by Vanessa Hua
“He’s responsible for everyone, now.” My mother had stopped stroking my head and sat me upright, smoothing her hand down my back. I stared at the dark paisley carpet. If I looked at the casket, I might fall in, the lid closing over me. “Just like you will be.”
I could guess how my parents would react in the abstract, but could not bear to imagine the details if I told them I was not whom they assumed. Would my mother wail about the shame to the family, would my father walk away? Would they tell me to leave and never return?
As much as I concealed from my parents, I needed them to be there to hide from. Worse than any rejection would be their absence from my life.
~~~
We were at our fourth winery, and I was getting buzzed. Although there was a silver spit bucket at the end of the counter, it seemed a waste of fine wine not to drink.
“Imagine what that tastes like.” Peter tipped the bucket and peered inside. The mixture of wine and saliva sloshed against the sides, stinking of grape juice and yeasty ferment.
“This is much better.” I swirled the rest of the Merlot in the back of my mouth.
Other couples stood at the bar, sniffing and downing their $10 glasses of wine. The wineries had different themes, tricked out as farmhouses, and French chateaus, with outdoor sculptures, peacocks, aerial trams, whatever the rich founder fancied. You could be anywhere. This winery had the décor of an Italian villa, with a whitewashed exterior, red tile roofs, and bottles of olive oil sold beside the raffia-wrapped wine in the gift shop.
“Winemakers do it in barrels,” he said, reading aloud from the front of a $40 apron. “That can’t be comfortable.”
“Or hygienic.”
“Or romantic.” Peter took my hand and we walked outside, up the hill, to a gazebo that over-looked a duck pond. We stumbled upon a couple necking inside, a man and a woman, both wearing tight black shirts and jeans. He had one hand up the back of her shirt, the other on her butt. She was stroking his face. As I tugged at Peter to walk away, the couple turned to us. Both slender and long limbed, they were a matched pair of greyhounds.
“We’re finished.” The man motioned for us to come back.
“Your turn,” the woman added. They walked back to the main building hand-to-butt, their arms crossed behind their backs and slipped into the pocket of their lover. They were like teenagers making-out at a party, outdoing the ardor of other couples. I felt shy, inexperienced, and unable to meet the challenge.
It had taken a long time for me to hold hands with Peter in public, before graduating to pecks on the lips good-bye. My parents did not express themselves through hugs and kisses, and I had learned how to accept Peter’s.
He walked to the far end of the gazebo, which overlooked a pond where a fleet of ducklings followed their mother. Bees buzzed on the overhanging honeysuckle. The wine and heat suddenly hit me. Woozy, I sat on a bench beside him. We had said little of our encounter with Mr. and Mrs. Woo. I touched his wrist, and he looked down at me. “So we’re roommates.”
“What does it matter what I call you?” My head throbbed.
“It matters. What would you call me if no one else was around?”
“Someone’s always around. With my family, it’s never just us.”
~~~
Ever since I left home, I returned without fail on Sundays. Coming back from Napa, we drove past the suburbs that had grown from sleepy to self-satisfied in the last decade, as the wealth seeped eastward along Highway 24. The plan was to drop him off at the BART station and for me to go home for dinner, but I accelerated past the exit. I knew now I could not give up whom I loved most for my family. My parents made me the man with whom Peter fell in love. Peter made me the man I wanted my parents to love. Without both, I could have neither.
Peter, engrossed in a science journal, did not notice where we were until we turned onto my street. I parked across from the house, behind Jeanne’s car. She had beaten me home.
“You forgot to drop me off,” he said.
“I didn’t forget.”
What I wanted sank in. “Are you sure?”
“Are you?”
He snapped the journal shut. The cooling engine ticked, solemn as a metronome. “Are you worried that your parent’s friends will out you?”
“I don’t know how the Woos would even bring it up. It wouldn’t be very polite, to get into family business.”
“This is something you should do by yourself. They’ll want to talk to you alone.”
“If you’re there, they can’t deny you exist.”
“I don’t want to be a prop.” He dropped the journal on the floor. “They’ll blame me for making you gay.”
“Please.” My back was sticky with sweat and my mouth tasted skunky.
