seven
We arrived at our destination in the midafternoon, after another stop for coffee when Alan needed a pick-me-up. I was happy
no for me.
Our first hosts were Uncle Wang and Auntie Chao. My parents had known them from when they first came to America, and I had
seen them only intermittently throughout the years, since we lived so far away.
They lived in Alhambra, a suburb of Los Angeles that was primarily Chinese. The street signs we passed were all in two languages.
We drove down a winding street uphill into the neighborhood.
The house the GPS took us to was at the top.
And it was big. It had two floors but sprawled wide lengthwise.
It was clad in white stucco with a red door.
The entrance was on the second floor, with a staircase up from the driveway in front of the garage.
There was a broad, floor-to-ceiling window that surveyed the front of the property from the main level.
The front yard was perfectly manicured with a tasteful assortment of in-season flowers.
It was the kind of front yard that could have been done only with either somebody who was a full-time gardening enthusiast or professional hired help.
It made sense. Uncle Wang was a neurosurgeon.
We disembarked from the car. I pulled my giant suitcase out of the car and looked up at the concrete stairs to the front door.
“I got it,” Alan said. He took his suitcase in one hand and mine in his other, and I followed him up the stairs. We rang the
doorbell.
“Lai le, lai le,” we heard from behind the door.
The squeals of children filtered out.
A minute later, it swung open.
“Ah, you’re here! You hungry? I have snacks,” Auntie Chao said by way of greeting.
We went inside into an open-concept living area with high-shine wood floors, an expensive-looking beige sectional, and a beautiful
white kitchen with marble countertops. The light scattered into the room through a soft white curtain. There was a basket
of lemons on the counter and an orchid as the centerpiece of the dining table. It was all so beautiful; I felt as though we
had stepped into an HGTV staged house for sale.
“Jia Jia, Fei Fei, come here,” Auntie Chao said.
Two nine-year-old girls came bounding into the room with matching braids and Camp Firefly T-shirts. They looked similar enough
to be mistaken as identical twins, although I knew they were fraternal.
“Say hello.”
They waved. “Hi, Alan,” they sang out in unison.
He waved back at them. Of course he must have met them before. San Diego and LA weren’t so far apart, after all. Our fathers
had all been friends in the past.
“And this is Stella,” Auntie Chao said. “You haven’t met her before.” She turned to us. “You’re going to stay in their rooms.
I’m driving them off to summer camp later.”
Uncle Wang popped in from the sliding door to the back deck. “Hello,” he said cheerily. Of Baba’s old friends, I knew him
as the life of the party. I had heard the story of how he and Baba became friends. Baba and Uncle Zhao met Uncle Wang at a
bar with a different group of students, rather than from class. Somehow, Uncle Wang joined up with Baba and Uncle Zhao, and
by the end of the night, Uncle Wang had fallen asleep in Baba’s bathtub. He was a red-cheeked, jovial prankster. His wife
balanced him out as the sensible one, keeping his antics in check.
I gave them a gift from my parents for hosting us: an expensive pack of tea leaves from China wrapped in heavy foil, and they
exclaimed gratefully.
Our hosts had put out a whole spread of nuts, sweets, and various other goodies. It would’ve been rude not to sample at least one of everything, even though I hadn’t begun to feel hungry. We sat around the table as Auntie Chao poured us each a cup of tea.
Jia Jia and Fei Fei jostled next to us, poking each other endlessly until Auntie Chao gave them a death glare.
The girls stared at us the way only young children could—with naked curiosity and a lack of awareness about when it was too
long to be considered rude. Having not spent that much time with the family, I couldn’t really tell them apart.
“What happened to Victoria?” one of them asked Alan.
“Nothing happened to her,” he said. “She’s in San Diego.”
The other one pointed at me. “Is Stella your new girlfriend?”
Alan laughed, catching me out of the corner of my eye. “No, we’re old friends. I’ve known her since I was your age.”
