The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(101)

When Amy woke the next morning, she was disoriented, because her mom was still talking about everything she and Adam had planned, except now she was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and a Dodgers baseball cap. Amy was so embarrassed, she wanted to pull the covers back over her head, but that wasn’t on the itinerary. An hour later—showered, fed, and sunscreen slathered on every exposed piece of skin—they left the hotel. The air outside was disgusting. By the time Amy got to the minivan, her arms were totally wet. No one could sweat that fast, but there was so much moisture in the air that it was like someone had sprayed her with hot water. And it was only nine in the morning.

They walked across one blisteringly hot square or courtyard after another: The Temple of Heaven. Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City. The sun glared down. Adam asked the guide how hot it was. She answered, “The government gives people the day off if it goes over forty degrees centigrade.” He asked, “So, again, how hot is it today?” She gazed across the square like she wasn’t with the Bowens. “I heard it was going to be forty-four degrees centigrade and eighty percent humidity.” Adam whistled; Alice sighed. Amy took the trouble to make the calculation to Fahrenheit. 111 degrees!

Adam bought bottles of water. The Bowens drank and sweat, drank and sweat some more. Adam took Amy’s picture about a thousand times. She saw more people from around the world in the first hour than she had in her entire life. And then there were the Chinese. They were everywhere.

Since the weather was so gross, Amy ended up changing her clothes three times every day. Even her bra and panties. The Bowens visited more tourist spots: the Summer Palace, the Great Wall of China, the tomb soldiers in Xian, the Bund in Shanghai. China was strange, though. It didn’t have much connection to what she’d learned about it in Families with Children from China or even from going to her friends Jasmine’s and Jade’s houses. It was big, polluted, and crowded. If Amy had once daydreamed about meeting her birth mother, she now understood it would be impossible to find her—one woman out of the proverbial 1.3 billion people.

Finally, they flew to Kunming in Yunnan, where it was much cooler. They stayed at another fancy hotel, which prompted Adam to ask Alice, “Can you believe how much everything’s changed since the last time we were here? You’ve got to hand it to Deng Xiaoping. To get rich is glorious . . .”

When they were out with their new guide, Amy heard sounds that were vaguely familiar, yet had no meaning. She saw people with skin like hers—darker—who turned out to be members of hill tribes. Sometimes people nodded to her on the street or pointed at her, but what did that mean? Did they recognize her in some way or did they simply think she looked peculiar with her white parents? A couple of times, people came up to her and spoke to her in Chinese. “I don’t speak Chinese,” Amy always answered, in English. Then those same people would turn to her parents and ask, in perfect English, “Is she your tour guide?” But how could Amy have possibly been their tour guide?

The Bowens spent the next two days hiking up mountains to take in this or that scenic spot. Amy’s opinion? One view was just like another, even if these had a temple or a big statue on them. Still, something about the air and the panoramas got to her—like she had something in her eye, or pollen up her nose, or a memory she could sense but couldn’t capture. Then one day, during one of their sightseeing hikes, she was standing and looking at yet another view. The pattern of the hills, a stream running through them, a path winding up through the terraces . . .

“Mom! Look!”

“What is it, honey?”

“Do you see it?” She pointed, buzzing with excitement. “It’s just like my tea cake!”

“What do you mean?” Alice asked.

“We’ve always looked at the V’s as V’s, like simple bird drawings. But don’t you see? They’re the canyons between the mountains! The wavy lines are terraces. The design that meanders”—she traced what she could remember from the tea cake in the air with her index finger—“is a river or creek or something like that. The design on my tea cake is a map!”

“Oh my God!” Adam exclaimed. “You’re right!”

But Alice, ever practical, asked, “But a map to what?”

“To where I was born!” Amy was so energized by her discovery that she was practically jumping up and down. “So I can meet my birth family!”

Adam and Alice exchanged glances. Amy thought, Don’t ruin this for me. Her father looped an arm over her shoulder, pulled her close, and stared at the view with her.

“It is a map. And it’s amazing you figured that out. Truly amazing. But, honey—”

“Remember how there’s that design in the middle of the tea cake?” Amy interrupted. “I’ve always thought it looked like a tree, but it’s got to be my real mom.”

Alice edged away.

“Your mom is your real mom,” Adam said softly.

“I didn’t mean it that way.” Amy didn’t either. “But think about it! X marks the spot! It’s got to be her.”

“Maybe you’re right.” He still had that gentle tone, trying to manage his wife, who was all upset that Amy didn’t consider Alice to be her real mother, and his daughter, who was as excited as she’d ever been. “But with any map you need a starting point. The V’s—the canyons and mountains—could be anywhere. We don’t even know which direction is north.”