The Wangs vs. the World (12 page)

Even in close proximity like this, there was a barrier. Barbra felt her seat jostle and sat up slightly, turning her attention to the dusty world outside the car. She had never really seen the point of the desert. It was a useless landscape, more a failure of evolution than a valid ecosystem. Scorpions and cacti, leftovers from Mother Nature’s rebellious phase; shouldn’t She have gotten past all that by now?

十四
Twentynine Palms, CA

328 Miles

THE HOUSE was way tinier than Grace had been expecting. Of course, she’d
seen
bad neighborhoods before, but they were always places that you passed through on your way to somewhere else. First of all, the walls on the outside were
metal.
And not a cool metal, like titanium, which would have made it look maybe like a giant MacBook. No, instead they were something flimsy and dinged, probably tin or even aluminum. A foil-wrap house. Second, there was a bouncy castle out front. Like the kind people rented for little kids’ birthday parties. Except that Ama hadn’t said anything about it being one of her grandkids’ birthdays, and the half-deflated castle was covered with a layer of grime, as if it had been sitting on that same patch of dying grass for months, years maybe.

To be fair, this didn’t even really seem like a bad neighborhood. Just weird. If you thought about it, this combination of spaceship house and dusty lawn and bouncy castle wouldn’t ever exist anywhere else but out here in the desert. Or maybe Vegas—though Grace had never been there before—it’s just that whenever ugly things happened people usually said that it looked like Vegas or Florida.

What if the money really was all gone and they ended up having to live somewhere like this? God, suicide really would be better than that.

Ama had gone quiet. Grace tapped her on the shoulder.

“I haven’t seen Kathy in a long time.”

Ama didn’t turn. Just said,
“Mmm,”
in response.

“Maybe almost ten years, right?”

“Kathy
hen meng.
”

“Busy? With the little ones?”

Because Kathy didn’t just have kids, she had grandkids, too. Already. That was like her dad having grandkids. Which meant that it was like her having kids.

Wait, that didn’t quite make sense—Ama had been her father’s wet nurse, she was older than Grace’s father. But really not by much. Ama had only been eighteen when she came to take care of him, cast out by her landowning-class family because she was a wayward daughter who had a baby—stillborn, discarded—out of wedlock. She’d been taken in by the neighboring Wang household because they’d had the misfortune of birthing a child who had thrived in the aftermath of a world war. Almost forty years after that, Ama had arrived in America with a teenage Kathy, whose father was an American GI stationed in Taiwan, though no one ever spoke of it.

Ama’s daughter followed in that unfortunate military tradition by finding herself married to a Latino man who discarded a promising beginning as a line cook at Michael’s in Santa Monica to become an army chef. Kathy was pretty much a single mother even though she was technically still with her husband; in reality, he spent all his time with hot broilers in Bahrain and giant saucepans in Mosul and none of it at their house near the Marine Corps base in Twentynine Palms.

And then Kathy’s own daughter had gone and wasted her perfectly lovely face—a face that, Ama always said with a sigh of relief, was still Chinese despite her diluted blood—by actually joining the military herself. When she went and married a fellow soldier whose family happened to be from the Dominican Republic and popped out two coffee-colored babies in quick succession, Ama didn’t even try to contain her dismay.

It was a misfortune that had been amply conveyed to the Wangs.

Before Ama had even managed to shuffle her stockinged legs towards the yard, the house door flew open and two
adorable
little kids came running out. Grace didn’t even like kids—they were always so
sticky
—but these kids were like baby cocker spaniels or something, all light-up sneakers and squeals with their hair in two miniature Afros. They ran towards the bouncy castle and clambered in, but it sagged so much under their weight that Grace was pretty sure they’d bounce all the way down through the dirt.

“Ama! Are these them?
Look
at them!” Grace hated girls who squealed over teacup Chihuahuas, but she finally understood the impulse. Now the two little ones were tumbled together in the middle of the castle, the half-inflated floor sandwiching them as they giggled and waved coquettishly at the strangers. Grace waved back and grinned at them. Maybe the next test would be babysitting these kids or saving them from kidnappers or something—that wouldn’t be too bad.

Before Grace could walk over to the little duo, the door opened wider and Kathy came out. Dressed in an oversize gray fleece zip-up and anonymous sneakers, she looked almost Ama’s age. For just a minute, everyone was quiet, and then Grace’s dad bounded forward and threw an arm around Kathy’s shoulders.

