Rent a Boyfriend Page 15

  I nodded and he chuckled. Hope surged in my chest.

  But then he said, “Aiyah, Jing-Jing, what were you thinking, saying that at the party?”

  My voice was barely above a whisper. “I wanted to choose my own future.”

  “Who wasn’t letting you choose? We were only making sure you saw all your choices.”

  “You didn’t tell me vital information.” I left it at that. Unlike with my mother, I couldn’t fully express my anger. My relationship with my father was too uncomfortable. Too fragile.

  And he didn’t pick up on the emotions beneath my words, saying carelessly, “We did what we felt was necessary for you to end up with the best option. We know more than you, Jing-Jing. We’re older. We have life experiences. Haven’t we taught you to respect your elders?”

  Sometimes it felt like talking to a skipping record—outdated, repetitive, and unable to change. I tried the same tactic that had worked on my mother. “Well, the Hongbo ship has sailed. Can you give Andrew a chance now?”

  But my father shook his head. “I can’t reward your terrible behavior by giving you what you want.”

  “So, what, you’re not going to be nice to your own houseguest?”

  “He’s not who he says he is.”

  No way. He couldn’t know… could he?

  “He’s squeamish!” my father exclaimed, as if he were dropping the mic. “He’s not going into medicine like his parents—he’s going to have to find something else. He could barely keep his breakfast down when he was assisting me.”

  I wanted to laugh until my knees gave out. But I managed to hold it back to just a few chortles.

  “What’s so funny?” my dad finally asked after chortle number five.

  “Andrew still has plenty of other well-paying job options.”

  “Not as high-paying as doctor. Why not give yourself the optimal start? A fighting chance? The best of relationships can’t survive when money is an issue.”

  “And relationships aren’t worth having if they’re with the wrong person,” I said quietly.

  “You’re still young; only fools believe in love.”

  I tried not to dwell on what that implied about his relationship with my mother.

  “Love can grow,” he continued, “but only if you have life’s necessities to support the roots.”

  My voice was still small. “I think you’re wrong.”

  He turned away from me and stared at the empty white wall. “Sometimes I don’t think I know you.”

  You don’t.

  “Please tell me if you’re sick,” I begged.

  He didn’t answer, and his eyes didn’t leave the wall to meet mine as I eventually left, out of options. My heart couldn’t take any more.

  Drew CHAPTER 36

  FALLEN

  Chloe was silent at dinner, pushing her wontons around listlessly.

  Perhaps it was because of how we’d obtained them. Or, more likely, because of how the talk with her father (which I knew from experience could be hella scary) had gone.

  I knew she was going through a lot (like, more than most people by this age), and I wasn’t sure how to best support her. Did she want space? Did she want me to help somehow? As Andrew or Drew?

  “These are actually really good,” I said, biting into a fourth wonton. I’d made them earlier as a joke, but it turned out the Kuos had access to some top-notch frozen Chinese food.

  “Thank you for making them,” Mrs. Wang said for the third time.

  And again I nodded, even though her thanks felt over the top; all I’d done was boil some water and plop these bad boys in.

  Mrs. Wang had been perfectly pleasant to me while Chloe was upstairs talking to her father, but it had been mostly quiet, with the only words exchanged revolving around how the wontons looked and smelled.

  “And thank you for getting them in the first place,” Chloe said, a hint of a smile on her face, finally.

  I hovered a palm over her knee, unsure what she needed right now. My hand (and heart) warmed when she reached up and interlaced her fingers through mine. I squeezed, hoping the small gesture could say some of the things I wasn’t saying out loud: I got you. It’ll be okay. I’m on your side.

  “Are… are you okay?” Mrs. Wang asked me, not looking up from her soup. “Your eye, I mean.” She slurped loudly.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  This wasn’t a nineties sitcom (obviously—we were all Asian here), but it did feel like Hongbo was no longer a wedge between us. Awkwardness remained in the wake, but, wonder of wonders, Chloe and I had accomplished what I’d come here to do. Perhaps she and her parents could emerge from these ashes stronger.

  “Really, these are fantastic,” Mrs. Wang gushed. “I can’t believe you made these from scratch, and so quickly.”

  Annnd I realized she didn’t know where they’d come from. Made sense. She’d barely looked at me when everything happened, only coming around after her one-on-one chat with her daughter.

  “Hongbo helped with the recipe,” Chloe deadpanned.

  “They’re a pain to make, but it’s worth it,” I added, and Chloe bit her lip to keep from smiling.

  Mrs. Wang didn’t seem to be listening. She just stared into her bowl. A minute later she said quietly, “I’m going to check on Bǎbá.”

  As soon as she left, Chloe whispered, “I think my dad’s sick. Like, sick sick. Will you help me figure out what’s wrong? Because he won’t tell me.”

  That surprised me. “Of course.”

  She pushed her bowl away. “My mother is either upset about that, or that plus what I did to them tonight. I was so proud at first, but now I just feel like a sack of shit, even if it did work. And even if they did kind of deserve it.”

  I squeezed her hand again. There was really nothing else to say, because when people saw the world this differently, there was no winning, no happy ending, no way to feel good.

