My Summer of Love and Misfortune

by Lindsay Wong

  Uncle Dai then barks orders at the security guards to take us to see Grandma and Grandpa. He assigns one guard for Ruby and me, three to Auntie Yingfei, and six for himself. He even gets to keep Mr. Chen.

  “Why is Iris coming with me?” Ruby whines.

  Instead of sneering this time, she has resumed her typical eye-rolling. It almost makes me feel relieved.

  “You go with cousin or stay in room,” Uncle Dai says. “Your mom and I go to work. We need to find way to stop problem.”

  Escorted, we take the elevator down and rap on the door of my grandparents’ suite.

  My grandma and grandpa are astonished to see us with our new bodyguard. They greet me before they hug a frowning, wounded-looking Ruby, and I fling my arms around both of them, relieved that everything will be okay.

  They automatically start making us tea and feeding us cookies from tins—coconut, black sesame, almond, peanut—and red bean pastries. I grab a cookie with a crunchy walnut topping. They keep asking questions and turn to Ruby for translation. She points at herself, but my grandparents are asking about me. As if annoyed with the attention that I’m receiving, she shrugs casually and then says something cutting in Chinese. All I understand is my own name, and I’m so pissed at myself for not trying harder to learn my grandparents’ language. I have so much I want to say to them without a translator.

  To my horror, Ruby pulls out her phone and shows them my Instagram photos. Me and Frank, half-nude, in a hot spring. Selfies of my arms thrown around his neck. More photos of me kissing him. I didn’t think about how this might look to my parents or grandparents.

  Our grandparents look at me, stunned and uncomfortable.

  My photos make them so upset that they have to leave the room, where they both start shouting.

  I don’t know how to speak to them.

  “Why did you show them?” I ask. “What did you say to them, Ruby?”

  She shrugs and turns away.

  In anger, I chuck a cookie at the back of her head. I don’t mean to throw a cookie, but I’m so angry and fed up with my cousin’s bitchy behavior. Usually, I would miss my target, but for some reason, my aim is exceptional today and the cookie lands on her head and snaps in half. I attribute it to rage, betrayal, and watching the New York Yankees with my dad.

  She gasps. And whirls around. The cookie bounces off her shoulder.

  We stare at each other.

  “You are the most annoying and spoiled person on the planet,” Ruby exclaims, throwing up her hands in aggravation. “First, you take over my life! My parents want to spend time with you instead of me. Then you torture me with all your nonstop talking. Why couldn’t you just stay in America? You have gotten all these amazing opportunities in the United States and you just throw them all away because you don’t care about anything or anyone.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say. “You’re the one who is living like a Kardashian.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ruby asks, massaging her head. “Stop making up nonsense English words.”

  In frustration, she throws a handful of cookies at me. Luckily, she misses and they hit the wall.

  “You really are a CRA! Crazy Rich Asian,” I say.

  As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I regret it. It’s too much. I’m not a mean girl like Samira, who judges people on their behavior and IQ.

  Ruby lets out a sharp, bitter laugh.

  “I didn’t grow up like this. While my dad was working on his company and attending school, my mom and I lived in a tiny run-down village. We didn’t even have electricity or heat or running water. We practically lived in a hut with nothing to eat. My dad showed me your photos; you grew up in a nice house with a piano and tennis lessons. But you don’t care about anything or anyone. Worst of all, people like you. They don’t see that you’re a self-absorbed brat.”

  Shocked, I stare at her. I had no idea that Ruby grew up in such extreme poverty. How could I have known? She seemed to be such a stuck-up princess with an unlimited spending allowance. She seemed to be so smug and comfortable with her life. Is that why she has been so mean to me?

  A hurt silence escalates between us.

  Ruby and I are connected by the same blood feud and long history. We love the same people, and I think we are actually on the same side of the family tree. How can we reconcile our differences?

  “We’re not that opposite,” I say. “We both really care about family, and we want our parents to be happy with our decisions.”

  As if ashamed, my cousin looks down at her amazing gold boots. I stare at them too, and they instantly make me feel a little bit better. I would feel even better if they were on my feet, but I force myself to pay attention.

