Nothing but the truth: (and a few white lies)

by Justina Chen Headley

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  imposter when my family ate at Chinese restaurants, like the waitstaff was looking down at me for not speaking their language. A tall, stupid gweilo, a white ghost, I can hear them think in their heads.

  The hostess looks like one of the China Dolls, all grown up. She takes tiny mincing steps toward us in her silvery pink kimono. After bowing, she starts talking in rapid Japanese, either assuming or hoping that one of us will understand. Stu smiles at the woman and says, "I'm sorry We don't speak Japanese," but doesn't look embarrassed for not knowing the language.

  Katie asks me, "What did she say?"

  After years of translating Mama-ese, I can guess that the hostess wants us to stand right where we are until one of the tables leaves. But Jasmine overhears Katie's question and answers back in Idiot-ese: "As if she would know. She's Taiwanese, not Japanese. Different language."

  "Oh, excuse me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," says Katie. She turns her attention to the woodblock print of Mount Fuji as if she's never seen a mountain before. I feel bad that we didn't take her to a place like Benihana, the Americanized Japanese restaurant equivalent to the Chinese Egg Foo Yung ones we make fun of at home.

  "Maybe we should go somewhere else," says Katie, uncomfortably.

  "Why?" asks Jasmine, all combative Warrior Woman. In Jasmine-ese, this means there ain't no way she's leaving a restaurant just because the white girl is feeling like the model minority for once.

  We wait for another few minutes before a group of Japanese businessmen finish the last of their sake and leave, bowing and ogling Malibu Barbie on their way out.

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  "Just ignore them," I want to tell Katie, but the door closes on the businessmen and my opportunity. The hostess herds us to the table and brings us the menu, a list of sushi and sashimi typed on a plain piece of paper.

  Katie won't even touch the oil-stained paper. "So classy."

  My pity vanishes at her prissy act, like she's never eaten at a dive before. Like she hasn't been eating dorm food -- meals made with mystery meats -- for the past week.

  "Isn't there anything cooked here?" Katie's plaintive voice carries to the hostess, who scurries over, dismayed that something is wrong. Change the setting and it could have been Mama rushing over to make sure her precious potluck guests are more comfortable than her own children at home. I want to slide down in my seat, ashamed to be seen with Katie. All week now, we've heard about how wealthy her neurosurgeon father is, her BMW at home, their ranch in Montana, their first-class tickets to Hawaii every February. But now her true colors come through. It's not patrician blue blood; it's redneck hick.

  "There's probably tempura," offers Brian hopefully.

  "Deep fried, no thanks." Katie shudders, oh so delicately, even though just this morning she stuffed her face with an all-American, deep-fried donut.

  Even as Brian plays the helpful restaurant counselor for Katie, Stu catches my eye and rolls his own subtly. There's no mistaking our telepathic exchange: Isn't this "oh-what-disgusting-things-are-the-natives-eating" just plain offensive?

  I bite my tongue, glancing at Jasmine, who I'm expecting to erupt like Mount St. Hell-Am-I-Offended any second now, but she's too busy scoping out the businessmen to notice a twit like Katie.

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  The hostess brings a pot of hot tea over to our table. Without thinking, I start pouring everyone a cup.

  "That's so Asian woman of you," says Katie. White Girl is back in her superior element, scandalized in a pseudo-feminist way when I know for a fact she's been irritated all week that none of the guys hold the doors open for her. None of them do the "after you" thing to let her in line first.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" asks Jasmine, bristling.

  "If it means she's yin-yang perfect, then you're right," Stu says. He takes the teapot from me and fills the only empty cup left at the table -- mine.

  The fact is, Malibu Barbie over there may be blond and beautiful and act all proper, but she has nothing over an Asian woman like me who can talk her way out of getting thrown out of camp.

  "Thank you," I say to Stu.

  Brian winks at me just as I grin at Katie like she's paid me the greatest compliment. And I truly think she has.

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  23 * Yellow Fever

  "I'm so full," I groan as we pile out of Brian's car and head for the house.

