by Eddie Huang
I’d seen girls like her at Taiwanese-Chinese gatherings for years. My aunts and uncles loved propping them up.
“She has straight A’s! So smart.”
“You must see her play violin, great form, beautiful hands, how you say…exaquisite! Yes, exaquisite!”
“Her face very generous will bring luck to a family.”
My cousin Wendy was like this. She went to Yale, was relatively tall, had the titty buffet on smash, and got paraded around at all our events in some derivative of the qipao. It was like she won the Heisman every weekend and did the potluck circuit for her adoring fans. The only thing she didn’t have was bound feet. That would have unified all the belts in her weight class.
Taiwanese-Chinese people just assume we all see the same math so there’s no hesitation when pouring on the compliments. Nor do parents hesitate in pointing out your girl’s bad fortune. For years, I heard complaints about my ex.
“Eddie’s girlfriend, Vivienne,*5 has stingy face. Bad fortune, she will take all your luck.”
“Limp, too! Bad energy. I saw her wipe the table! She doesn’t clean, she just smears the sauce into table more. Who taught her to wipe a table?”
“Eyes are small. Not generous. That’s why she doesn’t want to clean.”
ALL OUR EYES ARE SMALL, WHAT ARE YOU AUNTS AND UNCLES TALKING ABOUT?
Connie was the first woman I ever dated that could have been potluck-approved. For that reason, I stayed in the relationship, because hate-smashing the superficial ideals your race has held over your head is victory between the sheets. She knew kung fu, she had won an East L.A. beauty contest, and her father was a herbal medicinist, but it all felt extremely foreign to me. Not only did she not understand my Dipset references, but all she wanted to talk about was vegetables and being Asian. It was as if her entire life revolved around race and vegetarianism, which after a while start to feel like the same thing. When all else fails in romance, do people just give up and marry the manifestation of their favorite restaurant? I guess that would explain why so many people in middle America look like they married a Cheesecake Factory.
But I couldn’t resist. The relationship started off like the Spring Breakers experience*6 got white glove–delivered to my couch: kung fu grip on the throat, lobster sauce on the walls, Gucci Mane might as well have been watching in a bathtub. She was fresh out of culinary school, working at Shady Roots, and would come over right after her prep shift in the afternoon ’cause she liked riding reverse while Yo! MTV Raps was on. It was around the time “Rack City”—Tyga’s strip-club anthem—came out, which made me want to throw change around my living room ’cause I’m too cheap to throw Washingtons at someone who’s already agreed to have sex with me. Like George Bush paintings or French Montana records, it was extremely entertaining but devoid of any deeper enrichment.
She was the Carl Lewis of my single life. In record time (thirteen days), she started leaving all her things in my crib, stayed over every night, woke me up at random hours to tell me about sweet potato muffins and ask if I was listening to her. I didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late.
“You know, Serena’s recipes are so smart. We’re making sweet potato muffins at work.”
“Dope,” I mumbled.
“It’s one of those recipes where it’s not just a substitute muffin that isn’t as good as the non-vegan ones, it’s actually so much better.”
“That’s awesome. Nobody wants to be Plan B, not even a sweet potato muffin.”
“Yeah, it really bothers me when people assume vegan food can’t be as tasty. It’s not less delicious because it’s vegan. I think it’s actually better.”
“Vegan discrimination is super fucked up.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No, I definitely agree that vegan food shouldn’t be discriminated against, and I’m ready to march.”
“You don’t have to listen to me if you don’t want to.”
“You gotta let me live. It’s two A.M. on a Tuesday and you’re talking to me about vegan food discrimination and sweet potato muffins. Do you think anyone in the universe wants to talk about this right now?”
“Why are you so mean?”
“I’m not mean, I’m just not interested. You need to talk to someone else about the plight of vegan food identity politics.”
“What is wrong with you? You are so crazy!”
“And I really think a lot of people would agree with you. I’ll even agree with you if I can go to sleep.”
