Bitter Melon (34 page)

My mother named me Fei Ting. Fly stop. The girl who stopped flying. My mother is clipping my wings. Again.

I can’t give up now. I can buy another plane ticket. I grab my backpack and run to the nearest ATM, which is several blocks away on Geary Boulevard. Sweat drips down my forehead and back as I insert my card. To my surprise, the ATM tells me that my card is invalid and spits it back at me. I try again, but the same thing happens.

Suppressing my panic, I board the bus to the red bank on
Clement Street. A half hour later, I enter the bank. Minnie is sitting at her usual spot. Fortunately, there is no line. I approach her. She smiles at me until she sees the look on my face.

“Minnie,” I say, skipping formalities, “my ATM card isn’t working.” I keep my voice low so that no one else can hear.

Minnie’s jaw drops for a moment. Then, slowly, her look of surprise is replaced by a sad expression. “Frances,” she says gently, “your mommy closed the account yesterday.”

“But … it’s my account,” I say. “How can she do that?”

“It’s a joint account,” says Minnie, “so it’s hers too.”

“But … don’t we have to agree to close it? Don’t I have to sign off on it too?” I keep hoping to find a rule that was broken that will invalidate what my mother has done.

“No. Either person can close the account,” Minnie says.

“So … where did my money go?”

Minnie sighs. “Your mommy consolidated the accounts.”

“W-What does that mean?”

“She put the money in her account.”

I back away from Minnie slowly, until I trip over a crowd-control post. As my bottom hits the marble floor, that post and a couple of adjacent posts come crashing down. Everyone in the bank turns and stares at me. The security guard helps me to my feet and asks me if I’m okay. Ignoring him, I run out of the bank and lean my back against the wall. I slide down the wall until my bottom rests on my heels, and bury my face in my hands.

As I look down at my feet, I notice that I am standing in
a puddle of dried urine. It reminds me of the homeless man Mom and I passed many months ago at this very spot, before school started.
His mother should have helped him more
, Mom said,
and he should help her more. That’s the problem with this country. No family loyalty
. As bystanders walk past, they look down on me with expressions of surprise and disgust, the same way I looked at that homeless man.

Humiliated, I pick myself up and take the bus home. Along the way, I reflect on my hopeless state. In the past, whenever my mother sabotaged me, I always comforted myself with the promise that I would escape one day. How will I survive if that is taken away? I wish I could call Derek, but he is too far to help me. Besides, I have no means of reaching him right now. Who else can I turn to?

Ms. Taylor.

I get off at the bus station near my apartment, which has a pay phone. Once again, the bus stop’s plastic covering has been shattered by vandals. The broken pieces, which blanket the concrete like snow, crunch under my feet. The phone has been scratched up. The receiver has that nauseating homeless smell. I dig through my backpack and fish out Ms. Taylor’s card.

With trembling fingers, I dial her number.

I get a recording saying that this number is no longer in service. Ms. Taylor has already moved to North Carolina. Though I have her new address, I don’t have her new number.

I burst into tears. I am angry with her for abandoning me, even though it isn’t her fault. My plane leaves in just a few
hours. My window of opportunity is closing. Orientation and fall semester will begin without me. Should I just admit defeat and give up?

Wait. I have one last resort: Theresa.

I run from the pay phone to Theresa’s house. Each time one of my feet hits the pavement, a jarring sensation goes through my body. When I finally reach Theresa’s house, I ring the doorbell. Theresa opens the door. Her smile vanishes the moment she sees the look on my face. I blurt out the whole Scripps story, from the time I applied until now. Then I pause, hoping that she will have another clever idea that can save me.

Theresa gazes at me with a sad expression. “Frances, I’m so sorry to hear about what happened,” she says.

Once again, Theresa understands. She always understands. Tears of gratitude come to the surface.

“But you did get into State too,” she says. “Maybe you should just forget about Scripps and go to State.”

My hope begins to fracture. I fight to hold all the pieces together. “But … I never sent in my registration for State.”

Theresa gasps.

“It’s still possible,” I say. “To get to Scripps, I mean. Maybe you could give me a ride to the airport.”

“But what will you do once you get there?” Theresa says. “How will you fly to Scripps with no plane ticket and no money?”

“Maybe you could lend me some money,” I say. “I’ll pay you back.”

Theresa sighs and shakes her head. “Frances, this is more
serious than just sneaking around to do speech. How will your mom feel when she comes home and finds you gone?”

My splintered hope erodes to sand. The harder I hold on, the more it slips through my fingers.

“You’re the only family she has,” Theresa says. “What will she do without you?”

I want to say,
Well, what if you were me? Wouldn’t you do the same?
But I know that were our situations reversed, Theresa probably would stay home and endure. The gap between us is only a few feet, but the real distance is the width of a canyon, too great to bridge with arguments.

“I know you want to be like Ms. Taylor,” Theresa says. “But that’s just an ideal. That kind of goal isn’t practical for us. Even Ms. Taylor went home to take care of her mother when she got sick. Can’t you follow her example in that way?”

This is too much. I run away from Theresa’s house. The houses in front of me blur from my tears. At the end of the block, I double over, gasping for air. As long as Theresa, the perfect daughter, was on my side, I could convince myself I was in the right. Now I must face my self-doubt on my own.

If I forge ahead, everyone at home will see me as the bad daughter. I will have to face a year—actually, four years—of uncertainty, with no one to back me up. And what if I don’t like Scripps? Unlike Ms. Taylor, I wouldn’t be able to call home to cry about it.

But what will my life be like if I quit now? I will go to State, then transfer to Berkeley, then go on to med school or
journalism school. My mother will stand over me, triumphant, her lips curled into a smile, saying
I told you so
. Any tiny victory I have will be like all the others, short-lived. Mom will find another way to get back at me and make me small again.