I looked away, deeply embarrassed for some reason. I wasn’t sure if it was the realization that Alan possibly had a girlfriend
who these children had met before but I knew nothing about or the designation of being old friends . I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be generous with his description. It was both more and less accurate than the truth.
“Girls,” Auntie Chao said sharply. “Knock it off.”
“Heaven help us when these kids become teenagers,” Uncle Wang whispered conspiratorially to us. “That’s why we stopped after
the twins. I can’t handle any more of these little monsters.”
“ You let them stay up to watch K-dramas with us instead of enforcing bedtime,” Auntie Chao pointed out. “Now this is all they
talk about. Whose fault is that?”
Uncle Wang shook his head sheepishly. “Look at you girls, getting me in trouble, always,” he said to them as they giggled.
I wanted to find out more about this Victoria person but couldn’t find a way to steer the conversation back without seeming
nosy. I didn’t want to make it seem like I was interested. I was mostly curious about the kind of girl Alan had ended up with
after all this time. I couldn’t imagine her, what she might be like.
“Let’s change the subject,” Uncle Wang said hastily, eyeing his wife nervously. “What colleges are you all visiting while
here?
“Caltech, UCLA, and USC,” said Alan.
“You must have applied to all those places,” said Uncle Wang. “And you, Stella?”
“I’m still deciding.”
“Very good. Very good. I know Alan is interested in majoring in economics and going to law school. What about you? We know
so little about you since you’ve been so far away.”
My parents and I had never discussed it. There were many things we hadn’t discussed. Since Sam passed away, it seemed they
weren’t much interested in talking to me at all, except when they had to. I was their only remaining life preserver in a vast
dark sea, and they didn’t want to know that I was full of holes.
Suddenly put on the spot without a rehearsed answer, I found myself blurting out the first random subject that came to mind.
“Astronomy.”
Perhaps I was mentally listing out options alphabetically and unfortunately only got as far as A . I regretted it immediately. I knew nothing about astronomy. Science in general had never been my domain.
Alan swiveled like an owl to stare. I willed myself not to look at him.
“How interesting,” Auntie Chao said after a pause. “You mean like studying the stars?”
“Um, yes.” I knew I couldn’t take it back now. It was too bizarre a lie. The explanation would be too humiliating.
“I had no idea,” Uncle Wang said, genuinely impressed. “Your parents never mentioned it.”
“Well, it’s just something, I’m, you know, exploring.” I wondered how my parents were going to receive this information, as
it seemed inevitable Uncle Wang or Auntie Chao would mention it to them.
“Astronomy involves a lot of math and physics. Not a major for the fainthearted. I think that’s great.” His enthusiastic support
was painful.
“Yeah, great,” Alan said, his eyebrow raised.
“I know it must be difficult for you with Sam gone. But you’re still working hard. He would be proud,” Uncle Wang said.
There it was again. Those unexpected emotions. I thought by now I would be able to control them, but I was still struggling.
I wouldn’t cry in front of these people, though. Least of all Alan. I refused to ever let him feel as though he knew anything
real about me.
I blinked and blinked until any extra moisture was gone. “Thank you,” I told Uncle Wang. I was grateful for my composure. Gracious and crisp. No sign of weakness at all.
He nodded, accepting it at face value and moving on.
Of course it was empty. I didn’t know what I was thanking him for. Sam wouldn’t be proud of me. How could he, after everything
that happened? And anyway, it wasn’t true. My grades had plummeted. My college applications sat unfinished in my hard drive,
a mere week before deadline. The last thing anyone could say about me was that I was working hard.
But that didn’t matter to anyone on the outside. Sam was only an idea to them. His loss, a promise unmet. And me, I was just
collateral damage left in the wake of his destruction. I couldn’t feel resentful that others would say hollow things like
this. It was the best they could do. I reminded myself of that all the time.
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep, per usual. I had Fei Fei’s room, and Alan was on the other side of the adjoined bathroom,
in Jia Jia’s room. The twin-size bed with floral sheets was itchy and felt too small for me to do my customary tossing and
turning in.
