American Panda

by Gloria Chao

  Dr. Chang emerged, walked across the hall to the microscope, and placed a slide on the stage. She looked for a second, then waved me over.

  Holding my breath—I did not want to taste that through my nose—I forced myself to peer into the lens. The stringy rods and circles were innocuous enough, but knowing where they came from made me dry heave. I nodded quickly to Dr. Chang, then retreated.

  “Candida albicans. Yeast infection. We’ll give her an antifungal for two weeks. The medicine can be oral or vaginal. We’ll use vaginal in this case since it’s not that severe and topical treatments have fewer side effects.”

  Not wanting to picture Valerie treating her yeast infection, I just nodded.

  We made our way down the bleak, deserted hall to the next patient. As soon as we entered, the middle-aged woman said, “Hey, Doc, there are floating chunks in my pee. Is that bad?”

  Dr. Chang picked the sample up with only a flimsy paper towel between her and the cup. “When was your last period?”

  “Honey, I haven’t had my period in years. I’m fifty-six!”

  I held my fist over my mouth and suppressed a gag as Dr. Chang announced she would be running some tests to diagnose the swirling mystery flakes. For once I was thankful for my terrible eyesight, which prevented me from seeing the chunks. I inched over to the hand sanitizer in the corner while trying not to breathe too deeply—the sterility of the cleaning chemicals was worsening my headache. I barely heard the woman’s answers to Dr. Chang’s questions about diet, recent changes in behavior, and medical history.

  I did manage to smile at the patient before leaving, but it promptly fell when she said, “I don’t know how you guys do this. The smell that’s been coming from down under—whoo! P-U!” She waved a hand in front of her face. As if I needed more clarification.

  Outside the door, Dr. Chang fumbled in her pocket with her free hand. Unable to locate a pen, she jiggled the urine sample toward me, still only protected by a flimsy paper towel. “Can you hold this for a sec?”

  With a few fingers, I grabbed the cup so gingerly I almost dropped it. Instinctively, my other hand whipped forward, and now I was grasping the specimen like a warm mug of tea. I adjusted my grip so only the pads of four fingers touched.

  Dr. Chang arched an eyebrow. “It’s pee, not a bomb.”

  “Contaminated pee with chunks in it. And it’s slightly wet.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “I’ll say. You know you’re going to have to do much worse in med school, right? Dissect a cadaver, rectal exams, abscess drainage, central lines—” Her voice cut off when I leaned against the wall for leverage. She cleared her throat. “You’ll get used to it. We all do.” But her voice was reedy with doubt.

  I know you’ll get into the best medical school and become the best doctor. I saw the pride in her eyes, the pink MIT MOM shirt, and I bent over, supporting myself on my knees. I was going to be sick.

  That night I shampooed three times and scrubbed my skin raw. As soon as I was clean on the outside, I fled to the Porter Room to cleanse the inside. It’s going to be okay, I told myself. Dance would save me; I would detox at night, recovering from the day, and make it work.

  The dimness of the room cloaked me, making me feel safe, hidden, and alone, free to express myself in the only way I knew how. It was just me, the linoleum floor, and emptiness for what felt like miles.

  My heebie-jeebies from the day—and the chunky pee—manifested as full-body shudders and jerky limbs, hitting before the music even started.

  The bass pulsed within me, and I nodded to the beat, eyes closed. Okay, this was it. This always drained me, helped me work through anything.

  The air whistled through the vents, then brushed my cheeks. I embraced the frustration within and kicked, punched, and leaped, stretching every muscle until it could stretch no further, a rubber band about to snap. The fear traveled down my arms, the sinew serving as tracks, and exited through my extended fingertips.

  But with each burst of energy, I didn’t feel release. Something was different. My feet slipped on the tile that should have caressed my toes and allowed me to turn endlessly. My limbs didn’t feel like extensions of my body—they were burdens, weighing me down and dragging me around. The wind through my hair wasn’t refreshing—it made my head pound with bursts of pain.