“Ah, it is good to see you again! So many years!”

Why was he always bouncing? If Grace didn’t know her dad, she’d probably think he was gay. Kathy didn’t seem that into him either. Instead of returning the hug, she shrank back, pulling her reading glasses off her head and putting them on.

“Alright,” she said. “Okay.” Turning towards the castle, she shouted, “Nico! Naia!” and a second later the kids were at her side. “Say hi to uncle and auntie,” she instructed them, as Barbra leaned over and patted each of their cheeks for a moment.

“So cute,” said Barbra, and then, cocking her head towards Charles, she said,
“Hwen de hao.”
That was another one that Grace knew.

Hwen de hao.
Well mixed.

Once, in front of one of her mixed friends, Grace’s dad had told Barbra that it was too bad that the girl was
hwen de chou.
Mixed ugly. “Like maybe she have the Down syndrome.” The girl had cried, Grace had flamed with embarrassment, Charles had sworn that he forgot he was speaking English and got his secretary to send the girl an enormous box of cosmetics the next day, which made her totally stop talking to Grace at all. But it was what Barbra said that Grace remembered most. In the midst of the commotion, she’d just shrugged, and said, in an effort to stop Grace’s protesting, “Daddy was only telling the truth. There’s nothing wrong with being ugly if that’s what you are.”

And now Ama and Kathy understood her, too, of course, but they didn’t say anything, just held on to each other’s hands for a minute and headed into the spaceship house.

Conversation savers. That was another good reason to have kids around. Whenever there was a pause in the grown-ups’ talk, before it got unbearable, one of the adults would look over at Nico or Naia, who were setting up a store with stray personal items charmed from their visitors, and make some comment about their cuteness. Everyone enthusiastically agreed, and then the conversation could resume again.
Phew
. After a while, Grace slid off the scratchy plaid couch and scooched across the linoleum floor.

“Want me to be your customer?” she asked.

Nico, the older one, beamed at Grace and nodded, holding out a leather key fob unhooked from Barbra’s purse.

“You could have it,” he said. “Except that you have to put it in your pocket.”

She tucked it into her jeans as Naia crouched close to the ground and examined Grace’s shoes.

“Why do you have holes in your shoes?” she asked.

How do you explain fashion to a little kid?

“Don’t you think they’re cool-looking?”

Naia looked up, all serious, and shook her head. “Is it because you couldn’t buy the other parts?” Grace cocked her head and locked eyes with Naia. This couldn’t be part of it. These kids were too . . . kidlike to be a test.

Nico turned to Grace. “Guess what we’re having for dinner? Guess!” Grace shrugged and pretended to look very mystified. “Hot dogs! Hot dogs! Hot dogs!”

Hot dogs? Cow lips and tails and ears and vaginas, probably. Or udders. Mushed udders. In a tube. Tube steak. Gross.

“Ai-ya, ni je me xing zuo
hot dog
ne? Shei yao chi zhe gou? Jen shi de!”
Ama hissed disapproval at her daughter while Grace tried to avoid her father’s and Barbra’s looks.

Kathy shrugged. “What’s wrong with hot dogs? Did you think I was going to make a banquet?” Shouldering the kids, she headed into the kitchen, leaving Ama to splutter after her,
“Shei shuo bi yao ge
banquet?
Nu er tai chou la!”

Ten minutes later, Kathy came out with a platter of boiled hot dogs nestled in soft white buns and then brought out an armful of brand-new condiments: A big forty-ounce Heinz ketchup bottle, a bright yellow bottle of French’s mustard that was half as big, and a tiny squeeze bottle of Vlasic sweet relish.

Bleh
. Hot dogs were just as gross as Grace remembered. It was like they were all gathered around the living room eating skinny penises on buns—seriously, hot dogs were basically the same thing.

Barbra had drawn two thin lines on hers, one of ketchup and one of mustard, and was now taking neat bites of it, not smudging the lines. Her dad’s was piled with relish and he opened his mouth for a giant bite. Kathy was cutting Nico’s into pieces and popping them in his mouth while Naia had hers gripped in both hands and inserted halfway in her mouth. She slipped it out again and grinned at Grace. “It’s like a ketchup lollipop!” she said.

Ama’s plain hot dog rested in her lap, her hands folded on top of it. She watched Kathy for a long moment before she turned to Grace’s dad, and said, quietly, bowing her head,
“Jen shi dwei bu qi.”

