Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,16

or was it because they felt a bond with every Asian, even the strangers we bumped into at Kmart and Costco?

“Too bad you didn’t go for it, Bà,” I said. “You could have been Lu-sanity. Well, that doesn’t really work. Lu-nar eclipse. You know, because you would eclipse everybody.”

Nǎinai nodded. “Lunar. We use lunar calendar.”

I nodded at her, too distracted to care that she hadn’t gotten my joke. A rare opportunity had presented itself, but it was so risky I was jiggling my leg the way my mother hated. “Do you guys think Jeremy Lin’s mother was right to let him pursue his NBA dream?”

“Do you remember Peter Cheng?” my mother asked. “You got locked in the bathroom at his house when you were little. Well, he was roommates with Jeremy Lin. And Peter is now a lawyer, making tons of money. I heard he bought his fiancée a three-carat diamond. Huge! The size of my fist.” She held up her tiny clenched hand to demonstrate. “So at least Jeremy Lin went to Harvard and has that degree as backup.”

The weight on my chest lightened . . . until Yilong spoke a second later.

“Jeremy Lin probably went into basketball because he wasn’t good at medicine or law. Don’t worry, Mei. You will make the best doctor. Plenty of job offers, plenty of money.”

Nǎinai nodded. “You won’t end up like your mǎmá. Jobless. No offers.”

My mother’s shoulders slumped forward, her posture matching her position in the family—the lowest, almost invisible.

Yilong added, “Your nǎinai told her again and again to get a job, but nobody wants her.”

And I lost it. “My mother dropped out of graduate school to take care of Xing and me,” I fired back. My mother grabbed my arm, trying to shush me. I shook her off.

Yilong glanced at me with wide eyes, then rested her gaze on my mother. “If you’d taught her better, she’d be more obedient.”

I balled the tablecloth in my hands, squeezing to try to calm the bubbling Lu-suvius. I couldn’t win here. If I let any snark seep out, they would only attack my mother’s parenting more, but saying nothing meant I agreed that obedience was a virtue. I tried to tombé, pas de bourrée in my head, but there was too much frustration coursing through my veins. My fists remained tight, and I hoped it was enough to show my dissent without feeding the fire.

In the ensuing silence, during which I could hear my own heartbeat, Nǎinai’s eyes glazed over as they always did before a flare-up of her dementia. As the cloudiness grew, I knew she was being taken farther and farther back in time. Her episodes often involved Communist Revolution flashbacks, mistaking my father for her husband (and arguing with him), or reliving my brother’s disownment. That last one was the most common. Her eyes would fill with tears as she cursed Xing’s girlfriend, the one who’d gotten him disowned, and then she’d pound her fists on the table, her leg, the person next to her until the episode passed.

Nǎinai looked to my aunt as she yelled, “Yilong! Don’t talk to her!” She spat the last word at my mother, the way she normally spoke about Xing’s girlfriend. “Not until she gives me a grandson!” She turned to my mother. “You can’t sit with us until I have my sūnzi.”

This was a new one. My head swiveled from my mother to Yilong to Nǎinai, wanting to hear more yet dreading it. My voice cracked as I tried to clarify, “Nǎinai and Yilong didn’t speak to Mǎmá until she gave birth to a son?” I didn’t even know who I was asking.

“Enough,” my father barked. “Mā, you have two grandchildren. One is sitting beside you. Remember? Remember Mei?”

Nǎinai looked at me and her eyes gradually focused on my face, which was a shrunken version of my father’s. As she took in my familiar lucky Lu nose, she smiled. “Mei Mei,” she cooed, as if I were still a child.

My father leaned over to me. “Nǎinai isn’t doing well. You need to make more time for her. There’s no one in the world she loves more than you.”

Except Xing. Those unspoken words hung between us, just one of many hidden truths floating in the air. I could never compare with “most excellent,” zuì yōuxiù Xing, who was the coveted eldest son of the eldest son.

Yilong poured the leftover oil from the shrimp onto her plate and dinner returned to normal. Well, normal for