American Panda(10)

“Okay, you’re right. Study group is important. I’ll be better. Well . . . I’ll try.” She squeezed her tiny pìgu onto the ledge by the entrance and clutched her giant purse in front of her. “You go study now. I’ll wait for Bǎbá to pick me up. Save money.”

I glanced at my watch. He wouldn’t be done with work for hours. “Why don’t we go do something? I don’t have any more lectures today. And I’m all caught up with assignments and readings,” I added quickly.

My mother glanced back at my paper schedule and nodded as if confirming she had indeed memorized it correctly. “Okay. What do you have in mind?”

I racked my brain. We couldn’t spend any money. Couldn’t do anything adventurous or dangerous or weird. “Can I show you around MIT?”

Her face lit up. She had wanted to attend some of the parents’ events during orientation week, but my father couldn’t get off work and I knew she had held back because she was insecure about her English and rarely talked to strangers in the foreign tongue (the exception being when she thought I was kidnapped, apparently).

With the rare flicker of excitement in my mother’s eyes, my grin grew so wide my lips felt strained against my gums, and they remained this way as we walked past the dome-shaped Kresge Auditorium and into the Student Center.

“This is—” I started, but my mother left my side to inspect the students making ice cream at a table in the lobby. She clutched her purse in front of her as she leaned toward them, peering curiously at the thick gloves on the boy’s hands. Her eyes ping-ponged between the gloves and me as she silently asked me what was going on.

“They’re making ice cream with liquid nitrogen,” I said.

The boy grabbed the liquid nitrogen canister and poured carefully into the metal bowl. Fog bubbled up and flowed out like dry ice contacting water. Double, double toil and trouble. Was there anything cooler than seeing molecules shift before your eyes?

My mother took a step closer, but I reached out and gently pulled her back by the elbow. “Be careful,” I whispered. “The vapor coming off is so cold it could burn you. Don’t touch the table either.”

Her eyes crinkled, pride dancing with curiosity in the folds of her crow’s feet. My heart soared into my throat, making my breath hitch.

“Did you learn that in your classes?” she whispered to me.

I managed a nod even though I wasn’t sure where I’d learned it. High school? 5.111? Deductive reasoning? I didn’t care. I just stared at my mom’s face.

The boy dished some creamy goodness out and pushed the paper bowls across the table to us. “It’s strawberry.” He turned to my mother. “It should be creamier than normal ice cream because the liquid nitrogen freezes it so much faster than conventional methods. Fewer ice crystals this way.”

I hesitated before grabbing mine, but my mother’s tongue didn’t cluck before she coated it in ice cream. In fact, she wasn’t even looking at me. Her mouth still full, she nodded at the boy to signal her appreciation. “Mmm.” She retrieved a tissue from the giant stack in her purse and dabbed, then flashed him a thumbs-up. Was I hallucinating?

Ice cream in hand, we resumed touring the campus. We walked through MIT’s iconic Killian Court and, as usual, a horde of East Asian tourists milled about, squatting into kung-fu horse stances here and there to capture the perfect photo. I had learned within my first week that they were as much a fixture on campus as the courtyard itself.

My mother chuckled. “Look at their mabù—pretty good, right? And all for a photo.” She thought for a second. “Well, I guess if it makes you look better it’s worth it.”

I wanted a photo of this moment. So badly I would mabù to get it, just to have proof of my mother giggling with me over dessert, no criticisms spilling out between sentences—only strawberry liquid nitrogen ice cream.

I wanted to come up with something witty to knock her socks off, make her laugh in that genuine, high-pitched way that was as rare as imperial green jade. But . . . there was nothing. Nothing she would understand anyway. I poked around my brain for some Chinese chéngyu, an idiom or cautionary tale that somehow related, but . . . nothing.

“Do you like the ice cream?” I asked instead.

“It’s like bàobīng but softer. And sweeter.”

I had no idea if that was a good thing or not. Chinese desserts were typically not very sweet—all red beans, mung beans, or the rare fruit. “So you like it?”

“It’s like cake, but liquid.” I wondered if my mom didn’t want to admit it was delicious because she was scared I’d eat it all the time, or if this was yet another instance of us being on different wavelengths. We were usually on opposite ends—radio waves and gamma rays.

She barely paused before diving into her next thought, which was related only to her. “You know, Mrs. Ahn is the worst chef. She tried to make bàobīng at home once. It was all ice pebbles drowning in milk soup. Disgusting.”

I chuckled, picturing the gross red bean Popsicles Mrs. Ahn used to force on me. I always had to thank her profusely, then find a way to flush them down the toilet. She probably thought I had irritable bowel syndrome. And that I loved her Popsicles so much I couldn’t stop eating them even while doing my business.

“I tell her, stop trying to make such hard things. Even her dànchaofàn is bad. Who can’t make egg fried rice?”