“Hey, babe, just thinking about the other day, in the back of the library. It was so—”
I shut off the message and, for the next two minutes, sit there with my face melting off my skull. My mom is silent. She knows about me and Teddy, but she still thinks of high school dating as a “I’ll walk you to class, you walk me to class” type of thing.
“Have you and Teddy . . .” She fumbles to get the words out.
“No!” I exclaim. “Of course not.”
My mom’s eyes scan me like a human lie detector. I remind myself I have nothing to hide. We haven’t done anything more than make out. Though lately, he’s been asking me for pics. He swears he won’t show them to anyone else. I haven’t indulged him, but I haven’t flat out said no either.
“Promise me you’ll save yourself for someone special,” my mom says. “A Fortune 500 CEO perhaps. Or second-generation scion. Someone better.”
Better than me or better than Teddy?
“Teddy’s a nice guy,” I say.
“A nice guy?” She laughs, waving her champagne flute in the air. “You think that’s what’s going to pay for all this? A nice guy?”
“No, I’m going to pay for all this,” I snap. “I have a brain, remember.”
She considers her words carefully. “So use it to get into a good school. Trust me, it’ll be a lot harder to meet a good husband once you’re out of school. I was lucky to have met your father when I did.”
I raise my eyebrow at her.
“I’m just trying to watch out for you,” she says, her voice softening. She reaches out a hand, and my anger thaws.
I look over at my mom, sitting there, so lonely, sneaking glances at her phone, pretending to be smoothing out her napkin when we both know she’s checking to see if he’s called. He hasn’t.
Gently, my mother lifts her champagne flute and sets it down in front of me, a peace offering. I take a sip.
The next day, my mother drags me to lunch at my nai nai’s house. Nai Nai is my grandmother on my dad’s side, a fierce widow with a head of white curls and a mouth that makes my mom want to crawl into a Qing vase before Nai Nai even opens it. I kiss Nai Nai on both cheeks as she sits at her throne in the dining room. She’s holding court—my aunts, uncles, and cousins all gathered around her. They make no attempt to scoot over when my mom walks into the dining room, so she’s forced to take the last remaining seat, at the end of the table. My father, if he were here, would sit at the head of the table and my mother next to him. But per usual, he’s not here.
“Nai Nai,” I greet her.
My grandmother’s face blooms. “Claire.” She smiles. However she feels about my mom, she dotes on me because I’m her eldest grandchild. Nai Nai waves to her maids to set a place for me next to her, and I look to my aunts and uncles, who reluctantly instruct my little cousins to scoot down.
“How are your studies, Claire?” my grandmother asks.
“Her studies are good,” my mom answers for me from the other end. I can tell she takes the question as more a probe into her tiger-momming skills. “I’ve got her the best tutors in Shanghai!” my mother says.
But Nai Nai barely looks at her, keeping her eyes steady on me. My aunts and uncles jump in with various tutor recommendations.
“Did you hear about the white guy who’s tutoring Chinese?” Aunt Linda asks.
Uncle Lu puts down his jade chopsticks. “Why is everyone in this country so obsessed with lao wai? Not everything done by a white person is better!”
“I hear he’s pretty good, actually,” one of my other aunts responds. She snatches up the last two remaining tiger prawns and puts them on the plate in front of her son, Jeremy. Jeremy keeps his eyes glued to his iPad, while one of my grandmother’s maids feeds him.
My mom sighs loudly and tells my aunts and uncles my new Chinese tutor, the one who makes me copy down her words, costs two thousand renminbi an hour. The brag, masked as a complaint, shuts up my aunts momentarily.
“Anyone can just pay some money. That doesn’t mean a thing,” my grandmother remarks.
My mom’s cheeks color. I’d almost feel sorry for her if I didn’t dislike my Chinese tutor so much.
“Actually, the tutor is very important,” my mom says. “Claire’s teacher at school even said. You don’t know the local schools in Shanghai these days; you really need to get the right tutor or you don’t stand a chance.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say. Contrary to what my mother thinks, I like Chinese writing. I don’t need to memorize someone else’s words and cough them up on my exam. I can write my own, thank you.
My mom sighs. “You see what I have to deal with?” She looks to me and motions at me with her chopsticks. “You’re doing what the tutor says. You’re writing what she tells you to write on the exam!”
“Yes, Claire,” my aunt Linda remarks. “Don’t be stupid!”
“Can I have her number?” Aunt June asks, pulling out her phone.
“No! I’m not doing it,” I say. I’m not copying. I don’t care if it gets me a hundred, it’s not my hundred. My mom shoots me a stern look. All my aunts and uncles jump in, yapping about my future, my grades, the gaokao.
Here we go again, life by committee. I roll my eyes. No wonder my dad never comes to these things. My grandmother puts up a hand to silence the chatter. She takes my hand in hers and peers into my eyes. I’m hopeful she’ll take my side, but instead she says, “Your mother’s right; you can’t hit a stone with an egg.”
I yank my hand away, flushing.
“She won’t. James and I will make sure of it,” my mom assures Nai Nai.
My grandmother turns to my mom. “And how is that husband of yours?”
I glance over at her. Mom’s smile has vanished, and she’s folding the napkin in her hands, trying to buy some time as she works out the best response.
Life by committee’s a bitch.
Two
Dani
East Covina, California
Do you ever get the feeling like everyone’s looking at you but no one actually sees you? I mean, they see you—they see you standing on the stage, receiving your headmistress commendation; your frizzy hair; your ratty shoes; your mom in the back squirreling away stale cookies—that they see, but they don’t see you.
“Dammit, Dani, how many times do I have to tell you?” my band teacher, Mr. Rufus, yells, “It’s an F sharp, not an F! And please clean out your flute. That sound you’re making—that noise—that’s the sound of spit!”
My face turns red as I reach for my wipe. The entire band sits back and lets out an exaggerated sigh as they wait for me to finish.
“Ever heard of lessons?” Connor, who sits next to me, mutters under his breath.
Connor O’Brien. I remind myself he wears tighty-whities stained yellow and keeps his mom’s Crisco cooking oil under his bed to use as lube. I know because I clean his room every Tuesday after school when he’s at lacrosse practice. I’ve probably cleaned the houses of about half the people in band, not that they would know. Everyone always books their maid for when they’re out.