  "Me, too." Stu whispers in my ear, "I have the solution." His breath tickles my cheek, and I swear, I feel that whisper caress me inside and out. Then in full view of Katie and Jasmine, he takes my hand and pulls me down the hill, back toward the heart of the campus, calling over his shoulder to Brian, "Hey, thanks for driving."

  "Remember the curfew," says Brian, shaking his head at us.

  "We will," I promise.

  I catch a last glimpse of the girls in the parking lot, wearing identical expressions of wish-I-were-her wistfulness. It's the way I must have looked every time Janie told me about her boyfriends. I may have wished I were her my whole life, but not tonight. Tonight I don't want to be anyone but me.

  "We've got an hour," Stu tells me, squeezing my hand.

  An hour. I could ask questions, try to figure out all my options, plan an escape route just in case. But I don't. I give

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  myself up to the now, and run through the archway to the Inner Quad, just the way Mrs. Meyers told me to do.

  Even though I don't know what's on the other side, I squeeze Stu's hand back.

  We don't stop walking, don't start talking, until we reach the center of the Inner Quad. MemChu is in front of us, illuminated in the dark night like it's been waiting to give us a private benediction after the long, long service of my home life. I know that The Gates of Hell art somewhere at our back, way down past Math Corner and the Oval, past remembering, past worrying.

  The moonlight is all I need to see how Stu is poring over me like I'm a piece of fine porcelain, meant to be admired, not used. How could I have written off all Asian guys in one blind, encompassing statement? How could I have ever thought that four weeks of problem sets would set back my social life permanently?

  "I'm not buildering MemChu tonight," I tell Stu.

  "Nah, been there, done that," he says. "I was thinking of spelunking in the steam tunnels instead." He starts laughing when my eyes widen, horrified because this is not the romancing I was imagining. "No?"

  "No."

  Stu takes a step closer to me. "Then that leaves us with making you a real Stanford woman."

  "I thought I was one already."

  "Not until you get kissed on a full moon at midnight. Stanford tradition." Stu tugs me closer and I have to tilt my head to look up at his face. "The seniors kiss the frosh, and make real men and women out of them."

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  The moon sitting above us is a hair less than full and a whole lot more than empty. Wind rustles the flowers that are dozing through the best part of this day, blowing my skin wide awake. I shiver even though I'm not cold, especially not with Stu's hands stroking up and down my arms.

  "It's not midnight," I say, my voice coming out as a whisper. "And you're not a senior."

  "Technicalities." He leans down until his lips are just a first kiss away.

  "So I guess this will make me a Hapa Girl."

  If there's one thing I am sure of it's this: when a boy's about to kiss a girl, the last thing he wants is to have her bust into laughter. Probably not good for the fragile male ego. Now's the worst time to laugh, but I do. Free and wild, sounding like anyone but me.

  Stu doesn't look fazed, just perplexed. When a half-smile curves his full lips, I know he's never seen anyone look more completely right.

  "What?" he asks.

  "Being a Hapa Girl isn't half-bad."

  For years, I've played the adoring audience and listened to Janie and Laura dissect kisses like they're The Three Bears: too wet, too dry, oooh--just right. When Stu hovers over my lips, making me wait and wait and wait for his kiss, all I know is that
I am done playing the good girl who sits out patiently on the sidelines. I'm tired of waiting for my turn. Waiting to star in my own dreams. Waiting for my first kiss. So me, the girl who's afraid of falling, jumps headfirst. I reach up with both arms and pull Stu down to my half-open lips.

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  The truth is, I have no comparison set for kisses. Zero, zilch. Not even a lame under-the-mistletoe peck on the cheek. But nothing -- and I mean, no books, no movies, no overheard conversations -- prepares me for this lip-swelling mouthquake when his lips touch mine. Stu wraps his arms around me and pulls me so close that all I feel is his body and his lips. I whimper-sigh-moan.

  "God, Patty," he whispers like he's the one who's never been kissed before.

  Under that almost-full moon in the Stanford Quad, I become the heroine of my own romance. I don't know whether I'm a fake Stanford woman or a real SUMaC one, but I feel as bright as the yellow-white stars glittering above us.