  “Is that why you’re always so angry at me?” I finally say softly.

  “I guess I was incredibly jealous,” Ruby admits. “When we went to that party with Frank and his friends, you just fit in without trying. You don’t even speak Chinese, but you seemed to be so comfortable around people.”

  “But you are really smart,” I say. “If I had an ounce of your brainpower, I could be running for president.”

  We pick up the mess of cookies silently.

  I understand where Ruby is coming from. I understand that not being good at something is horrifying and scary because I am also not excellent in many aspects and areas of my life. But I have learned from Madame Xing that having zero confidence doesn’t mean you are half a person. It doesn’t mean that you are excluded from being a thoughtful, kind, and fully functioning human being.

  “I really wanted you to like me,” I continue. “I kept trying, but you didn’t.”

  She laughs reluctantly.

  “Give me a chance?” I ask hesitantly. “I’ll make it up to you about the dog. I’m not sure how. I’ll talk to your dad and explain. Right now, I just need you to trust that I want the best for our family. I was at Chengdu working on a plan to make things right.”

  She sighs dramatically.

  “I didn’t have cell reception and I honestly shouldn’t have forgotten about my commitment to you. I could have asked the front desk of the hotel to call, but I wasn’t thinking. Can you please tell our grandparents that it was all a HUGE misunderstanding?”

  I glance nervously at her.

  “Okay,” Ruby finally agrees, looking at the floor.

  When my grandma and grandpa come out of the other room, they stare at me with mild shock and discomfort. Grandpa is actually sobbing again and both of them are holding out a lot of money. I look at Ruby, silently pleading, Please fix it.

  She speaks to them in Chinese. They look slightly relieved.

  “What did you tell them?” I ask.

  “I just told them it wasn’t you in the photos,” she says. “Everything is fixed.”

  “Are you sure?” I insist.

  “Just take the money,” Ruby whispers. “You owe me allowance money for the B-minus. Also, go along with it if someone asks you if you need money for college.”

  “Ruby!?” I say uneasily. What just happened? I have no idea what Ruby just told our poor grandparents. She could be endangering their lives with unnecessary stress. How many more weeks and months were shaved off their lives because I have an unreliable translator and I don’t understand Chinese?

  Grandma gushes something at us. Ruby glances at me and translates, “Grandma is saying that she is very happy to see us together as a family.”

  Her face softens like margarine.

  Tearing up, I try to hug my cousin, but she backs away like she’s seriously afraid of me.

  “What are you doing?” Ruby says. “We’re not that close.”

  But she’s actually laughing at me. This is the first time that I’ve seen a genuine smile on her face. And honestly, it’s like witnessing the best constipation-free miracle drug that I have ever seen.

  Nodding and smiling, my grandma continues speaking rapidly to us in Mandarin. Her eyes start watering. They’re like giant sprinklers.
r />   I glance at Ruby for translation purposes.

  “She’s saying we’re good girls,” my cousin explains.

  I blink, confused.

  “It’s her way of saying that she loves us.”

  “How do I say ‘I love you’ in Mandarin?” I ask.

  “Wǒ ài nǐ,” Ruby says.

  “Wǒ ài nǐ,” I repeat back tearfully, and it sounds 30 percent right.

  My heart is full.

  I hug both of my grandparents tightly.

  Being with them is better than any ten-course banquet of Beijing’s finest food.

  For the next three hours, my grandparents, Ruby, and I spend time together, looking at childhood photos of my dad, who looks exactly like me, except for his short, cropped hair. Photos of my dad at age five riding his bike. A broken arm when he accidentally rode off a small bridge in the park. Dad eating a bubble waffle at the Beijing Zoo. Dad in his high school graduation photo in a fancy suit.

  I want to know everything and anything that I can about my dad.

  He’s someone who has proven to be full of surprises.

