The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(76)
Ci-teh frowns at my reflection. I hope I haven’t gone too far and insulted her. “Why aren’t you having a Western wedding with a big white dress?” she asks, ignoring my question. “That’s what I see in the magazines. That’s what everyone wants.”
I stare at myself in the mirror. I look young and unmarred by my experiences, which is both unsettling and a relief. The clothes remind me of all I’ve lost, but also gained, and all I’ll need to forget . . . and remember. It feels strange to leave the ladies’ room and walk down a public hallway wearing something that so marks me as an ethnic minority. I worry about Jin’s reaction, but he lights up when he sees me. That he’s happy makes me happier still. He holds my hand through the five-minute ceremony. Mrs. Chang dabs at her eyes with a tissue. Ci-teh’s laughter feels as light as air. Jin can’t stop smiling, and neither can I. Our banquet is small—just four people sharing a moment of supreme joy.
We drop my mother-in-law at her apartment. Alone in the backseat, Ci-teh chatters like she’s had too many coffees, pointing excitedly at the skyscrapers, neon lights, and limousines. When we pull into the motor court of a hotel next to the Fangcun Tea Market where she’ll stay—too hard to teach someone so tu how to use the subway or hail a taxi—she leans over the front seat to whisper in my ear. “Tell him to make a way down there first,” she advises in Akha, as though I’ve never done the intercourse before.
An hour later, Jin and I are sitting on our veranda, overlooking the tree-lined pedestrian walkway outside our beautiful home, and drinking champagne. I excuse myself to change into a cotton nightgown I bought at a night market. Ready, I open the door into our bedroom. Jin has closed the shutters and lit candles.
“I’m not a girl anymore,” I remind him.
He takes me in his arms. We don’t steal love or do the intercourse. We make love.
* * *
Three days later, I’m in Beverly Hills, having dinner in a restaurant called Spago. I’m still struggling with how to use a knife and fork—which my husband finds supremely amusing—and worrying that the meal will make me sick. Everything is too rich and too heavy with cow: cow meat, cow cream, cow butter. And why can’t the dishes be served all at once in the middle of the table to be shared by the two of us like a normal meal? Later, after the main course plates are removed, Wolfgang Puck himself comes to the table to shake Jin’s hand and kiss me on both cheeks. He promises to send over a special dessert that isn’t on the menu—a Grand Marnier soufflé. If I don’t spend the night throwing up, I’ll be happy. Every wife must adapt, but the food part has been hard for me. But the rest? Wow! I so like this American word. Wow! Wow! Wow!
We’re staying at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which makes the King World look like a guesthouse. My husband took me shopping on Rodeo Drive, where he bought me new clothes, because, he said, “We don’t want you to look fresh off the boat.” I tried on clothes made with a quality of textiles—silk, cotton, and cashmere—I didn’t know existed and fit me in a way I didn’t think possible. Dior. Prada. Armani. He even took me to a store to buy new underwear and a nightgown so pretty I can’t imagine sleeping in it, to which he whispered in my ear, “I don’t expect you to sleep in it.” I got a new haircut too. By the end of the first day—and I was completely jet-lagged, something tourists at the King World used to complain about—I looked like a different person. Jin couldn’t stop grinning, or saying, “You’re beautiful.” I’m a married woman, and my life has been totally transformed.
But those are only outside things. Now, as we sit in this elegant restaurant, I look like I belong, but inside I feel out of place. Maybe it’s the jet lag or the shock of encountering so many new things at once, but I feel myself beginning to spin with unwanted questions. Do I need to be changed this much by Jin for him to love me? Am I being as easily corrupted by his money as I was by Mr. Huang’s offer to buy leaves from my grove? How rich is my husband anyway? Village rich? China rich? America rich? Self-doubt and distrust are a bad combination.
As we wait for the mysterious dessert to arrive, I gently ask Jin about his business. Without hesitation, he answers my questions, saying, “You need to know everything about me, just as I need to know everything about you.” Some of what he tells me I already know. Jin was ten years old when he and his mother were allowed back to Guangzhou. His mother had a job, true, but they were allotted only a single unfurnished room in the worst of the faculty dormitories, which also served the most meager food.
“In the countryside, I’d learned to save everything I found, because we never knew when it would come in handy,” he explains. “Nothing could go to waste. Not even a scrap of paper.”
“I grew up the same way—”
“Which is why I love you.” He pauses for me to take in the statement I’ll never tire of hearing. Then, “So, as a boy newly arrived in the city, I began to collect paper trash, bundle it, and sell it to a recycling mill to earn extra money. It had to be completely under the table, because all enterprises were still state-owned.”
“Was it dangerous?”
“Definitely! But you have to remember that our country’s need for cardboard, lumber, and pulp was growing quickly. Where were factory owners going to get the materials when so many of our forests had been cut down during the Great Leap Forward?”