American Panda(7)

“Did your parents, like, make you play an instrument? And you had to go to Harvard or MIT? Practice SATs every weekend? My ex was Korean. We had to date in secret.” He looked down his nose at the rest of us, as if his past made him cool.

I may not have taken practice SATs every weekend, but I did have to take it three times until I got a perfect score. And I played the piano. But I didn’t want to reduce my parents to shallow stereotypes. They may have done versions of what he was implying, but not in the same tone. Since it was all too hard to explain, I simply said, “It wasn’t quite like that.”

A boisterous student in an MIT CREW cap swept in with leftover Bertucci’s pizza from the Student Center. As everyone swarmed the free food, I ducked out. The only thing I knew for sure was that no one there remembered my name.

Not wanting to return to my room since it didn’t feel like home, especially not with Nicolette’s lacy push-up bras and Untameable nail polish everywhere, I tiptoed around the dorm, secretly hoping to bump into someone. Maybe a potential friend.

On the floor below mine, I walked past the library, then saw them. Double doors, shut, unwelcoming, the opposite of the library’s open glass doors on the other side of the hall. I was drawn to the mystery, the secrets behind the metal.

They creaked, signaling their long disuse, and for a moment I worried I would get in trouble. But they weren’t locked. I inched forward into the darkness, then emerged into an expansive room lit by floor-to-ceiling windows.

The dusty tables pushed into the corner and the tray-size tunnel in the wall told me this was Burton Conner’s now-defunct dining hall—the Porter Room, I recalled from the dorm booklet that had arrived with my acceptance letter. (Nerd alert: Of course I had read it cover to cover.)

The emptiness and extra-shiny floors called to me. Something stirred deep in my soul, the mix of excitement and awe that happened when you felt like the stars were aligning even though you didn’t believe in fate.

I kicked off my shoes, one flick of the ankle, then another, and the second my socks met the floor, my movements morphed. I was always a dancer—that was a part of me, not something that could be separated—and alone in this vast space, I stopped holding back.

My pointed feet slid across the linoleum as if they were already intimately acquainted. My curved, extended arms swept through the air, and I leaped, spun, and pas-de-chat–ed my way to the other side of the room.

I had found my safe space. It was worth having to disinfect these socks now. And it was worth having to withstand the disapproving Mǎmá Lu in my head with her pinched lips and hands on her hips. Dancing instead of studying, Mei? Each step is a stomp on my heart. God, she was always so dramatic. I pushed her out and focused on the breeze through my hair, the swishing of my feet, the energy flowing from my fingertips to my toes.

Even though I was exerting myself, my breathing was easier here. Natural. It was the one place I could express myself, be completely me. If only I could find another who spoke dance.





Voicemails from my mother

12:01 p.m.: Mei! Why aren’t you picking up? Where are you?

12:08 p.m.: Maybe you’re in class. Good girl. It’s your mǔqīn.

1:34 p.m.: Mei? How come you’re still away? I saw on the news a girl was kidnapped right out of her dorm room. Call me when you get this!

2:10 p.m.: You need to give me your schedule so I know when you’re in class and when I need to worry because you don’t pick up.

3:27 p.m.: Mei! Are you in trouble? Eating drugs? Pregnant? KIDNAPPED? Call me!!





CHAPTER 3


LIQUID NITROGEN


I HAD STARTED DANCING AT age six under my parents’ coercion as a tactic to make me stand out on college applications. Because, horror of horrors, perfect Kimberly Chen—who was captain of the debate team, an academic decathlon champ, and salutatorian—“only got into NYU” since she was “too much like every other Asian out there.” So dance was to be my “in” to the “top” colleges.

At my first class, as soon as the beat hit, I fell in love. Dance was the one place I truly belonged, where age, race, looks, and intelligence didn’t matter. I had pretended to continue dancing for my parents’ sakes—partly to earn brownie points but mostly because I was scared if they knew just how much I loved it, they would take it away. Dancers don’t make money, Mei.

But they took it away anyway. Once MIT notified me on March 14th (Pi Day!) that I had been accepted, my parents cut me off from my only mode of expression. Dance has served its purpose, my mother had said. Why you need expensive shoes and classes? Just dòng yi dòng—move here, more there—around the house. Walking in place costs no money and is also exercise (said by the person who was chopstick-thin without trying).

I had to sneak dance in from then on, just like so many other things. Non-Chinese food. Romance books. Even now, away from home, I felt the need to hide. Because I couldn’t escape them. They were always with me, overhead, scolding me and trying to steer me onto the one right track for my life.

And right now I was sneaking in one more thing: teaching dance. The local dance studio’s ad had popped up all over campus, greeting me everywhere I turned, asking me if I knew of a Chinese dance instructor for their workshop sponsored by China Adoption Agency, the nonprofit organization whose mission was to help adoptive, non-Asian parents educate their Chinese children about their heritage.