I look up, as if asking God for guidance. Black telephone and electric bus wires mar the gray sky. The jagged poles supporting them look like they’re leaning, ready to fall on me. The two-story homes that line the streets look like an army of bullies hovering over me.

Either I leave today, or I never leave. My window may be closing, but I need to squeeze myself through, before it closes completely. I have spent the last year sneaking around, battling Mom’s lies with my own. Now is the time to speak my truth.

I return to the apartment and sit on the couch. I make myself like a leopard hiding behind a bush, waiting for the wildebeest to cross the river.

Several hours later, my mother arrives. She is carrying her purse and the takeout for tonight’s dinner. I watch her as she closes the door and tosses her purse and the takeout on the dining table. She acts as if nothing unusual has happened. She expects me to play along. This makes me increasingly angry, until my anger overrides my fear.

“I want my money back,” I say. My voice is shaky.

Mom’s eyes are round with innocence. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She’s trying to convince me that I’m imagining things. But this time, I won’t be fooled.

“You went through my backpack and stole my cash and plane ticket,” I say, my voice growing louder. “You closed my account. You took my money. I want it back.”

Mom laughs. “Everything you have, you have because of me,” she replies. “So your things are actually my things. How can I steal something that already belongs to me?”

“I earned all that money,” I say.

“How can you earn all that? You don’t even have a job.”

“Yes I do. I’ve been working all summer.”

Mom’s eyes narrow to slits. “You lie.”

“No,
you
lie!” I say.

Mom gasps in shock. My heart pounds and my knees shake violently. Now that I have vomited these accusations, I cannot swallow them back down.

“You’ve always discouraged me from getting a job,” I say. “You said that you wanted me to focus on school, but you were just trying to keep me helpless and dependent on you. You lied about the porcelain bowl after the earthquake. You knew that you broke it, but you just accused me because you lost your temper and needed someone to blame.”

She glares at me. “How dare you!” she shouts. Then she slaps me hard across my left cheek. It stings, and my skin feels hot and tingly. But I refuse to cower as I did when she beat me with my trophy.

“And you lied about Derek,” I continue. My speech is slightly slurred from the numbness in my cheek. “He called to ask me to the fall dance, but you told him that he had the
wrong number and then you told me that he didn’t like me.”

Mom slaps me across my right cheek, snapping my head in the opposite direction. My neck makes a cracking sound. The stinging in my eyes causes a tear to roll involuntarily down my cheek. “Shut up!” she says.

“You even lied about my acceptance to Scripps,” I say. “You threw away my acceptance package without telling me.”

Mom slaps me again across my left cheek. The room spins as everything around me fades. I struggle against my dizziness to remain standing.

“You useless idiot! I’m doing this for you!” Mom screams. “You wanted to go to some no-name college. Everyone would have laughed at your Mickey Mouse degree. And if you ran off with that Derek, you would have lost focus on your schooling. You could have spoiled your reputation. You could have gotten pregnant. How do you think I got stuck with you?”

Tears pour down from both my cheeks, splashing onto my shirt.

“You were about to ruin our life,” Mom says. “I had to stop you.”

I fight the urge to break down. “I still want my money and my plane ticket back,” I say between swallowed sobs.

“What’s the point?” she says. “Your plane already left. It’s too late.”

And with that, she turns around and begins setting the table. Once again, she is acting as though nothing happened. She is expecting me to drop this and go along. And why shouldn’t she? Everyone always has.

Even Nellie and Theresa.

After Mom beat me with my trophy, Nellie was sympathetic to me, but in the end, she defended Mom.
It’s because she loves you so much that she gets this upset
, Nellie said.
So be good and don’t upset her anymore
.

Even Theresa defended Mom.
You’re the only family she has. What will she do without you?
Even though she saw my mother beat me. Even though she knows that my mother hid my acceptance package and stole my money.

I know that inside, you’re a good girl
, Nellie said to me. Why is everyone telling me to be a good girl? Why doesn’t anyone tell Mom to be a good mother?

Like hot liquid boiling over a pot, my hatred rumbles in my stomach, erupts, and fills my entire body. Ms. Taylor’s advice to speak one’s truth has deserted me. I speak swords and stare daggers, yet my mother does not bleed. She can do whatever she wants and get away with it. Meanwhile, everyone thinks she’s so great.

Then it occurs to me that maybe Ms. Taylor’s advice has not deserted me. Maybe I have deserted her advice. I never told anyone the truth about my mother, not even Ms. Taylor. I never openly disagreed with Nellie or Theresa about her. I am partly responsible for nobody’s seeing through Mom’s mask. What would happen if I yanked it off, exposing her true self to the world?

Slowly, a plan comes to mind.

I spend the next few days playing the role of the defeated one. I swallow the hurt of my last confrontation with Mom, funneling my rage into revenge.

The following Sunday, Mom and Nellie decide to go jewelry shopping. We meet at Tai’s Bakery to get breakfast. Theresa averts her gaze when she sees me, but I ignore this. I have a plan to execute, and I can’t allow any distractions. Nellie orders the curry buns behind the glass. Theresa chooses her favorite, barbecued pork. Mom orders her
gai mei bao
. Now it’s up to me to choose.

“So, speech champion, what will it be? Another
gai mei bao?”
asks Mr. Tai.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t have any,” I say. “My mother says I’m too fat.”

Mr. Tai’s, Nellie’s, and Theresa’s friendly expressions distort into shocked looks.

Mr. Tai packs a bun for me anyway and smiles politely. “You don’t mean that, Little Sister.”

“Of course I do,” I say loudly. “My mother calls me a liar, so I have vowed to speak only the truth. I only hope that she will do the same.”