Bitter Melon (31 page)

As we approach my building, I check the second-story window to make sure that Mom is indeed at work. We climb the dark painted-green concrete stairway. I open the door to the apartment, and we step inside. The horizontal blinds hang crooked. Some of the pieces are bent from years of use and
abuse by previous tenants. I wonder what Derek thinks about our linoleum floors and our saggy green love seat.

“It’s not that impressive,” I say.

“It’s not that bad,” Derek says, choking on the words. We stand there in silence for several awkward moments.

Finally, he asks, “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

I show him the way. As he relieves himself, I imagine what he must be thinking about our cracked pink and maroon tiles, our worn and stained yellow bath towels, and the rust running down our tub underneath the faucet. Derek emerges a minute later. His hands smell like the sandalwood soap we buy from Chinatown.

“Where’s your room?” he asks.

I guide him to our narrow trapezoid-shaped room. Both mattresses in the bunk bed are covered with orange and pink blankets.

“Do you sleep on the top or the bottom?” he asks.

“The top.”

“Does your sister sleep on the bottom?”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“Then who sleeps on the bottom?”

“My mom. This is a one-bedroom apartment.”

Derek says nothing. His expression seems sad.

At that moment, the door begins to jiggle. There is no place for Derek to run or hide. The door opens. Mom is carrying a box of pastries, which emit a sweet, buttery aroma. Her eyes zero in on me and Derek. Then she focuses on me, her bottom lip quivering. This confuses me, until I realize that she is staring at
my dress. But it doesn’t last long. Soon her expression becomes cool again. She takes slow deliberate steps towards us, like a stalking predator.

“So, who is this?” she asks, her voice silky and dangerous.

Derek puts on his most charming speech-persona smile. “Hi, Mrs. Ching,” he says, extending his hand. “I’m Derek.”

Mom’s eyes travel down to Derek’s hand and back up to his face. Her look is withering. Derek’s smile wilts. His hand falls limply to his side.

“You don’t deserve a friend like Theresa,” Mom says to me, completely in English so that Derek can understand. “You’re so absentminded. You left your pajamas on your bed. I called Nellie’s house. Theresa answered. When I told her about your pajamas, she was quiet for a long time. Poor Theresa. She didn’t know what to say. When I told her to tell you to come back and get them, she said that she could lend you a pair.” Mom sniggers. “Imagine, Theresa lending you a pair, when she is so thin and you are so fat.”

I wince, wishing that I could just disappear.

“I called in sick today,” Mom continues. “I wanted to see for myself.” She shakes her head and clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Poor Theresa. She is such a bad liar, not like you.”

I burn with humiliation. Will Derek make the connection between the Theresa Mom is referring to and the Theresa we met at the prom? I don’t dare look at his face. I am too scared to see his reaction.

“Not only do you lie,” Mom says, “you lie to sleep over at a boy’s house. How about all the other times you ‘slept over at Theresa’s’? Were you sneaking off to sleep with boys all those other times too?” She emphasizes the
s
in “boys,” to make it unequivocally plural, while turning to stare at Derek. Derek shrinks as Mom hovers over him, even though Derek is probably six feet tall, whereas Mom is only four foot ten. “Is that why you invited him over,” Mom continues, talking to me while staring at Derek, “so that you can sleep together here too?”

“I should go,” Derek says, slowly walking sideways towards the bedroom door while giving Mom wide berth.

“Yes, perhaps you should,” Mom says. “It was nice meeting you.” She smiles at him, eyes wide and unblinking like spotlights, lips parting to show all her teeth.

Derek darts out of the apartment and down the stairs. I hear his footsteps, which end in a loud trip at the bottom.

Then Mom turns to me.

“Nothing happened,” I say.

“Funny. He did not defend you. In fact, he abandoned you,” Mom says, switching back to half Chinese, half English. “Why is that? He must not care much about you or your reputation.”

“That’s not true,” I say.

“Is it not? Has he introduced you to his parents yet, or is he sneaking you around like he’s ashamed of you?”

How can I answer that question without making him look bad?

“Hm. I see,” Mom says. “I can understand his point of view.
After all, he is high class, not like you. I can tell by his clothes and his manners. Where is he going to college, Harvard, Princeton?”

“Harvard.”

“Ah, yes. Why would he want to bring home someone like you, some poor Chinese girl who only got into State? Why not have his fun with you right before leaving for Harvard to meet someone proper?” Then Mom sighs, adding dramatic effect. “I wonder what he thought as he looked at this apartment. Did he feel pity, disgust?”

I think about the look on Derek’s face as he saw the bunk bed. Could pity and disgust be the emotions it elicited from him?

Then I stop myself. This is what she wants me to think. She is trying to brainwash me, just as she always has. I won’t fall for it.

But just as I think this, Mom’s tone changes.

“That is why I told you not to date boys,” she says. Her eyes turn red. Her voice is no longer mocking. Instead, it is choked with disappointment and anguish. “That’s why I told you to go to Berkeley and become a doctor or TV journalist,” she says. “Then no one could look down on you, not even Derek. You could do better than Derek. You could get a Chinese Derek. You could have your pick of many Dereks. They would line up at your door, begging to take you home to meet their parents. But you throw it away. And once you sell yourself cheap, no one will ever believe that you are valuable. Who pays full price for a used car?