  It's almost ten, curfew time. We're on the brink of turning back into SUMaC students with problem sets to solve. I wonder if it's such a bad transformation, after all, as we run hand-in-hand back toward Synergy.

  "So do you feel different?" Stu asks when we're just a few feet away from the door.

  "Do you?" I counter.

  "You're not a senior."

  "Technicalities." I make a note to tell Jasmine that older isn't necessarily better.

  Stu's smile is so sexy that I forget all about Jasmine and problem sets and curfews. Just as I sink against him, I see Mama.

  This is no love-hazed hallucination. It's really her, sitting straight-backed in one of the chairs at the foot of the stairs inside Synergy, frowning as ferociously as the foo dogs that

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  scare bad luck away from our front door at home. Brian sits beside her, hunched over and gray-faced as if all the bad luck has fled Mama's glare and is cowering in his body.

  "No. Way." I rip my hands off Stu's shoulders.

  "What?"

  "My mother."

  No sooner do we walk into Synergy than Mama demands, "Where you been?" Her disapproval is so burdensome, she can't budge out of the chair.

  Our fairy-god-counselor says in a falsely cheerful tone, "Right on time. See, Mrs. Ho, I told you, nothing to worry about."

  Save your breath, I should have told Brian. I may not be Cinderella, and it might not be midnight. But my ball is definitely over.

  "Mama, what are you doing here?" I ask.

  Hunh -- she breathes out. "If you call me back, you know why." Her glare underscores her anger. "I have accounting seminar tomorrow."

  Right. A seminar. I know perfectly well why she's really here: to check on me. To make sure I'm not having any fun with -- heaven forbid -- a white guy. Here I am with Stu, who may not be Taiwanese, but at least he's in the right ethnic group, and Mama's still nose-flaring mad. God, isn't there anything, ANYTHING that I can do that's good enough for her?

  "Where you been?" she demands.

  Then an idea pops into my head as if Abe has just given me a sharp, telepathic prod: Use the SUMaC card, you idiot! So I become Patty Ho, gung-ho cheerleader:

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  rah-rah-Stu-boom-bah! I babble as if my life depends on it, pulling out everything I've ever learned from listening to potluck bragging: "This is Stu, he's the math captain at his high school." I even use the Anne connection, as if her friendship confers special blessings or possibly even boosts his IQ by association. "He's Anne's friend. They went to the school dance together. Remember, you met him at the airport?"

  If I knew his GPA or his SAT score or what his parents did for a living, I would have tossed those to Mama, desperate peace offerings.

  Unfortunately, cheering for a losing team usually doesn't result in anything except for a hoarse voice. This is true now. Mama's face doesn't soften, all stone hardness despite my effusive shower of Stu's accomplishments. I'm sure they would have allayed any normal mother's concerns about the company her daughter is keeping. But Mama is anything but normal. She stares impassively at him.

  "What your last name?" she shoots at him.

  "Huang," he says, holding out his hand. "It's good to see you again, Mrs. Ho."

  "Huang," she repeats, ignoring his outstretched hand, but tasting his name like she can discern its vintage, or at least his lineage. Is it my imagination, or did her frown shrink a smidgen? Maybe the fact that he's got a Chinese surname is enough to placate her. But then she asks, "Where your parents from?"

  My stomach sinks. I know where this is going, the Inquisition that will cover a few generations of his family. It's time to stop the conversation now before Mama probes too deep. "So, Mama," I say, "you're probably tired, and we can see each other tomorrow, right?"

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  But Stu, thinking he's home clear, answers, "My mom was born in America, but she and my dad are originally from Taiwan."

  Mama's eyes gleam with approval at Stu. "You Taiwanese?"

  "OK, I need to go to bed now --" I start to say just as Stu shakes his head. I try to step on his foot and would have lunged to cover his mouth when he corrects her, "No, Chinese."

  And just like that, Stu falls into the black hole of irrecoverable disapproval.

  Most people think, Chinese, Taiwanese, what's the big whoopee difference? Just ask the woman who's never taken time off work to come to one of my meets, but can march on City Hall and attend protest rallies to "Liberate Taiwan." For her, there's a world of difference between the native Taiwanese (us) and its former ruling party, the Kuomintang (Stu). Two million of (his) KMT compatriots fled from mainland China to Taiwan when they lost a power struggle with the Communists.