He ran his hand along the diagonal seat-belt strap, but hesitated above the buckle. I pressed down with both hands on his, releasing him, and embraced him clumsily, inhaling his musky scent that I could identify from a lineup of dozens.
I could see the silhouette of my mother in the kitchen window of the white ranch-style house, maybe washing off bai cai in the sink or filling the battered tin teapot with water. My father was laid bare in the living room window. The television flashed against his face. He was frugal, turning on the lights in the last minute of sundown. The scene was routine—their life, the moment before they learned that their only son was gay.
Much confusion and blame tumbled out afterward. My parents shut me out, with my sister forced to act as a go-between, the messenger of their accusations and their pleas—first hurt then hopeful—for me to be normal, to marry and to have children. My mother consulted a Chinese fortune-teller, seeking cures. When told that I would not change, she vowed to jump in front of a bus. My parents stopped boasting about me to their friends, who understood not to ask questions. Two years later, they did not go to our wedding in San Francisco’s City Hall, but sent us a red envelope of crisp one hundred dollar bills. Three more years followed and they came back into our lives after we designed a website to attract a birth mother. Both of us smiled so hard in our pictures that our cheeks throbbed as if punched. My parents offered to pay for an egg donor and surrogate to carry our child—our son. A baby they could understand and get behind.
I knew none of that, then. But as I watched my parents through the window, I knew it was my responsibility to tell them. If I did not, all the other duties I tried to fulfill meant nothing.
That night, the moment my key goes into the lock, my parents rush to the door. My father shouts to my mother: Lai le, la le! He has arrived. I hear the television turn off, the running kitchen faucet go silent, and their quick steps on the tile floor.
Peter and I stand apart, flanking the welcome mat. I hold my breath until the door swings open, and my parents greet me with smiles. I slip my hand into Peter’s, and we go in.
ACCEPTED
It occurred to me that I’d become too comfortable with breaking and entering. Back from field training, I’d leapt onto the windowsill in a single bound, no awkward scrambling, as though onto a pommel horse, despite my combat boots and my Kevlar. I crouched, resting my hands lightly on the frame. My ponytail bobbed and then went still. In perfect balance, I could have carried a stack of books on my head, a debutante but for the stench of dirt and sweat.
I tiptoed in the dark until realizing my roommates were out. As I set down my ruck, an RA in the lounge shouted an invitation to join a group headed to Flicks. A door slammed, and a basketball thudded down the hallway. From the floor above, reggae blasted, competing with the howl of a blow-dryer. No sign of the dorm settling down Sunday night, not with the last of the weekend to enjoy.
Too tired to shower, I collapsed onto the futon for a nap before my all-nighter. A sudden, strange lull descended, so complete it seemed like I was in one of those sensory deprivation chambers that drive test subjects insane. I couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone in the world had disappeared. “Hello?” I called out. “Hello, hello.” No one answered, and
I fired up Julia’s laptop to fill the void with light and noise.
We met fall quarter, after I studied her for a half hour while she sunbathed. Her body long and lean in a black sports bra and board shorts, on the lawn outside her dorm, the new one with spacious lounges and nooks for studying, and where I wanted to live most. Julia seemed like the kind of girl who adopted wounded birds and stray puppies, willing to help a newcomer in need.
I told her I had nowhere to stay because of a mix-up in Housing. Officials said they might find something within a week or two, but until then I’d be sleeping in the 24-hour room at the library. What a way to start freshman year! Julia, a sophomore, invited me to crash in the room she shared with her best friend. One night turned into a week, another and another and then we were at the end of the quarter, Dead Week, finals, and saying our good-byes for the holidays. Without their knowledge, my roommates had aided and abetted me. My classmates considered me no different than them, these student body presidents, valedictorians, salutatorians, National Merit Scholars, Model U.N. reps, Academic Decathletes, All-State swimmers and wrestlers, and other shining exemplars of America’s youth.
~~~
The rejection from Admissions was a mistake. That’s what I told myself after I clicked on the link and logged onto the portal last spring. Stanford had denied another Elaine Park, another in Irvine who’d also applied. I waited for a phone call of apology, along with an e-mail with the correct link.