  On the couch, I snuggle between both my grandma and grandpa, who keep feeding Ruby and me unending stacks of sticky peanut cashew cookies and black sesame rice nuggets. If we aren’t eating, my grandpa looks worried, so Ruby and I keep chewing loudly to keep him happy. I can’t imagine my grandpa ever selfishly hurting my grandma and my dad. He seems to be so caring and unimaginably sweet, which might mean that a select group of people, like myself, can really change after all.

  As my grandma talks about my dad when he was a kid, Ruby translates, in between bites of treats. She sits, cross-legged on the floor, looking more relaxed than usual. “Grandma says your dad was always in trouble. He has lots of emotions, so he was always falling in love with so many different people and never studied. He failed his university entrance exams.”

  “Dad didn’t get into university in China?” I ask, shocked.

  My grandma and grandpa laugh at my outraged expression.

  Ruby nods. “She says that’s why he had to go to college in the States. No college in China wanted him. He was a very bad student.”

  At first, I’m scandalized.

  I can’t believe my dad was such a shitty student and also didn’t study yet kept pushing me toward Yale. Is that why he wanted me to go to an Ivy League university? But it makes total sense that my dad is a humongous flower-heart too. Falling in love easily and being too emotional runs in the family, like our nervous loud breathing and weird eyelid spasms!

  Finally, I laugh and I can’t stop laughing. My grandma, grandpa, and Ruby look confused at first, but they join in. There’s nothing better than laughing hysterically with people who all sound like squawking chickens.

  I still can’t believe how much my dad and I are alike.

  I think I understand now why he sent me to Beijing. Maybe it was to learn to be better than him.

  28

  Manis, Pedis, and Lies

  After Grandma cooks us an elaborate dinner of spicy fish maw soup, crispy cashew chicken, flatbread, and lightly pickled vegetables, she suggests that we spend the evening rolling dumplings (pork jiaozi). The thought of touching raw meat sounds repulsive and very labor-intensive. She offers it as an alternative to studying, as Uncle Dai phoned earlier and insisted that we not waste time and work on our English and Mandarin exchange.

  Honestly, our family could be in physical danger, and he’s worried that we’re not bettering ourselves. Being bilingual won’t be useful if a mob is chasing us. They’re not going to stop whatever they’re doing based on how impressive our English/Mandarin pronunciation sounds. They’re not going to care if I use vocabulary or grammar correctly. Saying Nǐ hǎo, nǐ hǎo ma to hordes of angry people is not exactly life-saving material.

  Also, both Ruby and I don’t want to converse with each other.

  I don’t know exactly how I feel about her, but I understand why she resents me. To Ruby and Frank, they must think that I’m a rich American who grew up in relative comfort and luxury. They’re actually right. I have never gone without heat or electricity or food. My parents have given me everything that I have ever wanted.

  I have never even had a summer job.

  I always just received a weekly allowance for being their daughter. It was like I was being paid for waking up in the morning, showing up for meals, and being a friendly, easy-to-talk-to seventeen-year-old girl. I could complain and moan about my mom’s cooking and cleaning skills, and I would still get my allowance.

  I just assumed that they loved me as much as I loved them. I never asked them what they wanted or if I was doing anything wrong.

  Whether that makes me spoiled or entitled or annoying doesn’t matter. Madame Xing was right. It’s really up to me to choose the direction of Hurricane Iris and pick what kind of beautiful, powerful storm I want to be. Isn’t the tiger, if not an empress, some kind of jungle VIP?

  Suddenly, I have an idea.

  Instead of cooking for hours, I think that we should pamper ourselves, especially after a very stressful day of death threats and moving. I excuse myself and go downstairs to speak with the concierge to order some in-room pedicures, manicures, and hot stone massages. After all, we are in a seven-star hotel with an award-winning spa.

  I smile enthusiastically at the young woman at the front desk lobby and manage to befriend her. Soon, we are chatting nonstop and she’s showing me photos on her phone. Her fiancé works in the hotel as a fitness center trainer, and they are getting married in a few months. He’s a lean, muscular man with a big head and an even bigger smile. I explain my situation to her and say that I want to do something extra-extra-nice for my grandma, who I never met until this year.

