“I can’t believe you did this,” she says. She points to the big forty-two out of one hundred on the top of my paper. That’s what I got for writing my own words instead of memorizing my tutor’s. It probably didn’t help that I wrote on the importance of incorporating student voices in school decision-making. I should have just picked a safer topic, like the dangers of internet addiction.
“You can’t believe I tried to write my own paper?” I ask sarcastically.
“Don’t get sassy with me. This isn’t about you writing your own paper. This is about you never listening,” she says. “Always wanting to do things your way.” The paper shakes as she scolds me. A few teachers walk by and give us dirty looks. My mom hushes but struggles to maintain her composure.
“This is China,” she hisses. “You go to a local school. You told me yourself your Chinese teacher encouraged you guys to work with your tutors.”
“So?”
“So why’d you think she said that?” my mom asks. “Why do you think she gave out the exam questions in advance?”
I look away. Yeah, well, that may be the game, but I don’t like the rules. The door opens and my Chinese teacher, Zhou Lao Shi, walks out. She issues my mom a tight smile and gestures for us to come in.
“Mrs. Wang, Claire,” Zhou Lao Shi says, running a hand through her thick streak of white roots, which run skunk-like through her dyed-black hair.
My mom takes a seat and thanks her for seeing us. Gently she pulls out my exam. “I want to talk to you about Claire’s grade.”
I glance over at Zhou Lao Shi, but she sits there, expressionless, as she does throughout most of class.
“I know what she wrote wasn’t perfect, but a forty-two?”
Zhou Lao Shi barely blinks. My mother’s words have no effect. I nudge my mom with my elbow—Maybe we should go. This is a woman who’s used to being bribed, questioned, tipped, and threatened by parents all day long. It’s going to take at least five thousand renminbi just to get her to move an eyebrow.
“Claire received a forty-two out of one hundred. That is her grade,” Zhou Lao Shi says.
My mom sets down her Birkin. She always dresses up when she comes to school; she says it’s so the teacher treats us better. I think it’s so she can impress the other moms. She crosses her wide-leg Balmain pants and tries again. “Perhaps because you’re comparing it to the other students. But are you aware that some of the other kids plagiarized for this exam—”
“Mom!” I exclaim. Has she lost her mind? I get that she wants me to get a higher score, but to squeal on my classmates for cheating?
“I’ll have to investigate that,” Zhou Lao Shi says tersely, and gets up. “I’m afraid our time is up.”
We’ve offended her. My mother knows it too. She ditches her tough-lady approach and throws herself at my Chinese teacher’s feet. “Please, it’s my fault. I didn’t get Claire the right tutor. Punish me, not her.”
Her wet, desperate eyes look into Zhou Lao Shi’s stern, ruthless ones.
“I’m sure there will be another opportunity coming up soon,” Zhou Lao Shi says. “Hopefully, you will see to it next time that Claire’s prepared.”
In the car on the way home, my mom curses Zhou Lao Shi. “What kind of turtle-egg Chinese teacher is that? She didn’t even care that her students are copying their tutors!”
Yeah, well, neither did my mom until twenty minutes ago. Still, I appreciate her standing up for me. I rest my head against the massaging neck pillows my mom got for our Audi as Patrick, our driver, glances in the rearview mirror.
“It’s everywhere! At my son’s school, a teacher got busted for selling seats in the front row of her classroom,” Patrick chimes in.
“What if I went to international school?” I ask.
My mom tucks a lock of my hair behind my ears. “You know the rules. You don’t have a foreign passport, honey,” she says.
It’s so unfair. While some of my friends’ parents had the foresight to give birth to them in America, my parents were too busy scrambling to get their wedding photos taken before my mom started showing.
When we get back to our villa, my father is waiting for us in the living room.
“Dad!” I exclaim. What’s he doing here in the middle of the day? My mom must have texted him EMERGENCY. I’m glad at least one good thing came out of my refusal to cheat.
“Hi, sunflower,” he says, walking over and kissing the top of my head. The sound of my nickname on his lips makes me want to forget about the fact that I flunked Chinese, that I haven’t seen him in weeks. “I heard about your teacher.”
My mom kicks off her Manolos and plops down on the couch. “What a pompous ass,” she says, calling to Tressy to get us some Pellegrino. “You can just tell she’s one of those people who love wielding her power and just milking it, drop by drop. Is she like that in class?”
I sit down beside her while Tressy brings over three tall glasses of sparkling water and think about the question. I want to say, Yeah, Zhou Lao Shi is arrogant, but what I really want to know is How do you do this? How do you just carry on and have a conversation with your spouse, whom you haven’t seen in weeks and literally have no idea where he’s been, like nothing happened?
“You know, I’ve been thinking . . . ,” my dad says, walking over and taking a seat next to us on the couch. “What about going to America for school?”
My mom puts her sparkling water down and sits up.
“There’s a guy in my office. He was telling me about this school in California . . .”
“You mean for college, right?” I ask. I’ve been considering it myself, going to America or the UK for university.
“No, I mean now, right now. For the rest of your junior year and your senior year,” my dad says excitedly.
He’s kidding, right?
“What are you talking about?” my mom asks for the both of us.
Thank you.
“I’m talking about getting out of this broken system,” my dad says. “You said it yourself, Claire’s teacher is insane. And it’s not going to be any better next year, what with the gaokao. And if you don’t do well . . .”
“Ugh, I don’t even want to think about that,” my mom groans, closing her eyes and massaging them with her fingers. “Your mother’s going to kill me.”
I want to say to them I won’t not do well! I swear I won’t! But then again, I did just get a forty-two. My mom sits sullen on the couch, head buried in her hands, contemplating her future . . . because if you’re a Chinese mom whose sole measure of success is how well your offspring does, when your offspring screws up, you screw up.
“If you go to America now, you won’t need to do the gaokao,” my dad says. He’s offering us an out, and judging from the depressed look on my mom’s face, I don’t know who needs it more, me or her. “You can graduate and go to a college in the US. One of the UCs.”
“You can’t just get into one of the UCs,” I say. He says it like they’re M&M’s.
“Yes, you can,” he insists. “There are so many of them!” He takes out his hands and starts listing UCs. “And besides, even if you don’t, at least you’ll still be foreign-educated.”