Chapter 3 Magnolia #2
So when I graduated high school and was bundled onto a plane for LA, my insides were twisted into tight knots.
Even though I’d known for years that this was always the plan, that Chinese-Indonesian kids, upon graduating high school—usually at the age of sixteen if they attended a Singaporean high school like I did—were usually sent to American colleges (mostly on the West Coast due to the large Asian population, though for some random reason, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor also had a huge number of Chinese-Indonesian students), I was still terrified.
Still filled with a sense of: Holy shit, is this really happening?
Iris had moved out of the group home a month earlier in preparation for my arrival, and we would be living in a two-bedroom apartment with each other.
The idea of sharing an apartment with my sister was terrifying.
But I could never fully explain why to Mama and Papa.
And I doubt they’d be interested to know, anyway.
It wouldn’t change a thing. It wasn’t like I could live on my own at sixteen, and I didn’t want to live in a group home.
They’d eat me alive. I spent the entire flight to LA watching movies, trying not to think about the fact that I was on my way to a whole new life in a whole new country where everyone spoke an entirely different language.
Iris picked me up at LAX. It was the first time I’d seen her driving, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything cooler or more grown-up.
She drove with one hand on the wheel and her other arm resting on the door.
Her eyes were hidden behind huge sunglasses, and I was sort of glad I couldn’t see them because I had no doubt she was looking at me with disdain.
To be fair, I would look at myself with disdain too.
Next to Iris, it was glaringly obvious how un-American I was, in my unfashionably colorful clothes that Mama bought me and my unflattering chin-length hair.
It was January, and even the air here was so different from the air in Indonesia.
Lighter, with a slight bite that I found magical.
“You’re here,” she said with, to be honest, way too much resignation.
“Yeah.”
She sighed, then was distracted for a while as she merged onto the freeway. When she turned her attention back to me, I stiffened, bracing myself. “God,” she muttered.
I don’t know why—maybe it was the disgust in her voice, or maybe it was the fact that I was sixteen, and I finally had my very own boobs (not as big as Iris’s, but they were very definitely there), or maybe it was the LA magic working its way through my veins.
Whatever it was, for once, I didn’t cower.
Instead, I fired back, “Why do you hate me so much?”
There was a pause. I could tell Iris was shocked by that. Maybe talking back was a mistake. I wished I could pluck the words out of the air and swallow them.
“I don’t hate you.”
“Really?”
“Really?” she mimicked in a squeaky voice. “Dude, seriously. Stop being so needy, oh man.”
“I wasn’t being needy. I just—I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“Surprised that I don’t hate you?”
“Yeah.” I hesitated, going over my next words to make sure they wouldn’t come out needy or pathetic or whatever else would give Iris fodder. “You always seem so angry when you talk to me.”
She made a noise that sounded like “Huh.” Then she said, “Well, I don’t hate you. You piss me off all the time though.”
“Why?”
“You just do. Anyway, stay out of my way and we’ll be fine.”
“Fine.”
We spent the rest of the drive in silence. I didn’t care what Iris said, I knew she hated me. I didn’t know why though. And maybe I hated her too, just a little. And I didn’t really know why either.
Mama and Papa had rented a two-bedroom apartment in a large apartment complex in San Gabriel.
They said it was a good area to live in because it was close to a whole bunch of Asian supermarkets.
Up until then, the only things I’d seen about America were beautiful suburbs or cities like New York or Hollywood, all of them filled with nothing but white people.
But when we exited the freeway for San Gabriel, all I saw were store signs in Chinese.
Back in Indonesia, I’d attended a Singaporean school, so I spoke pretty good Mandarin, and I read the signs as we passed them: Dim sum. Taiwanese beef noodles. Hair salon.
“Yeah, Mom and Dad put us in the most Asian place ever,” Iris said.
“Mom and Dad?”
“Okay.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “Some advice: Don’t let anyone hear you calling them Mama and Papa. They’re Mom and Dad from now on, okay?”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. And while we’re on the subject, don’t call me Cici.”
“What?” I’d only ever called Iris Cici, which was Indonesian for “big sister.” “What should I call you?”
“My name,” Iris said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like it wasn’t a hugely disrespectful thing for me to be calling my big sister by her name, without the honorific title.
I gaped at her.
“Try it.”
Her name lodged in my throat like a fish bone. I swear it literally hurt coming out. It took a couple of tries before I managed to choke out, “I-Iris.” It felt so wrong that I immediately added, “Cici.”
Iris snorted. “You’ll get used to it, Mei—Magnolia.”
My skin prickled unpleasantly at the sound of her calling me by my name instead of Meimei—“little sister.” Even my parents called me Meimei, unless they were angry.
In Indonesia, it was a form of both respect and affection to call family members by their honorific titles.
Having Iris call me Magnolia felt like she’d stripped me of my place in the family.
“Trust me on this,” she said.
I didn’t know why I would trust Iris on anything, and even less on matters like these, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.
“And another piece of advice: If you want to fit in, start slanging.”
“Slanging” meant to speak with a fake American accent, to pretend to be American even though you’re not. Back at my high school, we made fun of kids who slanged, calling them try-hards, fakes, wannabes. And now I was supposed to join their ranks.
“There’s no other way to learn the American accent,” Iris said in her rich, lush American voice. “You just gotta go for it. It’s going to be cringey at first, and you’ll make a ton of mistakes and sound fake as shit, but over time, it’ll come naturally.”
I nodded. As much as I hated to admit it, this sounded like actual good advice.
“Last thing: Don’t tell people you’re sixteen.”
“Why?”
“Again with the stupid questions,” she groaned. “You’re going to be at a community college. Everyone there is at least eighteen years old. They’re gonna think you’re a fucking kid.”
I was quiet.
“Worse, they’ll think you’re some nerd who graduated high school early. An Asian nerd from Asia. Great look.”
“But I didn’t graduate high school early.
” My school back in Indonesia followed the Singaporean system, which meant we graduated high school at sixteen and then went on to junior college for two years before going to a normal college.
Since Iris had finished high school in America, she’d graduated at eighteen.
It always struck me as intensely weird that my older sister and I would both be freshmen at community college.
“I know that. But you try explaining that to a bunch of American kids. They’re not going to understand jack shit about the education system back home. All they’ll remember is you’re a nerd.”
“What do I do when people ask how old I am?”
“They’re not going to ask because we’re not five-year-old kids who go around asking people how old they are.” She turned down a corner of the street. “Here we are. This is home for the next however many years.”
I looked out the windshield and took in the blocks of identical beige buildings.
The front gates opened slowly, and I scanned my surroundings as Iris drove in and swung into a parking space.
She didn’t bother helping me with my huge suitcase, strolling ahead while I struggled to lug it out of the trunk.
Then I rushed after her, already out of breath.
It was a familiar feeling, rushing to catch up to Iris.
As far back as I can remember, I was always doing that, running up to her, trying to catch up and never being able to, not even when she slowed down.
Even now, I still have dreams where I’m sprinting as fast as I can, calling out her name.
They always end right before I catch up to her.