Bitter Melon Read online

  My heart turns sweet and sour, sweet because she wants me to come back and sour because I can’t.

  On the way out, I notice that Theresa is walking unusually close behind me. As we exit the room, Theresa whispers in my ear, “You have a stain on the back of your skirt.”

  Alarmed, I look behind me to see how bad it is.

  “You can wash it off in the second-floor bathroom,” she says. “I’ll walk behind you so no one will see.”

  “Why not go to the third-floor bathroom?”

  “Because it doesn’t have the hot-air hand dryer.”

  I look at her like So?

  “How will you dry off your skirt afterwards?” she says.

  Together, we walk to the bathroom. I take slow, mincing steps, fearful that big steps will make it flow out faster. Theresa has to slow down so as not to step on my heels.

  Once inside the bathroom, I drop my book bag to the floor and turn my skirt to observe the damage. Sure enough, there’s a bright red stain the size of a quarter. Though the busy plaid pattern of the skirt obscures the stain a little, it’s still visible. I wonder when it happened, how many teachers and students saw it. And my AP government class is taught by a man. How humiliating.

  I run the faucet and lift my skirt to it.

  “You’re going to get water all over yourself,” Theresa says. “Go inside one of the stalls and take it off.”

  I do so. As I stand skirtless in the stall, changing my sanitary napkin, I hear Theresa squeezing a bottle, which makes no sense, because our soap dispensers don’t make that sound. I feel a cold breeze run up my bare legs, and I start shivering.

  Theresa didn’t have to tell me about the stain. She could have let me walk around the rest of the day, even go home on a public bus, and let everyone see. That’s what I probably would have done. Not only did she warn me, now she’s cleaning it off for me.

  I hear the faucet running and the rubbing of fabric between fingers. Then the faucet is turned off and the hand dryer is turned on. After a few minutes of that, Theresa hands me my skirt over the stall door. I take it and inspect where the spot was. It is spot free and perfectly dry. I put it back on, grateful and relieved.

  “What were you cleaning it with?” I ask her afterwards.

  Theresa pulls out a travel-size bottle of stain remover. “The same thing happened to me last year. I’ve always kept this in my book bag ever since, just in case.”

  We both burst out laughing. Our laughter echoes off the tile walls so it sounds like a group of us laughing.

  “Now, whenever it’s that time of month for me, I always check my skirt several times a day,” Theresa says.

  “Well, I’ll be sure to check yours if you continue to check mine,” I say.

  “It’s also why I sit up so straight, so it stays in the middle and doesn’t go to the back.”

  We start laughing again. “That’s strong motivation for good posture,” I say.

  As our laughter subsides, we pause in an awkward moment of silence. For the first time, I notice that Theresa has a bright smile that lights up her whole face. Her eyes form shiny black crescent moons, with a dimple forming a third crescent.

  “You know,” Theresa says, “I’m really embarrassed about saying ‘I don’t know’ in class. That sounded so stupid.”

  “You shouldn’t feel stupid,” I say. “Didn’t you hear what Ms. Taylor said, that your answer was courageous?”

  “Yeah, courageously stupid. Your answer was smart. It was clear and strong, full of confidence. Even my mom notices that about you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Whenever I’m around other people, she mentions that to me afterwards, that I should be more well spoken, like you. That’s why she wanted me to take this course in the first place. But today I think I proved that I’m hopeless.”

  I wonder if Theresa has ever hated me in the same way that I’ve hated her. Then again, Theresa doesn’t seem capable of hatred. Maybe envy is a better word.

  “I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” I tell her. “Ms. Taylor is really impressed with you.”

  Theresa’s face brightens up. “You think?”

  “Yeah. She said so.”

  “You don’t think she was just being nice?”

  “She’s not that type.”

  “Gosh! Wow! Thanks! That really makes me feel better.”

  I’ve always found Theresa’s “gosh, gee willy” personality to be dorky and uncool. But today her “I don’t know” feels honest and down to earth.

  The shiny white walls and hard green tables of the cafeteria seem to amplify the rowdy screaming from the other students. But Theresa and I have found a far-off corner where we can be private and hear each other. I brought two pastries from the Golden Phoenix—a baked bun filled with curried beef, and a steamed chicken bun with water chestnuts and chives. Theresa brought a jong, which is sticky rice, chicken, mushroom, and salted egg yolk wrapped in bamboo leaves.

  “I’m so sick of these,” Theresa says.

  Though they taste great, I don’t blame her. Because they take eight hours to boil, Auntie Nellie tends to make a lot at one time. Theresa has probably been eating these every day for the last week.

  “Have you eaten all the ones Mom brought over?” she asks.

  “No. We still have five in our freezer.”

  “She keeps making me eat these heavy lunches because she says I’m too skinny.”

  “You’re lucky to be so thin,” I say. “You can eat anything you want.” I can hardly disguise the envy in my voice. Then I say what I could never before admit publicly. “I always wished I could be as thin as you.”

  “Your weight is fine,” Theresa replies. “But at least weight is something you can change. I can’t make myself taller by changing my diet or exercising.”

  “Take heart,” I say. “At least you have beautiful hair.”

  “Oh, this.” She carelessly tosses a glossy strand over her shoulder. “It’s impossible to manage. There’s so much of it.”

  “I’d be more than happy to trade mine for yours,” I say. “When my hair is wet, you can see my scalp.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad. Actually, I think your hair has a nice color. Lots of Chinese are bleaching their hair to get it to look like yours.”