“If you don’t want me to be here, you can just tell me.”
In all honesty, I wished she didn’t stay over. The sex was face-melting, but I hated feeling like I was staring the rest of my life in its muffin afterward. I lied to her anyway.
“I want you to be here.”
—
There was nothing wrong with Connie. My boy David kept saying “she checks a lot of boxes,” and he was right. Connie came into my life, rearranged my kitchen, cleaned my room, befriended Evan, got me eating breakfast, and kept the crib smellin’ like lotion. But it only made me even more suspicious. What did she want? She was definitely trying to trap me, but why me? Why did I deserve this?
And why did she double-plate breakfast?*7
My room doesn’t even have a door, but my plate got a plate, the eggs had miso, and the salad had microgreens. The food was delicious, the service was incredible, but I was uncomfortable. Everything Connie did made me feel like I was an orphan being relocated to the Russian Tea Room, but I liked my lo-fi lo-life. Evan appreciated Connie more than I did.
“It’s nice having Connie around.”
“It’s O.D.”
“Son, this apartment was Iraq before she came.”
“Iraq has its charms. And people in Iraq don’t want to eat kebabs on two plates.”
“Ha ha, yo, why do you care if she uses two plates? She washes them anyway.”
“It just doesn’t make sense! We’re in a shit apartment, why is she trying to make it Le Bernardin?”
“She got plans for herself, my g.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’! She got plans for me and I can tell they’re really bad plans. They’re like Dad’s plans when his friends came over to the house!”
“Fuck, I hated those plans.”
“I’m saying!”
—
“All right, family, everybody wake up! Wake up, Huang family! Let’s do some cleaning today!” my dad would scream over our home intercom system.
“Shut the fuck up! I’m sleeping, you dick,” screamed Emery.
“That’s no way to talk to your father! Let’s do some cleaning, boys!”
When my dad used his Cattleman’s Steakhouse*8 country western voice, you knew he wanted something. Maybe he wanted his laser discs dusted? His car washed? Or maybe just someone to pick up balls at the tennis court while he practiced slice serving, but most of the time when he used the intercom system in the morning he was having friends over.
“Nobody help clean! Who cares about his stupid friends?” screamed my mom.
My mom was willing to clean our messes up,*9 but the buck stopped with outsiders. Whatever the family needed, she was willing, but being the family’s maid was enough. She refused to clean for anyone else.
And even when she was straightening up the house, Pops never made it easy. While my mother was cleaning, my father was always creating more shit to clean. If my mom was doing laundry and picking up dirty clothes, son would walk past her and throw his shirt on the floor or leave a trail of dirty socks from the door into the bedroom. He’d ignore her standing there with a laundry bag in her hand and justified it in his mind because he paid the bills. I remember he once said to my mom, “I didn’t get married to wash my own shirt.”
Usually I enjoyed my dad’s Al Bundy schtick, but that wasn’t right. I promised myself that one day I’d meet a woman with her own money and career so we could go half on a white male college dropout to wash our shirts and dust
our laser discs.
“You are a pig! So dirty all the time, why don’t you show your friends how dirty you are!” screamed my mom.
“I dare you to say that to me again,” my dad said, ice dripping from his voice.
I always wished my mom would leave it at that and just let us do the cleaning, but she couldn’t let it go.
“You aren’t shit! All you care about is friends! Oh, look at me, Louis Huang, so successful, come to my house, eat my food, make a mess, sing karaoke, and let my wife do all the cleaning!”
“I got you a maid!”
“There are five people, three dogs, thirty friends coming over, and you let me get one maid. What math is this? Too funny, Shoo Sin!*10 Too funny!”
And then they’d fight. She’d do something like throw boiling water at him. Tell him he wasn’t a man and then he’d grab her by the hair, smack her around, drag her across the floor, and everything got broken. Plates, glasses, our fucking humanity, everything was destroyed for his cot damn friends.
