My Summer of Love and Misfortune

by Lindsay Wong

  While I was eating delicious vegetable baozi and brown gloopy miancha for breakfast, Frank sent me a message on WeChat saying that he was too tired to make our morning class, and he suggested that we meet in the early afternoon for a history field trip.

  I shock myself by getting there fifteen minutes before Frank. Granted, Mr. Chen dropped me off, but I have never been early for tutoring before. In fact, in New Jersey, I’m always late or never even show up for lessons.

  Frank nods stiffly at me when he sees me at the entrance of Tiananmen Square. Like a newbie pageant queen, I wave awkwardly at him, trying to smile. He doesn’t smile back.

  We pretend that nothing happened, and Frank seems way more somber than last night. I’m almost glad when he launches into a speech about political activism and resistance and executions, where Chinese people were fired on by their own government. At least talking seems to animate him.

  Also, it makes it easier to find him a little less attractive whenever he starts talking about learning.

  But his half-moon smile.

  And the way that he watches me when giving me a straight-up narration about the square.

  I could literally observe him all day, but it’s more than that. It seems like he can actually see through me, as cheesy as it sounds. None of the boys that I have ever hooked up with or dated have ever treated me like a real living person before. Peter and all the ones who came before him always mixed me up with the ATM machine.

  How can I find a tutor nerdy, handsome, mysterious, and a bit alluring at the same time? Who am I? Iris Wang would never make out with one of her tutors back home. Pothead guitarists and intense partygoers were always my preferred boyfriends. These dudes were never 100 percent authentic Chinese, and they were always despised by my parents.

  How can I be falling for a Chinese Parent Approved boy?

  It literally makes no sense.

  But Frank is someone who has a life purpose. He knows exactly who he is, and what he cares about. He’s the complete opposite of Peter Hayes, who had negative zero direction.

  In fact, Frank is the very opposite of me, which is probably why I’m so confused and repulsed and fascinated at the same time. Frank is like my first foray into eating braised fermented red bean chicken feet. When I ate my first clawed foot at a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, it was slimy, terrifying, and tantalizing all at once.

  For the former Iris Wang of small-town Bradley Gardens, New Jersey, Frank Liao would be the equivalent of falling in love with the narrator on the History Channel while using them to cure late-night insomnia.

  Beijing time has truly messed up my understanding of romantic attraction.

  Frank is still talking about political activism. He gestures at the walls and open space around us, pointing enthusiastically.

  I can’t help but grin genuinely at him.

  He smiles back, like I’m almost as important as a historical landmark.

  My heart beats faster. Like I’m about to parachute off a plane.

  When is the history lesson over?

  Don’t get me wrong, Tiananmen is a really nice public meeting area, but where is the gift shop? I still have some leftover yuan to spend, and Tiananmen Square could totally benefit from more tourist spending.

  Also, the boots Ruby gave me are a few sizes too small and the sides pinch my feet like passive-aggressive hermit crabs. Where can we find a bench to sit?

  I do feel proud of myself, though, for enjoying a real-life cultural heritage site. I mean, the flagpole is nice for younger children playing tag, and there’s even something called an Arrow Tower for a great view of the city (perfect for hooking up). There’s also a Great Hall of the People, which I gather is a backup meeting place for citywide emergencies. In front of the entrance is where the Forbidden Palace is located, and there is also a full-size photo of a stern balding man that reminds me a lot of Uncle Dai.

  In fact, I’m almost certain that the portrait is of Uncle Dai.

  Is my uncle a major donor? Is that why Frank brought me to the square? Is Tiananmen Square part of Feng Construction Corporation?

  “That looks exactly like my uncle!” I say, waving at the portrait.

  No answer from Frank.

  “You think your uncle looks like Mao Zedong?” Frank finally asks, sounding incredulous.

  “Well, yes. Don’t you see the resemblance? Who’s Mao, anyway?”

  I snap a selfie with the poster and try to take several where I put a leg up to showcase my new beautiful gold boots. These photos are definitely Instagrammable. Frank stares at me, looking stunned. As if he can’t believe that Uncle Dai owns the entire square. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe it either.