  “They only care about what everyone else thinks,” she said sadly.

  I nodded. “The dreaded miànzi.”

  “Exactly. Did you grow up in a similar Asian community?”

  “I know all about miànzi because of my parents, but…” I hesitated, not sure if now was the right time to tell her this. But since she had asked… “My Asian community was a little different. The kind that brings food over when a neighbor loses their job, takes care of the kids when so-and-so’s grandma is sick—not this Hunger Games version you seem to have, where you’re all trying to murder each other with Rhodes scholarships and doctorates.”

  Whereas you don’t even have a college degree, my parents’ voices reminded me. But I couldn’t share that with her, not now. Maybe not ever. After seeing her community (and remembering the Thanksgiving conversation about Jeffrey Forbes 30 Under 30), I felt even more insecure about my lack of higher education, which I previously hadn’t thought possible.

  Pushing aside those thoughts, I finished, “Most of the Asians I know came from nothing, like my family, so we had to band together, especially since no one else helped us.”

  “You’d think that’d be the way to go,” Chloe said, “but my experience has always been that there’s only room for one Asian, so you have to step on the other one to get a leg up. I guess they’re both survival tactics, though I wish my experience had been like yours. No wonder you’re more at peace with your Chinese side than I am—you know, sprinkling Mandarin on everything like it’s sriracha.”

  I laughed at her metaphor (and yes, sriracha deserved to be on everything), but most importantly, I was touched that she’d noticed. “Chinese culture does often bleed into what I say and do. It certainly influences my art.” I paused, remembering my rule and her request. When she’d asked me my real name, was that all she wanted to know? Or was the door open to more? “Sorry. Do you want me to—”

  “I’m not sure what I want.”

  We both fell silent.

  She sighed. “I feel what you feel—you know I do. How can I not? But…” She looked at me
with sad eyes. “How can it be real? I barely know you. I know Andrew.” I started shaking my head, but she pressed on. “Of course I fell for the perfect-on-purpose package. This probably happens with a bunch of your clients—falling for your curated persona that’s not really you.”

  “You’ve fallen for me?” My heart sprouted wings and flew around the room.

  She threw her hands in the air. “No, not for you—aren’t you listening?”

  “But that was me.” I’d never felt so desperate to convey something to someone. “In the moments that mattered: eating mooncakes in the middle of the night, the Christmas cookies, all those texts”—texts that I’ve memorized—“that was me. Drew. The artist.”

  “How can I know that? You’ve literally been trained to become different people, and to charm others.”

  I laughed. Couldn’t help it. “Correction—to charm parents, remember? Trust me, this power does not extend to my romantic life. Or at least it hasn’t before.” Nerdy, guāi, empathetic boys were not known for being swarmed by girls, strangely.

  “Okay, well, you know everything about me—which is weird—and I know mostly lies about you.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “do you want to get to know me—the real me—better? We’d be starting from an unconventional place, but it’s not square one. More like square five-point-two.”

  She looked down at her hands.

  I examined mine, too, focusing on the paintbrush callus on the side of my right middle finger. We sat in silence for a minute (an awkward one—a first for us), and I fought the urge to twiddle my thumbs. Or maybe I shouldn’t fight it, to show her what Drew was like. Except she already knew about my fidgeting, I remembered (her eyes had followed my movements that night in the kitchen right before she’d asked me how to turn off part of her brain, and then again after our Christmas-ornament fight).

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. My head shot up. Then I had to force myself to wait patiently.

  Eventually she said, “Sometimes I can’t tell if there’s actually something here or if it’s just because you know so much about me that you know how to… I don’t want to say ‘manipulate,’ but you know what I mean. You know the right buttons to push for me. Because of the application.”

  I nodded to show my understanding. “Does it help you to know that in the year and a half I’ve been doing this, it has never been like this, not even close?”

  “Yes, but… I don’t know, something’s holding me back.”

  After a hesitant beat I said, “Your parents?”

  Chloe

  It’s always my parents.

  Every time, without fail, they came first.

  Drew’s serious eyes met mine, boring into them to make sure I heard what was coming next. “Chloe, I’m not saying this in reference to you getting to know me, but in general. It’s okay for you to try to be happy. You fighting for a life without Hongbo? Admirable and necessary. In fact, it’s making me rethink some of my own decisions. Maybe today can be a start, not an exception.”

  “It’s not that simple. How my parents feel affects me, too.” Though it’s decreasing the more they show me they don’t care about my happiness.

  “I understand,” he said.

  The only person who had ever cared about how I felt was right in front of me, and I was pushing him away.

  Why was I fighting this so damn hard? He was asking me to get to know him. It should have been a no-brainer.

  But… if we moved forward, we would be on borrowed time, with the prospect of my parents finding out—either from us or, horrors, on their own—looming over us. Could we even be happy under those circumstances?

  Then I thought about the counterfactual scenario where I let Drew go without trying. Would I be okay with that? With not knowing him or where this could possibly go?

  Abso-fucking-lutely not.

  That would be letting my parents win. Again.

  Drew was right; I’d been pushing him away for my parents’ sake, not mine. Fear of their disapproval, fear of how to untangle the fact that they already knew him as Andrew.

