Rebellious Daughters (25 page)

Using the heel of my foot, I kicked in the garage door, which had expanded in the frame after the recent summer storms. The humidity blanketing the town over the last several months had left even the house bloated. Eventually, I located my bike beneath all of the storage containers and old art projects disintegrating from silverfish bites. Technically, I wasn't lying. I
was
going to stop by the shops if I had time, and the canal was en route to Liam's house.

Liam was the most beautiful person I'd ever met. He had wavy, brown locks, a Roman nose, kind brown eyes, a chiseled jaw, and a hint of stubble. He was tall, tanned and toned from doing water sports every weekend and even I, a bookish shut-in whose ideal man was pale, British and internally anguished (essentially, Mr. Darcy), couldn't resist him. And to my great surprise, Liam was interested
in me.
Me
. I had no idea why, since we had nothing in common besides both of us being in grade 12 and living in the same town in coastal, regional Queensland. He was a Disney prince incarnate who'd had beautiful girlfriends, and taught body and wake boarding to kids at the beach in his spare time, which I found charming (the part about the kids) and also a living nightmare (the part about the beach). And I was an Australian born Chinese virgin with bad eyesight, anxiety and thin hair. My pastimes included performing in the school musical, working with the school magazine committee and public speaking at Lions Clubs Australia events. My first kiss came from our grade's punching bag during a drama lesson, and even he wiped his mouth after the kissing scene was over.

But I was fairly happy with myself, despite all of the usual self-consciousness felt by adolescents and despite the fact that I was different to most people I knew. So I was not so baffled about the idea of Liam and I being attracted to each other. I just didn't see how we made a good couple, yet I fell hopelessly into the fantasy of what we could be. With him, there was the promise of really fitting in at school.

‘He's totally into you,' said my friend, Jessie, several weeks before my joyride to Liam's house. I was visiting her at the boutique where she worked after school and on the weekends. She stood behind the counter rearranging stock as I idly browsed jewelry. It was the
kind of place that sold chunky, beaded necklaces worn by middle-aged Caucasian women who owned multiple kaftans and whose husbands owned multiple yachts. I twirled some of these necklaces around my finger absentmindedly.

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘He's never made a move.'

‘But you talk on MSN every day.'

‘That's true.'

‘And he told me he thought you were gorgeous.'

My breath caught in my chest. I'd wanted some reassurance that I wasn't out of my mind in thinking that Liam could be interested in someone like me.

Liam and I had met online through mutual friends and since then, we'd caught up a handful of times at group hangouts. He went to the gargantuan public school nearby that churned out so many seniors each year that it was normal for students and teachers to lose track of each other. And I went to a Lutheran private school a few suburbs across that our parents sent us to because they thought it would mean we'd get bullied less (it didn't).

Each afternoon, we'd jump on instant messenger and update each other on the happenings of the day – what assignments we were working on, which friends said what scandalous things. Eventually, we started discussing more personal stuff: what anime we watched, what Tolkien books we'd read, who we'd liked or dated
in the past. I discovered that he lived one suburb away, loved
X-Men
and science fiction and played keyboard in a band. He worked at the local Big W doing night fill and when he had late shifts, I would stay up and wait for his MSN status to switch from ‘Away' to ‘Online'. We talked nightly, if not several times a day. But as the weeks wore on, and my moving date drew closer, our communication became irregular. Some nights he would be hours late logging on; other nights he wouldn't log on at all. I held onto whatever stupid conversations we now had like a lifeline.

‘Do you like Cadbury fruit and nut?' he asked one night.

‘I love it,' I typed, groaning aloud at the pointlessness of the subject.

‘I hate it!' he replied, and I wished I'd been honest the first time so he'd know just how much we had in common and how it was obvious we were destined soul mates. Then he told me I was one of the coolest people he'd ever met, and I told him likewise, and then suddenly I was willing to risk my relationship with my mother to pursue a romance with a broad shouldered wake boarder. If I didn't take action now, I'd lose Liam.