  Suddenly, a security guard starts yelling in both English and Chinese, “NO PHOTO ALLOWED! What you doing, miss?”

  I quickly apologize for the misunderstanding and scamper away. I worry that he’ll make me delete the photos. It’s a bit difficult to run, actually, since these boots are high with six-inch heels. It’s honestly like walking on a pair of attention-grabbing gold stilts.

  Frank bows and apologizes profusely to the security guard, who mutters something long and explanatory in Chinese as we leave.

  As I continue to scan the area for a gift shop, I pretend that I don’t see the National Museum of China in case Frank wants to go in.

  After I accidentally compared Uncle Dai to Mao Zedong, Frank has said nothing for the longest time. But I’m glad when he agrees that it’s time for a late lunch.

  He hails a rickshaw, which is a bike pulling an old-fashioned carriage, and I honestly feel a bit bad for the skinny older man who agrees to haul both of us. We can’t be very light, especially since there are two of us, and there is a lot of panting and huffing on his part, especially when we turn up a bumpy cobblestone road. Going uphill takes forever and each time we hit a pothole, I worry that we will flip over.

  “Isn’t this great?” Frank says, grinning.

  He seems more relaxed now, as if able to put last night’s “mistake” behind us.

  I nod, but I keep worrying about how the rickshaw driver will manage to get us to our destination. I can’t understand why I want Frank to like me when I see all my flaws and mistakes in his totally serious, opposite-of-Iris personality.

  A shocking thought hits me: Maybe love, like family, isn’t supposed to be just for fun?

  What if the real reason for all my previous mistakes is that I’m horribly afraid of hard work? Come to think of it, whenever there is a pothole in the road, I find the nearest overpriced coffee shop and will my problem to go away with a fudgy pecan brownie and an extra-large caramel latte. I just don’t enjoy problem-solving. I just don’t want to figure out how much cement to use to fill a hole.

  Honestly, I don’t like to think about why or how something went wrong.

  Despite the heavy factory smog, central Beijing slowly comes into view. The historical areas are well-preserved. There are long winding alleyways containing traditional houses with tiled roofs, and narrow streets that Frank refers to as hutongs, in their postcard white, reds, and grays.

  “They’re so beautiful!” he says, grinning strangely. “They haven’t been bulldozed yet for commercial buildings like those big chain hotels.”

  On the streets, there are vendors and hustling people, but I’m still too worried about the man on the bicycle to fully enjoy the scenery. What if he has a heart attack while pulling us up this ginormous hill? Is it unfair of us to force him to carry our weight? He’s not a donkey!

  What if he needs what my dad keeps warning me about, a full knee and hip replacement due to overexercising, in his golden years?

  Finally, we stop at Fucheng Food Market in the Haidian District, and I hand our driver a lot of Uncle Dai’s money and don’t even count it. This practically counts as charity work. The rickshaw driver grins at me, revealing stumps of blackened teeth. Yikes. He grabs my hand and shakes it, thanking me profusely in Mandarin. Despite my astonishment, I still manage
to smile gratefully. Honestly, I love giving people money and making others happy. Maybe he can visit a dentist or go on a weekend vacation.

  I’m surprised when we enter a street market, and at first I don’t want to eat anything until Frank insists that it’s safe, since my stomach should now be accustomed to the food in Beijing. Street vendors are roasting fat ducks, geese, piglets, and chickens on spits. People are rolling large doughy pancakes and stir-frying plates of white onions, scrambled eggs, carrots, crushed tomatoes, and rice in gigantic, hissing woks.

  The smell, all of it exotic and familiar, fried and fresh, saturates my nostrils. I sniff hungrily.

  “This is local food,” Frank explains. “This is the real Beijing. What you’ve been eating is the fine dining stuff that they think foreigners like. No authentic flavor.”

