Walking Tall Walking TallI’m bedded down for the night on the musty-smelling, pull-out couch in Auntie Lu’s office. It’s not like I need to be well rested for tomorrow’s flight back home. In fact, it’ll be a godsend if I’m so tired that I fall asleep next to Mama on the plane so I don’t have to feel her disappointment pricking me. The sound of the sisters gossiping in the living room, catching up on which cousins back in Taiwan have gotten married, divorced and fat, is like the pattering of rain at home. Talk, talk, talk, laugh. Talk, talk, talk, aiyo!
I throw off the covers, drowning in the downpour of my thoughts. All I know is, I have to stay at math camp. I barely take three steps from the sofa bed, and my hip bumps into Auntie Lu’s desk, an enormous antique Chinese scholar’s table. Holding my bruised hip, I pace toward the door, and trip on a stack of books on the floor. I suppose most people would find Auntie Lu’s home office comfortable. But let me be the first to say, this room is a living feng shui hell. How can I think of a way out of my own mess when I can’t even walk through Auntie Lu’s?
I hop up and down, holding my throbbing big toe, and wiggle it gingerly before I put my weight back on it. I limp to the bed and groan, as unladylike a sound as you can make. And I realize, I am no little lady who has to wait for her fate.
Before I chicken out, I creep down the stairs and see the sisters on the couch, their heads bowed close together as one nods and the other speaks. I’m trembling so badly that I place a hand on the tansu chest to steady myself. If I thought running into a security guard was scary, it’s nothing compared to confronting Mama. I brush the hair out of my face and tuck the stray strands behind my ears. Seriously, I doubt I can do it, talk to Mama. Coward, I yell at myself even as I turn back up the stairs. And then, I see the lotus shoes, the ones with the plum blossoms, glowing silvery-purple under the special lights mounted over the tansu.
Plum blossoms blooming right now in adversity.
My big toe still hurts. I hobble toward the living room, unable to fathom how my great-great-grandmother with her two crippled feet could have walked anywhere, much less a couple miles from the train station to Mama’s old home. Step, step, step.
I look down at my big feet that are three times the size of hers. My big feet that could crush any China Doll shoe.
My big feet that aren’t maimed or bound.
“I really want to go back to math camp,” I announce as soon as I step inside the living room. Now that I’m saying my speech aloud, I realize I have a better chance of acing my still-to-be-worked-on Truth Statement than convincing Mama to let me stay.
Mama’s eyebrows are stitched together in a perma-frown. She’s back to doing her foo dog impression, only I’m the one she’s trying to scare away.
“You just want have fun,” Mama says, her lips twisting at the “F” word.
What’s wrong with having fun? My irritation ignites like dry grass, but I catch Auntie Lu looking steadily at me like she’s reminding me to stay with my rational, logical speech instead of engaging in this endless loop of accusation.
Quietly, I say, “Mama, I’ve always brought home great report cards. You can trust me.”
“You not trust me,” counters Mama, sitting up tall and straight. “I tell you, best thing is you go to good college. Get good job. Take care of self. Then find Good One and marry.”
This is not going the way I had rehearsed upstairs in Auntie Lu’s office, but I grasp onto Mama’s flowchart for my life. “I’m trying to get into a good college. Last year, a third of the math campers got into Stanford.”
Studying Mama the way meteorologists must scrutinize the slightest change in winds and clouds to predict storms, I notice the lines around her mouth relax almost imperceptibly.
“And you’ve already paid for camp. There are no refunds,” I say, inching closer to the sisters on the couch. “It would be a waste of three thousand dollars if I don’t finish.”
Hunh. I hear it, a faint sound bordering on thoughtful. Before it can build to Mama’s normal battle cry, I speed through the last part of my speech: “What if I stayed here with Auntie Lu for the rest of camp? I can walk to school, and I can get a job and pay Auntie Lu.” I can’t help the pleading, wheedling tone in my voice when Mama’s face remains stoic: “Or Auntie Lu, I can help you out around the house if you want.”
Usually, at home, I welcome this rare, wordless respite of Mama’s silence. It’s one less chance of some criticism flinging out of her mouth. Funny, now that she’s playing the In scrutable Asian, all I want to do is shake her: Say something!
Saved by Auntie Lu, who beams and claps like my idea is a true gift, not a ploy to stay at camp. “That’s a wonderful idea, Patty.” She turns to Mama. “Mei-Li, she’s right. It would be a waste if she didn’t finish camp. And I’ll watch over her. She can help me organize things. You were just saying I needed to space-clear.”
I doubt that Mama put it in those polite, politically correct terms. She probably said something like, “Your house is disgrace! Bad luck every where! No wonder no husband. No children.”
I hate to admit it, but I agree. If Auntie Lu’s office is any indication, her entire home needs desperate and immediate space-clearing.
Mama’s lips remain squeezed tight, and I resign myself to the rest of the summer enduring Abe’s teasing that I couldn’t hack it for a week on my own. My stomach lurches. Oh, God, and there are the gloating China Dolls to face down. But then, miracle of miracles, Mama says to me, “You work hard.”
I nearly trip over my feet, I’m so stunned.
I, Patty Ho, have scored the first-ever victory for myself in Ho family history.
“You not make me worry.” And then Mama bites her lip the way I do when I’m uncertain. Or when I want to check my emotions into the coatroom of my heart. “You call me.”
“I will,” I promise.
Maybe it’s the contrast of Mama’s tense face against the portraits of happy people behind her back. Suddenly, I can imagine how worried she must have been since she hadn’t heard from me. After all those articles she’s clipped for me since I was eight or nine, the ones about the missing kids, the raped girls, the teens who were left for dead, I should have known what kind of nightmares were keeping her up at night. Just like mine. If I had been a good girl—or at least a considerate one—I would have returned Mama’s phone calls right away. Two minutes of my time and Mama wouldn’t have felt like she had to fly out to check up on me.
“Go to class. Do homework,” Mama continues, listing her terms and conditions. What shocks me now is the slightest of smiles that creases Mama’s lips, like she thinks she’s the victor. “You stay.”