Until this point, my experience with boys had been limited. There was the four year crush I'd had on a boy, which culminated in him asking me out as a joke during a school excursion. Then there was the time I lied about
not owning a telephone so I wouldn't have to give my number to a boy who smelt like cabbage. And then, finally, a failed online romance with a boy several years older than me. Besides that drama class kiss, I'd never kissed anyone, let alone held someone's hand. This was, in large part, due to Mum's strictness.

Mum had enough household rules to keep all my siblings and I in check: no shoes or balls in the house; no pets that couldn't be kept in tanks or cages; no sleepovers; and above all: no ring, no ding. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Without a wedding ring, you can forget about having sex, and you'd better not try having it under her roof. This also extended to any other kind of sexual activity, even kissing. But what if the kissing was done under somebody else's roof?

As I sped towards the end of our street and onto the pavement, I ran through a mental checklist of all the bad things that could happen to me on my great escape: being abducted, getting raped, getting hit by a car. I'd never ridden this far away from home before. If I wound up in hospital, what would Mum's reaction be? Would she disown me? Refuse to let me leave home ever again?

I kept pedaling. Past the park, past the canal, past the shopping centre and Video Ezy, past the Shell and the fruit barn, before finally turning a corner at the fish and chip shop. I'd never ridden this far away from
home before. I passed a group of younger kids on their bikes, helmetless, sucking on ice blocks and yelling to each other over the deafening traffic, and felt suddenly at ease. I was just like them now, free to do whatever I wanted without parental supervision. It was the first time I'd ever felt truly alone and I loved it.

Conversely, Mum was lonely, and as a consequence she was always present, always nearby, despite our house being large enough to cover two blocks of land. Even when I was in the bathroom or on the toilet, she'd knock on the door and start a conversation from thin air, about a product she'd seen on television, or the friend she ran into at the shops. In the mornings before school, she'd stand behind me as I did my hair and watch me apply eyeliner light enough for the teachers not to notice.

‘Go away, Mum,' I'd say. ‘Don't just stand there. It's creepy.'

‘Creepy? I'm just watching you,' she'd say. ‘Is that a crime?'

Some mornings I'd wake up to find Mum sitting on the edge of my bed, and the moment I'd open my eyes I'd be accosted with that morning's news: ‘Steve Irwin is officially dead,' she'd tell me, or ‘Anthony Callea is on
Sunrise
! Come watch.' As I drifted in and out of sleep I'd hear her slippers shuffling along the tiles in the hallway. I knew Mum was glancing into my room, waiting for me to wake up so she'd have someone to talk to.

I felt stifled, trapped, but I also understood her. She'd been a single, full-time mother for most of her adult life, and my leaving meant a huge life change for her too. Soon, she'd be jobless, and having to find friends after decades of having no time for a social life. Not to mention the cultural barriers that came with being a migrant living in a predominantly white town where the Australian women didn't understand her, and the few Chinese women around gossiped about her divorce behind her back. We both knew that inevitably Mum would have to let me go. Already she was panicking about my departure. I understood this and yet I couldn't stop myself from muttering ‘I hate you' under my breath, and branding post-it notes with passive aggressive messages, like ‘Fuck off, Mum!' and then placing them strategically on my desk for her to see, because I could never say something so awful to her face.

On my way to Liam, as I pumped up my bike tyres, the guilt bore down on me like a lead weight. In Chinese culture, you must always respect your elders and never talk back, even if you know you're right. And you can never lie to them. So far I'd been a painfully obedient child. I wouldn't even jay-walk or return a library book late. I didn't like causing a stir and I didn't like drawing attention to myself for the wrong reasons. I hardly ever questioned rules. Up until now. Now I needed to know that I could be my own person, make my own life and
keep my own secrets. I needed to know that I was more than just Mum's daughter.

I knocked on the fly screen a second time and a very tanned, topless man with a beer belly appeared at the door. He seemed confused as to why this Asian girl with a rusty bike was standing before him.

‘Hi, I'm Michelle,' I said, nervously.

