American Panda(4)

He shrugged. “Honesty is sometimes misconstrued as rudeness, which is probably why it’s so rare.” Suddenly he snapped, then pointed a finger at me. “That’s where I know you from! You were the one who came to that girl’s defense at orientation.”

Aiyah. How much had he heard? Even though I knew exactly which girl he was talking about, I furrowed my eyebrows at him as if I didn’t. Like I saved people daily.

“When the international student didn’t get that joke,” he clarified. “How MIT is like sex without a condom; you’re glad you got in but—”

“—sorry you came,” we said in unison.

Darren finished recounting, and I breathed a sigh of relief. After I had chastised everyone for laughing at her—which had been a spur-of-the-moment decision fueled by my own experiences as the pìgu of the joke—I had told the girl, in an attempt to make her feel less alone, about that time in elementary school when I had brought my stuffed goat, Horny, to show-and-tell.

Darren leaned closer as he said, “I thought it was really nice of you to stand up for her.”

“Thanks.” I brought my eyes up to meet his and tried not to be too obvious about sneaking a deeper whiff of his scent. It was fresh, like spring, with a sprinkling of that distinct guy smell (the good kind).

He ticked his chin up at the plum smoothie and soy milk beside me. “Meeting some friends?”

“Sort of.” ?I coughed into my fist. I couldn’t lie now after his comment about honesty. I coughed again. “My parents.” I shrugged, like I was so cool I was totally down hanging with them.

“Are they still in town from moving you in?”

I shook my head. “They live close by, in the suburbs.”

“I wish my parents were closer. They’re in Southern California. Orange County.”

Instead of trying to make sense of the confusing mix of envy and sympathy fomented by his words, I simply nodded.

My mother exited the bathroom, her makeup the same as before, as far as I could tell. Ten rapid steps brought her to the table, and she stuck a hand out with a polite, “Hello, I’m Mrs. Lu.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Darren.”

“Darren . . . ?” She waved her hand in a circle.

“Takahashi.”

Her lips pursed to the side, then returned to a demure smile as she stepped to the left to clear him an exit path. “Nice to meet you. Have a great day.”

If he was bothered by the send-off, he didn’t let it show. I, for the record, was very much bothered but also knew it could have been worse. My mother not asking for his SAT scores or views on divorce was an improvement over her past record.

“Mei, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope I see you around campus.” He winked, making me freeze.

I managed another hip-level wave before he was out of sight.

My mother folded herself into the seat and placed her hands on the table, one over the other. My radar pinged—I was going to hate the next ten minutes.

“He’s Japanese, Mei.”

“And?”

“They murdered our family. Orphaned my mother.” Her voice caught as it always did whenever she spoke of the war.

“He didn’t kill them. Please, don’t make a thing of this. He saw my MIT shirt and came over to introduce himself. He probably won’t remember me in a week.” I hoped that last part was a lie.

My mother raised an eyebrow. “I saw how he was looking at you. You know the rules. No Japanese boys.”

Or white, black, or Hispanic. Only Taiwanese, and a doctor to boot. I had been so excited about finally being allowed to date that I had overlooked the restrictions. Until now.

“I already found your husband, Mei. Eugene Huang. Dr. Eugene Huang. Búyào tuō kùzi fàngpì”—that is, Don’t take your pants off to fart, the Chinese idiom my family used for, Don’t waste your time doing something extraneous. In this case, dating.

“Oh my God, Mǎmá.” I dropped my head in my hands, the flush from my cheeks warming my palms.

My mother fetched the dreaded comb from her purse. It looked like a normal, innocent comb, but I knew it was made from a dead cow’s foot. “Do you have a headache? Come here. Let me guā yi guā your neck.”

The cuteness of the Chinese phrase is deceiving—it means to scrape away, as in skin and blood, not toxins as the ancient healers once believed (and my mother still believes). I shuddered thinking about her sanding my neck until it looked like I had measles.

I did, in fact, have a bit of a headache, as any seventeen-year-old would upon hearing that her mother had already picked out her future husband. But I wasn’t letting that bacteria-covered hoof near me.

I knew from experience not to fight this one with logic, which only instigated tongue clicks and guilt, my mother’s number one weapon. You dishonor your ancestors. Our medicine has been around longer. How can you, a future doctor, not understand that the practice of guāshā lets out bad energy?

Instead, I pasted a smile on my face and lied. “I feel great. Don’t bother with the cow’s hoof. Búyào tuō kùzi fàngpì, right?”

My mother smiled and the tension waned. Nothing like using her own wisdom to lighten the mood. Sometimes I just had to whip out my Mandarin. I pulled another trick out of my xiùzi. “I saw on Facebook that Amberly Ahn has a new boyfriend.”