Chapter 9 Magnolia #3
“Auntie Chen. Got it.”
“This is a mistake,” I groaned. “It’s all Iris’s fault. She brought up James, so I had to deflect and bring you up—”
“James, the cradle robber.”
“He’s just a friend.”
Ellery glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Do you like him too?”
I bit my lip and looked down at my lap. I was glad Ellery was driving so she had to focus on the road. “Maybe. Yeah, I guess. He’s a nice guy.”
“He is.”
When did the atmosphere become so unbearably thick?
I changed the subject. “Hey, when do you want to work on our college apps?” Ellery and I had discussed college applications before and agreed to work on them together.
Part of me wanted to ask why she didn’t work on them with Trish, but I didn’t want Ellery to be like “You’re right, I should work on them with Trish instead. ”
“We could start this weekend. Hit the UCs.”
I nodded. My top choice was Berkeley because I liked the name “Berkeley”; it sounded so American.
Second choice UCLA, third would be San Diego.
Ellery’s top choice was Irvine, because Irvine had the best writing program.
I’d argued that it was probably not much better than Berkeley’s writing program, and she’d told me to stop being such a snob.
It would be okay, I consoled myself. Irvine wasn’t very far away from Berkeley, and anyway, I knew it was foolish to assume we’d even get into our top choices.
After getting out of the car, Ellery opened the trunk and took out a small bouquet of tulips.
“What are these for?” I said.
“Your mom.”
“Whaaat? Why?”
“It’s a thing called being polite, Tulip. She’s feeding me dinner—white people food—hence I am giving her flowers.”
“Wow. God, I never would have guessed you had it in you to be so thoughtful.”
“I am full of surprising depth.”
“Interesting choice with the tulips.”
Ellery winked at me. “I like tulips.”
Something in the way she said it made my breath catch, and I had to consciously shake it off as we walked to my apartment. I opened the front door cautiously, as though opening a cage that had a dangerous animal inside it.
“Mama? Ellery’s here.”
Mama came out of the kitchen. Her eyebrows rose as Ellery stepped inside, and I looked at my best friend and saw her the way Mama must be seeing her—disconcertingly tall, with broad shoulders, hair like spun gold, and eyes the color of the ocean.
And that disarming smile, sweet and sincere, with a hint of mischief.
“Hi, uh, Auntie Chen.” Ellery presented the tulips to Mama.
“For me?” Mama said with obvious surprise. Her face glowed with pleasure as she smelled the flowers. “Thank you.” She gestured for us to come inside before going into the kitchen, still smelling the flowers.
“Wow, you did well,” I whispered to Ellery. I never would’ve thought of giving my mom flowers. Chinese-Indonesian culture wasn’t big into giving flowers, except to mark the bookends of life—birth and death.
Inside the living room, Ellery and I sat on the sofa in awkward silence for a moment.
The apartment was small, sound traveling to every corner easily, and I was painfully aware that Mama was probably listening to every word we said.
Not that Ellery and I ever said anything off to each other, but I was feeling so guilty for some inexplicable reason.
Ellery looked around. “This is cool, a lot bigger than mine.”
“Yeah.” I could think of nothing else to say.
“Never thought I’d see the day when my Tulip is tongue-tied.”
My Tulip. I wished my heart hadn’t jumped at that.
Ellery got up and picked up a framed photo next to the TV.
“Aww, you were so cute.” It was a photo of Papa, Mama, Iris, and me, taken about thirteen years ago.
Mama, Iris, and I were in Dutch outfits, down to the wooden clogs.
Iris was about seven, I was four, and I was smiling into the camera in that scared way that kids did.
Iris, of course, was standing there looking cross.
“Why were you guys dressed in Dutch clothes though?”
“Indonesia used to be colonized by the Dutch. And for whatever reason, we like to commemorate it? It’s weird.
” I plucked the photograph from her hand, feeling self-conscious, and placed it back down on the TV cabinet.
To this day, I still can’t explain why we like to take portraits wearing Dutch outfits.