“Hmm?” he asked, focusing on the last, mustard-streaked bite of his hot dog.

“Wang jia dwei wo ne me hao, wo xian zai je me xing zhi gei ni men
hot dogs
lai chi?”

Grace watched the bulge of chewed-up hot dog go down his throat as he swallowed before answering. “Ama,
qing ni bu yao ne yang zi xiang la.
” He turned to Grace. “Gracie, you like hot dog, right? Say to Ama that there is nothing to apologize.” Grace wanted to leave, to get up and run out on this moment, on huffy Kathy who must feel completely betrayed by her mom, on this test that was feeling less and less like a game, even on the kids who were getting sticky with ketchup.

“They’re great,” she said. “It’s like we’re at a carnival! There’s the kids, and the bouncy castle, and the hot dogs!”

“She me
boun-cee cah-sul
de?”

As soon as Ama started talking, Barbra leaned back.
She always did that,
thought Grace,
just took herself out of the family whenever she wanted to
. Of course, when Saina had a big gallery opening or something, Barbra was always ready to get dressed up and be part of the Wangs, but she never stayed on the team for the whole game. So unfair.

“Oh nothing, Ama. It’s just—hot dogs are fine, really,” said Grace.

“See!” said Charles, waving the last hot dog at Kathy. “All good! No worries!”

“
Ah bao,
I think that’s Kathy’s,” said Barbra. “Kathy, have you had one yet?”

“You want it, you take it,” said Kathy, shrugging again. Her salt-and-pepper hair was all bristled up; with her gray fleece and un-made-up face, she looked like she was all one color.

“Well,” said Barbra, “we should probably be going soon.”

“Ni men bu shi yao zhu yi wan ma?”

“Oh,” said Kathy, in a strange, high voice, “did you drive two cars? Did I miss the other one? Did you drive another car besides my ma’s?”

Grace looked at the three of them. Getting old was horrible.

She watched her father shuffle uncomfortably on the sofa. Grace hadn’t even thought about it, but it was true. This car was supposed to be Ama’s. Were they just going to steal it from her now? Sure, her dad had been the one to give it to Ama, but a gift was a gift, wasn’t it?

“Ama is very kind, too kind,” said Grace’s dad. “She will let us drive the car to Saina’s house. We hope we can give it back soon.”

“Too kind,” said Kathy. “Too kind, too, too kind.”

十五

THE WANGS had fallen so far, so fast.

As a child, Charles never entirely believed his own family’s tales of grandeur: The five-story estate carved into the side of a stone mountain, with a legion of porters ready to carry the mistress of the house up and down on a palanquin. The koi ponds and amusing lap dogs and gold-edged dishes brought out for endless banquets of freshly slain suckling pigs. The hall of treasures, where hunks of amber that contained prehistoric creatures lined the rosewood shelves along with polished nautilus shells and a Fabergé ostrich egg. All of it surrounded by acres upon acres, all green.

He could never parse that mythic life with the spare rooms and quiet meals of his childhood. Over the years, his aunties’ remembrances of their familial past had taken on a faded fairy-tale air, mixing in his young mind with thumbed-through stories of the archer who saved the world from seven suns and the goddess who was exiled to the moon, where her only friend was a rabbit.

And now Charles had managed to lose an entire gilded existence twice as quickly, without the assistance of a world war or a murderous demagogue. Maybe failure was encoded in the DNA, like sickle-cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease, revisiting generation after generation until some quirk of crossbreeding finally managed to eradicate those traitorous chromosomes. Maybe May Lee’s blithe stupidity would bubble up and lift the stain of failure from his children. Not that it was working yet. Saina was hiding out in the forgotten countryside, Grace was still a child, and Andrew, well, Andrew wanted to be a stand-up comedian, a career choice that might as well be a deliberate rebellion against success.

He’d tainted them all with his own fatal misstep. Charles had always thought of himself as a businessman’s businessman. He was in the makeup game because he had landed on a way to produce popular products cheaply, but it could just as easily have been gourmet peanut butter or building insulation or shoelaces—wherever the opportunity presented itself. He’d trained himself to love the mythos of makeup because of the money to be made, but if he’d come to America with a list of algae-farm contacts, he might even now be extolling the virtues of green juice and branching out into bee pollen.