Bitter Melon (5 page)

In the meantime, I’m sandwiched between two bad decisions. If I compete, I’m indulging in extracurricular activities, which, in Mom’s opinion, will only serve to distract me from my studies. If I don’t compete, I will have neither speech nor calculus to brag about in my college application, which will hurt my chances of getting into Berkeley.

After my appointment with Ms. Costello, I enter speech class late. I spend the rest of class enduring the itch to tell Theresa what happened, while Theresa endures the itch to hear about it. It isn’t until the bell rings that we are able to have a good scratch.

“Well, how did it go?” Theresa asks.

I summarize what happened and explain my dilemma. “What do you think I should do?” I ask her.

“Ms. Costello’s right,” Theresa says. “If you don’t have calculus on your transcript, you’ll need speech to have a shot at Berkeley.”

“Maybe I can just get an A in speech but not compete,” I say.

“But it only counts in your CV if you compete,” Theresa says. “Otherwise, it’s just another fluffy class.”

“Ladies, before you leave,” says Ms. Taylor, “remember that your original oratory speech is due tomorrow. Also, I’m leaving a sign-up sheet for joining the school speech team. I encourage you all to sign up.”

Theresa and I look at each other. Quietly, we disappear into the small crowd of exiting students and slither out the door.

I am sitting at my desk at home, a used mahjong table, which faces the front window. Like a bad friend, the sun, which abandoned us all summer long, is deciding to come out and play now that we are deep in schoolwork. I stare at what I’ve come
up with so far for my original oratory speech—a blank sheet of paper. For the last two weeks, I rationalized that I would be out of this class by now, so why work on the speech? Who knew I’d be stuck in the course?

I think about Ms. Taylor’s words on the first day of class:
Language gives us the ability not only to talk about the present but to reflect on the past and to plan for the future.…
I like her message, but I don’t know how or where to begin. It’s like turning a circle of tape around and around and searching for where to start peeling.

I look at my watch. I’ve been sitting here for a half hour and my page is still blank. My eyes wander to the wall. There hangs a red Chinese calendar, which includes all the good luck things to do and the bad luck things to avoid for the day.

Right below the calendar is a white statue of Gwun Yum, the goddess of compassion and mercy. Next to her is a plastic Chinese-red ancestral shrine for Popo. Popo’s large photo is black and white. She is wearing a traditional black high-collar blouse with frog buttons. She has chiseled cameo features and very high cheekbones. There is no mirth in her expression. Her giant black eyes are hollow and piercing. Her thin lips are pressed into a straight line. Her bobbed black hair is clipped back tight, so tight that it accentuates the harshness in the angles of her face. Had she been younger and less austere in the photo, she could have looked like a Chinese Greta Garbo.

Gong Gong, Mom’s dad, passed away a few years before Popo, but his picture is not in the shrine. He was successful at
his business, but every dime he earned went to his illegitimate family as Mom struggled to support her mother and siblings.

The smoke from the burning incense makes me woozy. The three oranges my mother left for her ancestors in the afterlife are starting to mold. I am tempted to remove the oranges, but I hesitate. When I was little, I learned about King Tut and the pyramids of Egypt. I placed four oranges in the shape of a pyramid at the shrine, thinking that would impress my mom. Instead, she slapped me and removed the fourth orange. It turned out that four is a bad luck number, because the word for it,
“sei,”
is pronounced exactly like the word for death,
“sei,”
only in a different tone. That confused me. They were dead anyway. But I guess to Mom, they aren’t.

My grandmother’s face in the ancestral shrine stares back at me, her eyebrows drawn in a frown. She looks as though she can read my intentions. What if Mom is right? What if our ancestors are still with us? The eyes and ears of the dead are scarier than those of the living. They are silent yet everywhere. There is no escape. I tell myself to stop being superstitious, but I can’t prove my ancestors’ absence any more than I can prove their presence. I only have this eerie sensation that I can’t brush off.

