Chapter 7 - I'll Be a Home for You

i’m elderly

(spiritually, i’ve always been in my sixties, but the physical aspect is new to me)

Aang

Every stroke of my pen is torture. As usual, I woke up early to practice Chinese characters. But today the lines are wobbly, and my sky6 character looks suspiciously similar to husband.7 If Michael or any other kid in Chinese school committed a mistake like that, Ms. Leung would tear them to shreds. But I’ll get a smile that screams Well done for trying! because my Cantonese is so bad.

But the midyear exam is in February, and I am getting a higher score than Michael. I don’t care that he’s a heritage speaker and I started learning Cantonese two years ago. I’m going to be better.

I make attempt number fourteen at writing sky.

Still looks wrong.

Attempt fifteen.

Wrong.

Sixteen.

Wrong.

I turn to a new page.

Seventeen.

Wrong.

At attempt forty-three, my mom bangs on the door, making me drop my pen. “What are you still doing in there? We’re going to be late!”

I grab my backpack and try to run to the door, but it comes out like a limp. My legs hurt from yesterday’s practice. Is this what it feels like to be elderly? I hobble downstairs and throw out a goodbye to my dad.

“Aang, wait!” He steps out of the kitchen, holding a coffee mug. “Just wanted to ask … how was your first cheerleading practice? Did you enjoy it? When’s the first football game? I’ll get off work early to be there.”

Really? He never asks me about Chinese school. I clench my teeth. “Practice went how it went.”

His hand twitches around the mug handle, and I fight the urge to ask him a question he won’t respond to. Like how he’d pronounce sky in Cantonese. But he’d get that hazy look on his face and retreat to a space in his mind that I’m not invited to. I used to wonder if he just didn’t know Cantonese. But he spent the first seven years of his life in Hong Kong before being adopted by Americans from Ohio whom I have never met. Which means if he doesn’t speak Cantonese, it has to be by choice. And I don’t understand that choice.

“See you later.” I slam the front door on my way out and jump into my mom’s car.

“What were you doing in your room for so long?” She starts the engine.

I grab my seat belt. “Practicing Gwóng Dūng wá.”

She frowns. “Is that a new video game?”

I sigh. “I meant practicing Cantonese.”

“Oh, sorry, you mean 廣東話!” she says with perfect pronunciation, and I try not to strangle myself with the seat belt.

Sometimes her English slips. She becomes shu, she adds lah when asking for something, and she always does that double bai bai when leaving the house. It’s clear she thinks in Cantonese. But she moved to the US before she turned one. She might not have been born here like me, but we were both raised here. So how does her accent surface like it’s been there all along, but learning Cantonese is impossible for me? Why do the sounds that are clearly in my DNA not come out right?

I’m going to get a headache from clenching my jaw so tight. I separate my upper and lower teeth and stare at my phone. Remy has texted me twenty times, asking for a report about yesterday’s practice.

At lunch, I reply. We don’t have any morning classes together, so I hope to avoid the questioning for as long as possible.

The ride goes on for far too long.

“So you’re a backspot?” Mom asks.

“Yes … how do you know what that is?”

“I did my research.”

“Of course you did.”

“Are you JJ’s backspot?”

“Unfortunately.”

“But now you’re on a team together, I thought—”

“No.”

She doesn’t press. She had a hard time accepting that JJ stopped coming around. But eventually she did. And so did I. It gave me a chance to focus on more important things. Like catching up on everything I need to know about real Chinese culture. My parents might have doomed me to only look Asian when I could have been a Hong Konger, but between Chinese school, reading books, watching movies, and googling everything I can about Hong Kong, I’m working to be right.

Stanford and San Francisco will make me right.

At school, I wince every time I raise my hand. Cursed cheerleading. And at noon, another kind of pain awaits me at the entrance to the cafeteria.

“Tell me everything!” Remy shouts. His flannel shirt is unbuttoned, and the white T-shirt underneath is covered in fresh marker scribbles.

“Can it wait until we sit down?” I ask.

“Absolutely not! I’ve waited long enough.” We weave through the crowd, and I relay the events of yesterday’s training. Brief. Bland. Boring. But questions keep coming in.

“You’re in the same group as JJ?”

“For now.”

“Why?”

“The positions won’t be finalized for weeks.”