  Eagerly, I hand over some yuan, and Frank orders twenty of the fattest and juiciest xiāo long bao that I have ever seen. They’re like the size of small helium balloons. They smell beefy and divine. At another stall, a dude rolls the sticky flour dough before yanking and hacking it into fresh hand-pulled noodles. He cooks the yellow shoestring bundles in bubbling water and then dumps them into a spicy, red-hot simmering seafood soup. He ladles green Chinese veggies on top. Last, we walk to a stall that has boiling vats of clacking lobsters, mussels, baby crabs, squid, and freshly shucked oysters. It’s like food sample day at Costco. I want to eat all of these immediately, and a smiling woman hands me a generous portion of each in a bucket.

  An actual-size bucket!

  Like she thinks we’re giant, slobbering mastiffs!

  We sit down at an outdoor table and feast.

  I’m too busy stuffing my face to make conversation, and then I notice that Frank is just watching me. He’s not eating. Is he not hungry? Is there something on my face? I touch my mouth and chin to make sure that no more hairs are popping up like weeds. Frank’s staring at me intently, as if he has something important to say. Thankfully, he’s not lecturing me and I can happily eat my food without listening to another speech on history.

  Frank keeps staring at me.

  I blush, averting my eyes.

  Then I realize that he’s studying me. Like I’m a no-price-tag art piece at NAMOC.

  Was last night so horrible?

  Then why is he looking at me like a fun new party drug that he wants to dissolve under his tongue but knows that he has to wake up early the next day for school? If I were him, I would just cancel all my obligations and follow the dangerous rabbit hole to wherever the drug led me. New friends, hot shocking hookups, and unforgettable adventures that could replace the horrible mundane memory of day-to-day life.

  There’s also a hungry longing in Frank’s eyes, and I honestly hope to the gods of all the major shopping malls in the world that it’s meant exclusively for me.

  After he’s been staring at me so much, I finally wonder if Frank is horrified by my inability to properly hold chopsticks or the fact that I’m using my fingers to eat seafood. Then I wonder if he’s embarrassed about our wet and sloppy makeout session from last night. I did use Nair on my Tiger mustache this morning just in case.

  Deliberately, I touch my bare knee to his under the wooden table.

  We’re skin to skin. And it’s like he’s paralyzed.

  Hmmmm.

  I’ve never had to make such a monumental superhero effort on a dude before. But I also don’t want to move my knee away. It just feels so completely natural. We stay that way, interconnected like magnets, until a janitor clears our buckets. We don’t speak. Frank’s face is as red as the lobster that we have just ingested.

  He can’t stop smiling at me.

  I can’t stop grinning back.

  It’s like we’re both stoned, but we haven’t partaken of Beijing weed since last night. The same fantastical trance current from outer space is running through us. It’s a powerful frequency because it’s like being zapped by a falling constellation made of extra-fiery heat. Honestly, when I’m looking at Frank, it’s like hurtling through the unknown universe and landing headfirst on Planet Earth for the very first time.

  Winking at him on purpose, I lick my lips in anticipation of what could possibly come.

  For dessert, Frank mischievously offers me a deep-fried scorpion on a stick.

  I recoil.

  “What the hell is that?” I exclaim, pushing it away.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid,” he says. He grins wickedly, as if daring me to try it. Some of the fun, spontaneous, pot-smoking Frank from last night’s party is returning.

  Suddenly, my tutor chomps off the head of the fried insect. He chews. Then he grins at me, like I’m the only other person who survived a zombie apocalypse. No one else matters except for me. For a second, the hustling world of Fucheng Food Market tilts, fragments into itsy-bitsy pieces, and completely disappears.

  Then I notice that Frank has a humongous chunk of scorpion stuck between his front teeth!

  I thought that watching a boy you like eat an insect would be the scariest, most traumatizing thing in the world, but it’s actually kind of hilarious. I double over and can’t stop laughing.

  “I thought you Americans were brave,” Frank teases me. A bit of fried scorpion, like chewing gum, is stuck to his lower lip. He holds the bug-stick in front of me like it’s a roasted marshmallow.

  In response, I make a face. But I lean over and bite off one of the scorpion’s back legs or feelers. I don’t know which part I’m eating. Yet I have done more reckless things for a boy that have resulted in intense heartbreak, hospital visits, STIs, and zero college acceptances. I could have killed myself and our seven-bedroom house by accidentally backing through a garage door.