Then when his friends came over, he’d welcome them with open arms, charm them with jokes, and prop up my mom by showering her with compliments hours after he showered her with bruises. The idea of family felt like a lie, and I never got over it. Every once in a while, I still relapse to my childhood state, cutting myself off from the world, hiding in my room, questioning everything I know about why we’re here, taking solace in the fact that one day it all stops.
I hated my dad’s friends, a bunch of Chinese dudes with blue blockers, Jheri curls, and finger rings walking around our house eating our shit, picking their teeth, singing American songs in incomprehensible Chingrish. But this hate was misdirected.
I actually like Jheri curls. I accidentally speak Chingrish frequently and I have many finger rings. There’s nothing wrong with any of it. It was a false corollary. Until recently—when I was able to separate the root from the evil—I purposely dressed down my apartments, my speech, and my appearance with metaphorical shit that’s defiant in its idiosyncrasy, like the collection of OJ T-shirts I wear on dates, because when I was growing up in the Huang house, impressing friends meant your mom got beat.
—
Connie was as innocent as Jheri curls and finger rings. None of this was her fault, but in legal terms we’d say that you have to accept the victim as you find him. I’m an eggshell plaintiff with a pre-existing aversion to clean homes, ambience, and patriarchy. The ideal Taiwanese housewife was staring me in the face—well, the ideal actually had its ass turned to me with “Rack City” on, but you know what I’m saying. Wifey was in the building, so I left.
I was scheduled to fly to Miami for an event. I had to wake up early in the morning to catch the flight. Connie knew I had an early morning, so she was spending the night at her apartment on the Upper West Side. It was around 11 P.M. and I was getting ready when she texted me.
I think I have the flu. I’m so sick right now.
Drink water, get some rest, take Theraflu.
I assumed she’d had the flu before.
I’m going to the hospital.
Damn, girl, it’s like that?
I’m puking everywhere. Twice already. It’s really bad.
ECK,*11 don’t hurt nobody with that, lol.
I’m going to come down to the hospital by you. Will you come with me?
I’m not trying to be insensitive, but there’s a hospital on the Upper West Side near you, and you know I gotta catch a flight in the morning.
Fine.
I went to sleep.
Two hours later, our intercom buzzer goes off. Evan answered it and then walked over to my bed.
“Yo, Connie is here.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I just buzzed her in.”
“Fuck my life.”
I opened the door and there she was, disheveled, her face red, wearing a USC hoodie.
“I just went to the hospital down the street, waited for two hours by myself, and still didn’t get seen by a doctor!”
“Yo, why are you here if you didn’t see a doctor?”
“Because I’m sick and I don’t feel good!”
Evan intervened.
“Connie, sit on the couch, I’ll get you some Theraflu.”
“Thank you, Evan! Geez, at least someone is a gentleman here.”
I was about to kill Evan. Son brought out a Home Depot bucket full of hot water and some sort of Aveeno chicken pox powder situation that has absolutely no effect on the flu. He got her a hot towel for her head and a blanket. The two of them should’ve opened a bed and breakfast together.
“I puked three times tonight and you never even showed up to the hospital!”
“I don’t see you puking now.”
“Do you think I’m lying?”
“I just think you’re being dramatic. It’s the fucking flu. People get the flu, they puke, they shower, they sleep, and they go back to work in three days. Nobody goes to the hospital for the flu.”
“You are the worst person ever! I can’t believe I’m dating somebody like you.”
Once she said that all I could think about was Mya on that Silkk the Shocker track “Somebody Like Me.” Where is Mya? I love Mya. No one looked better than Mya wearing that Carolina Blue Jordan jersey dress in Best of Me. I need somebody like Mya.
“All right, I’m going back to sleep.”
I walked past my wall of sneakers and went to bed, hoping that Mya would slide up in my subconscious that night, but Connie kept blowing up my spot.
