao rolled her eyes while bringing over a pot of tea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried to talk him out of it.”
“So—worth—it,” he wheezed.
We sat there for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond to a grown man acting as though he had just pulled off the
greatest prank of all time, laughing hysterically by himself. “You’re... not going to call our parents?” I ventured.
“No, of course not. You’re almost eighteen. No harm done, right?”
“To be clear,” Auntie Chao said, ever the levelheaded one, “we would not have signed off on this had we known about it.”
“But that’s what you get for waking us up to talk to the police in the middle of the night,” Uncle Wang said, jabbing his index finger at us.
He took a sip of his coffee and let out a long, satisfied sigh.
“I do think you both are a little too serious about this. I’m sure your parents would’ve been mostly concerned with you being safe and happy that you had come back unharmed. ”
I knew he was wrong about that, but I didn’t need to correct him. The feeling was coming back into my limbs. I managed a weak
smile. While I was glad he could find the humor in the situation, I was sure Baba would not have, if he had really gotten
that phone call. And if Baba wouldn’t have been cool with it, Alan’s dad would have been on a different stratosphere.
As though Uncle Wang knew what I was thinking, he piped up. “Your ba doesn’t have any room to be judgmental. The things he
got up to when we were in school? We used to play mah-jongg every weekend. Loser had to crawl under the table and take a shot.
For the record, your ba was terrible. I think he must have permanent bruises on his knees and still owes me thousands of dollars.
You should tell him that. Plus he got arrested once for openly carrying alcohol. Bet he didn’t ever tell you that either.”
The shock must’ve been transparent on my face, because Uncle Wang guffawed slyly.
“Really appropriate story for the kids,” Auntie Chao said dryly. “That was when you all were in your twenties, not in high
school.”
“Sorry. Gambling is bad,” he added with a cheeky grin. “But when we weren’t playing mah-jongg, your ba was the best at karaoke.
He had an unbelievable voice. Could win that show—what is it called? American Idol ?”
I still couldn’t imagine the Baba in Uncle Wang’s story.
Sure, he had his goofier moments, but in general, he was a sober, deliberate man.
I’d never seen him play mah-jongg. And I’d never heard him sing.
But Uncle Wang was one of Baba’s best friends and knew him better than anyone.
He winked at me, and even with his penchant for exaggeration, I had to believe him.
I had never asked my parents about their years in America before Sam and I came to join. They didn’t like talking about it.
In fact, I knew very little about them in general, something that suddenly struck me as a startling hole in our relationship.
“But on a serious note,” Uncle Wang said, “please do not leave the house tonight.”