Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,15

we visit her home, we have to eat meals in fifteen-minute shifts because of the lack of space on the dining room table. I used to wonder how Nǎinai put up with the mess, but then I saw her Taiwan apartment, filled to the brim with trash and every insect imaginable.

“Let’s go to Chow Chow. I’m so hungry I could die.” Yilong gestured to me. “And what a perfect opportunity to wear your new dress.”

I began protesting, but my father shut me down with a glare. Dèng yi yan, more powerful than words.

When we reached the restaurant, I decided to own it, just like in junior high when my wardrobe consisted of flowered leggings and neon hoodies. I held the dress up with two dainty fingers, a princess waltzing into a ball, not a stinky-tofu-scented hole-in-the-wall. Just like seventh grade, it didn’t work. A few patrons pointed and giggled. Others stared. One older woman openly cackled, taking full advantage of her revered elderly status. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father duck his head in embarrassment. Satisfaction coursed through me even though I was the pìgu of the joke. That’ll teach him to think before his next dèng yi yan.

Before we had even sat down, Mrs. Pan rushed over, flashing Hanwei’s picture in my mother’s face. Except this time, she was armed with an entire album. “See how precious he is? Look at him here, age six, playing the guitar for an entire audience. They all cheered so loud.”

I remembered that sad performance my mother had dragged me to. The ten of us in the audience had clapped only because we could tell how much pressure poor Hanwei was under.

I thought my red dress might have been enough to turn Mrs. Pan away, but then I remembered she wanted me for her son because of MIT and my money nose, not my fashion sense.

She flipped through the pictures frantically, as if she knew her time was limited. “And look, so handsome at his college graduation. He finished with honors.”

My mother pushed the album away. “I’m sorry, but Mei is spoken for. Mrs. Huang and I have been talking.”

Mrs. Pan huffed. “The Huang boy? I heard he joined a fraternity and is on the fast track to becoming a drunk deadbeat. Is that what you want for Mei? Hanwei has never had a sip of alcohol in his life.”

If I hadn’t been the piece of meat the two dogs were fighting over, this might have been funny.

Mrs. Pan snapped the album shut and stalked off, her head in the air to hide her hurt pride.

Nǎinai nodded her approval at my mother. “Good. You taking care of Mei. That way she won’t end up like Xing, turned by the devil.”

I swear to God, my mother smiled.

And I sank lower into the pile of manure that was my future marriage.

We ordered so much another table had to be dragged over. Before I had even used hand sanitizer, my father attacked, slurping up beef noodle soup so violently broth spewed across the table. He didn’t become Lu Pàng by caring what others thought.

After dishing food to Nǎinai, Yilong stacked her plate five layers high. A few bāos and pork balls tumbled off and she hurried to scoop them back on top.

“You know, Mei,” she said between bites, “you should think about going on a diet. Or you should start exercising, like Bǎbá. Did you know he could’ve been in the NBA? He turned it down for computer science.”

I mashed my lips together to hold the laughter back. Once a week, my father huffed and puffed around the gym with other fifty-year-olds. There was more heavy breathing and yelling of Chinese obscenities than exercise.

“He’s a regular old Jeremy Lin, all right,” I said, expecting to end the conversation since no one would understand my reference.

“No one is as good as Jeremy Lin,” my mother said.

“Lin-sanity,” Nǎinai added.

I choked on my tea. “Do either of you know who Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or LeBron James is?”

Nǎinai smiled. “Eat your vitamins.”

I answered my own question. “They’re basketball players.”

“We don’t know them because they’re not as good as Jeremy Lin,” my mother said with a shrug.

I had forgotten about what I like to call the Asian Club Phenomenon—that my family didn’t know Brad Pitt or J. K. Rowling, but they knew Lucy Liu and Amy Tan. Was it because so few Asians broke into pop culture that they felt a sense of shared pride,