  I wince and want to warn Stu to flee now for cover. Mama's lips thin, as she prepares to personally avenge the fifty-yearlong Kuomintang-imposed martial law on Taiwan.

  "Mama," I say quickly, "Stu's family moved here in the sixties. That was so long ago."

  Not long enough. Her eyebrows lower half-mast, and I hear the death knell gonging on Stu. Whether anyone, however distant, in his family pulled a trigger or not, Mama holds the KMT (his people) responsible for the infamous February 28 Incident of 1947 where her grandfather along with thirty thousand Taiwanese were killed.

  She says stiffly, "Not so long ago."

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  Of course not. Historical cruelties, family slights, less-than-perfect report cards -- she remembers them all. And now she remembers what she's decided while she's been waiting for me. "You pack, we leave. Now."

  "What?" I hear Stu blurt out in disbelief.

  Even though I'm reeling, I have the presence of mind to shake my head at him, not another word. Who would have known that Belly-button Grandmother could be so wrong? There is something worse than dating a white guy. It's dating a guy named Stu.

  So disobedient me, I hesitate for a second too long.

  Right there, in front of Stu and Brian, within earshot of all my housemates living in Syn with me, Mama launches into the Mother of All Lectures: You Shame Family Honor.

  The Mama Lecture Series The Mother of All Lectures: You Shame Family Honor

  Greetings and welcome to what some would say is the most controversial installment of The Mama Lecture Series. Please note that while no cell phones are allowed during this live performance, the use of earplugs is strongly advised. Due to the nature of the material, this show may be inappropriate for small children, those with weak constitutions and people who come from happy homes. For all others, sit back and survive the show.

  ''If potluck group know what you do here, they laugh at me!" Mama barks. "They say, 'Poor Ho Mei-Li to have such a ho-lee-jing daughter.'"

  For the unindoctrinated, this is a bad sign that Mama

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  dusts off the "H" word-bomb. So now she's calling me a "wild and conniving fox," which means that Mama has moved well beyond pissed off to raging, wicked mad.

  "You say," Mama begins, pitching her voice higher like a young and stupid girl, "I call you, Mama." He
r eyes narrow. "I call and call and call. You not call back. Too busy" --- her eyes flick over to KMT-killer Stu -- "playing." She spits that last word out like it's a piece of the cilantro she hates. "I not work, work, work to make three thousand dollars for you to play."

  "I've been working, too," I tell her.

  Mama flings a hand up in the air, whacking away my words like so much noise pollution. "Oh-beh-gong!"

  Doors crack open up and down the floors above at Mama's shout. My eyes drop to my sneakers. Mama is right; I'm black-white talking, not so much lying as not telling the truth. I may have been working, but not hard enough. Certainly not three thousand dollars' worth of working hard.

  Mama starts another tirade. "I think, I so busy, but maybe something wrong with Patty. Maybe I take couple days off work. Go to seminar in Mountain View. Right by Patty. I think, I come over, we go out to special dinner. But you not here! You gone. I wait. Wait. No one know where you are."

  Her eyes narrow accusingly first at Stu and then settle on me. How typical Mama. Make plans without consulting me, assume that I'm forever at her beck and call. And then I think of all the phone calls she made, Abe made, calls I should have answered.

  Like she divines what I'm thinking, Mama demands, "How come you not call me back?"

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  How come? Because all you do is yell at me. Of course, I bite my lip to keep the truth tamped inside.

  Brian, a newbie to this lecture series, breaks cardinal rule number one: never, never interrupt a Mama-logue. Mama is a combustible Chinese firecracker, seconds away from exploding. Before I can stop him, though, Brian adds fuel to her already flaming anger.

  "Mrs. Ho," he says gently, "I understand that you were worried --"

  However pure Brian's heart is -- and I know all he's trying to do is help me -- he has absolutely no clue. This temper tantrum playing out before his stunned eyes has nothing to do with maternal concern, and everything to do with me being out of Mamas control (Oooh, out a minute past ten o'clock with a boy! The horror! The horror!).