“Oh yeah, I read about Indonesia being colonized by the Dutch.”
“You did? When?”
Ellery shrugged, turning away to look around the living room. “I dunno, I looked it up at some point.”
“You looked up Indonesia?” I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of it.
“Yeah.”
I would’ve pressed her on that, but Mama came out of the kitchen then, carrying a platter of snacks. “I brought all sorts of kerupuk from Indonesia,” she said. “Freshly fried.”
There were prawn crackers, fried rice cakes, and my favorite, kerupuk putih—a circular cracker made of noodle-shaped tapioca dough.
“Ooh, awesome! Thanks, Auntie Chen.”
Mama smiled and went back into the kitchen. Ellery and I dived in. She’d take a bite, go, “Mmm!” and ask me what it was made of. “This is some good shit, Tulip.” She said it with so much enthusiasm that I wanted to hug her and tell her what a giant dork she was.
“Ask Iris if she wants any,” Mama called out.
My mouth soured. Taking a deep breath, I went to Iris’s room and knocked on her door.
“What?” she snapped.
“Do you want some kerupuk?”
Silence. Then, “No.”
Phew. But also, god, that was so awkward and Ellery must’ve heard and, god, what must she think of me and Iris? She’d know how dysfunctional we were. She’d know how—
But when I got back to the living room, Ellery was standing there with a huge grin on her face and a pair of Sock’em Boppers on her hands.
They were these huge air-filled boxing gloves.
Iris’s friends had brought them over one day and left them there.
“Look what I found!” Ellery tossed a pair over at me.
“Really?” It was such a dumb toy. But I put them on anyway, then stood there feeling ridiculous.
“Arms up!” Ellery made a ding noise and came at me. She punched me in the chest. Or she tried to. I blocked her without realizing it.
Something unlocked in me then, and I whaled on her, swinging my fists and bopping her everywhere, laughing when the gloves made my hands bounce back harmlessly.
“Wow, Tulip, look at you go.” Ellery swung at me and bopped me in the shoulder. She was so much bigger than me that although the punch hadn’t hurt, it almost knocked me off my feet. “Oops, sorry.”
I pounced on her and she caught me, staggering back a little.
We were laughing so hard that we lost our breath, and within minutes, we were flopping at each other, panting and giggling.
A sound caught my attention and my head snapped up.
Mama was placing the pot of spaghetti on the table and studying us.
The way she looked at us made my insides clench, and I straightened up, feeling like a kid who’d just got caught stealing.
But we haven’t done anything wrong! my mind screamed.
“Come help me set the table, Magnolia,” Mama said.
I pulled off the gloves, avoiding Ellery’s gaze, and scurried into the kitchen. Mama handed me a pile of plates. “You two seem very close,” she said in Indonesian.
I shrugged, willing my heartbeat to slow down. “Yeah, we’re buddies.”
“And she often drives you to and from school?”
“Sometimes.”
Mama took out a bowl of grated Parmesan cheese from the fridge. “Doesn’t she have friends her own age?”
“Of course she does, Mama.” I escaped from the kitchen.
Ellery gave me a look that said: Is everything okay? And I returned it with a smile. She took the pile of plates from me. I tried not to notice the way that our fingers brushed for a sliver of a second. As she helped set the table, she inhaled deeply. “This smells awesome.”
“Thank you,” Mama said, placing the bowl of cheese on the table. “Sit down, I’ll serve you.” She began ladling a heaping serving of spaghetti Bolognese onto Ellery’s plate, way more than she ever served me or Iris.
“That’s way too much,” I said to her in Indonesian.
“White people eat a lot.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“What did you guys just say?” Ellery said.
I could never lie to Ellery. “I told her it was too much food for you, and she said you’re white, so you probably eat a lot.”
“Magnolia!” Mama hissed.
Ellery guffawed. “I mean, you’re not wrong, Auntie.” She accepted her plate with a huge smile and dug in. “This is so good. It’s been a while since I had anything this good.”