If spirits really do exist, then Popo probably knows about my speech enrollment. She probably knows about the appointment slip in my pocket, the one I failed to submit on time. Maybe she is blocking me from writing this speech.

Panicked, I pick up the phone and call Theresa.

“Wei?”
says Nellie.

“Auntie Nellie? It’s me, Fei Ting,” I say in broken Chinese.

“Oh, Fei Ting! Have you eaten?”

“Yes.” Actually, I’m starved, but saying so would make it sound like my mom isn’t feeding me. “Is Theresa home?”

“She is. What do you want to talk about?”

“Um … schoolwork.” Technically, that’s not a lie.

“Oh, so hardworking. Theresa! Hurry up! It’s Fei Ting!”

Theresa takes the phone. “Hello?”

“Theresa, I’m stuck on my speech—”

“Hold on.” There is a pause. It sounds like Theresa is moving to another part of the house. “Mom, stop following me. I need some privacy!” Theresa says in English.

“Privacy? What you need privacy for?” Nellie says back in English. “Keep secret from me?”

Theresa groans. Then I hear the door shut. “Sorry,” she says to me.

I give silent thanks for Theresa’s discretion. “I don’t know if I can go through with this. I feel like Popo’s watching me.” I’m whispering, as if keeping this conversation out of Popo’s earshot.

“Didn’t your popo pass away?” Theresa is whispering too, as if Popo might hear her as well.

“Yes. That’s what makes it worse. I feel her eyes in the photo watching me.” As I listen to myself whisper, I hate how nuts I sound. A Chinese person would berate me for my sins and urge me to heed my guilt. Everyone else would laugh me off as superstitious. Only Theresa can stand in the middle and see
both sides. “I almost want to cover her face with a towel so she can’t see me,” I say.

“No! That feels … sacrilegious.” Theresa pauses for a moment. “I’ve got an idea. What’s the sweetest treat you’ve got in the house?”

“Well …” I open the pink bakery box on our kitchen table. “There’s
dan tat
and
bolo bao.”
“Dan tat”
means “custard tart,” and
“bolo bao,”
which translates as “pineapple bun,” is just a plain bun with a crusty sugar topping that looks like the outside of a pineapple.

“Which is your favorite?”

“The
dan tat.”

“Offer that to the shrine.”

“But that’s the last one.” I cringe at my own selfishness.

“Even better,” says Theresa. “It’s showing your sacrifice. As you offer it to her, explain that you did your best to straighten things out. Promise that you’ll make amends. You will write your speech to praise your mother as an unsung hero. So you’re turning a bad thing into a good thing.”

I pick up a
dan tat
with one hand and the base of the rotary phone with the other as I hold the receiver between my ear and my shoulder. I walk to the shrine, reluctantly place the last custard tart in front of Popo, and make my promise. “It’s done,” I say to Theresa.

Suddenly, my mother walks in. She is carrying our takeout dinner in one hand and her purse and keys in the other. I immediately turn my back towards her and walk away from the shrine.

“Well, thanks for the help with the calculus homework,” I say.

Theresa gasps. “Did your mom just come home?”

I hear Mom’s footsteps behind me as she approaches the dining table. “Yes.”

“Do you think she suspects anything?”

“No.”

“We better get off the phone now.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hang up the phone, a little too quickly. I deliberately slow down, to make myself look casual.

“Who was that on the phone?” Mom asks.

“Oh, it’s Theresa.”

Mom raises an eyebrow. “I thought you despised her.”

“That’s not true.” Well, at least not anymore.

“I’m glad that you’ve finally swallowed your pride and allowed her to help you with your weaknesses.”

I begin setting the table with our ivory chopsticks, porcelain bowls, and small dishes. Our chopsticks have our Chinese names on them, engraved and painted in red. Our dishes and bowls have hand-painted dragons. They are red with gold trim. In contrast to our beat-up furniture, our dining ware is probably pretty valuable, like our jewelry at the bank. Did that, too, come from our former life?