  Before, there had never been anything dance couldn’t resolve. But I never did find my calm that night.

  Voicemail from my mother

  Mei! This is important so listen carefully! I read that colleges are handing out birth control pills. Do not take them, you hear? They will mess up your eggs and you will have a hard time getting pregnant. Then Eugene will leave.

  Call me back! This is your mǔqīn.

  CHAPTER 7

  PUNTING

  I KNOCKED ON DR. CHANG’S DOOR with my free hand, a box of green tea in the other. I couldn’t look at the partly smushed, twenty-five-cent bow slapped on top because it was too apt a metaphor for how I was feeling: I was grateful she had let me shadow, but it had done more harm than good.

  My newfound knowledge that I was terrible at the one future my family wanted for me had made me squirrely this past weekend. At Chow Chow, my parents—scratch that, my mom—had asked me question after question about my study group, who was who, what we worked on, and how much I was loving biology.

  One word: exhausting. I’d felt like she was circling all my secrets, trying to sniff them out one by one. Maybe she had noticed my reluctance to meet her eye, or maybe she knew I had gone through two papaya smoothies because I was using a full mouth as a way to avoid questions. Maybe she had smelled the deceit in my sweat, my aura, my vague answers. Maybe I was losing my grip on reality.

  Dr. Chang opened the door a crack, stared at the box for a moment, then let me in. She grabbed the tea and inhaled for a full minute. I squirmed, not sure what to do while she sniffed with her eyes closed. I almost felt like I was intruding.

  “Thank you for letting me shadow,” I said unnecessarily, just to fill the awkwardness.

  She smiled—actually smiled!—and I had to keep myself from doing a double take.

  She placed the tea on her desk beside a mountain of butter, the kind you get from restaurants with rolls. When she saw me staring at the pile, I expected her to either blush or give me a normal explanation, but she did neither.

  “They’re free with meals, so why not stock up? If I’m paying ten dollars for lunch, then I deserve all the butter I want.”

  I imagined her and my mother out to a meal, both sweeping things into their purses. It was like when two of your personal monsters teamed up, the Joker and the Riddler working together to make Batman feel as awkward as possible.

  Dr. Chang pointed at my dangly earrings. “They’re pierced. Your parents let you?”

  “Yeah. My mom took me in fifth grade.” I mimicked her lecture voice as I recited her favorite mantra. “There are no ugly women, just lazy women.”

  Dr. Chang referenced a superstition. “Isn’t she worried all the money will leak out the holes in your ears?”

  I tapped my big nose. “Well, I got this baby, so I’m financially set.”

  She nodded, completely serious, as if my answer were logical. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the next words out of her mouth were, But you still have to pinch it to make it slimmer. Have you tried a clothespin?

  A girl burst into Dr. Chang’s office, startling us. The intruder yelled, “Your treatment didn’t work, and I still have fucking chlamydia. It burns when I pee now, no thanks to you.”

  “Uh . . .” Dr. Chang’s eyes darted over to me. Clearly I was violating doctor-patient confidentiality.

  I started for the door, my clothes rustling, and the girl turned around.

  Oh. My. God. It was Nicolette. Was there chlamydia all over our dorm room? I grabbed the desk to steady myself. So. Many. Things. To. Disinfect. If human combustion were possible . . . poof.

  For the record, I didn
’t care about her sexual history—more power to her—but chlamydia = bacteria = OMG.

  Something flashed across Nicolette’s face, but it was so fast I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating. Next thing I knew, she was grabbing the arm of Dr. Chang’s office chair and yanking it toward her in a flourish. “I’m not leaving until you fix this.”

  Dr. Chang cleared her throat, the softest ahem of all time. “Wait—why don’t we take this to an exam room? Or at least let me put some paper down.”

  Nicolette looked at her for a moment, piecing it together, then sat with gusto. “Are you serious right now? Do you think it can travel through my clothes or something? No wonder I’m still not cured; you don’t know anything!” She wriggled her butt side to side. “By your logic, I just had an orgy on the subway. I’m probably crawling with herpes and syphilis now too. Forget the chlamydia.”