I watched as Mama’s perpetual disapproving expression morphed into one of unabashed pleasure. Wow, somehow, Ellery was winning her over.
Mama placed my plate in front of me. It had less than half the amount of food she’d given Ellery. She turned to face the bedrooms and called out, “Iris, dinner!” Then she sat down and said, “Tell me about yourself, Ellery. What are you studying?”
Ellery gulped down her mouthful of spaghetti. “English lit, journalism, all sorts of writing, really. I’m not sure what I want to do yet, but I know I want it to be some kind of writing.”
I could practically see the thoughts swooping through Mama’s head.
Writing wasn’t a very lucrative career, so obviously she wasn’t going to approve of that.
Iris came out of her room then. Ellery said hi, and Iris replied with a grunt.
She sat down next to Mama and stabbed at her spaghetti with her fork.
Mama smiled at Ellery. “Where are your parents? Magnolia said you live alone?”
“They’re in Ohio. I moved out here on my own.”
“How come you’re twenty and still a first-year student at PCC?”
“Ma!” I hissed.
“It’s a fair question,” Ellery said amicably. “I went through some stuff and missed a lot in high school, so I had to make up for it.”
I grimaced inwardly. Interrupted education was every Asian parent’s worst nightmare.
“What kind of stuff?” Iris said. Great, now she was choosing to partake in the conversation?
“Mostly about me liking g—”
“Oh my god!” I screamed, standing up so abruptly that my chair teetered and almost toppled over.
Everyone jumped.
“What?” Mama said.
“I—ow, I just bit my tongue really hard. Ow.” That sounded so fake, even to my own ears.
“Are you okay?” Ellery said, confusion and concern written all over her face.
“I—yeah. Oof. Sorry, everyone.”
Iris rolled her eyes. Mama sighed and shook her head. Before anyone could return to the awful conversation, I quickly said, “So, anyway, Ellery and I are going to start college apps soon.”
“Good,” Mama said. She loved talking about college. “What are your top choices?”
“Irvine,” Ellery said. “Berkeley. But I don’t know if I’ll get in to any of those. They’re pretty competitive.”
“You’ll get in,” I said loyally. She looked at me, and I bit my lip at how tender her expression was.
“Do you have a boyfriend, Ellery?” Mama said. “Where is he applying to?”
The food in my mouth turned to cement.
Ellery shook her head slowly, her gaze ping-ponging back and forth from Mama to me.
Everything inside me was cringing. I stared at her desperately, willing her to read my mind, to know how sorry I was, but to please, please, please not tell Mama about Trish.
After an eternity, she finally said, “No. I don’t have a boyfriend. ”
“Really? You are so beautiful, I am very surprised to hear that. I bet you have many boys going after you.”
Just as I was about to lose my shit, help came from the most unexpected person in the room—Iris, who groaned loudly.
“Oh my god, who cares? I’m so sick and tired of everything having to do with boys.
Look at us, a roomful of women—well, three women and one child,” she said, nodding at me pointedly, “and we can’t find anything to talk about other than boys? ”
Mama glowered at her. Talking back to your elders was a huge no-no.
Talking back to your elders in front of others was practically as bad as murder.
In fact, maybe it’s considered worse than murder, as long as the murder victim isn’t an elder.
But Mama didn’t want to lose her temper in front of Ellery.
I could see her jaw clench for two seconds before releasing.
Then she forced a smile. “Okay, why don’t you tell me about Ohio? What is it like?”
I released my breath and reminded my neck muscles to loosen.
As Ellery regaled Mama with stories about Ohio, I glanced at Iris.
Our eyes met, and I tried to convey in silence just how grateful I was to her for changing the subject.
But Iris being Iris, all she did was snort and roll her eyes, leaving me to wonder if she knew how timely her interruption had been.
That was Iris through and through: you never knew exactly whose side she was on, whose purpose she was serving.
At the time, I thought it was part of her whole image about being an enigma.
Now, I think she was just as confused as the rest of us were.
She was just a lot better at hiding how lost she was.