The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(83)

Jin veers toward my family’s new home. Not me. I go straight to Ci-teh’s house. The door is open, and I enter without announcing myself. Ci-teh sits alone at a table with a cup of tea and a pile of papers before her. She’s dressed in the same outfit she wore to fly to Guangzhou for my wedding. Rain batters the roof but otherwise I hear only echoes of emptiness. It’s just the two of us.

“I wondered how long it would take you to get here,” she says, not even bothering to look up.





Passed class note from Haley to Jade, May 18, 2007

Jade,

Why are you and Jasmine being mean to me? You won’t even look at me in class, but I see you passing notes with Jasmine. You said you, Jasmine, and I would go to Old Town together and hang out next weekend. You said we’d all buy matching outfits so we could be samesies. You said we should ask our moms and dads for Tamagotchis for sixth-grade graduation presents next year, so we could take care of them together.

You said I was fresh off the boat, because I wasn’t born here like you. I said Jasmine wasn’t born here, and you said it didn’t matter because her parents are real Chinese, not like mine. All three of us look Chinese, and you know it. You and I have been best friends since kindergarten. When we got into Westridge School in fourth grade, you said we would always be best friends. At our sleepover, you said you and I were like twins. You’re a big fat liar.

And I’m not a midget. I’m not a dwarf either. You are the meanest person ever.

Haley





ONE LONG CHAIN OF LIFE


Ci-teh stares at me coolly. She looks as tu as ever, but for the first time I see her differently. “You’ve always underestimated me,” she says. “Ever since we were girls, you acted like you were smarter than I am.”

“And you were richer, but I thought we were friends.”

“You know nothing, Li-yan—”

She’s interrupted by the spirit priest’s shouts.

“Ci-teh! Li-yan! Everyone! Come out!”

Akha Law wouldn’t allow me to confront Ci-teh alone, but I’d hoped for a little private time with her. Ci-teh nods. She slips on a rain jacket, steps outside, and opens an umbrella. I follow behind her. As wet as I am, I’m grateful for the constant washing of the rain. Beside us, in the mud, stand the ruma and the nima, my a-ma and a-ba, my three brothers, their wives, and all their children, and everyone else who lives in Spring Well. Some are dressed in Western-style clothes and, like Ci-teh, have umbrellas. Others—A-ma and A-ba included—wear their capes made of leaves. The ruma and the nima haven’t donned their ceremonial garments, although the ruma has brought his staff. I glance at my husband, who doesn’t understand Akha. He’s going to have to follow along solely by body language and mood. That realization saps some of my strength.

“Whatever you have to say to each other needs to be said in front of everyone,” the ruma begins, “because your actions have tipped the forest and all who live in it out of balance.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” I object.

Ci-teh points a finger at me. “She’s done everything wrong.”

“That’s not—”

Ci-teh interrupts. “She will accuse us of making counterfeit tea. But we made artificially fermented tea like Mr. Huang showed us so many years ago.”

I put up a hand to stop her from speaking. “Please don’t put words in my mouth. There’s nothing wrong with fermenting leaves as long as you do it correctly and make a good product. That’s what Laobanzhang did and what you used to send to me. But to put a label on inferior tea made in Spring Well, say it’s from Laobanzhang, and sell it as a fake to customers at an inflated price . . . while I’m away. And now you blame me?”

Ci-teh waves off the suggestion. “Everyone’s been doing it, not just our village.”

“Yes, plenty of villages have made false products,” I reply, “but that doesn’t make it right. We’re Akha. We don’t deceive people.”

“Li-yan,” a man calls out, “not everyone did what she wanted.”

“We turned down her request too,” the woman next to him adds.

“Our family refused to sell our maocha or lease our land to her,” First Brother says, and several other heads bob to let me know they too held out.

I knew that Ci-teh had been subleasing land, but I didn’t know how widespread it was.

“If Li-yan hadn’t asked us to send an unreasonable amount of tea to her shop,” Ci-teh says, “then we wouldn’t have done what we needed to do to fill her demand. She just wanted to get rich!”

I wish it hadn’t come to this, but I’m seeing something new about Ci-teh. She’s savvy and selfish. I hope I can find the girl inside her who I used to know.

“Ci-teh,” I say, touching her arm. “You know that’s not what happened. I trusted you, my oldest friend, to help me. We have something valuable to sell, but you corrupted that.”

She pulls away just as someone in the crowd shouts, “Who are you to tell us how to do business?”

People murmur. I worry they don’t trust me.

“We’ve all benefited from the popularity of Pu’er,” I say. “I tried to share my good fortune with you—”