  How dangerous can eating a dead scorpion be?

  Doesn’t the poison automatically evaporate in a deep fryer?

  At least hundreds of thousands of people seem to be enjoying these creatures at the Fucheng Food Market. If I die, at least I was poisoned from attempting to be internationally adventurous.

  For a moment, as I chew, my mind goes blank and I think that this is the exact moment that I’m going to die. It seems that at my eulogy and also when I give the reason for death in my afterlife, I will have to say that Iris Wang died by eating a bug. She died by trying her best to fit in. How fitting.

  But it turns out that fried scorpion is a lot like devouring a small piece of extra-crispy, battered fish. Full of nutrients and protein.

  “It just needs some tartar sauce, lemon, and French fries,” I say.

  Frank looks slightly confused. But he laughs loudly when I buy another round of deep-fried insects on sticks: crunchy tarantulas, oversize beetles, silkworms, scorpions, and buttery-tasting caterpillars.

  Frank even looks majorly impressed.

  “Are all Americans as spontaneous as you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging coyly. “Maybe? But I’m definitely up for anything involving food, drugs, sex, and fun.”

  Frank is gaping openly at me.

  I take that as an invitation to lean in and kiss him firmly on the mouth. No tongue.

  He doesn’t kiss me back because his mouth is still hanging wide open from surprise when I finally pull away.

  “You’re pretty okay yourself, Frank Liao,” I tease, popping a silkworm into his mouth.

  And I don’t let him say anything else, but now it’s an all-out bug-eating competition, and I bet Frank that I can chow down more grubs than him!

  I take a photo of us eating our dessert insects and upload it on Instagram. Forty instant likes.

  “How is your family doing?” he says, suddenly looking serious. “Do you like living with your uncle Dai?”

  “He’s really … um … great,” I say. My voice falters as I think about the huge wad of yuan in my wallet. Somehow, like a guilty conscience, the money seems to weigh my bag down whenever I think about it.

  “Family is always complicated,” Frank says knowingly. He sighs, as if he has a lot
of personal experience.

  “Oh my god, tell me about it,” I say, picking a bit of tarantula from between my teeth. “My family has more layers and legs and wings than all these bugs combined. I mean, I honestly love all of them, but some more than others. Like I think these caterpillars are so much better-tasting than these worms, but I guess they all belong to the same family.”

  As I say this, I can’t help but keep thinking of Uncle Dai’s horror-stricken face and my grandmother’s noisy tears from a few nights ago. I keep remembering her scary-strong old-lady grip and how desperate and heart-aching she looked when she saw me. My poor undead grandma who was so happy to hold me. I wonder if silkworms and caterpillars have secrets. Tarantulas and scorpions definitely do.

  Smirking, Frank suddenly leans over and I think he’s going to kiss me, but he just feeds me a mouthwatering beetle. Slightly disappointed, I chew and swallow extra slowly.

  “Speaking of family, we should hurry back and work on some formal vocabulary for addressing aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents,” Frank says, giving me one of his worried, sympathetic smiles. “Have you met all of your family yet in Beijing? Is Ruby your only cousin? Do you generally get along?”

  “Listen, I actually need to do something important today,” I say, not answering his questions. “I thought about what you said last night about not trying, and I honestly want to do better.”

  If I have the guts to eat a bunch of potentially poisonous bugs, why can’t I disobey Uncle Dai? Why can’t I meet my grandmother? It’s not like my uncle ever has to know. Since my dad lives in another time zone, when would he find out? Who would tell him? Admittedly, curiosity did kill the cat, but I’m a Tiger. It’s not a betrayal of family loyalty if my insatiable need for the truth will reunite my dad with his parents. I want a full family tree, not one with missing limbs and leaves.

  Visiting my grandparents will be like Ruby practicing for her creative dog grooming show.

  Just another family secret.

  Frank waves his fingers in my face. I barely notice.

  “What’s going on in there?” he asks, sounding confused. “Is everything okay?”