Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,20
I tossed and turned for hours, haunted by my father’s past, Xing’s past, and my future.
My mother yelling through the door to wake me up
Mei! Put on sunblock. You look like charcoal. Your mǔqīn knows best.
CHAPTER 9
(NOT A) CANDY BAR WRAPPER
WHEN MY FATHER DROPPED ME off at Burton Conner, my mother darted out of the car after me, claiming I needed her help because my room was luànqībāzāo. Even though she did proceed to tornado through, sucking up dirty clothes, gum wrappers, and hair ties while clucking her tongue at me, I knew she was here because she couldn’t stomach any more Nǎinai or Yilong. In another hour, max, they would be on a plane out of here, but I guess even that was too much. Understandable.
I had anticipated this, hiding my dance shoes (which were calling to me like they knew I needed them) in a pile of Nicolette’s (hopefully chlamydia-free?) clothes. The polka-dot socks on top marked the pile as hers, which my mother would know since she bought most of my clothes and why you need colorful socks? The plain ones are cheaper.
But still, every time my mother breezed close to the buried treasure, I stopped breathing. Luckily, she was too appalled by the mess to pay much attention to me.
“If you don’t learn to clean up, maybe Eugene won’t want you.”
“I’m sure tiger Mrs. Huang will be wiping his butt until she dies,” I muttered from my desk. I was trying to drown out the tongue clucks with a p-set (MIT lingo for homework).
“Mrs. Huang is not a tiger; she’s a horse. And you’re right, she will probably live with you once you’re married. Except you will need to clean up after her. The only reason Nǎinai doesn’t live with us is because Yilong never married. Poor Nǎinai, having to deal with that. If you don’t marry, I would be so ashamed I’d never show my face.”
I scooted my chair closer to the desk and hunched over my paper. Drop-copy-decrease-chain, I chanted in my head as I differentiated, trying to tune her out—the only defense in this situation. I wish she had taken up my offer to walk around MIT again. I’d been hoping to re-create that day from a few weeks ago, but she had said no—reluctantly at least—citing that she didn’t want my father to have to wait on her if we took too long (heaven forbid).
Suddenly, my mother screamed. An I’m-getting-murdered, make-your-eardrums-bleed kind of scream. I covered my ears so fast I stabbed my temple with the pencil in my hand. Fortunately, it was the eraser side.
My head whipped toward her. She was perfectly fine, standing there in one piece, holding a candy wrapper. “Jesus, Mǎmá. So I ate a candy bar. Calm down. That scream should be reserved for ‘I’m dying.’ ”
“How could you? This is Ying-Na level stuff!” My mother stomped up to me and shoved the wrapper in my face. “Mei, you should know this already: Sex is a crime before marriage. Ying-Na did the sex, and it ruined her life.”
When my eyes focused enough to make out that my mother was actually holding a condom wrapper, it was my turn to scream. I backed away from the giant bacterium. “That’s not mine!”
She took another step. The wrapper was inches from my nose now. “That’s what you would say if it was yours!”
“Maybe so, but it’s definitely not mine—it’s my roommate’s!” I fought the urge to hyperventilate—could chlamydia be breathed in through my mouth?
To my relief, she threw the wrapper to Nicolette’s side of the room. She looked from the lacy underwear strewn across the chair to the bottles of makeup on the desk. “We’ll need to see if we can get you a new roommate,” she grumbled. “Don’t confront her though. Amberly Ahn confronted her roommate. Then her homework was changed in her sleep! Can you believe that? She had a semester full of Bs—the horror!”
I suspected Amberly merely used her roommate as an excuse for her grades (and I tucked that idea away for future use), but I wasn’t going to get in the way of my mother working her magic to get me a new, possibly chlamydia-free roommate.
My mother went back to cleaning, but before she could touch any of my stuff, I snatched the hand sanitizer off my desk and squeezed a gigantic glob across her knuckles. She narrowed her eyes at me, and I knew she was saying, I hope this doesn’t interfere with your future.