American Panda(42)

But even though no one appreciated a good night market more than my mother, she couldn’t know about this, especially since she was still reeling from my 72. (I had caught her snooping in that drawer again.)

Then I realized why her eyes were so wide. She was jumping to conclusions, that I had a secret boyfriend. Which . . . well . . . crap. I had to steer her away from that, too. I wasn’t doing anything wrong—well, not really—but if she started asking me questions about whether or not I had talked to the Japanese boy, it would get ugly, fast.

“It’s Nicolette’s,” I said as calmly as I could. “You can throw it to her side. She uses up all the space in here.” I hoped it wouldn’t land in a chlamydia hot spot.

As my mother muttered about bribing the dean to swap my roommate, I had to calm my nausea by telling myself everything was fine; the lies weren’t crumbling around me.

Which was, you know, just another lie to add to the bunch.





Voicemail from my mother

Mei! I spoke with Mrs. Huang yesterday. She said Eugene is excited to meet you. He actually thinks you’re pretty! You need to snatch him up before it’s too late. Before your eggs get cold. You’ll be thirty before you know it!

Call your poor mǔqīn back. Why you never pick up? I know you’re not in class! Are you hiding something??





CHAPTER 18


NIGHT MARKET


AS XING AND I WAITED in the mall arcade for our turn at Dance Dance Revolution, I marveled at how people (me included) were willing to pay to jump around in a predetermined order.

The dim room reeked of pubescent teenagers. As I inhaled the pomegranate scent of my hand sanitizer, I was weighed down by the stack of quarters in my pocket and the baggage on my proverbial shoulders.

The teenage boy on the machine was sailing through level maniac, his legs flailing to the beat. The noise gave me the courage to ask Xing, “How did you know Esther was worth fighting for?”

He sighed—loud, long, and heavy. “I used to think of relationships the way Mom and Dad do—as a business transaction. They see it analytically, whether people match on paper, with the only goal being to raise a healthy family. Mom’s own parents used a matchmaker. More practical than emotional . . .” He trailed off.

“But then you fell in love with Esther,” I stated even though it should’ve been obvious. But I said it anyway, just in case, because in the back of my head, there it was, still niggling—had Xing chosen Esther just to piss my parents off, the way he had told them he was going to try to be the next Wang Leehom even though he couldn’t sing?

Xing nodded sadly, as though falling in love with her was weary, not a blessing.

I asked the question that had never stopped bothering me. “Why did you tell Mom and Dad about her trouble conceiving before they’d even met?”

“For the same reason I used to sneak out in the middle of the night, refuse to worship Yéye, and skip my SAT tutoring classes: I hated the responsibilities as the eldest son. I had no idea it would go this far—really, I was just pissed that I never got to be Dad’s baobèi.”

For the first eight years of my life, I was not Mei, only baobèi to my father, his treasure. And for those same years, he was my báb?, the Chinglish word I made up for “daddy.” When I was little, as soon as he walked in the door, I would latch on to his leg. He called me his xiao zhāngyú, which only made me act more like my báb?’s little octopus. I’d squeeze his leg with all my might and squeal when he took troll-like steps, swinging me through the air. Even though sons were sought after, my father had a side reserved for me and only me.

Xing never saw Báb?, only Bǎbá. A firm hand, all the time. I eventually saw that too, but when I was a child, it was only Chinese checkers, tickle fights, and octopus swings.

We may have grown up in the same house, but Xing was right—our experiences were different because of our gender and the order in which we were born.

“I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard for you,” I said. “I’m also sorry that everything blew up the way it did.”

He gave me a wistful smile. “You can’t pick who you fall for.”

You-know-who popped into my head—infectious laugh, crooked smile, and all.

“I used to think Mom was more open-minded,” Xing continued. “She didn’t seem to want us when we were little, and I thought maybe since she’d struggled with the culture, she’d be able to . . . I don’t know. Understand? Change? I guess either Dad or her upbringing has too strong a hold on her.”

The more he spoke, the further I was pulled down. Even though I had started it, I tried to end the conversation by nodding toward the now-empty machine.

As I stepped onto the familiar DDR platform, Xing waved a dismissive hand at me. “Don’t fret, Mei-ball. You’re too young to be worrying about all that. And who knows? Maybe the person you end up falling for will be someone they approve of, so no use wasting energy on it now. Use your energy for DDR—you haven’t beaten me yet!”

My feet danced around to match the arrows coming up on the screen—second nature for me at this point—just like how I was robotically floating through life, adapting to each scenario, never truly being myself.



Even though I thought Taiwan was dirty when I was little, even though strangers on the street would come up to me and tell me I was fat, my nose was huge, my clothes were weird—it was my Elysium. The only place my parents didn’t fight, laughed with us, and opened their wallets. We would actually do things together—go to museums, visit the aboriginal villages, learn about Taiwanese history. And every night we would go to the night market. My dad would break off to stuff himself with stinky tofu, and my mother would treat me to all the clothes and trinkets I wanted.