Even before I untie the plastic bag and open the Styrofoam container, I recognize the scent of
cha siu
(barbecued pork),
chow fun
(flat rice noodles),
gai lan
(Chinese broccoli), and steamed rice. But overriding those tantalizing aromas is the smell of
fu
gwa
, bitter melon. As I open the containers, which say
HAVE A NICE DAY!
the steam covers my face, fogging up my glasses.

“Four dollars,” my mother says triumphantly. She prides herself on her ability to get a good deal.

As we sit down to eat, I notice how tired Mom looks. She is hunched over her food, in too much pain to hold herself up. She’s been awake since three thirty this morning, to work the five o’clock shift, and didn’t leave work until five in the afternoon.

“Maybe you should lie down awhile before you eat,” I say.

Mom waves me off. “This food costs money. We have to eat it while it’s still hot.” Then she smiles and pats me on the hand.
“Gwai nui
. You always look out for your mother.”

The barbecued pork is red and shiny. The ends are slightly burned. That is the sweetest and crispiest part. Mom picks out the end pieces for me and the middle slices for herself. The
gai lan
glistens with oil and oyster sauce. Mom picks out the tender baby stalks for me while reserving the older, more fibrous stalks for herself. Mom’s chopsticks look like the beak of a mother bird pecking at a food source to regurgitate for her young. As she gathers the
chow fun
, she gives me the only two shrimps in the whole container and the brownest rice noodles, the ones with the most soy sauce. Then she gives herself the whiter, blander noodles and hardly any of the meat.

“Mom, it’s okay. Save some of the good ones for yourself,” I say.

“It’s okay, Fei Ting. Mommy always saves the best for you.
Just study hard. When you become a doctor, you will make lots of money and you can buy Mommy the best food.”

But what if I don’t get into Berkeley because I’m not taking calculus? What if I don’t get into medical school? Then Mom could be eating the middle parts of
cha siu
and the toughest stalks of
gai lan
and living in this cramped apartment for the rest of her life.

As if reading my mind, Mom says, “If you were talking to Theresa about calculus, how come your textbook isn’t on your desk?”

I look over at my desk. There is nothing on it except my pen and my blank speech. “I forgot my calculus book in my locker,” I say. “I was calling Theresa to get the questions.” Can Mom hear the lying in my voice? Can she hear my heart pounding?

Mom’s chopsticks move on to the bitter melon with sliced beef. The shiny dark green crescents have eyelet patterns on the outside. The alkaline smell fills my mouth with a taste similar to that of an unripe persimmon. The cook has added sugar to this dish, but no sweetness can dull the bitter taste that lingers on the tongue, tainting everything else you eat. Because it’s Mom’s favorite, she collects a giant heap and deposits it on my plate. It lands with a small thump, like a pile of manure.

“Mom, why don’t you keep the bitter melon for yourself?” I say. “After all, it’s your favorite.”

“You’re rejecting the best dish. Stop fussing. Just eat.”

“It’s really bitter.”

“If you eat bitterness all the time, you will get used to it. Then you will like it.”

“But I don’t want to. I don’t like
fu gwa.”

Mom’s face becomes dark and stormy. I’ve figured out too late that I’ve said the wrong thing.

“I’ve been up since three thirty this morning, and I worked twelve hours—
twelve hours
—to earn the money that bought this food,” Mom says. “You think I
like
to go to work? I work for you.” Her eyes are red, tears welling in them, as her voice escalates to a shriek. “You don’t realize how lucky you are to have education and food anytime you want. When you bathe, you use so much shampoo and soap, twice as much as I do. When you eat chicken, you leave little traces of chicken and cartilage on the bone. And now you’re wasting a whole container of good food. I could support another child with all that you waste.”

And now I am wasting her money for my education.

“This weekend I’m working too. So now I’m working seven days a week. You know why?”

I assume that her question is rhetorical, so I don’t answer.