  I wanted to stop making decisions out of fear.

  “One thing I gotta know,” I said, and he tensed slightly. “Were the imaginary sheep real?”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Yes. Well, no. They were imaginary. But yeah, I do the pajama thing when I can’t sleep.”

  We snort-laughed together. I could feel molecules shifting, and when we shared a smile, it now felt as if there were a red thread attached to the both of us, lifting the corners of our lips in tandem, for the same reasons.

  “Okay,” I said with confidence. “Thanks for being patient. If you’re still willing, can you tell me about your parents? About following in your grandfather’s footsteps?”

  Drew CHAPTER 37

  HOLY HELL

  Where to start?

  I dove into the murky waters of my memories. No oxygen tank, no floaties.

  “My family—and when I say ‘family,’ I mean my parents, my wàipó, who lived with us, and my younger brother, Jordan, who’s a freshman at Berkeley—always had practical values. You know, work hard in school so you can get a good, reliable job doing something really boring in a cubicle somewhere, dreaming of the day you’ll earn enough to do what you actually love. Which was a life I had been preparing for—and sometimes even now I think maybe that was the way to go…” I exhaled. “But then I took some art electives in high school to pad my college apps, and, unsurprising spoiler, I loved it. For years I kept thinking there was something there for me, especially with painting, but I was too scared to say anything. Junior year, when I finally worked up the nerve to suggest to my parents that maybe I would want to apply to colleges with art programs, they flipped their shit.”

  I mimicked each family member’s voice.

  My father’s, gruff and authoritative: “ ‘Art is for people who have no other choice in life, no other skills.’ ”

  My mother’s, hoarse and stern: “ ‘I thought I’d raised a fighter, not someone who has so given up on life they decide to paint.’ ”

  My high-pitched, nasal wàipó: “ ‘I always knew you were just like my worthless husband. He died penniless and alone—just like you will!’ ”

  “Jesus,” said Chloe.

  “I didn’t even know that was why my wàigōng hadn’t been in our lives growing up.” I regretted not having known him, especially since my creative genes apparently came from him.

  “What about Jordan?” she asked.

  “He was so young at the time—still in junior high—and I didn’t want him to get caught in the middle.”

  “But he got caught anyway.”

  I nodded. “I had to let him go too. He needed my parents still.”

  “Oh, Drew. I’m sorry.”

  She rested her head on my shoulder, and I leaned on her, physically and emotionally.

  We stayed like that for too long (my neck started to cramp) yet not long enough. But I couldn’t bring myself to break it up first, so we came apart only after she started to stir.

  “If you’re willing,” she said, “I’d love to see your work sometime.”

  I hesitated out of instinct (and maybe still out of fear). Even if you say yes now, it doesn’t mean you have to, I rationalized. What a perfect baby step, said another part of my brain. She’ll hate it, said the awful you-know-who part.

  “That’d be nice,” I said, my voice cracking. Those words in themselves were a step forward. I said them and didn’t die. But even more of a step? I felt panic, yes, but there was also some excitement there. Hope.

  It was all too new and overwhelming, so I covered it up by gesturing to the bowls on the table and making a joke. “The wontons might be as cold as when we first got them.”

  She laughed. We packed up the leftovers and started on the dishes.

  “Ready to witness my exceptional dish-washing technique?” I grabbed a fork and held it in the air.

  She hand
ed me the sponge and after a few flourishes (C.2–style) and even a jazz hand, I proceeded to pat the fork exactly as I had back at Thanksgiving.

  She burst into laughter. “Very funny,” she said sarcastically.

  “Yes, obviously, since you’re laughing right now.”

  She shoved my arm lightly, and I realized too late that she was pushing me out of the way so she could grab the dish soap. In one swift movement, it was in her hands and aimed at me.

  “Aha!” she declared playfully.

  Unlike at Thanksgiving, this time I didn’t hesitate and lunged for her, grabbing her around the waist and ducking behind her so I was shielded from the weapon.

  Between laughs, she squirted a few bubbles in the air before giving up and putting down the soap.

  When I poked her side, her face lit up. Then her gaze dipped to my lips.

  God help me.

  With my arms still wrapped around her waist, she turned to face me. Her nose was millimeters from mine.

  Our eyes met and it felt like we had an entire conversation without words.

  She closed the tiny distance between us.

  Our lips became one. Our breath became one.

  It was too good. A perfect fit. Effortless yet passionate, another conversation without words.

  Worried she would think this was because of my job and not us, I pulled back and said, “Just for the record, in case you were wondering, I don’t have any training in kissing—”

  She pressed her forehead to mine. “Me either. But I don’t think we need it.”

  She sucked my bottom lip into her mouth.

  Holy hell.

  “Right you are,” I said, my bottom lip still between her teeth.

  She threw her head back and laughed. Then our untrained lips found their way back to each other.

  Amazing with a capital A.

  We broke apart with huge grins on our faces. I bit my lower lip, suddenly feeling a little shy, and I struggled to find something to say.

  “Thank you” came out of my mouth, and then my cheeks felt hot.