‘Oh!' said the topless man, with some recognition. ‘I'm Liam's Dad. I've heard all about you.' My heart leapt. I was important enough for Liam to mention me to his parents. ‘Give me a sec. Liam's in his room – I'll go get him.'

After a minute or so, Liam emerged from some place behind the house, frazzled and also topless. When he first saw me, his face fell. I figured it had something to do with the fact I was sweating like crazy and had helmet hair plastered to my head. But then, perhaps Liam was responding to my actual presence. He hadn't known that I was coming, because I wanted it to be a surprise. And he was certainly surprised. And annoyed.

‘Does your mum know you're here?' he asked. He knew how overprotective Mum was, having met her several times during our chaperoned meetings at JB Hi Fi. If I met anyone in public, especially a boy, Mum's presence was non-negotiable, and having learnt that no amount of tears or bargaining would sway her to leave
me alone, I'd always acquiesced to her conditions out of sheer desperation. Liam and I would normally browse for half an hour in the anime section – him trying to engage me in a conversation about Japanese culture and Chinese language, and me pretending to be just as interested – before our designated meeting time with Mum in the food court. To his credit, Liam was never bothered by Mum being there. He'd even become used to Mum waiting in the wings, which is why he seemed disturbed now to find me unaccompanied, as if it were some kind of trap. ‘I'll show you around,' he said, reluctantly.

Liam lightened up only when showing me his room, which was a renovated shed connected to his family's garage. I took it all in: the empty aquarium filled with gravel and driftwood (‘I want to fill it with marine fish!'); his keyboard on a stand; the small bookcase and an open copy of
Dune
and the single bed in the corner.

‘Did you tell your mum you were coming?' he asked, still edgy.

‘No.'

‘So you lied?'

I shrugged, annoyed at being lectured when we were supposed to be in cahoots with each other. Didn't he want to be alone with me as much as I wanted to be alone with him? I stared at his abs.

‘I'll just put a shirt on,' he said, embarrassed.

Disappointed, I diverted my eyes to a half empty
bottle of beer on his desk. I was scandalised. Here he was, underage, brazenly drinking a beer without a care in the world. Besides the handful of times I'd sipped Vodka Cruisers at friends' house parties, the only times I'd ever drank were at home, when Mum handed me the rest of her Guinness because ‘a woman should know how to drink beer'. Besides those occasional sips, alcohol was strictly prohibited at home, lest I become what Mum referred to as a ‘crazy Australian teenager' like all of my friends. I couldn't tear my eyes from Liam's beer. It was just a stupid drink, but I couldn't make up my mind about whether it was right or wrong and whether I was afraid or excited by it. Or both.

Liam turned on his computer and pulled up a chair for me. We were now sitting so close together I could feel the heat emanating from his body. We watched some clips on YouTube, listened to his band's latest demos, which I'd already listened to on MySpace a thousand times before, late at night, as I waited for him to come online. We quickly ran out of things to talk about and then sat there for half an hour or so, idly browsing the internet, as I silently wondered if at some point he'd lean over and kiss me. And then a thought struck me: what would I do if he wanted to have sex?

But I was slowly realising that he was never going to make a move, and he was doing everything in his power to make me understand this: sitting further and further
away from me, whining about his ex-girlfriend, telling me how I should be excited about leaving town. I had misread the situation and now felt like an idiot. I thought about my bike resting against the side of his shed and desperately wanted to leave.

‘Did you want something to drink?' he asked. I didn't, but followed him into the house anyway, where we laughed at the school photos of him and his brother stuck to the fridge, then sipped our glasses of Coke in silence. His dad walked in, poured himself some water, and joined us at the kitchen bench.

‘Have you told her about my tattoo?' he asked Liam.

‘Dad, she doesn't care,' said Liam.

‘It's a Japanese koi,' Liam's dad said, smiling hugely, twisting his forearm around to show me the full pattern. I smiled back, internally rolling my eyes, wondering whether he knew I was another type of Asian. After we finished our Cokes, Liam led me outside, where I told him I better go.