  “No problem,” she says, grinning at me. “We give you complimentary spa service. The Red Mandarin Hotel always value its long-term guests.”

  She half bows at me. I half curtsy back, beaming.

  SUCCESS!

  * * *

  “A spa evening is less work!” I say to my grandparents when I return to the penthouse apartment, and explain my idea. Surely everyone will be receptive to services that cause relaxation and family bonding during difficult times? I still wonder why anyone would find it enjoyable to spend hours folding and puckering dumpling dough. I love eating, but I don’t want to make my own food. I love clothes, too, but I don’t want to learn how to sew.

  Raising her eyebrows in surprise, Ruby translates my suggestion. Grandma and Grandpa look horrified by my extravagance until I explain that it’s all free. Anyway, I continue, my plan is way better for relaxing. It seems a shame not to use the spa in a seven-star hotel. Besides, who knows how many days or months my grandparents have left? Honestly, why would Grandma want to waste what could possibly be the last years of her life cooking? She should be calling in room service every night in her old age. She should be enjoying hot massages by good-looking dudes three times a day.

  When Uncle Dai and Auntie Yingfei stop by, they seem a bit shocked, but even they smile when they are offered a massage and pedicure.

  “We are taking a break from studying,” I say, and Ruby nods quickly. We gesture at the textbooks that we have stacked on the floor. Ruby left the top one open, so it looks like I have done some work. In fact, at my grandparents’, I have already learned three new phrases, in addition to I love you. I’m getting used to hearing “Nǐ chī fàn le ma” (“Have you eaten?”) and then replying, mouth full, “Wǒ zài chī!” (“I’m eating right now!”) and when I’m sweating like a rhinoceros and my stomach is clenching with pain: “Wǒ bǎo le!!!” (“I’m too full!!!”) I’ve even managed to read two more chapters of my textbook, and I’m furiously parroting all the phrases at least a hundred times each. Somehow, learning Mandarin in real-life situations makes it easier to remember and understand.

  Like overeating, wanting to be pampered runs in our family.

  As the nail technicians work on my grandpa’s long bony feet, even he relaxes
. He smiles, then starts tearing up with what looks like happiness. Not tears of pain, I hope. My grandma excitedly chooses a burgundy polish for her hands and feet. Ruby tells me that our grandmother has never had a manicure before, and I’m shocked.

  “But she lives in a seven-star hotel!” I say.

  “Yes, but my dad pays for it all,” Ruby says. “Until five years ago, we were all quite poor. She’s not accustomed to this lifestyle.”

  On the spur of the moment, I decide to get bright red acrylic claws like Madame Xing. The fortune-teller has amazing, world-class taste.

  Even Ruby smiles and looks like she’s enjoying herself. Astonishingly, she even chats with me (shyly looking away) while she has her deluxe reflexology massage and intensive callus filing. I stare at her short wide feet. They look exactly like mine. No one has my size-five badminton-racket feet, not even my dad.

  “Honestly, I really admire how you just say what you think even if it doesn’t make sense,” she says hesitantly.

  Her defenses are down. My dad says that nothing brings people together like having their toenails trimmed and dead skin cleaned. He says that if you send Stalin and Genghis Khan and Napoleon to a nail salon, they’ll come out as BFFs. I don’t know who these people are, but I assume that he’s talking about his high school clique.

  I shrug, like it’s no big deal. I never expected a compliment from Ruby!

  “That’s easy,” I say. “I open my mouth and words just come out.”

  “That’s a really useful skill,” my cousin says, looking impressed. “You should go into business. You’d have no trouble with the networking part. Beijing success is all about who you know.”

  Her phone buzzes. She flushes and ignores it.

  “Who are you always texting?” I ask, genuinely curious. Hesitating, I add, “But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  She blushes again. “I’m on this app called TanTan for online dating, where you swipe right or left depending if you like a guy. It’s all good until I finally meet them. I’ve had thousands of matches and they all seem to run away when we meet. It’s like I have bad breath or something. Is it my personality? I don’t know how to talk to people, especially guys in person. It’s so much easier when it’s online.”