“That dress is cursed, you know,” Mom adds. “I know. I attracted your father with that dress.”

Suddenly, the dress feels cold and creepy against my skin. The smell of mothballs makes me nauseous.

Mom turns away and exits the bedroom. Her posture is slumped and her footsteps are heavy, painting the picture of defeat.

I hurry to the bathroom and remove the dress as quickly as possible. No matter how much I rub my skin with my wet washcloth, I can’t remove the mothball smell.

I wish I could call Theresa and cry on her shoulder about what happened after the prom, but I don’t dare. The Monday after the prom, I see her in the locker room before first period.

“Hi,” I say. My voice is tentative.

Theresa doesn’t look at me. She continues placing her books in her locker.

“Look, about the prom …,” I begin, but the end of my sentence drifts away from me.

Theresa is now reorganizing her things, even though they were perfectly organized to begin with. After about a minute, she finally looks at me. Her eyes are hard and cold.

“If Derek hadn’t asked you to the prom, would you still have encouraged me to call Alfred?” she asks.

Ashamed, I look down.

“And if you had met someone at the fall dance, would you have discouraged me from calling him in the first place?” she adds.

Again, I say nothing.

“That’s what I thought.” Theresa goes back to reorganizing her books. Then she closes her locker door just a little harder than usual. Though I am still looking at her feet, I can feel her eyes boring into my forehead. “You’re selfish,” she says.

I nod. “I’m sorry,” I say.

I hope that this admission will dissolve her anger. Instead, she turns on her heel and walks away. I feel as though she is pulling my skin with her, tearing it off my body, exposing all the ugliness underneath. I blink back my tears as I sort out my own books. I lost Derek, and now I’ve lost Theresa too. Theresa is probably the nicest person I’ve ever met. She was my best friend, perhaps the only real friend I’ve ever had.

A few seconds later, I hear a small voice behind me.

“You were right.”

It’s Theresa.

“The night after we went to Macy’s, I called Alfred,” she says. “He didn’t call me after the fall dance because he lost my number, just like you said. He forgot to retrieve my number from his pants pocket. Then his mom forgot to check his pockets before washing his pants. I would never have called him if you hadn’t encouraged me.”

“I’m really glad that you got to go to the prom with him,” I say. “I only wish I had encouraged you to call him sooner.”

“I’m sorry too,” Theresa says. “I can understand why you didn’t tell me that you were going to the prom with Derek. After all, when Alfred invited me, I did the same thing. I didn’t want you to feel bad because I had someone and you didn’t.”

“I guess we should have just told each other the truth,” I say. “Then we could have double-dated.”

“Yeah,” Theresa agrees. “It would have been fun.”

“So, how did it go?” I ask.

Theresa goes on and on about her date with Alfred, about what they ate and what they said. She tells me about the two-hour phone call they had the next day and the date they went on the day after. I swallow my own anguish as she tells me her good news. I focus on listening. I focus on being happy for her.

I don’t call Derek for the next week. I tell myself that I need time to let things cool. Deep inside, though, I’m scared. What if he does think I’m cheap? Is that why he avoided taking photos, not because he wanted to wait for a shorter line but because he didn’t want any evidence of our being together? After a week, I consider calling him, but every time I think about it, all my doubts creep up. A week becomes two weeks, then three weeks, then a month.

Derek doesn’t call me either. I tell myself that it’s because he doesn’t want to get me into further trouble. Deep down, however, I hear a nagging whisper telling me that he hasn’t called because my mother has sullied his image of me. The more I think this, the more afraid I am to call him.

In June, I am chosen to give the valedictorian speech. This means that I got the highest grade point average in the class, even higher than Theresa’s.

Over dinner, I decide to tell Mom. We are having clay pot rice with Chinese pork sausage and Chinese broccoli.

“I’m going to be the valedictorian at my graduation,” I say, using my most casual voice.

Mom doesn’t look at me. She just continues chewing, as though I have said nothing. Perhaps she doesn’t know what valedictorian means.

“It means that I got the highest grade point average,” I add.

Still no reaction from Mom. Could it be that she is distracted by her own thoughts and did not hear me?

“I’m going to be—”

“I heard you the first time,” Mom retorts. “Do you think I’m deaf?” Then she continues eating.

I swallow the lump in my throat. I remind myself of her muted reaction after my CAA speech win. Maybe she is happy for me but is hiding it. Maybe this weekend she will tell Minnie at the bank, Mr. and Mrs. Tai at the bakery, or Lynn at the grocery store.

“What’s so great about getting the highest grades if they can’t get you into Berkeley?” Mom says. “Theresa didn’t get the highest grades, but she took calculus and she got the higher SAT score. That is why she got into Berkeley. So if I were you, I would stop bragging like a hotshot and acknowledge the truth—that the last four years have been a complete waste.”