The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(93)

HALEY: Lighten their skin? How do they do that?

TIFFANY: And all the American-born and Chinese-born girls make fun of us adopted Chinese girls, because darker skin marks us as the daughters of peasants.

HALEY: My skin is darker, but I also look different than the other girls—not Chinese enough, they say.

DR. ROSEN: So we’re talking about perception . . .

HALEY: It makes me so mad. I guess that’s why my mom and dad sent me here.

HEIDI: Dr. Rosen, aren’t those stereotypes, though?

JESSICA: Oh, God, not another brainiac. How old are you again?

DR. ROSEN: What do you mean, Heidi?

HEIDI: Well, Chinese used to be seen as low, right? Working on the railroad, in laundries, and stuff like that. Now they’re seen as smart and wealthy. I mean, isn’t there the stereotype of the model minority? I read an article for school that said people like us—not you, Dr. Rosen—are now labeled as inquisitive, persistent, and ambitious. With ingenuity, fortitude, and cleverness.

JESSICA: Jesus, kid, you won’t even have to take that stupid SAT prep course. You’ve already got all the big words down cold.

HEIDI: All I’m saying is that there’s no underestimating how cruel girls can be to each other. I’ve been reading about it, because I’m scared of . . . Oh, Dr. Rosen, I don’t know if I should say this.

DR. ROSEN: Please go ahead. I want you to think of this as a safe place.

HEIDI: I’m afraid of girls like . . . well . . . like Jessica. Is that why my parents sent me here? To toughen me up? I can be tough. Really I can. Or is there another reason, Dr. Rosen? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?

DR. ROSEN: Each of you is here for her own reason. What I feel comfortable sharing with all of you is that each of your parents wants you to be happy. Now . . . We’ve talked about a lot of different things today, but I’d like to circle back to a couple of themes that have emerged.

HALEY: Like none of us can sleep.

DR. ROSEN: I’m happy you picked up on that, Haley.

HALEY: I’ve always crept around the house in the middle of the night, which is how I’ve heard my parents arguing about work, about this one woman who’s Dad’s client, and what to do about me.

ARIEL: For me, it’s stress, obviously. At school and at home. It seems like my whole life I’ve spent the hours from two to six in the morning awake—staring at the muted TV screen, obsessively doing my homework, and trying to learn to knit to “do something productive,” as my dad said. He bought me knitting lessons for one of my birthdays! Knitting lessons! And Jessica isn’t the only one who drinks. I sneak gulps from the wine left over at dinner. My parents are so stupid, they’ve never even noticed. I’ve smoked weed in the backyard. I had another doctor before you, Dr. Rosen, who prescribed me Ambien.

HALEY: I just can’t sleep. My mom says it’s because I’m still on China time.

JESSICA: Hardy-har-har!

DR. ROSEN: What happens when it’s time for you to sleep?

HALEY: Sometimes when I turn off the light, I feel myself start to wake up. I’m flying out the window and across the ocean to my orphanage in China. I see rows and rows of cots and Chinese ladies, like the waitresses at Empress Pavilion who push the dim sum carts, walking up and down. I imagine the moment when I was loaded onto a bus or a truck and brought to the hotel. I bet I was scared. I bet I was crying already. Mom and Dad say it was like plop, plop, plop as each baby was dropped into a new mother’s arms. Did I go to the right mom and dad? Is there something wrong with me, and that’s why I look different from the other babies given out that day, different from the other girls in Families with Children from China, different from my friends at school? Then I have to turn the light back on.

ARIEL: Dr. Rosen, I don’t get this. I know a lot of girls from Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families who don’t have a single problem. They’re all happy. Or they look that way to me.

HALEY: She’s right, you know. I’ve known the girls in FCC since we were babies. They don’t let the stupid things people say get to them. I remember this one girl. We were, like, eight years old. A stranger asked her if she was a foreign exchange student. That kind of thing really bugs me, but you know what she answered? “Most exchange students are not eight years old!”

ARIEL: Have you ever been asked why you don’t speak English with a Chinese accent? I have.

HEIDI: I hate when people ask if I know English or if I’ve adjusted to America yet. Come on!

TIFFANY: In our church, we have a group that’s special for girls like us—adopted, but from Russia and Romania and places like that. We had a meeting where we were supposed to learn how to respond to jerks who ask things like “When did you know you were adopted?” Most people picture a scene where the parents sit you down and you “find out who you are.” I didn’t need that meeting to know how to answer, because all I had to do was look in the mirror. When people ask me that question, I always say, “When did you find out you weren’t adopted? How do you know your mother is your birth mother?”

ARIEL: That seems a bit snarky. I’m just saying.

HALEY: You could try something like “The phenotypic differences between my parents and myself were always evident. I can only guess at how it would feel to be a biological child or be born white to match my parents.”

TIFFANY: Phenotypic differences?