“You’re making me sleep on the couch?”
“Connie, you want me to show you I care and reassure you that I’ll be there for you, but you know what, I just met you! I don’t want to lie to you. And I have no idea if I’m going to be there for you the next time you have the flu because I don’t think it’s that serious.”
She started crying, and I ignored her. I never asked for any of this. She wanted a relationship, she decided to move herself in, she made me breakfast I never asked for, all because she wanted someone to go to the hospital with her one day when she really needed it. When you’re with someone, you’re searching the subtexts, looking into their day-to-day actions, their instincts and facial expressions, trying to decode it all to answer the only question that matters: whether they’re gonna hold you down. And in her defense, that’s what everyone wants. From Jadakiss to DMX to Pac to 50 Cent to Connie, everyone wants a ride-or-die chick, 5411s size 7 in girls, Bonnie & Clyde, with the flu, in the hospital, asking “21 Questions” type relationship. But a girl you’ve dated for five weeks creating drama to test a ninja in some zero-gravity flu chamber to determine whether this relationship will make it in space is on another one.
The next morning I woke up at 6 A.M., and she was already gone. All her stuff was out the crib, and she left one pair of shoes that I’d bought for her the weekend before. I had to laugh. The girl did everything with two plates. #Extra
A week later, I came back from Miami and she apologized. I had spent a week wondering just how stank and fermented my soul had become, and then she apologized. It threw me for a loop. Some sort of Jedi mind trick, but it worked. Of course, once she retreated a little, I apologized and told her I’d make more of an effort to let her know I cared, but I only cared because I thought Connie was good for me. In the most selfish way, I kept seeing Connie because on paper it made sense.
My brother liked her, my mom would love her, and I should have wanted a compliant, fly Taiwanese-Chinese chick who could cure my bronchitis with a futuristic cousin of ginseng, but my life goal wasn’t to live forever with the prettiest handmaiden in the Five Kingdoms.
For weeks, Connie kept bothering me to go to brunch. I hate brunch. Bags, open-toed sandals, sundresses, strollers, and for what? EGGS! Everybody wants some cot damn EGGS.
But there I was at brunch. Connie sat across from me with these huge obnoxious Armani sunglasses and a Rhythm Nation–esque hat. I kept asking myself why she had a South Beach look in
North Fort Greene and had no answer. Halfway through these sideways thoughts, she spoke.
“You know, there are no good restaurants in New York.”
I was confused.
“What do you mean, there are no good restaurants in New York?”
“There just aren’t any good veggie restaurants.”
“That’s a big statement.”
“Well, I don’t like any of them.”
“There are tons of good restaurants in New York. What is your favorite restaurant in L.A.?”
“I like eating my mom’s food.”
“Your mom is not a restaurant. Unless your mama’s so fat that she’s Fat Burger.”
“My mom isn’t fat, she’s a vegetarian, too. You know, you’re mean.”
“I’m not mean! You make no sense.”
“I think I make sense, you’re just mean.”
My dick was going to kill me, but I had to end it. “Rack City” was a great song, but it was a five-weeks-in-the-club song, and it had been eight weeks already.
“I don’t think this is fun anymore.”
“I don’t think it’s fun, either, but I still like you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be mean, but I just don’t think I’m ready for all this.”
Neither of us said anything for about ten minutes, and then I asked for the check. There was no sadness in her face; no sign of crying. She was going to be better off without me, and I think she knew it.
For three months, I didn’t hear from Connie. I never reached out, and neither did she. One night, I got home from a bar, turned on my computer, and saw an email from her.
I miss u like mad and I hate that I do. I hate that I feel this way and I hate that I feel like I’m the only one that does.
Finally, I realized what was wrong. She liked me and missed me, but there was no logical reason to miss someone who doesn’t care about you, and she knew it. She didn’t like me or miss me; she just needed someone—anyone. I understood it. I was looking for someone, too. It just wasn’t Connie.