I had long since given up on trying to fall asleep when I knew it wasn’t happening. It was late enough that I figured I might
sneak into the basement den and watch some brainless TV without disturbing anyone.
I crept out of my room, down the hallway, opened the door to the stairs, and followed them all the way down. I had been flipping
through Netflix for five minutes when I heard footsteps behind me.
“Mind if I join you?”
Alan lingered at the foot of the stairs in a T-shirt and gym shorts. Sleeping attire, for someone who should have been asleep.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised and also annoyed.
This boy couldn’t be shaken off the trail, not even in the middle of the night. He was like stink on a warthog.
He pointed his thumb upstairs. “Jack-and-Jill bathroom. I can hear everything in your room.”
I was abashed, even though it wasn’t like I had been doing anything particularly scandalous or noisy in my room. “I feel like
that’s something you maybe should have disclosed earlier.”
“Well, I assumed it wouldn’t be a very eventful night. I thought you would be sleeping. You woke me up when you opened the
door to your room.”
“Sorry,” I said not very sorrily.
“It’s okay. I’m a light sleeper. Not your fault.” He came off the stairs and plopped down next to me on the couch, despite
me not having actually extended an invite. “What’s wrong, can’t sleep?”
“Something like that.”
“I have trouble sleeping in new places, too,” he said.
I grunted in reply.
He sat beside me quietly for a moment, and I thought he might just fade into the background if I ignored him hard enough.
“So, astronomy, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, my eyes fixed on the screen with determination. I was committed to this lie now. I wasn’t about to backtrack for him.
“Really? That’s not what I thought you were into.”
“A lot can happen in a few years.” I glanced over at him at last. “You seem pretty different too.”
He smiled then. It was the private smile that I remembered, the one he reserved only for when he was truly sincere. I felt
some kind of lurch inside. It still meant something to me.
“That’s true.” He closed his eyes briefly. A sly look slid across his features. “Still, it’s quite a big swerve. You know,
I took an astronomy elective last year.”
“Fun.”
“It was. We got to go out into the field at night a couple of times and use the San Diego observatory telescope. We had this
project to find all the different moons in the solar system.” He snapped his fingers. “What’s the biggest one? I can’t remember.”
Obviously, I hadn’t the faintest clue what the answer was. He was testing me, trying to get me to admit I was lying. I wouldn’t
cave.
“Galaxia,” I said firmly, naming a Sailor Moon villain.
“Close!” He leaned back in satisfaction. “It’s actually Ganymede.”
I scowled at him. “You made your point.”
“Did I? Why did you lie, then? You hate science.”
“Why is it any of your business? We don’t know each other anymore.
You’re doing my family a favor. Can’t we just go through with this trip in a civil manner and move on at the end?
You can continue ignoring me at school and pretending I don’t exist. I won’t bother you or drag down your reputation as untouchable cool guy. ”
He winced. “Is that really what you think?”
“Is there any reason I’m supposed to think differently?” I said, my words crowding together in anger. I pinched my nose out
of frustration. I was annoyed he had elicited this outburst from me. I hadn’t intended on getting into it with him tonight,
but he knew how to push all my buttons.
“You’re still mad about what happened in Mount Pierce.”
I gave him nothing but stony silence.
“Okay, that’s fair. I’m sorry. I should’ve apologized when I first saw you, but I didn’t know whether you’d want to hear it.
I really am sorry about it.”
He sounded so genuine, so earnest. If someone else were listening, it would’ve broken their heart. But I couldn’t shake that
seed he’d planted from way back when: I was still a nothing to him, a nobody he could buddy up with when he needed it and
drop when he didn’t.
I wasn’t going to fall for that act again.
“Great, thanks,” I said. “Couple years too late, but I appreciate the effort. If you’re not going to let me watch TV in peace,
then I’m going to go to bed.”
I stalked out of the den so he couldn’t have the last word and left him behind.