  Dr. Chang wrung her hands, her eyes straying to Nicolette’s pelvis every few seconds . . . which she must’ve seen . . . magnified.

  Nicolette peered at Dr. Chang the way kids used to inspect my dried squid snacks—with curiosity and confusion. “How can you be a doctor if you’re like this?”

  Dr. Chang and I exchanged a glance. Then she said, more to me than Nicolette, “You compartmentalize. It’s doable. You’ll learn, Mei.”

  Nicolette burst into laughter. “You’re going to be a doctor, Mei? Your closet has more hand sanitizer than clothes. And what’s up with the weird tissues everywhere?”

  I don’t like to touch your things, and apparently for good reason, I wanted to retort but held back.

  Nicolette gestured to Dr. Chang from head to toe with the wave of a hand. “Is this what you want to become?” she asked me.

  “Will you please go to the front desk and make an appointment?” Dr. Chang begged.

  With one last wriggle, Nicolette uncrossed her long legs and strode to the door.

  Dr. Chang rushed over with latex gloves and CaviCide spray, which broke me out of my post-chlamydia-stress trance. As I watched her scrub, I saw it as a sign of hope.

  If she could compartmentalize, maybe I could learn to do it too.

  Being at MIT Medical post-rash-investigation was the one situation in which I didn’t want to see the spiky outline I was constantly searching for . . . so of course there he was, in all his six-foot-something glory. And when I say glory, I mean yumminess.

  I froze, not sure if it was worse to miss this opportunity or to have to explain why I was there.

  He walked by without turning his head my way, obviously just passing through the building as a shortcut to the other side of campus. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then immediately yelled, “Darren!”

  When he turned, I was still frozen in place, a little disoriented at how I hadn’t been in total control just now. Maybe it was the rash.

  His face lit up. I wish I could say mine did as well, but I was too busy fighting my urge to itch the still-lingering rash while simultaneously trying to come up with a lie as to why I was hanging out at the health center—free pamphlet? Free condoms? Free lollipops?

  “Mei! What brings you here? Everything okay?” Darren called out as he made his way over to me.

  Why do I do this to myself?

  “I was just, um, passing through,” I said. Then I realized I was pretty far into the actual building, in front of the gynecology reception desk. Of course. It couldn’t have been anything less embarrassing. I started to ramble. “I mean, well, I bought this new pair of jeans, and then, well, there must’ve been something on them—and really, you should wash your new clothes before wearing them. . . .” I took a breath. “I was just passing through. Like you.”

  “Sounds complicated,” he said, the amusement on his face matching his voice. “I’ll keep your tip in mind. I’ve been grabbing all the free shirts around campus to avoid doing laundry.” He pointed to the tee he was wearing, which said PUNT in bubbly, half-formed letters right-side up and TOOL upside down—MIT lingo for putting off work for fun (punt), or to toil away studying (tool). I silently thanked the campus life brochure for teaching me those. “I’m glad the ‘tool’ is upside down,” he continued, “or else people would think I was calling myself a tool, which I would be if I were wearing a shirt that said ‘tool.’ ”

  “True, but you’d be even more of a tool in an ‘I love beaver’ shirt.”

  “I do love beaver though,” Darren said with a straight face. (Yes, I blushed.) He dug around in his messenger bag before emerging with a stuffed TIM the Beaver. “He’s too cute and cuddly not to love.”

  I laughed. Instead of revulsion, which my mother had led me to believe was the only possible response to my loud, openmouthed “man-laugh,” Darren grinned at me—genuinely, I think, since it reached his eyes.

  I could get used to that.

  “Do you carry that around with you everywhere?” I asked. A microscopic part of me hoped it was true so that I would finally know something embarrassing about him.

  He tossed TIM from one hand to the other. “I picked this up from the activities fair for my sister, Sally.”