I hadn’t meant to lie, not at first, but when Jack Min donned his Stanford sweatshirt after receiving his acceptance (a senior tradition)—I yanked my Cardinal red hoodie out of my locker. When my AP English teacher, Ms. Banks, stopped to congratulate me, I couldn’t bring myself to say, not yet. She’d worked with me on a dozen revisions of my college essay and written a generous letter of rec, and I didn’t want to disappoint her.
Another week passed, and I posed with Jack for the school paper. A banner year for the church our families both attended, and for Sparta High, with two students in a single class admitted to Stanford. When I showed my parents the article as proof of my acceptance, Appa held the newspaper with his fingertips, as if it were bridal lace he was preserving on a special order. He reeked of chemicals from the cleaners, the stink of exhaustion and servility.
“Assiduous.” His praise for my hard work. My vocab drills, which began nightly when I was in kindergarten, had fallen to him. For years, he’d been reading the dictionary for self-improvement, and the words we’d studied together coded what otherwise might remain unsaid.
“Sagacity.” I thanked my father for his wisdom.
In June, with graduation approaching, I politely alerted Admissions of its error.
“You haven’t received any notification?” the woman asked on the other end of the line.
“A rejection. For another Elaine Park.” Only then did I realize how ridiculous I sounded. Could I appeal the decision, or get on the wait list, I asked.
No, she gently said. She explained that those chosen off the wait-list had been notified two weeks ago, and wished me the best of luck.
All those hours, all that money. The after-school academic cram programs. The cost kept us from moving out of our tiny two-bedroom apartment, whose only amenity was its location in a desirable school district and the stagnant pool where my neighbor taught me to swim. Other sacrifices: Appa put off visiting the doctor until his colds turned into bronchitis and then pneumonia. Umma’s eyes going bad, squinting at the alterations she did for extra cash at the dry cleaners where they both worked.
Stanford was the only school to which I’d applied, the only school my parents imagined me attending. Other Korean families aimed for Hah-bah-duh, Harvard, or Yae-il, Yale, but we wanted Suh-ten-por-duh, Ivy of the West. On our sole family vacation, before my junior year, we piled into the car and drove to Stanford and back in a single day, a seven-hour trip each way—enough time to eat our gimbap rolls in the parking lot, snap photos of Hoover Tower, buy a sweatshirt, and pick up a course catalogue and a copy of the Stanford Daily, all of which I studied as closely as an archeologist trying to crack ancient runes. I was supposed to become a doctor, and buy my parents a sedan and a house in a gated community. A doctor had a title, respect, and would never be brushed off like them, never berated by customers, and never snubbed by salesclerks. My sister, who sulked the entire ride to campus, wasn’t to be counted on. Five years younger than me, a chola in the making, with Cleopatra eyeliner and teased bangs, she’d turned rebellious in junior high. She could take care of herself, and I’d take care of our parents.
When I asked the admissions officer if I could send additional letters of rec, her tone turned icy. “We never reverse a decision officially rendered.” She hung up.
The problem, I came to understand, was that my story was too typical. My scores, my accomplishments, and my volunteer work were identical to hundreds, maybe thousands of other applicants, and Admissions had reached its quota of hard-luck, hard-working children of immigrants. I’d been too honest, straightforward where I should have embellished, ordinary where I should have been fanciful. My classmate Jack had launched his own startup, sending used cell phones to Africa. If only I’d been a homeless teen or knit socks and mittens for orphans in China. If only I’d had cancer.
I couldn’t tell my parents the truth, not after my pastor announced my Stanford acceptance at church. If my high school classmates found out, I’d become a joke. But if I spent time on the Farm, I’d discover the secret of how to talk, how to act, how to be. When I became a full-fledged student, no one had to know I had been anything but. I searched Facebook to see what incoming freshman said about forms, housing, tuition, and classes, and told my parents I’d been awarded a government scholarship, and a work-study job to cover the rest.
