Flying Lessons & Other Stories(6)

During your last week at the gym, Slim offered to buy you a hot dog and Coke for lunch. He claimed he was tired of watching you scoop handfuls of generic granola into your mouth every day. “You a growing boy, man. You need a balanced diet. Now let’s go get you a hot dog and a Coke.”

“No, thanks,” you told him.

He looked at you surprised. “You sure? My treat.”

“Nah, I’m good,” you said. “But thanks.”

“All right,” he said, shrugging. “I guess you must really like that granola.” And then he walked away.

Truth was, you turned him down that day because you knew he didn’t have any money. He’d lost his security guard job at the start of summer. His shoes were falling apart and you heard he’d been evicted from his apartment.

Saying no, you thought, was the right thing to do.

But on the car ride home that afternoon, your pop shook his head in disappointment. He turned down his news show for the first time all summer. “When a man with nothing offers to give you something,” he said, “you take it.”

“You do?”

“Always.”

“Why?”

He glanced at you as he merged onto the freeway. “You just do, all right?”

At the time it didn’t make much sense. You saved Slim money. But as you write, you’ll begin to see it differently. And you’ll end the assignment by saying, “What I learned is that when a man who stays mostly quiet offers advice, you take it.

“You just do, all right?

“Trust me.”





The Difficult Path


GRACE LIN





When I was sold to the Li family, my mother let Mrs. Li take me only after she’d promised that I would be taught to read. “Her mother had fourteen other children starving and clinging to her, yet she was still insisting that I promise.” Mrs. Li sniffed and began a high-pitched imitation. “?‘Promise me that when she’s six, you’ll have her taught to read! On your ancestors’ grave! Promise!’?”

“You didn’t have to agree,” Aunty Wang replied peevishly. This was a story she had already heard many times.

“A girl! Learn to read! What a waste!” Mrs. Li continued, her annoyance at the past greater than Aunty Wang’s with the present. “Just because the mother had been a scholar’s daughter!”

“Then you shouldn’t have lied,” Aunty Wang said, rolling her eyes. She helped herself to some honeyed lychees I held.

“I thought she would never know!” Mrs. Li said. “I just said yes so that I could take the baby and go.”

I made a soft coughing noise and placed the tray on the table.

“Mrs. Li,” I said as I bowed low, “Teacher is here.”

She snorted with irritation and waved her arm, her voluminous silk sleeve flapping like a flag of surrender. “Go,” she dismissed me.

I hid my smile and tried to walk humbly, as all the browbeaten servants were supposed to do. Unlike Aunty Wang, however, I was not tired of Mrs. Li’s complaining story. I had no memory of my mother, but hearing how she had dared to make demands of the formidable Mrs. Li on my behalf always made me feel a sense of pride. Despite my mother’s poor circumstances, she must have been spirited.

And perhaps it was my mother’s spirit that forced Mrs. Li to keep her promise. For on the day I turned six, a new tutor came to the House of Li. As I cringed during my daily duty of emptying the chamber pots, I saw the top of his black scholar’s hat glide slowly past the family shrine into the schoolroom. He had come for Mrs. Li’s repulsive only son, FuDing, of course. The learned scholar was yet another tutor hired in hopes that FuDing could be taught something. The last two teachers had departed in disgrace as well as anger. For, because FuDing remained unable to read a single poem, Mrs. Li had also refused the tutors’ pay.

My birthday and a new tutor’s entry should have been of small consequence to the House of Li, except it was also on that day that the incense of the ancestral shrine refused to light. Master Li tried again and again, but no matter how large a flame he held, the incense would not burn. In desperation, Master Li turned to the new tutor for answers.

“It is apparent,” the scholar said, “that you or someone in your household has shamed your ancestors. Perhaps someone has stolen something or has broken a promise.”

“Of course.” Master Li nodded with respect. Then he snapped at Mrs. Li. “Wife! We have angered our ancestors! What have you done?”

The House of Li roared into a typhoon as all, from the head cook to the lowliest servant (me), were questioned. When it was discovered that it was my sixth birthday, Mrs. Li remembered her promise to my mother, then paled and swayed like a blanched stalk of bamboo.

“It couldn’t be…,” she said in horror.

But it could be and probably was, the new tutor said, and immediately quoted his price for two students. Mrs. Li, still aghast at the revelation and fending off insults from her husband, did not even haggle over the price. (She did try later, claiming that as a girl I should be cheaper, but he responded that because I was a girl he should be paid more, as he was making an exception, so the matter was dropped.) And I began my education.

That was over six years ago. It was also over six years ago that I saw my Teacher walk in with a new pair of shoes. Those shoes glided on the smooth stone floor, only hesitating as he paused in front of the shrine. With a sharp glance around, he quickly changed the incense—insuring my lessons and his larger salary.