  I mock wiped sweat from my brow. “Phew. Because between the two of us, there can only be one stuffed animal hoarder.” I laughed to myself about how Horny was still my little secret.

  He smiled so wide I could see that his bottom teeth were slightly crooked. His gaze never left my face as he asked, “Are you free right now?”

  “Right now?” I sputtered. “I mean, yeah, I’m free.” And finally I removed my foot from my mouth. “No better time for some punting.” I gestured for him to lead the way.

  We walked to Building 6, then ducked down a small, abandoned hallway that was empty except for a rusty metal door.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, the excitement dancing on his face.

  “Um, depends what’s on the other side. I might need a minute if this is a Narnia-type situation.”

  Darren chuckled. “In our dreams.”

  He reached an arm up to push the door open, and when the navy blue of his shirt neared his face, his eyes turned darker—more mysterious somehow. Anticipation thrummed through my veins, and for a second I let my imagination run wild with possibility.

  The door opened to reveal a secret outdoor garden. The courtyard was filled with golden sunflowers crammed so tight they blended together.

  He swept a hand in a princelike gesture, and I stepped over the threshold into another world.

  “What is this place?” I asked, my lips turning up into the grin reserved for after-midnight spoonfuls of Nutella.

  “Whatever we want it to be.”

  “A place to dream,” I answered immediately. And for a moment I let my dance-studio pre-prima-ballerina dreams back in. Let myself enjoy that I was in this secret garden between lectures and that maybe, just maybe, it was okay to enjoy Darren’s company for a few brief minutes. “Do you know what you want to major in?” I asked as I walked among the flowers, touching a petal here, a stem there.

  “I’m thinking Course Seven,” he said, using the MIT lingo for biology. Everything here was numbers—the buildings, the courses, the majors; we had our own language.

  I pressed my lips together, holding back. If I told him I was also going to be Course Seven, he would expect us to gush about biology together, in which it would inevitably be revealed that I actually hated it. Then I would have to explain why I had to major in it when it put me to sleep, and that was a can of carnivorous worms I had to keep sealed or else the worms would eat my sanity.

  Oblivious to my inner flailing, he continued. “I’m thinking about going into academia in the future, but I’m open to other options.” I briefly wondered if my mother valued money or prestige more: Professors made less but were respected, especially in Chinese culture. “My parents will probably freak out that I could end up anywhere—they want me close to home—but oh well.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “We’ll figure it out.”

  I refrained from asking more about his parents. I couldn�
�t bear to hear how much easier things were for him. “What do you like about biology?”

  “I’ve always been curious about how living things work, starting when I was a five-year-old kid with a My Body and Me kit. Man, I used to carry that thing around with me everywhere.” The faraway look in his eyes made me want to see what he was seeing, maybe absorb some of that dreaminess for myself. “I also love that research is a puzzle, and finding the solution sometimes involves unconventional thinking and out-of-the-box experiments. Like, apoptosis was discovered while tracking C. elegans cells through development without knowing what kinds of interesting things they would find. Then they worked backward to figure out the genetics. I can’t think of anything cooler than that.”

  I nodded, thinking about how inspiring it must’ve been to be at MIT when Bob Horvitz was recognized for his groundbreaking work. “And they won a million-dollar award for it. Not too shabby.” Why did I have such a hard time with a subject that yes, was kind of amazing when described by Darren this way? Was it because I knew what was at the end of the tunnel, waiting for me, and I couldn’t separate my doctor future from the rest of it? “Nobel Prize aside, you don’t think it’s frustrating that you can try for years to find the answer to one thing, only to get the answer to something else? It feels so”—I waved a hand in the air, trying to locate the right word—“unpredictable.”

  He shook his head. “It’s exciting. An adventure. A quest to find the answers to life’s mysteries.” He gestured grandly with his arms, trying to illustrate the expansive unknown with wide circles.

  Seeing his fervor, I blurted out, “I love your passion.” As soon as the words were out, I regretted it (like usual).

  But when I peeked over at him, he was smiling.