At the bus station, Umma pressed her papery cheek against mine, and gave me a sack of snacks, puffed rice and dried seaweed. My parents wanted to caravan with Jack’s family, but I told them not to waste a day’s pay by taking time off. My sister wished me luck, less surly upon realizing she’d get my room after I left. Appa handed me a prepaid cell phone and gruffly reminded me to call on Sundays.
“Cogent,” he said. Other words described me more aptly, that I didn’t dare say: legerdemain, reprobate.
~~~
Early Monday morning, the room phone rang, Julia’s mother. I was typing notes for Hum Bio on her laptop, preparing for a test I’d never take. Not strange at all, considering there was a word for it—auditing—learning, but without credit.
Covering for Julia, I told Mrs. Ramirez she was at practice. She had probably spent the night at Scott’s, from the men’s crew team. They’d been hooking up, but he was also hanging out with other girls.
Scott. He couldn’t be trusted. Not after last night, when he’d come looking for Julia. It was late, late for her, usually asleep after dinner, on the water at first light for crew practice. I expected him to leave, but he’d sprawled onto the futon—my bed—and asked about my weekend.
“At the pool.” I’d learned how to turn my pants into a personal flotation device. Wriggling out, knotting each leg like a sausage, my fingers cramped and slippery. Jerking the pants overhead in a single motion, to fill the legs with air. How to swim on my side, raising my dummy rifle out of the water. The calm I felt, as splashes ricocheted around me. “Water combat training.”
“Bad ass,” he said.
He wasn’t making fun of me. He was checking me out, his eyes following the line of my legs, up to the powerful curve of my thighs in a pair of running shorts. My body had changed under PT, turned harder, stronger, faster, and the hours I used to devote to studying I now spent jogging on Campus Drive and lifting weights.
I blushed, trying to fasten the buttons of the shirt I’d tossed over my sport bra. Scott had long eyelashes, so lush he could have been wearing mascara. The air between us had thickened. His deodorant had a woodsy, musky smell that made me think of plaid and lumberjacks. His phone had buzzed, a te
xt from Julia. She was waiting for him at his place, he’d said, and loped off.
Although I’d dreamed I would find lifelong friends at Stanford, women who would be my bridesmaids and men to pal around with and maybe date, I remained apart as ever. Except for Julia. Because I was a cul-de-sac, not in her circle of jock friends, she trusted me with her secrets. Her fears about Scott, her complaints about our roommate Tina, so spoiled, so careless with her money.
I pushed Tina’s mess away from my corner. She’d begun encroaching, her text-books, her crumpled jeans, her energy bar wrappers, and hair-balls swirling like the Pacific garbage patch. Tina was Chinese-American, the daughter of immigrants too. From Grosse Pointe, she was used to being the only Asian and had run with a popular crowd in high school.
Before break, I told them that Housing found a spot for me. When the new quarter began, I said it fell through. A few times, I’d walked into the room and the conversation stopped, and I knew they’d been talking about me. Although it might seem strange that they never locked me out, they were too polite, too trusting of a fellow classmate in need.
My stomach growled. Security was lax on campus, but the dining hall at this hour wasn’t busy enough to sneak through the exit for breakfast. Freeloading didn’t seem like stealing, not exactly, with more than enough food and classroom seats to go around. I only took what would go to waste.
I dug through my ruck, searching for my ROTC assignment due that afternoon. Although the corps had been banned on campus during Vietnam War protests, Stanford students took classes and trained with battalions at other local colleges. I’d slipped through a loophole, easily able to sign up because of the informal communication between the schools about the program.
I hitched a ride three times a week to ROTC with a pair of Stanford seniors, who’d both committed to serving eight years in the Army. Friendly but not looking to make another friend, not with graduation and a likely deployment to the Middle East looming. Still, I was grateful for the assignments in military history some treated as a joke, and grateful for the rank of cadet. Grateful for the ruck, and the Kevlar that gave me a look of purpose, compared to the Stanford students dressed in shorts and sandals all the time, like they were going to the beach. BDU—battle dress uniform. LBE —load bearing equipment, harness, canteen, first-aid kit, and ammo pouch. I was proud to speak the language of ROTC , proud I could navigate in the dark, armed with a map, compass, and a piece of paper. Finding the point, finding the code, finding the pirate’s buried treasure.