  I cut my buns in half and push a half of each towards her.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Theresa says. “That’s your lunch.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Okay, but only if you have half of mine.” She borrows my plastic knife and cuts her jong in half. She slides the side with the egg yolk, the most expensive ingredient, towards me.

  “You should keep the yolk for yourself,” I say.

  “No, I want you to have it.”

  I hesitate a little before accepting.

  “Thanks for talking to me,” she says.

  “What do you mean?” The moment I say it, that fake feeling comes back.

  “Well …” Theresa shifts in her seat uncomfortably. “Nothing.”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “Well … I always thought that you didn’t like me.”

  I bristle a little at her comment, afraid that she has seen through me. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I say.

  “I know. Sorry. I’m being stupid. I thought that you were stuck up because you never talked to me.”

  Her comment stings, but I fight to maintain my composure.

  “But now I realize how wrong I was about you,” Theresa says. “You’re not only smart, but you’re really nice too, a good friend. Probably you didn’t talk to me much because I never talked to you. I think I just told myself that you were stuck up because I was jealous of your good qualities. I was being a jerk, and I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

  “Of course,” I say. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” I say this to her, but silently, I direct it towards myself.

  I roll the egg yolk around with my plastic fork. It’s bright orange, the color of the sun as i
t descends towards the horizon. I cut it in two and drop one part over Theresa’s half jong. Theresa stabs her half yolk with her plastic fork and holds it up like a wineglass.

  “Here’s to a good speech class and a good senior year!” she says.

  We click half yolks, pop them into our mouths at the same time, and laugh.

  “I just told you why I’m taking speech,” Theresa says. “How about you? Why did you enroll in this course?”

  “Well … actually … I didn’t.”

  Theresa looks at me quizzically. I explain my mix-up to her.

  “No! Frances, what are you going to do?” Theresa says.

  “Talk to Ms. Costello and get myself reenrolled in calculus, I guess,” I say.

  “Because of affirmative action, it’s going to be harder for you to get into a top school,” Theresa says, mimicking Ms. Costello’s nasally voice. “Along with a high grade point average, you need to take practical, hard-core college-prep classes, like calculus and physics …”

  “Not fluffy electives, like art and psychology,” we mimic together in a singsongy fashion.

  “I’m so disappointed,” I say. “I was hoping we could be in this together.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  A couple of seconds pass. Then, simultaneously, we sigh. Then we laugh at our timing.

  “Too bad you didn’t take calculus last year,” Theresa says. “Too bad you can’t just stick with speech and not say anything to your mom.”

  “Yeah.”

  We linger there for a moment, both of us basking in wishful thinking.

  Then the bell rings.

  “Would you do me a favor and not say anything to your mom or my mom about this?” I say. “I just need some time to straighten this out.”

  Theresa nods. “In the meantime, you ought to fill out an appointment slip to see Ms. Costello,” she says. “The deadline for switching classes is in two weeks, but you should do it now, on your way to English class, before you lose your nerve.”

  On the way to our next class, we pass the auditorium, and I peek through the doorway. The cavernous room, where we do our school plays, is dark except for one spotlight beaming down on the stage. I imagine myself standing there, several inches taller in both body and spirit. I am speaking to a large audience. I don’t know what my words are just yet, but I imagine how it must feel to voice them, to give them life.

  On my way to my English class, I tell Theresa to save me a seat, and make a reluctant detour towards Ms. Costello’s office. I pick up an appointment slip and fill it out. Then I hold it over the slot in her message box. My hand is trembling slightly, my thumb and index finger pressed together, unable to let it go.

  I pull my hand back, fold the paper into fourths, and slip it into my sweater pocket.

  The deadline is still two weeks away. I’ll get around to it. Just not today.

  Chapter Two

  In speech, we practice impromptu, expository speaking, and debate. I am so absorbed in the class that I almost forget about the wrinkled counseling appointment slip in my pocket. I promise myself that I will see Ms. Costello on the very last day to change classes. Unfortunately, I find out that I got the deadline wrong—one day too late.

  So here I am in Ms. Costello’s cream-colored office, sinking into the sofa as she sits across from me.

  “Frances, you had two weeks to take care of this.” Ms. Costello’s eyes are wide with disbelief. “This is so unlike you. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  She’s right. This is unlike me.

  “It’s stuff like this that makes me gray,” she adds.

  Her shoulder-length hair is almost completely white. I hate to think that I could cause someone that much stress.

  “I’m sorry about the inconvenience,” I say, “but is it possible to make an exception?”

  “Normally, I would say yes,” says Ms. Costello, “but I tried getting someone else in Ms. Thorton’s class yesterday, and she nearly hit the roof. She’s been complaining about overcrowded classes for years, and if I do this to her again, she’ll probably quit. I’m sorry, but you should have taken care of this the first day of class, as soon as you found out.”

  It’s not my fault that the computer made a mistake, I want to say, but inside I know she is right. I just stare at her, like a dog begging for table scraps, hoping she will pity me enough to make one last exception.

  Ms. Costello stares into space, deep in thought. Then she says, “Maybe speech isn’t such a bad idea after all. Calculus will put you at the front of the pack, but it isn’t a college-prep requirement. Speech could also look good on your application, especially if you attend competitions and win.” Ms. Costello flips through my file. “You did score higher on verbal than math on your last SAT. So maybe this is the area where you can shine. You can use your writing skills to create a winning speech. Of course, it would have looked better on your application had you started competing last year.…”

  Then why didn’t she tell me this last year?

  “But you can still compete in at least one tournament before the application deadlines,” Ms. Costello continues. “And if you win, even better!” She closes my file and nods, punctuating her conclusion.

  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 pie
rcing. 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?”