We’re approaching our favorite table. And like every day when I walk through this cafeteria, my willpower isn’t enough to keep me from glancing at where she sits.

Today, for the first time since our fight a year ago, she’s staring back at me.

I break eye contact and sit down opposite Remy, who’s unwrapping his pulled pork sandwich. “Okay, tell me more! Was it hard to lift girls? Did you have to do the chants? Are you going to learn how to tumble?”

Taking the Tupperware out of my backpack and opening it causes more pain for my poor arms.

Remy opens his mouth to ask yet another question, but he gets interrupted.

“Hi.”

The air turns solid. That voice hasn’t come anywhere near this table since last September.

“JJ, hi!” Remy flashes her a massive smile.

Why is she here?

“Just wanted to check on the newest cheerleader. Your arms okay after yesterday?”

I turn around and look up at her face. There haven’t been many instances where she’s managed to look down at me. Literally. I’m sure she’s done it plenty metaphorically over the past year. “Unless there’s some legal requirement for all the members of the cheerleading team to engage in meaningless chitchat”—my mouth tastes like acid, but I keep going—“maybe just go back to your table.”

Her face contorts. “See you at Mathletes,” she says like it’s a threat and marches away.

My gaze follows her until she sits down again. To make sure she’s really gone.

Remy throws his hands up. “I’ve respected you not telling me what happened last year, because honestly, I thought you’d be over it by now. You’re staring at her constantly during lunch. I know you went to the first football game last year to see her—you’re terrible at being sneaky, by the way—and for god’s sake, I can guess that the one time you got a C on a math test was the same day you found out she was dating Brad. So why are you still being such a massive dick to her?”

I lock down the tide of emotions before they drown me, grab a spoon, and shove rice into my mouth.

I grimace when the food hits my taste buds. My attempt at making claypot rice didn’t work. Perhaps I should consider buying a claypot. Perhaps my parents should have taught me how to do it properly.

“Please, let’s talk about this,” Remy pleads.

I try another spoonful. Nope. I push the container away. I don’t think it’s supposed to taste soggy and burnt at the same time. JJ’s appearance wasn’t helpful for my appetite either.

“Aang?”

“How about you show me some of your new designs?”

He huffs in exasperation but takes out his sketchbook like I knew he would. “Why am I friends with a straight boy with no emotional intelligence?”

“Because I let you spend hours showing me your drawings.”

He drops the book on the table with a loud thud. “We’re going to come back to this conversation.”

“Sure we are.”

He huffs again. “I’m thinking an autumn theme.” He shows me the pages.

Scattered acorns, orange leaves, and a yellow bird caught in mid-flight leap from the paper. But it’s the pink flower that holds my attention. It’s the same flower I tried giving her after the fight.

My vision gets blurry.

“It’s the nature of Alabama. This is a camellia, the state flower,” Remy says.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

But it’s too late. What she said to Monique and Bryn in the corridor is coming back.

Just some guy I got stuck sitting with last year during math. Massive nerd. He literally would not shut up about geometry. Trust me, he’s not my type.

When she turned around and realized I was standing there, she looked like she had seen a ghost.

I’m on the verge of bringing up the two spoons of rice I ate.

“Aang?” Remy tilts his head. “You’re spacing out.”

I force a painful smile. “The design looks so good, I got distracted.” The words scrape out of my throat. “I can’t wait to see it embroidered.”

“Aww, thank you!” He puts the sketchbook away with a satisfied smile.

The flower disappears, and the rice retreats back into my stomach.

“By the way … I told my mama about your newfound interest in cooking. She’s sewing you an apron.”

My shoulders slump. Knowing Mrs. Smith, it will have a Southern saying on it, and it will be pie-related.

Remy points to my Tupperware. “Everyone in the South knows that wearing an apron makes you a better cook. And god, do you need it. Whatever you made does not smell good.”

It doesn’t taste good either.

Remy takes a bite of his sandwich. The aroma of barbecued pork makes my mouth water against my will.

“Do you want some?” He extends what’s left of his sandwich toward me. “I’m just so full already.”

Gratitude spreads through me. I bite into the sandwich and slowly close my eyes. Damn it. I owe him now. I sigh. “Would you like to hear more about practice?”

He beams. “Give me every single detail!”

And I do.

6 天 (tīn)

7 夫 (fū)